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Episode 006 - Omegawd
58 Plays8 months ago
This week, we dive deep deep deep into The Bad Batch season 3 episode 4 “A Different Approach. We also chat about what we’ve been up to and what we’re watching. Some topics include The Mousetrap, Poor Things, Avatar live-action series on Netflix, Star Wars Galaxies Hardcore beta, and Star Wars fan cuts.
Star Wars Galaxies Hardcore
https://www.swghardcore.com/
Pandemic Legacy
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161936/pandemic-legacy-season-1
Star Wars 4K Fan Edits
https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/
Netflix Avatar Live-Action
https://www.netflix.com/title/80237957
Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap
https://uk.the-mousetrap.co.uk/
The Sweatbox Documentary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sweatbox
Disney 2025 Water Park Perk
https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2024/02/walt-disney-world-adds-water-park-perk-for-2025-resort-guests/
Star War The Third Gathers: The Backstroke of the West
https://starwarsfans.fandom.com/wiki/Star_War_The_Third_Gathers:_The_Backstroke_of_the_West
Send us voicemails and emails at [email protected]
Chapter
00:00:00 Catching Up
00:09:54 Watching & Listening
00:25:50 Nyooz
00:52:35 Bad Batch S03E04
01:36:54 Bits & Bobs
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode Six
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode number six of Just Shilling. I am one of your hosts, Sean Hoffman, and right across from me is Mr. Andy Bell. How are you doing today, buddy? I'm good, thank you, Sean. Good evening, Sean. Good evening, friends. I think we're getting the hang of this.
00:00:21
Speaker
I know, I know, I know.
Weather Conversations
00:00:24
Speaker
I've got to remember the slight delay, the ever slight delay, even, even, um, you know, we are, we are thousands of miles away from each other and I need to, uh, need to be mindful of that. So how are you doing buddy? How's your week been? It's been, it's been pretty good. We've had some pretty nice weather. Um,
00:00:41
Speaker
that it's just been nice to be able to go out and go for longer walks without dealing with all the snow.
Weather Predictions - Fact or Fiction?
00:00:49
Speaker
With that being said, we are getting reports now that we could have
00:00:54
Speaker
we being we're like the general area, not like at my house specifically, we could get 12 feet of snow possible. There's no way that that's going to happen. That's always just the news being dramatic. I bet we'll get like six inches. We'll see. Fingers crossed. Well, I guess you'll find out here in a couple days. But it's always exciting when everybody starts messaging me. They're like,
00:01:17
Speaker
Hope you got the bread and the milk. Hope you got the bread and milk. It's coming. The Snowpocalypse is coming for you. It's like, it'll be all right. Well, I don't think it will. It never played a doubt like that. So is this unusual for you guys? Is it late in the season? Or is it normally like this? It's normally like this. So like last year was a record breaking year where we just had unreal snow. But this year has been super light, like the last 10 plus.
00:01:47
Speaker
And so it's, it's pretty normal. Like it should be, it should still be pretty heavy right now. Um, but this kind of like really dramatic stuff that kind of like you've seen in California, all over the place. Like when you hear like the, the Arso, Cal friends talking about like the atmospheric river and all the, the, the precipitation they're getting, it's, it's kind of, it's like, it seems like it's all or nothing right now, but we have, we have quite a bit of stuff that kind of takes it away before it really gets to us. So they're like 12 feet and then it gets here and it's like six inches. Um,
00:02:17
Speaker
But yeah, so that's exciting. But other than that, man, I'm good, I'm good. How about, how are you?
00:02:24
Speaker
Well, I'd love to say that we've got equally as exciting weather, but we don't. It's either cold, hovering around zero degrees Celsius, but bright, not a cloud in the sky, or when it's warmer, it's raining. So we've got this kind of duality of weather at the moment. Like I said last week though, the buds are starting to
00:02:49
Speaker
to come out and my apple tree is starting to bloom, although I'm not expecting the blossom, the full blossom until certainly the end of March. So it is getting warmer, but what comes with the ground or sorry, the temperature rising is obviously the rain as well, which is a little bit miserable. But yeah, I mean, the weather is the weather. It's the UK. I mean, it's
00:03:15
Speaker
We are our own meme, aren't we? But yeah, it's all good. Week's been good. I think I said to you last week that I was planning to take Lucy and the kids away for the weekend to the theatre, taking a little bit of culture.
Family Outing to 'The Mouse Trap'
00:03:29
Speaker
But most importantly, to kind of take our minds off some of the stuff that's been going on in the early months of this year, especially with members of her family that have been
00:03:39
Speaker
in hospital and it did the trick mate, it really did. So it was a nice long weekend, enjoyed the kids company which is always good fun, stayed at their place in town and took in a show. I went to see the mouse trap, like I said last week, it was the Agatha Christie play and it's 73rd year. It's never been
00:04:06
Speaker
It's never been made as a movie or certainly even as a novel. You can only get it in written format as a script. You can't get it in any other format from that. And it was good fun and I do recommend anyone in the UK or indeed visiting the UK if you do get the opportunity. It's a really good production. It's a very kind of old English type of
00:04:33
Speaker
acting with frightfully lovely people, all very good actors that announce yet their words extremely well, awfully lovely, lovely, but that was the style. I mean, it's meant to be based in the 1930s, 1940s, so that was kind of the kind of style that it was meant to portray and it did a really good job, but it's
00:04:55
Speaker
And like I said, last week, it's a whodunit and I'm not meant to tell anyone who did it because the surprises.
00:05:04
Speaker
Or that the catch being is that you only find out who goes who does the murder if you go and see the show So it was good fun. Good fun at the same time. I was able to Excuse me at the same time.
Visit to Forbidden Planet and Warhammer Store
00:05:18
Speaker
I was able to visit my favorite Comic book store being Forbidden Planet the largest
00:05:28
Speaker
nerd store in the UK. And I don't know if you saw some of the things I was stuck into our Discord chat, but there was a few, they sell the typical kind of comics, toys, key rings, kind of memorabilia from all types of fandom. But they also sell the really high end stuff as well. So like the sculptures, the really expensive hot toys.
00:05:54
Speaker
and so on and so forth. And there was a particular sculpture or a bust of Chrysantom, the Wookie from Book of Boba Fett. And being a Wookie guy, I was really interested in buying it. But my good lady wife was with me and she made me see sense. So I did walk away with a black Chrysantom, but a significantly cheaper one. I got a
00:06:23
Speaker
You just got to hold it close to your face and have the same effect. Just like hold it. Three point seven five inch three point seven five inch plastic toy of the same character. So it was significantly cheaper. And yeah, she did. She kept me in tow and made sure that I didn't in any way spend spend my retirement.
00:06:45
Speaker
in a comic shop. So that was good fun. While we were there, we also walked past the Warhammer store. Now, I'm not a Warhammer or tabletop gamer at all, but I'm in awe of the bit of folks that are into it, in particular, our friends from the scruffies and yourself as well that really do this kind of intricate kind of painting of these little figures. And so I went in there and spent just literally 20 or 30 minutes just watching these guys
00:07:15
Speaker
in awe of having a great time on a Saturday. That was quite the experience and I sent a few notes to the scruffies. Ed in particular is a big Warhammer fan and explained to him that I'd undertaken the pilgrimage to pay honor to him, homage to him, sorry.
00:07:32
Speaker
And then we ended the weekend by booking our tickets for Dune.
Anticipation for the New Dune Movie
00:07:38
Speaker
So Dune is out this weekend, or this week, sorry, in the UK. And Lucy said, has conceded to come along with me kicking and screaming. So we've booked some tickets for this weekend. So it's nice to be doing stuff at the weekends again and not
00:07:56
Speaker
and not staying at home and worrying about folk and worrying about what's going on at work and all that kind of stuff. So it's been a great weekend just gone and looks to be a good weekend coming up as well. So has Lucy seen the first Dune or are you going to do a rewatch before you go? She did see it and it's really not her cup of tea and I think a lot of it is down to the complexity of the story.
00:08:22
Speaker
She wants to know what's going on. Who's that guy? Who's that person? What does that mean to them? And then with Dune, of course, it's very, very complex. You have to go into the history of the Bene Gesserit, for example, and the idea of what is the weirding way and all this really funky stuff. And at that point, I've lost her completely. So, however,
00:08:47
Speaker
We have, she has read a few reviews and conceded that there were some of the reviews that said it's significantly better in their mind than the first film. Now I love the first film because it's, it's doing, but, but it's significantly more, to say it's faster pace, it's more action packed than the first film. And for that alone, she's, she said, she'll, she'll come and, she'll come and join me.
00:09:12
Speaker
So I'll just skip past, I'll just skip past the first part of that. When I, when I play this for Madison, because I'm trying to convince her to go and I'm trying to, I got to lean on like the Austin Butler and Florence Pugh angle to try to like bring her in. Uh, but I also got to get her to watch the first one. So I'm not, I may, I may lose her there. So we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough sell. Um, but it's so worth it. I've like I said, I've heard it's.
00:09:41
Speaker
It's epic and it's getting some really good write-ups and some very good ratings. All your scores in particular on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, which is good. Good news. Nice. Nice. So, anything you've been watching this week? Anything captured your televisual attention?
TV and Movie Watching Patterns
00:10:00
Speaker
So this is kind of like, I was debating whether I bring it up in like, oh, is it like how I've been, like the catching up, or is it more of a watching? So I'm just going to put it right smack dab in the middle. We actually made it out of the house and out of the mountains for a little bit this past weekend. And we went to the middle of nowhere.
00:10:26
Speaker
It's labeled as Sacramento, California, but it's like a solid hour north into kind of like Native American land where there's like casinos and stuff. And they have a hard rock casino there. And we got to go see one of my favorite bands that I haven't got to see in concert in a very, very long time. So that was really cool. And then just drove all the way back. So it's like a two and a half hour drive to get to this place.
00:10:54
Speaker
It was really fun. Lots of, lots of fire, lots of lasers, lots of, lots of, lots of heavy music. So that was, that was a good time and didn't get to come home. But yeah, that was, that was really fun. But in terms of.
00:11:08
Speaker
Television and movies the usual we had the usual the halo The only thing I'll say about that is it's it is definitely picking up if you if you're somebody who enjoys the halo franchise but isn't like extremely beholden to that story and Maybe you didn't like the first season as much like you thought it was too slow or anything like that I highly recommend picking it up this season it is a
00:11:33
Speaker
It's a totally different look and feel like it's building on top of that, but it's it's a lot of fun. And it's it's definitely more involved and more like, I don't know, master chief ish, more action, things like that. So it's it's pretty cool. Obviously, Masters of the Air, it's going how we predicted it is even even further off the rails now.
00:11:58
Speaker
And just, yeah, good times watching other people have bad times. We'll see where it goes. And then outside of that, we have another update for our Oscar movies rewatch or best picture nominees watch.
Oscar-Nominated Films: 'Poor Things'
00:12:16
Speaker
We're down to two left. The one that we watched this week is called Poor Things. It's with Emma Stone, like,
00:12:25
Speaker
Mostly in the stone, but there's like, uh, Mark Ruffalo's in it and, uh, Willem Dafoe. That movie, um, bring two seat belts because it is a wild ride. Uh, don't, if you don't already know about it, don't look it up ahead of time. Um, I've, I think I've seen some of the, um, it's quite fantastical, isn't it? Is she, is she like a robot or something? She's.
00:12:51
Speaker
She is not a robot, but she is not standard. I will say you're onto something, but she's not normal. It is very fantastical. It's like an alternate fantasy kind of thing. I kind of compare it like the visuals are insane. The story is very good. Just if you watch it, sit with it, it's like,
00:13:19
Speaker
It's definitely eye-opening and kind of like thought-provoking in a lot of ways. It's not for kids. It's definitely not like a, hey, let's just put it on in the background kind of thing. It's not that. Not really that either.
00:13:39
Speaker
It's not a Wes Anderson film, is it? It kind of looks like one. It's like if you- That's what I was asking. That's what I was asking, because it looks, it's kind of in those, it's very pastel and hard edges and soft focus. Do you know what I mean? Yes, there's a lot of Wes Anderson style cinematography in it if you crank up the saturation on a Wes Anderson film. And that's...
00:14:03
Speaker
And I think there's other similarities, but don't think you're gonna see like Moonrise Kingdom going into this because it is not quite. Buckle up, you're in for a ride, but watch it, see it through to the end and it's really, really interesting.
00:14:23
Speaker
Well, I know that that's one thing that that's one for Lucy. Lucy will, she's, she adores Emma Stone anyway. So, um, it's one of those ones that's being rather heavily advertised in the UK on, on, on, on British streaming services. So, um, I think we'll, yeah, we'll definitely jump in on that one. Yes. But don't, don't look at it ahead of time now. I mean, it's not like it's a big spoilers or anything like that, but it's just.
00:14:51
Speaker
I mean, obviously, I've not got to talk about what goes on it, but there's obviously like controversies and stuff with it. But I think there's also good dialogue and good conversation about what those controversies are or are not. So it's a very thought-provoking movie and it's pretty good. I enjoyed it. Is it my favorite? No, but I do think it is Madison's favorite. I think that's her pick as of right now and we only have two left. And so we'll see how it all shakes out.
00:15:22
Speaker
Excellent. But those are, that's all I've been watching besides random YouTube videos about black holes and other nighttime gummy videos that make it hard to sleep.
00:15:33
Speaker
We had a long weekend so I kind of had to write off three out of seven evenings. Still re-watching Scrubs when the kids are here so they weren't here the last week we were with them so we haven't seen that.
00:15:53
Speaker
Battlestar Galactus, my cooking program, still watching For All Mankind, nearly finished in season four. Again, I think I said last week that season three I didn't find as compelling to me as seasons one and two. Still great, still very, very great, but it's very, very
00:16:10
Speaker
futuristic now. It's very, very, I wouldn't say unbelievable. It's still within the realms of technology that we know and love today, but it's very, very fantastical because they're really stretching the, pushing the boundaries in terms of space exploration and mining, cosmic mining and so on and so forth. So I'm missing the kind of
00:16:32
Speaker
the relatable look back on history that was very much part of seasons one and two, but it's still a very, very good story. And I'm so glad I found it. And like I said, at the end of season four, that will be us done. So not too far away now. And I hopefully be moving on to the next thing.
'Bad Batch' Episode Insights
00:16:49
Speaker
Obviously, we saw, we have seen our discussion point for today, which will be Bad Batch episode four, and how we're getting on, what we thought of today's episode and how we're getting on with the whole vibe of the series as a whole. But I also tried, in the interest of having something new to talk about, I also tried Avatar.
00:17:11
Speaker
which has launched, we didn't talk about it actually, but it actually launched last week on Netflix. And it's the remake of the original Nickelodeon cartoon, not to be confused with the James Cameron multi-billion dollar franchise set on Pandora. It's a very, very different story. And
00:17:38
Speaker
I enjoyed it and the reason why I'm a little bit hesitant is because I don't know if I've got the staying power to do the story a third time. So if you think about the original cartoon series is epic and it's really hard to beat.
00:18:03
Speaker
Lucy used to work at the weekend, Lucy, sorry, my wife, before she retrained was a, was a jeweler and she used to work at the weekends. Um, and so as the kids were young and growing up, I had the kids for myself at the weekends. I was, I was very much looking after them and we got heavily into the original Avatar cartoon series to think is at least three reasons.
00:18:28
Speaker
It's three or six. I can't remember. I know there was a lot of DVDs that went with it anyway. Point being is that it means an awful lot to me and it means an awful lot to the kids because from that they themselves, outside of my influence, have really got into anime, really got into Studio Ghibli as well. I think I've said to you offline that they're really, really into Studio Ghibli and in fact,
00:18:56
Speaker
they go to an awful lot of the live productions, the stage plays, which are currently touring in the UK. Anyway, I'm going off a tangent. I promise I wouldn't do that. Then obviously, there was the film. So that move, that was then translated from the original cartoon, again, epic, to the film, which was awful. I'm not going to admit, we are a positive podcast. And
00:19:21
Speaker
I'm glad I saw it, I guess is the one positive thing I can say, but it was not a good interpretation of the original source material, or even a particularly good interpretation for the silver screen of the source material. And there are many, many diversity problems, or sorry, problems around diversity and inclusion I have in that particular production in any case.
00:19:49
Speaker
that aside. So I was looking forward to the new TV series coming out and I sat down and watched episode one and it's good. It's good. It looks amazing. There's a lot of the... It's funny, isn't it? How used to the volume we've got or stage craft, how used to that kind of world building we've got
00:20:15
Speaker
that we were spoiled with on the Mandalorian, but you can tell it's been used a fair bit in this production. That said, it's done very, very well. And it's very, very, production value, production values, special effects, actors, it's all on point.
00:20:35
Speaker
My only struggle is me. It's not the program, it's me. Can I go through the series a third time? Sorry, can I go through the story a third time knowing exactly what happens? Because at the moment, it's very, very true. If I go by episode one, it's very, very true to the original source material. So I will finish the season.
00:21:04
Speaker
because I think from what I've seen so far, it looks pretty good. And again, looking at some of the reviews, they really are quite mixed actually. And I will finish it because I do love the story. It's just that where my head space is at, my head's at at the moment, have I got the gumption, have I got the, have I got it in me at the moment to go through that story again?
00:21:31
Speaker
And I'm not sure at the moment.
Revisiting Avatar with Netflix's Remake
00:21:32
Speaker
So I like it. See, I'm just not quite sure whether I've got the enthusiasm at the moment to see something familiar in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a reformat.
00:21:50
Speaker
when it was also, it was already done well. And so a lot of times these kinds of things struggle because you either, a lot of times you either like, you just meet expectations or you miss them. It's very hard to exceed them when it's the source material was already so good. Like we talked about this a couple of weeks ago when it comes to like books and other things, but those are at least different mediums that you can translate and do differently.
00:22:17
Speaker
This is just going from animation to to live action, where it's that's a that's a very, especially when it starts an animation and you try to take it to live action. That's a very, very difficult thing to let alone exceed expectations. It's hard to meet the same expectations because of Yeah, it's almost like
00:22:43
Speaker
I don't know how to articulate this. I don't know how to put this in words that make sense to myself, let alone anyone else, but it almost would have been in my mind, because it's been done so perfectly well, so perfectly well. It's almost like, well, why didn't you just continue the story or do a parallel story or just do a reimagining within the same universe, but on a different
00:23:09
Speaker
on an older avatar, because as we know, avatars have been or are generational.
00:23:18
Speaker
superhuman or a super being. There have been many avatars over the years to protect the four kingdoms. And I'm surprised they didn't do a different take like a prequel or a sequel.
00:23:39
Speaker
Doing the same story again is probably what's got me on my back foot a little bit because it was done so perfectly well. It's a little bit like somebody saying to you today, hey, they're going to remake Empire Strikes Back.
00:23:54
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like low hanging fruit and a borderline pandering. Like this is something I noticed a lot recently, especially with like the Netflix kind of stuff. It feels low risk and it feels like there is some creative director who is hell-bent on bringing that style of like, if you want to call it anime, I know it's not truly, but it's like they're bringing those type of animated stories to a larger audience.
00:24:24
Speaker
like but they never do it well but in the same time it's like oh if we if we do some avatar story that's a prequel or sequel then people will be pissed like this is like i feel like this is like the meeting they have it's not what the truth is it's just like well people people will be mad that we don't do this and plus if we do this the net keeps subscribers and keeps retention
00:24:45
Speaker
And we'll just do this, whether it succeeds or not. And we're just trying to build these into franchises and expand them to people who are like, I don't really want to watch a cartoon. Because there are a lot of people out there who are like that.
00:25:00
Speaker
I agree, and I'd probably say my wife's one of those people. She's got no interest in... There's only one cartoon that she's ever really, really enjoyed. Sorry, outside of Disney, of course. Like everyone, she enjoys Disney and the Pixar stuff. But there's only one serious cartoon that she's ever enjoyed in my company, and that was Arcane.
00:25:25
Speaker
So the spin-off cartoon they did of League of Legends. And I love that. I love that. I love that cartoon. Sorry, I love that season. It's not a cartoon. I love that season. For me, it's completely perfect. Anyway, that's a different discussion for a different day. So yeah, I've seen it anyway. So that was that. And then obviously we've got today's discussion point. There's a couple of things that I did pick up in the news today, this week, sorry.
00:25:55
Speaker
despite being in communicado for at least three out of seven days. The first was I noticed that they've remade Shogun. So Shogun was a big
00:26:11
Speaker
TV drama, TV miniseries during the late 70s, early 80s, I guess, with Richard Chamberlain, the famous actor Richard Chamberlain. And he was, it was a story of obviously the
00:26:34
Speaker
the traders from the west sinking their ship off the coast of feudal Japan and the survivors being this particular captain, becoming really entrenched in the culture and falling in love and really being part of the Shogun.
00:26:54
Speaker
culture. And I loved it as a kid. It was something very, very different. And I know that the media content that's available today to our children is a lot richer. There's a heck of a lot more diversity. There's a heck of a lot more content from the start that we had as kids. But Shogun back in the
00:27:14
Speaker
late 70s, early 80s, if I remember when it actually came out, was there was nothing like that. There was nothing like that at all. And if there was anything, if I'm perfectly blunt, to be honest with you, the only thing that represented Japanese culture at the time was typically about the war.
00:27:29
Speaker
was about the Second World War, which is a crying shame when there was this amazing, it's amazing story to be told about, certainly about feudal Japan. And I loved it. And so I didn't even know it was coming out, but it wasn't until
00:27:45
Speaker
I was flicking through Disney plus the day that I saw that they have landed the first two episodes of this remake with some really, really cool actors. Um, you know, zero whitewashing going on here. They're taking it quite seriously. Um, and I'm looking forward to seeing that. So I haven't seen it yet. And I can't, I can't tell you whether it's good or not.
00:28:03
Speaker
But that got me, that put a bit of a spring in my step as new stuff that I would potentially enjoy over the coming weeks and months ahead, especially when I finish For All Mankind.
Nostalgia for 'Star Wars Galaxies'
00:28:14
Speaker
Second was, I don't know if you ever played Star Wars Galaxies.
00:28:19
Speaker
Sony Entertainment game some years ago is a massive, it was an MMO. It was basically, I loved it. It was, I lost probably good five or six years of my life to that game whereby you had one or two, I had one or two avatars or characters that you would take through a skill tree progression story by choosing a profession and doing lots of different things. I was ironically, well,
00:28:49
Speaker
I had a Twi'lek character and I had a Wookiee character, and I grew them up to a reasonably high level, but it was an MMO, not in the context of go here, have a battle, shooty shooty, here's a mission, go and do this. It literally was, you were living in the Star Wars universe. It was massive, absolutely huge, and you could build communities, and in fact,
00:29:14
Speaker
part of the enjoyment I had of this game was really becoming part of a community, becoming a city, your player-owned cities. And they ended up going through what they call NGE, which is the new gaming experience, which somewhat dumb the whole game down to try and make it more popular with the World of Warcraft type of gamers. It never really was the same thing again. And I won't go into too much detail because that is a conversation. One day, I would love to have with Hawes, if we ever lucky enough to get him on,
00:29:44
Speaker
on this pod because it really was a piece of work this game in the very, very early days of it. But anyway, there's over the years they've been doing these as one or two fans that haven't despite Star Wars Galaxies being shut down quite a few years ago now, probably in the at least late noughties. It must be. It must be that long. It's at least
00:30:12
Speaker
10-15 years. Anyway, there's been a couple of emulators going on. A couple of die-hard fans have had these emu sites that have been running the game for quite a few years, and there's a new one called Star Wars Galaxy's Hardcore, and the beta is being released in a couple of days, and we'll stick the link in the chat, sorry, in the show notes at the end, but essentially it's
00:30:41
Speaker
an emulator, another emulator of Star Wars galaxies, but the consequences of your actions are really quite brutal in that when you die, you die,
00:30:52
Speaker
and you respawn, but you respawn with nothing, absolutely nothing. You lose all your possessions and it's almost combined it with the kind of concept of a battle royale scenario whereby someone kills you, they can loot everything that you own as opposed to the old game, which just, you still kept your possessions and everything.
00:31:15
Speaker
Anyway, I found that quite interesting. And if you're like me and you have some nostalgia towards that old game, suggest you check it out, see what it's about. And then lastly, I saw, again, a bit of a surprise, came out of nowhere, was a game, again, that I... Crikey, when did the Handsome Dan Collection come out? A game franchise called Borderlands, which was...
00:31:44
Speaker
kind of like a... It's an apocalyptic kind of game whereby you choose one of four professions and it's almost cel-shaded. It's like a cartoony type of game whereby it's a first person shooter. I wouldn't really call it a shooter. It's a first person story.
00:32:10
Speaker
whereby you strive for glory, treasures and success on this barren wasteland of a planet or planet. And it's quite funny. It really is quite funny. It doesn't take itself too seriously. And like I said, it's rendered in quite a cartoony style.
00:32:30
Speaker
Again, very much cel-shaded, a little bit like the Resistance cartoon, for example, the Star Wars Resistance cartoon, that kind of rendering or that kind of 3D animation. And it's good fun. And the characters mean an awful lot to me. I mean, I've got Claptrap, who is the resident robot of the game. I've actually got a model of that.
00:32:55
Speaker
lovely mofo here on my desk, but it's a great game series. And they're turning it into a TV series. And the first thing I do is always hold my breath and say a few Hail Marys, because it scares me whenever anything that I've loved or had fun with is turned into something else. And the first thing, of course, I do is hope that
00:33:24
Speaker
they don't mess it up and they make a good job of it. It is a bit strange because there's a lot of people... I mean, Cate Blanchett is there, as is Jamie Lee Curtis. There's a few others there as well. And it's quite a... And I don't... I mean, I'm old, so I hope I'm not sounding ageist, but it's quite a mature
00:33:48
Speaker
established a bunch of actors in this story. It's an interesting set of picks, for sure. When you consider that the actual game and the characters in the game were or seem to be significantly younger. Now, of course, someone's going to say, Andy, don't talk nonsense.
00:34:11
Speaker
But they're cartoons in the game. Yeah, of course they are. But their characters, their demeanor, their physicality, everything about them seemed a lot younger. So, I mean, hey, listen, I love Cate Blanchett. It's a weird one because this kind of punk-style type of
00:34:30
Speaker
badass woman, which she is a badass woman, but it's a very young look for a more mature actor to play. And I hope that's not offending anyone. And I really hope it's a really, really great role that she has and she absolutely kills it because I love her. I absolutely love her to bits, but it's just a very, very strange role.
00:34:55
Speaker
for her to play and very much, I would have said, outside of her normal repertoire as a serious actor. Anyway, that's the news that I picked up this week. As I said, it's not a huge amount, but it's decent enough for four days anyway. When you were talking about the Star Wars Galaxy thing, it reminded me
00:35:19
Speaker
of, so I read, I read, I didn't play it. I didn't play the game, but I was reading about the, the new beta for the, the hardcore mode. And it's interesting, like some of the other aspects of that where it's like, Oh, you can go find like a, a cloner and get cloned. And then you get like XP and stuff to like, re kind of rebuild up. But it's like, it is like a, almost like a perma-death, a lot of things, but then it just, it couldn't help.
00:35:45
Speaker
I couldn't help but be reminded of a series of the board games that exist, like the Legacy series. I don't know if you've ever heard of those, but there's like a Risk Legacy, Pandemic Legacy, and Ticket to Ride Legacy, and a bunch of others, where it's a similar concept where the decisions that you make in the game affect the board game itself.
00:36:08
Speaker
And, and then all future play. So like you, it's not about playing a single session. It's about playing a season. And so like, you'll be playing and then something happens and you gotta like rip up cards and like, you can't, those cards are gone. You destroy them. It's not like, Oh, put them in the box and save them. No, you're just like, no, you are forever. Like I know pandemic legacy is like one of my favorites. Like I don't know if you ever played the pandemic games, but those are,
00:36:30
Speaker
like S-tier quality board games in my book. And like the legacy versions like, oh, you lost half the world. Like take these stickers and just destroy half of your board game because you can no longer play that stuff anymore. And it plays multiple seasons and there's pieces hidden inside the box, like in secret flaps or whatever. It's just that kind of like actions have consequences. It's about like the storytelling narrative going forward. I love that kind of,
00:37:00
Speaker
Oh, I can just start over again, whatever, whatever. It's like, no, you lost it all. And things are now different for you. It's not like you're just resetting back to the beginning of the level. It reminds me a lot of that a little bit, and it's pretty interesting.
00:37:15
Speaker
Funny enough, I bought Pandemic for the family, and we've never played it. I bought it, ironically, during the pandemic. Although I think it's significantly older than the pandemic. It is older than that. It's maybe a little off-putting to play it during the middle of the pandemic, like most of my plays were before. So it's like, ugh.
00:37:39
Speaker
Yeah, I was told to go D1 when I turned up on Christmas day. I was like, dad, no, we're not playing this game. So we will revisit it, but I think my timing was a little bit off when I originally bought it.
00:37:52
Speaker
It's a good co-op game. It's really fun. As long as you don't have anybody who's a major quarterback, but I don't really see that being a problem with family, then it can be a lot of fun and really cool. I do have a couple news items that I forgot about. One is kind of a coincidence based on some of the Disney park stuff that we talked about a couple weeks ago. It actually came out recently that
00:38:18
Speaker
I think Disney does feel a little bit of a pressure down in Florida because they announced a new special deal.
00:38:26
Speaker
that I think in 2025, anybody who has like, I'm gonna get the details wrong, but you can, if you're going, you can look it up. If you're going to the parks, you get like free admission to the water parks on the day of your arrival, specifically right around the time when Universal Epic Universe is supposed to be opening.
00:38:50
Speaker
Which is interesting because the water parks at Disney World have always been an add-on ticket and they're always kind of hit or miss. They're not something that people see as critical. I loved it when I worked there. It was fantastic specifically because I didn't have to pay to go in. But they were a lot of fun to be able to go and relax on these themed water parks all day.
00:39:13
Speaker
and for other reasons that we can talk about it another time being a degenerate cast member there. But it's interesting to see how that they're opening these up. At first, I thought it was going to be to alleviate some of the pressure and crowds. But then you look at the timeline of it, it's like, oh, this is directly lining up with the Epic Universe potential launch. So I thought that was worth noting that we were talking about that the other day, and they're just now announcing these things.
00:39:40
Speaker
Well, they have to... I think we spoke about at the time, they're going to have to... If they don't do something new, they're going to have to add value of some... And it must be so hard to keep reinventing yourself and adding more rides and...
00:40:00
Speaker
refurbishing the older rides and reinventing themselves, reinvent yourself, reinvent yourself. So for the sake of, you know, if cashflow is tight, if the sake of pushing a development budget into the next fiscal year or what have you, if they just like throw in some, some freebies like that to add value.
00:40:18
Speaker
you're more likely to still buy a ticket. So it's probably smart, but to your point around it coinciding with what Universal are up to, it's interesting. And I think competition is a great thing. So it's exciting.
00:40:31
Speaker
Absolutely, and the other thing I had was it's not it's not immediate news I should have I was gonna bring it up a couple weeks ago, but I totally forgot and now I took notes and remembered There has been a recent release. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the How far how familiar you are with a lot of the Star Wars fan-cut communities I was originally introduced to it a long long time ago to like through the
00:40:59
Speaker
the harmies de-specialized editions where they took the special editions like the high res special editions and people like painstakingly
00:41:12
Speaker
reverted them back to like the theatrical release, like removed all the crazy special effects it did. Like it's really, I think the reading about what they did is more interesting than actually watching those movies. But being a digital hoarder and all these other things, I like to collect a lot of this stuff. But one that came out years ago, and I,
00:41:36
Speaker
every once in a while I'll start following pretty pretty closely is like the 4k 77 4k 80 and 4k 83 projects. I'll leave a link to them but it's like the sequel trailer the Star Wars trilogy.com I believe is what it is. But what they are is a group of people who I don't want to and I don't want to miss speak about their motives but
00:41:59
Speaker
The TLDRs, they didn't like the Blu-ray editions that came out of the 4K releases of the original trilogy. And so they wanted, the contrast was all off, a bunch of other
00:42:14
Speaker
crap was wrong with them. I think they may have even had special scenes and they weren't the original theatrical releases. So what they wanted to do- The color saturation, I remember that being a big complaint for Empire. Yeah. Massive. There was a blue saturation or blue filter that had gone through and it was just
00:42:37
Speaker
And it looks like so it looks like solo kind of where it's like where there's not a lot of contrast on it. It's very dark. It's very blue And it thinks things are just off and it's inconsistent as well so the 4k 77 project started with I believe it's like 97%
00:42:55
Speaker
uh, mostly like a scan of a 35 millimeter, the original 35 millimeter reel and same kind of thing. They reconstructed it and then re-pieced it back together, uh, with like laser disc scans and audio options. And it's like, it's, it's really kind of a breeding ground of like people who are really interested in like digital video restoration
00:43:14
Speaker
audio codecs and just all sorts of crazy stuff. But that was released years ago and they continue to improve upon it and have all these different variants. I'm on the website now. It looks absolutely fascinating. I'm on the website exactly. I've done a lot with the deleted scenes as well, the restoring deleted scene. I mean, this is like... Oh, it's a rabbit hole. It's a rabbit hole, my friend. You're going to do it to me again, aren't you? Yes.
00:43:41
Speaker
They've got the deleted scene from when we first meet Luke. We don't meet him now until later on after the, you know, when the jar was selling the droids to his uncle. But there's obviously the earlier scene that was cut where he's actually fixing one of the evaporators. He looks up into the sky and uses his macro binoculars to check out the battle going up overhead. And what they've done,
00:44:09
Speaker
is amazing. And it begs the question, why on earth didn't Lucasfilm do this for their making of
00:44:21
Speaker
So what's interesting is once you really go down the rabbit hole, you can start looking at the timelines for these projects, and you can probably see why Lucasfilm didn't do it. Some of these projects have taken six, seven, eight-plus years to rebuild and a lot of money. So all of this to say is a long-winded way of saying 4K80, which is the 4K version of this for Empire Strikes Back,
00:44:45
Speaker
was finally released as a 1.0 candidate on February 12. You can get to 1080p, the 4k versions. Obviously, I'm not promoting piracy if you have whatever, but you don't understand. Yeah, it's all available on that website. And they also have like
00:45:01
Speaker
If you register for the forums, they have 4K83, which the Return of the Jedi wasn't nearly as hard because they have a lot more of the stuff available, and it was just an easy conversion, so that's also there. But then they're also doing stuff with Attack of the Clones, they're doing stuff with everything, and there's like a million different versions and fan cuts.
00:45:18
Speaker
and adjustments in like HDR remakes. So if you have like an HDR TV, you can see like ones that they've applied like visual adjustments to. So they're like more contrast and like deeper blacks, brighter whites. It's wild. Good luck. Have fun. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's hopefully, hopefully you have fast internet and big hard drives because like the 4k ones are like 60, 70 gigs each. Wow.
00:45:46
Speaker
But it's awesome. I just downloaded it and or not. I don't know if anybody's listening to this, but maybe I don't know. Maybe I did. But it's it's fascinating. It's fascinating stuff, though. I mean, I find that in my in my older years, in my older years, I find stuff like this as equally fascinating as the as the original context, a little bit like my collecting. I mean, we we we we ran out of time because I could talk about it all day, but an awful lot of the stuff that
00:46:15
Speaker
I really like is the bootleg stuff. The bootleg stuff I find equally as fascinating as the genuine article. And in fact, I'm sure you already know this, an awful lot of the bootleg stuff from the 70s and 80s is more expensive than the real Kenner stuff that was released at the time because it was so
00:46:33
Speaker
Well, a hysterically fantastic, but also there wasn't an awful lot of it. So it's become rarer. Um, but, but this is, this is almost like the digital version of, of, of, of, of the fascination I have with, with, with bootleg toys. It's brilliant. It's really, really cool. Have you, have you ever watched or have you ever heard of or seen the backstroke of the West?
00:46:55
Speaker
version of I believe it's revenge of the Sith. Don't don't look it up. It's not worth it. It's it's horrible. Basically what somebody did was it was I believe it started as a bootleg where somebody was trying to do audio dubs from English into some other language.
00:47:12
Speaker
But this was before like good translations. So it got all messed up. But then they thought that was funny. I believe they thought it was funny. So then they translated it back to English so English speakers could see like how it had been translated. It is.
00:47:27
Speaker
off the rails. So it's like, Revenge of the Sith, but it's completely just double messed up audio and subtitles of just insane dialogue. It's pretty funny, but not worth two and a half hours of your own time, but it's of a certain time for sure. I think it was called Backstroke of the West, I think is what it was.
00:47:52
Speaker
I just love them. I love the obscure, I love the bizarre. There's a DVD that came out, I couldn't get it on Blu-ray, a DVD called Elstree. Is it Elstree 76, Elstree 75? It's an unofficial documentary that was made
00:48:14
Speaker
quite a few years ago, Hell Street 76 was called. And it's really about the behind the scenes of the original English, English, tertiary actors and stand-ins and extras that were on set. None of them are actors. I mean, they're basically, these are average Joes that just came along, had no idea what they were getting into.
00:48:42
Speaker
and we're asked to stick on Stormtrooper costumes. And it's really funny. It's really, really funny. Interestingly, IMDb, the official channel, gives it 5.9%, but the actual audience review on Rotten Tomatoes is 81%. What does that say about the audience rating, about the audience that actually watched it?
00:49:04
Speaker
Anyway, the point being is it's really quite funny and it's not in any way an official documentary. It hasn't been sanctioned at all. It just goes behind the scenes of quite a few of the bizarre
00:49:23
Speaker
people that worked on Star Wars, in particular the Brits at the time, which were very institutionalized, very unionized British working people that worked on this film. And the funny part about it, about this documentary, is that there's at least four or five of the actors that they're filming, their claim to fame, all of them, is that they're the stormtrooper that hit their head.
00:49:51
Speaker
you know, on the door that lifted up, when the stormtroopers come in on the Death Star and catch R2 and C-3PO in hiding in that room, one of them famously hits their head on the top of the door, and all of them
00:50:07
Speaker
have claimed their claim to fame is that it was me. It was me. It was me. It was me. No one's gotten to the bottom of who the actual the real actor was or who the who was only one of them hit their head. But they're all making money in these in these, you know, back in these dodgy comic cons and on these on these getting people's autographs, all taking credit for being that particular stormtrooper that hit their head. Anyway, sorry, I'm going to go off a dungeon.
00:50:36
Speaker
but in the same vein of, on the same spirit as the stuff that you like. I love that kind of bizarre stuff. I really do. So I'm a huge fan of, I don't want to say unofficial document. I mean, I love documentaries, period. But if you have an inkling for maybe documentaries that were supposed to be, but then for some reason or another,
00:51:00
Speaker
didn't happen or weren't like released. If you are familiar with the movie, The Emperor's New Groove, made by Disney, which is a fantastic movie if you've never seen it, there is a doc, a- Lava-faced. Yes, there is a documentary called The Sweatbox, which was leaked online years and years and years ago.
00:51:26
Speaker
but it basically is a behind the scenes look at how The Emperor's New Groove started as something different and just the turmoils of that, the production of that movie and just kind of, it was never, I don't think it was ever officially released. I think Disney or somebody was like, yeah, no, no, thanks. We changed our minds. But it was leaked online and it's actually very, very interesting. It's a very raw look at like,
00:51:53
Speaker
Here the creative process, executive involvement, and some of the pain points of being creative at that time, and just the company, it's very good. It's probably in like 360p. No, I haven't watched it in years. But I remember the time I was like, Oh, this is kind of rough. But it was a very good documentary. Especially since that movie, in my opinion, is very underrated. I love that film. I love that film. It's so funny. It is so, so funny.
00:52:22
Speaker
Good stuff. But yeah, that's uh, that's my, I believe that's my, yeah, that's my news. So if you, if you like fan cuts, go find them and then go down that rabbit hole and don't blame me when you ran out of hard drives. So dude, episode four, the bad batch. A different approach is the name of that one. I made sure to look it up ahead of time. Um, what did you think?
00:52:50
Speaker
I mean, I think I like it when they released three episodes in a week better than just one. I feel like they should have phased us down, like three one week, two the next, then one, because the three to one direct, and then especially kind of into more of a traditional bad batch, Star Wars animation feel was kind of rough. There were still hints of,
00:53:17
Speaker
really high quality, but it is more of those familiar story beats throughout the episode. But I thought it was good. I enjoyed it. I'm ready for next week. What were your kind of high level thoughts?
00:53:31
Speaker
High level, I 100% agree with you. I wouldn't say it's bad, but it was a very, in my mind, it was a very reliable cookie cutter plot for this week's story. We've seen an awful lot of that kind of stuff before.
00:53:56
Speaker
It's tried and tested. It's like a pair of reassuring slacks or slippers. I don't know what analogy I'm trying to think of, but you know what I mean?
00:54:14
Speaker
there's no genre breaking storytelling going on. It doesn't have to be either. It's still good quality stuff and there's some notes I took, but yeah, it did feel like I was quite an abrupt detox from last week. It was
00:54:37
Speaker
It was, it was, it felt like a normal week. And I don't want to say a filler because I hate that word. I hate that word too. Because it still served a purpose to what we saw at the end of the story. It still moved the plot along and the conclusion of this week's story
00:54:57
Speaker
was very, very impactful and will have meaning for the rest of the season. So I'm sure as hell not going to call it filler. But yeah, and I wouldn't even call it pedestrian either. So it was just a very formulaic plot line for this week.
00:55:16
Speaker
I despise the word filler because I think the word filler implies that it could be, you don't need it. It's not, it doesn't serve a purpose. To me, this episode is like, if you compare it to like cooking, it's the prep work. It's the prep work. Like we're not doing the spices and we're not like, we're not searing the steak, we're not cooking the meal, but we're doing our,
00:55:37
Speaker
We're chopping, we're chopping the vegetables, we're doing this stuff. We're prepping for the decisions and the events that are getting ready to take place next week. Like, to kind of get into a smidge of it, it's, we needed some time with
00:55:53
Speaker
for there to be a transition and an arc with Crosshair and Omega independently. So that way, when you get to the end of the episode and further on, decisions and actions and beliefs make sense. And so you can't just go from, hey, let's go back and boom, we're with the other guys now, and hey, maybe things are tense, but let's not be that way. That doesn't make sense. You needed to show this transition and this arc between the two of them,
00:56:23
Speaker
where crosshair is still not great, like in terms of like the good or bad scale or whatever, or his belief system, but you can see him starting to adapt and see the way he sees Omega differently. And so I think when people are gonna say inevitably say, oh, it's filler, it's like, but you can't do without it. It's not as exciting, it's not the main dish, but it is the prep work for making the next week or whatever so great, in my opinion.
00:56:52
Speaker
And what's come before it, of course, as well. I'm sure we've had this conversation at least twice since we started, but how do you build from...
00:57:05
Speaker
ground, from ground zero to the culmination of the season, how do you keep that momentum going without pauses, without a palate cleanser? And bearing in mind what we built up to last week, which was the escape from Mount Tantus, do you just keep
00:57:28
Speaker
just keep progressing and progressing and progressing it kind of every week you progress the story or escalate the situation or make it more desperate it somehow nullifies or dilutes the impact of the previous week so you have to kind of start again and i don't mean start again as in the story i'm talking about start start again as in the tempo the tempo of the of the of the of the drama of of the of the event
00:57:54
Speaker
And I thought it was good. I mean, if you'll indulge me, I've got a couple of notes here. Yeah, absolutely. The spaceport that they ended up in, I thought was very Macquarie-esque. So there's a couple of old drawings of Mos Eisley that he did, in particular with
00:58:19
Speaker
stormtroopers, the early concept stormtroopers wearing the ponchos, maybe not quite as dorky as the ones we saw today, but they were with ponchos, with the amazing colorful characters of the people and aliens that populated or lived in Mos Eisley. And I got that feeling from the start, and it was just from the very, very first couple of shots of the
00:58:47
Speaker
denizens of this star port just gave me that instant Macquarie vibe. And then it disappeared quite quickly. But there was a couple of shots at the very, very beginning there, the hustle and bustle, the colors in particular, the concept stormtrooper, which we know is taken from one of the early concepts that he had for the stormtrooper when they came out with this proto stormtrooper concept in the first place.
00:59:19
Speaker
The second piece, or the second notes I made were really, there were two tropes. Hence the reason why I said it was quite reliable storytelling that we know and love already. The first being the port official taking a bribe.
00:59:34
Speaker
Well, that reminded me of Solo, of being open to a bribe. The second trope was man and child on the run with the child taking the lead in many cases. Well, that reminded me of Kenobi, for example. It's stuff that they've done before, but it works. It works really, really well, especially with someone with a character as strong as Omega. And the rest of it is just stuff I've written down. So crosshairs redemption.
01:00:03
Speaker
the fact that he wasn't perhaps out for himself anymore and he did hesitate, double back and go after Omega as she's trying to save her dog, her space dog. And that really takes
01:00:28
Speaker
It's a really good point in my mind that he's taking the journey back to who he wants to be as a person. Whether the other boys will forgive him or not is another question for another week. I don't know if you noticed when they were breaking out the animal, before they broke out the animals, I heard, I definitely heard the cry of a pork. And then if you heard that in one of the cages, there was a cry of a pork there.
01:00:50
Speaker
It took me a minute to figure out what it was. I'm like, that's, that's extremely fun. It's like the Wilhelm stream scream. Yeah. I can, I can, I can pick it out, but it's like, but what is, like, what was that? That's some, it's a reference and a clip from something else. And then finally it took me a couple of minutes of like, Oh, that's what it was. Yeah. Um, and then the only other question I had, sorry, I had two more notes. I do apologize.
01:01:15
Speaker
Um, the tentacle that came out from the cage to devour the officer. I have that note as well. Was that a Rathtar? I think it is. I thought, I think it was that I said, did a Rathtar kill that guy? I'm like, I'm pretty sure that was a Rathtar. It was the right size. It was the, I think they made it seem ominous enough. They're like.
01:01:38
Speaker
Do you know what that was? You don't see the ball with the eye, but it seemed like a raftar to me. And then lastly, I was just going to say the reunion. The reunion at the end was tremendous and something, you could see it a mile off. As soon as you saw the ship, you knew they were there. I was a bit worried at first that they weren't actually going to be there. They didn't get the message or indeed that
01:02:05
Speaker
Hemlock had somehow intercepted the message and was going to be there waiting on that moon for her instead. But the reunion I thought was fantastic. And that big old lump coming out and wiping away tears from his face as he holds Omega I thought was absolutely phenomenal. And then obviously the reveal that she had some help and crosshair came down the steps and fade to black. I thought it was a really, really good ending.
01:02:35
Speaker
So they're the only notes I've made. So over to you, mate. So I definitely want to say I have questions about what we think is going to happen with Crosshair. To me, like I know a lot of people really don't like him, but to me, he is one of the most
01:02:53
Speaker
up in the air arcs, and so I'll come back to that in a minute, because I really want to hone in on that one. I had a couple notes as well. With the animals, when they came to that, like the, what was it, space, like a depot, a shipping depot, I got major, major Jurassic Park vibes with the fence, the crates, and just all, the way they were kind of handling and moving them around, it almost felt pace for pace with,
01:03:19
Speaker
how they handle the bad guys always handle the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. I'm like, this feels like an homage in a way. Yeah. Definitely had the wrath are the wrath are that a wrath are had that they're more more fly on the wall. How does it all work? Sean speculation here of like
01:03:41
Speaker
The episode definitely had tropes, but there were also some things that were just like, I feel like we've never seen this, this level of quality or this type of scene before in Bad Batch, like we've seen them in this season. And so it's like, okay, say they have a thousand minutes of, like, is this how it works? Okay, we have a thousand minutes of cartoon or of animation. We have X number of budget. We really wanna take,
01:04:09
Speaker
these scenes make them really, really nice. And so these are really nice. And so is everything else in the middle, just kind of like, just like make it like the practical side of things, like make it work. So like you'd have those scenes where they're showing like the planet and then like the multiple planets and like the landscape. And it was just gorgeous. It reminded me of starfield in a lot of ways, like minus the fog. It was like, this is gorgeous. And I don't feel like we get this in bad batch very often. These like long, these long shots of like
01:04:38
Speaker
multiple planets that are like way too close to each other in one aspect. But it's like, it was just beautiful. Like I actually had to pause and be like, this is crazy. Like I feel like this is a different level of quality and kind of, I hate these words, like beauty, I guess, like natural beauty used in Star Wars animation. So I thought that was really neat. The cliffhanger reunion I thought was
01:05:07
Speaker
very, very well orchestrated. It almost felt like something, like I don't know enough about like traditional films, but I feel like the way it was like shot and like the angles and the way the ships were lined up and the loading ramps. I'm like, this feels very reminiscent of like another film, like a Kurosawa or something like that. Like it almost feels like they took the shots directly from something else because it just felt very planned and coordinated.
01:05:36
Speaker
in a lot of ways. I will, before we go to the crosshair stuff, I will say there is one thing about, it's not necessarily the bad batch, but about this time in the art style or things that always really irks me and I just feel like I have to get it out there because it's always in my notes.
01:05:58
Speaker
I feel like they've done a really, really good job with like the Macquarie, Proto, Stormtrooper kind of look and like they have a certain aesthetic throughout their shows. Each show has its own kind of vibe. Like each series, Clone Wars, Bad Batch, et cetera, et cetera. But the Republic Commando design stands out like a sore thumb to me every time he appears on screen
01:06:24
Speaker
It is like they have the very stylized stormtroopers, but then they take that Republic Commando and it just feels like they took an asset from something not bad batch. Put it in there, which I'm already not a fan of the Republic Commando anyways. It reminds me of that like
01:06:39
Speaker
Mountain Dew force unleashed era of like just yeah make make their helmets like like bobbleheads and light it up from the inside make them all look like they're lumbering like He-Man figures walking around. It's like it just doesn't fit. So every time I see him I'm like, I just we don't need it. We don't need them like yeah, it just feels like a weird thing. So
01:07:01
Speaker
That's done. I got it out of my system. Clearly, they've tried to stay as close to the video game design as they could, which is a good game, by the way. It's a very, very good game for its time. It was very, very good indeed. But it never
01:07:22
Speaker
It was very Super Commando, Halo-esque Super Commando. It never really fit quite the aesthetics of Star Wars anyway. But I must admit, they don't bother me as much as they do you. But again, different strokes. It doesn't matter. And I'm happy for anybody who loves it.
01:07:49
Speaker
That's like, I just had to get it out of my system. It's like every time I see it, I'm like, I just need to like verbalize it and get it out. You know, it's like podcast therapy a little bit. Like, Hey, I don't like that design. And that's fine. Like, it doesn't matter. I've never understood the illuminated T visor. I've never, never really understood that because, um,
01:08:09
Speaker
no other trooper has that and it's kind of a kind of a giveaway really to your locate i mean i know that they're they're bright white which is not smart anyway as as troopers but it's um i've never really understood that in itself anyway
01:08:25
Speaker
If it, I guess, I don't wanna make it seem like I'm being negative about it. It's just more of a critique of the design. It feels like Star Wars has such strong imagery and designs when it comes to ships, armor and things like that. Like if you wanted to do something that's a level up, I like the Death Trooper in Rogue One. Like that to me is like, okay, it's got a light and they've got different accents and things, but it's sleeker, it's cooler and it stays in the same vein.
01:08:55
Speaker
the the illuminated T visor feels like it looked cool in a video game or on a cover of a of a thing so now we got to like roll with it like it's almost like i drew this cool picture and you guys like it it's like lit up now it's cool and they're like yeah let's let's roll with that and it just feels like we're kind of continuing with that uh in my opinion a weak design but
01:09:19
Speaker
But it's cool, you hate different strokes for different folks. If they made an action figure where you could push a button on the back and it's T Visor lit up, that'd be sick. I wouldn't buy it, but that'd be cool. Like a great use of the license as our friends like to say. Exactly. But my big thing is I love Omega, I love the bad batch. You know my stance, I don't think anything bad's gonna happen to Omega.
01:09:46
Speaker
I don't really worry about Wrecker and Hunter necessarily. There may be whatever. And I think that one planet with the islands, I think that's like the home, like where things are gonna happen. Like in the end, the person that I am most interested in
01:10:11
Speaker
is crosshair, especially after this latest episode, where he didn't fully have a redemption arc. He just, he kind of opted to stay together. Like it could have, he could be, he could be being redeemed. But as of right now, he's really kind of in this like,
01:10:30
Speaker
So let's stick together, we're gonna be better off until we get out of this and let's see what happens. And I think the ending was a great representation of that as they're both standing on loading ramps of their own, like their own ships. They didn't come down and meet each other. And so I think there's a couple of different, I'll kind of give my thoughts and I'd love to hear yours. There's a couple of different paths that we can go with crosshair, that they can take with crosshair. One,
01:10:57
Speaker
I think there's the low-hanging fruit, one that I think a lot of people are expecting, which is he's fully redeemed and he does a self-sacrifice to save the day. And then everybody's like, oh, everything is okay. Crosshair became good in the end.
01:11:17
Speaker
I will be happy with that, but I'm always looking for that not easy road in some of these stories. I think it's too easy. I'd love to see if Crosshair makes it, but he doesn't come back to the group. But he's like,
01:11:35
Speaker
I'll help but I'm like this isn't this isn't my vibe. I'm not here to be a family. I've always been an outsider. I'm gonna go do my own my own life of salt not like a like a penance or like a life of like isolation. It's just like this isn't me. You guys have this family. I need to make I need to make it right by
01:12:00
Speaker
shooting somebody in the back, killing him, lock, whatever, blah, blah, blah, but I survived and that's it. And I'm, see you later, I'm going this way, you guys go that way, whatever. That's where I hope happens, but I'm curious, because there's all the imagery of like, okay, those two are clearly still pissed at him. And he's like, he's never really shown a sign of remorse. And I'm also curious of what they've done to him.
01:12:28
Speaker
Oh, I don't know. He did say to... And I'm sorry to interrupt. No, go ahead. He did say to Omega, it's been months. I don't know Omega, it's been months. Not that he regrets it, but he knows that the boys have a conflicting opinion of what he's done. And I must admit, I'm not in one of those camps that hate him.
01:12:58
Speaker
I don't hate him at all. And we're talking about cartoon characters. So I mean, I don't really have many, you know, I don't lay awake at night thinking about it. But I don't hate him. And in fact, if you think about it, he was doing what he was programmed to do. He's not his fault. It's not his fault that he
01:13:19
Speaker
that he fought his brothers. He was following orders. That's what they were programmed to do. They were the ones that were defective.
01:13:31
Speaker
They're defective for all the right reasons. I'm not that much of an idiot, but they were defective ultimately. He was the one following orders. He was made that way. He didn't have a choice in any of his decision making because that's the way he was made. So I certainly don't hold him any ill will if I was to take this stuff amazingly seriously. But on your point,
01:14:00
Speaker
I think that we did start to see a little bit of the guys in chaos. The guy has gone from being the most
01:14:12
Speaker
dedicated, besotted, clone trooper to the new empire, to witnessing some stuff that made him really question his own self, his own purpose and what he was doing. And that in itself, the emotional turmoil from that would be
01:14:38
Speaker
debilitating in many, many ways. But then he goes through this whole process of... It's almost like the five stages of grief where you then get to... And I think he's at this point at the moment where he's starting to understand why his brothers... Well, he certainly understands now why his brothers rebelled and did their own thing and did what they felt was right.
01:15:01
Speaker
and he's now resided to the fact that he is also someone that's demonstrated independent thought in his own right and has pushed back on the man, on the authority. I think to your last point on what will happen with him, I really hope they don't go down. To your point, it's an easy way out. We could see
01:15:29
Speaker
the rest of the season with him having a hot and cold or, shall we say, tepid relationship with his brothers, but them keeping him on as muscle to do the kind of work that they need to get done.
01:15:47
Speaker
before the series end or the season end. And then he truly shows his worth to them and his love for them by sacrificing himself in some heroic way, typically, well, I guess in Saving Omega in particular would make that a particularly compelling story. But to your point, it is a little bit predictable. What I would like to think is that he will
01:16:17
Speaker
Again, one of the stages of grief is realization and acceptance. I hope they do make it to the island world. I hope that after all the turmoil and the final battle and whatever happens in the end of the season to bring it to a close, that they do get to go back to the island.
01:16:36
Speaker
he sees all of these rescued clones that are now living, including the boys from last week, the more junior clones, all living a peaceful life in coexistence with each other and happy and safe and him being able to finally see some peace for himself as well away from the need to fight.
01:17:03
Speaker
There's also a further development of that, which I think would be a very unpopular opinion, is that maybe Hunter dies.
01:17:15
Speaker
I think that's definitely an option. Maybe Hunter's the one that sacrifices himself for Omega to save the rest of the team. And the redemption story for Crosshair is that he becomes the natural leader.
01:17:35
Speaker
he becomes the leader and it faced the black with Crosshair taking on the Hunter role to protect the community on the island and to make sure that Crosshair vows to continue the work that Hunter had started by providing the safe haven, maybe with or without the help of Echo and
01:18:07
Speaker
Uh, buddy, um, Rex. So I think, so on top of that, I think here's, here's a longer, a long-winded way of saying my post episode for bad batch predictions. Um, so before I do that, I don't, I don't foresee, I don't predict that, uh, crosshair is going to get that ending.
01:18:32
Speaker
From my side, from where I sit, it's like Crosshair's story is, he's a bit of a tragedy. Where he'll have, I feel like he'll have victories and he'll have an arc.
01:18:47
Speaker
But like, to me, the crosshairs story is a is is the struggle for your own agency. Like, you can you can look at the clones and like, oh, we're just following orders. But that's there's like subtext there of like, I have a chip in my head and I'm programmed to do this. We've never been able to be free thinking, whatever, whatever. And I think it's also a story of
01:19:10
Speaker
you know, this even though hunter and wrecker are like a tropes and like they are able to be purely good. Most things in real life are not like you don't change your mind from something you've been said in your ways about or the way you've been programmed to being a good air quotes good person or a new way of thought in a new way of living. I mean, look at look at how real life is, you know,
01:19:37
Speaker
you don't go from one train of thought to maybe a more progressive train of thought overnight. It takes time, conversations, life experience. But I think the crosshair has an atone, he has a sense of atonement there. And the stages of grief, but I think it's his battle for agency, which I think he's still struggling with, of like following orders, doing what needs to get done, a very literal,
01:20:05
Speaker
literal mindset to your point about the island and hunter sacrifice i could very well see that happening hunter being the paternal uh you saw last season with some changes that have happened he's always been the paternal figure to um omega the protector
01:20:24
Speaker
But now that you say this with a hunter sacrifice, that would make me feel like tech is still alive. And I would see tech coming back and his girlfriend on that planet, them almost becoming the parental figures, the mom and dad, and then Brecker's the buddy. And personally, this is me just being really selfish with what I want.
01:20:56
Speaker
crosshair in the picture. Like whether that means he's, like I don't care if he goes off and he fights for the rebellion or whatever, or he goes out with Rex and Echo and the others are like, no, I am a soldier, like this, and now I'm doing it on my own terms. Like, cause I just don't, I don't see him being there and being like, I'm going to protect this island. It's like, cause he's, I think that's where he struggled as his agency of like, they've told me I'm a soldier, this is who I am, these are my skills.
01:21:17
Speaker
I don't see.
01:21:26
Speaker
And but now I would hope he was going through this transition of it's not what I've been told I'm I who I am and what I want to do and what my skill set is. No, this is what I this is how I can help I can apply the person that I've been programmed to be but I'm doing it on my own terms now. No one's telling me what to do.
01:21:46
Speaker
I'm going to go out and fight and for good. Cause I don't, I don't see him being at home and like, Oh, let's go play with the toys or let's raise people. As with many veterans that have gone through PTSD, I would, it would be amazing if he could find some peace. Yeah, absolutely. But you, you, but you could be right. You could be right that, that, that he finds his peace in other ways and that he keeps using the skills that he's, that he has, albeit, um, on the side of, on the side of good. You never know. He might actually be the.
01:22:15
Speaker
in a new hope when that rebel fleet trooper's holding those that he's on Yavin, on the rebel base in Yavin, he's on the top of that. He's monitoring the Millennium Falcon landing. There could be crosshair with a large helmet on, you never know. I love it. And with all that's being said, I'm 100% wrong on all of this. I've never been right on any of my predictions. I mean either.
01:22:46
Speaker
But it is funny to try to apply what my own wishes and a deeper meaning that I would love to see portrayed in something as simple as an animation, where it could be enjoyed simply, but you can also take it
01:23:05
Speaker
and really, really peel it back. And I think there's real mastery in that when it comes to writing, if you can accomplish both, like kids can enjoy it and people who don't want to think deep, but it can also be more. With the exception of resistance, pretty much every other, every animation, so Clone Wars to Rebels, from Rebels to Bad Batch, it's all been interconnected. Excuse me.
01:23:33
Speaker
Excuse me, I was about to sneeze. It's all been interconnected. And I really hope there is something after bad batch, you know, maybe not.
01:23:44
Speaker
six months from now, maybe 12 months from now. There is something quite wholesome about having an animated series in the first place anyway. There's also something quite nice about it because it doesn't seem as high risk or as high tension as the live action programs because they're not
01:24:07
Speaker
they're not judged with so much. There's not as much inspection on them because they are animation. So it seems less risky and they can take some chances. And they've had some, and I really do hope there are stories that come from, from Bad Batch. And I know that, you know, it's not everyone's cup of tea and I get that. I get that. That's the beauty of the amazing palette and portfolio of Star Wars content that we have today is that you can pick and choose what you want.
01:24:36
Speaker
Um But I hope we do get to see and not just at the end of this season I hope we do get to see a little piece of what what? What comes from the end of? Of the bad batch in in a future endeavor Yeah, because I mean they can't do it They can't leave it open ended like what what happened omega is clearly critically important to something Yeah, you can't
01:25:03
Speaker
You can't just sever it completely. I mean, you can, but then be like, Oh, there's files on the computer. We don't need her. We have her data. Like, whatever. I know. I know. I know. I won't be making any fans from this because I'm sure I'll get a little bit of hate from this as well, but there's no, there's no, there's no force users at the moment. I know, I know Ventress is, is, is a few, it looks like here in this season.
01:25:29
Speaker
And that's fine, but at the moment, for the most part, Bad Batch is about the, again, it's the any man or every man story, which I really do like. And it's a lovely, it's a really nice, it's refreshing not to have everyone as a force user and wielding a lightsaber and doing stuff. That said, we know that
01:25:51
Speaker
the experiments going on in Mount Tantus are associated with that. But I'm talking about the characters themselves. These are normalish people doing normalish things. It's like Andor. It's like Andor. It's like you. Yeah, exactly like Andor. The human stories are what's compelling, at least for me, and I think for you as well, because it shows that things aren't black and white. Things are complicated.
01:26:19
Speaker
people transition, things take time, there's gray areas. Like it's not all, like not everybody has the context that these are the bad guys, these are the good guys. And like, and I think that's what I really liked about the Rogue One movie in the first four seconds, he's killing his friend. And it's like, sometimes good is arbitrary and like you look at the goal and
01:26:47
Speaker
the means that we get there are messy. That is not a larger statement of my personal beliefs. Anything like that, I'm just saying, I like the storytelling nuance and shit's complicated.
01:27:01
Speaker
And think, think for yourself and how does it make you feel? How does it push you in different directions? And I think Bad Batch is really, really good at it. And to your point about the animation feeling special and kind of being low risk.
01:27:18
Speaker
I think it's because it subverts expectations. You expect it. And I think Resistance would have gotten there if it had more time. Because if you look at all the animated series, they all start one way. And the next thing you know, it's like, man, I kind of have emotions. And like it's I see the the strings being pulled.
01:27:35
Speaker
And it's because you go in, it's like, oh, she's gonna be dumb cartoon, whatever. And next thing you know, it's like, oh, man, this is like has like real world implications, real emotions, real feelings, real conflict. Yeah. And that's, it's awesome. I love it. I love every minute of it.
01:27:52
Speaker
For sure. No, I'm looking forward to it. I am looking forward to the rest of the season. One question I have for you, and I don't know if, because I can't find it or I didn't look for it, am I right in saying there are typically 20 episodes in a season, but there's a lot more in this season? Is that right? I think it depends, because the last seasons are always, always, they're always different.
01:28:20
Speaker
So this season has 15 episodes. Right. Ending on May 1st. Okay. That doesn't seem like a lot. How funny would it be if Ventress never shows up and it was all just a tease?
01:28:39
Speaker
to me. Yeah. Yeah. They read our show notes.
Main Storyline Predictions
01:28:44
Speaker
There'll be at least one lie, one lie in the, uh, one, some sort of made up bullshit in the, in the trailer somewhere. That'd be fantastic. The bad, 45 episodes this season.
01:28:57
Speaker
So what do you think the main push of the rest of the story is going to have to be Hemlock and his cronies trying to get their hands on Omega again? What do you think the Bad Batch's story is? Apart from running away, of course. What are their stories going to be? Do you think they're going to hook up with
01:29:22
Speaker
with Rex and with Echo because one of the last comments that Omega made was to go back to Tantus to save the other clones. And of course, Rex and Echo are both
01:29:44
Speaker
Saving clones at the moment. That's what that's what they do. So there's got to be a team up at some point, right and rather than What's a warlock rather than hemlock catch up with them They actually can they go back to tantis to confront him. That's where the confrontation happens That's kind of in my mind where I see it going. I
01:30:09
Speaker
I think there has to be some kind of team up at some point. There has to be something in the next 11 episodes to justify Ventress being there. I hope she's not just a bounty hunter. I think that's... Yeah, that would suck. I don't understand how she would just be able to exist.
01:30:32
Speaker
given her past as a bounty hunter among the likes. If they brought in some Boba nonsense, that would be wild. Since the whole Boba and Omega stuff, I think that'd be crazy. And not in a bad way, just like, whoa, did not see that coming. But with the team up, it can't be too big. So it's like, okay, can they
01:30:58
Speaker
I feel like it can't be bigger than Tantus because then that would warrant a response that's big enough to be a bigger story part. Like it can't be a full blown rebellion yet. But I do feel like this is the culminating moment for clones, the leftovers, however you wanna call it. I feel like whatever's gonna happen in this season, I feel like it's going to be the cherry on top of the,
01:31:28
Speaker
clones were more were deeper than just being cloned bad guys. They actually have like a an arc that finishes nicely. I'll be it'd be crazy if it ends up being close to my what I wanted from the rise of Skywalker where it's like, oh, it's like a stormtrooper clone rebellion, but against their their former things. And there's just
01:31:51
Speaker
Because then that gives you a lot of cannon fodder if not, so then you can have that scale and chaos where Warlock or Hemlock is gone and Tantis is destroyed. But the secret data tapes made it out with a little bit of the research, kind of flipping a new hope on its head and Rogue One on its head. But I do think there's going to be a team up. I don't know. I'd love to see Rex and Echo
01:32:17
Speaker
in there with maybe other people that they've come across to be a larger battalion to come and do it. We know from rebels that Rex eventually calls it a day and settles down. No. He jury rigs a walker, an old walker with Wolf. Wolf and Gregor.
01:32:45
Speaker
Gregor, Gregor, he's the nutty guy, right? The guy that goes a little bit. Yeah. At some point, we haven't seen either of those two other clones at some point, and I don't know, it'll be nice connective tissue. I know everything has to connect. It'd be nice to see some connective tissue kind of with those guys as well. Maybe they're at this now.
01:33:12
Speaker
being experimented on and part of the rescue is to save those guys. Maybe part of the PTSD or the troubles that McGregor is demonstrating in Rebels is because of the experimentation on him. Yeah, that's actually a good point. I think you're on to it. I strongly feel like
01:33:40
Speaker
the clones that are left in parentheses are conceptually imprisoned in Tantus. And that will be the culmination. That is the purpose and the culmination of this is like doing justice to the clones that are left. And so then they can all move on with the next chapter of whatever. So I do think that's, hopefully, because you gotta button it all up. You gotta button up the clone wars. You gotta button all these things up where we have all these like millions of people everywhere.
01:34:10
Speaker
And it's like they need that closure to their own story. Cause we can't have the Clone Wars offshoot part three series animated where we're still fighting for clone rights and et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I'm excited. And now I'm actually more excited now that we've talked about it. Like I hadn't thought about
01:34:31
Speaker
really where it ends beyond our individual characters that we have currently. Well, they found their Shangri-La and on the island, right? And we don't see an awful lot of, we don't see any clones in the OT, although you might wanna, some people may argue that Rex was in the Battle of Endor. But the point I'm trying to make is that,
01:34:58
Speaker
I was going to say, the point I was going to make was that ultimately they're not prevalent. And I know they've got accelerated aging, so come Rebels timeframe or the OT timeframe, they are all men. So I guess you could think the worst and assume that they've all passed away, but it would be nice to think that
01:35:29
Speaker
Island is their retirement home. They're often Star Wars
Podcast Reflections and Humorous Anecdotes
01:35:32
Speaker
Portugal just enjoying their beach vacations. Exactly. They put their time in. Exactly. Exactly. I was hoping that I might be able to find out. Oh, we do. We do. Hang on a second. Right. So next week's title. Episode title is The Return.
01:35:58
Speaker
Ooh. March the 6th, 2024, the return. The return of who? Don't know. Or to where? We don't know. We don't know. We're exciting. I know. I'm more excited. I'm excited already, but now it's like, dang. Yeah. I'm more excited.
01:36:28
Speaker
Dang, am I, like, have I come full circle with this podcasting stuff?
Scheduling Challenges and Closing Statements
01:36:32
Speaker
It's like, I used to, I mean, I still do, I still listen to other podcasts to get excited about story beats, but now it's like, now I'm just hyping myself up. Like, now it's just a full circle of like, oh, just talk about it with Andy and now we're hyping our own. This is the point. Let's face it, that's the whole reason for doing this in the first place. The fact that one or two other people might listen as well is a bonus. All right, my friend, another good week.
01:36:57
Speaker
It is a great way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited. Excited to chat about next week. I did have one one thing I wanted. I forgot to tell you earlier. It's very short. It's just the one thing Madison and I were talking. We were had a conversation about like taking people's last names if people get married and whatever. And she's like, Oh, I like the idea of, you know,
01:37:19
Speaker
people who like make up a new one and then like they both just take on the new one. And I'm like, what do you, what do you think about Hathi? We just both take that one on. I like that. She's like, I'd consider it. It's like, yes. Did she, did she, she had no idea what the context was? Oh no, she knows exactly what the context is. Oh, I see. Okay. If we're fine. Um, there's something I forgot to tell you actually before the show. I'm sorry to break this to you actually on the, um, on the, uh,
01:37:49
Speaker
as we're recording now. I'm actually working away next week. I'm working abroad with work next week, so we're going to have to work out what we do next week. It may well have to be the following weekend, so two or three days later than normal, if that works for you, my friend. That actually works perfectly for me.
01:38:10
Speaker
Okay, fine, fine, I don't want to let you down because, and also, selfishly, don't want to lose a week because this is, like I said to you before, this is keeping me sane, so yeah, I don't want to miss it, but I do know that next week is going to be a bit difficult. I might just ring you anyway next Wednesday at a really inconvenient time and ask what you thought, but yeah, I've forgotten I'm actually working away next week. It's going to make my life a little bit tricky. As much as I'd love to, you know, just
01:38:40
Speaker
hang you out to dry on this and make you feel like the bad guy. I'm actually going to be away as well for part of next week too. It's perfect timing. Nothing like airing our dirty washing in public in front of everyone else. Brilliant.
01:38:58
Speaker
Okay, buddy. Well, listen, have an amazing week and we will catch up with everyone. And thank you as always for putting up with our prattling on and our bizarre assumptions of what is going on. Thank you, Sean, if you want to take us out, mate. Thank you everybody for listening. Thank you, Andy, for doing this. You guys know where to find us, justshillin.com. And you all know us anyways, so thanks again and see you next time.
01:39:27
Speaker
Thanks guys, love you.