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Episode 000 - A Potential Pod for Positive People
81 Plays11 months ago
In this inaugural episode of "Just Shillin", join hosts Shawn and Andy on their journey into the podcasting world. This is a special test run where the dynamic duo explores the concept of their brand-new show. Get ready for a laid-back and lighthearted conversation as Shawn and Andy delve into the things they love.
In this episode, the hosts share their enthusiasm for all things Star Wars. From favorite movies to memorable characters, Shawn and Andy discuss their deep connection to the galaxy far, far away. But "Just Shillin" is not just about one topic – it's about embracing positivity and enjoying the things that bring joy.
Join "Just Shillin" for a casual, conversational, and light-hearted podcast experience. Discover what happens when two friends come together to share their love for the things that make life awesome. Episode 0 is just the beginning, so buckle up and get ready for the official launch of "Just Shillin", maybe...
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Purpose
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey there. This is Sean and Andy, and welcome to Just Shilling, a podcast that may or may not happen, which is designed for positive people to discuss all things in fandom that they enjoy. Or not. Or not.
00:00:25
Speaker
I think that sounded good. I think that sounded good. And just for context, just showing is an idea that came between two friends. We just like to chat and hang out. And we're like, you know, we should just like maybe release this. Maybe we'll see. We'll see how it goes. And we're this is rough warts and all. And we're looking for constructive feedback if you have any. Yeah, this is this is it.
00:00:55
Speaker
Excellent. So how are you doing, Sean? Pretty good, man. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. I'm good. Yeah, it's been a rather dark and dreary time over here in the UK at the moment. January is here.
00:01:16
Speaker
We have a long time to look forward to summer vacations or anything like that. So it's all about knuckling down, enjoying the content that we have available at our disposal today and really just cracking on with the drudgery of normal life and work until we can have some fun. But yeah, apart from that, I'm always smiling and trying to stay positive. What about yourself? I think it's about the same over here.
00:01:44
Speaker
In case you didn't know, I'm in Lake Tahoe, California, and it's about the same. It's cold
Hosts' Backgrounds and Friendship Origins
00:01:50
Speaker
and dreary where the snow has started to pick up and buckling down for winter and trying to make my list of content that I want to consume.
00:02:04
Speaker
I try to be active during the warmer months and then the winter months. That's when I binge all of my content and I'm looking forward to some stuff. And I'm also looking forward to some of the things on the horizon, which I'm sure we'll get into.
00:02:19
Speaker
But yeah, same kind of thing. Should we introduce ourselves to people who are familiar? Yeah, when we do this properly, I guess we could have to introduce ourselves and explain who we are and where we come from. Why don't you shoot as a veteran of our wonderful fan community? Why don't you introduce yourself first, my friend?
00:02:44
Speaker
Well, first of all, I'm flattered that you call me a veteran of the community. I mean, I still feel like an outsider in a newbie, but that's flattering to hear. But I'll jump right in.
00:02:57
Speaker
I'm, my name is Sean Hoffman. You may have heard my name throughout miscellaneous podcasts and things like that. I usually, up until now I've tended to stay in the background and build websites and do all sorts of other stuff for my friends. But after meeting Andy and in London, you know, we kind of hit it off and found
00:03:25
Speaker
found our conversations therapeutic. So we decided to just kind of keep maybe formalize it a little bit. Maybe we'll see. But yeah, I I'm in the US. I'm California. I love to build websites and things like that and do other goofy stuff. And I love Star Wars and other pop culture content. And I love talking about it. I love talking about the positive aspects, the
00:03:52
Speaker
kind of breaking it down. I love kind of like theorizing like in the middle of a season, just talking about like what we think is going to happen. Talking about upcoming movies and content and stuff like that. Yeah, that's that's kind of where I'm at. What about you, Andy? Tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I'm based in the UK. I'm a father of two adult daughters now.
00:04:18
Speaker
happily married for approaching 30 years next year, which probably explains why I don't take stuff too seriously because you can't. This is where we answered the clapping. Congratulations. Yay. But yeah, I mean, I've forever been a fan of many, many different types of sci-fi fantasy
00:04:45
Speaker
criminology, crime stories, many, many different types of media, but obviously my first love is Star Wars.
00:04:59
Speaker
I saw it when I was five years old in the cinema. I'm that old that I saw A New Hope in the cinema. I remember it as if it was yesterday, and it really did influence my life and who I wanted to be, and actually maybe one or two, even some career decisions, certainly on the education side of things. I very much been, like yourself, very much felt as if I've been in the background, and in fact, I was quite happy to be quite
00:05:28
Speaker
comfortably anonymous in the community for quite a few years actually. And it was only, so I followed many, many, many podcasts that I felt were like-minded, didn't take themselves too seriously, was stoked about content, had a very positive and demeanor about their fandom. And like I said, most importantly didn't take themselves or indeed the media itself too seriously.
00:05:58
Speaker
and very, very happy just to remain anonymous for quite a few years. And I'm going all the way back from perhaps one of the first podcasts I listened to was maybe 2013, 2014, so at least a year prior to the new Disney content. And I was happy in my blissful
00:06:27
Speaker
And I'm in anonymity. That's the word I need to. You're in your safe space, your safe space of being comfortable. Yeah. Listening, listening, listening to these pods when I, on a weekly basis, when I, when I walked the dog or, or, or drove, or drove, drove to work. And it was during lockdown. So lockdown came and, um, I made the, I made the, the, the, the, I'm a big boy now and I made a break brave decision.
00:06:52
Speaker
to start reaching out to a few folks and say, hey, listen, I've been listening to you for, you know, four or five years. I think what you're doing is pretty great. Let's connect on, on, on, on what was Twitter or Discord or so on and so forth. And it's really started there. Again, very much in the periphery, but making these kinds of connections. And during one of my favorite people, let alone podcasts,
00:07:19
Speaker
was the bad motivators and Eric from the bad motivators. I think when he was gaming on Twitch made an introduction between you and I because we were both going to celebration and I was as nervous as hell. You know, I'm probably one of the oldest people within our group as it were, but I was as nervous as a schoolboy on his first day
00:07:47
Speaker
going to school, meeting you guys. And you made it very, very easy for me to join the team or to get involved. And I met up with all of you in celebration. We had a great time during the day, enjoying the event and parted pretty hard in the evening as well. And I really came away from that thinking, these are my people.
00:08:14
Speaker
I
Motivation and Community Engagement
00:08:15
Speaker
missed you all a great deal when celebration was over and so I wanted to make an effort to kind of sustain the friendship that I felt was growing and you and I have spoken either with
00:08:30
Speaker
with others in the community or just face-to-face on our own since celebration. And the opportunity to kind of galvanize our conversation in this kind of format is great. Because like I said, I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself, you're a like-minded person that you just love the stuff that we're getting, the stuff that you like, the stuff that you don't like.
00:08:58
Speaker
the stuff that you're indifferent about, but ultimately, you're generally quite a positive person. And quite frankly, like I said, don't take yourself all the content too seriously. So that's me. That's me. And that's what you're saying. I think it's coming away from celebration. Like I was extremely motivated as well to kind of maintain those relationships because like I've always joked about it in the past. It's like, yeah, I have a lot of friends, but very few friendships.
00:09:29
Speaker
where it's like, yeah, you can count the number of people, but the number that you actively engage with and feel like you're actually having a real, like a true conversation is pretty limited, especially given the lockdowns and given just the general state of where different people's lives are at. And so I know after London, I
00:09:49
Speaker
I really wanted to make a focused and conscious effort to continue to stay engaged, not just on social media, because that's kind of that friend realm where it's like, yeah, people like your tweets or give you a thumbs up reaction or whatever. But that's not real engagement. That's not real back and forth discussions. And I know that we all engage differently and engage in different areas. But I think when you find that group of people
00:10:19
Speaker
that are not just like-minded, because I think there's individuals who maybe aren't as like-minded, but they can engage the same way. They're open and willing to have a constructive conversation where you're not getting hateful, you're not putting your emotions into it too much, and you can hear dissenting opinions
00:10:41
Speaker
And it's all good fun. Yeah, yeah. Like-minded people doesn't necessarily mean they agree with every word you're saying. I mean, a disagreement is a healthy thing. Getting other people's ideas or other people's takes on a situation is actually quite smart because it may give you a different perspective on something that you may not have considered before.
00:11:10
Speaker
When I mean like-minded people, I'm talking about whether they agree with me or not. They're respectful. Like I said, they don't take themselves too seriously. And ultimately, it's all about one of the things that I've taken away from this community, from this team, is that
00:11:31
Speaker
is that it's okay to not like something. And similarly, it's okay when you don't like something to really enjoy somebody else's pleasure in something that you may not agree with or you may not like yourself. And that, I think, is wonderful. And that's one of the things that I feel so blessed that I found a group of folk that
00:11:57
Speaker
respect each other, which I think it sounds really simple, but it seems to be so rare. My social media presence is zero. I'm only on social media to connect with the people that I engage with. I'm not there to grow my
00:12:16
Speaker
to grow my followers. I'm not that. I don't necessarily want or to be honest with you, I'm not the type of demographic or profile to have a huge social media presence. And I'm cool with that. I mean, it's
00:12:32
Speaker
my number of followers are the same as the number of people that I follow, which is kind of binary, but that kind of suits me. The reason why I'm really excited about doing this pod is that I get to talk to you, mate, and for posterity, we're going to record it and see what happens, which I think is great. Yeah, and same, like 100%. I think another angle for me is,
00:13:01
Speaker
I think after lockdowns and I think, I mean for context, my partner hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. It's a trail from Mexico to Canada last summer. It took about five, six months and so at the same time I was off of work and one of the things that I kind of took away from that is
00:13:23
Speaker
It's like you need, the reason, one of the reasons I'm excited to do the pod too is the repetition and kind of the schedule and the routine of it. Um, because I think after that last year of just kind of realizing if you don't have something to like pull you, if you don't have that routine, it's very easy to get stuck in a rut.
00:13:42
Speaker
and allow that to spiral everything around you. When you don't have that sense of time or anything forced that forcing function of, hey, I'm supposed to be meeting with somebody today. And then so with this, it's kind of combining both of those worlds, a little bit of like, hey, you know, let's set up some responsibility here, Sean, let's get a routine going. To do something that you enjoy, it's not like you don't enjoy it, but as somebody who tends to err on the side of,
00:14:11
Speaker
not starting something unless I've got a routine going. This will be huge. It's already paying dividends, just forcing that habit of communicating more and not just hiding behind the screen or saying, yeah, we'll do it that day. That's really cool.
00:14:35
Speaker
And in addition to that, because I do, I like you, it's very easy to let months, weeks and months go by without having any genuine engagement with folk. Work is quite transactional. The work I do is quite transactional. Yeah.
00:14:58
Speaker
And because of, I mean, I was doing hybrid working for quite a few years actually before lockdown, but it's even more so now in that I rarely, very rarely these days go into the office anymore. So I'm very, very remote, like yourself. And it's very easy to wake up one morning and you know, we're in March and it's like, goodness me, I haven't spoken to anyone. And then on that point, actually speaking to people, like-minded people about the stuff that I like,
00:15:28
Speaker
I never do it. I never ever do it. I love my family with all their heart, with all my heart, sorry. And they're very tolerant of their old dad.
00:15:40
Speaker
they're not into the stuff that I'm into. I mean, they think it's kind of quaint that their old dad is into spaceships and laser swords, but they're not into it. And even my friends in the UK that I grew up with and I went to university with or I work with, they know what I like, but I can't have a discussion with them. It's
00:16:06
Speaker
It's a very superficial discussion or a very light discussion that I can have with them. I can't get them into the nuance of the aesthetics of the way that Andor looked. I can't talk about
00:16:21
Speaker
people getting upset about brickwork on the walls or screws. I can't go into that kind of depth, which is the reason why I like this. I like this kind of engagement with someone like yourself.
00:16:41
Speaker
And those relationships are pre-existing. They are what they are, and you already have that context. But when you can come in and meet and discuss things with people who like our first introduction, which besides the thank you, thank you Eric Strawthers for introducing us onto your Twitch channel.
00:16:59
Speaker
He's like, Hey, you should get the nose guy. That's like, I can't even pronounce his screen name. So I'll give it a shot. And then meeting up randomly at the hotel bar. Like our first context is like, Hey, this person like Star Wars. I'm like, Yeah, like it, we don't have, we could be completely different in every aspect
00:17:19
Speaker
of society, belief systems, whatever. But it's like, if you can come
Travel Plans and Advice for Japan
00:17:23
Speaker
into a room and say, hey, this person likes Star Wars or likes whatever content, like you can really deeply engage in that way. But it only goes so far. Yeah, for sure. And that's where certain groups fit. Exactly. I mean, it only goes so far. I mean, this person loves Star Wars, that's kind of an entry.
00:17:41
Speaker
you know, that's kind of an entry, that's an entry to having a conversation. And you know, as well as I do that there are there are folks that that we may or may not engage with anymore, that you have a conversation and it's like, well, not for me, we don't we don't know, no, no, no, no, but you know, I'm trying to say is that is that I mean, there are there are a bunch of folk years and years ago that I used to follow.
00:18:07
Speaker
And I followed them because Star Wars was their gig. And over time, their values, I didn't perhaps appreciate it. So what I'm trying to say is that, and I'm doing a really bad job of it, is that Star Wars is the entry point, but there's so much more
00:18:34
Speaker
depth into the friendship that you and I have got, for example, now where it goes way beyond it. We can talk about anything, you know, what the weather's like and it's that kind of
00:18:47
Speaker
It's kind of beyond Star Wars now, if that makes any sense. It's like the gateway. It's like the gateway to a conversation. And as you continue to work through that, even if you just look through the lens of Star Wars, just the way that people discuss the films, what they see in it, how they see themselves, and what they're interested in, you start to slowly discern like, yeah, this person's
00:19:14
Speaker
not not really something I want to engage with or you know it leads it leads to more and I think that we see that within the community that we're in you just see like the the level of friendships and stuff that have that have been formed I mean even even beyond friendships for some people
00:19:31
Speaker
which is wow, it's like congratulations. It's crazy to kind of take a step back and go, all of this, it's not a huge community, but it's big enough that these kind of friendships and stuff are forming. If you would have asked me 10 years ago if I thought something like this was possible, I would have kind of like laughed you out of the room, because Star Wars was always something to me that I just kind of kept close to the chest a little bit. Not as an embarrassing thing, but I enjoyed it.
00:20:01
Speaker
Passionately so much like so much that I didn't really want anybody else To to kind of affect it or like kind of ruin it or and really I was just I was kind of comfortable with it being my own my own thing My own thing that I dug into like these are these are my action figures. This is this I'm reading these books like this is my own little world that I live in but then having that Expanded and kind of the dorms blown off And saying like hey, there's other people
00:20:29
Speaker
that maybe don't fit a stereotype in whatever. And you can have all these different world views and all these different thought processes and all different walks of life. And it's like, wow, and we can actively engage and hang out and do all this. I would have never thought it possible. So I'm extremely grateful to all of it. Yeah, likewise. Almost carbon copy. I thought that Star Wars was my little
00:20:57
Speaker
my little hobby, as my wife likes to put it, my little hobby, and she tolerates me and lets me go off and play with my dollies. I honestly was, again, in this blissful influence, but my life is so much richer from having these kind of relationships and these engagements. So tell me, we met at Celebration. Tell me your thoughts about Japan. Are you doing Japan?
00:21:27
Speaker
I'm absolutely doing Japan. I say that now and tickets haven't come out yet because I know that for London, I had a really hard time getting tickets, getting a four-day. I wasn't able to get a four-day. I had to get individual days and it was quite painful.
00:21:47
Speaker
For Japan, we are planning on going. Madison and I are both planning on going. She'll probably go to like one or like she says one day or an afternoon celebration, but I'm hoping to go for the full three days, hoping to stay close to the con.
00:22:06
Speaker
I've been to a handful of celebrations now and starting in, my first one that I truly kind of went to was Orlando. And I did the whole like Airbnb miles and miles away. And I can say that that genuinely affected my experience negatively. So then the following, the next celebration in Chicago,
00:22:30
Speaker
Or was it, whichever one was next, I stayed like a little bit closer. And then in Anaheim, I was in Chicago, I stayed a little bit closer, like within walking distance. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can go like, I can be more engaged. I can go back to the hotel. I can like walk to these events where people are hanging out and doing stuff like, all right, this is better. Like it goes hand in hand with like kind of getting more and more involved with the community. And then finally in Anaheim, I stayed like right in the hotel, like
00:23:00
Speaker
like 100 yards or whatever that is in meters away from the entrance, so I could just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, walk in and out. It was- You mean London? No, this was in Anaheim. Oh, wow. Then in London, I carried that forward and I was like, I have to stay close. I couldn't believe how close you were.
00:23:20
Speaker
I was, I was only disappointed that they didn't have the far doors open. So I actually had to go out like one end and kind of do this. Like they had a bunch of construction going on, but that was a, that was a game changer too of like, Oh my gosh, I could, I could go buy stuff and then I could walk to the hotel, drop it off and I could come back with nothing to, okay, we're getting ready to go out and go to the bars. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna go take my backpack and all this stuff, drop it in the hotel, maybe lay face first on my bed for five minutes and then leave with nothing. And I'm, I'm ready to go.
00:23:50
Speaker
Um, and so that's the plan again for Japan, hopefully, as long as hotels are, it looks like there's a lot of hotels available in that area, but that's kind of the game. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, I'm in a very similar position in that I'm definitely looking for hotels on site or as close to site as I possibly can. Unfortunately, it would have been great if Lucy, my wife was coming with us and she, sorry, coming with me.
00:24:19
Speaker
and she was really, really up for it, but she's, I'm very proud of her actually. She's retrained, so she's gone back to university and she's training to be an accountant. Nice. And she's already passed her, I can't remember what they call her, if you like her remedial qualifications so that she's officially kind of like an accountant, but she wants to kind of,
00:24:47
Speaker
get to kind of CFO type of training. And she's got her finals that year and only a month or so after celebration. So she's going to be head down and studying. So I'm definitely coming to Japan. However, I will be a whistle-stop tour and I will feel like crap at the end of it because I'll probably fly in a day before and I'll probably fly out the day after simply because
00:25:17
Speaker
If I go to Japan, yes, I want to see all the sights and sounds, but I want to do it with my wife. So I'm coming in. I'm coming in exclusively for celebration to hook up with you guys. So the closer to the venue I can get, it'll be perfect for me. So is she wanting to go into accounting so she can like rein in your Star Wars spending? Like figure out how to... She's already done a good job. The thing is, I'm not very good at collecting.
00:25:46
Speaker
I mean, I've already stopped collecting an awful lot of stuff because it was kind of getting out of hand. And I've got no room left, quite frankly. But I'm not a very good collector anyway. So I think I shared with you guys a while ago, I've literally gotten rid of a lot of my
00:26:08
Speaker
collection, both my original collection from when I was a kid and my, and the recent, you know, when black series came out, it blew my mind. So I'm going to get them all, gotta get them all. And I gave them away to charity. And my wife is more, more angry that I gave them away to charity than I, than, than, cause I, she's, she's, you know, she's quite rightly, he said, you should have flipped them, but I can't be, I can't be bothered with a hassle.
00:26:36
Speaker
So a lot of them I gave away to charity rather than sell them on eBay and at least get a bit of a return on the original investment. But no, I can't be done with that kind of stress. So she's not impressed with me at all.
00:26:56
Speaker
I apologize for taking us off of Japan and I'll make a note so we can talk about collecting because as you can, I'm sure you can see behind me, I have similar stories of collecting and always adjusting, always adjusted and kind of evolving strategies of how I'm going to fit stuff in this room and get rid of things. But yeah, it's complicated for sure. You've got a lot of guitars, my friend. You've got a lot of guitars.
00:27:23
Speaker
Yeah, I hear that a lot from from from the missus. Yeah, yeah, they're cool. I like them. For about for Japan. So what's interesting about Japan to go back to that? I feel I feel uniquely kind of comfortable with it because I actually just got back from my first Japan trip in what I went I go October or November of last year.
00:27:51
Speaker
Um, so I'm hoping much doesn't change, uh, from that, but I'm feeling, feeling quite comfortable. I'm, I keep trying to like sit down and get my notes together to share with everybody, um, specifically about things like the train, how the trains work and how, because I, I kind of see some early conversations of people talking about like, Oh, I'd love to go, I'd love to go do this. And it's like, it's only like a two or three hour train ride. And.
00:28:17
Speaker
And like, I'll inject my opinion and stuff there and be like, you know, like, there's, uh, there's a lot to do in Japan. And like, depending, I would, I would kind of recommend to people, like kind of identify like the areas of things that you want to do. Like, Oh, I want to go look at like Edo period stuff, or I want to go look at gardens. I want to go look at this. I want to go do Disney, but not the specifics. And then I'd work around the area that you have, unless you're going to go for like two or three weeks and have at it, go, go buck wild.
00:28:47
Speaker
But I think that's, instead of trying to do like day trips, like, oh yeah, the trains are fast and they're really far, they go really far, but you don't want to spend your whole time on trains. They are super useful. Well, we know someone that might want to spend the entire day on a train. Shout out to Catherine. Yes. And I was going to, I was going to say to her, I'm like, I'm afraid that she's not going to leave. Like they're going to have the mega leave, like, cause it's, it's pretty, it's pretty wild. The train systems there are something. I mean, I was amazed with London's train system.
00:29:18
Speaker
But then going to Japan, it's like this is this is a different level. Yeah. Especially coming from the U.S. where our trains are usually freight, especially up here in the mountains or Amtrak, which is which I've ridden. I've done that. And it's meant to was a fun time, but it's not it's nothing close to what what you guys have over there. But yeah, I mean, the scale is slightly different. I mean, we're a very small country. It's a very, very small country.
00:29:48
Speaker
And we've got more, we've probably got more cars than we actually have space, which is the reason why the government is trying to develop, very badly I might add, the rail infrastructure a little bit, but I'm not going to get into politics. We've got an election coming up this year and I'm hoping it's an opportunity for change, but that's for another day to talk about politics in the UK.
00:30:14
Speaker
About say we have an election year this year too. So, yeah. And I too don't want to talk about it. So, uh, that's, we'll, we'll leave that one there. Um, but yeah, you said you were going to Japan, you're going to go for the couple of days, like the smart day before day after. It's going to hurt. It's going to hurt. There's going to be some pretty crappy jet lag. So what I'll try and do is to try and throttle my, my
00:30:43
Speaker
partying accordingly to make sure I can stay as close as I possible. You're shaking your head. I know I'm not very good at that. But I'll try and do the right thing. Try and stay hydrated. Try to find a medium between what is true nighttime and when people are asleep in Japan and what the time is over in the UK to kind of
00:31:07
Speaker
not put my body clock too much out of kilter. But listen, we'll see. I can always rest when I get back. I'm not too bothered about it. It's going to be fine. Yeah, I'm about to say there's water in beer. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily call it hydrating. I'm fine for four days then. I'm absolutely fine. That's all I need. You're good to go. I mean, we survived London. And that was in your backyard and other people's old stomping grounds. And
00:31:34
Speaker
We all made it out of there. Like I somehow made it back to my hotel by myself on some nights. So not really sure how I did, but I see what happens. I do remember you. I do remember leaving one or two taxis and you would go one way. I'd go the other and I'm thinking to myself, is he all right?
00:31:56
Speaker
Is he okay? I made it somehow. All I had to do is just keep going back to celebration. It's like I'm just going back to celebration and then my hotel was right there. That's another reason why you stay close. Exactly. It's just so easy. So tell me about the... So yeah, I think it's good that we've got Japan on the radar. That's something really to look forward to. I guess we've got what, maybe three, maybe four months before tickets come out, at which point it's going to be a chaotic dash to
00:32:26
Speaker
to try and book as many tickets as we possibly can. I do hope, I do hope, is it Reapop? Do it? I think Reapop is still doing it, I believe. Right. I really hope they get the queuing system sorted out. I don't mean queuing for the
00:32:47
Speaker
tickets for the, uh, uh, yeah, I'm not talking about the, for the, for the events during the celebration. I'm actually talking for the tickets themselves because you actually bought your tickets before I did. And yet I was able to get a full weekend pass, which is crazy, which is, which is crazy. They, they, they seem to, again, they seem to just drip feed, drip feed batches of, of these type of tickets. Did you get yours resale or, or no, no, no, no.
00:33:15
Speaker
got it direct from the site. It was a relatively painless process as well, which is weird. I don't know whether it was because they identified that I was dialing in from you. Dialing in. God, what year are we in? I had a UK IP address. I got no idea. No idea at all. But it seemed to be very, very painless, which was great and was very, very lucky.
00:33:43
Speaker
But yeah, but yeah, I do hope I do. I'm thinking my thoughts are that it's probably going to be in like April or May when tickets drop. Yeah, I'm basing that on nothing more than just past experience, but celebrations have changed a million times and we'll see. I'm anxiously awaiting it. I'm actually. With Japan, I'm actually more anxious about getting the tickets because like you can't really do anything until.
00:34:10
Speaker
Like I can't commit until I have them because you never know. And I think a lot of that comes from my experience with going to Japan before, not that there's any correlation between the two of these, but when trying to get tickets for like Tokyo Disney, all of their systems were online that you couldn't call. It was very specific windows of openings and then queuing.
00:34:36
Speaker
And it was always on Japan time. And so that was just doing that like day backwards time calculation is just something that I'm apparently not good at. And then it was also, it's like not to get all technical about it, but it's like the servers were in Japan. So when it's everybody's racing and I'm going from the US to Japan and like that, that, that lag time and that latency there really kind of made it painful. Cause you I'd be there just.
00:35:03
Speaker
and it load and everything's gone immediately. It's like, oh, come on. So I think I just have like a, not that I'm not, I don't think I'm going to get something, but it's just kind of that like anxiety around, I wonder what it's going to be like is repop going to be
00:35:20
Speaker
more prepared than they have been in the past. It does seem to get better each year. I know that's like relative, but I'm anxious to get tickets so we can start booking stuff and go and perform with that. Yeah, we can start, you know, we can start actually seeing it. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you. You know, start touching and feeling it and it feeling, it feeling real. I also wonder, I do wonder how busy it will be. Now,
00:35:47
Speaker
If you think about London being relatively accessible from the whole of mainland Europe and also a huge contingent, although not as big, obviously bigger, a huge contingent from the US came and obviously our Australian friends, well, they'll go anywhere. If it was in Iceland, they'd be there. They go anywhere, you know, they have tickets and they will travel. It's what they do.
00:36:13
Speaker
But I do wonder what the uptake will be in Japan. And I'm guessing it's relatively accessible actually from West Coast, US. Yeah, that's not bad. What is it? Seven or eight hour flight? Something like that? That's about an eight hour flight, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eight and a half. Eight and a half if you're going kind of, yeah, nobody an hour flight.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah. So in that case, I wonder how many folk from Europe will go because it's talking about a 15 hour flight. Well, from London anyway, I guess it's going to be the further east you go. So France, Germany, Poland, et cetera, et cetera. The further east you go, it's going to be less, but it's
00:37:02
Speaker
It's a relatively, it's a relatively, well, medium hall, I guess you'd call it. I just, I just wonder, I just wonder. And of course it's, it's, it's, I don't know what it's like for you guys, but they're not cheap tickets either. No, they're not, they're not cheap tickets. And that, and that's, that's one of the things that I, my, kind of my running theory on it is, is that I think it's, I think it's still going to be packed. I think it's going to be, especially with it being only, only three days instead of the four.
00:37:31
Speaker
I think we'll see a different group, but I think there's gonna be a lot of people who...
00:37:38
Speaker
this is gonna be one of those, it's gonna be a big trip. This is similar to what they always say about, I don't know if the comparison makes it over there or not, but they always compare Disneyland in California to Disney World in Florida, where Disneyland's pretty accessible, and it's each a smaller park, and this and this, but Disney World in Florida, that's where people, when people go there internationally, that's a big trip. They've been saving for it, and it better be great because they've hung a lot of expectations on it.
00:38:25
Speaker
So Disneyland was the original. It's basically two parks and it has a lot of property, but it's kind of walled in by the city of Anaheim. There's hotels and roads all around it. Disney World was developed later and they bought an absolute monstrosity of property. So it's kind of more insulated
00:38:33
Speaker
I think that's going to be this for Japan in a lot of ways.
00:38:47
Speaker
It's got water parks and things like that. As a fun side note, that's actually where Madison and I met when we both worked there in the college program in Disney World. I could tell you all sorts of fun stuff about it, but yeah, Disney World is huge. I've never ever understood the conte. I've never, I just kind of
00:39:09
Speaker
I just kind of assumed that they wouldn't call it Disney Land 2 or Disneyland East Coast, Disneyland West Coast. It should be called Disney Swamp because it's in Florida. It's basically all swamp land that they pumped water out of, but I digress. That's really cool. Japan, I think there's going to be... I think there's a lot of expectations for people who do, because it's going to be expensive.
00:39:38
Speaker
And I think the other thing that has me excited and anxious about the tickets coming out, because I think that's when plans will start to solidify for groups and people. Because I think up until that point, everybody's gonna be like, I don't know, maybe. We'll see how it shakes out.
00:39:55
Speaker
Because ticket prices change every celebration too. So if the tickets come out and the prices have doubled, who knows? I don't know what they're going to be. And then people start seeing that. It starts becoming real. You start going into the hotel blocks and going, whoa, that's expensive. I'm optimistic right now. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to go. I'm going to be there.
00:40:16
Speaker
If it's insane, then I mean, we're all we're all kind of at that. Yeah, exactly. At the whim of of the price setting. So I'm excited and anxious for that time to come. And until then,
Cultural Perspectives on Road Trips
00:40:27
Speaker
I will just keep going. Well, it's been radio. It's been radio silence until then. Exactly. Exactly. And I've always got a back. I've always thought about having a backup plan anyway. And the backup plan is if this is just economically not doable. Damn it. I'll wait for Lucy to finish her exams.
00:40:45
Speaker
and we'll get a flight over to the States and start visiting people. That's my backup plan if Japan is not in any way viable. Now, it's going to have to be pretty extreme because I'm very much committed to going, but that would be my backup is to get on a plane, get a Winnebago or something and experience the length and breadth of... Do some Sean Hoffman type of driving.
00:41:15
Speaker
I was about to say, I've done that drive more times, like too many times. I've actually done cross-country trips twice in the last two years, which is two more times than I really thought I would. But yeah. See, as a Brit, that is the dream. That is the dream. As a Brit, that is exactly the dream. I mean, if you're going to do any type of road trip or go any...
00:41:43
Speaker
All of us, if you ask anyone in the UK, if you had, if money was no object and you had to do a road trip, where would you do it? Everyone says the US. Everyone does in the UK. That is the dream. Is it because of size? Yeah, size. But also the magnificence of the whole thing. It's a little bit like, you can go from seasons within one country. You can go from
00:42:12
Speaker
different terrains from the most beautiful forests to the most extreme of deserts within the same country. And it's relatively, relatively accessible. Do you understand what I mean? It's a little bit like, I mean, I've spent some time in New Zealand and New Zealand's like a, reminds me of a mini version, but not, sorry, the guys from my Kiwi friends will start battering me for these comments, but you've got
00:42:42
Speaker
the two islands in New Zealand, you've got again these little microclimates that are very, very different to each other. And you can again be snowboarding of peaks in the morning and basking in the sun in the afternoon within a relatively accessible timeframe. But yeah, I mean, Route 66, all that stuff,
00:43:04
Speaker
Love it. Love that stuff. Well, we can't talk too highly of New Zealand because that's actually somewhere that Madison would like to live. And so I kind of have to like tamp that down a little bit. So we don't want to speak too highly of it. Although it would put me closer to Japan and our Australian friends.
00:43:24
Speaker
But yeah, the road trip thing is interesting. Route 66, yeah. I think even if Japan works out, I think we gotta start not planning. Let's not go that far. But let's just, let's say you and Lucy come over and we'll meet you guys down in SoCal. We'll meet all the SoCal people.
00:43:43
Speaker
We can road trip across the country hitting all our friends. I got the root down pretty much by this point. I know where a lot of people are along the way. I try to stop and visit them when we can. Yeah, that's cool. No, we won't bring the cats this time though. I won't make you suffer too bad. They can stay home. That was interesting for sure.
00:44:08
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. You surprised me when I saw the photographs of you with the cats on your road trip. But I must admit when you originally post them, I thought, Oh, he must be taking them to the kennels. He must be taking them to wherever. And then like a week or so later, you got more photographs of
00:44:29
Speaker
the cats in the car. They're still there. And they're
Star Wars: Content and Industry Challenges
00:44:32
Speaker
still there. And then you get the photographs of the cats in your hotel room. And I was thinking, holy crap, he's actually taken the cats with him on this road trip. And you did explain, it was a last minute, last minute preparations. And they're good cats. They were quite chilled, very chilled. They did all right. They're pretty chill cats as it is. And we don't have too many issues with them.
00:44:59
Speaker
I mean, I don't know what their final thoughts are on how it went. I think they're happy to be home. I mean, it's not something I'm going to be like, cause it's not like we were in a camp or anything. If, if, if we had like a motor home or some RV or something like that, that we could like a Winnebago just to go across. I think that'd be different, but like cruising, cruise across the country in a, in a regular car with the cats, that was.
00:45:23
Speaker
Interesting, especially since it was the last minute and going across like we didn't know what we need. We were going to multiple places and then coming back from the holidays, too. And we had like gifts from the holidays. And man, you should have seen you should have seen that trunk because we had everything all Tetris in there like like a puzzle and then like a blanket over the top so the cats couldn't get in. And it was it was wild. I don't think I'm going to do that again anytime soon. But it was an interesting experience for sure. Awesome.
00:45:51
Speaker
Awesome. So we've talked about Japan. Well, we've introduced ourselves. We've explained why we're doing this. In fact, we did it the wrong way around, but as we originally talked about, we've done that. We've talked about what we've been up to. We've talked about Japan.
00:46:07
Speaker
What news are you excited about at the moment? What are you watching at the moment? What are you excited about? And I'm asking the question across everything, you know, across everything at the moment, not just
00:46:23
Speaker
our mutual love for Star Wars, which is, of course, there's some great news there as well. But across everything, what's really on your radar at the moment in the horrible, well, in my world anyway, in the horrible dreary month of January, what's going on in your brain at the moment? I think the big things are obviously the low hanging fruit there, which is the news about the Mando movie. Yeah.
00:46:50
Speaker
that's exciting, kind of, I won't say it was expected, but it's not surprising, but I'm excited for it. I'm excited to see it on the big screen. I'm excited to see if it's, like I won't be disappointed if it's not, like if it's just a really long, I won't be disappointed if it's just a really long episode of The Mandalorian, but at a movie theater, that'll like, that's like, that's the bar for me. It's like, if it's that,
00:47:17
Speaker
Great, that's awesome, I'm excited. If it's more than that, if it's bigger budgets, more special effects, more engagement, so it's less of a TV show and more like a movie production, that'll be cool. But just to see the difference between those two and what they can really do without kind of the television budget and production schedule, I'm really excited for that. I think that'll be really neat.
00:47:45
Speaker
how that all shakes out with everything else in the pipeline, I'm fine with. I'm excited for all of it, what stays, what goes, whatever. I'm just excited for more content. I certainly think it's a safe bet for Disney. I don't care what we get, to be honest with you, as long as we get it.
00:48:10
Speaker
with Fedwell and with Mandalorian. I wasn't so keen on season three, but again, I graze and I like some things. I don't like others. The rest of the time I make my own headcount, but I'm blissful in that kind of ignorance. But it's
00:48:32
Speaker
It's a, they need to, they need to, let's address the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is that the, the fan base has been quite sometimes dysfunctional in terms of, in terms of its support for Star Wars and very opinionated. And we, you know, we, we want our certain, our Star Wars serve to us a certain way.
00:48:59
Speaker
depending on individual tastes and other people have different tastes of others, which has created friction between disparate groups within the fandom. And quite frankly, I think I've said this before in other pods, the Mandalorian was one of those things that brought everyone together and everyone thought, my goodness, this is actually really, really good. But mostly it expanded beyond the fandom.
00:49:28
Speaker
It's one, it's a, it's a series that my wife, my children joined me in watching and they'd never watch anything more, should we say cerebral, like not so much Andor, cause my wife did enjoy Andor was a drama in itself, uh, despite the fact that it was Star Wars, but they'd never be interested in any of the other, should we say, um, productions that we've had. And it's all down to, you know, the relationship between
00:49:57
Speaker
Din Djarin and Grogu, and it's a safe bet. And if Star Wars is going to be successful in the cinemas, they can't just appeal to the sentiment of the fanbase. They've got to get the regular viewer in. They've got to get that family money in. And they have that in Grogu. I'm excited about the
00:50:25
Speaker
the old Republic film that may well be coming out. I'm excited about other things, but they're not the kind of subject matter that would excite my wife, for example, excite my children or for them to want to come with me. And I think it's a smart move, I really do. And also in the advent of, shall we say, declining or at least static growth in subscription services these days, getting a bit of return on investment as opposed to
00:50:53
Speaker
a TV show being relied upon to grow subscribers. I think it's a smart move and you never know. It might be released at cinemas and at Disney Plus at the same time. It's happening at the moment with other subscription services, but I'm looking forward to it and I'll be
00:51:13
Speaker
And I think I spoke with the scruffy guy, the scruffy looking podcasters at the weekend just gone and we were talking about this. And I think it's a good sebway into leading up to that Avengers moment as well. So A, it's reminding, in my mind, reminding moviegoers who Grogo is and what he's about and his relationship with this gunslinger.
00:51:40
Speaker
which is almost like giving a run-up to the Avengers moment that we believe is going to be the Filoni film. I mean, I spoke way too long with the Scruffies the other day, and I want to go into all of that, but I am looking forward to it. I really am. I think you hit the nail on the head there in regards to it being a safe bet. I say that
00:52:07
Speaker
Meaning that it that's not that's not a bad thing like yeah, I know I know there's been times where where people will Will will will feel like we're we're taking things away like they're taking things away from people like oh, we're pushing this movie out We're pulling this forward. We're doing this as a movie now and
00:52:26
Speaker
Like, I try not to hang my heart on the stuff too much and be disappointed, because I know it's gonna come, something is gonna come eventually, because it's gonna keep making money. And at the end of the day, they think these places, they are businesses, they are, they're gonna do what makes sense. And to me, like with my personal experience with projects and things, and I'm sure other people can relate to this as well, but like this immediately screams to me,
00:52:54
Speaker
okay, we're in tough financial times, economic times, we can't be spending big, big money bucks on big money films. Let's go with something like, there's like the big wigs and then like the leadership for the Star Wars and they're like, all right, let's give them something that's cheaper, but also a big win. So then when things level out, we can do the big stuff that we wanna do. It's kind of that balance between creative and business of,
00:53:23
Speaker
Let's push out maybe maybe push other things out bring other things forward bump bump Mandalorian up Mandalorian Grogu up and so it's not like we're losing anything just the timelines are changing and I think that's while it sucks like the the my initial like I call it my three-year-old reaction where I kind of go man I'm like I want it I want it now at the same time you got you I have to kind of stop and go
00:53:48
Speaker
but we're getting so much and like, I'd rather it be good than have it be rushed and rough and then have it continue to kind of like splinter and fracture the fan base and then kind of all social media and everything, all the news is blah, blah, blah. And then it's all just super, super negative. And I think, I mean, I'm no psychologist by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think there is an element of like, maybe time is a good thing in some ways.
00:54:18
Speaker
for some of these bigger things. Give it some space, let them breathe. That's not what I want. I want it all now, please. I would love it. That's what I think that's the thing.
00:54:37
Speaker
You can't sustain excitement, the excitement levels of 2015. You can't, not when there's content coming out all the time. You can't, it's physically impossible to, you know, you have this wave of first nostalgia, then excitement, and then new, and then realization that this new content is something that really lands with you well. And then once content becomes commonplace,
00:55:08
Speaker
How can you sustain that initial excitement? I mean, I remember a time where there was a huge gap between the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy. And the prequel trilogy, the excitement going into Phantom Menace 25 years this year, by the way, was insane. Absolutely insane.
00:55:28
Speaker
I remember the excitement for Shadows of the Empire, which wasn't even a movie. And people were losing their minds over Shadows of the Empire, and it was just a game, a book and stuff. And then all of a sudden, I had the soundtrack, and I won't say how young I was, but I don't want to make you feel bad.
00:55:51
Speaker
But I remember playing that soundtrack and being like, I like this, right? I like this. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like this because this is what this is new. This is I'm going to like want to like listen to the soundtrack. Like it's my favorite artist cover to cover just over and over again. I'm like, I like this. And finally, you're just like, man, I don't I got to stop with the whole the whole thing. You're excited. The whole concept of novel comic book, video game and soundtrack as being this multimedia explosion was something new and it was something fresh for Star Wars.
00:56:20
Speaker
that we'd never seen. And subsequently, ironically, the Wachowskis used it for a similar kind of concept for, if you remember Matrix, where Matrix between, they released the video game at the same time as the second film or third film. I can't remember which one it was now. But it was, those kind of multimedia events in the 90s were really frigging cool for someone like myself who was quite influenced with
00:56:50
Speaker
all stuff beyond film at that moment in time. But I find there's one thing that I don't think I've actually thought about until I've been speaking to you is that one other thing as well is that we've had this slate plan, or this slate, sorry, from Kennedy, what, five years ago, and a lot of it hasn't been realised for various reasons.
00:57:18
Speaker
Unfortunately, we see a little bit too much of how the sausage is made because, you know, the directors come and go. There are creative differences. There are fallouts in Hollywood all the frigging time, but because it's Star Wars, it's a catastrophe and it really doesn't have to be. It's just the industry. It really is. It really is that simple. But one of the things that I was thinking of was that obviously we had only last year in London, we had the three new films and then obviously
00:57:47
Speaker
that the schedule behind those three films is quite fluid at the moment. And of course, the naysayers are, oh, we told you, these guys can't keep to a plan. They're always pissing off their creatives, yada, yada, yada. But it's like, no, we just probably have too much information. And I sometimes wish that
00:58:17
Speaker
the team at Lucasfilm was a little bit more closeted than they are. I feel blessed because we get to see everything warts and all, but unfortunately that sometimes just has the adverse effect, unfortunately. But one of the things I was, to my point, I never even considered, despite the fact that I'm feeling quite positive about the change in plan and this Favreau film coming out, I didn't actually consider what the impact of the strike was. Now, the strike was what, five or six months?
00:58:46
Speaker
I believe something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So who's to say, I mean, I think, I mean, because I'm, because I'm not particularly smart guy, I would have thought, well, five to six months. That's over now, which means that the delay is naturally five to six months. But is it, is it, is, is, is a five to six month stop and the stop of planning and stuff going on in town, going on at the same time that would normally happen.
00:59:16
Speaker
during that period, does that actually, there's a five month hiatus, does that actually have an impact of 12 months? Because I think about it about the industry that I'm in, where if we were to manufacture a new product, a month's delay in the early days of production would have an impact of let's say a quarter. So I'm wondering if it's the same in the media industry whereby
00:59:44
Speaker
You're talking five to six months. Is the net impact of that five to six month stalemate or the whole industry being frozen? Does the actual net result of that actually mean they're delayed by 12 months or 18 months? And hence the reason why maybe one of the motivations to get this as well as obviously the subscription growth issue, maybe one of the motivators is to actually
01:00:14
Speaker
put it on the big screen because quite frankly, they don't have time to do what they originally planned because the impact is a lot more than five months. I don't know. I'm guessing. I'm guessing, but I'm just thinking about it from my perspective in my industry where, like I said, it's like when you stop an oil tanker in the middle of the Atlantic, it takes, what is it, two or three miles to actually stop, to come to a stop. And I'm just wondering whether, like I say, whether
01:00:44
Speaker
the impact of five months is actually a loss of 18 months worth of development time, I don't know. No, I think you're spot on there. I don't work in the creative industry like that, but I could see that being a thing because I think there's... When we tend to take the 5,000 foot view of these kind of projects, I think there tends to be an assumption. It's like Kathleen Kennedy
01:01:07
Speaker
Favreau and Filoni sitting in a room with a piece of paper, writing it out. And then once they're done, they take it and then it just magically gets made. But I think it's all fair to assume that there's a lot of people involved from end to end and there is a lot of lead time. And so if you have a day where you say, everybody needs to go home,
01:01:28
Speaker
And then six months later, it's not like everybody comes back and picks things up like the machine has seized.
01:01:37
Speaker
Like, yeah, and are are the workers even the same? Is it even the same group of people? It's not like it's one to one where you have 20 people leaving one day, then on six months later, the same 20. It could be it could be 15 people. It could be a different 15 people for all I know. And it's not like they just pick back up. It's like, Oh, where'd we leave off? Like, I can't even remember what we talked about in yesterday's meetings, let alone what we talked about six months ago. They're like, What'd you do yesterday? It's like, I, I already forgot, I probably should have looked
01:02:06
Speaker
what I what I did yesterday. But I could see that. But I bet it takes time to like ramp things back up again, because it's not like it's like a single process. There's a lot of parallel threads going on, finance, storywriting, marketing, whatever bigwig approvals and just all of these wheels in motion. And I can absolutely see that like a delay, especially a delay of that magnitude. Yeah.
01:02:32
Speaker
and it affected so many people. And it's not like this is the only thing in their pipeline too. Lucasfilm and others in Disney aren't just juggling Star Wars. They're juggling the similar things that we could translate this conversation to a different franchise. We could talk about Marvel where they've been churning things out. They're getting content regularly and people are still pissed because it's not the quality I want.
01:03:01
Speaker
Well yeah, in-game came out and then we're all just like trying to chase that high. But it's like, yeah, I think you're spot on with the lag time, the oil tanker analogy and things like that. I think that's, I think you're right there on that. But it's not unique to, it's not unique. Not only is it not unique to Disney and subscriptions, sorry, and Disney Plus and the movie content,
01:03:28
Speaker
It's not, it's universal pretty much for every single media company at the moment. They're all trying to work out how to serve us best. Is it quality or is it quantity? We want both because we're naturally greedy as people and churning. Sorry, not churning. That's a really, really inappropriate word.
01:03:59
Speaker
releasing multi multi multi-million dollar series on their streaming platform when growth is certainly no no well touch wood we won't go through a pandemic like that for quite a few years now but we're not going to see that kind of meat that that kind of consumer appetite again because
01:04:26
Speaker
We were in a pandemic. We all had to stay at home. Well, especially when the pool of dollars that they can... We use the term growth, but that's really kind of... That's a nice term that we use for it. The pool of dollars that they can capture is finite. We only have so much money for subscriptions. We only have so much money to go to the movies. It's really about capture. How can they capture more of the market share from Amazon and Netflix and
01:04:56
Speaker
other movie companies for the biggest bang for their buck. And if times are hard right now, if we're struggling at the grocery store, then that pool of dollars is even smaller and they're going to adjust accordingly, which sucks for us. We're not going to get yearly and door style movies
01:05:20
Speaker
or just two movies a year. But even if we did, to your point, we've kind of reached the top of the bell curve, which is the model that most businesses look at, especially when they look at acquisition. They've kind of reached the top of the bell curve, and so the only way up is through acquisition and through share shift.
01:05:42
Speaker
So you do one or two things and Disney's buying up, they've already done their major acquisition of Fox, for example. So you've got all of that included. And the next one is ShareShift. So you still have to steal customers to your point from Netflix, from Prime, et cetera, et cetera. So there are no net new as a TAM or as a total attainable market.
01:06:09
Speaker
There are no new subscribers. You're just moving subscribers around to different services and different competitors. And trying to build a model from that must be extraordinarily hard. Really, really hard.
01:06:25
Speaker
Well, and to your point, how do you encourage that shift even more by creating content that is palatable to a larger group of people? Because not to be too literal about it and then bum people out, but it's like, yeah, Star Wars fans are always going to watch Star Wars. They're always going to watch whatever comes out. As mad as they get, they'll always watch it. But how do you get their Lucy's and their Madison's and stuff to watch it?
01:06:54
Speaker
first book Grogu in it, and then it's like, oh, okay, now we're willing to watch a show. And then Andor comes out and blows the doors off the thing. But I'll be honest, I don't think I would have ever been able to get anybody to watch Andor if it wasn't for the Mandalorian. And being like, oh, hey, this is actually kind of like, this isn't all pew, pew, pew, laser swords and,
01:07:15
Speaker
stereotypically nerd stuff, I'm throwing air quotes up, like, yeah, how do we make more engaging content, not diluting it, but making it more engaging to a larger audience? Yeah, I agree. It's like, I hate to hate to use the analogy, but like, it's kind of what Marvel did, in a lot of ways. And that's why I think that first kind of like Avengers run was so successful, because they took the stuff that was in the comics, that was
01:07:39
Speaker
you either had a lot of time or a lot of interest to really kind of consume all that before the movies came out, but then they may, they were able to take those movies and make them more palatable to a larger audience in a way that was easily digestible and say like, I haven't seen all the movies, but I get the kind of the general premise. And so now you have to apply that to Star Wars and say, it's like, okay, it can't all be,
01:07:59
Speaker
super deep, mythological, mystical, whatever. We want people to subscribe and to be excited about it. We want to be addicted, kind of. Really want to watch each week and stay subscribed, but also not so deep that people are just like, I don't get it. I can't follow this. This is too much. I need to watch 18 movies for the context to pick up and carry forward. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in those meetings,
01:08:29
Speaker
I mean, if you think about this, the concept of perpetual growth. I mean, you think about, to your point, you know, we started off with Iron Man. We ended with Endgame. And the whole thing was permanently ramping. Ramping, ramping, ramping, ramping, ramping. And then you have that moment
01:08:56
Speaker
How do you keep it ramping? You don't. You start again, which is kind of where Marvel is at the moment. Some folk may well feel a little bit deflated because they've got to start all over again to the next ramp. Is there enough vested interest to go through it all again? Because you have to go through it all again.
01:09:16
Speaker
Yeah. To that ultimate exciting moment. Yeah, it's tough. I could never ever work in MediaMate because I wouldn't have a Scooby-Doo what to do. I'd have every single, and just for people that are listening, my favorite character is Chewbacca. So every single Star Wars TV program would be about Chewbacca.
01:09:44
Speaker
There'd be a comedy, there'd be a love story, there'd be a Chewbacca undercover. He goes undercover as a womper. So he bleaches his hair and he goes undercover as a womper. And the films would all be about Chewbacca and his family as well. So that's the reason why I should never ever really think of myself as a creative because you'd all really have something to complain about then.
01:10:13
Speaker
Oh, I mean, I shouldn't be one either because I think mine would just be like, I don't know if somebody asked me, like, if you ask me right now, who is your favorite character? I would probably go, I don't even I don't even know who my favorite character is. I know what my favorite things about Star Wars are. The ships I love. Tie bomber. Yeah. Through like there's just something about the tie bomber aesthetically. I think. Can you say is it behind me? Can you see it up there? Yeah. Got it. Got it.
01:10:38
Speaker
And there's something about like the like the sand trooper aesthetic. It's like, can I make a show with like Ty bombers and like maybe they're like, that's like a kid show. They all have personalities and it's like anthropomorphic spaceships and they're all friends. I can say the Academy where you learn how to be a good space. I don't know. Like, so I shouldn't be a creative either.
01:10:56
Speaker
Can you imagine the next board meeting? Kathleen and Dave are sitting down chewing the fat and having their first coffee for the morning. Suddenly a young intern runs in and says, you've got to listen to these guys. They're on to something. They're on to something. We're going to copy the aesthetic and the ideals of Bluey, but we're going to do it with
01:11:20
Speaker
spaceships. And wookiees. But they're the bad guy ships. It's like, yeah, I don't know. We'll figure that out. But just look at the artwork. Look at the artwork that they came up with. Yeah, that's why. As a kid, with the exception of the Millennium Falcon, I loved like you, I love the bad guys ships most. And I have never ever talked to anyone about this. Never ever talked about this. There was
01:11:48
Speaker
When the original Marvel comic book came out, again, in 1977, and in the UK, because it was the days where the UK didn't get A New Hope until 1978. I don't know if you know that, but we had it a year later.
01:12:12
Speaker
in most for general viewing, for general viewing. I'm not talking about premieres and select viewing and certainly in conurbations like London, but general viewing was around 78. That's kind of when I first got involved. So things like the novel, the comic books were out before the film was, which really, really
01:12:33
Speaker
I guess you'd see them as spoilers today, which is the reason why media companies don't do it anymore. But at the time it just got me even more ramped for this film that I was going to see. Anyway, at the end of the run, at the end of the run of the comics, they carried it on. And the first story after A New Hope was where Hansela and Chewbacca take the prize money and they want to go and pay off Jabba the Hutt and they end up
01:13:03
Speaker
either losing the money or the money stolen or what have you. And that's how they end up with this team of ragtag pirates like themselves, one of which is Jackson.
01:13:15
Speaker
the green rabbit. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, I addicted to this stuff. I mean, it took what was a really, really perfect space opera that I loved. And it got very, very crazy and very camp very, very quickly in these comics. One of them, I loved it to bits because again, I love the Imperial ships.
01:13:40
Speaker
And it was a guy called Crimson Jack who was a pirate and he'd managed to get his hands on an Imperial Star Destroyer. So basically he retrofitted an Imperial Star Destroyer. And I think they came across him at least two or three times. And I think he's the guy that stole, I could be wrong. Don't quote me on this, but I think he's the one that stole Han's reward money.
01:14:06
Speaker
I could be wrong. Anyway, the point being, he turns up two or three times during the original Marvel run, and he's amazing. He's this very, very muscular, because of course, it had to be muscular, very, very muscular chap with a shock of red hair, big red beard.
01:14:24
Speaker
Hence, Crimson Jack. I mean, the clue is the name. Wearing this black leotard, I mean, looking like a ginger Zeus. He looked absolutely amazing. And he was hilarious. And he had all of these pirates all over the ship, but it was using a
01:14:41
Speaker
it was using a Star Destroyer. And as a result of that, all bets were off in my house because I preferred the Imperial vehicles to the Rebel vehicles. So I had weak ways, I had ugnaughts, I had all of them flying TIE fighters or anything to do with the Imperials because in my mind, they're all pirates and they'd kind of
01:15:02
Speaker
that reprimand, not reprimandable, they'd got their hands on this kit. Sorry. But yes, that was a very long way of saying I agree. I think the Imperial vehicles are trick the ace.
01:15:16
Speaker
That's always been my biggest struggle ever since I was a kid, because I've always loved the bad guy stuff. And I think not to go into this too deeply, but I think if I was honest, that was probably my biggest disappointment with The Rise of Skywalker, because I'd hoped in my head, I'm like, please let there be a stormtrooper rebellion, and I can finally root for people in stormtrooper armor. I'm like, just give me a reason. Just give me a reason to not feel like a bad guy and be like, man,
01:15:42
Speaker
Stormtrooper armor is pretty freaking cool though. It'd be cool to see good guys flying TIE fighters like and it didn't happen. That's the one thing that was kind of there was a common thread between both
01:16:00
Speaker
the Force Awakens and the last Jedi, that they would have been so sweet as a subplot, as part of Finn's own character development that wouldn't have detracted from the main story, Rey's story, but it was so wicked. The guy turned his back on the First Order, and then the last Jedi, when they get caught on the supremacy,
01:16:30
Speaker
Snoke's Big Ship. There's a deleted scene, and I know, I'm sure you've already know this, there's a deleted version of the scene where Phasma's gonna- The execution. And he basically has his
01:16:50
Speaker
has his fellow stormtroopers questioning Phasma's loyalty to the First Order and start sowing the seeds of dissent amongst the stormtroopers. And it would have been so good and it wouldn't have impacted the, whether you like it or not, the plot of Rise of Skywalker had he led that stormtrooper rebellion.
01:17:17
Speaker
which I think between you and me, my own gut feeling is that actually would have been more impactful for me and more human than a gazillion spaceships turning up because Lando called them.
01:17:32
Speaker
which I thought was a trick. I thought it was fantastic, they got me wrong. But there was no context. We didn't see who was flying those ships. It was a thousand, 10,000 ships turned up, which was visually spectacular, but it lost its kind of humanity a little bit because it was so impersonal.
01:17:54
Speaker
Well, I think and I think that's the thing I was excited about. I was hoping it would be kind of turn the Star Wars thing on its head a little bit and be more about the everyday. Yeah, kind of the everyday person and kind of like them having a real a real part in it in being like and you could have both you could have the 10,000 ship show up and it's like, okay, now the now the battles equal.
01:18:12
Speaker
versus like this insane mass of numbers of bad guys. But then the thing that really, I don't know what the proper like creative and story term is, but it's like, okay, now we've, we're equals. But the thing that really turns the tide and really is like the real impact is when you get
01:18:30
Speaker
The the fin stormtrooper rebellion to then start crushing things from the inside and like all of a sudden you just start seeing Like I had the whole the whole head cannon like I'm sure everybody had their own I'm like all of a sudden you start seeing star destroyers going down as As people start turning and going like this. This is wrong. This is this is whatever Yeah, it'd be if people are just like holy crap. We've got the we've got the advantage now and like I'm sure there's an element of like juggling like, okay, how do you
01:19:00
Speaker
If there's people turning on these ships, how do you get them to... You keep attacking those ships and take down the people who are helping you? I don't... But that's overthinking it. I think there could have been a really epic moment, like a goose bumpy moment. I'm waiting for that. And it would have given... Don't get me wrong.
01:19:20
Speaker
you and I are all about positivity. So what we got from Rise of Skywalker, maybe it may not be what we like. There's certain decisions that weren't explained particularly well, and you've got to kind of just create your own head cannon, which I do a lot of the time to kind of make it work for yourself. But it would have given, you're right, that would have given Finn in particular purpose, which is something that I never
01:19:49
Speaker
I mean, we never, you know, we know he's so force-sensitive, that's now insinuated in media and confirmed, sorry, in media, mainly written media. But that was not followed through at the end of Rise, which
01:20:11
Speaker
had it been followed through and for that to have been kind of the end of the development for Finn, I still think that the rebellion itself would have actually been more meaningful than
01:20:26
Speaker
him being another Jedi. Anyway, but that's why we do this, right? We love a little bit of head cannons speculating. We don't get angry about it. It's all good. Well, I mean, if the movies and shows turned out exactly how they were in my head cannon, I probably wouldn't be as engaged. That's true. Same as talking to people of like,
01:20:48
Speaker
Every time I wrote into a podcast or whatever and people were like, yeah, I think you're right. And then they just moved on. I'm not going. I'm not learning. I'm not changing. I'm not seeing things through different perspectives. Sometimes perspectives are arguably wrong with how they turn out in movies or shows. I don't know. But who am I to say? But that same time, it's different. It's a
01:21:09
Speaker
That's the irony of us fans is that we want our Star Wars the way that we want our Star Wars, but I want it to be new, but not too new. I want it to be familiar and also the way I want Star Wars. And if it's not the way I want Star Wars, then there's something wrong. But you need to shock me as well. You need to do something new. It's this forever,
01:21:38
Speaker
I could not be immediate. I could not be immediate. Give me new stormtroopers, but don't make it obvious that you're trying to sell toys. I want them both. I like that you made them red. But if you don't get me new stormtroopers, then I'm going to be mad. And so it's a delicate balance. It's a firetrooper now. It's like, oh, we already had that one. Give me a different one. We're a funny bunch. We are a funny bunch.
01:22:05
Speaker
So outside of Star Wars, my friend, what are you also excited about? What are you watching at the moment? What's on your mind?
01:22:16
Speaker
Well, I think what I'm most excited about right now is now that my chaotic road trip and Japan trip and family visiting for Thanksgiving and the holidays are finally over and things have settled down again. I'm actually excited about playing, catching up on some video games that I haven't had a chance to catch up on, specifically Spider-Man 2. I have it
01:22:38
Speaker
sitting here waiting waiting for me. That's I've been trying to like avoid all the spoilers and stuff for it. Yeah, it's kind of been taken up. That's been taken up a lot of a lot of my time. Yeah. And and yeah, getting this getting this thing kind of up off the ground and waiting waiting to see what kind of new stars or pop culture news are coming out. I have I do need to catch up also like I'm I'm like the the
01:23:03
Speaker
15 minutes late kind of guy. I'm like, I'm also excited about Loki season two, whenever that came out, and Echo, I need to catch up on those. I've never been a huge Marvel person, but the movies kind of got me engaged. I enjoy the TV show content. I think those are the only two that I haven't watched. I've caught up on everything. I've watched everything else. And so this is pretty unlike me to be this far behind. But obviously, it's been chaotic a couple of months. But I'm excited to put those on and see where they're taking them. That stuff's kind of fun for me.
01:23:32
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. I actually like, because I know that we saw the growth of Marvel and it's not quite where it was at that time. It's rebuilding itself. It's got a few course corrections for actors that no longer can be part of that franchise and so on. So they're going through the same kind of pain at the moment as the Lucasfilm guys are.
01:23:56
Speaker
I really enjoy my Marvel experience as a fan because I pick and choose what I want. I'm not as diehard about Marvel as I'm Star Wars. I have to watch everything Star Wars. That's a personal thing. Like I said, at the beginning of this call, some stuff I like, some stuff I don't, some stuff I make up in my head to make it fit. But Marvel, I just pick and choose what I like.
01:24:26
Speaker
Like you, I really, really enjoyed Loki. I didn't so much enjoy some of the other continuation stories like Falcon and Winter Soldier, not because they didn't think they were particularly good productions. I thought they were great, but just not my kind of
01:24:45
Speaker
not my cup of tea. And I quite like dipping in and out of it. I like the way that I curate my content. I'm loving What If.
01:24:57
Speaker
I love What If, but I love it in the same context as I love Visions and Star Wars as well, because it's that kind of alternative take that is, it's completely risk free. I love it. I love the fact that these studios are doing this kind of balls out stuff, which is, well, it's not canon, so don't worry about it. But they're doing some really, really interesting stuff, which I think gets the creative juices going. I wish, if there was something I could wish for Star Wars and for any media, is that
01:25:25
Speaker
I know that there's an awful lot of people that want a good series with a beginning, a middle, and an end, or a cliffhanger to the next season, and so on and so forth. But I love these little individual standalone movies. Call them an anthology, if you like. I watch an awful lot of stuff like, is it Love, Death, and Robots?
01:25:51
Speaker
Yeah. On, on, on, on Netflix, where you've got an individual standalone 20 or 30, you know, like a black mirror episode, you've got a 20 or 30 minute episode. And it's not related to anything else in the series. And they go off on different times.
Exploring Storytelling and Inspirations
01:26:06
Speaker
It's a little short story with a nice little conclusion, or in some cases, a terrible, terrible conclusion. I love that kind of stuff. In fact, there's a recommendation to anyone on prime.
01:26:20
Speaker
It's quite old now. There's a series called Tales from a Loop. It's a really, really good production. It's based on, I forgot my chap's name and I should have done my research, but it's based on a very famous French artist's work whereby he would draw a very beautiful cornfield in a farm somewhere, an old oat house and an old barn.
01:26:48
Speaker
but just slip into the background or into the side, a little bit of funky technology, sometimes steampunk, but typically a little bit of technology that was out of place of that view. And this program, Tales from the Loop, it was inspired by this artist and it's a slow burn. It covers some very fantastical subject matters, sorry, subject matter, but it also,
01:27:20
Speaker
covers some very, very grounded issues like homosexuality, like same-sex marriage. It kind of covers all these things within this lovely little universe, this beautiful little universe of kind of used dystopian technology that is a lot more advanced but kind of beaten up as well. And I would love something like that with Star Wars, where every week is a different story.
01:27:49
Speaker
whether they connect at the end or not, doesn't really matter.
01:27:53
Speaker
Yeah, I always compare those to like, I always call them like the adult children's cartoons where every episode is like self contained. And it doesn't have like a moral per se, but it's like it's got a point. It's got a point or a feeling it's trying to convey. And it's very condensed and very compact. And you have to it's almost it feels more like a writing challenge or writing prompt where it's like, how what can you do in 20 to 30 minutes? I love I love those kind of things too.
01:28:20
Speaker
It'd be interesting to see what they, I feel like Visions is a good, it's kind of there, but I feel like it's more about the art style and things like that. This show would be more about the content, the feeling, and less about the graphics or the medium per se. If you were to take Visions and turn it into a live action, like Black Mirror, for example, like Black Mirror,
01:28:51
Speaker
and just say, here's a few bucks, go make a half hour self, you know,
01:29:00
Speaker
self-sustained featurette, call it whatever you want. It's almost like a creative, let's just create some creative soup that we can perhaps pull from
01:29:21
Speaker
Give us inspiration for what the future is or just leave it standalone i don't care but i love the idea of this kind of no nonsense low low risk kind of.
01:29:34
Speaker
stuff that can get things going because it's like a it's like a televised like a televised version of from a certain point of view mine but maybe more some more more serious not perfect less less goofy stories but I couldn't I couldn't but I couldn't bet it better you I spent
01:29:54
Speaker
five minutes talking about something that you've captured within a sentence. It's exactly what I meant. It's exactly what I meant. They could call it that. They could just call it from a certain point of view, from a different point, from a different point of view.
Movie Recommendations and Filmmaking Insights
01:30:06
Speaker
Two of the things I recommend since you've come back from your road trip, have you seen The Creator yet?
01:30:12
Speaker
I did. I did see that. Oh, that was awesome. I was such a, it was not, I did, I went in completely blind. Like I didn't have a clue. I just knew like who made it and things like that. And I drug her with me to go see it in theaters and was like, this is, this is cool. I like this a lot. Did she enjoy it? Yeah. Could Madison enjoy it? She did. Oh, great. That's really cool. I don't think it's one that she's going to be like, Hey, you want to watch that again? Yeah. But no, she enjoyed it when we watched it the first time. That's good. That's good.
01:30:41
Speaker
I do have some things on my I want to rewatch list, but we can we can cover those. And I was going to say the the other thing I'm looking forward to is some news only this week, actually.
01:30:52
Speaker
or over the last week. I don't know if you ever watched the original Danny Boyle 28 days later. Danny Boyle is back and he's going to do his sequel. There is a sequel to 28 Days Later. It was 28 weeks later, but he's going to do 28 years later. And I'm hearing that Cillian Murphy is quite keen to reprise his role as well. So I'm super excited about that. I think Danny Boyle is probably one of my favorite directors. I love the stuff that he does.
01:31:23
Speaker
And yeah, and Cillian obviously is one of my favorite actors as well. Sorry. That's a movie I have not seen in a long time. I'd have to... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:31:36
Speaker
I have to, I have to rewatch. I mean, it's, I enjoy, I remember enjoying it, but like looking at the screenshots over here, it's like, yeah. I mean, it's made, it's made on a shoestring. It's made, it's, it's so cheap. It's so cheap. He made, but if you think about Danny, a lot of Danny ball's films anyway, they're, they're, they're done. It's all about the people, the characters and the development, um, as opposed to, um, as opposed to, uh, flashy special effects and stuff like that. Exactly. But big budget.
Conclusion and Reflections
01:32:03
Speaker
Exactly. So yes.
01:32:06
Speaker
My friend, we've been going for an hour and a half. Wow. That's about an hour longer than I thought we were going to get. We can do this. I think we did this mostly with...
01:32:19
Speaker
I mean, at least I could speak for myself. I came in with no notes, and I think you came in with some general ideas. So yeah. I just thought about how do we... And the notes did me no good anyway, because quite frankly, I bust the order of them anyway, as soon as I opened my mouth. Anyway, so that was great. That was really, really good. Thank you very much for setting this up, man. This is really cool.