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Ep 3.8- Practical Pears Only
1 Playsin 5 hours
Ryn and Sam are distracted- by Ewan McGregor's unnaturally blue eyes, by Sir Christopher Lee's existence, by Padme's Dress in That One Scene, and by Force-sensitive grubs, but we are totally locked in on one thing: This is not a love story. We might not like sand, but we did like this movie, gripes aside! Come join us as we discuss Willy Wonka-ing the Kamino Clone Factories, the best outfit for breaking things off with your Jedi bodyguard, Anakin and Obi-wan's very uncomfortable pseudo-sibling relationship, and much more!
Covers Star Wars: Episode II- Attack of the Clones (2002)
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Transcript
Thrift Store Adventures and Unique Jeans
00:00:00
Speaker
Oh, I could talk about the titty pants. Oh my God. Talk about the titty pants. Oh my God. They're so beautiful. So I went to a new thrift store this past week because by the time this episode comes out, we will have already gone to a lovely wedding.
00:00:15
Speaker
for one of our dear friends we're very excited about. And I was looking for a dress. So I went to a cool, funky thrift store near me. That's one of those places that also has sewing classes and a maker space upstairs. And their website says they prioritize plus sizes. And so I just thought, okay, instantly going here. So I went there.
00:00:34
Speaker
The first dress I found was perfect and I bought it. And then I went back with Miles two days later and I saw... Instantly a pair of hashtag not sponsored because they're thrifted. But if you want to look them up, to see what they look like.
00:00:48
Speaker
Lucy and Yak barrel leg jeans that are fully printed with this sort of pop art style, super colorful. assortment of tits of various shapes and sizes. I think there's a couple with top surgery scars on there too. And they're sort of black and white, but printed on colored fabric. They're so weird. I saw them. They're two sizes too small for me, but I tried them on anyway because I said if they didn't fit me, I would cry.
00:01:18
Speaker
And I did get them on my body. Which was very, and so then i was thinking, okay, do I buy these fucking pants? Where am I going to wear titty jeans? But also they're in front of me. They're $25. I know that Lucy and Yak is not a cheap brand. They're very expensive. And when else ever in my life am I going to see these? But truly when I saw them, I was trying them on and looking and being like, oh my God, they're so great.
00:01:43
Speaker
I want these. But one of our friends, Abby needs these. So we are going to work out a joint custody arrangement.
00:01:54
Speaker
Because it feels like I am not the owner of these pants so much as I am their temporary steward. The caretaker of the titty jeans.
Rin and Sam's Star Wars and LOTR Journey
00:02:07
Speaker
Miles is going to a drag show tonight titled Fallout T-Boy. That's an all trans mask cast doing, i assume, a Fall Out Boy themed set. And I said, oh, my God, you can wear the titty jeans if you want. and they did not wear the titty jeans, sadly.
00:02:26
Speaker
Disappointing. But now I'm just constantly looking for reasons to just voice them on people to say, would you like to wear them? Would you like to wear them? We can have a sisterhood of traveling pants of the titty jeans.
00:02:39
Speaker
And I'm just very delighted that they're in my life. I could yell about Attack of the Clones forever, so. there's There's a lot to yell about here. i think we just have to start.
00:03:12
Speaker
hello everyone And welcome back to another episode of the Fandom Apprentice. My name is Rin. I'm one of your hosts. I grew up with Lord of the Rings and... Wrong one, Dusty.
00:03:24
Speaker
Wrong one. You said Lord of the Rings.
00:03:29
Speaker
ah You know, i grew up with Lord of the Rings too, ah but I also grew up with Star Wars. So we're keeping this in.
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we are. okay great.
00:03:46
Speaker
um Yeah. I grew up with Star Wars and with Lord of the Rings and with a number of other bits of nerdy media. And now for the past several years, I have made it a point to foist that nerdy media upon my dear friend, Sam, who, despite being a nerd in her childhood,
00:04:08
Speaker
Did not grow up with the same media I did. Hello, I'm Sam. I'm the other one. at least I usually can tell the difference between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. That I think is a good baseline level to enter into fandom with. I think I can pretty safely tell the two apart most of the time. Although, they do intersect in this episode.
00:04:31
Speaker
They do. We're going to get to talk about one of my favorite overlapping actors. There are other overlapping actors between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. I mean, these were produced right around the same time.
00:04:44
Speaker
But I mean, he's he's the big one. i think this is occurring to me just now. I think Viggo Mortensen could have played Obi-Wan, but I don't think Ewan McGregor could have played Aragorn.
00:04:58
Speaker
Interesting. And I have a lot to say about Ewan McGregor, mostly that I think he's maybe the most beautiful man who has ever lived as he portrays Obi-Wan Kenobi in this film.
00:05:10
Speaker
I am not usually driven to distraction by a person's attractiveness, but I was in this case. And also he's a good actor. He's great, but mostly
Exploring Star Wars Media and Fan Theories
00:05:18
Speaker
he's very pretty. But I don't i don't see it transferring, maybe just because I haven't seen as much of him.
00:05:27
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. i They exist in a very similar category of man in my brain, I think, because they're both unexpected and unwilling father figures whom you can definitely call daddy in the bedroom.
00:05:40
Speaker
h Both definitely within that category. We may have a type. But yeah, now that you say that, we're going to we're goingnna talk a lot today about Ewan McGregor.
00:05:55
Speaker
I think they photoshopped his eyes to be more vibrantly green because I was distracted by them. And then I had to Google pictures of his face in normal lighting because I didn't think they were that green. And I think I'm right. I think they did color correct them a little bit.
00:06:08
Speaker
So would you like to tell the people what is happening here? Because we've approached it kind of sideways. So the purposes here of this podcast is for me to foist media that I grew up with upon my dear co-host, Sam.
00:06:25
Speaker
And I have constructed a machete order for watching Star Wars to cause the maximum possible emotional damage, hopefully,
00:06:36
Speaker
I think it's working so far. I've also never asked you, is machete order a phrase that you came up with? Or is this a thing that I was just not aware of? No, it is a thing.
00:06:47
Speaker
The internet is giving me weird and different explanations. The internet is telling me that machete order originated with Star Wars and developing an order to watch Wars.
00:07:05
Speaker
Star Wars because it cuts it up into different sections. Or some people says it cuts out Star Wars Episode I to preserve the Vader spoiler.
00:07:19
Speaker
There are a bunch of different orders in that star people have rearranged Star Wars into, particularly the Skywalker saga, the the six to nine movies.
00:07:31
Speaker
People have chopped them up and moved them into different orders. And now, because we're including everything else Star Wars
Attack of the Clones: Plot and Character Dynamics
00:07:39
Speaker
that I feel like including, which will also include several books, probably a comic or two, I don't know, there's some like audio dramas out there if we really feel like getting spicy.
00:07:51
Speaker
So why is it called a machete order? Not sure. i was pretty sure it had something to do with the Danny Trejo movies. I just thought it was because it was meant to wound me like a machete. so that's just kind of what I expected. I didn't realize that there was such deep lore.
00:08:07
Speaker
Apparently, Google's AI overview, which I had to go to Google because DuckDuckGo was not giving me useful information, apparently says that the blog that the term originated on had something to do with a machete in the title.
00:08:22
Speaker
I don't know how much of that I believe, considering it doesn't look like any two websites have the exact same explanation. So just know that it is a term that is used with the order that somebody tells you to watch Star Wars in.
00:08:38
Speaker
Excellent. And in that order, what are we watching today? In that order, finally, we are today discussing Star Wars Episode two Attack of the Clones, the 2002 epic American space opera film directed by George Lucas and co-written by Jonathan Hales.
00:08:59
Speaker
Very good. Apparently I was destined to confuse Lord of the Rings and Star Wars today. I came so close to typing the two towers into my notes title for this episode.
00:09:11
Speaker
It's the Christopher Lee of it all. It just melds together. Sorry, Sir Christopher Lee. Sir Christopher Lee, we cannot forget. So let's start off with sort of your thoughts going in and then we can go through the plot and I'm sure we will have side rants aplenty.
00:09:29
Speaker
Yeah, so my expectations were not high after what was the last one we watched? Phantom Menace? Phantom Menace. I that movie was not good so I didn't know what to expect from this one I enjoyed it significantly more I thought attack of the clones which I keep wanting to call clone wars because I know that that's a show and that phrase is just more top of mind so if I accidentally call it clone wars I mean the movie but I didn't really know there's a clone wars movie
00:10:03
Speaker
Oh, there's a fucking Clone Wars movie. Of course there is. So whatever. If I say the name of a movie that sounds like this one, I mean this one that we're talking about. But I found it just extremely charming and fun.
00:10:17
Speaker
Maybe there was just different stuff about it that worked for me as opposed to the last one. I have a lot of thoughts, but I think they're probably best served for as we go along. And I have some more rants about specifically about Anakin and Padme separately together.
00:10:36
Speaker
I have a lot to say about both of them. So those can maybe put a pin in them. And I have thoughts about the Jedi in general, but those were all kind of concluding thoughts. So perhaps we just go chronological order first.
00:10:49
Speaker
I think that sounds good. And of course, when searching for the opening crawl, I typed in the two towers opening crawl. Yeah. So I think I'm just going to just gonna have to title this episode something to do with the two towers.
00:11:06
Speaker
So we have our opening crawl like every Star Wars movie. There is unrest in the Galactic Senate. Several thousand solar systems have declared their intentions to leave the Republic. This separatist movement under the leadership of the mysterious Count Dooku has made it difficult for the limited number of Jedi Knights to maintain peace and order in the galaxy.
00:11:25
Speaker
Senator Amidala, the former Queen of Naboo, is returning to the Galactic Senate to vote on the critical issue of creating an army of the Republic to assist the overwhelmed Jedi.
00:11:36
Speaker
So we open on several starfighters and a Nubian vessel coming out of hyperspace and they do their big rotation in midair and then come down into the city and land. And we don't see the Senator's face. We just see people addressing her and telling her they're going to land.
00:11:58
Speaker
And the Senator comes off and we just see her distance and... two starfighter pilots get out. One of them is like, I didn't need to worry about the danger at all. And the other one hasn't spoken and is still wearing a helmet.
00:12:09
Speaker
And then the big ship explodes. And of course, that was one of Padme's doubles. And Padme is the starfighter pilot who has not removed her helmet yet.
00:12:20
Speaker
And apparently she keeps her body doubles after she's done being queen, which makes a lot of sense, but was not something that I knew previously. And I thought, yeah, okay, that that tracks you know I feel like otherwise you would probably just immediately try to assassinate the former queen if you didn't like her Yeah, I mean, this woman and the the other one that we meet as well are not women that we were introduced to in the first movie.
00:12:50
Speaker
I don't have the list right in front of me of the names, but the one who dies here right at the intro who exists to get blown up is Cordae. And she was not in the first movie.
00:13:01
Speaker
I did have a question of why is she barefoot? the Oh, I didn't notice that. her shoes off, I guess. Post-explosion, Palpatine is briefing the Jedi about the whole war situation, and they're trying to be realistic about the fact that, yeah, there's probably gonna be a war. We would like there to not be, but it's probably gonna happen.
00:13:24
Speaker
Palpatine assigns Obi-Wan to be Padme's security detail. Because he is appearing to be really concerned about her because he knows about the assassination attempt, I guess. And my question here upon rewatch, because like with all the other things, I didn't take notes while we were watching the first time. So I just wanted to enjoy the movie. hmm.
00:13:43
Speaker
But why? Is this just part of the act that he needs to act like he's really concerned about her because he's sort of her mentor figure?
Political Motives and Assassination Plots
00:13:52
Speaker
Is he genuinely concerned for her safety because he needs her to execute his evil scheme?
00:13:59
Speaker
A little A, a little b I don't know. If I had to guess, just thinking about it, I think i mean his main focus, he is clearly grooming Anakin to become a Sith.
00:14:14
Speaker
like That's really obvious when he meets with Anakin later. He has clearly been spending these last 10 years basically... Also, as a because he is a Sith Lord, he is masquerading as a politician slash is a politician.
00:14:29
Speaker
He has cover for sort of being overprotective of Padme because he is also from Naboo. Like he's the former senator from Naboo.
00:14:40
Speaker
So he can sort of play this off as like, oh, I'm concerned about this young woman from my home planet who I mentored in politics.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah. So there's like, there's that piece of it. Then I think she is a pawn to put in Anakin's way. Even though technically the person behind the assassination attempts is Newt Gunray, the Viceroy of the Trade Federation, who was one of the antagonists in the first movie, who ultimately wants Padme dead because she foiled him 10 years previously.
00:15:22
Speaker
But ultimately, the person behind Newt Gunray is Darth Sidious. So, and I think Sidious has recognized that Anakin cares for Padme.
00:15:34
Speaker
And so if he can kill Padme while Anakin is there, particularly while Anakin is there ostensibly protecting Padme, that's going to just add another domino into the slow breaking of Anakin Skywalker.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah, and then he'll be there to scoop him up and go, hey, the Sith can help you. yeah I think that yeah that makes a lot of sense. I guess, unfortunately for him, Anakin and Obi-Wan are actually good at their jobs for all of the other bullshit that's happening. They are still actually good at their jobs at the end of the day.
00:16:13
Speaker
And so they do manage to not let Natalie Portman die. But then it becomes really obvious because Anakin does not hide his feelings at all.
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah. That he cares for Padme and cares for Padme really, really deeply. And so then she, rather than being pawn Sidious, okay, now she's the queen.
00:16:41
Speaker
Now we use her majorly to our advantage. Yeah. Yeah. To destroy Anakin. And that I think is a nice pivot into the next scene, which is very short, but I think is very important for establishing character dynamics, which is we have Obi-Wan and Anakin in an elevator going up to see everybody in the politics office. And...
00:17:04
Speaker
This is where we get approximately 28-year-old Ewan McGregor. And my brain shut off. and The first time that I watched this movie, everything from here on out for the next five, ten minutes could not tell you what happened. I had to really lock in to focus. And like I said, this is not a thing that happens to me. I never think that somebody is so pretty that I just don't process the things they say.
00:17:29
Speaker
In this case, I did. And so that was really great. But now we have to focus. We have to be professional. So they're in an elevator. He was. Yeah. So just to say he was 31 when the movie was. hook Close. Yeah.
00:17:41
Speaker
And both ah Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman were 21. Excellent. So. But in character, Obi-Wan is 35. Padme is 24. And Anakin is like 19 or 20.
00:17:52
Speaker
and anekin is like nineteen or twenty That all tracks very much how they act. so Yeah. In the elevator, they're bantering. Anakin is really nervous because he hasn't seen Padme in 10 years. Obi-Wan is razzing him about it a little bit.
00:18:07
Speaker
I haven't felt you this tense since we fell into that nest of gumdocks. You fell into that nightmare, Master, and I rescued you, remember? Yeah. Oh, yes.
00:18:19
Speaker
And so it's very cute. You really have the parentified older brother slash incredibly over it teen dynamic down. But there is a tension between them and how much of this sass because...
00:18:36
Speaker
Anakin calls Obi-Wan master like every other word in a way that is so obnoxiously over deferential that you can tell he's just being kind of a shit about it. So how much of this is him just being a teen? How much of it is the seeds of...
00:18:54
Speaker
genuine disrespect of Obi-Wan and already being kind of disillusioned with the Jedi system, which I have a lot to say about later. So there's, I think this is a very loaded interaction and I really, really like it for setting up their characters.
00:19:09
Speaker
And in the same vein, I have a note on the fact that Obi-Wan continuously, whenever he speaks to Anakin, refers to him as my young Padawan or my young apprentice or occasionally my very young apprentice.
00:19:25
Speaker
Which I feel like is Obi-Wan also being a little bit insecure about the fact that he has raised and trained this kid because he's not even fucking 40. Yeah. yeah And, you know, he did not intend to train this kid.
00:19:40
Speaker
And this kid is not that much younger than he is. h like when you're in high school and you have a teacher who's a new college graduate and they're trying really hard to differentiate themselves from the students. It's kind of like that.
00:19:54
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Pretty much, yeah. There's a little bit more of ah a spread here, but, like, not a whole lot. It's not dissimilar. No, and and and again, we've we've mentioned that they were essentially, not that it was for very long, you know, when where Qui-Gon was intending to train Anakin while still training Obi-Wan, but they essentially started out as Force siblings, I guess.
00:20:22
Speaker
And so even though Anakin has trained Obi-Wan, he's, he's, art he also. Also, you got the, you said Anakin trained Obi-Wan.
00:20:35
Speaker
It's a day. Obi-Wan trained Anakin. It's very much like he got he got his PhD and immediately they were like, okay, here's four grad students. They're yours now.
00:20:46
Speaker
Good luck. Ooh, now I'm just having more brain thoughts. We are in the first like three minutes of this movie. We will pick up the pace. But just for the purposes of my queer reading, I'm going to think about queer time and the progression of life milestones and in a non-typical way for queer people. I don't have more to say about that yet, but I'm just putting a pin in it in my brain.
00:21:08
Speaker
Well, there is also, we're going to have to talk, we're going to have to at some point, and we'll get more of this as we get more about Jedi. But yeah, non-traditional life milestones for Jedi two mean, because they have their whole growth from youngling to Padawan to knight to master, but that's not necessarily...
00:21:30
Speaker
an arc that follows a defined timeline for everybody. And, you know, there are people who never graduate from youngling to Padawan. And there are people who never finish their Padawan training and become knights.
00:21:43
Speaker
Apparently, canon, there are only 20 people who have ever voluntarily herily left the Jedi Order. i think that qualifier may be only 20 Jedi Masters who have ever voluntarily left the Order.
00:21:59
Speaker
h because then also in canon like there are some people who don't pass the tests to become Padawans and like they continue to live and work in the Jedi Temple they're just not like full Jedi they just have some base force powers and grew up there yeah but moving on out of the elevator yes sorry so we get upstairs to the briefing room Obi-Wan bows to Padme Anakin doesn't Instead, he sidles up to her with the creepiest leer on his face.
00:22:34
Speaker
And she very sweetly goes, Annie, my goodness, how you've grown. And then he goes, so have you grown more beautiful? I mean...
00:22:44
Speaker
Ew, nasty. And then she hits at the first of what I am referring to as the shutting him down counter, which are the times when she explicitly to his face with her words, shuts him down.
00:22:58
Speaker
And she says, Annie, you'll always be that little boy I knew on Tatooine. Shutting him down, counter one. Ding. So that happens. I have in my notes here. Yeah, there is absolutely no fucking reason these two should fall in love.
00:23:13
Speaker
I'm going to talk more about that as we go on. I've kept a list. Yeah. No, the only explanation is this is some Renesmee bullshit. Like this is some like destiny. Yeah, that is the only possible explanation here.
00:23:29
Speaker
i hate it. Well, can we we can keep talking about it. But yeah, that's where we're starting. Yeah. So we are introduced briefly to Captain Typho, who's just a guy
Speeder Chase and Cantina Humor
00:23:41
Speaker
who's there. He's important in the Queen's security service.
00:23:44
Speaker
There's obviously a plot to kill Padme. Why? Question mark. We don't know. Anakin is overzealous about finding out who's behind it and destroying them instead of just protecting Padme, which is their job.
00:23:58
Speaker
Obi-Wan openly chastises him and everyone is uncomfortable. we get You know how hard you have to work to make Jar Jar Binks uncomfortable? He does a slug thing and one of those awkward swallows where you kind of see his throat bob.
00:24:13
Speaker
You made Jar Jar Binks uncomfortable in this situation. It's just kind of panning to everyone's awkward looks. It's tense. I have, they're having a full ass petulant argument in front of everyone.
00:24:26
Speaker
Yeah, not not very professional. We cut from there to somebody named Zam, who's a mysterious shady figure being given a task. We will get back to Zam.
00:24:38
Speaker
Anakin and Obi-Wan have heart-to-heart on the balcony overlooking the cool city planet at night. Lots of fun city shots in this movie, which I enjoyed. Anakin has been having a lot of stress dreams about his mom, which timeline-wise...
00:24:53
Speaker
Would this have been around the time that his mom was captured if he's having dreams about her? I don't know how much time goes by in this movie. That's that's the thing. is it i think it I think we have to refer here to Fandom Apprentice Rules of Fantasy rule number three.
00:25:12
Speaker
Which is that, God, i I can never get the phrasing right on this one. I can do it. time responds to story story doesn't respond to time thank you the time is wibbly wobbly it's doing whatever it needs to do for the story to make sense i am going to choose to believe that he's having stress dreams because he knows that his mom is being captured i think i mean i think that's probably right i think the wiggle room that we get in here is sort of How long do we spend not seeing them either in hyperspace or like spending time on Naboo hidden in the lake country?
00:25:54
Speaker
That's sort of the only possible extra time that we have built in. Otherwise, we're meant to assume that this is like a week, at which point we assume that his mother's been captured for several weeks and that's why he's having the stress dreams.
00:26:11
Speaker
Yeah. So, or it's right before and much like Luke in Empire Strikes Back, he's having prophetic Jedi dreams because Jedi. Because why not?
00:26:22
Speaker
So we're back in the apartment and Anakin rolls from talking about his mother into talking about Padme. And Obi-Wan is like, bro, bro, stop.
00:26:34
Speaker
Stop. There's so much to unpack here. Let's not. He's doing the very base level of like, stop being fucking horny about the senator. I know you're 20. I know you think primarily with your little head and not your big one, but you're a monk.
00:26:49
Speaker
Stop. Also, she's a politician. Has this incredible line. And it is absolutely criminal that this is quiet in the background.
00:27:03
Speaker
He goes, it is my experience that senators focus only on pleasing those who fund their campaigns, and they're no means scared of forgetting the niceties of democracy in order to get those funds.
00:27:15
Speaker
And Anakin goes, not another lecture, at least not on the economics of politics. And we're... Slowly looking at Padme's sleeping form as droid that Zam has given these creepy fucking worms to.
00:27:34
Speaker
And I love the fact that we have a mysterious client who hires a bounty hunter, who hires another subcontractor bounty hunter, who uses an assassin droid to carry bugs that will kill a senator. Mm-hmm.
00:27:47
Speaker
subcontractor to subcontractor to subcontractor to subcontractor. Also, quick biology moment on these fucking things, which... I had the name of what they were pulled up.
00:28:00
Speaker
They're like somewhere between a grub and a scorpion and a millipede. They have like stinger tails. And depending on whether you're looking at Legends continuity or at canon continuity, it's either their bite or their stinger, which is more venomous than the other. And then the other one is just painful.
00:28:20
Speaker
let I think it might just be Legends continuity, but in theory, they're like almost vaguely Force-sensitive and use that to find their prey, which they seek out and just attack.
00:28:33
Speaker
And they can, you know, with sort of low levels of intelligence, avoid security systems. And so they're favorites of assassins, which is why they like hide when R2 half wakes up.
00:28:46
Speaker
And I frankly... Yeah, this sounds like something they're trying way hard to justify. i was going to have a full biology moment and like on you know how these things could evolve what's the purpose of them and i read as far as the oh they're like lightly forced sensitiveive and went great never mind yeah this sounds like something they're trying way too hard to justify But Anakin and Obi-Wan launch themselves into the room when they sense the assassin bugs.
00:29:17
Speaker
Anakin, lightsaber, leaps onto the bed, cuts through the bugs, and now he's like kneeling over Padme, which that was something.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yeah. wake up and there's a man with a lightsaber kneeling over you he's he's like fully almost straddling her it's it's it was honestly with with our like creepy eyes that we're looking at this i was like that's that's another level of fucked up but obi-wan goes and leaps through the window at the droid Anakin goes chasing after Obi-Wan, gets himself a big speeder, is going flying after droid, is trying to knock Obi-Wan off. Obi-Wan eventually gets shot off.
00:30:00
Speaker
and falls into the speeder and obi-wan is razzing him about taking so long and we get a little more of their like their dynamic because anakin's like oh you know master i couldn't find one with the open top and the features i liked with the right speed sorry um and obi-wan is giving him so much shit and it's very teen with his driver's license and parent obi-wan is so on edge Yeah.
00:30:29
Speaker
This scene is very charming. There's a lot more fun city whizzing by, funky aliens honking their little car horns at them, cool speeder tricks, thrills. 10 out of 10.
00:30:40
Speaker
Perfect scene. I enjoyed it very much. And we know that Obi-Wan Kenobi has tremendous hand strength and dexterity, which, you know, is a trait that we value in our fictional men.
00:30:51
Speaker
I also, i adore the bit where they stop and Obi-Wan is berating him, is berating Anakin for losing the bounty hunter. And Anakin just goes, if you'll excuse me, and leaps out the side.
00:31:06
Speaker
Again, big My D&D character energy. Yeah. Anakin lands on Zam's speeder and eventually gets her to crash land.
00:31:17
Speaker
And Obi-Wan then flies down their speeder and definitely parks in what is a no parking zone. Like that's that is definitely a no parking zone. And whoever's speeder they stole is going to get an awful fucking parking ticket off of that.
00:31:30
Speaker
And I really hope that there is some kind of recourse for citizens of Coruscant to get reimbursed by the Jedi for whatever bullshit is going down.
00:31:42
Speaker
There's a mystery series that I really, really love and highly recommend called The Thursday Murder Club. And it's also a Netflix movie, which is very bad. Don't watch the movie. It sucks. Read the books. They're amazing. But it takes place in this luxury retirement community. And there's, you know, gangs, there's organized crime, there's murders, there's all kinds of exciting things. But the most powerful force in this five book series is the Cooper's Chase parking committee.
00:32:11
Speaker
And they do not miss a fucking beat. There's so many scenes where police cars will get boots on them for parking in the wrong spot. People get harassed. The one thing that everyone in this series is universally afraid of Not the violent coke dealers, not the deranged, grieving criminals who are driven to do heinous acts. No, it's the fucking Cooper's Chase parking committee. So I have to imagine that there is a similarly powerful group on Coruscant that is just all about parking because that has to be so important.
00:32:46
Speaker
They follow Zam into a bar and Obi-Wan sends Anakin off in search of of the bounty hunter and Obi-Wan goes to get a drink.
00:32:57
Speaker
And before we talk about Obi-Wan and his drink, because my favorite, Anakin gives this little hand
Anakin's Ego and Jedi Investigations
00:33:03
Speaker
wave as he goes by a table and two of the people at the table, a purple Twi'lek and a human in some sort of like vaguely military looking outfit,
00:33:10
Speaker
Stand up and look at him like they want to eat him for breakfast. It's giving like unicorn hunter couple. And I didn't get the hand wave that Anakin does. It's like because he is getting looks from everyone as he walks by. Huh.
00:33:29
Speaker
I did not notice that. I noticed that with particularly there is a piece where we follow like right behind his shoulder and everyone is turning to look at him. And it's not just like a fuck what's a Jedi doing here? There's looks at everyone's face of like yeah I'd tap that.
00:33:50
Speaker
hey And like bro. Is he using the force? Again maybe it's like force charisma. That's an explanation for Padme. Like But, bro, we all knew men like this in college.
00:34:06
Speaker
That man is going to blow his load in two minutes with some heavy petting and he won't get head.
00:34:13
Speaker
Like, come on. yeah The only explanation I can think of in this seedy ass bar is that he's immediately getting clocked as Jedi, but it this place is like vaguely upscale enough to not actually usually be frequented as Jedi.
00:34:32
Speaker
And so people are like, oh, maybe he's like... not a Jedi. I have to assume that Jedi porn is a massive like subcategory somewhere in the galaxy in this era.
00:34:43
Speaker
And like that is what people are clocking him as, is some faux Jedi porn star. I mean, make your money how you can make it. I need to rewatch this scene more closely now because that is fascinating. The thing that I was focused on as we're going into this scene was something completely different where they're getting out of the speeder. They're going in. They're bantering.
00:35:06
Speaker
Obi-Wan says, why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me? Don't say that, master. You're the closest thing I have to a father. BRB sobbing because because he is the death of him because he fucking killed him. And also the closest thing I have to a father reminds me about the stupid fucking force divine immaculate conception, which makes me mad again because that's the worst, stupidest, dumbest thing that has ever happened. So it went from moving like sweet and then sad to angry. I'm moving through not the stages of grief, but the stages of something.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah, but the other stages that we go through are the stages of death sticks. Yes, let's talk about death sticks. My favorite anti-smoking message. oh my god. Obi-Wan walks up to the bar, orders a drink, and the guy standing next to him just goes, You want to buy some death sticks? You don't want to sell me death sticks. I don't want to sell you death sticks. You want to go home and rethink your life? I want to go home and rethink my life. very And the sleight of hand that the guy does, because he's holding a death, so what is presumably a death stick in his finger, in his fingers. And when he goes, I don't want to sell you death sticks.
00:36:15
Speaker
He just like flips it back and it disappears. Yeah. incredible. And the facial expressions this dude is making the whole time with his scratchy voice. i had to rewatch this scene like three times because the first time I saw it as a kid made me laugh.
00:36:31
Speaker
And still now, ah pushing whatever age I'm pushing, ah it still makes me lose my shit. Fucking perfect.
00:36:43
Speaker
It's delightful. So it turns out that the person they're looking for is some kind of funky, shape-shifting alien. And she is killed by a toxic dart before she can reveal the truth. And they're trying to ask her questions and everything is very mysterious, but at least the dart is a clue.
00:37:01
Speaker
So Anakin and Obi-Wan present their findings to the Jedi Council. We have a new mission, which is to find the bounty hunter who commissioned Zam to do all of the convoluted other stuff.
00:37:12
Speaker
Anakin is left in charge of Padme and Obi-Wan tracks down the bounty hunter. Meanwhile, Palpatine is getting his grimy little tentacles into Anakin's mind like you were talking about. saying how he'll totally grow up to be more powerful than Yoda. He's going to be seriously so great.
00:37:31
Speaker
And then Anakin takes this, the high from this exchange, and gives Padme long monologue while she's just trying to pack about how actually Obi-Wan is a great master, but I'm kind of ahead of him in some ways, actually. I'm even better and cooler than Obi-Wan.
00:37:49
Speaker
And I'm totally ready for the trials because I'm so cool and awesome. And then we get so much of this dialogue is so cringy. But another thing on my list is Padme very patiently listens to this. And then she says, Anakin, don't try to grow up too fast.
00:38:06
Speaker
But I am grown up, which is the most petulant child thing to say. I'm a grown up. it's so You said it yourself. And then he leers at her again. and she says, please don't look at me like that.
00:38:19
Speaker
Why not? It makes me feel uncomfortable. Shutting him down, counter. Number two. And when we watched this the first time, rightly pointed out, this is meant to be her kind of being coy and playing hard to guess. I'm uncomfortable because I don't want to confront how much I am in love with you or something. But...
00:38:42
Speaker
Watching it with our eyes and brains in the year 2026, she is stone cold staring him in the eye saying, don't do that. It makes me uncomfortable.
00:38:54
Speaker
It doesn't get more explicit than that. Yeah. And the way that Hayden Christensen plays this is as fucking creepy. And don't.
00:39:05
Speaker
Don't think that my hatred of Anakin is Hayden Christensen's fault. I think that he know does embody the character the way that he's written. The way that he's written just sucks.
00:39:17
Speaker
And think you could play him as sweeter, more sympathetic, more charismatic, maybe. But the text isn't giving you a lot.
00:39:29
Speaker
And it does work for... knowing this character is going to become this big ultimate villain. Right. There are lines throughout their quote-unquote courtship.
00:39:43
Speaker
I was like, this, with different context, could be lines picked direct from a dark romance novel. Mm-hmm. But...
00:39:54
Speaker
Because of the way that the lines are said and the context surrounding them and the way that Padme replies to them, this is not dark romance. This is creepy.
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah. So after this, she's packed. She has never once dressed subtly in her life. She's wearing this elaborate bronze headdress. And oh my God, what's his name? Windu.
00:40:21
Speaker
tells them to try to be subtle, you know, not travel on any official transports, pretend to be refugees, fly under the radar because we're not trying to get assassinated. And so she is dressing in the most flamboyant outfit ever. And Anakin throws a ratty poncho over his Padawan robes and calls it a day.
00:40:41
Speaker
But they have a very simple mission, which is go to Naboo and lie low. I don't know what their version of lying low is, but it's not.
00:40:52
Speaker
It's not low. No, well, and I have to bring in from another Star Wars podcast that I listened to. This is the Dark Side Divas podcast.
00:41:03
Speaker
They refer to the Jedi Poncho of Disguise. Yeah. Because this will become a thing of Jedi just like, yes, I wear a poncho now.
00:41:16
Speaker
You cannot possibly tell I'm a Jedi. I like the Jedi poncho of disguise. This is good. This is very good. Yeah, I mean, I try not to pull bits from other Star Wars podcasts that I listen to because i don't want to steal all of their thoughts. People have wonderful other other ah Star Wars discussions out there, but that one's good.
00:41:41
Speaker
So while they are wearing their disguises for a given value of disguise, Obi-Wan goes to a space diner and visits his friend Dex for information about this poison dart. This is another just wonderful, charming scene. It's a retro diner in space. There's a droid waitress who gives Obi-Wan Jawa juice. It's so cute. I love seeing him having friends that Dex is just his buddy. Uh-huh. And Obi-Wan just has a life outside of being a Jedi, which you're not supposed to have, but whatever. He has friends and I like it. And we find out that the poison dart is from a planet called Kamino. So that's our next stop.
00:42:27
Speaker
Well, and i I love the voices in here. I love the like fairy diner waitress voice that the droid does
00:42:44
Speaker
dex Dexter Jetster, Dex's diner. Apparently they encounter each other in a canon novel that takes place prior to all of this. But Obi-Wan asks Dex about the Kaminoans and like asks you know what to expect.
00:43:02
Speaker
And Dex goes, And how good your manners are, and how big your... pocketbook is
00:43:17
Speaker
I was like that's an innuendo that's a loaded pause I don't really and having seen the facility and what's going on and the people I cannot imagine anything sexual possibly taking place so I have no idea what this innuendo is meant to imply and I fancy myself pretty creative I got fucking nothing.
00:43:41
Speaker
No, I'm like, do they gotta contribute to the cloning facilities? They want a donation? like I'm just imagining like when you go into a church and there's the donation box right by the door.
00:43:55
Speaker
You just kind of walk inside. It's little one-two and then you're like, oh! And then you could have like at the bank when there's those pneumatic tubes that take the stuff from the ATM. It goes like droop like up into a tube.
00:44:13
Speaker
And then maybe you can have sort of a Willy Wonka style machine. And then a bunch of aliens come out and they sing a little song about it.
00:44:24
Speaker
This is my rewrite of Star Wars. This is fucking great. Damn, I should have bought when I was at the thrift store buying the titty pants. There was also this vintage brooch that I think was maybe supposed to be flowers that had just sort of round oval kind of ovoid egg shape and then a long stem.
00:44:51
Speaker
But it just looked like it was two little sperms racing to an egg. And if I had that, I could have worn it for my for my job as the tour guide at the Camino cloning facility.
00:45:06
Speaker
Oh, this is good stuff. Oh, boy. But before we get there, Obi-Wan goes to the Jedi archives to look up this mysterious planet Kamino, but it's nowhere to be found in the archives. So he goes to ask Yoda about it, who is in the middle of class teaching a bunch of younglings, putting aside for a moment that they are child soldiers and the Jedi institution is horrifying.
00:45:35
Speaker
It's extremely cute. It's really, really cute. I didn't notice the first time that they actually have tiny lightsabers because they're doing lightsaber training, you know, like Luke did in the first movie with the ball, you know, trying to trace it with their eyes closed. And so their heads are covered by these silly helmets and they've got lightsabers. But I didn't realize that they're tiny lightsabers. They're small.
00:46:00
Speaker
Well, and in canon, too, they're they're practice lightsabers, so they don't, like, cut anything. Aww. They're just sort of to train you in use of a lightsaber. And technically, they're not yet child soldiers.
00:46:16
Speaker
They're, like, this sort of child soldier thing. will not become sort of formally established until the end of this movie, when the clone war begins.
00:46:27
Speaker
Fair, fair, fair. Prior to this, it's sort of like, we try not to send Padawans, you know, and these are younglings, so they're not even going out on Padawan missions, into serious danger.
00:46:40
Speaker
Right. You know, we're keepers of peace and justice and that's our primary goal. And sometimes we have to use a lightsaber, but we use lightsabers instead of blasters because you have to be very accurate and you have to be very specific and it takes a lot of training. And so, you know, it's also a spiritual practice at the end of the day.
00:47:01
Speaker
Like it's, it's Kung Fu. Yeah. And so, teaching this, you know, sort of mindful spiritual practice. We have Yoda being an excellent teacher. He's very patient with the kids. They obviously like him. He has a really good sense of humor because Obi-Wan comes in and tells him the situation. And then Yoda goes, I'm not going to do a Yoda voice. Sorry, everyone. But he goes, lost a planet. Master Obi-Wan has. how embarrassing. And then all the kids giggle. That's funny. That's a really good joke. He's not taking himself too seriously. It's great. And this is so, so different from the feral Yoda living in a hole that we get terrorizing Luke. And it could not be more different. And now I kind of understand what you were saying about, you know, he hasn't seen anyone in 20 years or however long it's been. and
00:47:57
Speaker
I was not very impressed by that amount of time. So was thinking, okay, you know, he lives fucking forever. he should be more normal. No, I think maybe Yoda's been through a lot and seeing him just be normal and be a good teacher and be with the younglings is funny and gives him depth, but it's also sad. Mm-hmm.
00:48:18
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and then they find out the situation, which is that the planet information has been deleted. And so Yoda gives some wisdom and whatever. Mostly the point is that the younglings are cute.
Anakin and Padme: Tension and Romance
00:48:32
Speaker
They're adorable. It's fantastic. They're so fucking cute. Isn't one of them or at least one of them the kid of somebody? I think one of the either younglings or Padawans we see in the background of the archives is George Lucas's son.
00:48:49
Speaker
Yes, it's in the archives. Yeah, I remember you pointed that out. Back on Naboo, there's some kind of government council meeting. We meet the new queen whose name I forget. Do you remember her name? I think it starts with an L. I thought it was Jamila.
00:49:05
Speaker
it might be a J. Similar shape letters if they're lowercase. Jamila, something like that. She seems nice. She obviously admires Padme. They seem to have a good relationship with She's the one who asked Padme to serve as a senator. And during the meeting, she's looking to her a lot for sort of approval or significant eye contact. They're exchanging a lot of glances. It's very sweet. I think they probably have a nice...
00:49:33
Speaker
mentor-mentee relationship even though one of them's the queen now and one of them's not it was just nice and so at the end of this big conversation about the situation somebody goes what is your suggestion master jedi and then padme devastating oh anakin is not a jedi yet he's still a padwan learner get his ass because it's true and it's information people should know but it's in just the most oh He still wears pull-ups to sleep at night. Just the most embarrassing thing could have possibly said.
00:50:10
Speaker
Well, and he does not respond well. No, he doesn't. he gets He gets very, very petulant and has to like reestablish that he's in charge of security here, my lady.
00:50:23
Speaker
yeah so he's just childish. Red flags, man. But green flags. Great.
Clone Army and Jango Fett
00:50:32
Speaker
person obi-wan he gets to kamino yes it's raining he gets out of his thing his ship and he's all soaking wet in the rain his big broody robes oh i just want to like shake him like a dog with a dog toy just like get him Love him. So he goes up to this cool, mysterious building.
00:50:55
Speaker
Apparently, the prime minister, ah Lama Su, is expecting him. And because Obi-Wan is good at improvising, he yes-ands the situation so hard and just rolls with it. And so we learn a lot of information.
00:51:11
Speaker
That the Kaminoans are growing an army for the Republic. Remembering that opening scroll where they were talking about an army for the Republic. Here's the army.
00:51:21
Speaker
Apparently Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas commissioned it, but Sifo-Dyas was killed about 10 years ago. So it's just been kind of going on in the background since then. It takes time to grow clones, I guess.
00:51:38
Speaker
And in real time, it'll be another like... I think it's like close to 15 years before we actually learn anything else about Sifo-Dyas. Yeah, he's a very mysterious figure.
00:51:52
Speaker
Uh-huh. i did So I did look this up, and the the one piece is, originally, it was supposed to be Sido-Dyas, and it's meant to be Sidious. Oh...
00:52:04
Speaker
oh Why wasn't it that then? Because somebody misspelled it as Sifo-Dyas and they went, yeah, sure, and just ran with it.
00:52:16
Speaker
And so there's just different And nobody thought to explain it as opposed to having it be that, yes, the Dark Lord of the Sith came up with this. And so instead they were like, yeah, there absolutely was a Jedi named Sifo-Dyas.
00:52:31
Speaker
That would have made so much more sense. Yep. Whatever. George Lucas doesn't write great stories. He writes really incredible worlds.
00:52:42
Speaker
But just on his own, left to his own devices, the story isn't necessarily always the best. Speaking of story points that are not the best, an iconic scene with an even more iconic dress.
00:52:55
Speaker
We cut to Anakin and Padme on the lake. She is stunning. She is so beautiful. There is a reason that every cosplayer wants to make this dress. It's amazing. And i would i was going to say I would enjoy watching it with no sound just to watch the dress, but that's actually not true because we have to see Anakin's face and body and we have to watch them kiss. So maybe not. But very pretty, very beautiful location.
00:53:20
Speaker
But this is also. where we get the I hate sand thing. And I knew that I hate sand was going to happen. and I knew it was going to be cringy.
00:53:31
Speaker
But the part that I didn't know about was after the I hate sand, it's rough and it gets everywhere. He says something like here, everything is soft while staring at her tits. I wish I could take a screenshot, but Disney Plus does not allow this and it just blacks out your screen.
00:53:49
Speaker
And apparently this is irresistible. And they kiss. And there's this big, rising, romantic, epic music that's playing. And then they break apart and Padme says, no.
00:54:02
Speaker
And then the music cuts for a second. And I thought that was very funny. And then it picks up again. But what do you have to say about this scene? Because I just have screaming and violence.
00:54:14
Speaker
I love the love music that just cuts really suddenly as she pulls away. That's so good. I mostly have more to talk about on when we go back to Obi-Wan, because the music that plays when Obi-Wan looks out over the clones...
00:54:37
Speaker
It's not the Imperial March, but it is like very strongly Imperial. And I'll find the exact title of this piece.
00:54:59
Speaker
Magnificent, aren't they?
00:55:05
Speaker
The motifs are used in other sorts of like imperial suites and other pieces of imperial like leitmotifs. isn' Because when we see the armor, what do we see, bestie?
00:55:21
Speaker
So this is, I think, not... Do we see the armor right away or is that not shown until a little later? I think that i that's a reveal. It's not shown instantly, but like we get to we learn about... sort of We see young clones and then adult clones out of armor.
00:55:42
Speaker
And then we see them at a distance as they're sort of all lined up. And then we see clones later. Yeah, we get the build up as there's the slow sort of existential horror of what is being done to these clones and the chipper Kim and Owen saying, oh, yeah, we make them extra docile and obedient and they're so great. They're going to be awesome. But then Obi-Wan looking out over the assembled soldiers in their armor And we realize that this is who will eventually become the Stormtroopers, which is just a fucking punch to the gut. The Jedi made the Stormtroopers.
00:56:23
Speaker
As a person who doesn't know things about Star Wars, because that's our whole shtick, are all Stormtroopers clones? I am inclined to say eventually no.
00:56:36
Speaker
But they all start out as clones. Uh-huh. Stormtroopers are, it's the clones form the template for the Stormtrooper Corps.
00:56:49
Speaker
There is actually multiple arcs of multiple shows that show sort of how the clones are replaced by stormtroopers eventually.
00:57:03
Speaker
Because ultimately, as we're going to learn as we watch Clone Wars, the clones are soldiers of the Republic. Right. Which means that while they transition with the Republic to become part of the Empire, they can never fully be part of the Empire.
00:57:22
Speaker
Because they were created for the sole purpose of being the army of the Republic. They have no other purpose. um And that's going to give us a lot to talk about over the next several episodes on sort of choice and being and do you fulfill the purpose you were created for? We can harken back to some of our murder bot discussions on some of that.
00:57:49
Speaker
i think a lot of those themes also apply to the clones. Yeah, i was thinking the same thing. Yeah, but we're going to learn a lot more about sort of how that all goes down and sort of, i think Dave Filoni in particular, who is now, I don't know whether he's in charge of story at Lucasfilm. I don't know his exact title now, but he is responsible for large swaths of story now and executive production.
00:58:19
Speaker
Point is, Dave Filoni really likes that like interwar period between the Clone Wars and the Rebellion. That rise of fascism takeover of the Empire.
00:58:32
Speaker
And so he's done a lot in there with Clone Wars and Rebels and then Tony Gilroy with Andor and then the new Maul show. like That's all within that era.
00:58:46
Speaker
And so we're going to have a lot to discuss with... All of that. I'm very, very excited. Yeah. um But yes, but the the point is, and and we can talk a little bit more about this towards the end, so with ah some of the visuals we get in the final battle, these the visual through lines to the Empire are being drawn here.
00:59:13
Speaker
isn We are in the beginning of the end, And we can see it coming because we know what happens. And eventually, hindsight, all of the Jedi will be able to see it coming.
00:59:27
Speaker
But not now. Yeah. There is a brief cut. Padme and Anakin have a picnic. Who cares? Back to the clones. Obi-Wan suspects that this mysterious Jango Fett, who is the donor for all of these clones, is the bounty hunter that he's been looking for. And he's right.
00:59:46
Speaker
And so he goes to visit him and Jango Fett very subtly indicates to his son, a young upstart named Boba Fett, who I'm sure we'll never see again in the future, to close a door that's hiding his armor. And then we see the armor. It's the same armor from before. This confirms that he is the bounty hunter.
01:00:07
Speaker
And as soon as Obi-Wan leaves, Jango Fett knows that they've been had and tells his son to pack. The side eye that Boba gives Obi-Wan is so good. It's such a who the fuck is this guy ah look from like, it's it's very tween. I love it so much.
01:00:28
Speaker
He's very cute. And also, how many people has he ever met in his life? Probably not very many. No, I mean, every every like most of the humans on this world, or all of the humans on this world, are other clones and his father.
01:00:45
Speaker
Yeah. And Jango's... Always a pleasure to meet a Jedi. the The barely contained scorn... In there? Mm-hmm.
01:00:58
Speaker
And knowing what we do about, Jango is a special case, but knowing what we do about how Mandalorians in general feel about Jedi, but this is just layers and they're spicy.
01:01:13
Speaker
But we flashback to dinner. Yes. Because Padme is wearing this one dress at the dinner table with like understated diadem and the jeweled posture collar.
01:01:25
Speaker
But the dress is not the same as the dress we see later. I think it, what what I think, and this may be wrong, but this is what I think based on just her accessories and the continuity. I think it is the same dress. I think that she has a big, stunning feather cape.
01:01:45
Speaker
thing that she's wearing okay and it's made of these iridescent kind of like grackle feathers almost and it's so this big covering over her chest and shoulders and but it's still the same necklace that's kind of cascading down and later she's wearing the same necklace and i think it's the same the dress might be the same dress that was underneath she is just now also wearing the gloves and Yeah. Because I don't see why she would have changed into a different dress but kept the same accessories.
01:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, see, that's that's the question. is like she Because the jewels of the of the... I can only call it a posture collar. ah It's okay. I call this out the outfit in the next scene the dominatrix dress, so...
01:02:35
Speaker
Uh-huh. I was, because, like, it flows over, like, the neckline of the first dress in such a way that, it like, it looks like a different dress and not just like a cape.
01:02:48
Speaker
I spent a good time, like, staring at it and hoped that you would have commentary that would save me from potentially thinking she changed after dinner into latex and heaving tits.
01:03:02
Speaker
Wait, no i think it is I think it is the same because I now have the movie open in another tab and she is wearing the gloves. She's wearing the gloves and the bottom part looks the same.
01:03:14
Speaker
And so the cape, see it's actually not a cape. I was wrong so i wasn't looking at it. It's sort of an off the shoulder sort of shawl thing. I know that that I'm a knitter. I should have a better word for what this garment is, but it's sort of an additional layer That is just sort of like a tube that goes over from right around armpit level to elbow, sort of a wrap.
01:03:40
Speaker
And that is made of feathers. And she is wearing the gloves, but they're ok like fingerless, handless something gloves. So this all indicates to me that this is the same outfit. She just took off the feather thing after. dinner Okay. Yeah. I guess when they're sitting in front of the fire and it's warmer.
01:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, and because when it zooms out at the dinner scene, you can see her whole body in profile at the table and you can see the bottom of the dress and it looks like the same dress. Okay, thank you.
01:04:08
Speaker
I had to ask. The animated fruit is something else. do you want to tell the people what the animated fruit is in case they have not seen the movie or have forgotten?
01:04:19
Speaker
Anakin levitates an animated pear. It's just a pear on a plate over to his plate, cuts it in half in the weirdest way. and What I can only describe as the ah fruit equivalent of just biting into a Kit Kat without breaking it apart.
01:04:40
Speaker
hmm. That's the only way I think I can describe this. It's it's like cuts into it. So there's the narrow top and the broad bottom of the pair, not lengthwise.
01:04:51
Speaker
So you have two equal halves of pair. He's cutting it the hamburger way. Yeah, we're Americans. Yes. And then floats one half of the pear over to Padme to when she spears it with her fork, it definitely changes shape to just be a slice of pear.
01:05:14
Speaker
instead of a whole half of pear. And that was a choice, I guess. We couldn't possibly have done any sort of practical, like, wire effect, maybe?
01:05:29
Speaker
don't know. i just go here. You know, now I am actually going to be, I'm going to double down on it should have been a pear slice on a string because as we know you can make food and feeding very erotic that can be a very sensual experience and I think if we had her actually biting into a real pear that could have done so much to actually be a romantic flirtatious moment but without the practical effects there's no sensuality there because there's literally no sensory experience happening
01:06:04
Speaker
And again, yeah this is envisioning a world in which these two have chemistry, which I will yell about soon. But just in my rewrite, we ah we have practical pairs only.
01:06:15
Speaker
Getting to the dominatrix dress. Can I talk about the dominatrix dress? And the scene around the dominatrix. yeah Please talk about the dominatrix dress, my love.
01:06:26
Speaker
So. She has this cool feather thing, which despite the confusion about it, i think is a really beautiful costume piece. I admire this costume. I think it's great. gorgeous. And I love that she has, like those of us who enjoyed what not to wear in the early 2000s, she can go from day to night.
01:06:45
Speaker
I, in my adult life, have only ever had to take an outfit from day to night a couple of times. And when I've done it, it's been very exciting. And I've turned to Miles and go, oh my God, I took an outfit from day to night. I did it.
01:06:56
Speaker
Kelly and Clinton would be so proud. You will post about this every time in our group chat. It's great. I didn't realize I did that every time. Sorry. it's It's been like twice. It's great.
01:07:07
Speaker
It doesn't happen a lot. But so she takes this outfit from day to night. And so she has ditched the demure feather cape and is in what I affectionately refer to as the dominatrix dress. She's still got the posture collar necklace, which really emphasizes her overflowing bosom. Natalie Portman is not possessed of an extremely large bosom, but they really make it work with this corset bodice that is cinched in, shoving the girls up so high. She has these long gloves on that she was wearing at dinner, but I somehow didn't notice before, up to her biceps, this long ponytail in this room that
01:07:53
Speaker
just swathed in red velvet and lit by a single roaring fire, which is exactly the setup in which to break things off with Anakin.
01:08:04
Speaker
Girl, you have created the most sexual environment possible. So they're here in this setting and he gives this speech, which he clearly thinks is romantic and poetic.
01:08:21
Speaker
This is where I was talking about like the dark romance lines. Yeah. These lines would not be out of place in some of the romance books that you and I have read.
01:08:33
Speaker
oh absolutely. Delivered by a character with charisma or characters who have any kind of relationship to one another that could be sexy. It could work.
01:08:45
Speaker
And not in a petulant tone of voice. It's still, he's still doing the like petulant teen voice. Yeah, it sounds like it's things that are just directly ripped from his diary.
01:08:58
Speaker
And this maybe also is another little Jedi gender moment now that I'm thinking about it. Because I had mentioned last time I was trying to think about, okay, what is, how are we constructing gender in this universe? What does masculinity look like here? What does femininity look like here? I think that And, you know, it's possible that, you know, just different beauty standards of the early 2000s, different expectations, what a young audience might find hot.
01:09:24
Speaker
I think that if I was a young Anakin Skywalker, I would be like pitching my voice down a little bit in an effort to seem like a little tougher, more masculine. i would be trying to put on kind of a more mature persona.
01:09:40
Speaker
And despite all of his insistences that he is this serious, capable adult, everything he does just makes him seem more childlike.
01:09:51
Speaker
Yeah. that's That's like an interesting thing, just thinking about that. But that is... Does not do anything to sway Padme, at least at first, because he does this big speech. She says, we can't. It's just not possible. Shutting him down, counter number three. He says some more shit.
01:10:09
Speaker
He's telling her to listen. And then she says, no, you listen. We live in a real world. Come back to it. You're studying to become a Jedi. i'm I'm a senator. If you follow your thoughts through to conclusion, it'll take us to a place we cannot go, regardless of the way we feel about each other. Which I do count as shutting him down counter number four, because even though she is admitting that she has feelings for him, she is still shutting him down.
01:10:37
Speaker
And the we live in a real world, come back to it. Chef's kiss. Amazing line. And this back and forth kind of continues for a bit. And she insists that she would not be able to live in secrecy that they would never be able to be open about their relationship and she's saying you know is that what you would really
Anakin's Dark Turn
01:10:59
Speaker
want because i don't think i could live like that and it ends on this kind of unresolved note but clearly we're leaning towards they can't deny their feelings for each other they're probably gonna fuck in this red velvet room oh yeah absolutely and as as you have probably accurately predicted we know how that's gonna go
01:11:17
Speaker
It's how Luke and Leia were conceived, most certainly. ah Not here, because there's three plus more years before the Empire rises up. Well, just in that fashion, that the two minutes of heavy petting and then, you know, that this was not a great experience.
01:11:39
Speaker
No, no, I don't think that Anakin Skywalker is a generous lover is what I'm saying. Not that this is the moment when they were conceived, but it is the fashion in which it probably happened.
01:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, she's used to exploring each other's bodies with her fucking handmaidens. She's not prepared for Anakin Skywalker.
01:12:01
Speaker
No, see, there's so much you can do with the force in bed and Anakin has not figured out shit. I would not trust Anakin to do anything with the force in bed.
01:12:16
Speaker
People are always saying you shouldn't fuck around with hardcore kings. You shouldn't have fuck around with anything, really. But especially things that could be literally dangerous with someone that you do not trust. Don't let Anakin Skywalker near you for any reason.
01:12:32
Speaker
Anakin has a nightmare about his mom. Just to really fuck the mood. And Pat is like, I don't have a choice. I have to go find her.
01:12:43
Speaker
Land on Tatooine and Watto tells Anakin that he sold Shmi to Klee Golarz, a moisture farmer who freed Shmi and married her.
01:12:56
Speaker
How romantic. Yeah, I mean, yes and no. There's... Well, that was sarcastic. No, there's like there's a power balance there, de which is fucked up. And then there's also the, well, I care about you and I have the means to get you out of this terrible system, so I'm going to.
01:13:15
Speaker
h We don't know enough about their story to make a determination one way or another. But Klieg tells Anakin that Shmi was abducted by Tusken Raiders in the early morning as she was checking on the moisture evaporators, vaporators, vapor, whatever.
01:13:37
Speaker
She was picking mushrooms that grow on them. Yes. She was out for her daily foraging because she... Was a cottagecore girly, even in the barren wastes. In the Tunisian deserts, um because they filmed this on location in Tunisia.
01:13:53
Speaker
Very nice. But the rescue party was unable to rescue her, and apparently most of them were killed. And Klieg lost a leg.
01:14:04
Speaker
They've now given up hope and Anakin goes out to look for his mother and the color symbolism. because Star Wars plays very heavily with color symbolism. And so the like orange fading to red, fading to black as he's going through the setting suns to go find his mother as the duel of the fates is playing in the background. Yeah.
01:14:31
Speaker
We know before we ever see Shmi, before we ever see the aftermath of all of that, that this is another time where the light side has lost the Duel of the Fates for Anakin Skywalker.
01:14:45
Speaker
He lost this battle before he ever set foot on Tatooine. Did skip the fight between Obi-Wan and Jango Fett. It's very cool. That's really all I have to say on it.
01:14:56
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of big fights in this movie where the only thing I wrote was, it's a really cool fight because it's just a really cool fight. And I don't know enough about fight choreography to break it down in a meaningful way. But it's cool. There's a lot of good fights, which more or less kept my attention, which, you know, is a pretty decent rating for a fight.
01:15:18
Speaker
That's andnegan does a very good rating from you. Anakin does find his mom. And the state that she is in is truly horrifying. It is honestly very graphic.
01:15:33
Speaker
And yeah I can understand why finding her like that and not being able to save her would maybe tip him over into a homicidal rage. Yoda senses...
01:15:46
Speaker
Qui-Gon is somehow in the force saying Anakin no as we cut away from the horrors that he inflicts on the Tusken Raiders. um So we only get sort of the ripples and aftershocks through the force.
01:16:02
Speaker
I wish this was a better written scene. What would you change? It would change the fact that Shmi Skywalker isn't a character. She's just a piece of scenery and she gets shoved into a fridge to advance Anakin's character. So there's that for starters. We have no connection emotionally or otherwise to Shmi.
01:16:24
Speaker
We don't care that she's dead. We understand, i guess, why Anakin cares. But again, we haven't seen any sort of development or loss of this relationship, really.
01:16:35
Speaker
Also, just the general racism pieces of, ah you know, surrounding the Tusken Raiders. They are...
01:16:47
Speaker
Sort of the, the, ooh, the savage foreign native peoples who live out in the desert and they kidnap people and keep them solely for the purposes of torture for 30 days?
01:17:02
Speaker
That's, that's it? Why is she still alive after an entire month? And I know, like... Klieg Lars did not think that she would still be alive. The only reason she's still alive after this whole time is so she can die in Anakin's arms while being too weak to say you at the end of I love you.
01:17:28
Speaker
And then, yes, he understandably flies into a homicidal rage and it's fucked up and we're meant to see it's fucked up. But I feel like the only reason that nobody else gets up in arms about it is because they're Tusken Raiders.
01:17:45
Speaker
Yeah. And we've presented them up to this point as, as they say, mindless animals. Yeah, because he brings his mom's body back and, you know, he's glaring at everyone and with the implied fuck you, you should have tried harder to rescue her because I could have done it if I was here earlier, but whatever.
01:18:06
Speaker
So he brings her back, you know, they are trying to process what happened. And he tells Padme, when she comes to try and comfort him, that he slaughtered everyone in the raider camp, not just the ones who captured his mom, but including women and children.
01:18:24
Speaker
And he just fucking went apeshit. And his goal is to be all powerful. And he is obviously... just completely lost it at this point. But I can't really think of any other group of people where if you say, hey, I killed a bunch of women and children, people would just go, okay, that seems fine.
01:18:44
Speaker
You know, but it's, it's like you said, it's because they're Tusken Raiders. Nobody cares about them because they're an entirely expendable race for the purposes of the story. And so it's,
01:18:55
Speaker
only fucked up enough to see that he's turning to evil but there's no further thought or care for all of these people whose lives he's just ended Yeah. And I don't know if he tells necessarily everybody else that he slaughtered the entire camp of Tusken Raiders, or if that's sort of vaguely implied and everyone kind of figures it out, or if it's he just tells Padme.
01:19:22
Speaker
And Padme, noted diplomat and person able
Droid Factory and Geonosis Battle
01:19:27
Speaker
to see the, I don't want to say humanity in a... universe where there are a lot of people that are not humans, but the personhood and decency of everyone around her and like enter every situation with a I'm going in and searching for a diplomatic solution.
01:19:45
Speaker
and and she just goes like, yeah, anger's normal. It's fine. And I get the the other explanation there is her being like, holy shit, this guy's dangerous.
01:19:58
Speaker
I need to wait for a good time so I can get the fuck out. hmm. But then she never does any of that. Yeah. I don't want like blame Padme's actions because.
01:20:09
Speaker
I have more to say, but maybe we can put a pin in bigger thoughts about Padme because we're so close to the end of the plot. This is true. do think that she has a lot going on and I want to give her her proper time.
01:20:23
Speaker
So there's a big chase through an asteroid field. Obi-Wan discovers a secret factory building battle droids. Count Dooku is there. At this point when he is introduced, do we know that that's who he is? I'm not sure if they address him by name at this point or if it's just, oh, here's another mysterious guy.
01:20:43
Speaker
It's we, I think he enters and Obi-Wan goes, it calls him Dooku. Okay. Okay. So that discovery is made back on Coruscant. The secret of the co clone army is out because Obi-Wan has sent a message back.
01:20:59
Speaker
And the only way to get the Senate to approve using the clone army is to vote for the Chancellor, Palpatine, to have emergency powers to authorize it. And Padme would be the perfect person to propose this radical amendment, but she's not there right now.
01:21:20
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Back to Obi-Wan. It's the reason that Palpatine says, if only Senator Amidala were here to propose this remit of this amendment, is tick convince Jar Jar to do it in her place because he is serving as sort of her substitute.
01:21:41
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Right? Because she never would. The whole reason she was coming back to Coruscant in the first place was to vote against the creation of an army. Mm-hmm.
01:21:52
Speaker
which is kind of skated over and we don't really touch on it. But like that was her whole thing. Like she is an anti-war senator. Yeah.
01:22:02
Speaker
And has on multiple occasions talked about her pro-democracy stances. She would never vote to give dictatorial powers to sheath Palpatine.
01:22:13
Speaker
But if he goes, oh, this is what Padme would do. Jar Jar will do that. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. This is a rise of fascism piece that's drawn from the real world.
01:22:27
Speaker
m The chancellor gaining emergency powers is ah how Hitler rose to power. We'll just but just leave that one and move on.
01:22:38
Speaker
Yep. Draw your own conclusions. The conclusions are ah drawn pretty pretty clearly. But after that, Count Dooku has Obi-Wan in this silly rotisserie chicken torture device.
01:22:53
Speaker
And we learn that Qui-Gon used to be his apprentice. Dooku breaks the news that the Dark Lord of the Sith is running the Senate, not revealing that he is also in league with him, though we can maybe guess that at this point.
01:23:07
Speaker
ah Padme and Anakin make it to the droid factory. There's an extremely fun sequence of them dodging machines on the assembly line and almost getting hot lava poured in them and getting hands almost chopped off.
01:23:21
Speaker
There's funny bits from C-3PO and R2 who I don't think we mentioned. C-3PO was there on Tatooine, so we're reunited. Yay. Which does bring up a point of in A New Hope when Uncle Owen goes to buy droids and C-3PO introduces himself as C-3PO.
01:23:46
Speaker
Owen knows who that dude is. Yeah. Why didn't he recognize him? I mean, well, granted, you know, he's much shinier and all polished up in A New Hope. and But like introduces himself with the same designation, same voice, same annoying smarmy manner.
01:24:03
Speaker
And you best bet that Owen is like, oh, this fucker. Huh. And for all that he has done to try and keep Owen.
01:24:15
Speaker
whatever this world of Anakin's is away from Luke, then it's it's a little bit inconceivable to me now with this continuity that he would then choose to bring 3PO and R2 onto the farm.
01:24:30
Speaker
Yeah, that is an excellent point. Anyway, this is just the the issues of developing pieces of a story 20 years apart.
01:24:41
Speaker
Yeah. So Padme and Anakin get captured. on the assembly line and taken to this big arena coliseum type place and padme chooses this moment before they're sent out to confess her love to anakin you and obi-wan is also there yeah i've been dying a little bit every day since you came back into my life is not a romantic line now No, no.
01:25:10
Speaker
and But that is the line that she says before they kiss as they're brought out to their execution in full view of Obi-Wan Kenobi, who now is going to have to deal with that later.
01:25:24
Speaker
Yeah, i I don't envy him having to navigate that social situation. There's all of these animals that they release to to kill them.
01:25:35
Speaker
Padme has squirreled away ah what I assume is a hairpin in her mouth that she uses to pick herself free and climb on top of the column that she was chained to. And I was going to have a biology moment about these three creatures. I'm not.
01:25:51
Speaker
The ah big praying mantis thing is called an accolade. The big sort of rhino-y thing is called a reek. And the cat thing is called a nexu. And apparently was known by the ILM animators as bad kitty.
01:26:05
Speaker
Oh, bad kitty. And bad kitty just perfectly sexily rips Padme's top with a single slash to the back, leaving her with a sexy scar and now a bare midriff top, um which like as a feminist, I'm outraged. As a lesbian, I'm delighted.
01:26:21
Speaker
Mm-hmm. To use that old line. And this is the start of a number of, like, situational puns that we're going to get through this scene, where Anakin is like, what do we do? You know, what about Padme?
01:26:35
Speaker
And this is while in the background, Padme is picking her handcuffs and climbing on top of the column, and Obi-Wan goes, she seems to be on top of things.
01:26:47
Speaker
Mm-hmm. First pun. There will be more, mostly said by Threepio. Yeah. Anakin manages to get on the back of the reek. he uses like He has to be using like the force to calm it down and stop it charging and then vaults onto its back. And now he is riding a giant space rhinoceros.
01:27:08
Speaker
And Padme jumps on the reek behind Anakin from the top of her column, which is easily a 20-foot jump to the reek and just lands full astride the space rhinoceros behind Anakin and kisses him. But may I just say,
01:27:28
Speaker
owl Yeah, I was also thinking that. That would bruise in places we don't want to bruise except purposefully in fun with prior knowledge and consent.
01:27:41
Speaker
ah um That's a 15-foot jump onto a bumpy rhino creature. Yeah. Ow. But then Obi-Wan jumps up behind Padme and did you see the way she touched his thigh?
01:27:53
Speaker
No, I feel like I need to rewatch that maybe just for... You know, to watch his thigh get touched for normal reasons. Yeah. He jumps up. She turns back and like runs her hand a bit down his thigh to his knee.
01:28:12
Speaker
You know, shoot your shot. If you think you're about to die in the Coliseum you have a chance to touch a young Ewan McGregor. I mean, obviously consent is still important in any situation, but, you know, I can't can't blame her.
01:28:25
Speaker
Uh-huh. But of course, as as this is all going to shit and clearly they're about to send down battle droids or Jango Fett kill them, Mace Windu shows up and puts his amazing purple lightsaber at the neck of the greatest threat, being Jango Fett.
01:28:48
Speaker
So he looked around, right? And there is Poggle the Lesser, who is a Geonosian, like old man Geonosian, There are two politician bureaucrat Nemoidians.
01:29:02
Speaker
There is Dooku, and Windu knows Dooku. Dooku was a Jedi. He knows that Dooku's a yapper. He doesn't know that Dooku's Sith yet, but he knows that Dooku's going have several words before fighting.
01:29:13
Speaker
But the Mandalorian, on the other hand? Ancient enemies of the Jedi and known assassin? Nah, that is where you want your lightsaber instantly. o And then as all of the lightsabers start, they really told every Jedi extra, okay, now strike a pose. Yeah.
01:29:34
Speaker
They were like, okay, your lightsaber is going to turn on and I just want you to just Vogue. Look like a badass. And they do. And it's awesome. And they do. It's great.
01:29:46
Speaker
And while that's happening, there's a bunch of Geonosians running in the background, like running out of the arena. And all of them are running with little T-Rex hands. And it's the same animation over and over and over again, rotated a little bit.
01:29:58
Speaker
It's very funny. But we're not paying attention to that because we're paying attention to the Jedi. But I'm paying attention to that because I'm me. As you should. This is why we're here. Uh-huh.
01:30:09
Speaker
So this big showdown happens. The Jedi are vastly outnumbered. Dooku does a big evil speech and he's about to slaughter our remaining guys. But then the clone army arrives and saves the day. And as our guys are being swept away in the wreckage of the arena, you have poor little Boba Fett having seen his father decapitated in front of him. holding up his helmet he's kneeling in the dirt holding the helmet putting it up to his forehead oh my gosh this kid is gonna grow up damaged this is a lot it's very sad well and he's already very clearly very bloodthirsty that we've seen throughout the movie like he he clearly is being raised by somebody who has no problems with violence and is raising his son in violence mm-hmm
01:31:02
Speaker
And so you add in this, this is not going to create a healthy base for Boba to grow from. And I do like that we take that little beat after this victory, it sort of mirroring what Yoda's going to say later about, you know, this was not a victory. This is a horrible thing that happened.
01:31:23
Speaker
Our heroes are being swept away to go save the day, but you're leaving behind this kid who now has to literally pick up the pieces and try to figure out how to move on and there's that sort of tragedy and the damage caused by war and all that stuff I like that I thought that was very well done but we yeah just a couple other things before we leave the arena mm-hmm When Obi-Wan kills the accolade, his hair looks incredible.
01:31:53
Speaker
And he's huffing and puffing a little bit. And he does this little lightsaber spin and then drives the lightsaber into the accolade. And um like, sir, you want to stick that saber in me too?
01:32:09
Speaker
You want me to call you Master Kenobi? Because that can be arranged. Yeah. Google lightsaber handle.
01:32:19
Speaker
um There was an edit. Oh, it definitely exists. There was an edit I saw the other day on Tumblr by um at AQ 2003 of just, you know, it was like a fan cam of like Obi-Wan from the prequels, various Star Wars animation from Clone Wars to Rebels to Galaxy of Heroes to the Tartagovsky Clone Wars, all set to the bluegrass rework by Hugo of Jay-Z's 99 Problems.
01:32:45
Speaker
And there's just so much of the little sword flip and the little sweep back the hair. And I've done martial arts. I've done... A fair amount of martial arts, in fact. And the little sword flip is so much fun to do.
01:32:59
Speaker
Like doing that with a katana, just kind of rolling it around is so much fun. You're going to have to show me that at some point. Get like a broom handle or something and just like... Yeah, it's I mean, you have anything sort of sufficiently long with that sufficient like weight distribution, you can do that little flip. It's a lot of fun to do.
01:33:16
Speaker
And then 3PO the whole time was fucking great. Just one point because 3PO during this whole thing at one point, 3PO's head is attached to a battle droid body and there is a battle droid head attached to 3PO's body.
01:33:34
Speaker
And so 3PO with the head on the battle droid body, the battle droid body is pulling the trigger and 3PO at one point goes, die Jedi dogs. Wait, why did I say that?
01:33:45
Speaker
And then falls down and goes, excuse me, I'm trapped. I can't get up. And then the clones show up. And again, I love battle droids. He goes, uh-oh. The one next to it Roger, Roger.
01:33:57
Speaker
And then they die. And then we get more puns from Threepio because R2 shows up and takes Threepio's head. And drags it off with a little magnet.
01:34:09
Speaker
And 3PO goes, now where are you taking me? Oh, this is such a drag. And then gets dragged and now it's next to his body. And goes, oh, I'm quite beside myself.
01:34:23
Speaker
Wonderful. Nicely done. Then the other thing that, ah the other line that got me for some reason was Yoda. Around the survivors, a perimeter create.
01:34:36
Speaker
is just funny for some reason. But a the designers here are dropping all the hints because the little gun turrets on the side of the clone gunships.
01:34:47
Speaker
Do you notice they're big sustained blasts in green, but the straight line forms out of a laser pyramid that forms in a little dish, like the Death Star.
01:34:58
Speaker
I did not notice that. I did notice later when we explicitly get the plans for the Death Star that need to be hidden. But yeah, it's the same kind of technology. I did not clock that.
01:35:11
Speaker
Yeah. I also noticed there was like a really deeply weird like music cut at one point when the gunships are rising up and then we flashed a 3PO and R2. It's very, very abrupt. And I didn't really identify... like I listened to it four or five times and there's also the sound of the starships over it and there's like laser fire. And so it's hard to listen for, is there like a fade? But it feels almost as if somebody hit pause on one CD and play on another without a fade.
01:35:38
Speaker
It just, it was very jarring. And then we go to a larger battle scene. We get a straightforward line from Yoda at one point with concentrate all your fire on the nearest starship.
01:35:51
Speaker
And then at one point, all the clones are charging into the fray, firing from the hip, which is not how you handle a gun. And also there was a whole Mythbusters episode about it, about how it is less accurate in every situation. And the only explanation, only explanation I have for that is that there could be like a HUD in their helmets.
01:36:13
Speaker
Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah. And then they're chasing Dooku because Dooku is escaping on a little speeder to get to get to his hangar. And Anakin goes, shoot him down. The clone goes, we're out of rockets.
01:36:27
Speaker
Are we out of lasers? Are we out of those too? Whoops. Not real ah thinkers, those clones. Well, but the whole point in using clones was they can think creatively.
01:36:39
Speaker
All right, whatever. Well, we can't we can't shoot them down because we have to have our lightsaber battle. Clearly. And speaking of, Padme falls out of the ship as they're traveling. Anakin wants to rescue her, but Obi-Wan tells him that he will be expelled from the Jedi Order if he does, because he is trying to fight a war right now. Anakin just barely comes out on the side of duty, goes to face Dooku, who can use force lightning, apparently. That's cool.
01:37:08
Speaker
Mm-hmm. There's big epic battle. First Obi-Wan goes to go fight him. And then Anakin saves him. And Anakin gets to use two lightsabers at the same time. It's amazing. It's a great fight. Anakin does lose a hand.
01:37:23
Speaker
Sucks for him. Yoda shows up. He's a badass. Dooku gets away. There's so much happening. Just seeing everyone's different fighting styles. Seeing everyone relate to each other. I love Anakin.
01:37:37
Speaker
any type of dynamic where a student or a former student gets cocky and then their old master pulls out some trick that they haven't seen yet and you still have a lot to learn I love that I eat that shit up every time there's so much happening in that scene but there's so much else that we still have left to analyze about the movie and so I want to spend that time talking about other stuff but it's good it's very good did you have anything else specific about that No, just the the, you know, the I become more powerful than any Jedi, even you, attempt to force lightning Yoda, and Yoda just catches it.
01:38:16
Speaker
And at first he forces it back, and then he catches it and just crushes it in his hand. Yeah. e Speck-fucking-tacular.
01:38:28
Speaker
Also, there's a bunch of controls hanging from the ceiling in Dooku's spaceship. And i just need to send them to you.
01:38:40
Speaker
oh my! is he doing a little handstand in there? A little space zero gravity? the ship do a barrel roll?
01:38:52
Speaker
We like, okay, you know, pull this down. Like, we have those in my Willy Wonka clone factory too.
01:39:01
Speaker
It's one of the whimsical trees growing in the garden. A little fruit pod that dangles down. You can just pluck them. for For the listener, um it is four a little dangly, what are definitely like joystick type things, except, you know, two of them are just very sort of straight with a slight curve to them. And two of them are definitely rabbit vibes.
01:39:25
Speaker
Unambiguously. There's nothing else that that that's shaped like that. There definitely is. But like, they're just rabbit vibrators hanging from the ceiling. You know.
01:39:37
Speaker
It's a little something. Anyway, i spotted that and I needed to include that in our discussion. Thank you for pointing that out because I did not notice. And now I have this knowledge and I can inflict it upon people.
01:39:52
Speaker
Dooku gets away and then we have Dooku flying Coruscant meeting up with Sidious, who addresses him as Lord Tyrannus, which is a name we heard earlier in the movie as the person who recruited Jango Fett for the project.
01:40:08
Speaker
Oh, interesting. I totally missed that. Jango Fett says, I was recruited by a man named Tyrannus on some moon somewhere. Moons of Bogdan, I think.
01:40:20
Speaker
But it's in response to Obi-Wan asking about Sifo-Dyas. And Jango Fett says he's never heard of a Sifo-Dyas. But also he says that in the like most suspicious way. He goes, Sifo-Dyas. And then like walks around behind Obi-Wan and then goes, long pause.
01:40:41
Speaker
Never heard of him. Hmm. Very suspicious. and then And then says he was recruited by a man named Tyrannus. And that just may just be the fact that I think Jango Fett probably has...
01:40:53
Speaker
two settings and they are kill you and suspicious. So that's probably what's left. And then the closing sequence is all imagery and music. And I love the music here because we have a final scene with the Jedi council and Obi-Wan or specifically with Windu and Windu, Obi-Wan and Yoda.
01:41:17
Speaker
And obi-wan refers to it as a victory yoda says that this was no victory begun the clone war has because yoda and also obi-wan reveals that anakin escorting padme back to naboo which means now obi-wan is covering for anakin he knows he saw them kiss He saw them kiss. He knows how Anakin feels about Padme. He knows how Padme feels about Anakin because she immediately runs to him when she shows up in the final chamber and hugs him.
01:41:56
Speaker
Obi-Wan knows. And now he's covering.
Padme's Character Analysis
01:42:00
Speaker
Oh, damn. And later on, there are some... theories about a character that we will eventually meet in Clone Wars that Obi-Wan has a history with, that there there are some theories that, and I believe there's a canon moment of, Obi-Wan almost left the Jedi Order for her.
01:42:20
Speaker
Aww. So, this is not something that he's unsympathetic to. Yeah. You can't tell me that there have not been Jedi with, like, secret relationships or... that you know Jedi don't have one-night stands outside of the Order, or there are actually a couple of Jedi that have special dispensations to have families.
01:42:46
Speaker
Jedi Master Ki-Adi Mundi, who's the dude with the tall head, apparently the way his species reproduces, there's only like one male for every 50 females or something, and so he has five wives and a bunch of children,
01:43:01
Speaker
The Jedi Order is a lot more complex and Obi-Wan's background that we'll learn more about has complexity to it. But all we know in this moment is he obviously knows and he's covering for Anakin and Padme getting married.
01:43:19
Speaker
Whether or not he knows they're getting married is a different story, but he knows that whatever they're doing, it's together. Yeah. But then closing sequence imagery following the shroud of the dark side has fallen begun. The Clone War has with all of the clones marching onto the ship as the senators and Palpatine look over all of it with the Imperial March playing.
01:43:41
Speaker
hmm. And the only one who looks concerned in the corner is Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan, also known as Leia Organa's adoptive father.
01:43:54
Speaker
Oh, But the fade then, direct from the Imperial March into the love theme with the secret marriage of Padme and Anakin and the classic sort of Star Wars like sideswipe fade with Anakin then fading the I don't know whether it was just the way I registered it. It was like I registered almost a physical fade from Imperial March to Anakin to Padme, then love theme.
01:44:27
Speaker
But it may all kind of have been in one moment. These are not separate moments. They are connected. These are both moments on the road to...
01:44:38
Speaker
the creation of Darth Vader. These are both moments on the road to the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire. And just because we put a pretty love theme over one of them doesn't make it any less tragic in the end.
01:44:54
Speaker
Would this be a good moment for me to talk about my thoughts about Batman and Anakin? Because I have some thoughts. Fuck yes it would. Okay, all right, so.
01:45:05
Speaker
Let's start with Padme because somebody needs to prioritize her for once. I have been thinking about her so much. in the span of these last two movies, that I've made her into a more interesting person in my head than she actually is on the screen.
01:45:23
Speaker
But, and I know that there have to be so many thousands of people who have made these same arguments, but in terms of my first impressions, this is what I think. We obviously are given no reason whatsoever to buy her developing romantic feelings for Anakin.
01:45:43
Speaker
Just nothing. There's no charisma. There's no charm. You know, you can go from childhood friends to lovers. There's ways to make that work.
01:45:54
Speaker
We are given absolutely no buildup to their relationship, especially because... They at least both have things that they stand for. Right. And he openly believes in absolute dictatorship.
01:46:11
Speaker
And she is a democratically elected senator. And they have the whole scene in the fucking dominatrix room. Right. where she's saying how her career is really important to her. And, you know, he's a Jedi, but regardless of his career, she's got her own shit going on and she's trying to serve her people. And this is not just a job to her. This is her entire life, her entire personality.
01:46:35
Speaker
And so when he shows his true colors, this is completely antithetical to everything that she stands for. She still goes, yes, I'm jumping on that thing. So...
01:46:47
Speaker
There are some Padme paths that I propose in my rewrite of Star Wars where I think she could be interesting. Because I do think that staying with Anakin and marrying him makes her a bad person.
01:47:02
Speaker
But she doesn't have to be a good person. Yay, women's wrongs. I would love for her to be a really complex character. She isn't, but she could be. And so these are my proposed paths of how she ended up in this situation with Anakin other alternative things that could have happened. Scenario A is I call it the fake it till you make it. You touched on this earlier.
01:47:28
Speaker
which is after Anakin reveals that he killed all the women and children in the Tusken Raiders, she goes, oh, okay, this guy is crazy and he's dangerous. And so I need to just play really nice because I'm trapped on a planet with him and I have to get out of here so I can report his ass to Obi-Wan and get out completely. so That could have been a path. We could have had her, you know, maybe having a little bit, you know, I'm humoring him. Then maybe he has grown up a little bit. Maybe he is a little charming. Okay, maybe there could be something here.
01:48:04
Speaker
Oh, wait, never mind. We are faking this. We are getting out. That could have happened. That could have been interesting. Alternatively, we could have had a corruption arc for Padme, where there's the fake it till you make scenario, but with a twist. So she is resistant to him. She's, you know, acting the same way that she has been.
01:48:27
Speaker
But eventually, gets kind of seduced by his ideals due to his intense charm and charisma. He would need charm and charisma for this to work. But especially with the stuff that Obi-Wan said earlier about senators and politicians in general, not being trustworthy, we could have her buying into his vision of the future of the galaxy because she's genuinely on board with it.
01:49:02
Speaker
And she sees a chance for power, a chance to break out of the system. You know, we're not given any reason to believe that being a senator is less powerful than being queen. i don't know what the term limits on senators are, but Maybe she's seeking advancement. Maybe she's seeking an alternate path.
01:49:23
Speaker
That could be interesting. Or she could think that she's manipulating him and saying, okay, you know, he's idealistic. He's young. He's stupid.
01:49:35
Speaker
i can play him. I can lead him on. I can use him for my purposes and manipulate him. like a slimy little political manipulator. That could be fucking fascinating. But then, twist, she underestimates him and he's just evil and takes over.
01:49:54
Speaker
That could also be cool. Well, because he's got young and idealistic down. Even when he professes basically a love for dictatorship, that comes out of him being like, well, everyone needs to sit down and get together and decide what's best.
01:50:13
Speaker
for everyone and agree and then do that. And Padme's like, yeah, that's kind of our whole system. It just doesn't always work. And then Anakin's, you know, Padme's like, we just don't always agree.
01:50:30
Speaker
Anakin's like, well, then they should be made to agree by a dictator. And Padme's like, whoa, that's not great. you know, who's going to make them? You? And he's like, no, somebody wise.
01:50:43
Speaker
Bro, you will so easily fall down that right wing rabbit hole. Because that's the thing. And I think that's what I'm trying to reach for here. There's also my favorite alternative path that would never happen is just that they rule the galaxy together and she becomes an evil queen. I would fucking love that. I think that would be amazing. I want to see full evil Padme.
01:51:05
Speaker
That would be incredible. But ah anybody can be radicalized. Whoever you are, whoever, you know, however progressive your politics are, there is a brand of fascism that will appeal to you.
01:51:19
Speaker
And you have to be vigilant for it. It can happen anywhere. You know, there's no one is immune to being seduced by things that initially might seem repellent to them if they were just out in the open.
01:51:35
Speaker
There's ways that I think Anakin could have reached her and could have been this subtle tragic story of this person with really strong convictions somehow ending up embracing something that's the complete opposite of what she believes in that's possible and if I say this about cults all the time because I'm very interested in cults. You know, nobody is immune to joining a cult. Anyone who says, oh, I'm not like those stupid people who get sucked into a cult. That would never happen to me.
01:52:04
Speaker
They're missing the point. This kind of shit happens to reasonable, everyday people all the time. There is no reason that Padme would be inherently immune to being swayed to the dark side or seeing things Anakin's way.
01:52:20
Speaker
But none of that happens. There's nothing that would make us believe that she believes in anything he says, that she even finds him entertaining or pleasant to be around. She obviously feels a love and connection for him because of the things that they've experienced together. And she does care for him in the way that she's just kind of a caring person and she cares for all people. But the movie gives us nothing, no reason to believe in this relationship. And so my problem isn't necessarily that they end up together.
01:53:00
Speaker
It's that we're not given anything to support it. And it just totally robs her of any kind of agency or motivation to enter into this relationship besides the fact that George Lucas wanted her to be in it.
01:53:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, all of the women in this movie are set pieces. Mm-hmm. Beru has no speaking lines. Shmi exists to be shoved into a fridge.
01:53:31
Speaker
Padme exists to fall in love with Anakin. And Cordae exists to get blown up. One of my major problems with their relationship is... Aside from like this introduction where there's really no way to salvage it, I feel like.
01:53:49
Speaker
When we go through Clone Wars, I love the Clone Wars series because it brings so much more depth to all of the characters. including Padme. The problem is I don't think, and I'll say this now before we've, before I've done my rewatch, before you've entered into it. and obviously our opinions can change, but I still don't feel like through the course of the clone Wars series,
01:54:15
Speaker
we get more depth to their relationship. I feel like we get more depth to both Anakin and Padme's characters, and they both become more interesting and compelling characters over the course of the Clone Wars series, but they don't become a better couple.
01:54:31
Speaker
Yeah. And that's because we're starting from here. since We are just sort of expected to understand that this is destiny. And that's that's how they end up together. The attraction was too strong. They're obviously destined to be together.
01:54:48
Speaker
Anakin feels very self-insert male power fantasy. Mm-hmm. You know, and i I understand why so many of the toxic fanboys... paint themselves onto him because he's so misunderstood and so maligned by the powerful establishment.
01:55:08
Speaker
But obviously the hot woman's going to fall in love with him, even though Ewan fucking McGregor is right there. and he's like more powerful than Obi-Wan. Actually, he's so great and so special and he's the coolest, most specialist boy.
01:55:24
Speaker
yeah so I also I have things that I want to say about Anakin, too. Let's then let's roll into things to to say about Anakin. So this is, I guess, maybe slightly more brief. This is just my kind of take, just kind of taking the pulse on the Anakin situation as it stands right now with my first impressions as a new Star Wars person.
Anakin's Downfall and Jedi Order's Failings
01:55:48
Speaker
I feel like Anakin was doomed from the start. He sucks. yes I hate him. He's responsible for his actions. But also, I don't really see how he could have turned out any other way. Because imagine you're Anakin.
01:56:05
Speaker
You're a small child. You are sold into slavery from the beginning of the time that you can remember. This has always been the case that you and your mom have been alone on this fuck ass planet owned by this creepy little bug alien.
01:56:21
Speaker
You are an extremely gifted engineer, which I think is a part of Anakin's character that gets so neglected. I think he could have lived a happy life as a droid mechanic. He was obviously extremely talented.
01:56:36
Speaker
And so he has this one hobby that brings him joy amongst all of the... drudgery and being forced to do extremely dangerous labor. Suddenly, this amazing wizard shows up, and it's so incredible, and you're dazzled by him, and he has all of these promises of showing you the galaxy, and you go, Okay, cool. going to rescue me. You're going to bring my mom too, right?
01:57:01
Speaker
Nope. Sorry, kid. You're one relative who you probably could have maybe done a little more to rescue. She's not coming with you. Now, I own you. is Granted, ah you're free now, but you are completely under the control of the Jedi Order. You are being brought into a new culture that you've never experienced. You've never, like...
01:57:25
Speaker
been to school you know how are you going to adjust to life in the jedi temple where there's suddenly all of these strict expectations your peers have all been raised in this environment since they were literal babies and you're expected to catch up with them and there's tons of pressure on you whether or not people tell you that you're the child of the fucking prophecy. Everyone seems to expect things from you, but nobody's explaining it.
01:57:52
Speaker
Everything is very confusing. You miss your mom. You're probably not allowed to build droids in the Jedi temple. So you're bored as fuck, just doing your best to try to impress your master. And then you grow up to be this teen. You're frustrated. You're confused.
01:58:08
Speaker
You see your... mentor being a little bit of a rebel he seems to have some issues with the system but he's doing his best to parent you but he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing you're thrown into the events of this movie there are charismatic political leaders grooming you there are all of these impossible situations that you're expected to deal with your mom dies in your arm like I don't really see why he would have any particular loyalty to the Jedi Order or want to do what they say or be truly morally convicted to believe the same things they do. Because he's just kind of a pawn of the universe. He's getting tossed around and everyone's telling him what to do all the time.
01:58:53
Speaker
and he's never decided anything for himself. Everyone's deciding things for him. Because he's this incredible force weapon that they need to keep under control. And again, he sucks and I do hate him. But I also feel like I have a lot of sympathy for his situation. Because how the fuck else was he supposed to turn out if Qui-Gon didn't live?
01:59:15
Speaker
And that's that's, I mean, that's the tragedy of it. Is there is... kind of the way that things worked out there's no other way that this could have gone there are points where things could have changed if Qui-Gon didn't die right if the Jedi Order was not so openly like hostile to him at the beginning the Jedi Order started out expecting him to fail while also demanding that he save them
01:59:51
Speaker
So, you know, like you said, massive expectations being placed on ah on you with your only mentorship coming from somebody who has just lost his father figure and has no idea what to do.
02:00:05
Speaker
No matter how good a Jedi Obi-Wan is, 25 years old He's just lost his father figure and he suddenly has a kid to take care of who is supposedly destined to be the most powerful Jedi. This is where it would have made sense for like Yoda to step in.
02:00:27
Speaker
And yeah, sure, Yoda's the Grandmaster of the Order. you know, you can't have Yoda just training one person. Okay, but if he's the fucking chosen one? Yeah, if he's the child of the prophecy, that kind of seems like...
02:00:42
Speaker
a yoda situation and then we have just the jedi being sort of like very dogmatic they clearly they have a series of codes that they adhere to there's not wiggle room but there's also not understanding of why the code is the way it is why is he too old Why are the attachments an issue?
02:01:11
Speaker
If we bring on this kid that now has attachments, how do we help him come out of that? Or no, we just expect him to grow out of that on his own. The Jedi Order is a shadow of what it was or what it could be.
02:01:27
Speaker
There's little lines here and there where they talk about the Jedi becoming lapdogs of the Senate or our yeah ability to use the force has been diminished.
02:01:38
Speaker
we are starting in a post-apocalyptic space for the Jedi or a like a decline for the Jedi that's about to fall off into apocalypse.
02:01:51
Speaker
And this is the world we're bringing Anakin Skywalker into. Yeah, I mean, the way that it works out, it's like every successive little step, it becomes harder to pull him away from this.
02:02:03
Speaker
Yeah. But there were potential steps that That could have been taken to prevent this. And that's the tragedy. Is nobody took the steps. Nobody stepped up. Everyone just kind of shrugged and washed their hands of the matter.
02:02:22
Speaker
Which is wild because it's not like he's some random kid who fell through the cracks in his stories and... I don't know, allegory for being neglected by the system. He's the chosen one and everyone knows this. No one just wants to take responsibility for handling him in a creative or compassionate way.
02:02:43
Speaker
It's just going, oh, well, the the system doesn't work. So i don't know. Maybe it'll work. Well, it's just he's the chosen one. He'll just do it. It's very pull yourselves up by your bootstraps. God will save you type thing.
02:02:59
Speaker
Yeah. It's very the universe doesn't care about you. You should have just prayed harder. There's no sense of, oh, he's chosen by the force.
02:03:11
Speaker
Okay. What is our role? Yeah. What is the Force showing us as our role to putting him in a position where he can fulfill the prophecy?
02:03:25
Speaker
There's none of that. It's just, oh, he'll fu fulfill the prophecy. Obviously, we don't have to do anything about that. Yeah, the Force is very convenient. Yeah. Say, oh, you know, it's the will of the force. It's not our responsibility.
02:03:38
Speaker
Except for when it's something we can take credit for, in which case, yeah, then we totally did that. Yeah. Yeah. i'm a I know the Jedi are the good guys in the story, narratively, but I'm not the biggest not the biggest jedi fan.
02:03:53
Speaker
No, but are they? That's the thing. That's going to be one of our, i guess, central issues as we go forward of, yes, the Jedi the good guys, but there is so much that has been changed or been corrupted or been ignored that ultimately they bring about their own downfall.
02:04:16
Speaker
It's, yes, the Sith are purposefully putting cracks in the wall, But the Jedi aren't repairing any of them. The Sith are exploiting previously existing cracks.
02:04:29
Speaker
Was there anything else that you wanted to include in this? Nope, I'm done. wrapped this thing up in a really, really tight latex dress. Hey, everyone. Thank you for listening to our at times rambling discussions of the of Star Wars Attack of the Clones.
02:04:49
Speaker
The next time we return, we will be discussing episodes two, three and four of the Tales of the Jedi, as well as several episodes of the Clone Wars TV series.
Conclusion and Future Episodes
02:05:08
Speaker
and then possibly the Clone Wars movie. We'll see how far we get. The early episodes that we will be covering are Season 3, Episode 1, Clone Cadets, Season 2, Episode 16, Cat and Mouse, and Season 1, Episode 16, Hidden Enemy, and then the Clone Wars movie.
02:05:28
Speaker
And so we will cover some grouping of that next time we talk. So until then, you can follow our social media. Any social media we are on is at fanapppod, F-A-N-A-P-P-P-O-D.
02:05:43
Speaker
I posted our first video on TikTok recently, which was wild for me because I don't think I've opened that up in literally years.
02:05:54
Speaker
but I learned I don't have to have the app downloaded to actually make things work. You can follow us on Instagram, on Tumblr, on Blue Sky. um We're probably elsewhere. i don't remember all of the accounts I've made at this point.
02:06:09
Speaker
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02:06:20
Speaker
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02:06:41
Speaker
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02:06:56
Speaker
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02:07:30
Speaker
Our music is composed and performed by James. You can find more of his work on Spotify and Bandcamp under Bayruz, B-A-E-R-U-Z. Our art is by Casey Turgeon.
02:07:42
Speaker
You can find more of her work at KCT Designs on Instagram. The content discussed is the property of the original copyright holders and is used here under fair use.