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Ep 3.7-Now this is podcasting! Sorry, podracing. Easy mistake to make.
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Who the hell is Roger and why do the battle droids invoke him so much? We jump back to the start of the Skywalker Saga to discuss young Ewan McGregor, the first meeting of future husbands Artoo and Threepio, and whatever Qui-Gon and Shmi got up to during the sandstorm! Predictably, Sam hates Jar Jar Binks, Ryn has opinions about Naboo's ecology, George Lucas is prone to systemic racism and misogyny, and John Williams saves the day again. Come along for the ride!
Covers Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace (1999)
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Transcript
Excitement and Reflections on Artemis II
00:00:00
Speaker
I do think we need to, you know, this is going to come out months from now, but I do think we need to talk about Artemis too. Yeah. Because we're like a sci-fi podcast now and there was some really cool sci-fi shit happening. Actual space. I did not.
00:00:20
Speaker
really follow it very closely, I will admit, because in real life, I don't really care about space that much. I think that it's cool, but it's not something that I follow closely. So besides a few pictures and quotes here and there, I actually do not know very much about it.
00:00:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I followed it, not like incredibly closely, but I did watch the launch. I watched the return. that was was it last week they they came back and I was attacked by a vicious evening nap and woke up literally 10 minutes before reentry.
00:00:56
Speaker
And so I got to watch all of reentry and landing. Pretty cool. Which was very, very cool. Yeah, I pretty much grew up being a big fan of NASA. So for all of us who were sci-fi nerds as kids, this is just, this is sci-fi shit. This is great.
00:01:14
Speaker
Yeah. You know, they have boldly gone literally where no one has gone before. m They passed the human distance record.
00:01:24
Speaker
I did hear about that. And then I also heard that they had a message... from someone else who had been in a previous space mission that played for them and then it was very sweet but i don't remember what the details of that were some other astronaut had left them ah very cute little audio message i'm i'm sure i don't remember reading about that one but and they did send you know people who clearly have a way with words you know they there's a lot of things that they sent back that were just very beautiful descriptions of earth and of the moon and of what they were seeing and one of the astronauts talking about how we will always choose earth we will always choose each other oh and the astronauts they named two new craters oh I did hear about this yeah
00:02:17
Speaker
One after Integrity, which is their spacecraft, and one after Carol, the wife of one of the astronauts who passed away from cancer in 2020.
00:02:30
Speaker
Which that one stabbed me in the fucking heart. Yeah. I was just mentally tallying the astronauts in my mind, and I was like, oh yeah, Carol's husband.
00:02:43
Speaker
And I think he would be happy to be known as Carol's husband. I'm sure they referred to it as a bright spot on the far side of the moon. Yeah. Just stab me through the heart another four or five times, shall we?
Purpose and Public Accessibility of Artemis II
00:02:58
Speaker
But I mean, this was this was ultimately a test flight. They were testing the heat shielding on reentry. They were testing the launch mechanisms. they were testing There was a whole bunch of technology that they were testing so that they can go forward with more missions to the with further missions to the moon to eventually land and build a semi-permanent base on the moon.
00:03:25
Speaker
Oh shit. Moonbase in real life. Yeah, which is so fucking cool. Hopefully there's no VI that goes rogue and they have to send in Commander Shepard to take care of it.
00:03:36
Speaker
Which also, that's another thing. I don't think we've talked about the fact that you're playing Mass Effect. did we We might have talked about it in previous episodes. No, I think I did because I was talking about Liara falling in love with me instantly. Yeah.
00:03:50
Speaker
Yeah. But i haven't I haven't played it in a couple of days, so had a bit going on. there's It's been busy. But of course, heard out in the internet griping about why are we spending the money on this, blah, blah, blah.
00:04:06
Speaker
ah Well, we're spending the money on another fucking war for oil in the Middle East. So this is actually a cheaper and leads to more advancements.
00:04:18
Speaker
NASA science and the space race led to more scientific advancements in like 30 years. than any other scientific endeavors have in the same amount of time.
00:04:31
Speaker
I feel like this has always been a critique of NASA and space. I'm going, oh, why are we spending money on this? i For the sake of fucking science, what do you want? For science and also because it's there.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's space. Don't you want to know what's in space? Yeah. Also, you know i saw somebody on the internet talking about how it was really refreshing to have this whole thing live streamed.
00:04:56
Speaker
And like, yeah, there was a lot that NASA outsourced to private companies as as a part of this mission and as a part of the build process and the whole thing. But at the end of the day, none of this was stuck behind a paywall for the average viewer.
00:05:11
Speaker
we had access to everything that was happening, access to all, it we had access to a lot of the data they were sending back. We had access to the whole video feed. you Unlike the Olympics, which is another, you know giant international demonstration of excellence and cooperation that was locked behind a fucking paywall on Peacock, right?
00:05:37
Speaker
You couldn't watch the Olympics for free. I was permitted by Peacock to watch 30 minutes of the opening ceremony and it cut off right in the middle of the Italian national anthem.
00:05:48
Speaker
How generous. Which, which, back when I was visiting my parents over Christmas, we were watching the Pope's Christmas address. Because that's just televised.
00:06:02
Speaker
We were watching it like through YouTube. We just like hooked up YouTube to the the TV and YouTube inserted an ad in the middle of the Pope's address. It just like mutes the Pope and has side by side the Pope silently talking next to Ryan Reynolds talking about hemorrhoids or something. Like the peacock cutting me off in the middle of the Italian national anthem has the exact same vibes.
00:06:28
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Fuck this important symbol of national or religious unity. Let's just, here's your advertisement.
00:06:40
Speaker
I hate advertising so fucking much. I have such a hostile relationship with ads. i will do so much to excise them from my life in every way possible. And I think everyone should feel that way. It's so weird when I go and visit my parents and they're just watching cable TV and the amount of time that is just ads as opposed to the amount of time spending watching the show.
00:07:05
Speaker
It's really jarring. It's really weird. I listen to NPR every morning, h but I'm usually listening to like their podcasts, so I'm able to skip through the ads, but I will watch the little bar of like how much time is spent In this 15 minute episode of Up First on ads. It's ridiculous. Yeah.
00:07:29
Speaker
Or I was listening to another podcast earlier today and it's like a 25 minute episode. There was a five minute ad break at the opening and another three minute one in the middle.
00:07:40
Speaker
God, that's a lot. It is a lot. And i don't need to spend half the time I'm listening to the podcast or a third of the time I'm listening to the podcast listening to ads. I refuse.
00:07:53
Speaker
And I understand like people have to support themselves and support their show. But this is some people's job. For us, this is fun. yeah we are We are not trying to make money off of this.
00:08:06
Speaker
If anybody wants to just Venmo us, I'm not going to say no. One of our social medias is Venmo. It's not actually. That would be hilarious though.
00:08:16
Speaker
I'm so tempted. so you know, buy us a coffee. Yeah. But no, I understand that like, you know, for some people like this is their job and that's how they make money and that's how they support themselves.
00:08:28
Speaker
But for the average listener, it's so annoying. Then it's like, I could wax poetic about how much I fucking hate the subscription model to everything and how that's become just the model for how we live our lives. Yeah.
00:08:44
Speaker
h But if you if you're you have to subscribe to every individual podcast to get rid of the ads, I'm not paying $10 a month for every podcast I want to listen to. That's ridiculous. Yeah.
00:08:58
Speaker
But back to the point of Artemis and Artemis not being locked behind a paywall.
International Collaboration and Reentry Tensions
00:09:05
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was primarily a U.S. mission through NASA, but it was also a cooperation with the Canadian Space Agency.
00:09:13
Speaker
I didn't know that. One of the astronauts is Canadian. it was three Americans and a Canadian going up into space together on an American spacecraft. And so it was it was just really refreshing to see like this feat of human science, this exploratory endeavor, just freely given to the people as a demonstration of what humans can do.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's nice to have things like that. It was something we were all around the world able to share in. know And both both during the launch and during the return i was like biting my nails you know it's like if something goes wrong we're all this yeah we're all gonna see it this is challenger level stuff here when the space shuttle challenger went off like there were millions of school children watching that because one of the astronauts going up was a school teacher and she had prepped to do lessons from the international space station
00:10:19
Speaker
And when I was reading about Artemis before they launched, they were talking about how they had concerns with the heat shield, which is why they were testing this mission.
00:10:33
Speaker
They believed they resolved most of the problems and they believed that they'd gotten the angle of entry, of reentry right. Because if they didn't, then the heat shield could fail and heat up the interior of integrity to like 5,000 degrees, obviously killing the astronauts.
00:10:54
Speaker
And there's a six minute blackout on reentry communications blackout where Houston cannot communicate with the spacecraft. And so it's just six minutes of on the on the live stream, you could hear everyone in Houston holding their breath.
00:11:14
Speaker
Has to be the longest six minutes ever. Right. ah And then, you know, hearing the commander's voice come out at the end Be like, you know, all four souls accounted for.
00:11:26
Speaker
All of us conditioned okay. That was like just a release of tension. i don't know. I just think space is really fucking cool if that's not clear from this podcast.
00:11:40
Speaker
And I think science is really fucking cool if that's not clear from my career. There may have been subtle hints. Maybe. Could it possibly be the scientist of it all? Which, here's our segue. We're gonna have a science corner with Rin moment here, because i have thoughts on the wildlife of Naboo. Oh.
00:12:23
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 space and with sci-fi, and in particular with Star Wars.
00:12:37
Speaker
And as an adult, I have made it my life's mission to inflict all of this media, all of this science fiction upon my friends who did not have the privilege of growing up with it.
00:12:51
Speaker
Hello, I'm Sam. I'm the other one. i had not been to Star Wars until recently. And until recently, i was really enjoying it. We're going to have a lot to say in this one.
00:13:05
Speaker
i think we both did a lot of research ah to handle topics delicately. But oh boy, this was a rough one. This is a real rough one. Yeah.
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, so we started out our Star Wars watch with The Mandalorian, which Sam had watched over lockdown. And then we moved back to the original trilogy and we watched New Hope and Empire Strikes Back.
00:13:35
Speaker
And then before we got to the conclusion of Return of the Jedi, we decided to go back and watch how Anakin got to be Darth Vader. And we're back at the start of the Skywalker saga with the Phantom Menace.
00:13:50
Speaker
We sure are. And the prequel trilogy is very divisive for a lot of reasons amongst all sections of the fandom.
00:14:02
Speaker
And there are things I absolutely love about this movie. And we'll talk about those. We're also going to talk about the parts that we didn't enjoy.
00:14:13
Speaker
There's also parts of this movie that like, I don't enjoy that. I kind of hate to bring up because there's shit. that The fandom menace, the toxic sections of the fandom like to point at and be like, this is bad.
00:14:29
Speaker
you don't want to agree with those people. no I don't want to agree. But like, They're not wrong that this was a poor decision on the parts of directors or writers.
00:14:41
Speaker
this was This was not the best thought through, but it's not for the same reasons. you know This is not because there were Black people involved. Ooh, there were women involved. Ooh, scary. Yeah.
00:14:57
Speaker
this This fandom is full of really, really terrible people, unfortunately, with ass opinions. So, you know, not that we haven't been clear in our previous episodes, but just to be clear, this is our queer rewatch. We will have queer things to talk about.
00:15:17
Speaker
And yeah, fuck those guys. I don't know. ah i think that about sums it up. I'm not feeling terribly eloquent. today, but we're going to do our best because we have a whole episode of a podcast to record.
00:15:31
Speaker
I think what makes sense to me, because there's so much to talk about, is to go through the plot rather quickly so then we can dedicate the rest of the time to the things we want to go in depth about. Because I think if we pause along the way for our tangents, we'll never get to the end of the movie.
00:15:47
Speaker
Heard. So I will leave you to lead the plot section and then we'll have our discussion. Okay, that sounds good. And also, I, as I may have subtly hinted, i don't like this movie very much. But this is not, just because it's not a movie that I enjoyed, doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the experience of sharing it with you, my best friend, and recording a podcast about it. this The overall experience is still fun. The movie is just bad. So this is not personal against an aspect of your childhood.
00:16:21
Speaker
That said. The opening scroll, i didn't have high hopes for. There's trade issues, Galactic Congress, snooze fest, whatever. But there's two Jedi.
00:16:35
Speaker
That's cool. I know I'm going to pronounce his name wrong. Is it Qui-Gon? Qui-Gon? I already forgot. Qui-Gon. Okay, so we have Qui-Gon and some young upstart named Obi-Wan Kenobi. who's this guy?
00:16:52
Speaker
And they are sent to parlay with some trade federation people. The visuals are immediately super slick and it's so jarring to watch it back to back from the original movies because in real life there were many years and people had time to adjust. But for me, i was a little bit shocked.
00:17:11
Speaker
Thirteen years in fact. Yeah. So there's shady stuff with the Trade Federation. There's battle droids. I love a droid. I love these droids. I love seeing them get blasted to smithereens. I feel like they're probably really fun Lego figures.
00:17:28
Speaker
There's much more exciting lightsaber battles. The lightsaberness is really upgraded. There's an invading army being amassed. Whatever. Yeah. Young Obi-Wan looks like G.I. Joe. I love him so much.
00:17:44
Speaker
He's still a Padawan, which at this point in and the beginning of the movie, we don't know what a Padawan is, but because we live on Earth in the year 2026, we know what that means. So he is still...
00:17:55
Speaker
You know, still learning. We get introduced to Queen Amidala, basically FaceTiming the Viceroy of the Trade Federation people. She looks incredible. Her costume is really interesting. have things say about it later. But honestly, i didn't really care about this scene at all. It's setting up the entire plot of the movie.
00:18:15
Speaker
I found it so boring. There's a big Naboo council meeting. Their government structure confuses me greatly. Maybe we can talk more about that later.
00:18:27
Speaker
h But the main takeaway from this scene is that Queen Amidala doesn't want war. She is not going to endorse any course of action that would lead to war. The battle droids get set down to the surface of the planet and we are introduced to Jar Jar Binks.
00:18:44
Speaker
He will get his own section of the analysis. But suffice to say, I thought people overhyped how bad he was because that was a thing I would hear is, oh, the prequels are bad. Georgia Banks is so annoying.
00:18:55
Speaker
I tried to have an open mind about Georgia Banks, everybody. I tried. That did not last. I hate him. But at least- he is He is worse than I remember him being. He's pretty bad for a lot of reasons.
00:19:09
Speaker
But hey, he leads our Jedi to his really cool underwater city with their cool, breathing device Jedi technology. That's fun.
00:19:19
Speaker
We learn some plot that there's a lot of bad blood between the Gungans who live mostly underwater. Do they ever really come up to the surface? Sometimes, kind of unclear what the deal with the Gungans is, but they're there and the Naboo and Qui-Gon is trying to convince the Gungan leader to work with them because there is an invading army on the planet's surface.
00:19:41
Speaker
He also... uses a cultural loophole to get Jar Jar Binks out of some hot water. huhuh Hot water because they're underwater. By saying he has to come with them to fulfill a life debt that he owes to Qui-Gon because Qui-Gon saved him.
00:19:58
Speaker
There's a very fun sequence piloting a ship underwater and being chased by big fish that I know Rin has a lot of thoughts about. Oh, I have so much to talk about in that scene alone.
00:20:09
Speaker
But I enjoyed tremendously watching the big fish chase the chased a little submersible. There's a big fight. The Jedi take Padme and her ladies-in-waiting onto their ship so she can plead her case to the Senate on Coruscant? that how we say it? Coruscant.
00:20:26
Speaker
Coruscant. Okay. the A lot of the pronunciations will trip me up. I'll do my best. This ship is bereft of greebles. Nary a greeble to be seen. That was disappointing to me. It's fine. It looks cool.
00:20:41
Speaker
But it's not it's not my grievously friends that I've come to expect. So there's that. There's a big space fight. Our buddy R2-D2 shows up and he is a big hero in the space fight. And so he gets a personal accommodation from the queen, which he deserves. Delightful. Mm-hmm.
00:21:01
Speaker
We get a glimpse of some shady character named Darth Maul via hologram. I wonder what his deal is going to be. Qui-Gon wants to take the Queen to Tatooine and the captain of the ship that they're on disagrees.
00:21:15
Speaker
But they go there anyway. And I think I'm going to try to distinguish between the Queen and Padme because... There are actions taken and words stated by the queen, which are not always the actions and words of Padme. But for efficiency's sake, we're going to say the queen insists that one of her handmaidens tag along, which this is not really a spoiler for...
00:21:42
Speaker
anyone but me but it was Padme all along and she has handmaidens so she can switch places with them this is really fun it is not fully revealed although it's strongly implied it's not fully revealed until the end but good to know throughout the story that sometimes it's Padme acting as the queen sometimes it's one of her handmaidens that's really fun they go looking for parts for their ship because they need some kind of hyperdrive thing and they meet Watto who will also get a section later.
00:22:12
Speaker
for now, he's there. And we get to meet baby Anakin, who asks Padme if she's an angel. And I love him so much. I think he's such a well-written and well-acted kid.
00:22:28
Speaker
And you told me that there are lots of people who don't like this performance, which is shocking to me. Yeah, I mean, on rewatch, like, Jake Lloyd, who played Anakin, got so much shit for this performance that he basically quit acting.
00:22:45
Speaker
For what aspect of it? He did great. That he's just kind of like a little wooden at times, a little, like, he is also 10 old. Yeah, he's a child.
00:23:00
Speaker
So let's yeah adjust our expectations. But I think he did fine. I think that children are very often poorly written. and But I think that a lot of the things that he does as a character make perfect sense. I think he acts like a nine-year-old would act in that situation. Well, and I think, too, he a lot of the fandom menace wanted...
00:23:25
Speaker
Anakin to be this constant badass. And here's the thing. He is a badass. Like the whole way through the movie. He is frighteningly competent for a nine-year-old kid.
00:23:36
Speaker
For yeah anyone. For anyone. For especially a nine-year-old kid from a little backwater planet. But he's just kind of like all sunny and yippee! Because he's a baby! He's a baby child! Because fucking nine years old!
00:23:52
Speaker
That reminds me of... When I used to work for a large and very well-known yarn company, I used to work in their customer service department, and I once had a lady on the phone asking me if a certain type of yarn would be, quote, too soft for a baby boy, unquote.
00:24:11
Speaker
And I had to tell her, well, this is a baby and babies like soft things. So I don't really see what the baby being a boy has to do with it. There is no such thing as too soft for a baby.
00:24:25
Speaker
But yeah, what would a nine year old badass even look like if not young Anakin Skywalker? Is he supposed to never smile or hug his mom? I don't fucking know. So Jake Lloyd retired from acting in 2001. This came out in 99.
00:24:40
Speaker
He had two other acting roles after this and that's it. Oh, that's really sad. Yeah. And he had he ended up having a bunch of other like medical and mental health issues throughout his life. Mm hmm.
00:24:53
Speaker
later on but he but yeah he he just did not continue with acting and it's it's hard to not point to the backlash that he faced as a fucking 10 year old for doing his job and quite frankly being one of the better written characters i think and you know and and not say like this this was a contributing factor Yeah.
00:25:24
Speaker
Sucks. People are the worst. People suck. But you know who doesn't suck is baby Anakin. And I know he grows up to be Darth Vader and Darth Vader sucks. But for right now, he's a baby and we love him. And he takes our crew back to his house to get out of a sandstorm. And we meet his mom. And you can just insert that music that's like...
00:25:45
Speaker
and air where and it's a careless whisper because we i think we can prove today beyond a shadow of a doubt to a jury of our peers that qui-gon and anakin's mom fucked for sure for sure for sure that's 100 you know you know If she only exists to be a vessel, at least she finally gets to be a vessel for, shall we say, lightsaber.
00:26:17
Speaker
But in the house, it was kind of a heavy saber, actually. ah In the house, we learn that Anakin is the one who built C-3PO and he's nakey with all his wires out. He doesn't have his gold plating on. And he meets R2 and their introduction is very cute. Also, I will go on record saying very sexual.
00:26:39
Speaker
The subtitle for R2 is literally excited beeping. And then he moves his little viewfinder up and down, checking him out, which to the untrained eye is because he's he is naked and he doesn't have his exterior plating on. And so it's, yeah, it's cause he's naked. It's like, but no, this is what I'm saying it's supposed to be, Oh, ha ha. You're not wearing pants. Whereas R2 likes what he sees.
00:27:08
Speaker
And if you watch it and your heart is open, you will also see this and it's delightful. It's love at first sight. so that's great. And then we cut from that the, I have abbreviated a lot of people's names in my notes. And so I have Darth Maul as DM. And so I see mystery cape guy and DM talking and I'm like, who the fuck is DM?
00:27:30
Speaker
Darth Maul. There's a mystery. The dungeon master. Talking to the dungeon master. Anyway, Darth Maul has to get Padme and force her to sign This treaty with the Trade Federation people.
00:27:43
Speaker
I don't fully understand why, nor do I fully care why, but do you understand why this treaty, like, what does this treaty do? Why is it something that she doesn't want?
00:27:55
Speaker
The idea is that by signing the treaty, like, she officially gives the Trade Federation control. Okay. Thereby making the invasion totally legal and retroactively there was no problems whatsoever.
00:28:14
Speaker
e Good thing that never happens in real life. Yeah. I have thoughts about some of that too. So there's this little conversations happening and Darth Maul says, at last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge.
00:28:30
Speaker
Revenge for what? Put a pin in that. I don't know. It's not really revealed as far as I can tell, but there's clearly some deep seated beef with the Jedi. Back to family dinner. We learned that at least on this planet, all slaves are implanted with tracking devices.
00:28:47
Speaker
And Padme is shocked because the Republic has anti-slavery laws and this shouldn't exist. But Anakin's mom breaks the news that the Republic doesn't have any power here and her laws and ideals are very nice. But here on the ground, that's not actually the way that things work.
00:29:06
Speaker
And the trackers explode if you get too far away. Governor module much? I didn't even consider that comparison, but yep. Yep, there's a distance limit on the governor module.
00:29:18
Speaker
okay While they're having this conversation, Anakin cracks a scheme to race his pod racer that he built and get money for parts that our crew needs to fix their ship. It's all very sort of elaborate fetch quest within a fetch quest.
00:29:36
Speaker
Qui-Gon breaks the news to Anakin's mom that Anakin is Force-sensitive and the Force is very strong with him. And we learn that he was immaculately conceived by the Force, which I think is so stupid. And we can talk about this more when we talk about Anakin's mom later. I don't even know if she gets a name in this movie. Yeah.
00:30:01
Speaker
But sure, whatever. The midichlorians knocked her up. Why the fuck not? Who cares? And he says that he wants to take Anakin away to train him as a Jedi. And then there's a line where she's talking about the freedom. I'm not really sure if it's hers or Anakin specifically, but Qui-Gon says, I didn't actually come here to free slaves.
00:30:23
Speaker
What is that supposed to mean? that I thought that was such a weird thing to say. and i didn't really understand what his point was. Well, it's it's over dinner, Anakin suggests that that's why he's there.
00:30:39
Speaker
Oh, okay. And obviously, because he's a Jedi, that's the only reason that he could have come to ah a backwater like Tatooine, is to free the slaves. And Qui-Gon's like, that's not actually why I'm here.
00:30:52
Speaker
But I will try and get your son out if I can. Not you, though. Sorry. he does try. he does. But not very hard. He could have tried harder.
00:31:04
Speaker
He tests Anakin's blood for midichlorians, whatever. Apparently there's a very high concentration. Great. We get to the day of the pod race, which is clearly rigged.
00:31:16
Speaker
It's very fun to see all the aliens. There's a two-headed announcer, and each of the heads is doing announcements in different languages, which I think is really fun. All of the racers have a representative carrying a giant flag that represents them. And Anakin has his own flag that C-3PO is carrying. So that's cute. Anakin also just brings one of his little friends to watch. I don't think the friend has a name, but I think it's nice. I think that's something a nine-year-old would Kidster.
00:31:43
Speaker
Kidster. Kidster. Oh, that's cute. That's adorable. Yeah, so that's lovely that he brings his little friend because a nine-year-old would. If you were going to drive a fucking NASCAR and you're nine years old, you would tell your best friend, hey, want to see my fucking race car that I got? And your friend would say, yeah.
00:32:01
Speaker
So that's great. I hope his friend is not also enslaved. I'm going to try not to think about it too hard. Qui-Gon ups the ante on his bet with Watto and uses the force to manipulate a dice roll to secure Anakin's freedom in his deal so that's great we get our first glimpse asterisk in the versions we watched of Jabba the Hutt because I know that he does appear in a scene that's added later to one of the other movies but as far as I'm concerned this is the first time he appears
00:32:33
Speaker
Qui-Gon returns to the area where Padme and Anakin's mom are waiting. And this is where we start collecting evidence that they definitely fuck. The way that he puts his hand on her back is not in the way that if you're trying to squeeze past someone, you might just kind of gently tap them to let them know that you're there. It's not on the shoulder, which I think would be the most platonic hand placement. It's sort of upper mid back and it lingers.
00:33:01
Speaker
And it was not necessary at all. ah There's a part later where he has both of his hands on her shoulders and he's like stroking her with his thumbs. Yeah, he does the little thumb rub.
00:33:13
Speaker
ah Screaming, kicking my little feet. I love it. So good for them, honestly. The race happens. It is a very long sequence. I probably would have enjoyed it if I was watching it as a child.
00:33:28
Speaker
As an adult, I zoned out. I've talked many times about how fight scenes don't usually really do it for me. This had kind of the same thing. The race itself, not even the lead-in, is 10 minutes long. And it's at least five minutes too long.
00:33:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's... I get that at the time, the visuals were super impressive. And if I was a kid watching this, it would be awesome because it would just be badass spaceship pod racer fight. Great.
00:33:57
Speaker
As an adult... Didn't care. because I tried my best to pay attention, but whatever. It happens. Anakin wins. Surprise. They get the parts for their ship. He's free. Fuck his mom, I guess. Or if you're Qui-Gon, you already did.
00:34:10
Speaker
Didn't really have much more to say about that. But then we get to Darth Maul in the desert where he has a cool lightsaber battle with Qui-Gon who does a kick-ass force jump into his ship as it swoops over and takes him away.
00:34:23
Speaker
On board the ship, Anakin and Padme bond. And she puts one of her robes on him because he's chilly because he comes from a warm planet. So sweet. He carves her a little trinket for good fortune.
00:34:36
Speaker
Adorable. And the scene ends talking about Anakin missing his mother. And clearly to me, Padme is stepping into kind of a maternal, sisterly, caring, purely platonic role.
00:34:53
Speaker
And would you like to share with me, share with the people rather, the hot take you shared with me around this point? I mean, we know because we live on earth that Anakin and Padme get together and they have a whole thing. And, you know, maybe it's not happening It's not happening now.
00:35:15
Speaker
but So Anakin is nine, Padme is 14. And childhood friends to lovers is a thing.
00:35:24
Speaker
It is. With a five-year age difference, though, it's like it's pretty much impossible to see that kid that kid ever then as anything but a little kid.
00:35:36
Speaker
So if you have somebody who is then sitting in your brain for however long it is until they they get together, it is a frankly a goddamn miracle for 14-year-old Padme to have that person sitting in your brain be Anakin Skywalker when Obi-Wan fucking Kenobi is right there and 21 and hot.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah, literally, he's right there. And this is yet more proof that George Lucas doesn't understand women. because What? Well, no, it's because to George Lucas, he is putting himself in the eyes of nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker, who the little nine-year-old boy absolutely could and would develop an infatuation with the 14-year-old girl.
00:36:27
Speaker
But the 14 year old girl is going to set her sights on Obi-Wan Kenobi. Literally, I think if she could get sort of a boy band style poster of him to put in her room, she would.
00:36:40
Speaker
He is literally right there. And he is kind and he's competent and he's hot and he's got his silly little braid situation. He's got cool robes. He's the total package.
00:36:54
Speaker
14-year-old me would absolutely have have had my eye on Obi-Wan. Yeah. And because he's a gentleman, he would not reciprocate that interest because that would be creepy and weird.
00:37:06
Speaker
But it is normal for teenagers to have crushes on older people or for even you know younger kids to have crushes on older people, as we said with Anakin. But the fact that this eventually becomes a romantic relationship is mind boggling to me. I'm sure there will be more evidence presented for how it develops in later movies. But for right now, I'm not seeing it.
00:37:26
Speaker
Quite frankly, to my mind, ah the evidence continues to point towards this really should have been Obi-Wan the whole time. m ah George Lucas, get your ego out of the way.
00:37:40
Speaker
Unfortunately, the ego is really, really big. Mm-hmm.
00:37:47
Speaker
like obi-wan's dick there we go i the amount of eye contact as we just wait to see if you're gonna make the difference like okay all right so that's the eye contact through through our computer where i could also theoretically be looking at my notes but i am looking at you and your wonderful face anyway So that scene ends. I haven't really mentioned Senator Palpatine up to this point, but he starts to become important right around here. he His costume is giving a cross between the mayor of Whoville and a medieval lord.
00:38:22
Speaker
So you can conjure that in your mind. He's not old and wrinkly yet. He wants to be the new Supreme Chancellor and he's manipulating Padme into making that happen by calling for a vote of no confidence on the current guy.
00:38:34
Speaker
Then we cut to the Jedi Council. We learn about the Sith, who have been extinct for a millennium, I guess, so they're kind of legendary. We learn later that there's always two of them, a master and an apprentice. And I always thought that there were way more.
00:38:52
Speaker
For some reason, I imagine the Sith is kind of just the opposite of the Jedi and that there was a whole bunch of them. But apparently... can talk about that, because yes and no. Apparently there's two main ones, which is weird to me. But hey, learn something new.
00:39:10
Speaker
There is apparently a prophecy about one who will bring balance to the force. And Qui-Gon wants to train Anakin as a Jedi because he thinks that he's the child of the prophecy.
00:39:22
Speaker
There's a big scene in the Senate where that vote happens. know if you had anything else to really say about that scene. I didn't. i I will. I think I'll probably go through my notes in sort of a chronological sense later, but let's finish the plot and we'll we'll come back and talk. Yeah, we're almost at the end. There's so much to talk about. I just want to get the plot overview over with.
00:39:44
Speaker
So Obi-Wan says that Anakin won't pass the council's test because he's too old, at which point I wonder how old are Padawans supposed to be because he is nine.
00:39:57
Speaker
Babies. That is fucked up to me. I don't like the idea of them taking babies to train them in the force. That's, I don't like it. don't know if it's worth having. Discussion on that too.
00:40:07
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway, putting pins in that. Pins everywhere. There's drama. Apparently Qui-Gon is a bit of a rebel and he's not on the Jedi Council because he doesn't play by their rules.
00:40:18
Speaker
But the test happens. Anakin passes it with flying colors. But Yoda is concerned that Anakin is afraid of losing his mother. And that, I guess, will doom him to the dark side because he's controlled by his fear and his future is clouded and he's too old for training.
00:40:36
Speaker
I think that Being afraid of losing your mother is a very reasonable thing if you're nine, but whatever. I guess he's had too much time to form attachments. Qui-Gon wants to train him, but Yoda says no and that he already has an apprentice. The code forbids it, apparently.
00:40:51
Speaker
hmm. Then, cutting back to our friends back on the planet, time for war. Padme and Jar Jar Binks have some kind of plan. There's a very sweet little scene between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, who obviously have a very close, affectionate teacher-student relationship. That's nice to see.
00:41:10
Speaker
Our crew goes to the secret tribal hiding place, TM. Which I'll talk about. And Padme reveals her secret body double system, prostrates herself before the Gungans to beg them to form an alliance. She's a very good leader.
00:41:24
Speaker
This works. There's a big battle on the rolling green fields from the Windows XP desktop. Jar Jar Binks becomes a general, which is an atrocious way to run your military, but whatever.
00:41:35
Speaker
and this whole big battle is a diversion to draw the droid army away from the city so our crew can sneak in to capture the Viceroy from the Trade Federation.
00:41:46
Speaker
Anakin hides in a ship and is ordered not to leave the cockpit, which technically he does not leave. There's a fucking sweet lightsaber battle.
00:41:56
Speaker
This captured my attention. I liked it very much. Darth Maul's lightsaber has two sides, which rules. There's flips, there's jumps, there's swords crashing. This is what a lightsaber fight should be, in my opinion. This is what I envision when I think of one.
00:42:11
Speaker
Very satisfying. Anakin is flying his little ship that he was hiding in right into the middle of the space portion of the battle and doing very cute little nine-year-old dialogue like, I'll try spinning. That's a good trick.
00:42:28
Speaker
Which is exactly what a kid would say in that situation. We get back to the lightsaber fight. Obi-Wan is trapped behind a force field, helpless to save Qui-Gon as he is stabbed in the gut by Darth Maul and just, well, he doesn't fully die right then, but he's going to die. Which is sad because i really liked him.
00:42:47
Speaker
Anakin helps destroy the droid control ship, which is great. Saves the day. More lightsaber fighting. Obi-Wan loses his lightsaber and has to take his dying masters to use it instead.
00:43:00
Speaker
and then he does he cut Darth Maul in half? Is that what happens? Yep. We see the two halves falling away from each other as they fall down the shaft. I kind of really thought that Darth Maul was going to be in more movies.
00:43:13
Speaker
ah There's a part of me that kind of believes he's going to be sewn back together. I feel like he wasn't there long enough. I like him. I like Darth Maul. I will say nothing. Okay. Because I have a feeling I don't think that's the end of Darth Maul.
00:43:25
Speaker
We find out Qui-Gon isn't actually dead. we get some dramatic last words. Makes Obi-Wan promise to train Anakin. The Federation's plan is exposed. The Viceroy is sent away in shame. Obi-Wan ascends to the rank of Jedi.
00:43:39
Speaker
Yoda is strongly against Anakin becoming a Padawan, but Obi-Wan basically goes, listen, this was my master's dying wish. I'm going to do it with or without your permission. So Yoda reluctantly agrees.
00:43:52
Speaker
Qui-Gon has his funeral, very sad. And then we cut in a very jarring tone shift to a big parade where we celebrate the fact that there's peace between the Naboo and the Gungans. And that's the end of the movie.
00:44:04
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Where should we start? um I think general overall thoughts. There is for 1999, a lot of really, really impressive CG work where they had to create new CG techniques to do almost all of this.
00:44:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And where, you know, George Lucas has said that this was a lot closer to like his original vision for Star Wars, like, but you just couldn't do certain things with practical effects at the time.
00:44:42
Speaker
I will want to have a little bit of a discussion in a little bit on the CG effects versus practical effects, particularly comparing with the Lord of the Rings movies.
00:44:53
Speaker
Ooh, yeah. Because the first Lord of the Rings movie came out in 2001. So, and they're currently, you know, as as this is coming out in 97, the Lord of the Rings movies are being filmed.
00:45:06
Speaker
So we have, we can, you know, having had our deep dive into Lord of the Rings movies, you can see that further down in our feed if you would like. I think we should have a little bit of a discussion on that too.
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah. I also want to place this in time. We are recording this on April 18th, 2026. And going back to the very beginning with the opening crawl, there has been a trade dispute.
00:45:30
Speaker
There is taxation on trade, tariffs, one might say. One might. And the Trade Federation, which is implied to basically be a private corporation,
00:45:43
Speaker
is hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, which the U.S. Navy is currently, although there's maybe not right now, maybe they've come to some sort of agreement, but blockading the Strait of Hormuz as a negotiating tactic.
00:46:02
Speaker
quote unquote, in the war with Iran. Yep. So we're very timely here. hum So this is also based on the opening crawl. This is the Trade Federation's attempt to get the Senate's attention because the Senate are the ones who've imposed the trade regulations. Right.
00:46:23
Speaker
This is not like the fault of the Naboo, but they are purposefully halting trade to Naboo. And based on what we see of Naboo, what we see of Nubian construction, it seems like likely what they're responsible for largely is like luxury items.
00:46:43
Speaker
So whatever's traded in and out of Naboo for luxury items, like I guess clearly the Trade Federation is now preventing that from reaching the rest of the galaxy. Naboo is also described as a small planet.
00:46:58
Speaker
And I would like to know how small and I will have another point on that shortly because it affects discussions about gravity. Ooh. Once again, even though we are going to dive into the science, this is a space fantasy, so the science doesn't actually fucking matter.
00:47:18
Speaker
But here is the thing is, is there's a couple of points through this movie in particular, where you can clearly see George Lucas trying to bring it more in line with like modern sci-fi. Mm hmm.
00:47:29
Speaker
And classic sci-fi too, I guess. But there's more lines that, you know with the midichlorians, with the announcer at one point, he goes, I don't care what universe you're from. That's gotta hurt.
00:47:41
Speaker
Those are very, like, science fiction bits in our space fantasy, which has, for at least the original trilogy, been very wishy-washy with the science.
00:47:56
Speaker
Yeah, we weren't running rapid blood tests in the first two movies. Yeah, and and not to say that like you can't, but it's it's clearly like trying to Lucas is trying to insert more of that hard science into this, but it's not really paying off because then you're also including science fantasy elements.
00:48:19
Speaker
One of the other things to note is apparently the Jedi answered directly to the Supreme Chancellor. Oh, when when did they... Well, I guess because it says the Supreme Chancellor dispatches the Jedi.
00:48:31
Speaker
Yes, and that they are specifically negotiators for the Supreme Chancellor. So the Jedi serve the Republic, and they answer to the Supreme Chancellor, which is interesting to think about.
00:48:46
Speaker
If they're guardians of peace and justice, and yet they are beholden in some way to the political entity that runs the Republic, well, that's something to keep an eye on.
00:48:57
Speaker
I remember I had some kind of offhand comment last time about speculating about why Anakin eventually becomes Darth Vader and that he gets I'm thinking he's probably going to get disillusioned with the system TM. And I kind of am seeing some seeds of being disillusioned with the system TM. And I mean, obviously, Qui-Gon has issues with the Jedi Council. And I'm not really sure where Obi-Wan ends up in all of this. But I think that we're definitely seeing that not all of the Jedi are on the same page at the very least. And I don't know if any of that has to do with the Senate necessarily, but it is interesting to keep an eye on.
00:49:39
Speaker
Well, and I think it's not really a spoiler to tell you, like in the history of the Jedi, like within the canon history of the Jedi, there's stories.
00:49:50
Speaker
Disney has put out a lot of stuff in the High Republic era, which takes place like 200 to 300 years prior to the Phantom Menace. And during the High Republic era and prior to that, the Jedi were independent.
00:50:04
Speaker
They cooperated with the Republic frequently, but they were not part of the Republic. Yeah. So now to see them as a part of the Republic, knowing that that's their history, is really jarring.
00:50:18
Speaker
Mm-hmm. You mentioned directly as the droid comes in to serve Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan tea that it is a very phallic tea service. It is. it really is. well post a screenshot so that everyone can see that I'm right.
00:50:34
Speaker
The battle droids are fucking delightful. They're, you know, they're a little roger roger. Check it out, Corporal. We'll cover you. Roger roger. Blast them. Yeah, I love them. They're so good.
00:50:45
Speaker
At one point, Qui-Gon directly calls out that This is an odd play for the Trade Federation. This is weird for you to be sending down your private army. Mm-hmm.
00:50:57
Speaker
Also, Droidikas, which is, again, kind of a stupid Star Wars name, are clearly known to the Jedi as destroyers.
00:51:07
Speaker
When the Trade Federation lands and they start, they put out their invasion vehicles and their troop transports, and the troop transports are knocking down the forest as they're going through, right before we meet Jar Jar Binks and all is ruined forever.
00:51:24
Speaker
This reminded me, i guess, or more accurately, the other scene reminded me of this, which is James Cameron's Avatar. There are scenes in Avatar, again, a movie where it it was meant to take advantage of new advancements in CG technology and spend all of this time and money on CG.
00:51:47
Speaker
And there's there there is another scene where technology is mowing down this forest. that just it So, connections being drawn. m It is not unlikely that James Cameron was inspired in part by Star Wars or, you know, by logging companies yeah and the U.S. military.
00:52:11
Speaker
We have a line about something being demanded by the gods. which Yes, from from our boy, J.J.B. From Jar Jar, which that's another standout.
00:52:22
Speaker
We haven't really discussed gods prior to this. h Religion in Star Wars very much seems like to revolve around the Force, and that's pretty much it.
00:52:34
Speaker
The big hidden bubble city has big Lord of the Rings elf vibes. I love the big hit in Bubble City. I think it's so beautiful. There's a lot of, you know, CGI and stuff that was, like we've said, super advanced for the time and is maybe more obvious to us now. But there's a lot of just big sweeping shots of cities that are so beautiful. I love the Bubble City. I think it's so gorgeous.
00:52:59
Speaker
It's just really nice to look at. I would make that my desktop on my computer. I really like the Bubble City. I think it's very cool. I like the internal consistency later on with the shield technology that the Gungans use. of like That's clearly something that they've mastered in sort of creating these separations yeah um between environments.
00:53:21
Speaker
The travel through the planet core is very subnautica. Yes. With a giant crustacean and Godzilla thing and a flatworm with a barracuda jaw and big chaliceri. So let's have a quick biology and astrophysics moment. This is Science Corner with Rin. Yay!
00:53:45
Speaker
yea Hi, everybody. My name is Rin. I'm a biologist by training and by practice. So let's talk about oxygen diffusion. Is this oxygen making animals big?
00:53:59
Speaker
Is that what that is? Or is that a different thing? So oxygen diffusion is how oxygen makes its way through your cells, um from like from the external environment into your cells. Without oxygen, your cells die.
00:54:11
Speaker
So there is a direct relationship between body size and oxygen because as a creature increases in body size, the ratio of surface area to volume, body volume, decreases.
00:54:28
Speaker
So you have less area that interacts with an oxygenated environment. And therefore, you know, if you're using so your skin to absorb oxygen, then you you can't handt absorb as much oxygen as all of the cells in your body might need.
00:54:47
Speaker
Also, if you're large enough that you're not using your skin as your oxygen exchange organ, you have to evolve some other kind of organ to do that oxygen exchange.
00:54:58
Speaker
And there has to still be enough oxygen that you can exchange in a timely fashion to oxygenate all of your cells. Mm-hmm. And continue oxygenating all of your cells because oxygen is used up in the production of energy.
00:55:13
Speaker
And then CO2 is created by a waste as a waste product and that needs to be expelled. So things like gills, continually moving water across gills or...
00:55:24
Speaker
using lungs, you have to have an organ that is large enough to successfully oxygenate your cells in a timely fashion. And the larger you get, the more difficult that becomes depending on the oxygen in the environment.
00:55:42
Speaker
So in a heavily oxygenated environment, that's easier. Our atmosphere on Earth is roughly 22% oxygen. That percentage has been higher in Earth's history.
00:55:53
Speaker
It was close to 30%, I want to say, during the Cretaceous period, which is, of course, when we had fucking giant-ass dinosaurs wandering around everywhere.
00:56:06
Speaker
So, and there is a theory to about oxygen levels at the bottom of the ocean that there's more oxygen dissolved in water down at the bottom of the ocean, which allows things like giant squids to grow down there and and like deep sea gigantism to be a thing.
00:56:25
Speaker
which is Deep sea gigantism is the phenomenon of many sorts of deep sea creatures being significantly larger than their surface dwelling counterparts.
00:56:35
Speaker
Because there's just simply more oxygen down there for them to interact with. The other piece that puts a limit on body size is weight.
00:56:50
Speaker
And this, again, is directly related to that ratio of surface area to body volume. As you become larger, it takes more and more energy for you to hold up your own body weight, which is why larger creatures can evolve and exist in the ocean, because they are not subject to the same weight issues that we are on the surface.
00:57:13
Speaker
yeah Even the largest of living surface creatures is like a tenth of the size of those in the ocean. An African elephant is not nearly the size of a blue whale.
00:57:27
Speaker
Yeah. So when I'm looking at the three giant creatures that we see, which is the OPC killer, which is the crustacean, the colo clawfish, and the Sando aqua monster.
00:57:42
Speaker
The Sando aqua monster is the really, really giant one. that saves them twice by eating these slightly smaller ones. The colo clawfish is the like thing with the flatworm body, barracuda head, and the big chompy chomp things that really does look directly out of Subnautica.
00:58:01
Speaker
I have questions about sort of are they... How are they doing their oxygen exchange? The OPC killer in particular looks like a crustacean. There's probably some sort of gill.
00:58:13
Speaker
According to Wookieepedia, it moves water with like internal water jets across its gills and uses that as essentially water jet propulsion, which there are plenty of animals on Earth that do the same thing.
00:58:27
Speaker
The Sandow Aquamonster, particularly, has nostrils. It i do also has gills. Yeah. So it has nostrils and it has gills. It's very Godzilla.
00:58:39
Speaker
It looks to me to be kind of a giant amphibian, which could suggest that it does some form of gas exchange through the skin. But that one in particular, the Sando Aquamonster, was what started me on this thinking about body size in combination with the beginning piece in the opening crawl where says Naboo is a small planet.
00:59:01
Speaker
And with them actively traveling through the planet core, which is apparently an ocean the whole way through, which the planet core of any planet is under an intense amount of pressure and heat.
00:59:16
Speaker
Ours is liquid metal, approximately five times as dense as water. So to have a liquid water core that you can just travel through, that's going to affect the gravity of your planet. So yeah, maybe the planet has lower gravity, which means something like the Sandow Aquamonster could grow bigger, but that doesn't necessarily explain the fact that everybody's just kind of running around up on the surface. Yeah.
00:59:42
Speaker
You could also suggest then that Naboo has a much higher level of oxygen in the atmosphere than we do on Earth, which could explain all of the really, really large creatures we see even on the surface on Naboo, which that one I don't really have anything to refute that.
00:59:59
Speaker
But when I see creatures like this, all I have to think about like the environment that spawned to them. How did they get to be this way? Yeah. Right. The Gungans are clearly amphibious to some in some respect.
01:00:12
Speaker
Their feet are kind of interesting because they're not like any sort of like they're not really flippery. They're kind of like elephant feet kind They're kind of elephant. Yeah. They seem pretty set for walking on land, but their hands have some webbing to them for swimming.
01:00:27
Speaker
That's my science corner. I also had a comment about the Windows 95 screensaver that they were all marching through. The other comment that I have generally for the movie is that the writing is intensely clunky.
01:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, you were saying that just in our chats last night that the first two movies that we watched are cheesy or corny. And yeah this movie is clunky. And I think that that's a good way of putting it.
01:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, it... there's a scene The scene that really does this for me is Qui-Gon bringing everybody in. and They're getting on the Queen's ship.
01:01:04
Speaker
And he goes, he tells the battle droid, I'm taking these people to Coruscant. And the battle droid goes, where are you taking them? To Coruscant. The battle droid goes, Coruscant? That doesn't compute.
01:01:16
Speaker
Hey, wait, you're under arrest. And then the battle ensues. It's very clunky. Mm-hmm. There, you know, i can understand how you could read that line in such a way that the droid does not have the processing power to understand what Qui-Gon is really saying.
01:01:38
Speaker
And, you know, the that does not compute. It has a programmed set of orders and anything outside of that set of orders causes it to go haywire. And so it just defaults to you're under arrest.
01:01:54
Speaker
which is, you know, probably sort of default standing orders for any humans randomly on the planet. We directly follow this up with the scene where Newt Gunray and the other Neimoidians are talking, with who are the Trade Federation folks. We never get the names of, there's a lot of characters we just simply don't get names for here.
01:02:16
Speaker
Like the governor of Naboo. His name is C.O. Bivel. Oh, C.O. Bibble. Maybe he was embarrassed and he didn't want to say his name.
01:02:27
Speaker
We never get Shmi Skywalker's name. Oh, is that the mom? That's the mom. We never get Shmi Skywalker's name. We don't get Newt Gunray. We don't get Lot Dodd, who is the senator for the Trade Federation, which also fucking wild that this company has its own senators. Oh, that's disgusting. Yeah.
01:02:48
Speaker
Yeah, this is this is a above and beyond corporations are people into corporations have representation. o at least they're upfront about it, I guess.
01:03:00
Speaker
Right. But during this conversation, they're talking with Sidious and Sidious introduces Maul and they sign off and they the Nemoidians look at each other and go, this is getting out of hand.
01:03:12
Speaker
Now there are two of them. One of them goes we should not have made this bargain. Like that just, that does not read well. And the real world explanation for this is the fact that George Lucas is not a good writer.
01:03:28
Speaker
He's got some really good big ideas. But when it comes to actual script writing, he is, he leaves a lot to be desired. And the original trilogy was saved by the interventions of...
01:03:43
Speaker
His now ex-wife, Marsha Lucas, who was a famous film editor and script doctor, and Carrie Fisher, who also turned out to be kind of end up getting a reputation as a script doctor.
01:03:59
Speaker
She could, you know, would would take a look at scripts on set and fix them right before they went into shooting. Mm-hmm. Be like, this flows better this way. If you're having us cross here, we need to be saying this instead. This should be exposition.
01:04:14
Speaker
Without those two women at his side, he is seriously, seriously hurting here. And I'm sure that there are, as with any movie, many creative and talented editors who worked to improve the script before it got to its final form. So what was it like before? What was his rough draft? This is the polished version. This is the final.
01:04:41
Speaker
The thing it's It's not. it's not I'm not sure whether it was both on Attack of the Clones or on and Revenge of the Sith or just on Revenge of the Sith. They were under such time constraints.
01:04:54
Speaker
And George Lucas had procrastinated writing so much that he was literally writing things on a legal pad and handing it to the crew, to the cast, like directly before filming. So it's bad.
01:05:06
Speaker
that's really bad yeah That speed of writing is just, oh, this is some TV bullshit because I fun facts about my life is a lot of members of my family have found mild to moderate success in the entertainment industry. And one of my aunts and uncles levels, people worked on law and order for a long time, many, many years. And she was telling me about how it was really hard to do costumes for Law & Order because to have the costumes, you needed to know the cast. And to have the cast, you needed the script. And to have the script, it needed to be written. And if you're trying to turn around episodes of TV really fast, they might have a shoot scheduled for the next day, but not have the script yet. And so just have to blow through department stores right before they close to think okay there's i know this scene is going to have a female jogger and so usually the types of people that they cast as female joggers in these scenes are going to be between this size and this size so we'll get a bunch of outfits in these sizes that maybe this jogger extra might wear because we don't even know who's being cast but we need clothes for them to wear so to me that level of on the fly writing that's tv bullshit this is a movie george manage your time better
01:06:26
Speaker
When are two meets 3PO, his first response is a fucking wolf whistle.
01:06:34
Speaker
It is! It is! And then he looks him up and down and immediately is like, nice ass. Literally, I wish that I could have a translation of the things that R2 says, because I'm sure they are vile. no And C-3PO is so proper and just goes, I may be a translation droid, but I don't know what that means. And R2 goes, i can teach you.
01:06:58
Speaker
Hey, little mama, let me whisper in your ear. Right. C-3PO is immediately like, oh, no, my parts are showing. And R2 is like, no, that was the point, dude. He's like, yeah, they are.
01:07:09
Speaker
to interface? Yeah. Let's share a mutual processing arrangement.
01:07:17
Speaker
There's a little exposition piece when they're having sitting down for having dinner. Qui-Gon goes, you must have Jedi reflexes if you raise pods, and then immediately shows off his Jedi reflexes by grabbing Jar Jar's tongue.
01:07:30
Speaker
m When Jar Jar does a little frog tongue thing to grab an apple, to which Anakin goes... you know you're a jedi and then i saw your laser sword and qui-gon goes maybe i killed a jedi and took it from him and anakin goes no one can kill a jedi and we immediately know someone's gonna kill a fucking jedi here true that is true that is the moment you know qui-gon is doomed i love that guy i'm so sad that he died When the storm ends and they're looking over the pod, the little look that Shmi gives Qui-Gon right as she comes out before they discuss the immaculate conception of Anakin.
01:08:09
Speaker
This is clearly before they fuck, but this is establishing that they will be fucking. Because this is like the same day and then obviously they have a night before the race.
01:08:20
Speaker
When Watto rolls his little chance cube, when Qui-Gon is making this extra bet to free Anakin and Shmi, and Watto says, I will free one of them and we'll let fate decide, Blue the boy read his mother.
01:08:36
Speaker
It is supposed to land on red because it's loaded. Qui-Gon uses the force to push it to blue. Think about our color coding here in Star Wars. Oh.
01:08:48
Speaker
Qui-Gon... Qui-Gon is applying force to push Anakin towards the light side. That's really good! That's really good! If Qui-Gon had lived, Anakin likely would not have fallen.
01:09:04
Speaker
oh my god. Qui-Gon is the driving force behind Anakin becoming a Jedi. But clearly, the dice were loaded against him from the start.
01:09:17
Speaker
Is that a w Rin original interpretation? Yeah, baby. That's really good. That's so good. Oh my god. And that's based on, we'll discuss a little bit later with the Duel of the Fates, based on some things that Dave Filoni has said about that battle specifically.
01:09:34
Speaker
When Shmi and Kitster and Anakin and Padme show up, the good morning that Qui-Gon gives to Shmi, they fucked. Yeah. That was my yeah first. They fucked. He goes up to her and just goes.
01:09:49
Speaker
And lifts her up off the EOP to put her on the ground. They fucked. He left before she woke up. Or he woke her up with an orgasm and left while she's in a post-orgasmic haze.
01:10:01
Speaker
for her sake i hope it was the latter and then the hand on the back as they go into the seats and again he's talking to a 14 year old girl here so i can only read so much but when he's talking to padme padme is like i have you know the queen has grave reservations about this the queen won't like this and he leans down gets in her face and goes the queen trusts my judgment young handmaiden You should too.
01:10:31
Speaker
And I was like, oh, tell me he's not giving Daddy Dom vibes there. Yeah. Yeah. He he ah can channel that into genuine father or into daddy.
01:10:47
Speaker
And situationally depends. Maybe this is why he's not on the council. They're like, listen, you are a very powerful Jedi and we respect you, but you need to stop fucking. You need to stop. It's not allowed.
01:11:01
Speaker
and he goes, I'll never stop. And then he. Oh, it's the Jedi can fuck. They just can't have attachments. Wait, is that really the so just I mean, obviously, to the unenlightened, that's the same thing. But because we are enlightened, and we know that, you know, relationships are complicated. Technically, there's not a no sex rule. It's just no attachments rule.
01:11:21
Speaker
Yeah. Fascinating. Because I am continuing to assemble my qualities of an ideal Jedi tally. And I only had a couple for this one. So maybe I can stick them in here. since we're talking about it, but we learned that a Jedi should be mindful of the future, according to Yoda, but not at the expense of the present, according Qui-Gon.
01:11:40
Speaker
They need to have quick reflexes and also kind of relatedly seeing things before they happen, either in a quick reflexes sense or like how Luke had visions of the future in the last movie.
01:11:55
Speaker
There is some kind of Jedi code that we do not get the specifics of but there is definitely a code that lists out all of the shit that Jedi is supposed to do and Yoda has a nice very poetic line about sort of the reason why fear is dangerous for a Jedi because fear leads to anger anger leads to hate hate leads to suffering which is kind of giving Four Noble Truths a little bit it's giving the three poisons giving philosophical you know kind of
01:12:28
Speaker
stuff but go off religious studies scholar but that is just by little brain connection of oh talking about jedi things those are the things that we learned about jedi in this movie or at least those are are things that i learned well and as we're spending a lot of time in a time period where the jedi exist again this is for you to be paying attention to the jedi draw a lot of inspiration from buddhist philosophy mm-hmm So we'll be turning to you on multiple occasions. Yeah, let's go.
01:13:02
Speaker
To have discussions about that. The pod racer called Quadraneros has four engines on his pod. That makes sense. Quad. Quad, yeah. Names in Star Wars are kind of ridiculous.
01:13:15
Speaker
Obi-Wan, it goes, at one point, why do I sense we've picked up another pathetic life form? Obi-Wan is such a little shit. Yeah. Like this line. And at one point earlier, he's like, you were right about one thing, master. the negotiations were short.
01:13:31
Speaker
He's such a little. He so 21. I love it. love i love it i love him When they're leaving Tatooine, Qui-Gon asks Shmi if she'll be all right with a little thumb rub on her shoulder. Mm-hmm.
01:13:46
Speaker
Again, they fucked. There's a scene in the Senate where everyone's cheering about the vote of no confidence, and in the background, there's E.T. aliens. Oh, I didn't realize that. It's it's a background shot.
01:13:57
Speaker
When... When Queen Amidala is being influenced by Palpatine, when she goes, it's clear to me the Republic no longer functions and plans to return to Naboo, there's a ghost of a smile on Palpatine's lips.
01:14:10
Speaker
And it cuts away before it gets any bigger. But his protests really do have the the no, wait, stop vibes. Yeah, don't go.
01:14:21
Speaker
no possibly you can't possibly do this. So I want to talk about briefly the Jedi and their refusal to train him because he's too old and he has too much fear.
01:14:34
Speaker
And he's very, very powerful in the force. So... why then, if we're concerned about him falling to the dark side, and we know that the Sith are back, are we not picking up this boy to train him? Are we not worried that there's other people who are willing to train him?
01:14:53
Speaker
Now, I know from my larger Star Wars meta-knowledge that there are other Force-wielding organizations outside of the Jedi and the Sith. And the Jedi have had long-standing beef with pretty much all of them.
01:15:09
Speaker
And historically, and some of this is Legends content, but thousands and thousands of years prior to the movies, the Sith were a Jedi offshoot.
01:15:20
Speaker
They were originally, quote, like dark Jedi. And then they fell in with a species called the Sith and discovered other pieces of the dark side of the Force and became a whole separate organization. But there was so much infighting in the Sith that that one of them, Darth Bane, reduced it down to two, Master and Apprentice.
01:15:42
Speaker
And it is basically the nature of the Sith that the Apprentice will always end up killing the Master at some point. However, there are plenty of other dark side practitioners that we will see.
01:15:54
Speaker
And you know none of them are Sith, but they're dark side acolytes. So there's always two Sith, but there are other dark siders.
01:16:05
Speaker
Mm-hmm. and the jedi are showing a clear assumption that if they don't train aniqui then he will just stay as he is he will not figure out anything on his own he will not attempt to train himself he will not find somebody else to train him somebody else won't find him now that he's been placed into the public eye and is clearly a very powerful force user that you know any force user can senses clearly nobody else is going to happen upon this kid and turn him against us.
01:16:38
Speaker
So it's, it is ridiculous to me that they're not immediately let's Be very careful with this one. And if you're afraid of him falling to the dark side, okay, let's do everything we can to prevent that. If you just kind of kick him out into the world, you're just washing your hands of it and going, well, we we hope that nothing else bad happens here.
01:17:05
Speaker
Yeah. That's not very mindful of the future, Yoda. No. is Is there no way to improve in the Force without Jedi training? Could he not figure this out on his own? He's 10, and he has clearly figured out certain parts of his reflexes and listening to the future. And Qui-Gon has already given him some hints about how the Force works. So he's clearly capable on his own.
01:17:35
Speaker
If you don't teach him techniques to avoid the dark side, then you basically ensure that he will be a problem later. And I think Qui-Gon knows this, which is why he is so insistent about training Anakin.
01:17:53
Speaker
Like, yeah, he's the chosen one who will bring balance to the Force, which also, again, hubris of the Jedi that will ultimately be their downfall. They assume that balance means destruction of the dark side.
01:18:04
Speaker
Yeah, which even to me, not knowing much about Star Wars, that seems like a pretty obviously bad idea. it seems like it's not balanced. It's heavily weighted in favor of one. It's like how Darth Vader says he's going to bring peace to the galaxy, but his version of peace where he's just in charge of everything. Like,
01:18:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. Well, and and at one point Obi-Wan says...
01:18:33
Speaker
peaceful were're right and so at one point you know obbiwa says to quaiggon the boy is dangerous why can't you sense it so yeah training not training him is more dangerous because you havet have not taught him any way to protect himself. Yeah, sure, you haven't taught him how to be effective, so it may be wild and easier for people who know what they're doing to handle, but there is always the chance that this sort of wild, chaotic force creature, who was created by the force, by the way...
01:19:09
Speaker
Sam's face looks so done. I'm taking cleansing breaths. I have tried to explain to Miles before. This is a slight tangent. I have tried to explain to them before the psychic damage that it does to you.
01:19:24
Speaker
Just to be raised with the story that, you know, virgin birth happened, it's possible. Because even if you are an educated 21st century person, if you have, say, irregular periods, there is always going to be that little tiny fraction of a percentage of a voice in your mind of maybe I'm pregnant this time. Even if you know rationally that it's impossible, if from a young age you are introduced to this idea, It worms its way into your subconscious and it's awful.
01:19:59
Speaker
And also, i just hate that Shmi is literally just a vessel. She doesn't even have a name. There's no even there's not even anything like, oh, she's like the Virgin Mary who is really virtuous or something. No, she's just a lady who didn't ask for any of this.
01:20:17
Speaker
hmm. She didn't get a cool annunciation from a force angel, which we know that angels exist in this world. According to Anakin, she didn't get visited by an angel. She just got pregnant for no reason.
01:20:29
Speaker
She deserves so much better. They live on the moons of Iago or something. Also, she's totally going to die tragically. Absolutely. One thousand bajillion million percent. She has the anime mom hair, kind of like how the anime moms will often have the side ponytail. And they have this whole tearful goodbye where Anakin says, I'm going to come back. I'm going to free you. No, you're not.
01:20:53
Speaker
That's probably going to be the thing that finally tips him over to the dark side is he's going to go through all his training and shit and go, okay, maybe I disagree with the Jedi Council about some stuff, but mostly their hearts are in the right place. But no, I wasn't able to save my mom. Everything I learned was... worthless and now i'm gonna be darth vader i am placing all my money on that bet that this lady will die tragically and that's gonna be the thing that just sends him over the edge because she's cannon fodder she's nothing she's not a person i'm so upset about it she is a she herself is a fridge waiting to happen
01:21:31
Speaker
When Qui-Gon declares Anakin as his Padawan anyway in Defiance of the Council, Obi-Wan gives him a half-second look like, excuse me, I'm right fucking here. Dad, what the fuck? You're getting a new brother. and Well, and Obi-Wan, you know, backs Qui-Gon's play. Because, like, he'll support his dad, but clearly has reservations. Yeah.
01:21:55
Speaker
at Which, again, also more evidence for why Obi-Wan is a little shit is because, like, that's his dad. Yeah. That's just his dad.
01:22:06
Speaker
Whatever. is the This is the guy that's raised him since he was, like, nine or ten. Because before that, all all Jedi younglings are together. And then they pass the initiate trials and they become Padawans and they get taken on by an individual master.
01:22:18
Speaker
So, like, yeah, this is this is just his dad. Mm-hmm. Also, the fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, suffering leads to the dark side thing. Obviously, I've used that line in my life to explain all sorts of shit.
01:22:33
Speaker
And particularly how politicians manipulate people into hating other groups of people by playing off of their fear. That is a true statement. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate.
01:22:48
Speaker
Hate and leads to suffering. But it's not a... All fear leads to hate. Yeah. we I think we've talked about on this podcast before, the purpose of fear.
01:23:00
Speaker
And I haven't read it recently and currently have my copy loaned to one of my coworkers. But in the Monk and Robot duology by Becky Chambers, there is a discussion on the purpose of fear.
01:23:11
Speaker
And fear keeps us safe and sometimes can help ah can help encourage us to work together collectively. Fear has a purpose.
01:23:22
Speaker
It is important to not let your fear control you. And so it's important to have techniques to deal with fear and to deal with anxiety. But there is a purpose to it.
01:23:34
Speaker
And so... The Jedi's blanket approach of no attachments ever, because you will then be afraid of losing those attachments, and therefore that will drive you to the dark side, is such a one-size-fits-all approach, and also a you know, we're not willing to put in the work.
01:23:55
Speaker
But like dealing with loss and dealing with grief is obviously a part of the human experience that all of us are going to have to go through at some point in our lives. And there are people who definitely have negative responses sometimes to grief.
01:24:12
Speaker
And yet there are coping mechanisms, therapy, to help you work through that, to help you with fear and anxiety and and loss and grief.
01:24:23
Speaker
And also this, you know, sort of rugged individualism, everyone stands for themselves, I feel like is more likely to create fear.
01:24:35
Speaker
Like if you know that you can have no reliance on anybody else, Or like you have you have nobody that you know you can rely on. h Or you have no attachments that you can offload difficult things onto. Then you're just keeping all of that inside, keeping all
Jedi Philosophy and Child Safety
01:24:56
Speaker
of that bottled up. And somehow, someday, some point, you're going to encounter something you can't deal with personally.
01:25:02
Speaker
And that is going to either kill you or drive you over the edge. Yeah. again more ways that i think when we look at the history of the jedi in star wars lore you can see this this prohibition on attachments evolve from a basically be careful of this but jedi do in fact have children and have families And then during the High Republic era, Jedi absolutely fuck and they form relationships. ah but
01:25:38
Speaker
they do have to be careful to not let their commitment to each other supersede their commitment to the Jedi Council to now where it's like, if you can remember your parents, you're too old because you're always going to be afraid of losing them. And that will drive you to the dark side.
01:25:55
Speaker
And also just, I'm sure that I'll have more commentary on this as we see more about how Jedi children are raised. But, you know, say that you are separated from your parents at a very early age, at birth, even.
01:26:07
Speaker
That, first of all, is traumatic. It is a source of trauma that the child would carry with them forever. Then they're raised by whoever raises them, whether, you know, individuals, collective, whatever. They'll just form attachments to those people. And then when they're wrenched away from them at age nine or ten or whatever, they will be re-traumatized and then they'll form attachments to their master. Humans form attachments.
01:26:32
Speaker
That's so stupid. it's The condition of being human is to form attachments. There's no way to not form attachments. Sorry, Buddha, but it's true. And there's plenty of non-human Jedi, but we're operating from a human perspective here, and so are the writers, and so that's constantly going to be be a part of things.
01:26:52
Speaker
Yeah. Speaking of Jedi and child safety... They bring the baby with them into the city during the battle. There's no non-combatants staying in the sacred place.
01:27:05
Speaker
No one that they couldn't just leave baby Anakin with some some of the Gungans or some other non-combatants out of the battle. um But also the Jedi aren't great at child safety and, ah you know, very much, as we'll see, consider a 10-year-old to be perfectly capable of being a child soldier.
01:27:25
Speaker
Not that that's much better with the Naboo and their 14-year-old warrior queen. Yeah.
The Duel of the Fates: Significance and Symbolism
01:27:32
Speaker
I love that Anakin's first thought of where is safe is in a starfighter, obviously. Yeah.
01:27:38
Speaker
We need to talk about Duel of the Fates. Okay. J. Willy really, really went off with Duel the Fates. Because holy shit.
01:27:49
Speaker
When we exit that battle scene of the starfighters leaving, and now everyone's going to go to the throne room, and the door opens and you hear the first, buing and see Maul's face to the, Dun, dun, dun.
01:28:17
Speaker
Wheelhandlers. We'll take the long way.
01:28:23
Speaker
Chills. Instantly. The first time I saw this movie, I couldn't have been older than like eight or nine. Mm-hmm. And the, you know Ray Park, who physically portrays Maul, holding out the lightsaber and igniting one side and then the other.
01:28:39
Speaker
Coolest shit for an eight-year-old. Oh, that fucking ruled. I loved it. Coolest shit. The original concept of Duel the Fates was drawn from Karl Orff's O Fortuna.
01:29:16
Speaker
The lyrics, which this stands out because i I did just a quick look back through original trilogy Star Wars. And unless I missed it, this is the first inclusion of choral music in Star Wars scoring.
01:29:33
Speaker
With the exception of a brief celebratory song in Return of the Jedi, but that's presented as diegetic as coming from within the world as people singing.
01:29:45
Speaker
So the lyrics to Duel the Fates come from a Welsh poem. I'm going to butcher the pronunciation of it, it I apologize, of Cad Godiu, which is the Battle of the Trees.
01:29:58
Speaker
which And I apologize that I'm reading that in English pronunciation, but I don't know how... Welsh pronunciation rules work. However, the lyrics that they're speaking are not Welsh. Williams took lines 32 to 35 of the poem, which translated reads, under the tongue root, a fight most dread and another raging behind in the head.
01:30:19
Speaker
Oh, damn. And then he translated that into Sanskrit and rearranged it so it sounded cool. So ultimately, the lyrics that they're singing don't actually make any sense.
01:30:34
Speaker
h Like a one-for-one translation, like transliteration into English is dreadful head, dreadful speak, give, dreadful speak, give battle dreadful.
01:30:45
Speaker
There's no actual meaning any longer. But it sounds fucking cool. And the concepts were coming from a really interesting place. Yeah, this just blew my mind the first time I heard it.
01:30:57
Speaker
And it has blown my mind ever fucking since. It is really good. It is incredible. It plays over the whole end battle, both the lightsaber battle between the two Jedi and the Sith, and also between the Naboo and the Trade Federation droids.
01:31:17
Speaker
Also, one minor beef, as I was listening to Duel of the Fates earlier, there's plenty of people who cover Star Wars music and do rearrangements and such online, and a lot of people do very cool, very interesting stuff with it.
01:31:29
Speaker
There's one dude who I found who does epic versions of everything, which basically just means more extreme staccato and staccato and more extreme dynamic changes. And my guy, Duel the Fates, is already as epic as you could possibly make it. And listened to his version, and it's really just, it's like, we made the dynamic changes bigger.
01:31:48
Speaker
And now there's more brass and synthesizer, and now there's guitars. Okay? Okay. I don't really know if you can improve on this one. it was It was already epic, dude.
01:32:00
Speaker
During the battle, Padme is using the queen voice to talk, even though she's out of queen makeup now, and Sabe is playing decoy, which I'll talk about all the handmaidens in a minute.
01:32:12
Speaker
I want to compare attitudes of Maul, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon during that final scene, and particularly during that ray shield scene, when they're all separated by the line of ray shields.
01:32:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Maul is pacing back and forth on one side, glaring down at Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon shuts off his lightsaber, gets on his knees and meditates.
01:32:34
Speaker
Centers himself, calms his mind. Obi-Wan is mirroring Maul. He's pacing back and forth. He is visibly vibrating with tension.
01:32:45
Speaker
The only difference is that Obi-Wan deactivates his lightsaber. Maul keeps his activated. That's spicy. That's good stuff. Particularly once we've heard about Obi-Wan being headstrong and having much to learn about the living force.
01:33:02
Speaker
This is the difference between somebody who's not quite a brand new Jedi Knight and a Jedi Master. And this is why, the so Dave Filoni has ultimately said that the duel of the fates is not between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon and Maul.
01:33:20
Speaker
The duel the fates is light side versus dark side. The duel for Anakin. That's sad. and oh Anakin, you don't deserve any of this little guy.
01:33:33
Speaker
Well, and Obi-Wan wins the fight with Maul, but the dark side wins the duel of the fates. If Qui-Gon had lived, Anakin would have had that centering Jedi Master presence training him.
01:33:47
Speaker
But instead, he's left with his older parentified sibling. I was literally about to say his parentified older brother. yeah and that like that informs their interactions forevermore.
01:33:59
Speaker
And Obi-Wan has not learned patience and has not learned what he truly needs to become a Jedi master. And so he's going to pass all of that down to Anakin.
01:34:13
Speaker
So ultimately, Qui-Gon's death is what loses the Duel of the Fates.
Qui-Gon's Death and Anakin's Trajectory
01:34:19
Speaker
Oh, I loved Qui-Gon so much. I'm really sad that he's only in one movie. Yeah.
01:34:24
Speaker
but We'll have another ah little another little bit of Qui-Gon later on. He doesn't come up much more in Star Wars, but there's some prequel stuff that we'll get to later. That's good. I'm glad we'll see him again because he's great.
01:34:39
Speaker
Yeah, for another like 15, 20 minutes of material. Listen, I can see his beautiful hair some more. That's fine. So, and then briefly, we'll talk about the handmaidens, who also, we don't get any of their fucking names, but there are five of them. There is Irte, Sabe, Rabe, Sache, and Yane.
01:34:59
Speaker
And supposedly, technically, they all have other names. I was literally about to say, are those their handmaiden names and they were born to something else? Yeah. Right. They all take on names that are similar to Padme's so that and people keeping track of them can't kind of figure out who's where.
01:35:16
Speaker
Yeah. um And they all apparently have a physical similarity to her. Sabe is played by Keira Knightley. She is the one who does most of the decoy-ing.
01:35:28
Speaker
Keira Knightley and Natalie Portman look so much alike that apparently people on set had a hard time distinguishing them. Later on in the Star Wars universe, Sabe ends up fighting both for and against the Empire at different times.
01:35:45
Speaker
Ooh. Irte and Rabe both become artists later on. And Sache and Yane get married. Lesbians! Space lesbians.
01:35:57
Speaker
That's the best thing ever. Incredible. That's so sweet. That's so beautiful. that they were badass handmaidens together. Because I was also thinking about, you know, trying to do my queer reading and really not seeing much that jumps out to me in the last couple of movies. So I'm thinking, okay, let's think about gender. Let's think about femininity and masculinity and what they mean in this Star Wars world. And just trying to imagine the inner life of
01:36:31
Speaker
Padme and her handmaidens in this intense young teenage intimacy, which any kind of friend group might naturally develop, but also the fact that they have jobs. They're putting their lives on the line constantly.
01:36:45
Speaker
There's gotta be some crazy bonding and trauma and shit going on between all of them. I'm really glad the two of them got married. Oh, that's really sweet.
01:36:56
Speaker
And then just really quick, because we still have more to talk about. o will end up being a long episode. That's okay. It's so it's a free podcast. Put us on really new shows. So we have a whole host of new characters here.
01:37:13
Speaker
Like new cast members. Right? So Qui-Gon Jinn is played by Liam Neeson, who folks might know as the guy from Taken.
01:37:23
Speaker
He was also Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins. He played Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia. He has been in Excalibur, The Bounty, Les Mis,
01:37:37
Speaker
Batman, as I said, Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars. He is a big name. He was a big name, a big get for the casting crew. Apparently, Lucas originally wanted an American actor for Qui-Gon, but he cast Neeson because he was like, Neeson's just fantastic. yeah Neeson is also like six foot five.
01:37:59
Speaker
He is very, very tall, especially seeing... scenes of Qui-Gon and Padme walking together and she's so short. She's teensy. She's absolutely teensy. She's this little.
01:38:11
Speaker
And they made several practical sets only up to a certain point. Then everything above that was CG'd. And they had to add on an extra six inches to the sets because he was so much taller than everybody. Yeah.
01:38:27
Speaker
and so And that cost them like multiple millions of extra dollars. Amazing. i love it. Casting this dude added millions of dollars to the set budget.
01:38:39
Speaker
Jake Lloyd plays Anakin Skywalker. He, as we've mentioned, did not continue with his acting career. And it's hard to look at the backlash he faced for this movie and not see that that was a factor.
01:38:51
Speaker
Natalie Portman played Padme Amidala, which also, like The Handmaidens, Amidala is an adopted name for the queen. She had a different she was born as Padme Naberri.
01:39:02
Speaker
She was like 18 when she filmed this. She has been has gone on to be in a number of other things. Zoolander, more Star Wars movies, The Other Bolin Girl, Black Swan, Marvel movies. She was in all of the Thor movies, bunch of other things that I haven't seen, but I know she's she's become a big name.
01:39:27
Speaker
Yeah. She'd heard of Star Wars, but she'd never seen Star Wars before getting cast. who But she took the role because she figured this would become a role model character for young girls.
01:39:40
Speaker
Oh, that's sweet. Keira Knightley, on the other hand, was a big Star Wars fan. Yeah. he And so specifically sought out the role, apparently, even though her parents did not want her to play and in the movie.
01:39:53
Speaker
Why? Were they just anti-Star Wars? do they think i don't eat I didn't get details on that. Although apparently it wasn't just people on set that couldn't tell Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley apart. When they were in costume, their mothers couldn't.
01:40:08
Speaker
That's pretty funny. Ewan McGregor plays Obi-Wan Kenobi. And I was wrong. Apparently he was, he's 25 canonically in in the movie. Still a perfect age, perfect golden window to have a crush on if you are a teenager or frankly, if you are adult.
01:40:27
Speaker
Uh-huh. He, again, has gone on to be a very, very prolific actor and has only gotten hotter, frankly. He's played in a lot of, like, war movies. When you say when you said G.I. Joe, he's played a lot of soldiers.
01:40:42
Speaker
Especially with the haircut that he has, it's just, he's got one of those faces. Very much so. Amma Best played Jar Jar Binks. Pernilla August played Shmi Skywalker. Pernilla August apparently was chosen after reading opposite Liam Neeson.
01:41:00
Speaker
So just more of the Qui-Gon Jinn, Shmi Skywalker chemistry there. Ian McDiarmid plays Darth Sidious. Ian McDiarmid played Sidious in Return of the Jedi and so returned for this.
01:41:13
Speaker
um Also, I apologize. I said 13 years between Return of the Jedi and this movie. It was 16 years. Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, and Frank Oz return as 3PO, R2-D2, and Yoda, respectively.
01:41:26
Speaker
Other notable people we have Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu. Oliver Ford Davies as C.O. Bibble. I don't know exactly what else he's been in, but I've seen his face in other things.
01:41:40
Speaker
And then Ray Park as the physical embodiment of Darth Maul, who is voiced by Peter Serafinovitz. Ray Park is a martial artist and stunt performer.
01:41:53
Speaker
And now, of course, that they had the technology to make the lightsabers without physically cutting holes in the film to shine lights through it, they could do all sorts of wild stunts during the fights.
01:42:07
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So the rest of it, I know you have a bunch of things you want to talk about. And then I also wanted to have our discussion on how the effects hold up, particularly in comparison to Lord of the Rings.
Controversies in Star Wars: Jar Jar Binks and CGI
01:42:21
Speaker
So my stuff is long in terms of the amount of space it takes up on a page, but pretty concise in terms of ideas. So now I think the time has come to talk about Jar Jar Binks.
01:42:35
Speaker
Oh boy. So my take on Jar Jar Binks is that he is a victim of lazy stereotypes and also just a bad and unfunny character. He seems to be kind of filling a similar role to R2 and C-3PO in the first I say the first two movies because I've watched the first two. I know there's a third one. In the first two movies that we saw just to be there to provide comic relief, provide some exposition.
01:43:03
Speaker
None of his jokes are funny. He dumps exposition for kind of no reason. His slapstick humor doesn't land. Every time he was in, so all of his Physical humor revolves around him being in some kind of physical danger. And every time I was hoping that he would just die and then he wouldn't have to be in the movie anymore. I was not rooting for Jar Jar Binks at all.
01:43:27
Speaker
Did not think he was funny. If I was a small child, maybe I would think he's funny. As an adult, he is deeply grating and I want to throw him into a wood chipper. But there are also more nuanced issues with JJB.
01:43:44
Speaker
Basically, as soon as he showed up and started talking, I had the thought of, Oh, God, he's a minstrel. That's how his character functions. And so I was doing some research because i was thinking, OK, obviously, i am not the first person to see this movie. I'm not the first person to have this thought. And so I was looking up some article sources because i knew other people would have expressed this more eloquently than I did. And I found a really good article. It's an L.A. Times article from a week after the movie came out.
01:44:15
Speaker
which is called a Galaxy Far, Far Off the Racial Mark? question mark by Eric Harrison, who passed in 2014, but he was a Black journalist, film critic, cartoonist, and he was ideally poised to dig into this specific question.
01:44:31
Speaker
It was a really good article. Thanks for sending that along. Yeah, I am really lucky that I found it. And shout out to DuckDuckGo, because I don't use Google. DuckDuckGo got me good results, not just a bunch of Reddit threads.
01:44:43
Speaker
So Jar Jar Binks was played by Ahmed Best, which you mentioned. He was a Black actor. And he has done interviews and said that he had a lot of creative freedom with Jar Jar, And doesn't consider him offensive. He's just saying, I was trying to make a funny character.
01:45:00
Speaker
I made a funny character. And that is worth taking into consideration because one of the worst things you can do is just steamroll the actual perspective of the guy who was in the movie. And this is what he thought. He's on record saying, these were my creative choices, at least in part.
01:45:18
Speaker
And I was fine with it. So that is on the record. We have acknowledged it. But what I found more compelling in terms of like a broader analysis was Harrison's argument that what is happening with aliens in general in Star Wars really strongly resembles the stand-ins for race in cartoons from the 30s and 40s where they would use a lot of animal symbolism to represent non-white characters.
01:45:45
Speaker
And he says, and you know, these are the cartoons that Lucas would have grown up with. says, the question is whether Lucas, in rummaging through an earlier generation's musty cartoon archives, had trouble separating what is valuable and good from outdated attitudes best left undisturbed.
01:46:01
Speaker
And that's kind of the concise version. But then there's also a longer quote that's a couple of paragraphs, but I want to read it in full because I think it summarizes the issue better than I possibly could and speaks to many, many issues that I saw throughout the film.
01:46:18
Speaker
So buckle up. o Grumbling about Lucas's work has never before been this public, but some viewers have found his handling of race problematic since he released the first Star Wars movie in 1977.
01:46:30
Speaker
Grousers privately noted that the movie had Wookiees, robots, jazz-playing aliens, and, inexplicably in this far-off galaxy, white people who spoke with British accents, but nowhere on screen were there humanoids with non-pink skin.
01:46:43
Speaker
Lucas seemed to be trying to make up for that in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi by introducing Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian. But by then, his strategy was clear. Different racial groups were represented by aliens, much like those old cartoons that used animals as stand-ins for racial groups. Thus, Calrissian's race was insignificant, while Chewbacca, the big, strong, over-emotional Wookiee, could be seen as the hairy equivalent of Mr. T.
01:47:06
Speaker
The frequent putdowns directed at Chewbacca underscored that, while he may be individually loved and needed, his kind was looked down upon. I'd rather kiss a Wookiee, Princess Leia spits when Han Solo gets flirtatious. He's only a Wookiee, C-3PO says of Chewbacca in Empire, even while being carried on the Wookiee's back.
01:47:24
Speaker
In an interview with Leonard Maltin on the digitally mastered video Return of the Jedi, Lucas says he'd originally intended to introduce Wookiees as a, quote, primitive race, unquote, in the third film of the trilogy.
01:47:35
Speaker
After he decided to use Chewbacca in all three films and give him the ability to fly spaceships and perform complex tasks, he created a substitute race of pint-sized Wookiees for Jedi and called them Ewoks.
01:47:47
Speaker
The Gungan are the Ewoks of Phantom Menace. This tribe of innocent but happy natives with their vainglorious leader comes straight out of the movies and cartoons of another era. That the Ewoks and the Gungan both save the day and that both movies end with the advanced and primitive races joined together in harmony is of little consequence. It's clear who holds the upper hand. Dumbo's Crows saved the day, too, and sing that movie's most infectious song to boot.
01:48:10
Speaker
But by using exaggerated stereotypes, the cartoon's creators still indefensibly hold a race of people up to ridicule and perpetuate attitudes that permeated culture in the 1940s. So, that was a long quote, but it was very beautifully written, and that about sums it up.
01:48:27
Speaker
Yeah. I personally do not think that they were setting out, that George Lucas or anyone else was setting out to... be actively hateful, but the fact that they're drawing on, okay, what's funny?
01:48:45
Speaker
Let's make people talk funny. What makes people talk funny? That that just happens to closely resemble get very easily identifiable racist stereotypes is worth interrogating and worth noting, whether it was intentional or not.
01:49:00
Speaker
That it happens to resemble a Creole or Patois? Mm hmm. It's it's not a coincidence. This is how no racism permeates society. And you don't have to be a tinfoil hat wearer to think that because this is what people were saying when this movie came out. And there's other More specific things, ah shout out to Watto.
01:49:23
Speaker
Let's just list some quick facts about Watto and see if maybe this reminds you of stereotypes about any particular group. He is a greedy, deceitful merchant with a long, floppy nose who owns a child slave.
01:49:37
Speaker
I referred to him to Miles as Mr. Blood Libel. Also... There is a scene at one point where he's wearing a pit droid head, a pit droid hat. Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.
01:49:50
Speaker
Uh-huh. Which, ah for our listeners, if you're having trouble conjuring that, it's some a very sort of small, rounded, flat cap.
01:50:03
Speaker
so So that's great. Yeah, no, Watto is a Jewish character. um There is a lot of people who also have compared him to characters of of Arabian characters as well.
01:50:17
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's definitely elements of both of those. Yay. Also, newt Gunray and his whole species, i don't remember what they're called.
01:50:29
Speaker
Nemoidians. The Nemoidians. Remember several episodes ago, I mentioned a meme about the generic Star Wars alien being a vaguely Asian frog? Mm-hmm.
01:50:39
Speaker
I did not realize how on the nose that was. i had found a couple quotes that i struggled to pinpoint the exact source for, but I have no problem believing that George Lucas specifically was looking to Chinese and Japanese imagery to make things look interesting and exotic and foreign and spacey. And oh yeah there is nothing wrong with having a variety of cultural influences that makes the world interesting. There's, I think a lot of Padme's costumes are gorgeous. There's one, the one where she has the big sort of semicircular headpiece that's
01:51:16
Speaker
very obviously a mongolian wedding outfit you know there's clear and comparisons to you know her style of makeup there's ways to do that interestingly but if your perspective is asian equals exotic and interesting and we can put it on aliens in space we gotta we gotta do better about that that's worth well having a reckoning with Well, and they're using the aesthetics of Asian cultures specifically to put on white people.
01:51:51
Speaker
Mm-hmm. But the characters that they make resemble their Asian caricatures are villainous aliens. Mm-hmm. These are really obviously, particularly to us now in 2026, these characters are obviously influenced by racist stereotypes.
01:52:10
Speaker
And also it was clearly obvious to a lot of people in the late 90s and the early Mm hmm. So it's it's really uncomfortable to see, like, particularly just that side by side like, we'll include these characters and these poor portrayals of Asian people and cultures and attach those to villainous characters.
01:52:35
Speaker
And we'll include aesthetic pieces of Asian culture. And we'll attach that to our white heroes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a pretty, pretty cut and dry. and you know, that obviously doesn't mean that you can't enjoy the movie. It's complex, but it was very obvious from the beginning, especially with this one, especially with Jar Jar. And in that article that I quoted, he does say that a lot of people hate Jar Jar Binks for reasons that have nothing to do with race just because he's annoying and unfunny.
01:53:08
Speaker
And he was very obviously put in the movie to appeal to kids to be sort of a draw for the next generation of Star Wars fans. And I'm sure that lots of kids did love him because If you are a child and your sense of humor isn't that sophisticated, sure, maybe him getting his tongue stuck in the pod racer or whatever is funny. But he also just sucks.
01:53:29
Speaker
And I hate him so much. And I feel bad for hating him because he is a victim of George Lucas and everything George Lucas represents. But also, I will just go on record fucking hating George Irvings. I think he's the worst.
01:53:43
Speaker
And he's probably going to be in more movies and I'm going to have to cope. But I'm not going to be nice about it. We're going to have a lot to have to talk about Jar Jar Binks at various points. Oh, I hate him. My only childhood memory of Jar Jar Binks is one of my siblings had Jar Jar Binks action figure. And I do distinctly remember chewing on its ears because they looked really chewable and they were very chewable.
01:54:12
Speaker
That's all I've got in terms of prepared statements. I'm glad that we found praises to sing about this movie. And there's more things, obviously, that we can cover that you have on your docket still. But that covers all of the things that I had prepared.
01:54:28
Speaker
Yeah. i you know I don't have ah have really anything to add to that. that's These are discussions I've had with other friends when talking about this movie.
01:54:38
Speaker
this There's a lot of ways in which this movie misses the mark. textually, visually, through all of the stereotypes that it includes.
01:54:51
Speaker
there's a And there's there's a lot to like about this movie. There's a lot to say for how this movie established a new generation of Star Wars. Also, a little fun piece of analysis.
01:55:02
Speaker
Let's just take a look at this movie compared to A New Hope. We have our old mentor who dies at the end. I mean, some of this obviously is the Joseph Campbell hero's journey. We have our old mentor who dies at the end. We have our hero plucked from obscurity who does something great. But in this case, the doing something great is unexpectedly destroying a battle station in a starfighter.
01:55:25
Speaker
We have a big parade at the end. With medals and ah something shiny, we have a powerful royal woman who... Padme needs no saving.
01:55:39
Speaker
And quite frankly, neither neither did Leia. hey Leia needed somebody to unlock the door, and then once that was done, she did all the saving. And then the last two pieces of analysis...
01:55:53
Speaker
Just looking at this and all of the CG effects, which George Lucas was clearly very excited about, which is why it's used so much.
01:56:04
Speaker
So many of these characters are animated. Ahmad Best did perform physically on set and had a sculpted head so that the actors could act opposite him.
01:56:14
Speaker
But then he was replaced entirely with a CGI character in post. A lot of the droids were CG. All of the Gungans were CG. Also, keeping in mind, a lot of this was before Weta Workshop developed the new forms of um crowd animation that are used in Lord of the Rings. So every one of these characters has to be individually animated.
01:56:41
Speaker
God. Painstaking. And they did a lot of development. They had to write all sorts of new software to be able to animate this. Much like the first couple of Star Wars movies, these movies moved movie-making technology forward in leaps and bounds.
01:57:01
Speaker
And like I said, there were practical effects. there was There were practical sets, but then there were whole sequences that were almost entirely animated.
01:57:12
Speaker
The pod race scene, with the exception of Jake Lloyd and the piece of the pod racer that he was sitting in, everything about that scene was animated. Mm-hmm. Every character, every pod racer, the whole set, every piece of it was animated.
01:57:26
Speaker
So compared to the practical effects heavy Lord of the Rings movies, how do you feel like this holds up 25 years later? I think it is consistent with the tone of the movie, which in my opinion is not that serious. It's this movie, Phantom Menace is kind of goofy, kind of silly, and Obviously, we can tell which parts are CG for the most part, just because we're a little more attuned to even more sophisticated, detailed stuff. But I think it's fine. I don't think that the CG does a disservice to the story.
01:58:07
Speaker
Obviously, practical effects are fun. i wish the Yoda puppet was back. I understand that we were excited to animate Yoda's face. I like the puppet. The Yoda puppet was back.
01:58:19
Speaker
Okay, but was it just the face that was animated? What was the deal with Yoda? it was the yoda the Yoda puppet actually was back. It was during a 2013 remaster that Yoda was completely animated.
01:58:31
Speaker
Oh, okay. So what is the version that we watched? Did we watch? We watched the remaster. Everything on Disney Plus is is fully remastered. Okay, so then I need to go back and see Puppet Yoda because I like Puppet Yoda. But yeah, I think that it's fine.
01:58:47
Speaker
And I think that compared to the more practical Lord of the Rings effects, I think that those also suit the tone of the story, which is a little bit more serious, a little more grand, a little more we're going on this epic quest. Not that there's not an epic quest in Star Wars, but I think that just in terms of this specific installment of this story, the goofiness, the CG, it works. It's fine. It's easy to make fun of, but I do want to acknowledge, like you said, this is so much fucking work. And there wasn't the Weta Workshop crowd engine.
01:59:27
Speaker
This was incredibly detailed. So I don't want to devalue, you know, the artists at the time who worked very hard on this. So I think I'm just going to chalk up the visuals to, of their time, they're fine. Yeah, no, I think that is a reasonable way of thinking about that.
01:59:46
Speaker
How do you feel about it? No, I i i agree. i think for what this movie is, i think it all makes sense. I still stand by the practical effects are better.
01:59:58
Speaker
i feel like A New Hope holds up to our eyes 50 years later better than this holds up 26 years later. Oh, absolutely.
02:00:10
Speaker
Yeah. So, and, you know, we noted when we talked about the Lord of the Rings movies, like pieces where we could see either animation or we could see the little green screen shine, you know, and I'm sure that some of this is not aided by 4K Ultra HD.
02:00:29
Speaker
hmm. But i i I do agree with your analysis. think on the whole, it's it's very of its era, but it it it works. But I can see why people going back to the prequels who, like, for some people, this was their first Star Wars, and this is the Star Wars they grew up with. But for folks who are going back to it now, when you have all of Star Wars to look at, both Wars old, middle, and new.
02:00:58
Speaker
This just doesn't, it doesn't have the old school charm of the original Star Wars, and it doesn't have the modern sophistication of new Star Wars. I think this is just kind of necessary growing pains for the series as the technology was evolving. I think it would have been silly not to try and use it.
02:01:18
Speaker
I yeah understand why George Lucas was so excited to get so much CG in it, because if I was him, I probably would be too. And even though now we can look back as cool, sophisticated film analysts and say, well, yes, naturally, the practical effects are much better because they are, you know, I don't want to knock it.
02:01:37
Speaker
too hard i think it's just part of the process of growth it's it's the puberty of star wars we all we all get a little a little weird a little mushy and you know we know that it's gonna come out the other side a little better and if it doesn't work at the first time you can always do it again i have one final question for you and then we will close it out okay what is the fan the phantom menace is the phantom menace I was wondering this.
02:02:07
Speaker
I asked you this question after we watched the movie and went, OK, who's the fucking phantom? It feels like a trick question because it feels like the movie wants the obvious answer to be Darth Maul because he's scary and he has horns. But I think the real answer is devil imagery.
02:02:25
Speaker
probably more intellectual than that who the fuck is the phantom menace I feel like the phantom menace it feels more like an idea just like the idea of the looming threat of the dark side and this challenge that Anakin represents and He is a much like how Shmi was a vessel for something bigger than herself. Anakin is just kind of a vessel for this idea of this battle between good and evil. And everyone is sort of well, not good and evil. Kind of. The light side the dark side is not the same as good and evil. It's complicated. We don't have time for ethics. This podcast is already two hours long.
02:03:02
Speaker
So... I think the Phantom Menace is just kind of an idea. If it is referring to a specific person, I feel like I want to say Anakin, but at this point that would just be such a long foreshadow. But I guess had the other movie, do we know as of the last Star Wars movie we watched that Anakin is Darth Vader?
02:03:26
Speaker
Yep. Okay. So we do know. Because Empire came out in 1980, so... Okay. Yeah. So like timeline wise is foreshadowing, but in real life it came out after. So I guess we're just foreshadowing that he's going to become Darth Vader.
02:03:41
Speaker
That's the answer that seems the most satisfying to me. Yeah, I think you could say Darth Maul. I think you could say Anakin. I think you could say Anakin's future. I think you could say the looming threat of the dark side. i think you could say Darth Sidious or Palpatine.
02:03:56
Speaker
h I think you could say the fall of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire. Much like what are the two towers? Which I mean, that one has that one has an answer given by Tolkien.
02:04:09
Speaker
Anyway, we've talked for a long time about this, so I think we'll let all of the other analyses be done by all of the other people who've done their analyses over the last 27 years since this movie.
02:04:24
Speaker
Considering that there are so many analyses to listen to, thank you, listener, so much for coming and listening to us do our analysis of this movie. Thank you for supporting our podcast however you choose to do so. If you like what you're hearing and you'd like to support the podcast and you're not already, you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can subscribe on podcast platforms you don't get your podcasts on.
02:04:47
Speaker
Juice our numbers a little bit. You can write us a review. You can give us a five-star rating. You can comment on our social media or follow our social media. We are at fanapppod, F-A-N-A-P-P-P-O-D.
02:05:01
Speaker
on any social media site we're on That does not include at this time Venmo. ah yet Not yet. yet. you can always, if you would like a prompt response, because...
02:05:12
Speaker
I very much am not on social media these days, and despite my job as the social media management for this podcast. If you would like a prompt response to thoughts or things we should cover, or as I develop this machete order for maximum emotional damage to Sam, suggestions about where certain pieces of Star Wars media should go, you can send us an email at thefandomapprentice at gmail.com, and I guarantee a result within three business days.
02:05:42
Speaker
Unless you get caught in the spam filter. Don't get caught in the spam filter. I'll check that a little less frequently, but I'll check it often enough. Next time, we will be watching and discussing Star Wars Episode 2, Attack of the Clones.
02:05:57
Speaker
After that, we are going to be discussing, in some order, episodes. Hang on, I have this written down. Okay. After Attack the Clones, we will be covering Tales of the Jedi, Episodes 2, 3, and 4.
02:06:12
Speaker
Then we will be moving on to Clone Wars. We will be starting with Clone Wars Season 3, Episode 1, Clone Cadets. Season 3, Episode 3, Supply Lines. Season 1, Episode 1, Ambush. 1, Episode 5, Rookies.
02:06:25
Speaker
Season 2, Episode 16, Cat and Mouse. And Season 1, Episode 16, Rookies. hidden enemy. And then we will be doing the Clone Wars animated movie.
02:06:36
Speaker
Got all that? Listeners, do you know how much of an act of love it is to have someone who will graft this ridiculous out of chronological order sequence of well cartoons?
02:06:51
Speaker
for Well, if you're I know you're doing a wagging finger at me because there probably is chronological order. that You have put so much thought into this Just for me to enjoy and be tormented by, it is truly delightful. It is a gift.
02:07:05
Speaker
I appreciate it I'm very lucky. We will not be covering each one of these episodes individually. We're not doing a two hour podcast on a 15 minute Tales of the Jedi episode two.
02:07:16
Speaker
We could, but I wouldn't i wouldn't edit that. No, and we probably won't even do a Who Hour podcast on all three of those Tales of the Jedi episode we'll probably episodes. We'll probably lump those in with some of the other things.
02:07:30
Speaker
We will make sure on every episode that we release to have details in the notes about precisely what it covers. And I will do my best on the preceding episode to always inform you exactly which episodes are going to be covered in the next episode of the podcast so that if you are watching along with us, you can do so and not have to stop and start.
02:07:56
Speaker
So until next time, where we will be watching Attack of the Clones, give us a follow, leave us a review, and may the Force be with you. And also with you.
02:08:07
Speaker
by The Phantom Apprentice is produced and edited by Rin and Sam. Our music is composed and performed by James. You can find more of his work on Spotify and Bandcamp under Baeruz, B-A-E-R-U-Z.
02:08:22
Speaker
Our art is by Casey Turgeon. 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. Music