Transcript
Speaker: Bramwen. Hello! Who is your favorite character from The Clone Wars Series 2 Episode 4? C -3PO! Snap! No way! No way!
Speaker: Amazing. I was thinking kid like, wow, this is a debut for C -3PO, I think. It is. a debut for c -3po he's getting the double debut oh my god Okay, why did you go for C -3PO? I just thought like he's always there and he was really doing his best to look after Padme. Yeah.
Speaker: That warmed my heart. like I think it was 3PO at his best. We all know he can be a little bit annoying at times. He's incredibly annoying at times. But he can also be very... Lovely. And this was one of his episodes where I just thought he was lovely. Excellent. Big shout out to Goldenrod. He gets a vote at last. He gets two in one go. Look at that. yeah but
Speaker: Racing onto the leaderboard. Incredible. Incredible work. You're listening to Sisters of the Force, a Star Wars podcast with me, Brangwen. And me, Sia. Hello. We break down Star Wars. We talk about Star Wars. We go on journeys into wild space. All sorts of wonderful Star Wars related and adjacent things.
Speaker: And if you've been listening to our last couple of... so Journeys into Wild Space. Yeah, anyway. But today we are continuing with our Clone Wars Season 2 rewatch. and and We're up to episode four.
Speaker: We've got a big arc ahead of us today. This is a big arc. This is a five episode arc. It's a massive arc. And I feel like having watched some of the behind the scenes, which we'll get into later, yeah that I don't think this first episode... episode four, Senate Spy, was intended to be part of the Geonosis arc. I mean, it clearly is because it sets everything off in motion, doesn't it? But Filoni in the behind the scenes for the next episode was talking about...
Speaker: a four episode arc. on genosis, which I kind of see what he means. Those four are very much like... they're all together yeah yeah but this absolutely leads into them and you know Since then, it's been added into the art by whoever it is that decides what makes an arc. Who decides what makes an arc? That's a good yeah good question. I mean, to be fair, this has a very different tone, this first episode. It does. There are...
Speaker: No lightsabers. There are no blasters. No. I called it an episode full of intrigue and romance. It is an intrigue and romance episode. It's also... the one where I was most annoyed by the Anakin and Padme dynamic. yeah anakin was an absolute i just did not being a bit of an already wasn't it?
Speaker: I would say in continuing What I said about the... Romance and intrigue. yeah Intrigue and romance. I discovered, which I didn't know existed. I can't remember how I stumbled upon it yesterday. but
Speaker: Kristen Baver, who is an amazing Star Wars commentator and author as well. She's written some books and contributed some incredible books, like the Timelines book. sure She did a rewatch back in 2019, and it's all documented on the Star Wars website. And each episode has its own page, and she just writes some like commentary on it and talks about themes and stuff. And she said, this episode is dedicated to political intrigue and secret romance. And I was like... Yes. Oh, yes. Christian. Yeah.
Speaker: That gave me a massive sense of affirmation because I literally just typed those words. so Yes, Kristen. Shout out to Kristen Baver. We love her. But yeah. The little card at the beginning of this one was a true heart should never be doubted.
Speaker: And... They were both... being Very... Annoyingly... jealous and snippy with each other yeah yeah all time and then at the end there was kind of like yeah no i never doubted you but also way of showing it yeah i do feel like anakin was the bigger culprit in a bigger way. I feel like.
Speaker: I mean, I know he was it was a testing situation but yeah and i guess his I don't know, his immaturity. I don't know how old he is at this point. He's still quite young isn't he? Yeah.
Speaker: Not to, you know... somebody of that age. should necessarily not be able to like understand the situation. But like, it was a pretty clear situation. Yeah. She was... On a mission, she was playing a part, she was doing her thing.
Speaker: Yeah, I think he wobbled a bit with his trust. He did wobble a bit. But also... Her playing that part was really interesting to me because I was instantly like... absolutely not i hate this i think yeah there's something about like knowing that that's not who she is. And the masking of that situation that she had to do makes me feel really uncomfortable. Yeah, she's too good at her job. She's too good at it, yeah. Yeah, I think it tracks, yeah. like
Speaker: as a senator and she's been a senator for quite a while at this point, yeah I think. She, yeah, I think she did a great job. yes I said it was great to see Padme doing what I imagine Leia would also be good at doing. Oh, I think she'd have more tells.
Speaker: She wouldn't be able to hide how p - she was at the opening maybe maybe Yeah, well, may I don't know, maybe if she had continued to could could have continued to be a senator instead of having to be and maybe a a rebel like from such an early age, maybe.
Speaker: Yeah, I get that. But so this episode, just to give us a bit of context, we've got Rush Clovis, who he does crop up again in a later season. I can't remember which season. I think it's in season six or five, somewhere around there. Okay. He's not a great guy. he he's brilliant Do we hear the word Scipio or Scipio? I can't remember if it's pronounced Scipio.
Speaker: I feel like it's probably Skippier. I think I read that rather than... Yeah. Other than hearing it. Anyway, he's the senator from Scipio. He's part of the banking clan. Yes. And he's a shady guy. He's doing some shady... business with Senator Lockdodd. Lockdodd's back. Yes.
Speaker: love lot dog i do I do quite like his character. I mean, I don't like him as a person. but I quite liked his character and I liked their... like relationship between...
Speaker: him and Padme like being all kinds of like problematic. know Not like her relationship with Anakin is... Which is fine. That's nice. There's no yeah problem problems there whatsoever. No.
Speaker: No, he's like, as soon as we saw him, I wrote down Clovis is a Chad. Yeah. think That's the energy. That's a good word. Yeah. And uh... The other thing I wrote was, why are they skirting around the fact that these two clearly had a thing? at some point because they're like... I'd like to rekindle the friendship. And you're like, this is so okay. Yeah.
Speaker: Even the council are like, oh, they used to be close in quotes.
Speaker: Sam... ah Yeah, Obi -Wan had an interesting background role to play in this because he is clearly checking out what's going on. I've been signaling him all night. I don't know where he could be. You're rolling your eyes. Come on. He's covering the best he can cover.
Speaker: Yeah, it was good to see a bit of Coruscant, a bit of the... kind of senate halls and all of that stuff Yeah, for some reason, Anakin and Padme went out on one of the pods into the Senate space to have this really like...
Speaker: deep personal conversation. yeah like What are they doing? so to those podcasts what's the yeah Do they get used for other things when the Senate is not in session? Like, are they just like a hangout place for senators? Maybe. That they can go and have like private conversations out in their pod. In the middle of the Senate building. I didn't clock that. I kind of thought that she was on her way to do something and then maybe the other senators were there, but they weren't. Were they? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it was just the two of them were on the thing, I feel like.
Speaker: Because I went, is that risky? And then went, oh no, but they just assume that he's her bodyguard, isn't he? Yeah, I guess that's what they're hoping. But I mean... Is that fair? A bit wild. It's a bit wild. I wondered if... ah Because Anakin has got this kind of instruction that he doesn't want to...
Speaker: like he's gotta go and tell her to talk to her yeah yeah and he does that thing of like i'm not gonna let you do it
Speaker: which is lying and then she immediately decides to do it yeah and clearly which is brilliant absolutely not but then i was i thought is that like clever reverse psychology and oh no no he's genuinely dismayed that she's doing this because he's got his little he's got his little jealous hat on and he can't handle it I think I get quite triggered by jealous men, I really do. No, don't like it. Get away from me. Yeah, I don't think I've like really...
Speaker: been in a relationship with someone in that way ah but it still triggered me you know like I think the way it was written was so clever trigger Incidentally, it was written, this episode, by Melinda Hsu. who is really prolific. She wrote some of Lost and yeah Vampire Diaries and Nancy Drew. I think she was like nominated for a writing. for like you know prestigious awards and things like that she's drawing from something
Speaker: this experience yeah i feel like the combination of lost vampire diaries and nancy drew somehow that weird combination it's kind of like an amalgamation of this episode it's like i don't know why We also got to see a swanky restaurant on Coruscant. Yeah. where they were being served by those like luxury droids different model i think but like the bd 3000s
Speaker: which we're seeing more and more. In fact, I think we see some a little later on on Cateinomoidea. Are they the the strange women droid yeah the betty bot droids yeah yeah yeah i mean they're all slightly different these the ones on kate and amordria have this odd like dehumanized version yes but they i feel like they're still from the same range yeah yeah that would make sense yeah they freak me out a little bit they are very freaky yeah yeah And so, yeah, we get to see Kato no Moita, and I think this might be the first time we've seen it.
Speaker: I can't remember if we've seen it before, but obviously we've heard about it in Revenge of the Sith. Yes. With Obi -Wan's... Great line, that business on K -TechnoMedia. And we're all like, what business on K -TechnoMedia? What are you talking about? I don't think this is it, but it's, nice yeah, I think there is more.
Speaker: Coming up. for on Okay. But yeah, it's so opulent. It felt really like... Oof. Fairy! Very close to the bone, yeah. Yeah, and it's all very like...
Speaker: it's all very kind of castle -y swanky old money Lots of jewels, lots of gold. Yeah. Yeah. from orbit it's like a swirly kind of turquoise planet which is gorgeous but yeah as we get into this kind of opulence a bit intense and we get i think we see this again later on in the arc the fact that
Speaker: The Neimoidians are using red holograms. yeah To contrast with, like I think, in the next episode where we see the hologram of the Geonosian. factory, the catacombs and everything. yeah And we see the same thing happen where like the Geonosians have got a red hologram.
Speaker: And then we've come back to the Jedi. I've got the same hologram, but it's blue. yeah it's like Like visual storytelling of like whatever color hologram you have is whether you're evil or not dark sidey or light side. Same with the lightsabers. Yeah, it's pretty much very on the nose. you need to be like know yeah My note for this is that Padme is interesting at this job.
Speaker: because she's playing this damsel quite well. Yeah. And we know that she's not like that. and the playing of the damsel is winding Anakin up no end. Yeah. exactly I feel like the animation of Padme in this episode was on point. like her flirtation stuff earlier on in the episode was like Oh, wow. It reminded me of...
Speaker: What's the Rapunzel? I think it's just called Rapunzel, the Disney animation. Oh, Tangled. Tangled, yeah. yeah Like the animation of her. It's incredible. yes of ah a you know young woman in love kind of thing yeah and It's incredible. and And I feel like they had the same sort of capturing. So obviously there is in the eyes. A lot of it is about the eyes and stuff. but the way that she was doing it because she's obviously like performer to be doing all of that stuff.
Speaker: But you could tell all of that from the animation as well. right Shout out to the like the people who work on the facial details and stuff like that in the animation too. Very clever. Really, really good. Yeah, the fact that we're getting all this nuance in her character. and the that is affecting us is making us angry or like whatever yeah I mean, obviously the voice acting plays a huge role as well. but like visually.
Speaker: Incredible work. It's really cool. And then quickly there's an evil plot for poisoning. Yeah. We got some really, really dramatic strings. Yeah. For this plot. The music cue was like...
Speaker: i was going to attempt to sing it i'm not going to attempt to sing it maybe i feel like they were probably leaning into the romantic meaning more than just like a couple yeah i heard rick from uh jam transmissions talking about the new book eyes like stars which is coming out which i've not had a chance to get to yet because it's not an audio book in the uk yet Come on, Google Books, give us the audiobook. Anyway, it's billed as a romance book. It's like the first Star Wars romance, which is not entirely true, but talked about that he said he'd... he'd been sort of like hesitant to read or not hesitant to read it but he was
Speaker: Not sure what to expect from it because he never really read. books from the romance genre as such but he said once he'd read it and he did some research about what makes a romance. And it isn't just romance as in a relationship between... two people but it's also lots of the other elements that you come across in those things like the adventure side of it can be romantic like if you look at the princess bride yes
Speaker: and if you look at films like Michael Douglas films in the 80s like Romancing the Stone and all of that and even Indiana Jones like yeah they've got a romance about them they're not Straightforward. romances where there's just a couple and that's the backbone of the story the stories about other things but they're romantic and the orchestrations like you could say that the star wars orchestration you know very romantic john williams's themes and the way they're orchestrated is very romantic very romantic Yeah, that's interesting. I think I think romance goes...
Speaker: as a genre is really, really misunderstood by yeah a lot of people who don't who don't read it. read it yeah I don't read it all the time, but most of the romance stuff that I read is like fantasy romance. So there's like huge adventures, big complex magic worlds and like... The romance is just an element of it, you know? yeah Sometimes it's a slow burn, a painfully slow burn in some cases. I've got a book that took over 600 pages for anything to happen. I was like, come on, we know where this is going. But the great thing about Clone Wars is the whiplash. There's absolutely no chance of that happening. Yeah, sure.
Speaker: I was listening to this episode on headphones and the Poison has got some really nice specific sound design going on. I didn't notice that.
Speaker: um Ah, it sounds kind of like haunted wind. That's what I'm going to... Wow. That sounds like a preset on a granular synth of some kind. That is, if anyone knows how I can get the job of naming synth sounds, that's what I want to do. I think you'd be brilliant based on this evidence. ah Yeah, it sounds like it's got kind of a really...
Speaker: low, thrummy, but also higher toned. wind sound kind of happening and you get that as he's kind of poisoning the drink and as is handing it over to her.
Speaker: Because he doesn't even like pour it, he wipes it on the side. and then Yes, I've got a kind of sense memory about this now. Yeah, I can't like... recall what it sounded like but i remember feeling something when that was happening yeah yeah yeah so that's and as she drinks it you get another one yeah Another little burst of haunted wind.
Speaker: it's very clever and so yeah the episode takes a turn because yes i wasn't expecting this to happen to Padme, I thought she was going to be... Going to be all right. you know yeah Yeah. Well, she kind of was, wasn't she? i Like immediately afterwards, because I remember thinking, has this worked? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because she's she's kind of pretending that she needs... water and I'm like oh no that's the beginning but then no that's just an act because she she needs him to get out of the room. She needs Clovis gone so she can nick this hologram. Yeah, which she successfully does, like hacking his terrible password choice.
Speaker: So bad. It reminded me of, there's an episode in The Office where something goes wrong with the computers, the server resets or something, and they're trying to remember the password of like four IT people back. Okay. And they're like, where in time were we? Oh, the Lord of the Rings was out. Okay. And then some like big boobies in the end was the thing. Nice. It's like, oh God. I could almost like, I was rolling my eyes and I feel like the character, I feel like she was rolling her eyes as well.
Speaker: Right. The whole time. And then we get this like... She's kind of pulling a, I'm going to hug him so that Anakin can take this. a hologram away. But Anakin's like...
Speaker: seething and she's just like yeah do your f***ing job come on so good they're so dysfunctional but i love them they are incredibly dysfunctional But as a team, they did what they needed to do. They did the job. They did it. And at the end, even though we clearly saw how much he was hating every second of it, he goes, oh, I never doubted you.
Speaker: Yeah, so ultimately, yeah, you know, she's safe. From the poison. Yes. Clovis kind of genuinely... I feel like he kind of reclaimed a bit of his... stature a little bit because
Speaker: Well, he does love her but he loves a version of her that isn't real. Yeah I guess that's what it is isn't it? Yeah. because that's not her. she's it When she's with him, she's acting. Yeah. I felt a bit sad for him, really, in a way. Yeah, I mean, he is a shady guy. He's a piece of work, yeah, yeah. Don't feel that sad for him, don't get me wrong. No, and Anakin's just like...
Speaker: Do one. See you later. I really like the fact that we get a next week on the Clone Wars kind of vibe where it's yeah Lot Dodd and Poggle the Lesser, who I just never get over a Poggle the Lesser's name. He's so fun. Amazing. We're going to talk about him in the next episode. yeah And a couple of B1s and they're calling to Clovis on the landing platform. and
Speaker: Clovis, we need to talk. It's like, oh wow. What is coming next? What's gonna happen? Yeah, although it doesn't necessarily directly like connect to it. But it gives you the idea of, like, come back next week to find out what happened on the Clone Wars. Which I waited about five minutes and then continued. And then watched the next bit.
Speaker: One little shout out to my favorite line of the episode, which is... Hmm. Seems no one wants my company tonight. Aww. Poor little 3PO. Yeah.
Speaker: Definitely. Extra shout out to 3PO. We love him. He was great. And also, I just really, really hated The attitudes of both Anakin and Padme in this a lot of the time. so yes They annoyed me too much. yeah either of them make it to my favorite spot yeah true and absolutely none of the separatists oh god yeah no no they didn't even do anything like they didn't do anything cool no They were just... Evil.
Speaker: Anyway. Yes. Landing at Point Reign. See it? Who was your favourite character in The Clone Wars? Season 2 Episode 5, landing at Point Reign. Master Monday. Oh, nice. Yeah, so he gets a lot of hate from... Does he?
Speaker: quite a large portion of the fandom, I think. Why? And i don't I don't really get it either. Yeah, I mean, he's very stiff and he's very... rule orientated sort of thing he's that kind of Jedi but he has that such a it was the little nod at the end to Anakin that made me like yeah okay you're great yeah who was your favorite character from this episode I went for Ahsoka
Speaker: so Nice. She is, again, steps ahead of everybody else quite a lot of the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she beats Anakin. In the numbers game, which again, we'll get to. Yeah, I like her resilience. In this whole arc, she's very resilient and very worthy of her role in this series and how she increasingly becomes.
Speaker: kind of the main character so yeah shout out to ahsoka Yeah, definitely. But yeah, okay. Ahsoka and Anakin. This whole episode is basically Helms Deep. Yes. I thought I recognised it.
Speaker: Initially, I sort of thought, oh yeah, because they're playing like the Legolas and Gimli, like how many orcs you're taking out kind of thing. But also... There's this whole thing with the wall where...
Speaker: Like they're trying to blow up the world. It's kind of Helm's Deep in reverse. Yeah, yeah, because they're on the outside. The goodies are the ones. In Lord of the Rings, they're defending Helm's Deep, whereas in this... yeah were like with the equivalent of...
Speaker: the orcs are breaking in yeah breaking in so there were quite a few moments where i was like yep there's another helms deep they're trying to like mount the wall yeah But definitely the game, the Legolas and Gimli game gave me a lot of laughs. And that was only been a few years before. the writing of this. So yeah it would have been fresh in their minds.
Speaker: no it's good I enjoyed it I also really enjoyed Obi -Wan's call back to attack of the clones yeah yeah yeah i that's my favorite line yeah you didn't miss much Last time I was chained to a pole and attacked by several humongous monsters.
Speaker: ah Maybe I've been reading too much fan fiction because my immediate... The thought was... Hot. Yeah.
Speaker: Absolutely, yeah. I'm not going to deny you that. There was a very, very subtle... Attack of the Clones nod. that I got from the Kristen Baver, shout out to Kristen Baver again, breakdown where she pointed out that one of the gunships, blink and you miss it, but it's got a Nexu painted on the side with Bad Kitty written underneath it in Arabic, which is what apparently the animation team called.
Speaker: The next two bad kitty. I think I've heard that mentioned before. But yeah, it's painted on. On one of the gunships. That's incredible. I did note the graffiti. They've got loads of, yeah throughout this whole arc, there's just like, I was like, pause it. I want to see what's painted on the ship. We're really deep into the war here. We're deep into clone.
Speaker: like law and this whole... well, the next four episodes, basically, of this arc. Particularly... this one and the next one yeah are really like they're intense in terms of there's so much going on. I really, really noticed the upscale of the animation in this episode.
Speaker: for season two like the movement and it's just wild like how much is going on Just so many elements. There's so many things happening. Yes. It's like, where do you even look? Yeah. And visual effects of like...
Speaker: dust and camera shake and fast movement are just yeah really incredible Impressive. but how How are they animating this dust? Because...
Speaker: What? It's so visceral and so like... Yeah. It's still quite early days in and like in terms of this. level of animation yeah i remember around this time is when we first started to hear about particle systems in animation which if you've ever done any 3d animated work particle systems are how you do things like water and clouds yeah and i know they've been doing
Speaker: that since the 80s, like ILM were pioneers in that stuff. and I think, I can't remember what the movie is. There's a movie with a lot of water and set at sea in the 90s. Oh, what's it called? I remember. But anyway, it's like a boat.
Speaker: action disaster movie type thing. And there was a lot of talk in the ILM story on Disney Plus about how they refined particle systems to this point where...
Speaker: they can create something really visceral like dust and fog, but it have its own. physics and Like the weather aspect and all of that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's just incredible. There was ah an amazing shot near the end, which was like this long sideways tracking shot. following them through the bug defenses, you know, it was just like. epic yeah that you can imagine in a Marvel movie.
Speaker: I'm thinking of like the Avengers movies sometimes where they have like these ridiculous shots which take ages to choreograph and set up and like layers and layers of compositing but to feel like you are really in the action and this whole episode felt like that. This whole episode was, it was...
Speaker: so incredible yeah virtual camera work there was another smash zoom on kenobi yes Brace yourselves. He nearly got my top spot again, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah, he was phenomenal. I need to branch out a bit. Yeah.
Speaker: but that's great It's great when a sort of guest Jedi, if you like, like a Jedi of the week is is featured. and Yeah. And Kiari Mundy did some amazing stuff, to be fair. He's just nice. I quite like him. Yeah. What is the hate about it? Is it just because of his is rule following? I think so, yeah. I think he is jit he can be a little bit annoying with that sometimes. But I mean, I don't know really. I guess it probably does come from the Clone Wars. I'm going to be interested to see if there are other... episodes where he features yeah where that might be because like he is in the prequels the movies but not much he's got like one line or something like yeah sure hardly in them so it can't really come from there from there yeah Must be Clarence. They seemed...
Speaker: i know friendly to me it's pretty cool i like yeah he was honorable he does his job really well yeah yeah We got some nearly Wilhelm screams. Oh, really? I just didn't spot those. There was so much going on. So much going on. I feel like it was voice actors imitating Wilhelms. Yeah, I reckon there's a lot of that going on. There's a lot of that. And there was a lot of that with the yeah with the clones. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah going back to Ki -Adi -Mundi there was some good stuff in the behind the scenes where we see Plunkett doing some design work. And I mean, it's obviously staged for the documentary, but he's there with his pen and tablet. in front of the computer and talking about how they simplified him into more of a cartoon okay rather than, again, it's that thing of like going between photorealism and... cartoon yeah and leaning more into the cartoon even though they could be more photorealistic yeah yeah so they just took out some of the detail of
Speaker: His. head and his hair and all of that kind of thing. Which kind of works. But if it really felt like him. It really felt like the Kiari Mundi that we know from the films. Yeah, yeah. Sound -wise...
Speaker: There's some phenomenal stuff in the behind the scenes. Definitely go and watch it if you've not. It's all on YouTube. just look for clone wars i think if you search for clone wars landing at point rain I can't remember how I found it. Anyway, there's a whole episode. Maybe I'll share them in our stories. Yes. in But Matt Woods talking about making the Geonosian sounds spoke to my soul. Oh my gosh. It made me think of you. Yes. Like he was sampling penguins and fruit bats fighting over a banana. Excellent. And then...
Speaker: The bit that really made my heart glow was the fact that he layers them on. a keyboard and perform some using a keyboard. which is exactly what you and I do when we're making music. We're using like found sounds to make percussion and stuff. yeah Nice. And like even though you could just drag these things into your... digital audio workstation and layer them up.
Speaker: the fact of assigning them to keys yeah it's more fun it's always more fun to perform it and it makes it feel more you can make it feel more organic in that way as well yeah which yeah i always map things to keyboards really he spoke a lot i don't know if it's in this one it might be in the next episode but he spoke yeah In the next episode, he was talking about Poggle. Yes. Specifically. His voice is incredible. Well, he did loads of it himself. Like he just demonstrates his clicks. He had a little comb kazoo, you know, where you get a comb and you wrap tracing paper over it. Yeah. you kind of make vocalizations. so So he just did loads of that and made a three minute.
Speaker: reel of gold that he's just sent to the editors that the sound editors could then just like pick whatever they wanted incredible so yeah matt wood is pretty much poggle the lesser the Perfect. yeah That's cool.
Speaker: Yeah, the way they speak is lush. And then there's... We'll get into it later on. how they speak again but oh my gosh yeah yeah the development of how we get to know more about geonosians because we've only really seen them in attack of the clones at this point and we just see a little bit of them really i mean we see loads of them in the arena like the cardio arena but sure we don't get much time with them whereas over these next
Speaker: Four episodes, well, three episodes especially. Loads of... development about how they work, how their communities work. and yeah Yeah. how they live. How they live. And they're just, they're really interesting creatures. And I suppose when we saw them in the gladiator arena, we're just hearing crowd noises, essentially. yeah We're not hearing them.
Speaker: kind of as individuals Poggle had a few lines here and there but mostly it was just like rabble noise yes which isn't the same bug wallah
Speaker: there's also a snare drum that i noticed which is like a marching so dry really dry snare drum that came in with some of the gunfire and some of the more interesting yeah so we had
Speaker: We had blaster sounds, but we also had a snare drum kind of backing it up, which was... That's cool. As part of the music? or as yeah kind yeah Well, as part of the music, but it blended so well with the blasters that it was like, ooh, that's clever. so And it made it all sound heavier because blasters don't always sound as explodey as guns because they're not really, are they? Musically, I noticed a lot more of this kind of... like world music elements there were some male like vocal whales and stuff like improv type yeah things for kiadi mundi and the clones going into the the cave when they were kind of making their way through the geonosian structures yeah yeah
Speaker: My last note on this was you can't force throw Rex off a wall. That's... Pretty much all happened. It is all happened. He must really know them, because otherwise I think he would have just blacked out. from like But he never seen you.
Speaker: He does scream when they do it, which I was like, that's quite distressing, to be fair. True. He lopped off a wall. It was quite distressing to hear Rex scream because like he's such a solid character. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I loved that they were doing this mission into the shields and breaking their way through the shields and taking the destroyers out. the The destroyers that were on top of the wall, I love the fact that...
Speaker: Geonosis is pretty much orange. Like every look is orange and brown. yeah But because destroyers have got their blue shields, it made them look really... Even more sinister kind of thing. Yeah. I love the destroyers, the droidekas. They are really cool. I like that they've learned how to infiltrate their shields now and they can just walk through them. Yeah, creeping in slowly, like you can't go through a ray shield.
Speaker: quickly you've got to do it slowly just we've learned so much about Ray Shields we have yeah Listeners, I hope you're taking notes on Ray Shields. If you ever need to fight a droidekka, you've got to sneak up on it. Behind it. We figured it out.
Speaker: okay yeah let's move on like there's so much going on in all of these episodes we're just going to be dipping into them really yes Weapons Factory. Weapons Factory episode six. Here we go. Who is your favorite character from the Weapons Factory?
Speaker: I picked Luminara again. I loved seeing her again. I think. She has... a lot of Jedi aspiration about her, like her ability to detach herself from her padawan. Yes. sort of disturbs me, but also I'm kind of in awe of that as well. Like it's what the Jedi are aiming to be. and
Speaker: Yeah. If you follow like mindfulness, there's a certain amount of detachment and yeah I strive to be mindful, but fail horrifically most of the time. and But yeah, there's something about that. Yeah. Well, we all do. That's the nature of it, I guess. Yeah. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I respect her clarity. and
Speaker: Yeah, I love the fact that she sort of teaches Anakin a lesson without actually teaching him a lesson as well. Sure. yeah How about you? Who's your favourite character? I also picked Luminara. Oh, cool. Yeah. So we've snapped again. Yeah, for similar reasons, really, but mostly for...
Speaker: She's just got so much faith in the Padawans. She's just like, well... Of course they're going to do their job. and Yeah. And. contrast to Anakin. Being like, u wanting to be more hands -on. And I think something about something about Luminara being...
Speaker: female and trusting. two female padawans and Anakin being like ah Can't do it. Yeah, that's interesting. That was quite interesting to me. and yeah she's like no that they'll be fine leave them to it but then yeah the kind of her detachment is a bit scary.
Speaker: But then later on, we get completely called out by the attachment is not compassion card. Yes. Two episodes time. and Yeah. ah Because... That was the bit I was struggling with with her character in this. And then... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, wait a second. God, it's deep, isn't it? It is deep.
Speaker: People spread the word. Tell everybody to watch The Climbing Wars. It's so good. Every episode that when we're watching, each time an episode ends, me and my mom and dad are are like... Wow. You know, just like... It's when you're washing it on that level and not just having it on as background. And yeah, it can be a comfort watch. I know we've talked about that with Mary on the pod. how like it can be very comforting
Speaker: series yes but it is deep it is deep there's a lot going on There's a lot happening. I heard, I think it was Filoni in the behind the scenes said this episode was a Padawan comparison story. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Which I totally get. Like we have these two Padawans who operate in a very different way working together. But it's also a master's comparison story as well. Like tying in what you were just saying about Luminara versus Anakin and they're totally different styles. Yeah. You know, they're all working towards the same thing. but It doesn't make a direct comparison of like this way is better than that way. It's like yeah yeah they're just different. and This is how they've both turned out. yeah And then even further on when we meet them again, it's like, well...
Speaker: there isn't a right or wrong way of doing this. There's just these different styles of. being a master in Padawan. Yeah, the Jedi are all unique in many ways. yeah Which is cool. But this one, the card on this one was no gift is more precious than trust. And it takes Anakin a long time to kind of...
Speaker: Trust. Which, to be fair... Yeah, he's had to deal with some really... Tricky. situations throughout his life, yeah. yeah Yeah, the trauma, the Clone Wars trauma.
Speaker: yeah We keep coming back to it. Bless him. in ah In the behind the scenes, there was also some stuff about the Geonosians, picking up on what we were just saying about learning more about them. Yes. And apparently... I didn't really pick this out in detail. but Having heard it, I'm like, oh yeah, I have seen that, that there are two types of genotions. There are some that are warriors, which are a bit more equipped. Yes. And then there are the drones, which...
Speaker: I don't know if they have wings. I think some of them have wings and some of them don't. yeah And some of each of those are green and some of each of those are brown. So you end up with like four possible. looks for each generation oh that's cool which is kind of cool but Oh, wow. I didn't quite clock it. I clocked that there was warriors and drones.
Speaker: Yeah. At this point, we still don't know kind of what's... Yeah, what's coming? What's coming, yeah. The horrors of the rage. I've been so traumatized. It's like a classic AB thing going on here where we've got two stories and we split the party up, if you like. I mean, the party keeps changing. and Changing anyway, yeah, for sure. But we've got, yeah, Luminara. and Anakin are basically playing the decoy role. Yeah, they're going in to draw fire away. from the Padawans who have got the... yeah
Speaker: in The Padawans have got the A mission. Yeah, they're on a mission. to sneak in and blow up the Droid Factory, which is... Wild. Yeah. And it's a big job. It is a big job. Yeah. Big job. And they are young. They're both very young. Yeah.
Speaker: But they're very equipped and they do a magnificent job. yes So Barris Offey, I think we did see her briefly in... I can't remember which of the prequels, but I feel like she's been briefly in live action. And Killian Plunkett was saying...
Speaker: Again, it's a sort of simplification thing. but They kept her look pretty much the same with the robes and the headscarf kind of thing, kind of head bra. Head wrap. But they added a wrist device, which they all had these wrist devices, which they use.
Speaker: As communicators, obviously. Loads of Star Wars people wear communicators. But also as a chrono type thing where they synchronize watches. Yes. Which is amazing, and like heist type trope. Yeah, really fun.
Speaker: There is an incredible music cue when they're... doing their march they've had a yeah quick little plan we're going to go in and we're going to draw away the attention and There's like this huge chant thing starts happening as they're moving their troops across the bridge. And it sounded incredible. I'm a sucker for a choir. Again, like world music.
Speaker: stuff yeah there's like drums desert drums i called them and plucked things as well like plucked instruments i'm not sure what they were But yeah, amazing stuff. And Luminara essentially calls Anakin simple quite quickly, which I She's very unfiltered Luminar. She says what she means. I love her. I love her for that.
Speaker: I left the pen at the beginning. of jumping around here we go all over the place as we do Well, so... Ahsoka's like trying to do a briefing with the holomap. And in the end, she's like, in my briefing, which I think might have been italicized in the captions. And she's explaining to him that he keeps interrupting her. And while she's explaining that, he interrupts her. yeah
Speaker: I wrote down, I'm not appreciating your interruptions here, Anakin. I'm not appreciating this. Do not talk over her. And then as a punishment for that, he has to work with three women. yeah and get along and Who are all bosses, basically, in their own way.
Speaker: but but More notable sound design here was the Geonosian's weapons. Oh wow! Yeah, like the blaster things that they've got. yeah yeah They sound different to any other blaster I've heard. Yeah. They fire like these kind of weird blob things as well. they' really I thought they were bombs to start with.
Speaker: so yeah i wrote down bombs but they're not are they they're kind of they are blasters but Yeah. yeah just firing big like yeah blobby bolts of energy i guess yeah yeah And the sound design in the cave. Yes. Where they're down in the bottom and there's all these sleeping Geonosians down there. who that was nice yeah creepy again it's this sort of like is it music is it sound sound i called it horror surround horror ambience because in 5 .1 i was listening in my flashy 5 .1 home theater and like they were kind of
Speaker: bowed cymbals and rattles so like musical instruments yeah but they're like being used to sound design and they're coming from all around you with like these big like convolution. reverbs yes which means reverbs are based on real spaces but All are like 3D. 5 .1.
Speaker: Yeah, amazing reverbs. Convolution reverb isn't like that when I use it. yeah it's like are these sounds of bugs i mean we hear bug noises as well Yeah, for sometimes they're instruments. Really atmospheric. And I guess this is starting to lead us into...
Speaker: the rest of this whole arc, which is all basically horror from here on. Yeah, it is. I mean, there's like this horror comedy trope where the bug's arm falls on Barriss's head once they're into the catacombs. And Ahsoka sort of helps her out from under the arm, which is the comedy. But then you see the bug's eye open and you're like, uh -oh. Oh dear. Here we go. Here we go. some more incredible volumetric lighting with particle systems, calling back to our particle conversation.
Speaker: in the tunnels it just all looks so eerie and spooky it looks really cool They're being hunted. Very creepy. So they end up getting to...
Speaker: The reactor? Is it the reactor? They're trying to blow up the reactor? Yeah, they're trying to blow up the reactor, but they... have the the tactical droid and Poggle managed to get their bombs off them so they can't yet use them and they end up having to use the tank instead. Yeah, they sort of place the bombs, but yeah, they're thwarted.
Speaker: It is so frustrating because they've got so far and they've yeah like eluded capture and done all of the work as is often the way in these kind of heist things. Yeah. But yeah. ah So we get these new super tank things that I think we've seen a lot of before. I think there's a kind of new weapons and the tactical droid is so proud of them. He's like...
Speaker: fool the super tank is impervious to all and then the thing blows up definitely not impervious is my note there is that it's not impervious to all ah yeah well he's he's not impervious even if he's also up of is yeah but but Ahsoka calls him a stupid green bugger. Yeah.
Speaker: Somebody, oh stupid green bugger. Meaning bugs, not buggers. My mum was like, that isn't that a swear word? I was like, well, probably not in this context because they literally are bugs. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's funny. The charges have a different sound. Okay, there are two different charges in Star Wars. Yes. um I've been trying to figure out if some of them belong to a certain time period, but I feel like I've seen both of them in all time periods. yeah So the one that we've seen a lot in Mando, I think we saw them in the sequel trilogy, are the ones which go blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip. Whereas these have this like...
Speaker: lfo filter sweep thing which sort of i can't probably do it but it's like a squelchy yeah single upward thing. They both come upwards and I guess upward sounds are there to give you a sense of tension. Yeah.
Speaker: so But it's whether it's a bleeping, individual bleeps going up, or in this case, like this resonant filter sweep. Squelchy, yeah, that's a great one. Squelchy filter sweep.
Speaker: I don't know if they have different names, these charges, but it's different sound design. but it does the same thing basically does it yeah it's a similar just my geeky sound design that was good i think my favorite line was a couplet between two b1s and one says uh -oh and the other one says roger roger yes ah Just before they blow up.
Speaker: Ahsoka and Barris can't get out in time. So they're trapped. ah In a tank, yeah. They're just casually talking about how they're going to die or like yeah the different ways that they could die. Yeah, I feel like Barriss has got a lot of Luminara's teachings. like she's Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Got that same detachment. Yeah. I tell you what, you haven't seen The Clone Wars in full yet. No. and This... whole relationship, like when Barris introduces herself to Ahsoka and she says, well, to them generally, she says, how do I learn a barisofi at your service? And like she and Ahsoka have this kind of weird vibe and they are very different. yeah They do get on. But yeah I'm not going to spoil anything.
Speaker: But it's pretty insane. What happens? Okay. Okay. dream I will wait for that. Like watching it now, like the first time I watched this, I would not have noticed all of that nuance between them. And I don't know that...
Speaker: the writers had. what was going to happen in mind because it's a long way off it's not for quite a few seasons time yeah but i don't know retrospectively watching it it hits differently as they say yeah okay interesting yeah I kind of get the feeling that Ahsoka's a bit like...
Speaker: Who are you? Yeah, she's so different from her. Like, oh, you're a Padawan, similar situation to me, possibly similar age. But also One thing that like struck me is that... Especially when we got into the conversations towards the end where Anakin starts to learn his lesson about attachment. and Luminara.
Speaker: like she's kind of reiterating it again about the fact that if the time comes for her padawan to go. She will deal with it. She'll let him go, yeah. And that was kind of... twofold, wasn't it? So it's like either my Padawan's going to get into a...
Speaker: so much trouble that they die and I'll have to deal with it. which is essentially what's happening here. Hello. they'll go off into the world and will Anakin be able to cope with that without yeah yeah that that separation which is you know just as bad or worse in some ways. yeah The intensity of the whole story is also, to me, exaggerated because Luminara and Barris are both Mary Allens. You know, they're the same species. which yeah
Speaker: I know you know as a Jedi, you're a Jedi and that... somehow kind of supersedes anything about species or... background or whatever but It's undeniable that they are both Mary Allens, and they were probably paired together for that reason, maybe. I don't know.
Speaker: Did Luminara pick her as a Padawan? Anakin didn't pick Ahsoka, but they're a human and a Togruta. You know, they're different as well. yeah I don't know. Just something that made me think more about attachment and the Jedi and how that all works.
Speaker: Yeah, my... My last note was... interesting to have. these non -attachment and attachment parallels so direct but also By the end of it, I was like, but it is. Is attachment so bad? but It's the ever -growing discussion about Jedi. It gets talked about a lot. I've heard a loads of podcasts talking about this concept and it's it's kind of discussed through the stories as well. like There are many, many books which go into that side of things. and
Speaker: well what happens to ahsoka later in this episode and later in this episode later in this show and yeah how we're seeing like Mandalorians. talk about attachment and... yeah it's very very interesting it's such an interesting topic that we all experience because we all fear the death of loved ones and yeah sure yeah friendship and all of that is Wild, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I've got a last big... Cinematography shout out. Go for it. there's a tracking shot.
Speaker: of Anakin. It starts on Anakin's worried face yes towards the end and it tracks down him. And then obviously there's like a kind of wipe or a cut yeah within that, like a hidden cut. yeah Because it tracks down into the catacombs and it's like literally we're going down into the depths. yes But it's also down into that place of worry. yeah And it ends up on the Padawans in the tank in the dark. They're using their lightsabers for light. yeah And it's just this...
Speaker: visual storytelling the kind of shot that you would see in a film like i've seen that in loads of films and tv shows where you have that shot that goes down through a floor and then you're like somewhere completely different and it yeah continues to track downwards like ah a tracking transition type of thing but it was just so beautifully done and the music I think at that point whether it was music or sound I can't remember but it really enhanced the visuals as well.
Speaker: So good. this is so good Right, then we move into full horror. Legacy of terror. Oh my gosh. See ya.
Speaker: Who is your favourite character in Episode 7, Legacy of Terror? I'll give you three guesses. The same as mine. Who have you gone for? Obi -Wan. Yay! He was definitely the brains behind this whole chase. He was.
Speaker: So good. Although he doesn't succeed, he does his best with negotiation because we all know that he is the negotiator. He's the master negotiator. Yeah, he tries his hardest, but he can't necessarily negotiate with a wild zombie queen. No, that's true. He's very, very sassy in this and I loved it. yeah He makes a joke at some point which is like
Speaker: Hang on a second. I can't remember that. He tells Anakin, you always think with your lightsaber. And I was like, excuse me. Yes. Excuse me. I did notice that.
Speaker: I observe and you always think with your lightsaber. but Normally, I like... i i take quotes and i color them a particular color but then i usually pick like one And I...
Speaker: do the proper highlight with that one. But I've noticed in my notes for this, I've highlighted three and they're all Obi -Wans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got one of Anakin's as well, which is study my boot.
Speaker: I did an Anakin one as well, all things considered. That went better than I expected. Yeah.
Speaker: So good. It was really nice to be with the two of them in this yeah situation. Getting back to that banter, yeah. Yeah, back to that and back to... And and it it kind of makes... the horror bearable it is horror and it is quite scary and there are stakes and it gets a bit icky towards the end but you do know they're going to make it out obviously and so like having that banter
Speaker: Yeah, it just does help things move along, which is a horror thing, isn't it? Like you do get that in horror. Yeah, definitely. And I feel like if we were to actually have any of those really, really horror trope situations go on, I feel like you just would. Yeah. You just would.
Speaker: resort to banter yeah i've definitely i whenever i've been in scary situations yeah when i was a late teenager. early 20s I got obsessed with this haunted castle in Devon where I used to live and I would spend
Speaker: many, many nights going there with different friend groups. And I would be dissuading because I wanted to go there all the time. I was obsessed with it. yeah And healthily to the point that in the third year, I wrote a whole album in my uni course about Garzl. And excellent you had to park.
Speaker: quite a long way away, like about three quarters of a mile away from the castle. yeah In the daytime, you could drive down. It was like an English heritage place. So you could drive down, park in the car park, have an ice cream, go and visit the castle, hear the stories of the ghosts and everything else. But if you went at night, it was all locked up. So you had to like climb over the gate and walk down this track through these woods in the dark. It was terrifying. and
Speaker: I mean, this is another podcast entirely. I did have some supernatural experiences there, definite ghost encounters, absolutely wild stuff happened. But yeah throughout those walks.
Speaker: You would. be cracking terrible jokes yeah and like it didn't matter how terrible the jokes were or how bad the banter was You all appreciated it. You're just breaking the tension, aren't you? and that's Yeah. I really felt that Anakin and Obi -Wan and Cody, like they were all...
Speaker: They're all doing it. Cody, I was with Cody. like I feel like Cody was me in this episode. Yeah. Not having a good time. No. So they're basically they're they're trying to get Poggle the Lesser. They want to capture him as a they need a war criminal. yeah
Speaker: And to do that, they've got to go into these catacombs, into this underground... Temple, basically. Yeah. Well, Luminara just goes off, doesn't she? She's like, she goes off I'm going to go and get him. That's it. Forward a faint round. Yes.
Speaker: Barriss and Ahsoka are off to get some rest and recuperation, which... yeah Doesn't last very long it turns out. ah Not at all. So yeah, she goes off on her speed bike with amazing black goggles, which I noticed when I was watching the round scenes. I was like, oh my gosh, the goggles.
Speaker: So cool. And she says, just make sure you leave a bit of strategic planning for when I come back, Master Kenobi. I hate to feel less left out having a bit of a dig because he's just on about strategic planning. And she's like, let's just go and get Poggle. Let's just go and do this. Yeah. oof Stop talking about it. But she gets captured.
Speaker: She does. and They've got to go and get her out. They go and rescue her. Well, she tells them not to and... And this time it's Obi -Wan being like, no, we're gonna... we're gonna come and yeah we're gonna we're gonna do it we're gonna come get you and not only So they do want to get.
Speaker: Poggle as well, so it's like a... a double reason for the mission. Yeah. Amazing sandstorm. We get this whole sandstorm thing again. Incredible visuals. Even when you're in the control room with Anakin and Obi -Wan and Ki -Adi -Mundi and they're looking out at it. like Okay. From here on, I saw again, Kristen Baver, shout out. This was a great observation. Claustrophobia begins here. yes like in the storm you feel claustrophobic but it continues through here into the net
Speaker: the whole rest of the episode with the catacombs and then into the next episode when you're stuck on this frigate. I wrote, how how is Anakin coping with this sand? Yeah.
Speaker: ah So much sand. So gritty. Gets everywhere. Is he okay? Do we need to check on him? I think it's probably bringing some PTSD back from his experiences on Tatarine. Not having a good time. Poor Anakin.
Speaker: Again, some incredible more incredible sound stuff. The sounds of the speeder bike when Luminara and Rex are on speeders. So back in Return of the Jedi World. Yeah. And there was some great sound design as we see the entrance to the temple. And there's all these Geonosian sculptures of these creatures. And rather than necessarily have music cues, or maybe they are music cues, but they're kind of sound. Sound cues. Weird sound cue thing. Yes.
Speaker: Lots of interesting stuff happening. And then... We meet some zombie Geonosians. Zombie bugs. We did not know you were going to get zombie bugs. Nope. They got glow -in -the -dark eyes. I was like, wait a second. yeah Not sure how we feel about this. Yeah.
Speaker: and then ultimately Queen Carina. Yes. hey is just terrifying so she's one of the sculptures that we see i think yes they see a sculpture of her first yeah and they're like oh maybe that is what's going on yeah That's when Cody says, that's one ugly bug. Yeah.
Speaker: You're not wrong. Jeez. I mean, she's also Like, she's got a beauty about her as well. I don't know what it is. like Hmm. I guess that's the thing of like... majestic Yeah.
Speaker: like I don't like her body. I don't like things that have like a small head and a big body. that Yeah, that's kind of freaky. Okay, Matt Wood in the behind the scenes was talking about the Queen. yeah and Like, how are they going to do this? And then Dee Bradley Baker.
Speaker: Just as a queen voice. Okay. Like, it's not... is not affected. it's just that's how he did her voice and they show a clip of him doing it and it's like Oh, my God. Oh, okay. stop I mean, he is good. He is a genius. He's the master of creature noises. If you've watched any cartoons in the last 20 years with creatures in, he's probably Dee Badley Baker. He does squelchy noises.
Speaker: But he's in a... Star Trek Prodigy, which is an incredible animated show. and When I first watched it, I saw his name in the credits and I was like, oh, is he this character or is he this character? And then I'm like...
Speaker: Oh no, he's the little blue squishy alien that just makes weird noises. That's literally what he does. ah If you could hook me up, I would love this job. Yeah. I mean, he's just in his element. You can tell when he's doing it, when he's demonstrating. We've shared clips of him doing the...
Speaker: Bad Batch and the clone, you know, he's a genius, but his creature noises. And this is a combination because it's a creature speaking a language. with a creature voice, like it's just... top -notch like he is the ultimate really
Speaker: yeah yeah And then we've got the Geonosians and all of their incredible speech, but then yeah we've got the zombified version of them yeah doing this. but And you're like, this is cool. I love making zombie sounds. I've done yeah quite a few. an's You've edited some zombie audio dramas. I've edited many zombies.
Speaker: I've done many many a zombie and either with me I've done the incidental sounds so like when I've needed something very specific yeah It's usually me. And then yeah I'll just affect it and do whatever. I've got an amazing plugin called. dehumanizer creature plugin i can't remember what it's called but it's yeah it's dehumanizer something and it's got loads of like you can run
Speaker: things through and you can you can affect things by it gives you things like age so you can age your creature up and down and you can do like wildness and it's all affecting how the sound is running through it's it's really cool it's a really cool plugin Yeah, I don't know if there's... something like that is what they're doing with them, but because they are the still the Geonosian cliques, but they've got different processing going on. Yeah.
Speaker: And some zombie groaning. I don't know. I feel like having watched both Dee Bradley Baker and Matt Wood making Geonosian noises. They might just be doing it. Live. I mean, that there's layering and stuff. But I'm sure you're right. I'm sure there is some some processing audio processing going on. But it is...
Speaker: just inspirational to watch. those two guys doing what they do just do it unbelievable Yeah, ah and I was particularly warmed to see Matt Wood. kind of in awe of Dee Bradley Baker, like Matt Wood himself is a genius. Yeah. Like he does loads of the droid noises and he's done the bugs for Poggle and everything. Yeah. But yeah. what a team what a team oh cool it's the best people doing the best things yeah
Speaker: Also, lighting? Yeah, I was about to say the same thing. in the in the darkness there is some wild light stuff going on it's like shadow play stuff and Oh. Just yeah incredible. what what i like sensory episode which is what good horror should be yeah definitely like even though it's animation it still makes you feel all of the feels like the goosebumps the sort of chills the yeah nausea like all of the things
Speaker: really intense oh speaking of nausea there's some great sounds in the next episode let's get to it this is the finale I don't know this might have been my favorite and least favorite if you can see what I mean yeah yeah I don't know last The previous episode was amazing. I loved that too.
Speaker: And I'm not a horror person, as you know. Yes. I do not like horror. I am a horror person. I yeah love it. I'm here for all of it. Mostly, I love zombie flicks. i'm Big fan of a zombie thing. yeah I'm a big fan of most ah paranormal horror. Great. Fine. Love it.
Speaker: The only kind of horror I don't like is people doing. things to people yeah yeah absolutely i think we've talked about that on this podcast with sarah possibly about yeah Torture horror, no. Nope. Not here for it. No, we don't like it. Which is great because none of these episodes are that. No. They are...
Speaker: Just pure horror in a lot of ways. Zombie horror. Yeah. I want to give some shout outs to one of the other reasons I love Obi -Wan in this episode is They found Luminara.
Speaker: The Queen's trying to infect her with a brain worm, yeah which we get to see a lot more of in the next episode. But Obi -Wan's just like... Oh, do you think it's going to go into her ear or a nose? What's going on? yeah I just want to find out how it works. Just want to find out how it works. And Anakin's like...
Speaker: What? And Luminara's like, hundredar I really don't. Like, what? What are you doing? But he's so, and I would be like that in that situation as well. so Yeah. dead blame curiosity get it okay This next episode, Brain Invaders, yes I felt like there was a bit of the thing, you know, the original 80s, the thing about it. And that's sort of like who is infected. yeah Yes. There's a cat and mouse aspect to it. I don't know. Yeah, really cool.
Speaker: so yeah who is your favorite character in brain invaders episode eight Asoka. Same. Yeah! We got a four for five, I think. Four for five. That's pretty impressive. That is the first, actually. I mean, it has to be Ahsoka in this episode. There's nobody else. Everybody else is horrific in this episode. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: And she had to go through like a really horrifying experience and she just my god stayed on it. She was super brave. She didn't lose it at any point. I'm so impressed with her. No, I know. she And even in this like horrific situation where she is the last one left on this. ship yeah and she just goes okay cool how do I stop this This was written by Andrew Kreisberg, k christberg who has written on...
Speaker: Supergirl, Flash, Arrow, so like superhero stuff. Okay. um Unfortunately, he has turned out to be not very good, I think. And there's multiple allegations from both women and men about sexual harassment. Oh, fun times. Sad times, because it's a great episode. If we could stop doing that, that would be great. Yeah, could just concentrate on the writing, Andrew. Creepy.
Speaker: Maybe the creepiness of the episode. i don't know No, you can write incredibly good horror and not be a sexual predator. There's some lovely your people who write horror out there. yeah And he's not one of them, sadly. But brilliant direction. Stuart Lee, who's like a Clone Wars Lucasfilm animation veteran. He's done some amazing stuff. Great guy.
Speaker: Excellent. And this is our attachment is not compassion episode. Yeah. Yeah. Which... does throw a different perspective. on Luminara. that she can be compassionate.
Speaker: yeah without being attached, which I feel like we have heard that lesson yeah in the Jedi in the past. but Yeah, it's a difficult line. Mmm, and the context of it here as well.
Speaker: Because... At the end of this episode, Ahsoka is... left with a bit of a Did I do the right thing? yeah Which Anakin, matter of fact, he says, yes, of course, you knew you were going to succeed, which is very Anakin. Yeah. Like hubris, very complacent. Yeah. yeah he's kind of in the moment and not really. It is an interesting message. Again.
Speaker: We're back to that thing of like, who are we watching the clone wars? You know, who's telling this story? Who's writing these? fortune cookies yeah because as well as anakin being very very reassuring to ahsoka at the end we've seen him do some not very nice stuff and we've heard the vader theme yeah By the time we get here. First time it's been in the Clone Wars. Yeah.
Speaker: And I know was like, was that my ears? And at first I thought, no, I imagined it. And then it happens again. It happens again, yeah. This ah this episode, music -wise, let's get into music, because yeah I've written so many music observations yeah early on. There was some Twilight Zone music.
Speaker: as they board the frigate in the first place. and
Speaker: Scythe is already doing his like weird jerky zombie voice again cha gar shakeka because not only is he now doing clone voices individually but now we've got their different versions like satan scythe now has a second voice that you've got to create but yeah there was like a music cue that was very twilight zone and yeah then ahsoka's like uneasiness at the beginning there's a lot of really lovely tension music with bells and deep piano notes yeah yeah tense strings Again, I was listening on headphones. You mentioned choir in an earlier episode. The choirs in this, they're like staccato. Carmina Burana type drama. Yep.
Speaker: ah So good. Terrifying music. Really, really scary. Lots of wiggly woo strings. I wrote down Bernard Herrmann, who's... composed like loads of Alfred Hitchcock scores, like Psycho and yeah Vertigo, and and he was the king of the widdly -woo strings. I love this shorthand. The Psycho like shower scene is like... great great
Speaker: the The epitome of Ridley Roos. They've stopped Ridley -ing. I'm wooing even. There's no wooing. There's no widdling. They've gone that far. They're just scratchy. and Yeah. intense at that point.
Speaker: Hire Jack. If you watch Vertigo. The Hitchcock's Vertigo, Bernard Herrmann's score in that is phenomenal. And that is like... apex wiggly woo it's like big arpeggios going up and down every time you see a view of a height you know because i don't know if you've seen vertigo but there's like moments where he's like up a building or having an attack of vertigo and hitchcock uses this weird lens effect sort of
Speaker: visualize that yeah and the score is incredible as well it makes you feel like vertigo And it is very Ridley Rue. Yeah, definitely worth a watch. Definitely worth a watch. I was more focused on the sound design in this because... Yeah, I get that. Oh my gosh, we've got my favourite things. The worms. Yeah, I knew it was going to be your thing. like
Speaker: The worm sound design is so ASMR. It's squelchy. Gross, gross, gross. It's so disgusting and I loved it. Yep, 100%. I mean, I hated it, but I loved it.
Speaker: I've got some incredible recordings of, well, so I've recorded lots of slime, but I've got some really good recordings of and a mixture of yogurt and jelly. Okay. And then you hold it really close. Bramwyn looks a bit horrified. to just
Speaker: I'm trying to like reframe it as serving up trifle like that sound you make when you serve up trifle which are kind of like yeah or trifle that's been made with jelly in it which isn't really trifle I know UK trifle purists are shouting on their phones now but trifle if you make it with jelly do you think there's a big crossover between Star Wars fans and jelly trifle purists trifle purists yeah um As sound designers, I feel it's our responsibility to observe the differences in trifle making.
Speaker: because trifle has incredible sound design it does by nature it's good it's pretty much what you're describing jelly and yogurt custard and cream the squelch of yeah yeah Jelly yogurt. But very rarely do we put our hands, I just kicked my microphone. Very rarely do we put our hands in the jelly and squidge it around. And that is very satisfying. Not only does it feel great, but it sounds incredible. but but I think I might be very sensory seeking. yeah
Speaker: Have you ever been to one of our Halloween parties? Yes. Yeah, my mum and dad, I don't know if they've done it recently, but they used to do this like when we were kids, lucky dip thing. And I know we've done it since I've been an adult as well, where you have like cardboard boxes with holes cut on the top. yeah put My mum does that too. Like the kids at the party have to put their hands in to find like a key or a coin or something. Yeah. And it's like. What can we put in?
Speaker: The stuff that they can't see that they're putting their hands into. It's going to be gross. And it often involves jelly or like pasta shells, yeah. To fill our eyes, you know, all of that kind of thing. And the noise of that. You don't get the sound because it's in a cardboard box and you can't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: you're not close enough to it that so but the sound design is trying to create that feeling yes yeah sense it's like linking the senses It was so gross. And again, I was listening on headphones, so it was making me kind of go, oh, that's quite a nice. Yes, I can imagine. Quite a nice but gross thing. Well done speakers, but like headphones, oh my God. And then we've got the creepy cracks that they do as they'd like after they've been infected. When they stand up, they crack. Doing the zombie jerk, yeah. And you're like, oh my gosh, that's...
Speaker: It's kind of what I sound like when I stand up, but also not to that extent. Oh, Matt Wood. Matt Wood and David Acord, you've got a lot to answer for. We love you. Keep doing what you do. That was great. Loved it. But also, really scary for a... Six rating. Yeah.
Speaker: I mean... Terrifying. This one and the last one. The Clone Wars is... so dark generally like what are they even doing giving us how did this end up on cartoon network Kauai. There was a...
Speaker: a callback to the red security shield thing that we've had in multiple things now so i guess Like Mando, we called it a callback to Phantom Menace, but it's here as well. It's here too, yeah, yeah. These multiple layers protecting the bridge. There's some really good sounds on...
Speaker: All the different shields. I noticed that there's a few shields throughout this episode that all have slightly different sound effects. That was really cool. There's so much that people don't notice that's just yeah magic that makes these episodes feel like Star Wars. Because it is Star Wars -y. Yeah.
Speaker: Even though it's a horror thing, it's so Star Wars. It's so Star Wars, yeah. Apparently there's a horror Star Wars book coming. You know, I mentioned yeah Eyes Like Stars. The Eyes Like Stars one is a sort of YA novel, I think. I love a YA novel. They're easier to read. I love YA novels. They are my favorite genre of books. But yeah, I think the next one that's coming, I don't know if we've got a title yet. It was announced at San Diego Comic -Con, but it's...
Speaker: i think it's going to be a horror which we all kind of expected i think but i think it's YA or even younger horror so it's not going to be like too bad brutal horror i don't think we'll ever get that in star wars i think this is the like level of horror that Star Wars will.
Speaker: we'll go to yeah yeah which is still pretty horrific yeah i think there were some books in the old eu you that were a bit more horror i've never read them so about i think about clone troopers as well as i remember yeah but i don't think in canon stuff we've ever had anything More scary than this, but I found this scary enough. Thank you very much. Yeah, this was quite scary. We've also got some genuinely horrible, like... sights in this as well it's not just the sound of it we've got like the worms
Speaker: coming out of the clone troopers mouths and yeah barris as well it's all really yeah Really not nice. The animation of Barris when she switches. yeah like her face and her expression and again where her story arc goes
Speaker: seeing her like this now. Mmm. Hit really different on a rewatch, yeah. Okay, interesting. That reveal when she's behind the blue. glass screen thing. Yeah. and ahsoka sees her and she realizes what's happened and then the glass shatters and Again, brilliant sound. i yeah Cloud stuff.
Speaker: It's all very sinister. Incredible. But yeah, I mean, oh, the medical station as well. I meant to say about the medical station, cinematography -wise. it looks so cool it's kind of we've seen some of these little round stations already this is a specific One this is a medical station.
Speaker: But the design of it, I hadn't... really clocked this before but it's like white with lots of different color controls and it's a bit like the control room In Mando season one,
Speaker: the prison break episode and they end up in where Matt Lanter is in the Cockpit control bridge, whatever it is. And it's got those same type of colour combination. Mmm. But also on... the medical frigate that she's on.
Speaker: I didn't really notice it. for I think I was making notes from the outside. Because once she was on it, I thought... Oh, this is a blockade runner because it looks exactly like... bail organa's blockade runner yeah with the white walls and floors and then even like the side corridors which are dark are exactly like the side corridor where leia gives r2 the plans for the death star right at the beginning of a new hope yeah you know we see like the white corridors which we see again in revenge of the sith you know and now in rogue one it's like become part of star wars
Speaker: law yeah of Alderaanian Alderaanian, Alderaanian uh blockade rounds it really looked like that and i mean this ship must be from the same ship manufacturer i didn't actually look it up what it is oh yeah it's a pelta class medical frigate tb73 but it does look exactly like the tentative v4 from the inside to me yeah
Speaker: okay and it does look like it from the outside it's got a different engine configuration yeah But yeah, sorry, just a massive tangent there into the look of the ships. We've got like this the station and the ship are the two main locations for this episode. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Very Star Wars.
Speaker: It's all very creepy. But but Kit Fisto comes in smiling at the end. You know, we've got Ahsoka waking up. He's great. He is lush. I'm beginning to...
Speaker: Get on to cash hands. Kit Fisto train. Yeah, me too. He's pretty lush. Yeah, it was weird having her like... point of view eye opening shot we don't get a lot of point of view shots in Star Wars but Anakin was there But yeah, Kit Fisto comes in, you've been through quite an ordeal, little one. So comforting. That's very nice. And more comforting than Anakin, who has just...
Speaker: potentially committed war crimes again in terms of... Torture. Yeah. To get the information out of Poggle, which he does. And like, yes, he got it. And yes, he managed to... Save them. But also...
Speaker: well i think the use of the imperial march there is like it's all very intentional this is our first moment in the clone wars where we're really like Oh, this is this is directly pointing to what's going to happen to Anakin. There was a massive Dutch angle as well. I think it was like a moving Dutch angle as he went into the cell. Yeah.
Speaker: really edge of violence kind of stuff and we know that he's been violent yeah he's just But after all that, Ahsoka saves the day. She gets the information she needs. She freezes everybody, and including herself. Again, wild. Yeah, we get the breath, cold breath, call back to trespass that episode in season one. Yeah. Yeah, and her shaking does.
Speaker: a talk in the BTS about. all of the characters. start shivering even the ones that are infected like there's this kind of everyone starts shivering different type of animation Yeah.
Speaker: there's the coolant vapor as well like it's same with the dust like how sandstorm we've had so much amazing particle work yeah shout out to the particle wranglers who well done their job in animating is just to build amazing particles and yeah they smashed it in this arc completely we've had so many different ones they pushed the computers to their limits many many times Yeah. what ah What a ride.
Speaker: what ah rob What an arc. What an arc. absolutely incredible art loads of different genre work loads of different visuals Sound design off the charts. Brilliant music. Great. Voice acting. Oh my gosh. Incredible. All of it.
Speaker: Good work. Can't wait for the next block. Yeah, what have we got next? Next week, we're watching a very short two -episode arc called Saleucami. which is lush. Grievous Intrigue. Grievous Intrigue. An episode with intrigue in the title. We love it. And then one called The Deserter as well, which is what we will come to think of Salukamai as being associated with. And we come back to it.
Speaker: Later shows. It's really cool. And then there's a one -off episode called Lightsaber Lost. Okay. So we've only got three episodes. It's going to be a lot lighter, I think, than what we've just been through. Thank goodness. I say that now we'll find out we'll find out when we get there if you're watching along Make sure you watch those three episodes.
Speaker: 9, 10 and 11 and join us here next week to talk about them. Make sure you follow us on all the things, please. yeah Make sure you give us a five -star review. yeah Make sure you come and say nice things. Go and talk to us on YouTube. You can talk to us on Instagram, on Blue Sky, on Facebook.
Speaker: on tiktok yeah my brain trying to cycle through all the things yeah i think we know this by now but it's Still confusing. And if you are a new listener, welcome come along. We've been having quite a few new listeners lately. and We're very excited to have you.
Speaker: Go back through our back catalogue if you want to hear some stuff about Mandalorian, if you want to hear some stuff about the original films. There will be a test. No, I'm joking. The Skywalker cyber is all there. And we've been doing some. Wild and wonderful.
Speaker: Journeys into Wild Space recently. Canary's talking about... Films and fan fiction and... interviewing an incredible star wars creator who's amazing just go back and find all so all of them Yeah. And we'll see you next week. We'll see you next week for Saleucami and Lightsaber Lost.
Speaker: Until then. Bye!
