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Delving into THE MANDALORIAN Chapter 21 | 027
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Join Branwen and Seah as they deep dive into all things Star Wars. Follow along as we fly off exploring all the wonders and geekery of a Galaxy Far, Far Away, chatting nostalgia, worlds, lore, sound, music, story, behind the scenes, and much more with each other and some very special guests.
This season, we're on a rewatch of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett in the run-up to the release of "The Mandalorian and Grogu" in cinemas in May.
In our twenty-seventh episode we're continuing through The Mandalorian Season 3, with Chapter 21 "The Pirate". We talk about themes, performances, story details, pirates, Branwen's Apelphi connection, whiphids, Kowakian monkey-lizards, diverse stories in Star Wars, continuing vibe-watch, and much more. Watch out for our "West End Geek Girls" segment, which now has a little theme tune!
Sisters of the Force is a weekly, UK-based, Star Wars podcast, produced with joy and love by Seah and Branwen. Sisters of the Force theme by Seah and Branwen.
Follow us on Instagram @sistersoftheforcepod, Bluesky @sistersoftheforce.bsky.social, TikTok @sistersoftheforcepod, https://www.youtube.com/@SistersoftheForce, and https://www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.
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Transcript
Sore Throat & Star Wars Impressions
00:00:16
Speaker
Sia! Hi! What's your favourite quote from The Mandalorian Chapter 21? Everybody come long! It had to be the Anzellans!
00:00:28
Speaker
I've got a sore throat today as well so I can actually do it. Your perfect Anzellan. That sounded really right actually. I had a couple of others, but i woke up and my throat was feeling like this, and I was like, I can do that today.
Mandalorian Quotes and Characters
00:00:40
Speaker
Lean into
00:00:42
Speaker
that' it. Hey, Branwen. Hello. What's your favourite quote from The Mandalorian, Chapter 21? The voice sounds like Greef Karga, a guildmaster of the Navarro Hunters, but all I see before me is a pampered nobleman dressed for the pomp of his wedding feast. Ooh.
00:01:00
Speaker
Rude. love that so sorry he's not around anymore. great, isn't he? I presume he didn't make it out of Requisition. presume he didn't make it. think he went down with it. It didn't look like he got out. No. But we enjoyed him while he lasted. Yeah, he was great And we've got some remnants of his crew, which we're going to get into as we go
Introduction to 'Sisters of the Force' Podcast
00:01:19
Speaker
through.
00:01:19
Speaker
So, yeah, you're listening to Sisters of the Force, a Star Wars podcast with me, Branwen. And me, Sia. And today we're taking another step towards the end of our Mandalorian rewatch. Oh, my God. We've got chapter 21, The Pirate. We've not got that long left, really, have we?
00:01:38
Speaker
Four episodes. Four episodes. Whoa. Okay. Okay. Three, possibly. Oh, my God. Maybe we should fact check that. Yeah, three episodes. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Aside from all the Mandalorian rewatch, we've got some really exciting news building.
Upcoming Podcast News & 'The Pirate' Episode
00:01:56
Speaker
Yes. For the pod, which we probably won't tell you about yet.
00:02:00
Speaker
No. It involves lots of WhatsApp groups, though. It does. WhatsApp meltdown has been happening in the last two days. And we're only just beginning. Yeah, the pirate was so fun. It was fun, wasn't it? Yeah. Fun little adventure episode. Yeah.
00:02:17
Speaker
Back to our classic little foray into let's have a rescue mission. Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of but like and a kind of planetary rescue mission almost as well. It had quite a big scale to
Navarro's Development and Resilience
00:02:30
Speaker
it. Yeah.
00:02:31
Speaker
Although it appears there's only about 40 people living on the Bible. But still, it had. I'm quite impressed at how much they've built with those 40 Yeah.
00:02:41
Speaker
I mean, I know if there's any other settlements on Navarro or whether that's it, but that seems to be the capital. Well, I think there's more because some of them got out, but some of them were still kind of clearly there. It's true, yeah. Locked in by the pirates, weren't they? Yeah.
Peter Ramsey's Directorial Style
00:02:56
Speaker
It was really great. Directed by Peter Ramsey, who I didn't know about, but went and Googled him.
00:03:02
Speaker
Yeah, he's quite a prolific artist generally. He he is an actual art, like a storyboard artist as well. it was like That was his sort of job before. He worked on some pretty big films like Independence Day and one of the Shrek movies, Predator 2, as a storyboard artist. And then got into directing through
Action & Storytelling in the Episode
00:03:19
Speaker
that. like yeah I suppose he's very visual as well. like He's directed some animation like Rise of the Guardians, which I've never seen, but it's quite a popular film. And Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, which is incredible. Incredible. I love that film. So good. So good.
00:03:34
Speaker
So yeah, that's where he's coming from, which is really interesting. So he's obviously quite a visual yeah director, which, yeah, i think kind of ties into this episode. mean, it's quite like an action heavy Quite action-y. Yeah. Yeah. It's very, very well crafted, especially the kind of the last third of it. You can really feel what's going on and there's like these little stories happening in different places, which is quite a classic Star Wars thing to have these kind of multiple storylines going on. Multiple storylines within one big, yeah, one battle with multiple things going which he handled really well, I think, as a director. Yeah.
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool. We got to see lots of different places as well. It was kind of, yeah, they were all all over the place. Yeah. I'd forgotten the whole Coruscant thing. Well, I hadn't forgotten it, but didn't remember it was
Grief Karga's Leadership in Navarro
00:04:17
Speaker
in this episode. And was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. We're going to Coruscant. Yeah. And we saw Delphi base. Yeah. And we saw a little bit of the Mando planet. Yeah, tiny bit. The covert planet. Yeah. And of course, Navarro again. We saw lots of different bits of Navarro that we haven't seen before. We sort of like went to every bit of the Navarro set. Yes. managed to get everything going on on little tour navarro yeah so it must have been quite biggish budget like there's a lot different stuff happening yeah like intrigue space action action on the ground yeah all of the things were kind of in it so yeah must have taken a bit of bit of crafting yeah
00:05:05
Speaker
My first note is we're back on Navarro and there's a gonk droid. i didn't know was a gonk droid. Right at the beginning. It's the opening thing. We open on the square at Navarro and there's a little gonk droid gonking away. think I was like staring at IG, like half IG. Oh yeah, yeah. It's like the waist down.
00:05:25
Speaker
Very odd. Really creepy. And I was also still making notes about the recap, which you'll get into the details of the recap. But it was inri the recap was really setting up what I feel is quite a big theme in this episode, which is what is going on in the New Republic. The New Republic is feeling very flimsy. Scrambly.
00:05:47
Speaker
And we're sort of seeing that through both griefs kind of lack of faith in them, but he's trying, he's really hoping they're going to come and help.
Planet Adelphi & Real-World Connections
00:05:55
Speaker
That they're help, yeah. But then also Carson Tavor's like absolute frustration and yeah, he's making Carson Tavor really interesting as a character. Like I feel like he's bordering on just going rogue. Yes. he and Well, he is going rogue. Yeah, I mean, he is. yeah yeah true yeah He just goes and does the same thing. He is definitely rogue. Which is really cool. And obviously that feed, like immediately my spider senses, call back to the spider vest, were tingling because this is going to be a part of the film because we've got Adelphi base in the trailer already. And it's really great to see it again in remembering, oh yeah, it was in Madness. We've seen it. Yeah, it's like an actual thing. And Zeb's a thing. And Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:37
Speaker
Really, really cool. Lush. Interesting, like, real-world random... This isn't going to mean anything to anybody apart from me. But this morning, I was just looking through my notes, and then I briefly went onto Facebook because I was trying to find a post that my mum had told me about. yeah And I noticed loads of my uni friends were posting because the building where we went to uni, which was like a sort of an annex to the main uni in Southwood near Manchester, yeah that building has just been knocked down. And it's like, oh, the end of an era. It was such an amazing performing arts space. yeah
00:07:09
Speaker
It was a really, really cool place to go to uni. And it's just, it's been empty for quite a lot of years, I think, but now it's been pulled down. And the reason I'm telling you this is because it's called the Adelphi building. Yeah. So as soon as I found out that there's a planet called Adelphi, I presume you pronounce it Adelphi. I think we've heard them say Adelphi, yeah. Yeah. It's different pronunciation, but it's the same spelling. So I was like, oh, this is really ironic I'm like leaning into this place in Star Wars that I'm really excited about. Yeah, yeah. Just as my old link to that word. Just as your one's going down. there you go. Wow. It's poetry. It's poetry. It rhymes.
00:07:42
Speaker
ah So sorry, back to Navarro. Back to Navarro. We're on Navarro and not all is well. No.
Pirate Aesthetics & Strategies
00:07:50
Speaker
No. People are nervous. Yeah. There's a little planning meeting going on. Yes. I'm really amusing with like these engineers. And they're talking about moving this bit to this. It's really exciting that Grief has got big plans. Yes.
00:08:03
Speaker
He's already done so much, but he's not is on like sitting on his laurels. He's still invested in improving things as much as he can. Well, he's so invested in it because the as soon as the attack happens, the droid goes off and goes, I'll get you your escape pod. And he's like, yeah. I'm not going to abandon my citizens. It was really interesting hearing that droid say that because my mum said, is that C-3PO's cousin? which She's not serious, she's joking. yeah But like he totally is like C-3PO's cousin. He looks a lot like him and he's being really annoying. And the fact that he's talking about escape pods, which is one of the first conversations we hear C-3PO have is about escape pods. That's really cool.
00:08:40
Speaker
Grief is all down to stay with the people and get the people to safety. I wonder if that's like a protocol droid thing then, that they're programmed to protect the most important person to get them to escape. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, yeah. Almost like not a bodyguard exactly, because physically they're not going to do that job. Physically they're terrible. Yeah, but there'd be that aide that comes up to you and says, we need to leave now. That kind of character. Yeah.
00:09:05
Speaker
That would make sense. I'm trying to think of like where Threepio, I'm sure Threepio was doing it in hoth you know, in the Hoth base. Yeah. Yeah. You could imagine it being like that.
00:09:17
Speaker
and And he did it Padme, I think, when yeah the Jedi Temple was being attacked. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sure you're right. But he takes his new orders and he goes to start, you know, helping getting the population to safety. yeah Because this enormous, gorgeous pirate corsair has come back. It's really pretty for a pirate ship. I love it so much. It looks quite shiny. I know they're space pirates, but still. Yeah. I mean, some pirates are really flashy. Yeah, that's true. And would lean into the aesthetics of their things. Like you were talking Eliode Marikovania the other week. And I think they would do this. And lean into that as well. Whereas there are some pirates that are just a bit scuzzy and... Oh, we're back to our flag means death again. my God. Yeah. We've got that whole thing going on with those two as well. We've got scuzzy pirate and a very, very refined pirate. I think Captain Barbossa and Jack Sparrow. Yes. Jack Sparrow just rocks up in a wreck of a ship. In a dinghy, yeah. Yeah.
00:10:22
Speaker
Oh, we love pirates. We love pirates. I dressed up as a space pirate the other week. Oh, yes, you did. It was amazing. Yeah. That's what happens if you give me too broad a brief for what I'm supposed to arrive as. And I lost the costume competition because apparently it was too close to my normal clothes.
00:10:40
Speaker
It wasn't enough of a... yeah a stretch from you.
Space Pirates and Cosplay Ideas
00:10:43
Speaker
Well, this has got me thinking because just before we hit record today, we were talking about cosplay. We were, yeah, that's true. And maybe that's the thing. Maybe we need to just do a cosplay Star Wars pirate thing. yeah When we watch Skeleton Crew, I think... Okay, more pirates. More pirates.
00:10:59
Speaker
That will get us into it. are we Even Skeleton Crew didn't give us as much pirates as I'd have liked. We were promised more pirates. More I do like the space pirates. They are cool. So this one, who's not particularly pretty to look at, he's just seaweed yeah with eyes. I disagree, actually. i think like he looks great. I'm a big fan of this character design. Yeah. No, it's really cool. I just wouldn't aesthetically be drawn. know that's fair. Some alien species, yes. But whatever he is, she maybe not. species, But he makes up for it with his dialogue, his little conversation with Grief, for that line did at the top of the show. yeah so funny. And Grief says that, don't mistake my hospitality for weakness line, which is
Political Maneuvering in Star Wars
00:11:43
Speaker
beautiful. now And he says, he shot first. He shot first.
00:11:48
Speaker
Which I loved a love, I love that. yeah Which is yeah describing why he took out Vane's gang, yeah foolishly leaving Vane to survive. yeah but hey This is where we start to feel like, okay, grief is throwing in with the New Republic and he wants to be side with them even though they're still an independent system. But he says the Spinwood Patrol passes through here regularly. which I've never heard that. I looked up Swimwood and I don't think it's a thing in Star Wars, but it reminded me of in Terry Pratchett's Discworld. They talk about, I can't remember what the equivalent is, but it's to describe clockwise and anticlockwise. Okay. There's like a specific terminology it. specific term for it. yeah. Oh, no, it's hubwood and rimwood, think, is the equivalent.
00:12:34
Speaker
It just gave me that vibe. I've got a word in front of wood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It gives you a new sense of direction. And we're not going to have Northern South, which makes loads more sense to me. Yeah, that does make sense. So does that mean the patrol? Well, he's bluffing at this point, isn't he? No, I was just talking about what Spinwood means. I'm just being really phonetically about details. That must be the same way as the galaxy spins.
00:13:01
Speaker
But does that mean they don't go anywhere? Because they're just going in the same direction as the galaxy. I don't know. I'm overthinking this. I assume they do it faster than the galaxy spins. And is there another group going in the opposite direction every few weeks? They pass each other. They pass each other and just wave.
New Republic's Bureaucracy & Pirate Threats
00:13:23
Speaker
Yeah, he's definitely having a bluff though because he's just trying to get the pirate to leave.
00:13:28
Speaker
Yeah, and I think Shard knows that Navarro isn't part of the Republic. I think he realises this is just grief bluffing. Yeah. Because he just wades in, basically, as the episode progresses. There's a lovely little astromech, which I'm sure has been in... The orange one.
00:13:44
Speaker
Yeah. we seen that before in an earlier episode? I just found it really cute. I think he was there the last time we were on Navarro, wasn't he? Yeah, you're probably right, actually. i just I think I miss a lot when I'm making notes. Yeah, that's fair. But yeah, he's so beautiful. like He reminded me of there's a lot of like these kind of cone-topped astroids in Rebels, which you often see them in Imperial settings and they're black. okay Like the Empire used these cone-topped ones quite a bit.
00:14:12
Speaker
But was really nice to see a little orange one. and just yeah I love astrodroids. They're really cute. There's a friend of mine who has made an R2, like a life-size R2, and it's incredible. she's She's a really great programmer, engineer, all-round amazing woman.
00:14:27
Speaker
And she posted a picture of herself with a couple of other droid builders with their own. yeah It's just this whole world that goes on out there. People building astromex. People building full-sized, fully automated. Jessica. Yeah. is ah We need a Sisters of the Force custom-designed astromech. Jessica, please, can we have an astromech?
00:14:48
Speaker
Yes. She could as well. She'd definitely be able to do that. She totally could. The opening credits is my favourite music cue because it's basically the Mando theme, but with accordion. Yes.
00:15:03
Speaker
It's the pirate version. Pirate version of the Mando theme. It's not even just like pirate film score, which it is and works really well as anyway. yeah yeah. But just the fact that they've gone full accordion is so funny.
00:15:18
Speaker
I really want to learn how to play the accordion. Yeah, it's surprisingly difficult, like coordination-wise. Because like the air-moving thing is not about rhythm. It's like yeah it goes against... Against everything else. It's like trying to tap your head while rubbing your tail. We know how coordinated i am as a human being.
00:15:36
Speaker
Just not, at really. but But your musicality would, I think, win through. and Maybe. One day we'll get you on the accordion. I'll pinch one from work. Well, when we do um pirate cosplay, you can be bardic. I can be the accordion player. Yeah. Amazing. I took my recorder with me to be a bard last time. but I took a guitar on a live roleplay type thing. I played a bard and I yeah carried an acoustic guitar around the woods. nice I think I did sit down and start playing at one point because I was not a fighter. If anybody knows me, I'm not the most physical person in the world. So I just, I theme tuned some of the combat. You you go.
00:16:19
Speaker
Good. So, gosh, we're digressing a lot already. We are, that's okay. We're only a few minutes in. Yeah. We've now arrived at, yeah, the Adelphi Adelphi base.
00:16:30
Speaker
This is my favourite music cue. The, like, country music. Yeah, so it comes up, yeah, it comes up as the subtitles as psychedelic rock, and I was like, clearly not, but also. It's a little bit. It's like 70s yacht psychedelic in the own way that the eagles... They've got a little mouth harp thing. Yeah, yeah. making the little boing, boing, boing noises. It's quite bop, actually. It is, yeah. And then I was like, well, is this diegetic or not? I wrote semi-diegetic, yeah.
00:16:59
Speaker
Yeah. As we see the establishing shot and we watch the Y-Wing come into Land, which, oh my gosh, got me so hyped for Mando and Grogu. Because it's a very similar type shot as we see in the trailer. Yeah, yeah. But that's the score accompanying it. But then when we cut into the bar and we see, do we see Trapper Wolf? Like, we were we're in the bar anyway. Yeah. And it becomes diegetic. It's one of those things, yeah, that...
00:17:25
Speaker
and So i experienced the first of my research headache deep dive things that happened again last night at the same time as Microsoft OneNote decided that i couldn't log in anymore. It thought my computer wasn't connected to the internet, even though I was like browsing and on YouTube. My gosh, the hour, the very late hour when I was supposed to be just like tidying up my notes. But I also went down a few species rabbit
Star Wars Species and Character Lore
00:17:53
Speaker
holes.
00:17:53
Speaker
Okay. Not for any particular reason other than it just piqued my interest. Yeah, sure. But the bar lady yeah is a species called Snivian, which I noticed the other day when I was reading the role-playing game rulebook. By the way, this isn't West End Geek Girls yet. But she caught my eye. like, is it one of those? and And somewhere in the back of my brain it told me it's Snivian race. Like, how do I remember these things? I've no idea. Yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker
But I just wanted to double check that is the name of the species and where we first saw them. And we first saw them on Tatooine at the cantina. yeah But it turns out we've seen loads. I hadn't realized how many of these creatures there are.
00:18:34
Speaker
To be fair, quite a few of them are in animation. there's one in Skeleton Crew as well as part of one of the pirate crews. Okay. So they're in all different places. We've seen them in the Mandalorian TV series a few times now. Okay. And possibly in Book of Boba as well, I think, on Tatooine. Anyway, they're all over the place, these Snivians. They're everywhere. But think this is the first female one I remember seeing. Okay. And she's got this amazing hairstyle, a bit like Peli Motto's hair. Yes. I feel like she and Peli might get on, actually, not just because of their thing. She's got a vibe that. Just in general. She does have a vibe.
00:19:10
Speaker
What a fun rabbit hole to go down i I feel like this episode set me on a lot of like really specific, tiny detailed things. Little deep jigs.
00:19:21
Speaker
That's where you've got me beat. i may have watched this episode at 8 o'clock this morning. As you do. But what people don't know is we're recording at 9.30. 9.30.
00:19:32
Speaker
It's a morning record. Oh my God. Maybe I should give my brain a little bit longer to think about these rabbit holes. Yeah. We'll we'll see as we go. I don't know. I think maybe that's my job as being chief niche.
00:19:50
Speaker
Pointless detail discoverer. That's a good name for you. I like it. Whereas you're very much like, let's actually keep on track with the story. Let's see what's going on. The zoom out, which we need. yeah So we've got this bar scene. um We're introduced to Captain Tavis. What's he up to? He's hanging out in the bar while he gets this message from grief. pick him back up with where he is because we already know he's suspicious. We saw him a few episodes ago being very like he thinks something's going on. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah
00:20:24
Speaker
Yeah. And he wants to keep an eye on it. He does but nobody is listening to him. Is this the first time we've seen zeb Yeah, in live action, yeah. It was a moment and we had no warning. And he's just there. Yeah. The internet exploded the day after this dropped. It was, I mean, yeah, it was like an amazing, I think by then we knew that Ahsoka's TV show was coming oh yeah possibly, i can't remember if the first season already aired maybe. no I think it was still about to air.
00:20:56
Speaker
yeah And we knew that there were going to be some Rebels characters coming into live action, which was exciting. that We'd seen clips of Hera and Chopper and Ezra even, and obviously Sabine. But we didn't know about Zeb, and he's just casually there. He's just there, chilling. As part of the New Republic in the Outer Rim, which is perfect for Zeb. I love it for him. because We didn't really know what would have happened to him after Rebels. You know, Rebels wrapped up.
00:21:24
Speaker
As it does, you know, and yeah we were like, oh what's going to happen yeah to to all these characters? And yeah here's Zeb working with the squadron on Adelphi. Yeah, it's amazing. Excellent. Yeah, Grief messages Carlson or sends a message and it's like not a live call. It's a pre-recorded holo message. Yeah.
00:21:47
Speaker
And he does sound really worried, Grief. Like, yeah i think he's really kind of... How do I help my people? Even though he's sort of bluffing a bit to Shard, I think he's genuinely realising we kind of need to sign up and... Yeah.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah. Get this sorted. But Zeb is like, yeah it's not going to happen.
Hyperspace Travel Mechanics
00:22:05
Speaker
Not going happen. Never mind. He kind says that Coruscant are being very slow about things. And yeah I really love this part of the story. i love like where we are timeline wise. And I'm just doing this re-listen of Aftermath, which is a bit earlier, just after Jedi. Yeah. had i But generally what we know from other literature as well, this whole thing of the New Republic being almost as bad as the Empire in that they're getting wrapped up in bureaucracy. yeah. They're not interested in what is going on in the outer rim at all. Outer rim at all, yeah. That episode with Dr. Pershing and and like those characters that we saw after Pershing's speech in the Opera House and like the way that they were just like, ha, ha, the outer rim, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh my God, this government is terrible. It's really, really awful. the The interludes in the Aftermath Trilogy, one of the best things about the Aftermath Trilogy.
00:22:57
Speaker
are these kind of interludes which are just little snapshots of what's going on in different parts of the galaxy. And some of them are like Outer Rim stories, but some of them are Coruscant stories. And you can just see all this happening.
00:23:08
Speaker
yeah And you can imagine Leia just going bananas, like having spent her life fighting to bring down this government, only to discover that the new government is really much the same. Yeah. I mean, not doing terrible things to planets and genocides and all of that kind of thing that the Empire was doing, but their political yeah stuff is terrible. Still bad. As we see. Still slow. Yeah, so Carson Taffer's straight off to Coruscant to be like, I think we should deal with this. Which, my question then was, this all is happening, but it must be taking quite a long time because...
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah. He's in the Outer Rim before he, or he's towards the Outer Rim before he goes back to Coruscant. Like, how long is that going to take for him to get there and then back again? Okay, this is a great, great question. Okay. I've been pondering doing a West End Geek Girls at some point about hyperspace because the original trilogy didn't really tell us much about it. We didn't really get much an idea. There's a lot of questions about Sublight travel and the Empire Strikes Back timeline and how long did it take them to get to Alderaan and all of those things are a bit iffy. And the role-playing game set up some pretty awesome rules and I've just been rereading the second edition rulebook.
00:24:25
Speaker
And it's got some really good stuff about like how it works and how time works and how long it takes to get to places. And if you took that as like the rules, which we did back then...
00:24:39
Speaker
I suspect it would take a few weeks to get from Adelphi into the Core Worlds, to the Coruscant. yeah But equally that's been messed around with a lot. Yeah, sure. i feel like, yeah, it probably is somewhere something between a few days and a few weeks to me is the journey time. yeah Because the pirates do seem pretty set by the time they do get back to Navarro and they've kind of taken over the town.
00:25:06
Speaker
Yeah, and it feels like they could have been lurking around in the atmosphere for a while, like intimidating and threatening and sure maybe doing some little focused stuff and now they're just like in full scale. Yeah. yeah So I know what you mean.
00:25:20
Speaker
Yeah. Probably less time than we think it does. Probably less time than the rule book. Maybe they found a wormhole. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I mean, he's in an X-Wing, which isn't the greatest hyperspace. You know, it's not a very big ship. They're one of the few small ships have got hyperdrives built in. of course.
00:25:39
Speaker
Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Apparently, this is something else that I learned. I won't get into it too deeply because I think we will do a little bit about hyperspace at some point. Okay. Yeah. Sure. But there are lots of variables that affect hyperspace. Yeah. Having an astrodroid is one of them.
00:25:56
Speaker
Right. Having a nav computer is another. So you've got both an astromech and an nav computer, which I presume Carson Tavid does in his X-Wing, that can really hurry things up because it's not about...
Challenges in the New Republic
00:26:07
Speaker
time in the way that we understand time for journeys. It's like how risky a route you take. Right. Which I think like the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs thing plays into that a little bit as well. of like It's not specifically about how many days this is going to take.
00:26:22
Speaker
You can do hyperspace quicker if you take risks. Right, sure. And Carson Taven knows that there's a time factor involved here because we've got pirates like literally attacking a planet. So you've got to go quick. So he would probably taken risks. He would have taken some shortcuts. would have, yeah.
00:26:38
Speaker
Done whatever had to do. Yeah, rather than take the easy main trade route way, which is less dangerous and yeah all of that. so I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Oof, I suppose it just kind of shows that there is so much that could go wrong yeah at any point. All of those tiny things that had to go right for any of this to happen. Yeah, exactly.
00:26:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's a bit like ah a kind of metaphor for travelling through our space, which ain't like dusting crops, boy. nice So then we've got this whole kind of bureaucracy section, yeah which is what I've called it. Tim Meadows. like We've just got so many great actors, like comedy actors, who are just randomly appearing.
00:27:20
Speaker
yeah i only know Tim Meadows really, good because again, he's like an American comedy actor who we hasn't appeared so much in the UK. Like we haven't had the Saturday Night Live thing in the same way.
00:27:32
Speaker
yeah But he is in stuff. Like I've seen him in The Office again. He's another office. Sure, sure. aum He's only like a one-off character in The Office. He only plays in one episode. But it's like I know his kind of comedy stylings and to see him playing this character is like, yeah what?
00:27:48
Speaker
We're going to get into some wild cameos in the next episode, but this is yeah like a mini version of that. yeah It's a bit like, for me, it feels a bit like having Burr in season two as, yeah or season one, wasn't he, in the Prisoner episode? Season one, yeah. Yeah, similar kind of cameo. yeah but Like a comedy actor who's or a comedian who's doing like a brilliant job playing a straight character in Star Wars. Yeah. I love it Wicked. Yeah, he's really a great personification of the crap bureaucracy of yeah the New Republic. Oh, you're a long way from home, you know, and he's just, he cuts the hollow short, he starts watching it and he's just like bored. I get the gist, not doing this anymore. Doesn't he say he's never heard of Navarro?
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah. He says he's never heard of Navarro, never heard of it, don't care, very like, not part of our problem, we've got a backlog, leave me alone. Yeah. So you've got like that apathy of like these bureaucratic bods in the New Republic, but you've also, they're infiltrated by someone like Aliyah Cain who yeah has still got this other like... What is her game? What is going on? I can't remember. it a I'm intrigued as we watch the next three episodes of like, do we actually find out what her game is? I don't know. I don't know if we do. You've not watched it that long ago.
00:29:07
Speaker
no I know, but i can't remember. Yeah. I feel like she's got her own loyalty. Maybe we're still yet to find out what that is. Yeah. The hint is that it is still Moff Gideon at this point. Yeah. Because we've kind of got these hints about the transport. Did he ever make it to trial? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:25
Speaker
yeah And she's kind of there looking shifty, I guess. Yeah. But how she plays it so well. like She does. It does sound concerning. And she's like, comes in on that line. and She's kind of reminding him that it's that we've got this backlog and maybe they need to... sign the chancer. Maybe they do need to suffer. Yeah. Gross. Like, what? Yeah. Oh, God.
00:29:46
Speaker
yeah Yeah, her implication. That's an awful thing to say. Yeah, pretty much. No. And she says, no, I was liberated when... Awful. Tava calls her out. He knows that she's an ex-Imperial, doesn't he, Carson Tava, because he says you were captured. Yeah, he can see her badge. Her badge says that she's part of the Amnesty program. Amnesty, yeah.
00:30:05
Speaker
Yeah. o It makes me love Carson Tava all the more because he's really passionate about it. He's just so sweet. He's just carrying on that, like, what the rebellion was all about. I presume he must have been in the rebellion. Yeah. Probably Endor even, you know.
00:30:19
Speaker
yeah. He's just really... wants to do the right thing. Yeah. So he has to do what we said at the beginning of this episode, that he just takes matters into his own hands. got matters into his own hands, yeah. He's got other things that he needs to do. Well, because they're just refusing to help or refusing to give him any resources. Yeah. So he's just got to go rogue. So he's off. Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:40
Speaker
He makes some really good points in that argument. Yeah. I think so. They should be listening to him. Yeah. But yeah, he comes in on the covert planet Yes, so my question here was, is he tracking Din or Bo-Katan?
00:30:55
Speaker
And then it was almost instantly answered. Yeah. But that he's actually tracking R5. Yeah, I love, there's a sound design note that I had as he comes in on the planet.
00:31:08
Speaker
He's scanning for them, or presumably scanning for R5, but the sounds that the scanner are making are the same as on hoss when rogue too is looking for hen luke out in the the hoth planes and it's like this little dodoodoodoodoodoodoodoooo dooooooo did it say yeah so There's something that sound design does to me that nothing else does in Star Wars. Yeah. It's that familiarity thing as well, isn't it? Yeah. When you hear the same sounds again, you're just like, oh, I know that sound and I've known that sound for so long. it's like primal nostalgia. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, really cool. And it's world building because we're not that, you know, of course it's still the same sort of technology. Timeline wise, we're not that far away. Yeah.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yeah. So my question then was how did he know that R5 was with Mando? Did he see R5 with Mando at some point? That's a really good question.
00:32:02
Speaker
Well, no, I don't think he did. Or is it implied that he's gone and had a chat with Pelly? Maybe, or maybe R5 has been working as a spy for the New Republic in the Outer Rim all this time.
00:32:16
Speaker
Oh, yeah, potentially. Like he's been hanging out on Tatooine. Yeah. But maybe he's connected to like, don't you remembered me mentioning ages ago that there's a deleted scene from The Force Awakens where Threepio has set up this droid network off the New Republic. Sure. Based on Coruscant, which is where Threepio is obviously spending a lot of his time. Yeah.
00:32:37
Speaker
But he's connected to the Resistance.
Mandalorians Unite for Navarro
00:32:40
Speaker
Right. you know There are droids all across the galaxy. We see one of them at Maz's castle. We see yeah two droids, like a protocol droid that's working for the Resistance and one that's working for the um First Order. yeah Well, one of them isn't a droid. It's the woman with the black and white costume on.
00:32:57
Speaker
But yeah, the droid is part of 3PO's network. So it could be that this is a sort of a version of that where there's like this, if you're tapped into that droid network and Carson Tava probably would be just yeah because he's like always going to be information gathering and yeah trying to track like what's going on. That's his job as part of the ranges of the Outer Rim. yeah So maybe that's what it is. Maybe that's what it is, yeah.
00:33:21
Speaker
that He put out a liker ping for any droid information about Mandalorians. And R5 has been hanging out with the covert. And nobody's asked any questions because who would ever suspect a droid to be revealing their information? i get That's my headcanon anyway. Yeah, like okay.
00:33:40
Speaker
I like it. That works. yeah and like our five it just elevates r five again. of like Yeah. And the way he says, fortunately, I served with the rebellion, someone i research served with in the rebellion is among your ranks.
00:33:55
Speaker
yeah And you're immediately like, what? Who's the spy? And it's like, oh, it's R5. Yeah. Who, as we know from a certain point of view, is part of R2's... Kind of, yeah. Part of R2's plan. I feel like R2 probably recruited r five at that point.
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah. And they've been connected ever since. Yeah. So R5 has just stayed on Tatooine as like R2's correspondent. Little plant. Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:23
Speaker
So, it's meeting time. Oh, yeah, yeah, the Mandalorian meeting, yeah. Yeah. So great, with like the hammer holding thing where like whoever's talking holds. The talking stick. Yeah. I love that. I do this with groups all the time. It's not always a hammer. It's never a hammer, in fact. You need to get an armourer's hammer, yeah. It's normally ah clave or a, don't know. Okay, yeah, A glockenspiel beater. Or a glockenspiel, yeah. Not an actual glockenspiel, we don't have those.
00:34:53
Speaker
And they all have their moment to speak with the talking stick. Yeah, Din's telling his story really about Navarro and grief and yeah why, even though they were enemies of the Mandalorians, you know, back in season one. Is it time to fight for a new home? Yeah.
00:35:07
Speaker
And I love the switch then that Paz, we suspect that Paz is going to shut down the idea. he starts off speaking as though, he you know, he describes his experience of that night on Navarro where yeah they fought against the Boundienta Guild and Grief Karga specifically. Switches it round with a, we are Mandalorians! Yeah, yeah, he like sets up this little rhetorical question that he then answers. ah Yeah.
00:35:31
Speaker
And when he says, I for one will take up arms to fight by thy side, this is the way yeah i wrote hell the yeah in caps. Nice. I mean, it's Jon Favreau's voice, apart from anything. yeah Like, he loves his Mandalorians. He's played them before. Yeah. It's just, oh, so good.
00:35:48
Speaker
Nice. So after they agree in the meeting, we've then got a classic Bo-Katan plan. Yeah. Bo-Katan and a 3D holomaps, which has now become a thing for me. Yeah.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah, and and it's straight away to hyperspace, there's the two ships and she's on the gauntlet explaining the plan. We've got a pirate Corsair in the 3D map and yeah Din's in his n one yeah and it all kicks off.
00:36:15
Speaker
She gives us a beautiful little bit of exposition about how this is going to go. Yes, yeah. And we get a little bit of a sense of that it's been a long time on Navarro because we've got the refugees on the lava flats. On the lava flat lava plains, yeah. And then we've got the pirates kind of terrorising the people that are left in the town. Yeah, they've kind of moved in. And they're really drunk. They're all... yeah They're all just drinking in the school. We were sort of like focusing on Squidhead and the Trandation.
00:36:44
Speaker
they've got like, it's in Spotska bottles, but I don't think it's Spotska. No, it's a different colour. It's cloudy looking and toxic. Yeah. I mean, Spotska looks pretty toxic to be fair. Yeah, that's true. Luminous blue, but this is like luminous orange.
Pirate Culture and Star Wars Lore
00:36:59
Speaker
Luminous, yeah. Different colour. And they're just shooting monkey lizards. shooting the monkey lizards.
00:37:07
Speaker
Oh my goodness, it's time. it is that time. yeah I was like, where did the name Koakian monkey lizards come from? Okay. And lo and behold, yeah, it's in one of the very early West End Games books. Excellent. It's where they got their name. They called them Koakian lizard monkeys. or But that seems to have just switched into Koakian monkey lizards, but it's the same thing. same And it's actually in, there's a rule book or a source book about Return the Jedi. And I think yeah that's where I found this information. I've forgotten because it was a few days ago now.
00:37:44
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. And it specifically is about Salacious Crumb. Yeah. Because he's the first one of these creatures that we've encountered in Jabba's used to nightmares about him, by the way. I think I've told you that before. Yeah, we did. I think in the Return of the Jedi episode, we went deep into Salacious Crumb and his scarring of you. Yeah. Yeah. The reoccurring nightmares.
00:38:06
Speaker
So, there um and it's what we talked about and is in this source book. Okay. Or part of what we talked about. Sure. It says, while it's describing Slasier's crumb, there is a question among xenobiologists as to whether Kowackian lizard monkeys are sentient.
00:38:21
Speaker
Which is what we talked about. Like, is he a sentient creature? And I think we came to the conclusion that yes, yes he is he was. Yes, he And they yes, they are. I it was when we were talking with Sarah in because they were eating them season one yeah on Navarro. fact. Yeah.
00:38:36
Speaker
these very like relatives of these very mus that's in fact So it says they show a certain facility with language or at least with mimicry. Okay. But they don't build anything. They have no art, no science and no literature. Okay. The scientist's final conclusion is that they must be sentient. There's no way a mere animal could be that obnoxious. Okay.
00:38:59
Speaker
I don't know. I've met some pretty obnoxious animals. Yeah. But I like the specificity of like the fact that they laugh. Yeah, they do. And they do copy, they do mimicry, language-wise. I'm just going to tell you this little story because it's in the book and I love how he came to be part of Jabba's Palace. Crumb was one of the only species, ah beings to ever cross Jabba and live to tell about it.
00:39:25
Speaker
While in one of his rare journeys off world, Jabba stopped at Quen Space Station, wherever that is, ye to settle an important debt. Salacious Crumb, an unwanted parasite on the station, scampered aboard Jabba's vessel while evading, it says, the Mantillorian rat catchers. I don't know if that's an early Mandalorian thing or if that's a different thing. Anyway, that's what it said. Who were hot on its trail.
00:39:50
Speaker
Obviously, they are like trying to catch the vermin. yeah With an unerring instinct for getting into the most trouble possible in any situation, Crumb decided to hide in Jabba's chambers. When Jabba returned to his ship, he found Crumb hiding in, of all places, his feeding bowl. The enraged hut almost swallowed the lizard monkey on the spot, but Crumb was too fast for him and darted up into the rafters, which we've sort of seen him do yeah yeah before. They're very good darters, Kowakia monkey lizards. They can climb very well as well, can they?
00:40:19
Speaker
The bowl sitting on his head like a huge blast helmet. Just then, bi Fortuna and his rival, Bidlow Querv, bumbled into the room. I'm sure we talked about Bidlow Querv at some point. Maybe in the Book of Boba Fett where Bib Fortuna was trying to establish his supremacy as Major Demo in Jabba's courtiers kind of thing.
00:40:40
Speaker
arguing about something as usual. Crumb dropped the bowl on their heads, spreading green ooze all over the surprised creatures. Bidlow was angered and pulled his blaster, but the green ooze had gotten into his equipment and all he accomplished was to squirt a blob of green liquid directly into Fortuna's face. By this time, Jabba was nearly delirious with laughter and barely had enough of his wits about him to stop his lieutenants from killing each other. Since that day, Salacious Crumb was constantly his side. And that tells us loads about Salacious Crumb. It tells us loads about Jabba. yeah
00:41:11
Speaker
The quote that it gives you for Salacious Crumb is, ha, ha, ha, exclamation point. And like there's the stats for Salacious Crumb, the typical monkey lizard stats. yeah And he's rubbish at everything apart from dodge, hide, sneak and climb, jump, which is perfect. That's exactly what co-occur monkey lizards do.
00:41:31
Speaker
Excellent. There you go. That's such a good story. I like it. It is, yeah. It's a really good example of how the early role-playing books sort fleshed out what little we already had. Yeah, yeah. Of course, they brought out a source book of Return the Jedi, which details all of the main characters we see, yeah which, you know, is like neither here nor there, really. We don't really need to know about those individual things, but that's all we had. So yeah it builds stories, and those stories have evolved into Wikipedia articles, which have then evolved into actual characters and reoccurrence of these aliens in the Mandoverse.
00:42:05
Speaker
The rest of the Star Wars galaxy. I love it. So good. um So good. We get a little bit of time with Shard on his ship. Yeah. On his Corsair. And we're introduced a bit more deeply to his Ugnor second in command. Yeah. He's kind of like the Smee character. Yeah.
00:42:23
Speaker
Super cool design, character design. The Ugnor, he's got like that redhead scarf on. Yes. Awesome. He looks quite piratey. Yeah. My note here was that there were loads of interesting looking pirates. So there's pirates of all different races here. And okay, was going to mention this later, but one of the last ones that stay on the ship with the Ugnor and Shard is this like warthog thing that mentioned the other week that I'd Googled. This is another...
00:42:48
Speaker
like Well, it wasn't so much a rabbit hole as I stumbled upon last night. I don't know if you remember, I said I was like searching for what this species was called and I'd come to the conclusion that it didn't exist before this moment. This was the first of its kind.
00:43:02
Speaker
However, when I was looking up Koakian monkey lizards, I was scrolling through Galaxy Guide 4 alien races yeah and I stumbled upon this thing called a whippid that looks exactly like it. And I knew I'd seen in it. I remember saying. yeah This is what it is. It was called a Whippet. Okay. I'm sure whoever designed this creature must have seen that picture Whippet. And i've I'll do a side-by-side in our socials. Yeah, nice. There's a shot of it flying the ship towards the end. And it's the same profile as the drawing of a Whippet in the Alien Races Guide. Oh, okay.
00:43:37
Speaker
I think it's a Whippet. I think we're going to call it. There we go. Nice. But yeah, loads of cool-looking pirates. They look great. Aliens and pirates. Oh, my God. Space pirates. We love a space pirate.
00:43:50
Speaker
My space pirate that I dressed up as had captured Grogu, but Grogu was quite happy about it. Yeah, I think Grogu would probably quite like hanging out with pirates. Yeah, Apart from the fact that they keep fighting. yeah Yeah. He also got to steal lots of frogs because it was a birthday party that included lots of frogs. Amazing. So i just nicking them, feeding them to Grogu. Yeah. It's a costume design that just works in its environment. Perfect. I love it.
Mando's Battle Tactics Against Pirates
00:44:19
Speaker
Grief radios in with Mando welcoming him back. Yeah. He says they've got you out number 10 to 1 and Mando drops his classic, I like those odds. like those odds. it. Of course it almost a catchphrase. Grief was like, I bet you do. Yeah. My other nearly favourite line Vane.
00:44:41
Speaker
It's the way he delivers it. Bold of you to return, Mandalorian. Is that when he's set off in his ship? Yeah, he's to get him. They're trying to catch him. Pirate snub fighters. yeah Love it. I love it. good So we've got Mando in the starfighter drawing the snub fighters away.
00:45:00
Speaker
Yep. And we've got... Are they being dropped out of... The gauntlet, yeah. yeah okay yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's so cool. So they're using the gauntlet as a dropship. Nice. Because we never thought we'd get to see this in live action and here we are watching it happen. Yeah. As we watch the animated series, I'm sure you're going to like, see this if you come back to this later, it's like, oh my God. even I mean, it's cool anyway. like It's just cool to see.
00:45:26
Speaker
First team away. yeah Yeah. So there's like two teams of Mandos yes that drop down to do the surface. Yeah. In the city. To take out any pirates that are in the town. Mm-hmm.
00:45:37
Speaker
While Mando and Bo have to sort of take out the the ships, the snub fighters, and ultimately the ship and Shard's corset.
00:45:47
Speaker
Some great synth sequence music yeah mixed in with orchestral stuff again. i'm just getting to love that every time we hear that kind of thing. fun. There isn't any mouth harps anymore though. No.
00:45:59
Speaker
They've really managed to get all of the colours into the member of the show, musically speaking. We get everything. I'm going to be sad if those mouth harps don't come back.
Mandalorians' Ground Assault
00:46:09
Speaker
I reckon it would probably be in the film Adelphi bit of the Yeah, yeah. Definitely. It was a bit of an Adelphi theme, wasn't it? kind of Because they're definitely using music to establish different places in the Outer Rim. Sure. And that tells us a lot about character. Yeah.
00:46:25
Speaker
It's a good way of doing that. Diegetic music as character development. my God. I love film studies. Anyway. Anyway.
00:46:35
Speaker
We've got a lot going on. There's a lot. There's a lot going on. This is the bit where it's all kind of, here's your stories. You've got the yeah the pirates on their bridge. You've got Mando sneaking off with Grogu in his lap. Yeah, atmospheric space battle type stuff. Yeah. And we've got Bo-Katan as well. And we've got the two teams of Mandalorians on the ground.
00:46:55
Speaker
Yeah, and grief out in the lava flats still. yeah you know There's all this other side of it. Yeah. yeah Because they come rushing in as well right at the end to surround those last yeah last little... Everybody plays their part. It's a bit like the Ewoks. Definitely gave me those vibes. yeah Yeah. I'm wondering how easy this battle was for the Mandalorians, considering the pirates were all quite drunk when they arrived. Yeah.
00:47:21
Speaker
Yeah, they really didn't stand a chance. Because Mando's in hand-to-hand or yeah with blasters and all of their toys. Yeah, they're going to last five seconds. The only thing that stopped them really was the Trandoshan and the other... the squi Yeah, up in Greef's Tower. in Greef's Tower with the blaster. Yeah, like the big cannon thing. I thought it was a repeater because the way they were setting up, it was a bit like a light repeating or a medium or a heavy repeating, yeah yeah which we've seen like Gideon's crew use before.
00:47:50
Speaker
But I feel like it was just like cannon type thing. It was firing individual shots, but they were pretty heavy. yeah They nearly take out Paz Vizsla. Yeah, unheard of. Which like no small thing, yeah.
00:48:03
Speaker
Also, I had a question here because some of the some of the Mandalorians are getting shot and I've been learning about armor recently. Yeah, Beskar, I wrote something about that, like Beskar is resisting Yeah. So it's resistant to blasters, but they've got loads of gaps in their armour in a way that like medieval armour doesn't have because all of their plates overlap. yeah And in the bits where they don't have plates, they've got chain mail. Yeah. So is that a flaw with the Beskar armour? or In a way, I suppose. Yeah, I feel like...
00:48:37
Speaker
Mandalorian armor is designed to be highly flexible. yeah so they can still run around. Yeah, they're very like agile in combat yeah and need to be, again, it's that thing of like, this was all designed to fight Jedi with. yeah And Jedi are notoriously agile because they use the force to help them move around. yeah So as Mandalorians, you've got to be very quick to move and turn and reorient yourself at all times.
00:49:04
Speaker
So I guess that is part of the thing. That is a weakness of Beskar, I guess. Yeah. They can make Beskar chainmail because they've made a chainmail shirt for Grogu, but they don't seem to wear it. So maybe some of them, but I mean, they've all got different armor configurations. Yeah, that's true.
00:49:18
Speaker
They're all unique. so I guess some of them maybe would go down that route if they want to be super protected. Some of them would like sacrifice that for agility. Somebody like Paz, he's probably, there aren't any gaps. Yeah. But he's a bit more lumbering. Yeah, of course. He's maybe not going to be so quick and light and dexterous. But it doesn't really matter because he's completely protected. He carries a light repeater with him wherever he goes. i love it.
00:49:48
Speaker
I love it. I'm not ready. I'm not ready for... two episodes time at all oh dear we go yeah I mean maybe we should track because we're now going to see over the next few episodes we're going to see fair amount Mandalorian yeah let's track um like the Beskar gaps yeah and are they a thing okay yeah cool sounds good write that down yeah Because we won't remember come tomorrow. was Yeah, exactly. in these times, memory he's out the window.
00:50:21
Speaker
While we're still on the planet, because I feel it's difficult to just like go shot by shot. it's not There's so much going on. yeah The Armourer is what saves yeah them from this like grief's tower yeah holdout of the last few pirates. She is straight up there. She's there with a hammer and tongs.
Leadership in Battle & Bo-Katan's Role
00:50:41
Speaker
Literally going out with hammer and tongs, which is amazing. She's one of my favourite characters of all time. And also the the monkey lizards start helping them. They start pointing at where all the pirates are hiding. Yeah, they're like liaising with group two, like team two of the Mando drop.
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah, they help like say there's an ambush ready here. And so the pirates, that yeah, they don't stand a chance. So cool. Monkey lizards are like, right, you shoot us, we're going to work with the Mandalorians. Yeah.
00:51:15
Speaker
So then it's back up into the atmosphere where Mando is doing all kinds of like whizzing up and down. And there's a line where I think it's Vane says, he's above you. He's below you. yeah He's below you.
00:51:28
Speaker
I wrote that down as well. a Total great demonstration of the M1. How fast the M1 is. His strengths, yeah. And it's kind of all closing in on Shard. Yeah. He takes the wheel and he says something about being in a puffer pig's eye, which I have to rewind to listen to a few times. Puffer pigs appear, I think, in Rebels. I can't remember if they're in Clone Wars. We will find out, but they're in Rebels and they're hilarious creatures. They're like pigs. Okay.
00:51:53
Speaker
that suddenly explode to become like huge. Oh, okay. fuck Because they like puff up. Really funny. Incredible. I love that. I really felt like if we hadn't got Tom Baker playing the Bendu in Rebels, which is perfect for Tom Baker, don't get me wrong. I love him as an actor and I love yeah him playing the Bendu sidebar. I met Tom Baker in Soho. Did you? We were there for some music thing. I think we'd gone to watch...
00:52:21
Speaker
something to do with a film that we had done some music for so we were in like the soho bit where there's a load of like film companies have got their offices and they do like sure screenings and stuff like that for industry screenings and we just bumped into tom baker on the street oh wow and i'd heard like negative things about him that he was grumpy yeah from people that had met him but he was really lovely to us yeah nice really good But I thought if we didn't have him as Bendu, he could have been Gorian Shard. Yeah, yeah.
00:52:51
Speaker
He is a great pirate. I don't know if anybody listening has ever watched Blackadder, but he plays a sailor in Blackadder series two. And he's just perfect. and He's great.
00:53:03
Speaker
He's got no legs. which Spoiler alert. Which is a great light pirate sort of yeahrate thing. Yeah. Yeah. They do it, though. They take him down eventually. They do. he's He makes his last attack on the townspeople, which, by the way, ro brutal. Yeah, really rude. I'm going to go and shoot these unarmed citizens. Shooting civilians from the beginning of the episode, really. Gross. But they're not having it. they They go for his last engine and that is it.
00:53:30
Speaker
End of pirate. A spectacular VFX Corsair crash. Yes. and Down onto, presumably, the lava hill behind the town, not actually on the town. Yeah, yeah. My dad was like, have they just crashed and killed loads of people? was like, I think it's behind. I think it's behind. yeah But yeah, incredible. Like, just really, really great movie standard VFX. yeah As a TV show, it was incredible. They did it. The Incelons say, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Yeah, they do.
00:54:02
Speaker
I wrote that down as well. I just love the way the Anzellans talk. Yeah, me too. They're my favourites. They're very addictive, yeah. we I don't think we're ever going to see too much of them. No. They bring joy. They do. Townspeople cheering. Yeah, yeah. Celebrations. Celebration. Griefs giving is little.
00:54:21
Speaker
You now have a home, which is very moving. Yeah, you no longer have a home planet, but you do now have a home. Yeah. And everyone cheers, everyone's happy, the Mandos seem happy, the Mandalorian crew.
00:54:33
Speaker
I suppose we've got two epilogues then. Yeah, we've got like, I suppose it's more of a final chapter than epilogue where Paz says to Beau, Arnau wishes to speak to you. yeah And he leads her down back into that the original sewers where they used to hold out before. Yeah. And we hear the original iteration of the guitar riff. Yeah.
00:54:53
Speaker
Which I figured out is E, yeah D sharp, top E, F. It like goes up a major seventh, up a semi-tone and then down major seventh. It's a beautifully framed theme.
00:55:07
Speaker
Beautiful. And it was good to hear it back in that same location. It felt like we're back to we're back to where I started. Yeah, there's a whole conversation with Bo and the Armourer. About the forge. Which again, yeah vibes. Vibes.
00:55:19
Speaker
All the vibes. There's vibes going on. I don't care what anybody says. You've decided there's the vibes. There are vibes. Yeah, but this is a bit more like Mandalorian specific. She uses the forge as a metaphor for...
00:55:33
Speaker
the mandalorian creed yeah what's happened to them we must walk the way together this was almost my favorite line the air rang with the music of a hundred hammers yeah oh can we just have a book of armorer quotes yeah i want to start bringing them into like everyday speech yes not even a book like an audio book An audiobook read by Emily Swallow yeah yeah with the helmet effect on her voice. Please. I'm just going to make one. I'm going to extract all of her lines and Spectra layers the the music and out. You did that with the wizard line, didn't you? was I did, yeah. So we can do it. with do it yeah I'm sure Emily Swallow, I would tag her on Instagram and say, look what we made we've made. you think should ah she should get kick out of it. She loves being the armourer. Like, she's obviously an actress who does loads of stuff, but yeah she's big in the kind of cosplay con scene. She's often posting. Even if she's posting about something else in her life, it's usually got an armourer element. yeah Okay, interesting.
00:56:34
Speaker
Yeah, vibes. Remove your helmet. Yeah. Do you respect my station? i do. Remove your helmet. Yeah. So... Vibes. Even if it doesn't play out ever as a romance, we know how it would have played out. yeah. yeah We now know the dynamic between them. Yeah, we totally do. You can understand this dynamic.
00:56:57
Speaker
yeah She says, we must walk the way together, all Mandalorians. Yeah. And she brings up the Mythosaur. Yeah, you've seen it. She says, it's a sign that the next age is upon us. You've walked both worlds. You are one that can unite us. Yeah.
00:57:13
Speaker
It's all quite deep stuff, isn't it? Yeah. And then they come out together. Yeah, one they come out together. One helmeted All right, fair enough. As Pandalorians, which I'm now claiming. Okay, this is my cosplay. I've got it sorted. There you Pan flag, Mandalorian armor. Mandalorian armor. Nice.
00:57:33
Speaker
We're in. Jessica.
00:57:36
Speaker
I'm just going to shout at her every time we need something. She's got a list of jobs. Here you go. Her studio's around the corner from my house. I'll go and post it through the letterbox. Amazing. A list of needs.
00:57:52
Speaker
Yeah, so she explains what's going to happen, yeah which is the Bo-Katan walks both worlds yeah and it's time to retake Mandalore. Time to retake Mandalore. She's going to do it. She's going to unite us.
00:58:07
Speaker
huge shout to Katie Sekhoff for her silent face acting. Yeah. As that line, it's time to retake Mandalore happens, the camera kind of tracks in on her and it's so good. Like she's just got this like determination. It's like determination.
00:58:24
Speaker
resignation, a little bit of fear, and like, are we really doing this? Like so much that one. The micro-expressions. It's so good. It's so good. Like the payoff of her taking off the helmet is, oh, oh my gosh. It's hard to do that. Hard to do micro-expressions with a helmet. Yeah, yeah. Not that she doesn't, though, to be fair. She's very... They're all very good it. Yeah, it's true. Considering they're mostly wearing helmets and stuff. They have to do all this body acting.
00:58:53
Speaker
But when she takes her helmet off, she makes the most of it. And in that moment, she'd probably look the most like her animated version. Okay. She absolutely nailed that yeah aspect of Pocahontas. So good.
00:59:05
Speaker
e I might do a little side by side this may or may not happen if it doesn't happen and I'll cut it out of the episode but like I may do a side by side of the moment Sabine gives her the dark saber in Rebels yeah as the animated thing yeah compared to this it's like a really similar vibe okay interesting so good who We hear a sensor chirping and we get this... This is our epilogue now. Yeah, yeah. Carson Tava has stumbled upon an Imperial shuttle yeah hanging in space, looking as cool as anything.
Imperial Intrigue and Beskar Mystery
00:59:38
Speaker
Yeah. With one wing blasted off yeah and debris just floating around it. yeah
00:59:45
Speaker
And of course, of course we know what it is. Of course we know this has happened. Yeah. We just needed the confirmation. But it's still intrigue. It's still like the intrigue that it set up at the time. We didn't know.
00:59:59
Speaker
Like now we know how it ends. It all makes sense. But at this point, we've just seen this thing about the Mandalorians wanting to retake Mandalore. Mm-hmm. And suddenly there's this Beskar lodged in the side of the ship. Yeah.
01:00:15
Speaker
Yeah. By the way, I loved R7, getting to know R7 a bit more in this episode, and R7 sending in a probe, which is like basically the little thing that comes out of its head that raises sometimes, but it actually detaches. Yeah.
01:00:28
Speaker
And off it goes. And goes in and becomes like a probe. It's amazing. Yeah. Send in the probe. He's having a conversation with Lieutenant Reed, who's the guy that he was with in the Return of the Mandalorian episode. Okay, yeah, yeah. When they let him off, you know, when Mando takes the M1 for the test flight. Yeah.
01:00:47
Speaker
It's that guy. Okay. and And they're having a little confer. It's just a little intrigue conversation, isn't it? like what's going on here? Has this happened? It looks like it's an extraction, but what is this piece of metal that L7 scans? Why is there a Beskar there?
01:01:04
Speaker
Yeah. All the intrigue. My last note was intrigue, exclamation mark, exclamation mark. Yeah. Same. Intrigue on the Beskar alloy. Yeah. so Which we're probably not going to find out for a couple of episodes, but we are going to get there. Yeah, because we're going some we're going to some really weird places now, aren't we? The biggest sidestep ever been taken in Star Wars. The biggest tangent ever. I love it.
01:01:29
Speaker
I love how random these last few seasons, like the Book of Boba Fett and then Mando season three. It's just wild. take the wildest of swings. and And I remember at the time like feeling the whiplash of it happening. Yeah, yeah.
01:01:42
Speaker
But watching it now, I'm so into it. So, so into it. It's what the Star Wars does so well for me. It's just like, yeah, who cares what the fans are going to say? We're just going to do this ridiculous thing. Let's just have a whole episode about Dr. Pershing. Yeah, sure. Let's just do an episode called The Return of the Mandalorian during the Book of Book of Book of Book.
01:02:08
Speaker
I really like that, though. I like i liked how off the wall it can all be because it's kind of because it's so established, it's got that creative freedom. Yeah, yeah. You have to earn that. Yeah, and you see this with musicians all the time and music, that kind of, oh, I can do what I want now because I'm so well established. yeah I can do whatever I like. Or they stay indie enough to be able to do whatever they like. so That's the only other way of doing it. Yeah, yeah. Or both. like I feel like Wolf Fass, who are like a really kind of...
01:02:39
Speaker
happening band in the UK at the moment and they've just done a massive like genre pivot. Genre flip. and They are like massively famous and popular but they're also still an indie band. It's really interesting. yeah I feel like Star Wars earned that just in the original of trilogy.
01:02:57
Speaker
But when... I find it really fatiguing when fans start complaining about these like wild swings. There's talk about the Mortis arc in Clone Wars, which will we'll get to. Get to. And they frame it as this post-Disney thing.
01:03:12
Speaker
Yeah. But actually, it's always been happening. Like the prequels. Yeah. like The prequels was the wildest swing ever. Yeah. like it They were so different from the original trilogy in so many ways. Yeah. and yeah, they had flack at the time as a result. you know There was a lot of prequel hate. lot Thankfully, it seems to be dissipating and everyone's falling back in love with them. Yeah.
01:03:32
Speaker
But that's is what Star Wars is. It's a wonderful place. It's a galaxy far, far away. You've got different series in different genres. So like Ahsoka is like cosmic weird force stuff. yeah You've got The Mandalorian, which is gunslingers and samurai. Adventures. Yeah, you've got Skeleton Crew, which is like kids pirate by fun times. You've got Acolyte, which is a whole other thing because it's like set 200 years before or 100 years before and it's like this kind of dark
Genre Flipping in Star Wars Shows
01:03:59
Speaker
side mystery. We don't really know what's going on here.
01:04:01
Speaker
And Andor. I mean, come on, like yeah political thriller, whatever. Yeah. This is the brilliant thing that Disney is doing. I love this is what Disney is doing. It's Lucasfilm doing it and Disney are funding them doing it. Yeah. but Letting them genre flip.
01:04:18
Speaker
The fact that we can have all of these different things, of course, because we want to attract a wide audience. So there are people that will watch Andor, but they won't watch Ahsoka and vice versa yeah and they won't watch the animated shows. And then you've got people like Us that watch all of it. We'll watch all of it. And this is kind of like a micro version of that, I guess. Yeah.
01:04:38
Speaker
Within a series, it flips so much. But also, like, you can do that in any universe, you know? like Yeah. We do that in real life. Yeah, yeah, totally. We go through changes. We genre of flip. Different days, depending on who you're hanging out with. it can be completely different. Yeah. yeah Like you say, you kind of do have to earn it a bit with yeah a series. Like Buffy, for instance...
01:05:00
Speaker
Oh, yeah, dropping the random musical episode. Yeah, and and ah all things do this. Once they've been on for a certain amount of time. They drop a musical. I'm here for it. I love that. I love Surprise. Yeah.
01:05:13
Speaker
It kind of strengthens what the show is because it makes you reflect on what is the show and you start seeing the actual skeleton of the show yeah that is what it is. Yeah. But you can play with it.
01:05:23
Speaker
Yeah.
Excitement for Upcoming Episodes & Platform Expansion
01:05:25
Speaker
Funny that we're having this conversation before an next week's episode. Yeah. I guess that's why we're having this conversation. we're having this conversation. We know what happens next week. So, yeah, we will be back for Lizzo and Jack Black next week.
01:05:40
Speaker
I'm Christopher Lloyd and I've got some stuff to talk about droids. We're going to be going back to our droid behaviour. There is a going on next episode. Make sure you're following us.
01:05:52
Speaker
on On all of the things. Blue Sky especially. I'm thinking of starting a TikTok to put our reels on. I've never done a lot TikToking, but I've realised that we do quite a bit of video content on our Instagram. we might as well be with them on TikTok as well because we might pick up a different audience there. That's very true. Watch out for news of the Sisters of the Force TikTok soon.
01:06:15
Speaker
But in the meantime, as Cia says, check us out on Blue Sky. Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, all of the above. And YouTube. And YouTube, of course. Yeah, we've got a few new followers on YouTube. So hi to new followers if you're listening to us on there. Excellent.
01:06:29
Speaker
And yeah. We'll be back next week. Until then. Bye.