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Ep 3.1- Daddylorian
17 Plays17 days ago
We enter the galaxy far far away in something of an unexpected spot with our favorite bounty hunter, and discuss his ascent into Daddy-hood, how Jawas are the Minions of the Star Wars galaxy, the galaxy's absolute worst vibrator, Space Nazis, and why Baby Yoda is so goddamn cute!
Covers episodes 1-3 of The Mandalorian: Season 1
Recommended
Transcript
iPad Baby Time & Tyra Banks Dream
00:00:00
Speaker
So I have been i've been doing this thing lately just for my own entertainment that I call iPad Baby Time, which is where I put on a video essay about America's Next Top Model, Cycle 6. It's a very good video essay series. And then I also play Mario Kart on my Switch while that's going. And I just have all the stimulation happening simultaneously. That's my iPad Baby Time. I watched so many video essays about America's Next Top Model Cycle 6.
00:00:32
Speaker
that I had a dream that Tyra Banks emailed me. I was getting a virtual Tyra mail on the
Discovering 'Model Land'
00:00:39
Speaker
astral plane. And so then I was reading the comments in one of these videos and I saw someone reference Model Land, which from the context of their comment made it seem like it was a book that Tyra wrote. and I thought, okay, this is a fascinating person. She's had a really interesting life.
00:00:57
Speaker
This sounds like maybe a memoir that she would have written. I would love to read a book written by Tyra Banks. And so I go to find Model Land. It was written in 2011 by Tyra Banks. And it is a YA dystopia.
00:01:16
Speaker
I don't think that Tyra would describe it as a horror novel, but it very much is I could not even begin to scratch the surface of what the fuck happens in this book. I've been live posting about it in book club.
00:01:32
Speaker
You have this sort of industrial dystopian society where everyone works in different factories and everyone's destiny is about factories.
00:01:43
Speaker
But also the world is obsessed with models. And there's this like day of choosing when all of the eligible maidens in the land can be chosen to ascend to the sacred mountain where all of the models live.
00:01:59
Speaker
And they get to live in the elite class of hot people. to become godlike because they all have different superpowers. But also there are these beings in the model land.
00:02:12
Speaker
One of them has a man's body, but his head is a hand. And there's another one who's like an alligator person. And all of the people have names like D&D NPCs and people are dodging fireballs and walking upside down in stilettos. It's
Analyzing 'Model Land'
00:02:35
Speaker
it is absolutely bonkers. And.
00:02:37
Speaker
the problem The thing is, it's not bad. You would think that it would be bad, but it is actually quite good. The prose is good. The voice is very interesting and distinctive. The pacing is good. The world great.
00:02:55
Speaker
bizarre, but it is consistent. Like there are a lot of very valid criticisms to be made of Tyra Banks. And this book is extremely problematic. I am not recommending that people read it, but you can't say that she's not a smart woman.
00:03:10
Speaker
and But also like why whenever I think of celebrity books, I think of, you know, memoirs that are obviously ghost written. But I have to believe Tyra wrote this herself because why else would a famous model write YA book?
00:03:25
Speaker
if not being very passionate about it. It's mysteries upon mysteries. House of Leaves has fucking nothing on Model Land by Tyra Banks. And I've read House of Leaves so I can say that. this book I will go on record officially and say that 2011 YA novel Model Land by Tyra Banks is more complex and says more about the human condition than Mark Z. Danlowski's House of Leaves. Yeah.
00:03:51
Speaker
And I'm only 25% of the way through this book. I actually am really passionate about this take now. And later i will, I'll write a blog post or something. I'll make a blog so I can post about, I'll post on the fandomapprentice.tumblr.com. What I think Model Land says more about the human condition than House of Leaves. Okay.
00:04:10
Speaker
Strictly speaking, our Tumblr is fanapppod.tumblr.com. I got so passionate about my hot take that I forgot our Tumblr yeah URL. Yes, it's fanapppod.tumblr.com. Anyway, Tyra is simultaneously our every girl self-insert character. But also
Venetian Adventures
00:04:27
Speaker
there's like one model who's the hottest, best, greatest, most beautiful. She has all of the superpowers combined, actually. and her name is spelled
00:04:46
Speaker
l spit pronounced cl so she is also obviously heavily basing this character on herself of course it is fascinating like i don't know where to begin but yeah that's just sort of where my headspace is at currently as we enter into 2026 this is the groundwork we're laying I talked about that for a long time. i you have such a tolerance for the weirdest books.
00:05:19
Speaker
And I appreciate that so much because I can't. I'm glad that you enjoy the play by play. This is. Oh, I do. I need to go back. Fantasy lover, frankly.
00:05:31
Speaker
Fantasy lover is going to be dethroned. by model land i can tell oh no and again i cannot stress enough that i am barely skimming the surface this book is so fucking complicated and weird but one other person in book club is going down this problematic rabbit hole with me i won't be alone on my journey i have to go back and read your play by play i haven't i've i've been a little focused on some other shit so you've been doing things slightly more important than reading model land by tyra banks No, no, no, no. I've been doing things with, I've i've had different priorities. They are not more or less important than Model Land by Tyra Banks.
00:06:10
Speaker
They're just different directions on the great wheel of the earth and the wheel of adventure times. Speaking of adventures, globetrotting adventures, I got to go visit my parents for Christmas and New Year's.
00:06:25
Speaker
And as mentioned on this podcast, they live in an undisclosed European country. of which I hold dual citizenship. And as part of our time, we spent most of it in, in the city they live in.
00:06:42
Speaker
We took a a local train out to a, another sort of smaller city nearby, saw some very, very old, like sixth century ah buildings, which was very fun. Sixth century artwork.
00:06:58
Speaker
Um, and then we took a high speed train, which was much shorter than I was expecting it to be, um, to Venice for a couple of days. So I spent a couple of days in Venice, which was great.
00:07:11
Speaker
So fancy. It's very fancy. Um, I've been there during, I've been there a couple of times. I've been there in the summer with my family. Uh, we calculated it was 13 years ago. And then I've been there with my college choir, um, back in 2017.
00:07:28
Speaker
So, fuck, almost 10 years ago. Yikes. ah And you that was in March. So i think this was definitely closer in population to the March period.
00:07:43
Speaker
kind of thing. It was very foggy, which gave it... I've been playing a lot of Blades in the Dark, and as mentioned a couple of episodes back, I read The Lies of Locke Lamora recently.
00:07:54
Speaker
The Lies of Locke Lamora takes place in basically a fantasy Venice, like a fantasy Venetian Republic sort of thing. And so wandering around these streets that, like, you take away a little bit of the graffiti, it nothing's changed since about 1583.
00:08:12
Speaker
any And it's all foggy. And, you know, it's just the gondoliers out on the canal. Like, there I have so many ideas for either D&D or Blades in the Dark games.
00:08:26
Speaker
It's great. But
Podcast Introduction & Star Wars Background
00:08:28
Speaker
um it was it was really lovely to sort of wander around Venice when... Obviously, it is it's constantly mobbed by tourists and Venetian ah residents have a love-hate relationship with tourists, which makes total sense.
00:08:44
Speaker
But it was a lot less tourists than are there in like the summertime. So you know you could actually make your way down various streets without fighting the whole time, um which was kind of nice.
00:08:58
Speaker
But we went over and we took a gondola ride. My parents my parents went there um on a little like long weekend a couple of months ago and they found through a recommendation of a friend, this one gondolier who takes people around some of the back canals in the northern part of the city. Ooh.
00:09:18
Speaker
And she's one of 14 practicing female gondoliers in the city of Venice, which is wild. Apparently, apparently there's like a long process to become qualified. There's a slightly different process if you come from a family of gondoliers. And so there's a lot of qualified female gondoliers in the city, but not many that are like actually practicing.
00:09:42
Speaker
apparently. But as we're heading to her gondola, we're passing over like a really little bridge. And my dad looks back at this guy that passes us and is like, is that who I thought it was? And I was like, there's maybe like from the profile, he told me who he thought it was. And from the profile, I was like, well, maybe.
00:10:03
Speaker
And then we're out in our gondola on one of the canals and this water taxi goes by. And look. It's the same dude sitting there in the water taxi. It is Sir Ian fucking McKellen.
00:10:18
Speaker
ah Oh my god! as in Gandalf. His very own self. His very own goddamn self. And I...
00:10:29
Speaker
Like, obviously, when we thought it was him on the bridge, we weren't going to, like, call out to him. He clearly was, like, going somewhere. but like He was going to his water taxi, apparently. He was going to his water taxi, apparently, to go somewhere else.
00:10:41
Speaker
um And there were a bunch of other people in the water taxi, clearly, like, whoever he was traveling with. He had been walking on his own, so I guess he met up up up with other people and were going somewhere else. But I called out to out to him, I was like, Sir Ian! And I waved. And he like looked, he was like, who the fuck just recognized me? And he looks and sees us all in the gondola. And we all waved, and he waved back.
00:11:04
Speaker
Which is just... Highlight of your life. Oh, and he he goes by, and the gondolier is like, who's that?
00:11:27
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Almost forgot to do the hello, everyone. How could you? How could you forget hello, everyone? Hello, everyone. And welcome back to season three of the Fandom Apprentice. Let's go.
00:11:43
Speaker
I'm one of your hosts. My name is Rin. i grew up with Star Wars and various other sci-fis and fantasies. And on discovering that my best friend had not decided to record me emotionally damaging her.
00:12:01
Speaker
we Hello, I'm Sam. I'm the other one. I'm going to be emotionally damaged. These first couple episodes of The Mandalorian are kind of weirdly heartwarming.
00:12:14
Speaker
I'm not emotionally damaged yet, but we'll we'll get there. and Well, I'm not emotionally damaged by Star Wars yet. I guess I should specify.
00:12:25
Speaker
Don't worry, and it'll happen. I think I did mention this last time in our intro episode, which if you're curious about our Star Wars backgrounds, you can go back and listen to that. But I have seen The Mandalorian before, at least the first season, maybe the second. But it came out during a little thing called lockdown, which means i have forgotten all of it. And this might as well be the first time.
00:12:51
Speaker
Interestingly enough, it didn't actually come out during lockdown. No. Was it later? or was it earlier? i don't fucking know. First episode came out November 12th, 2019, and concluded December 27th, 2019.
00:13:07
Speaker
Damn, yeah, I guess I just didn't watch it until I had nothing else to do because I didn't like Star Wars. Right, exactly. So it wasn't exactly at the top of my list. You were like, le I distinctly remember you saying something about being like, well, baby Yoda's cute and I'm bored. I forget that I said that. So I take your word for it.
00:13:28
Speaker
And he is even cuter than I remember. God, he's so cute. Slash, I might have been like, you might have been like, I'm bored. What do I watch? And I might have been like, the Mandalorian. And you were like, I haven't watched Star Wars. And I was like, but baby Yoda.
00:13:41
Speaker
he He is very, very cute. We'll talk a lot more about this in upcoming episodes.
Analyzing 'The Mandalorian' Episode 1
00:13:48
Speaker
But the reason we're starting with The Mandalorian is because The Mandalorian is sort of the opening of the current era of Star Wars.
00:13:58
Speaker
So you can sort of divide Star Wars into the original trilogy era, the prequel trilogy era, the Clone Wars era, sequel trilogy,
00:14:10
Speaker
And then now the sort of Disney Plus era. Eat your heart out, Taylor Swift. We got eras too. Prior to this, we hadn't had live action Star Wars television.
00:14:23
Speaker
So this was incredibly exciting for longtime Star Wars fans. um Especially because for a lot of a lot of folks were kind of disappointed by the sequel trilogy for various reasons. Some people were disappointed for really...
00:14:35
Speaker
sexist race and racist reasons and other people were disappointed because ah there wasn't really a coherent story. So this was very, very exciting to come into a new show. This was sort of the launch of Disney Plus and Disney's whole streaming service, which was less exciting, but I was willing to put up with it for more Star Wars.
00:14:57
Speaker
But because this is the sort of start of an era and because it came out right prior to the entire world shutting down, this was a lot of people's introduction to Star Wars.
00:15:09
Speaker
So over the next few episodes of the podcast, I'm really interested to hear about sort of as we're going through this, what you're thinking of the overall story.
00:15:20
Speaker
you know the the visual choices, knowing nothing about the rest of the Star War. Because there's a lot of little pieces peppered in here for like longtime hardcore Star Wars fans. I did find a few and I did write them down when I noticed them. Like there's a point in the first episode where the fish man says something about, oh I was hoping to be home for life day. And I went, aha, life day. That's one. I know that one.
00:15:44
Speaker
Don't really know what it is, but I know that that's a thing. So I did try to pick out what I noticed. Okay, this is clearly something that fans will get because I can read context clues. And I know when something is being set up as sort of an an in-joke a reference.
00:16:01
Speaker
But I'm sure there are many things that went over my head. I mean, i called them robots and then you had to correct me and tell me that they're droids. So, you know, my my knowledge is a kind of scattershot.
00:16:14
Speaker
But with that in mind, should we go right into the first episode or did we have more prefacy type thing? No, I think I think we can start it off. Episode one, the Mandalorian. Hell yeah.
00:16:28
Speaker
So the way that I approached my notes was less summarizing the plot because the plots of these episodes are really tight. The storytelling is really good. It's really efficient.
00:16:41
Speaker
I honestly don't think that it needs me to summarize it. I focus more on just like my impressions and the things that I was noticing. But the first episode is a lot of exposition introducing us to our hero, that he's a bounty hunter. He's looking for some interesting new target. And we see him hauling a fish man around and killing him, basically.
00:17:02
Speaker
But the very few... He doesn't kill the fish dude. The fish dude is alive. Oh, he's alive in there? Oh my god! worse. Frozen in carbonite. That's a whole other... oh god, I always assumed that meant they were dead anyway.
00:17:16
Speaker
No. So we start off strong with one of the rules of fantasy, which is if there's a tavern, there will be plot. Because we open in whatever the Star Wars equivalent of a tavern is. So that's fun. A cantina, typically. A cantina.
00:17:32
Speaker
There's fish We meet our hero who I know that we refer to him as Mando, as cute scenic name. So I refer to him as that, even though we technically don't see anyone refer to him as Mando until later, whatever.
00:17:46
Speaker
No, someone refers to him as Mando within the first 30 seconds. Oh, okay. Then I missed that. i was red dude The red dude yells at him and tells, his you know he says, I'm talking to you, Mando.
00:17:57
Speaker
Okay, well, so there we go. Yeah. So he's Mando. He's very
Western Influences in 'The Mandalorian'
00:18:01
Speaker
much strong and silent type. He doesn't say anything until after the first fight scene is concluded.
00:18:07
Speaker
And he's like, I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold because he's a badass. and He's awesome. i can bring you in warm or i can bring you in cold.
00:18:19
Speaker
He doesn't like droids, guess, which by the end of episode three, I think maybe i understand why. but i did spend the first couple of episodes going, oh what does this guy got against droids? They're so charming. But whatever.
00:18:31
Speaker
Overall... Just the setting, I'm very charmed by the shabbiness of it. That it's just kind of dirty in like a fun way. It seems very much like somebody's high school theater department got given a bunch of money and got to get their wildest dreams come true. And maybe they, somebody's high school theater department One a sweepstakes where they got to do a week long workshop with Jim Henson and then, and like a grant to make whatever puppets they wanted. And then that is what you got with Star Wars. And I do know that the Jim Henson company has some ties to Star Wars because I know lots of things about the Muppets, but that's not what we're going to talk about. But it's just sort of charming and delightful. And there's all of these really cute puppets. Weird little droids, the thing that sticks its arm out after Mando does the secret knock on the door that looks yeah be me
00:19:32
Speaker
looks like some kind of lightly spray painted children's toy. It's so stupid and I love it. Oh my God. And I didn't even mention... The alien guy who plays a flute to summon the speeder, he's delightful. they are They're delightful. I don't know the gender of this alien thing, but it's just all delightful. I'm charmed. And I'm sure eventually there will be settings where things are more like shiny and smooth, but this is not a shiny world. And I like it. I like it a lot.
00:20:01
Speaker
If you had to take this and assign a signer genre to what you're watching other than science fiction what would you say it is western it's a western this is without a doubt like yeah it's it's a western with a round door on the saloon the gunslinger walks in because that's what he is he's a he's a extrajudicial gunslinger and even carbonite aside now that i know they're still alive in there he does kill a lot of people oh he shoots so many people i'm sure someone has tallied this man's body count it is high i'm choosing not to worry about it and Well, and here's the thing is he approaches all of this in the most nonchalant way because this is just a job.
00:20:52
Speaker
Like he's just out here doing a job. I think I might have a note somewhere it might have just been something I thought that he can convey so many micro expressions with an immovable mask. There's so much.
00:21:07
Speaker
There's healing being conveyed between the faceless masked mask shooty person and hostile fauna emerging from the ground this is just like home murderbot really set us up well for this experience truly yeah the the hostile fauna coming out and ah particularly attacking the boarding ramp on the little the little ship so good and when we say hostile fauna we mean somewhere between a giant walrus and a crocodile which has to be incredibly strong because it's grabbing onto the ship but that is like the least important part of this episode so mando goes he finds some fish man who he needs to take for some reason he's like bail dodging or something and it is a delightful contrast that this guy will not shut the fuck up so you have stoic silent mando and this fish person who is just trying to make small talk about life day and and poop jokes And poop jokes. Yeah, because he's trying to be sneaky. And I'm just being charmed and delighted. And then my note is, bro, why does he have so many bodies in his truck? Because i thought the carbonite people were dead. And that was a little bit of a tone shift.
00:22:26
Speaker
But he gets the fish man and brings him back to, i don't know, his manager who gives him his jobs. And then things get kind of weird because I'm like, why is this?
00:22:40
Speaker
guy quest giver trying to pay him in weird defunct currency because wouldn't given what i've seen of his combat abilities i wouldn't try to short change mando especially after the job is done that seems very stupid And then apparently we learned that clients don't want to pay guild rates, which, yeah, makes sense. It's a gig economy.
00:23:05
Speaker
There's lots of charming little droids. But then there's stormtroopers. And I might not know much, but I know that there's this whole conversation at the middle Of the first third of the episode where Mando's manager guy is saying that the empire is gone. The empire doesn't exist anymore.
00:23:28
Speaker
And I may not know much, but I know that stormtroopers are the empire guys. So why are there still stormtroopers? I don't know. Because, yeah, listen, ah Nazi Germany doesn't exist anymore, but there's still sure as shit Nazis. Oh, God.
00:23:43
Speaker
that's Are they space Nazis? Is that? oh they are The Empire is 100% space Nazis. Yay. Like that is when we watch the original trilogy, that is the aesthetic that they're pulling from pretty much constantly. That's why they're called stormtroopers. Yeah. Because also keeping in mind,
00:24:09
Speaker
This was the original, the first movie, the first Star Wars movie released in 1977. So less than 30 years after the end of the war. So that's, that's, an so when we're thinking about the way that Star Wars has evolved over the last 49 years, that's something to keep in mind is the original, the original time period and context that it was built in.
00:24:30
Speaker
Because we're still getting like, That little droid that you said looked like a like a cardboard cutout thing. Like that is from the original trilogy. And so we get these where a science fiction thing today would probably be a lot sleeker or would would look different if they're going for sort of the grungy cyberpunk vibe.
00:24:55
Speaker
The aesthetics of Star Wars were already established 50 years ago. And so anybody telling a Star Wars story has to use those aesthetics, which is really, really cool. Yeah.
00:25:07
Speaker
yeah i I love all of the aesthetics, and that all makes sense. perfect sense um and speaking of the empire have in my notes who is this german guy is this werner herzog it it is like wow this guy really sounds like werner herzog because that's who it is because it's werner herzog yeah because this is this will be a continuous piece here people want to be in star wars And so you will get big ass names for bit parts.
00:25:41
Speaker
Like this dude who doesn't have a name. He is the client. Yeah. And he and that is Werner Herzog, who is he he has had a career in film since 1961. Yeah.
00:25:56
Speaker
And like, I don't even know anything about him. The only reason that i recognized him was from a TikTok series years ago called Werner Herzog's Sad Beige Toys for Sad Beige Children.
00:26:07
Speaker
And so from somebody doing a comedy bit impersonating him, I'm like, oh my God, this famous man. But we're losing the plot. So yes. themo The other, but speaking speaking of ah really big names for bit parts, the manager, that's Carl Weathers.
00:26:23
Speaker
Carl Weathers is um let's see. Carl carl Weathers was a former football player for the Oakland Raiders for one season. He also was in the Canadian Football League for three seasons after that.
00:26:38
Speaker
And then he played Apollo Creed in the first four Rocky films. Damn. ah Okay. These are big fucking names. And you get these people for bit parts.
00:26:51
Speaker
o Damn, that's power. And we'll get more of this later in the season. There's a couple of names just you know obviously that I know since I've watched this a couple of times already but just like you look at the cast list and go holy shit she's here e so continuing on we're continuing Werner Herzog and what he wants we're introduced to this material Beskar steel seems very important to the Mandalorian culture whatever the process of finding people for these bounty hunters to get
00:27:26
Speaker
we are not following We are not following that process right now. This is a very off-the-books, sketchy kind of situation. And I super respect that the client is trying to do this like big monologue and Manto doesn't care. He just gets up and leaves while he's talking.
00:27:45
Speaker
He's just like, yeah, I'm not doing that. Can I skip this cut scene? And we just leave. Then we get this incredibly sinister music as he's walking through this like pretty normal market. And then he goes down to a tunnel and it's clearly other Mandalorians down there. There's little kids in helmets, which is cute.
00:28:06
Speaker
There's a blacksmith with the sickest forge ever. we see a reference to the Great Purge, which seems bad. That's where all of this Beskar was taken from. There's a really cool forging sequence with the metal and the ladies like making him a new pauldron, and that's awesome.
00:28:25
Speaker
There's a tragic backstory that Mando used to be a foundling and the excess of his Beskar is it's so valuable that it can sponsor many foundlings, which is great.
00:28:37
Speaker
And then the sort of point that I will pause for more commentary on is there's so many and this connects back to what you were saying about this sort of. established aesthetic. There's a lot of very vintage feeling transitions from scene to scene. These sort of screen wipes out from the center or zooming into an oval or spinning in a windmill shape that feels very cheesy and super fun. And it's clearly this very old fashioned aesthetic.
00:29:09
Speaker
I'm going to need to learn cinematography words so I know what they are, but it I notice it and it's fun. Yeah, now that we're finally doing like visual media almost exclusively for the next however long this podcast continues on for, neither did you take any film classes? I i won't say neither of us did. I didn't take any film classes.
00:29:29
Speaker
You know, along with the fact that neither of us took any college English classes. So we've been flying by the fucking seat of our pants for two seasons now.
Mando's Moral Journey
00:29:36
Speaker
Listen, it's working. Somehow, apparently.
00:29:40
Speaker
i guess continue on and I'll i'll jump in in a little bit. Sure. So Mando flies to wherever it is that the target is. And he meets this guy who's sort of a guide to this area. And he ends conversations by saying, i have spoken.
00:29:58
Speaker
Which is how I would like to end every conversation now. Because that's really powerful. It's like, I'm i'm done. I've spoken. It's it's over. There's a bounty droid that he has to...
00:30:12
Speaker
forge an unlikely partnership with that is really funny there's big fight scenes jumping on this floating gun and killing a bunch more people to get to the baby he reaches the baby who I don't think we see fully in this part I think we might just see like the profile i don't remember or if we like look down so we see a little bit his face but we get this sort of wide shot where it's the two of them in profile and The baby reaches out his little thingy to Manda's little thingy.
00:30:46
Speaker
And I hope that all of this is just like a human experience that everyone should have. I hope every listener has had the experience of a little, little baby reaching out their little hand. to grab one of your fingers with their tiny fingers it's the fucking greatest i was sold this baby is so cute i feel like in still images he's not as cute but when you see him in action and his little noises and his little hands oh he's really cute and then that is a fully practical effect i love it i love that is a fully practical effect
00:31:26
Speaker
I had a couple thoughts from general from the first episode. One of the things that gets brought up at one point, Werner Herzog says that um Mando is the best in the parsec.
00:31:37
Speaker
A parsec is a unit of distance. This is another fucking Star Wars thing going all the way back to the first movie because apparently the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.
00:31:50
Speaker
Hmm. Uh-huh. They had to make a whole separate plot line in the the the Han Solo movie to explain that fucking single one-off line from the original trilogy.
00:32:04
Speaker
And so now multiple times in just these first three episodes, we have something described as like the best in the Parsec or, you know, something in the Parsec. It's like saying, you know, like, he's the best in the mile. Yeah.
00:32:17
Speaker
Like, doesn't really make sense, but okay. No, like people might say something like that if, but not really. Werner Herzog is playing a space Nazi very well.
00:32:30
Speaker
The line that really got me was, The best car it belongs back into the hands of a Mandalorian. It is good to restore the natural order of things after a period of such disarray.
00:32:46
Speaker
Don't you agree? a that that's some Nazi shit anytime anybody says some something quote unquote natural order na fuck that shit uh uh no then there's a line at one point the bounty droid says that they are required to produce said asset what what said asset prior to that line you didn't say shit about the asset sounds like the asset wasn't said after all No, it wasn't. I'm really interested to know what the full Bondsman Guild protocol waiver
00:33:22
Speaker
is I am also... the other piece that I noticed was ah there's like a cracked oil painting effect over... ah As the credits roll at the end, there's like concept art paintings and concept art drawings. And there's like a cracked oil painting effect over that. Yeah. There were a couple of other sort of larger Star Wars pieces. And then a few other things that like when we were seeing this, we as Star Wars fans We're in the same position as people who are just coming to this new.
00:33:54
Speaker
We didn't know fucking shit about the Great Purge. That's new. The last like we had seen in Star Wars media of the Mandalorians was I want to say season five of the Clone Wars.
00:34:06
Speaker
Season seven of the Clone Wars, which revealed what happened at the end end of the Clone Wars to the Mandalorians, didn't come out until 2020. Until April of 2020. So we didn't know shit. Yeah.
00:34:20
Speaker
we We don't know why the Mandalorians have gone from this proud warrior people to hiding in fucking tunnels. We have no idea how that happened. The foundling thing is from Star Wars Legends.
00:34:33
Speaker
Beskar is also from Star Wars Legends. There are two Star Wars continuities. One is Star Wars Legends and one is canon. Star Wars Legends is like the continuity that comes from like after the original trilogy and then again after the prequel trilogy. People wrote a bunch of books and comic books.
00:34:50
Speaker
Some were associated with Lucasfilm, some weren't associated with Lucasfilm. George Lucas has basically said he doesn't give a shit about any of that stuff. like He doesn't consider any of that canon. The only thing that's canon are the movies.
00:35:01
Speaker
And so when Disney took over, there was a whole frequently contradictory bunch of comic books, video games, books, audio dramas.
00:35:14
Speaker
And so Disney went Yeah, cool. That's all just, that's Legends now. And so there are pieces from the Legends continuity that like longtime Star Wars fans who are now, of course, making Star Wars stories, like everybody who is involved with this project is a longtime Star Wars fan.
00:35:32
Speaker
yeah And that ranges from people who worked on the original Star Wars movies. Some of the people on the effects team at ILM have been there since 1977. Damn. And some of the people have joined over the years and worked on like the prequels.
00:35:45
Speaker
And then, and some of the people were kids in 1977 when the first Star Wars movie came out. And so they grew up with Star Wars. And now they're Star Wars fans and now they're in charge of making the Star Wars stories.
00:35:57
Speaker
And so they've been reading these books and they went, well, I have an opportunity to bring this thing together. that that I think is really cool and really interesting into actual canon now.
00:36:08
Speaker
And so we're going to get a lot of that. i think that's fun. I love that. I was watching one of the likes interview about the making of ah episodes.
00:36:19
Speaker
And one of the directors, I think it was um Rick Famuyiwa. He was saying that when he was growing up, he was always enamored with the idea of the fact that Star Wars is a galaxy.
00:36:31
Speaker
And he always had sort of the the mindset of like the little games that he's playing with his action figures or with his friends could feasibly be happening somewhere in that galaxy. And now he gets to make a story somewhere in that galaxy for everybody else to see.
00:36:47
Speaker
That's amazing. I love that. isn But anyway, do we want to talk a little bit and see if we can breeze through some of these other episodes that we wanted to talk about today? Yeah, we got two more. We can do it. So episode two.
00:36:59
Speaker
the child we are taking the baby for a walk in his little stroller pod mando senses an approaching attack and beats the shit out of some guys while the baby just kind of watches happily which is cute They make camp. The baby seems sad that Mando is hurt and like toddles up to him adorably multiple times, keeps escaping from his little pod.
00:37:23
Speaker
And because I have seen this series before and I know that the baby can use the force and he's like reaching out his little paw hand thing to his cut. I'm wondering, like, does he have healing powers? Is he trying to get close so he can heal him with magic? Or is he just being cute and wanting to give him a little pat?
00:37:45
Speaker
I don't know. He gurgles like a baby. so fucking cute. He wants uppies. Mando says no and puts him back in the pod and like closes it.
00:37:56
Speaker
But you can see can see his his heart is softening. and I love it. And then they get back from that thing that they're doing. And... A bunch of raiders are taking Mando's shit. They're peeling parts off of his ship, which is not good. Jawas.
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah, jawas. They're little glowy eye guys in robes that he just poofs into dust. And I just think of them as like level one rats in D&D. You just like annihilate. Like if you're...
00:38:28
Speaker
you know it's i don't know what equivalent level of a dnd character manda would be we can think of this but you know a high level dnd character just taking out a bunch of rats all at once just like poof poof poof i do want to know who's playing the jawas are they like short adults are they kids who is in these costumes because it's probably really fun i would love to be a jawa but i'm too tall Let's see if I can find that out quickly for you.
00:38:54
Speaker
Jawas also date back to the very, very first Star Wars. That doesn't surprise me. no no, no, no. These these are ah constant.
00:39:04
Speaker
One of the things i love about Westerns and about Star Wars as well is it meshes the serious and the hilarious very, very well. I have a note somewhere in here that's, how seriously am I supposed to be taking this?
00:39:19
Speaker
Right. It's, you know... You can take it incredibly seriously. Nothing about it is like slapstick comedy. They're not coming up to you and going, this is a joke.
00:39:30
Speaker
You know, this is not SNL. This is not, you know, the Three Stooges. But they are still doing things that are definitely meant to be funny. Yeah, and sort of pivoting off that to something slightly later in the episode. The Jawas want to trade his shit parts back for some egg that they want. And they're chanting for like the egg, egg in their little Jawa language. And goddamn, if that isn't the exact fucking same as minions, they might as well be saying banana because it's the same. They're cute little guys with weird eyeballs and they chant about some food item that they want. And I don't like minions, but if this is an equivalent experience, if I feel about Jawa's the way that
00:40:15
Speaker
moms feel about minions i get it because it is very funny more accurately minions are like jawas so true our listeners can't see the finger guns that i'm making at sam right now i mean we're both by you can assume finger guns during any point it is we're unhinged here guys The Mando's gun, the disintegration thing was not is not common in Star Wars. That was also a like, when the fuck did that show up? Yeah.
00:40:48
Speaker
The gun also dates back to the Star Wars holiday special. Is that life day? That's life day. That's where life day comes from. The may or may not actually be canon Star Wars holiday special.
00:41:01
Speaker
And, you know, it is reducing the amount of life overall. So strange choice, but all right. easy to de do It's okay if you can't find who played the Jawas.
00:41:14
Speaker
The Jawas, i found one name, Leilani Hsu. She's apparently played a number of Jawas and another, a Chadra fan character who's another, like, petite alien I don't know. it Along with her daughter, Ariel Shue, apparently they both have appeared as Jawas across um multiple ah Star Wars TV shows.
00:41:45
Speaker
Oh, that's really fun. i love that. So i don't I don't know if it's just them and being digitally replicated. I don't think so, because I think I saw some behind-the-scenes footage of like the director standing in front of a half a dozen Jawas. Yeah.
00:42:02
Speaker
So there are in fact people under those robes who just get to have a great fucking time. Amazing. So now that we've established who plays the Jawas, they're doing their thing. They, this being Mando and the baby, they go back to the guy from before who's their guide.
00:42:18
Speaker
i Not to make you do more research, but what's the deal with his like face prosthetic? Because at least when I was watching it, his mouth movements don't really sync up with his speech at all.
00:42:33
Speaker
And it's very disorienting to watch. And that's clearly on purpose, but I don't know why. Queel, who is the character, is voiced by Nick Nolte. And the physical performance is done by Misty Rosas.
00:42:48
Speaker
And Misty Rosas is wearing an animatronic mask. So that is a practical effect that is being controlled By ILM engineers. Nope, I'm sorry. By legacy effects engineers.
00:43:02
Speaker
So it's ah it's a combination of animatronic and ah and puppet movements. And there are apparently three people responsible for making the ah the mouth and eyebrows move while Rosas was performing the scenes, trying to match it up with the pre-recorded vocal tracks that Nick Nolte did. Yeah, that's a tall order. It's difficult. And so for it to not be exactly on is, I feel like, excusable and also very in the spirit of Star Wars.
00:43:37
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of weird things. I could just go, well, it's Star Wars. It's fine. But that does make sense. So the guide helps him to negotiate with the Jawas.
00:43:49
Speaker
Mando just, you can tell he's seething. He hates the indignity of this whole exchange because they stole his shit and now he has to negotiate to trade back for it.
00:44:00
Speaker
The Jawas demand the egg. And so he goes to the Mudhorn cave to get it. And he's just getting beat to shit in a way that really reminds me of Elliot Leverage for those Leverage fans in the audience.
00:44:17
Speaker
Just this cool badass who in any other series would just be untouchable. Like the hits never land on him. He's dodging. He's doing Matrix- bullet moves no he's just getting pummeled within an inch of his life constantly and that fight goes poorly but the baby stops the giant monster with the force and he's trying so hard and it's so heavy And his little hand is shaking because he's trying so hard. And then he's so tired that he has to go to sleep.
00:44:49
Speaker
He did such a good job. And Mando gets the egg and comes back just as the Jawas are about to leave. And of course they eat it. And then, you know, he gets the sharpest goddamn knife. The one that they use to slice off the top because theja what comes the Jawas leader comes up with the egg and then just takes out a knife, swings once, and it's just a clean cut.
00:45:10
Speaker
through this egg. that's He put all of his skill points into egg cutting. that's That's the Jawa equivalent of Champagne Sabrage. Yeah.
00:45:22
Speaker
And then it's like Winnie the Pooh with honey. They're just like splooshin egg stuff everywhere. It's extremely fun. Then there's a cute little teamwork montage of building the ship, which also...
00:45:34
Speaker
You know, Mando and this random blurg herder must be extremely competent engineers fully rebuild this ship.
00:45:44
Speaker
that That's another thing that I'll have to write off as, oh, it's just Star Wars. That's some serious construction they're doing. They make it happen. the also Also, though, they did um there's a throwaway line, not really a throwaway line, but a throwaway line in the first episode where the blue fish dude,
00:46:01
Speaker
Says, goes, oh, like a Razorcrest pre-Empire, right? So this is a fucking beat up old Hummer.
00:46:12
Speaker
Like this is this is some fucking VW van that because it's 30 fucking years old, you know, or more, you're not going to find parts. So he probably does all of his own mechanic work. That makes sense. And now my brain is just Mando drives an Astro van.
00:46:35
Speaker
If any of you are not familiar with Mount Joy's Astrovan song about Jesus driving an Astrovan, there is also a ah Christmas parody called Santa Drives an Astrovan that is just delightful. Love my doobie-smoking Santa.
00:46:53
Speaker
Puts my name upon his nice list. So yeah, Mando also definitely drives an Astrovan. Very good. And once it's all repaired, he invites the other guy to join him, but he refuses. And he's like, you brought peace to my valley, which is very nice.
00:47:13
Speaker
And then my last note for the episode is the blurg, which is this creature that I have referenced as sort of the, I don't know, pack animal that seems to be everywhere in this area.
00:47:26
Speaker
Looks like it should be in the marginalia of a medieval manuscript. It's this kind of tadpole fish monster. I was going to say tadpole. I sent a screenshot of it to you and just said, pony colon close parentheses.
00:47:46
Speaker
And that honestly is really fucking Western too, because I had a former horse girl, Miles, watching this scene with me as Mando's trying to ride the blurg and tame it and commune with it. And he has to be brave and also show respect to the mighty beast. And I was asking them, is this just the same as every horse movie? Because this seems very generic. Yeah.
00:48:10
Speaker
horse movie you must bond with the wild stallion except this one is a girl blurg so yay girl boss the males are all eaten during the mating season but I fucking love the blurg it's so wonderful it's so So stupid. And they're riding it across the majestic desert. And it's doing what in any other movie would be an amazing leap across a chasm. And you would see the majestic strength of the animal. But because they have these stumpy little legs, they're just kind of hopping over small gaps in the rock. but it's still shot from below and scored word as if it is this amazing thing.
00:48:52
Speaker
It's so good. This is a Western. This is, this is the vibes of a Western. I love it. i love it Mando, you know, has to tame the horse that no one else can ride and then, you know, go into the bandit camp and then come back and finds his camp destroyed. and Like this is a Western.
00:49:14
Speaker
It's also a linear ass video game. Yeah. Like I was watching this whole thing thinking this is, these are such strong video game vibes.
00:49:26
Speaker
This, the you know find the egg is a fetch quest. Yeah. That is the most generic goddamn fetch quest. you know That's, that's the fetch quest. You're like, all right, fuck another fetch quest to get the MacGuffin to go get the other MacGuffin to get the other MacGuffin.
00:49:43
Speaker
That's the fetch quest that literally there is that quest in Baldur's Gate 3. But that's in the third act. At that point, you're so fucking done and you're just trying to get things done. And I'm like, I'm not going to steal this Githyanki egg. Also, like, there's a baby in there. I'm not giving you this Githyanki baby, you weird lady. Go away. But yeah, get the egg. That's that's still act one, bestie. That's still act one? Jesus. That's still act one.
00:50:09
Speaker
I've done like five playthroughs of this game, so that's embarrassing for me, but yeah, whatever. It's in the second zone, but it's act one. damn i really thought that was later on but oh well episode three did you do other piece that i had the mudhorn is just a fucking big ass woolly rhino i had a piece about when mando goes to find the mudhorn said we find the desert's unwashed asshole in which lives something and
00:50:44
Speaker
I also said it looked like a butthole. And Miles, who was watching this with me, said, and for the listeners at home, Miles is a veterinary technician. This is how I feel when I go to express anal glands.
00:50:59
Speaker
Bravely, bravely approaching the butthole.
00:51:08
Speaker
Oh, my face is so red. His armor is so fucking wrecked. And then he eventually kills it with this tiny little fucking knife. And like, I get it's a combat knife and you'll notice it's vibrating because it's, um, that's a thing in star Wars. It's vibro blades. Oh, I thought he was just nervous. No, it's vibro blades. It's the, the blades themselves buzz like the world's absolute worst vibrator. You made the joke for me.
00:51:38
Speaker
You're welcome. don't want to stick that anywhere, thanks. If you're into knife play, I guess, but even then you want to have a real steady grip on that thing. I need to visualizing this. That takes knife play a step too far, thanks.
00:51:54
Speaker
Put it in the strap harness and then it's just like, But like... that thing is maybe six inches long if it's you know if you're being really really generous about what's six inches you know that's that's maybe six inches long if you trust the dudes on tinder he that seems like such a modest lie that's like if you're gonna lie you're gonna go for six anyway i'm not on i'm not on the app so i wouldn't know it's a very small knife it does not seem like it would actually get to anything vital and killable in the animal right in a giant fucking wooly rhinoceros
00:52:37
Speaker
Yeah. So I was, you know, but granted, this is a giant woolly rhinoceros that's oviparous, meaning it lays eggs. m So if you were to stab an earth rhinoceros with a knife like that, unless you hit like an artery or its brain, it's probably just going to be fucking pissed with you.
00:52:59
Speaker
Mm-hmm. More than anything else. But we also don't know the internal workings of this creature. And so we are forced to assume that something vital was in fact hit. Mm-hmm.
00:53:11
Speaker
Also, the egg was furry. Yeah, that seems logistically difficult to lay. Eggs are typically quite smooth. I mean, it's possible it grew fur after laying. Mm-hmm.
00:53:26
Speaker
Maybe. Or like it like
Episode 3: Mando's Dilemma and Rescue
00:53:28
Speaker
it here, you know the mother plucks out fur or something and it like adheres to the egg with like some sort of biological cement, I guess. Like, which leads me to wonder, is this a cold desert? Because this is clearly some sort of desert environment, but also this is a mud hole. So like, is this the only oasis around? What's the deal?
00:53:48
Speaker
I was having a biologist moment about it. And the trouble with having biologist moments in Star Wars is Star Wars doesn't give a flying fuck. about biology so those are my thoughts with that and i think we can move on to episode three all right episode three the sin is very ominous mando is very clearly having second thoughts about turning the baby in communicated as most of his feelings are through long silences you can tell from the silence that these are thoughtful silences
00:54:26
Speaker
We land back on our original planet area of the same planet. I guess it's a different planet because we see them going through space. It's a different planet. And one of the things you will learn about Star Wars is every planet has only one biome.
00:54:43
Speaker
Just like in real life. Exactly. Every planet is a single biome planet and has like a single goddamn location. Maybe it has two or three if you're lucky. So we're back on the planet. The baby seems very afraid. And another good contrast, we have no face Mando versus all face baby.
00:55:02
Speaker
He's expressing so much with his little tiny face. And it's very fun. And I have so many questions about how much does the baby understand? Who has been taking care of him for the last 50 years? Does he have any control over his little pod? He's not strapped into it. He can clearly get out. Mando has a little remote control on his arm that we see during the Mudhorn fight. So I don't know.
00:55:28
Speaker
But Werner Herzog is excited to see him. Apparently... Every other bounty hunter was also trying to get this fucking baby. But Mando's the one who did it.
00:55:40
Speaker
There is a absolutely incomprehensibly huge reward. We've established that even one bar of Beskar is almost incomprehensibly valuable. So this huge stack of it is is a lot.
00:55:55
Speaker
And... It seems it's in a Camtono, which was not a phrase I believe that Star Wars fans were here for too familiar with. that the proper use of the word? It doesn't matter. Here too far.
00:56:08
Speaker
Familiar with. Anyway, this, it looks like the most impractical way to carry shit, ah which means, of course, it is a tiny piece of something from Star Wars history. this is That is an ice cream machine. oh That is an ice cream machine that in the background of one scene in Empire Strikes Back, a dude is running with one of those.
00:56:29
Speaker
I kind thought it looked like a cooler. yeah Yeah, because everything has a backstory in Star Wars. Everything. It became like, that is that that holds a bunch of like data valuable to the rebels, and this dude was you know carrying it out of harm's way.
00:56:48
Speaker
Werner Herzog gives some sort of speech about like, oh, it's good. Beskar belongs back with the Mandalorians. I'm glad I could get it back to you sort of thing.
00:56:58
Speaker
And then goes, these days, finding a Mandalorian is more difficult than finding the steel. it was like, oh, that's a threat. that is that's a That is both a threat and a flex and also a, you know, you did good.
00:57:15
Speaker
Fuck All in one. Truly skillful. And even though Mando's clearly having some reservations about taking the payment, he does take it and bring it back to who I am going to respectfully call Armor Mommy.
00:57:32
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds good. I think that's fair. And, you know, a bunch of others come to watch this whole big thing, which is very exciting. There's just a fucking ton of exposition from another Mandalorian. The Great Purge is the reason they're hidden. Only one of them can come above ground at a time. That's what we call foreshadowing.
00:57:52
Speaker
They don't like that he's dealing with the Empire. We hear about the way Don't really know what's going on with the Way. ah But they can't remove their helmets.
00:58:03
Speaker
And we get a flashback. And I think I know why he hates droids now. Which is that during this big explosion situation where his parents put him in some kind of box to protect him before they obviously get killed. That he's in the box and there's... chaos happening outside and someone opens the box and it's a big scary droid who's come to kill him so he has some childhood droid trauma that is a super battle droid and we will encounter more of them oh dear dear yeah this whole you know the way of the mandalore piece and the way the armorer speaks where she's clearly reciting like
00:58:46
Speaker
These are clearly like fucking Bible quotes she's pulling. you know, our secrecy is our survival. Our survival is our strength. And then, you know, the, this is the way and everybody stops everything to go. This is the way like, ah, this is a cult for, for any of the rest of us that have seen Mandalorians before,
00:59:08
Speaker
This is, again, something happened to them. Because these are not the Mandalorians we know. Ominous. Uh-huh. I have no frame of reference for what they're supposed to be like. So I'm like, oh, this is just their religion. And earlier, back when we're dealing with the Jawas and Mando doesn't ah want to do that and he feels like it's undignified.
00:59:31
Speaker
the guide tells him to put his weapons down. He says, I'm a Mandalorian. Weapons are part of my religion, which is very interesting, but I don't, I don't know what's normal. So maybe we'll find out. I forget if we find out.
00:59:43
Speaker
Mandalorians are fucking cool, but they are, there's, there's a whole history through both legends and canon ah that spans back thousands and thousands of years. And they are longtime enemies of the Jedi and then allies of the Jedi and then enemies of the Jedi again. And it's a whole thing.
01:00:01
Speaker
oh ah During one of the flashbacks, there was a droid gunship flyover, which I think was the first time we've ever seen one of those in live action, which was very interesting. The other piece that I noticed was both baby Mando and his parents and everybody else running around were all dressed in red, we all completely head to toe in red.
01:00:19
Speaker
was like, again, is this cultural? Is this religious? What's the significance? And then I had to go, it's Star Wars. This is just what they do. you know there are There are groups we'll encounter in Star Wars where it's just like, ah, everybody's in yellow now. Okay, cool. There was a really good deal on yellow fabric. So now everyone's got yellow outfit. Fucking basically.
01:00:40
Speaker
And again, with the this is a video game, like this is the end of a quest line because Mando levels up. Hell yeah, he does. And then he gets to roll back into the cantina looking hot in the new armor, which is...
01:00:56
Speaker
The same, basically, but it's shiny now. And we still can't see his face or really any exposed skin, but it's still hot for those with eyes to see. You can understand. It's the way he carries himself. And also, like, in all the low light now, it's, like, super shiny and it's got this kind of, like, slick look to it. It's really good. It's really The helmet stays on during sex.
01:01:21
Speaker
Listen, it can. did. Now the question is how horny do I want to be on the back? I will say. steve I think we've already crossed that line. I was thinking while he was walking in, I'm like, is there a way?
01:01:38
Speaker
Can he eat pussy with the helmet on? Is there a way to make that work? Can you like open a little like mouth? bla Listen, there's gotta be some sort of.
01:01:50
Speaker
Maybe an attachment. Vibrate setting on those, on those gauntlets. Yeah. Oh my god. Your mind. Anyway, listen, for those with eyes to see, we know. I'm sure there's AO3 fanfic about it.
01:02:04
Speaker
Listen, and that would not be the weirdest thing I've looked up for this show. But we're on show. Watcher in the Water fanfic. It's there. It exists. Anyway. He's in the bar.
01:02:17
Speaker
He's turning heads, but not because he's so hot, because everyone else is mad that he got all the money. And I do know, because of what's revealed later in this episode, that at least his manager guy has some Beskar on him. But I'm wondering if...
01:02:34
Speaker
The client, and I may just be overthinking things because it's Star Wars. I don't know. If he wanted Mando specifically to do this job because the Beskar has special significance to him, or if it's just that objectively valuable, or if he offered different rewards to different people based on what they would value. I don't know how much scheming went into this.
01:03:00
Speaker
I don't know. But anyway, everyone else is mad they didn't get the money. Mando wants a new job ASAP clearly running from his guilt. He accepts a job but then can't even bring himself to take off in the ship and so he goes back to find the baby. He finds the stroller pod in a dumpster and then immediately the next shot is him having activated sniper mode.
01:03:22
Speaker
you know, we don't even know that any harm has come to the child, but he sees the stroller in the dumpster and it's just over. the The Empire guys need to extract the material from the baby. I don't know what it is that they want to extract from him, but it would kill him and that's bad. Yet none of the rest of us do either. Yeah.
01:03:47
Speaker
There's... You know, Mando busts in, there's fighting, there's lots of really, really satisfying pew pew pew laser sounds and little red laser lights, which are great. And then we escalate to a giant flamethrower for some reason, which is really fun.
01:04:04
Speaker
I would like to, speaking of the flamethrower, I would like to pose a question that we will return to time and time again. Because Mando uses the flamethrower on a stormtrooper and kills the stormtrooper with that.
01:04:15
Speaker
I would like to raise a question here. What does Stormtrooper armor actually fucking do? And again, we're trying to apply logic to Star Wars, which is a ah kind of a fool's errand.
01:04:29
Speaker
But we will see multiple instances of Stormtrooper armor sometimes helping some things. sometimes not helping some things stormtrooper helmets filter out some things and provide some breathing help sometimes and they definitely don't do that other times and sometimes they do this and sometimes i would like to know what the fuck stormtrooper armor does please of yeah we can yeah and then mando of course walks into the okay corral like if that was not that is if that is not the climactic western gunfight scene i don't know what the fuck is
01:05:02
Speaker
Yeah, and especially it's like ramped up because as we know, everyone else was trying to get the baby and there are these tracking fobs. How do they work? Don't worry about it. But everyone still has theirs. So as he's coming within range of them, everyone's little fobs are lighting up and they're going, oh my God, he's here. So everyone goes out and there's a big circle for the shootout end.
01:05:25
Speaker
And now his manager guy is leading the charge and he says, I'm your only hope. And that's a Star Wars. But you're my only hope, I think, is the original thing. But that's definitely being someone's only hope. That's a Star Wars thing. That's a fan service line right there.
01:05:41
Speaker
Which honestly, if I was him, that'd probably be so fucking fun to say. Like that's I'm sure there's a list of things that you would dream about doing if you got to be in an official licensed Star Wars media. That's probably up there. That's pretty fun.
01:05:56
Speaker
But that one's definitely up there. it Probably ah just like maybe second or third to I have a bad feeling about this. So Mando opens fire. Fucking Rex shop kills all of his colleagues.
01:06:12
Speaker
He tries to escape on a droid scooter and the droid refuses to listen to him because of course it does. I think that's really funny. I choose to believe That this droid knows that Mando hates droids and is trying to punish him for his prejudice.
01:06:26
Speaker
But you can still threaten droids with guns. And that works. And so he gets out. There's more flamethrowers. And then there's a shot where... In the midst of all this chaos, the sound kind of dampens. The fighting gets muted while the baby gazes up at him from his little bundle that he's wrapped in. And you don't really hear the fighting except very faintly in the background. But what you do hear in the foreground is just his little tiny baby gurgles.
01:06:57
Speaker
Oh, it's so cute. It's so cute. And then after our hearts are all melted, the other Mandalorians come to the rescue with jetpacks because why not? And remember that whole thing about only one of us could be above ground at a time. Now they're all there and their cover is blown and it's awesome.
01:07:19
Speaker
And he Mando shoots his manager guy. and the manager's own bricks of beskar that he has for some reason stop the blast like a world war one soldier with a bible in his breast pocket and there's a little bit more at the end but i just talked a lot was there anything in there that you wanted to pause on think no i think you know in general in episode three there's again a lot of little like fan details, the symbol on Dr. Pershing's sleeve is shows up in other media.
01:07:55
Speaker
And I know it shows up in the Bad Batch. it's It's like the Imperial Science Bureau. living i can't remember if it's It's derived from ah the Kaminoans, which would be derived from episode two, Attack of the Clones, specifically.
01:08:14
Speaker
I'm not sure if it's derived from that or not, but if... It isn't, I don't know whether this was the first instance of it showing up or whether it showed up Rogue One, Bad Batch then was a reference to this. I'm not 100% sure, but I noticed the symbol and was like, ha, I've seen that rce more recently. Yeah.
01:08:35
Speaker
The droids, the astromech droids, the ones that kind of just beep. It's very funny when you can tell exactly what the fuck they're saying. Oh. Because, so like, sometimes you can't. Sometimes it's just beeps.
01:08:48
Speaker
But this one very clearly, when Mando goes, drive, very clearly tells him, no fucking way. And then when Mando pulls out the gun, it very clearly goes, okay, and it goes Yeah.
01:09:04
Speaker
um I would like to know how the fuck they managed to make Baby Yoda so goddamn cute. That is a cannibalistic frog. Yeah, objectively, on paper, it's not cute. And even in still images or the toys, you know, it's sort of cute. He's cute in his way, i suppose. But you have to get the full experience of watching his little eyes widen and the ears twitch and the little thingies reach out.
01:09:34
Speaker
It's when he's like fully alive that the the puppet acting, the puppeteering makes him cute. It shouldn't work, but it does. It it absolutely does. it shouldn't, but it does.
01:09:48
Speaker
There was one sort of just broad thematic thing from this episode because, again, all these episodes are super tight. They're really good about setting stuff up and having there be a payoff. i can definitely see how this is an approachable entry to the series. And so I think a lot of the themes are probably going to be fairly obvious. and But the fairly obvious theme from this episode that I liked a lot was that there was so much about him breaking the bounty hunter code because he's adhering to his own code.
01:10:18
Speaker
And, you know, he has some scuffles with the other Mandalorians earlier because they're saying, oh, you're dealing with the Empire. Fuck you. But then they're reminded that they're all following the same way. They all have the same belief system. The other Mandalorians clearly respect what he's trying to do. I don't know how much they know or how much they understand about the specifics, but it's enough that they're willing to risk all of their lives, blow their cover. They're going to have to relocate their secret...
01:10:48
Speaker
sanctum thing just in case that wasn't clear enough one of which I want to believe is specifically the one who is giving him shit before who also comes up during the fight it's kind of hard to tell because of the helmets but I think it's the same one flies next to his ship in his awesome jet pack and salutes him. And then Mando mutters, I gotta get one of those, which is just delightful. He should have a jet pack. And then gives the baby the little knob from a lever in the cockpit that the baby had unscrewed before. And it had become this whole symbol of, oh, did I do the right thing? I'm just going to try to forget it. But then I see this mark that the baby has already left on my life. And now I must go and rescue him. And now I'm going to give him back this little thing that I said wasn't a toy, but it is now. It's like when your
Future Podcast Plans & Conclusion
01:11:39
Speaker
dog isn't supposed to sit on the couch, but then they do. And it's like, is this the dog's couch now? This is the baby's thing now. The baby runs this man's life and it's wonderful. And I love it so much. We have talked between ourselves and on this podcast in previous seasons about the fact that there is a, there is a category of man in media and the category of man is unwilling or, or reluctant father figures who you can definitely call daddy.
01:12:16
Speaker
The Mandalorian was one of the characters that helped us create that concept when we were discussing that years ago. Absolutely. Geralt the Witcher.
01:12:28
Speaker
i have a list somewhere of of of these men. Not to be confused with a list of cheese dilfs. The cheese dilfs list is entirely different.
01:12:39
Speaker
Aragorn isn't technically, but we could kind of, we've spiritually added him Yeah. And then also Joel Miller from The Last of Us, which means two of these four are played by Pedro Pascal.
01:12:55
Speaker
Maybe we're just attracted to Pedro Pascal. Yeah, gee, I wonder why. man is hot as hell.
01:13:07
Speaker
With voice to match. I remember seeing stuff around this time on the internet where he was just kind of confused about why all these 20-somethings were lusting after him.
01:13:21
Speaker
And I have to imagine that's a little uncomfortable because, you know, it is still a man that's a human being who has to see all the comments people make about him. But it is also very true and very funny. It's like, listen, man, you're you're hot. You know what you're doing.
01:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, Pedro Pascal. I know that we're all fucking aware of Pedro Pascal's history because he is he's iconic.
01:13:48
Speaker
He's been in such movies and TV shows as Kingsman, The Golden Circle, um The Adjustment Bureau, Wonder Woman 1984, The Fantastic Four, for Steps.
01:14:01
Speaker
He was in Game of Thrones as Ober and Martell, The Mandalorian, Narcos, and most recently, The Last of Us with Bella Ramsey. He also has been in a number of theatrical productions. he He's done a number of Shakespeare productions.
01:14:21
Speaker
ah plays. He's been in Hamlet. he's been He's been in Hamlet a couple of times as Horatio. He's been in Macbeth. He's been Much Ado About Nothing.
01:14:33
Speaker
He has been in a Broadway production of King Lear. Damn. He also voiced a character in Dishonored 2. So He gets around. He's also ah super pro-trans. His sister is trans.
01:14:51
Speaker
And so he's super outspoken in support of the trans community, which we fucking love because there's another star on this show we'll be talking about next episode who is not.
01:15:02
Speaker
Yeah. Unfortunately, she's hot. Oh, the lady? Gina Carano. Yeah. She's an asshole. I remember hearing about that. She's hot. She's an asshole. Yeah, so, but the thing is, we haven't seen Pedro Pascal's face. We won't see Pedro Pascal's face until the very end of this season. We don't need to.
01:15:24
Speaker
We don't need to. he barely says anything. He doesn't talk. We don't see his face. It is just a chrome fucking mask. And still, somehow, this is the hottest goddamn thing I have seen in weeks.
01:15:40
Speaker
I mean, it's undeniable. If anyone is unsure, go watch. There's got to be fan cams. There's got to be compilations. Just go watch it. You'll see. You'll understand. Absolutely.
01:15:51
Speaker
And now that we've had that call to action. Yeah. And at the end, so that way people feel engaged and, you know, they do something and they come back. And that's our call to action is go watch videos of Pedro Pascal as the Mandalorian.
01:16:12
Speaker
Well, we're going to be watching the rest of season one of The Mandalorian in the next couple of episodes. Next few episodes, we're going to discuss the next three episodes of this next time. And then the last two episodes of the season, the time after that, we will be discussing, you know, scattered throughout Various things about the production of The Mandalorian, where this all fits into the overall Star Wars story.
01:16:34
Speaker
Some of the casting decisions, some of the visual decisions. We're going to talk about the music at some point because I want to talk about Ludwig Gรถransson and his compositional ah tactics.
01:16:46
Speaker
Because the music for this show is fucking choice. This is... It's not... And chronologically, in in terms of release, this is not the first time that we've had another composer besides John Williams, Michael Giacchino, did the score for Rogue One, and and John Powell did the score for Solo.
01:17:11
Speaker
And Kevin Kiner did the scores for Clone Wars and Rebels. So we've had other composers work in the Star Wars sphere before. and And don't get me wrong, all of those composers have done an excellent job.
01:17:25
Speaker
But we'll get and more into this. I really do feel like Ludwig Goranson hit the nail on the head building off of John Williams' legacy. Mm-hmm. to create a both wholly unique and also wholly Star Wars score.
01:17:42
Speaker
But we'll get more into that. If you would like to listen to that, if you'd like to hear that discussion, you can subscribe to our podcast. We'll get into that in the next couple of episodes. You can subscribe wherever you're currently listening or wherever else you prefer to get your podcasts. If we're not on your preferred but podcast platform, please let us know.
01:18:00
Speaker
We will do our best to get onto your preferred po preferred podcast platform. Need to do more vocal warmups before we get started. Apparently, even though now we're two hours in. It's a good pop your plosives on your preferred podcast. um ah Anyone who does a really good Tim Curry impression, have him say preferred podcast platform. Forget it. Goff, Jack.
01:18:25
Speaker
Just saying stuff. Someone get Brennan Lee Mulligan on that. Pronto. Preferred podcast platform. Pronto. yeah um If you would like to be a part of this discussion, you can always interact with us on our social media.
01:18:41
Speaker
We are at fanapppod on any of our social media. That is at F-A-N-A-P-P-P-O-D. We are most active on Tumblr. I'm occasionally active on Instagram and less occasionally on Blue Sky. And I might open the other ones occasionally. I actually don't really know what all of our social media are. I find them when I find them. I'm the social media manager. So you are talking to me when you are on there. So, you know, be kind, please. You can also always send us an email at the fandom apprentice at gmail.com. That is the best way to get in contact with us.
01:19:15
Speaker
If you would like a reliable and quick response. If you like what you've been listening to, please leave us a five star review. If you don't like what you've been listening to, there's a back button. Like, don't worry about it. If you don't want like what you've been listening to, why are you still here?
01:19:32
Speaker
this was long episode. You're a hate listening completionist. Congratulations. Grab yourself a knife vibrator on the way out. yeah
01:19:44
Speaker
Leave us a five star review. Leave us a comment. Leave us a a written review if the podcast platform you're on allows those sorts of things. We love to hear from listeners. and But mostly, you can the best thing you can do to keep us on the air and keep us growing, spreading whatever the fuck this is to more ears is to tell your friends about the podcast, to share us with them.
01:20:08
Speaker
We are here in our third season, still a small a small podcast and word of mouth is still the best way for us to spread. So if you like what you're hearing, we can't wait to see you next time. If you aren't a big Star Wars fan, don't worry, we've got a lot of backlog and we will be talking about things that are not Star Wars in the future.
01:20:28
Speaker
So stick around, go back, listen to our backlog. There's a lot of Lord of the Rings. There's a lot of Murderbot. There's some stuff on Beowulf. It's a good time, but we can't wait to see you in two weeks for CU.
01:20:43
Speaker
You will hear our dulcet tones again in two weeks with more discussion on The Mandalorian. So thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time.
01:20:54
Speaker
See you next time. Bye. The Phantom of Brentis is produced and edited by Rin and Sam. Our music is composed and performed by James. You can find more of his work on Spotify and Bandcamp under Bayruz, B-A-E-R-U-Z.
01:21:10
Speaker
Our art is by Casey Turgeon. You can find more of her work at KCT Designs on Instagram. The content discussed is the property of the original copyright holders and is used here under fair use.
01:21:58
Speaker
When the fuck did I get pecs that I could move around? Are you just pecs? Like, I moved and it like and I was like, wait a goddamn second. It's not supposed to do that.
01:22:11
Speaker
Where'd you come from? The fuck happened? ah Rocks. Rocks happened. Local queer surprised by own boobs.
01:22:23
Speaker
You know, i am not infrequently surprised by my own tits. behind on weirdly sexual pillow Gotta catch up on that. weirdly sexual pillow embroideries gotta catch up on that