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Delving into THE MANDALORIAN Chapter 23 with Cellan | 029
41 Plays18 days ago
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-ninth episode we're continuing through The Mandalorian Season 3, with Chapter 23 "The Spies". We talk about themes, performances, story details, the Shadow Council, regional accent Star Wars voices, probe droids, diverse stories in the Galaxy, the importance of coming together across division, 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
Favorite Mandalorian Lines Shared by Hosts
00:00:15
Speaker
Sia. Hi. What's your favorite line from The Mandalorian Chapter 23? Grogu is too young to operate heavy machinery.
00:00:26
Speaker
i'll tell you what. Too early in the morning for this. No, he's not. He isn't.
00:00:32
Speaker
Definitely not too young. Hey, Franwen. Hello. What is your favorite line from The Mandalorian Chapter 23? Open the blast doors. Oh. Which is very specific and random. Very specific. It's a New Hope callback, which only noticed this watching.
00:00:48
Speaker
Yeah, completely. We'll get that moment. You're listening to Sisters of the Force, a Star Wars podcast. And you've got me, Branwen. And me, Sia. Hello.
Return of Special Guest Cashland
00:01:00
Speaker
And today, we've also got a special returning guest, Cashland. Welcome hi thank you for having me it's so good to have you back. we're so happy that youre hear again it's been a while this bit a while there's been two seasons amanda and one season of yeah that's how long it's been and a se trilogy if you want few odd episodes as well but we're so glad you came back yes i'm finally back You specifically chose this episode and I'm really excited to hear about kind of why that is and what this episode means to you in all sorts of different ways. But before that, do you have a favourite line from Mandalorian Chapter 23?
00:01:50
Speaker
i do have a favourite line. Go on then. My favourite line is... Bad baby, no squeezy. Yeah. If there's one thing I'm looking forward to the most in the Mandalorian and Grogu movie, it's Ansel and Grogu content. Yes.
00:02:08
Speaker
Yes. I feel like they knew they'd landed on gold. Yeah, yeah. When they dropped the Anselans in of Navarro earlier this season, it was like, oh, right, yeah, this just works. I love them. I think they're one of the best things out of the sequel trilogy, those little aliens. They're so good. Yeah, definitely.
00:02:28
Speaker
I nearly went for that line as well, but I have previously had two Anselan lines, so I was like, I need to curb this now. Yeah. Oh gosh We need to somehow, when we're watching the movie, we've got to somehow log all of the Anselen dialogue. Yes. That's got to be a big part our reaction.
00:02:50
Speaker
We can do that, for sure. feel like you need to book
Excitement for Upcoming Mandalorian Movie
00:02:54
Speaker
the whole cinema just for us, otherwise people will be annoying. We're going to annoy people. We're going annoy everyone. usually do live commentary while playing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:06
Speaker
Oh no. Speaking of which, it's not many weeks now. Oh my gosh, it's so soon. And are so close to the end of our season three Mandalorian rewatch. We've done season one, season two, Book of Oba, and now we're near the end of season three. why How are we feeling about the movie? are we like I'm personally hyped beyond imagining. Hyped beyond. imagining I'm really, really hyped, actually. I i went and hung out at Jessica's house yesterday and we got jointly hyped together, which was really nice. Excellent. We had to after, because we did three episodes of Andor and then we were sad. So then we had to get hyped instead. Yeah. yeah
00:03:47
Speaker
How about you, Cashlan? How are you feeling the movie? Have you seen the trailers and the little TV? Of course I've seen the course he has. What kind of crazy question is that? Well, Mary hadn't. We had to show it to her live and get her live reaction on the podcast, which was quite funny. Yeah. I don't think we did anything with it, but it was a good recording. I've still got the recording on it. You've got the recording, yes. Oh no, I've been watching the trailers I can't wait.
00:04:10
Speaker
I'm excited about Stinky. i can't wait to see him. Yeah. They've been teasing, like we've not really seen anything of him, just that one shot of him in the... glad I mean, I hope we're not just going to get like that fight and that's it. I'm hoping we're going to see a little more of
Mandalorian Season 3 Rewatch Insights
00:04:25
Speaker
him. Yeah, same. I'm scared about that because that's a classic move by cinemas being like, oh, here's this character. They're not in it. They're not going to in it at all. Yeah, just going to pop up. Cameo.
00:04:39
Speaker
They did use the casting of Jeremy Allen White very early on in the promotion. It was one of the first things we found out about the film. And I can't believe they would see that into the, you know, zeitgeist without having a good reason for it. and You wouldn't waste him. Like as an actor, he's an incredible actor. Like i c incredible actor.
00:04:58
Speaker
And to have him playing a Hutt, we need that. yeah Yeah, yeah. I'm intrigued with will they make him like a villain like his dad or will he be a more of a sympathetic character?
00:05:11
Speaker
Because I could see him go either way. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Because they're obviously using the Hutt twins as a bit of a villain from what we've seen. They seem quite yeah antagonistic towards Din, like they're not being very friendly. No. So to have a Hutt on the other side, like Hutt's They have their cartel, but they don't all agree, as I remember, from Clone Wars. Sure. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the fact that he's ripped makes me think that he's not in the crime world because... a Hollywood coded. If you're ripped, you're probably a good guy. Is that what this is? That is a terrible message. That is a terrible message. I'm not ripped, so... But I think what I meant was that because he's ripped, he's like being a gladiator all the time and not like running a crime syndicate. Yeah, that's true. Because like, Bifortuna, you know, he got bigger when he was running the, because he's just like, I'm having a great time eating and drinking. So I wonder if, is he ripped because he's not in that world and he's doing something else? Yeah. That's what I was trying to say.
00:06:22
Speaker
ah Body positive here. You can be whatever you want to be. Oh, no, yes. Of course, obviously. But Hollywood standards if you're... Oh, yes.
00:06:33
Speaker
It's very interesting. It's very interesting because Jeremy Allen White is quite ripped as well. He's known for that. Unless you're a woman, actually, because if you're ripped on a woman, you're probably a bad guy. Yes. Oh, my gosh, that's so true.
00:06:47
Speaker
That is true. Interesting. women villains. That's wild. Oh dear. Anyway. Yeah, we should probably get on with this episode. So yeah we didn't even tell you
Analysis of Mandalorian Chapter 23
00:07:00
Speaker
what you're here for. Today we are delving into Chapter 23, The The Spies. sp Directed by Rick Famuyiwa. Again, he's back.
00:07:09
Speaker
yeah He's been a big player in season three. I think he directs the finale as well. So he's like on double duties at this ending. Doing two. And both these episodes have really weird titles. The spy, like yeah who are the spies in this? I assumed Elia was the spy, but that might just be because we opened up with that. But... Yeah. yeah She definitely is, isn't she? She's playing a spy role on Coruscant. Yeah. But it could the Mandos that go down to the planet be spying? Not really. They're scouting rather than spying, aren't they? What the name did do, though, is make me like question every character constantly. that's interesting.
00:07:52
Speaker
Do I mention it when we get to it? I was suspicious of her character, but because of what they did... Yeah, let's let's talk about it when we get there. That's a good idea. Because I think I probably have the same feelings. I think I have multiple feelings. Two characters to me that was sketchy about. And yeah, like you say, it did sort of make you watch with that suspicion your mind. It's kind of cool.
00:08:12
Speaker
But yeah, we we're straight on with Alia Cain. We're revisiting her. It ties back neatly, well, not very neatly, actually. It ties back in an interesting way to episode three. of this season sure the pershing episode and yeah but still some incredible space techno going on yeah wherever she is this is my favorite music cue as always always the diegetic stuff is always my favorite much as i love the scoring joseph shirley and uh ludwig have given us over these seasons i love their work on the diegetic stuff it's so good It's so dark and filthy. Yeah. Filthy electronica. So I've got a CD player in my car and I didn't have any CDs in it for a while. And we've just been on holiday and this woman found a bag of CDs in the back of her shop and was like, if you find anything in here, you can have it. And we found, I think it's called Dr. Speedlove. Yeah. And it's all like
Eliakane and the Probot: Speculation on New Republic
00:09:11
Speaker
it's all like strange techno remixes and it's the best driving music ever and I'm never to take that CD out of my car. Nice.
00:09:19
Speaker
I'm sorry, is it reminiscent of Coruscant Underworld? kind It's not as filthy. It's not quite as filthy. But it's like, it's it is filthy in a lot of ways. And there's some really, really weird like guitar-y stuff on there as well. But it's such a good, it's such a good CD. I have no idea when or how or why it occurred, but...
00:09:41
Speaker
I feel like if I was Joseph Shirley, I'd have had a well of a time this season. They've given him lots of opportunities to make diegetic music of all different kinds because we've had the club stuff. We had Sanctuary music as well Book of Boba Fett. Was that Ludwig? I can't remember if that was Ludwig or Joseph Shirley. That was Joseph Shirley as well. Yeah, yeah. And we had like the kind of baroque stuff in the Jack Black and Lizzo episode. So interesting, all of the different styles. As a composer of music for theatre and screen sometimes, my part-time job, I would have loved that brief. That challenge. Make all of this different diegetic space music. Off go. Yeah. And that's all the brief you're getting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it, yeah. I could do that.
00:10:30
Speaker
There's some beautiful cinematography of Coruscant Underworld. We haven't seen loads of it in live action. We've seen a fair amount in animation. Okay, yeah. But it's so good to see like all of the colors. Before we started recording, we were talking about more Shadow Lord, Catalan and I. And there's a lot of that kind of Blade Runner-esque neon wash sure kind of underworld-y type stuff in that. And this really reminded me of that. A lot of the same colors. Lots of sort of like jewel colors. a palette. and
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's really, really lush. Yeah. I love Coruscant as a planet, full stop. It's so dense. Yeah, it's a cool planet. It's just been a whole city. Yeah. We learned the word for that last week. Was it Acumenopolis? Acumenopolis. Acumenopolis, yes. Not last week, the other week. Many weeks ago. Whenever it was. It was in the Pershing episode, in fact, because we spent all that time on Coruscant. Yeah, of course.
00:11:26
Speaker
But we're definitely in a different part of it today. We are in the underworld somewhere. She's going to have like a kind of liaison. A liaison with a probe bot thing.
00:11:38
Speaker
Ah! It's so soon! It's getting sooner every week. don't Again, this is a very Mando-heavy episode and there's so little Mando content in Western games. So we had to have it this soon.
00:11:54
Speaker
There were two things, actually, that I was looking for. I remember reading a few weeks ago in a rulebook somewhere, because that's what I do in my spare time. There was a thing about ship scanners, and it's said about the way that ship scanners scan horizontally
Gideon's Missions and Theories on Cloning
00:12:08
Speaker
and then vertically or vice versa. And we see that happening when the probe droid scans her to ID her. yeah And it was like, oh, yeah, I remember reading about that in the rulebook. I'll do that. And then I couldn't find where it was. That's like a kind of West End Geek Girls 0.5. I thought I'd go with the obvious, which is the probe droid, which came we obviously know from The Empire Strikes Back. That's when we first saw one. yeah And there are various different types. This is one of those original ones, I think, called a Viper.
00:12:39
Speaker
There's a lot of the smaller ones that we see in Rebels and i think in Clone Wars as well. But yeah, these vipers initially, i think West End games picked up on what the Empire Strikes Back set up in that they are fully intelligent probe droids, also called probots. Can you remember them being called probots? That was an an eighty s like reference, definitely. It sounds like a really positive droid. probot. Yeah, probo yeah. Yeah. It does. It's a real benefit. You should say like, that's a great idea. you should do it Thanks, Probot. So even when programmed for specific missions, Probots can act intelligently and independently to follow leads, detect and avoid unexpected dangers, minimize risks, and evaluate information to determine relevance. Further, they're capable of protecting themselves and their data by concealment, fleeing, or fighting.
00:13:29
Speaker
In short, Probots react to their surroundings and learn from experience, which makes them a bit scary in an AI kind of a way, especially when they're loaded with various weapons. Yes.
00:13:41
Speaker
This one does look a bit scary, doesn't it It does, yeah. I don't know if it's exactly the same as the Empire one, but it feels like it's a similar size and shape. It's huge as well. It's a bigger than you think. Yeah. yeah' it When it gets close to her, I'm like, oh my God, it's actually a really big draw. Yeah, they are. I think they're like, yeah, it says they're one and a half meters high, which is, yes, nearly the size of a person, which definitely tracks with the Han and Chewie one that we saw on Hoth. There are many varieties of probalts, but only a few top models, those that display the fortitude to survive the rigors of space exploration and the more recent military and espionage missions. This is in like the original trilogy era. Yeah. Still produced in large numbers. Many of these are now modified for special missions.
00:14:26
Speaker
All probots are equipped with a vast array of sensors, which we've just mentioned. yeah This one scans a lyocaine. ah They operate best at close range, but long-range scans are possible. So this is talking a lot about like their scanning arrays and the way that they detect movement in all sorts of ways, like a acoustic, electromagnetic, motive. what I always suppose it's like motion sensor, seismic, and olfactory events. So they detect smells, which is like, what? Okay. They scan thousands of frequencies across the spectrum and it mentions tools like cameras, magnifiers, scopes, magnetic images, radars, sonars and radiation meters are all standard. None of this mentions holo transmitter which is kind of what this is doing. It's acting basically as a glorified phone box. but
00:15:15
Speaker
A very expensive phone box. We have seen them do this before. I guess it's got to be very stealthy because are on Coruscant, which is now New Republic territory, and this needs to be completely undetected. And it shows how slack the New Republic are being if they're missing this happening, which does not surprise me. From what we've seen about the New Republic lately, they've pretty useless. That's true.
00:15:39
Speaker
So it's an Arachide or Arachid Viper probe droid. Ooh, nice. A probot. A probot. A probot suggests the existence of a conbot.
00:15:56
Speaker
oh yes think we might have seen a con bot in uh mall shadow lord actually okay just to go up on a tangent yes a very popular fan favorite already a con bot makes me think of um like you know the scamming phone calls yeah yeah i've been conned again with that combo Now, can we think of an instance of that in Star There's got to be a fakie droid somewhere. There's got to be scam hollow calls. If you're listening and you can think of scam droid in Star Wars, give us a DM or a comment or something to let us know.
00:16:34
Speaker
Tell us about it. Oh, goodness. Yeah. So now we've got that out the way. Let's talk about this conversation with mo Gideon.
00:16:45
Speaker
Well, as soon as he appeared, i was like, well, I knew she was up to no good this entire time. Yeah. I've just been editing that episode where we talked about her and Dr Pershing. And most of the episode we were talking about how we have no idea... what she's doing here. We were speculating whether she's actually turned or whether she's, who she's working for, what's she doing? Why did she clear Dr. Pershing's memory all this useful information? Like, what is her what her motive her plan? And we still don't really know why she did all of that.
00:17:16
Speaker
Even with what Gideon says later on in the episode, we still don't really know why Pershing had to be eliminated. I i think we can make an educated guess that they just didn't want him to tell anyone what he'd been up
Shadow Council and Project Necromancer
00:17:28
Speaker
to.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah. I think he was but too much of danger. It's just strange because it sounds like they still want his like expertise on yeah cloning. Yeah. But yeah, I agree with I do think that's why did it. But I was like, oh, don't you want his expertise? It could be that Gideon, as we're going to get to in his conversation with the warlords in a bit, it could be that he's already got what he needs. Well, evidently has, because at the end of this episode we see, well, we'll talk about what we see when we get there, but it feels like he's already got what he needs.
00:18:00
Speaker
And he's also playing games with the other Imperials. And he doesn't want them to know how much he has progressed, I think. what is that yeah So for him to eliminate Pershing is just like security to make sure the New Republic don't get like any of that technology or knowledge that that he's got that technology while also yeah just cleaning house, you know, yeah covering up his tracks and everything else. sure And it gives Eliakane job as well.
00:18:27
Speaker
yeah Gives her something to do. So the first thing that, well, it wasn't the first thing that struck me. It took me a little while to realise that he doesn't have a moustache anymore.
00:18:38
Speaker
oh Ah, that's why he looks different. Oh yeah, disguise. We just take his moustache off. And I've heard children of the Watch talk about this. Is this, is this another Gideon?
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great theory. Ooh, another Gideon. Yeah, shout out to Alex and Mac from Children will Watch for like discussing this in great detail. it is a really great theory. would have gone right over my head. He he kind of implicates that a little little bit in this episode. If you think about that while you listen to his dialogue in this episode, it'll make you...
00:19:11
Speaker
ponder everything again right okay so as we go through as is this the same giddy is that clue did you just wake up in the morning and thought you know what i'm done with the mustache let's get rid of that like a reverse disguise yeah yeah he's taking the mustache i am now in shaven disguise they'll never know it's me thanks for the tips pro barb It reminds me there's an Office episode, which, Kevin, I you're an Office fan, where they're trying to remember whether Stan Lee has a moustache or not. And this is like eight seasons in because he hasn't come into work yet. And they're like, has he got moustache? And it's a bit like that with Gideon. Like, did he have one before? I went and checked. Yes, he did. It is, actually, because it's quite a subtle moustache. It's not like a big twirly. No, no, no. It's very sort of like smooth to his face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. Okay.
00:20:05
Speaker
Well, I didn't know whether he had a moustache or not, and now it all went completely over my head. Didn't even clock that there could be multiple Gideons. There could be. There are clues. We'll track them. Okay, right. Yeah, she reports to him about the Mandalorians, which...
00:20:23
Speaker
he is not very happy about. No. This cannot be. Those two factions are sworn enemies. They're working together. Yeah, he's supposed to have like yeah set split them up with the whole purge. He's supposed to either wipe them out or leave the remnant of them fighting each other. Yeah.
00:20:37
Speaker
So he's not done his job. Yeah. is He's been relying on it and it's not happened. so It feels like she's continuing her job. I'm intrigued to find out if we follow her story anymore, see how she's up to. Yeah. And what her ultimate mission is, because he says, continue with your mission. Yeah. What is that mission? What is she up to? Yeah. Still some intrigue. Which also makes you think that Gideon will come back, because her arc is ongoing. Yeah.
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And Gideon absolutely can come back, as we now know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as we now speculate. Yeah, yeah. I love how mid-conversation, well, towards the end of the conversation, we transition to his location. I love it when we get that in hollow conversation that part of this one place.
00:21:23
Speaker
And it cuts to like this mysterious rocky base we don't yet know where it is. But we got his theme, is the back the return of Gideon's theme. yeah He looks so over the top. He does. like He does. Yeah. Vader inspired armor He's like shiny Vader Isn't he? Shiny Vader with a cape yeah And he's marching through We've got the red shields like okay yeah This is my favourite sound design bit Because the sound Of those shields I was listening on headphones this morning And the sounds that they make As he's going through them all is just It's the most delicious sound It's so nice yeah It tickles my brain in like the perfect spot I was going to
00:22:03
Speaker
I think it like really works with the music as well. It's that yeah kind of link between score and sound sign, which is amazing. So cool. There's all these like white and grey troopers that we're going to meet later on as well that yeah just look awesome.
00:22:17
Speaker
And clone tanks. so And I rewound this a few times. Can't really see what's in the clone tanks anymore. I missed that. But I feel like we get that next episode, I think, in a bit more detail. So we'll leave it to the next episode. I'm so not observant. To be fair, it's a very quick sequence of him walking. And I think the first time you watch it, the red shields take your attention. They do. Because they sound amazing. They're red,
Thrawn's Absence and Empire's Future Leadership
00:22:48
Speaker
for starters. They draw your eye. and Yeah.
00:22:51
Speaker
And then we're straight into this amazing scene about which I've written an essay. Okay. Okay. I haven't. I've written two notes.
00:23:01
Speaker
And my two notes are Project Necromancer, very obvious codename for anyone who knows what necromancy is. Yes. Yeah. I like it. And I still don't think I know who Grand Admiral Thrawn is.
00:23:20
Speaker
Amazing. That sets us up perfectly. Those are my two notes about the meeting. You're in for a treat. So if you could tell me, please, that would be great. but but Okay.
00:23:32
Speaker
Should we go straight for Thrawn then? Because Thrawn notably absent and is referred to repeatedly in this conversation. Yes. Well, actually, maybe if we talk about who is here. Okay. He'll enable us to talk about Thrawn who isn't. Who isn't here. Okay, go for it. Okay.
00:23:48
Speaker
So it feels like we've got a collection. It's called The Shadow Council. Yes. And this was initially referred to in Guess Which Trilogy of Books? The Aftermath by Chuck Glendig. There's a lot about this. There's a character in those books called Gallius Raxx.
00:24:08
Speaker
who is a kind of shadowy figure in the Imperial Remnant. He's a bit self-styled. He's ambitious. He's kind of constantly battling with Ray Sloane, who's one of the main Imperial Remnant ah Grand Admirals at the time. Yeah. And... Apparently, i only just found this out very recently, apparently Cech Wendig was not sure whether it was going to be Grand Admiral Thrawn in this character in Aftermath. right And I think at the last minute, they said, you can't have Grand Admiral Thrawn because we are going to bring him back in Rebels. But...
00:24:41
Speaker
You know, we can't use him here. So we had to create this new character, Gallius Rax, who isn't referred to in this meeting, could have been. Right. Because Rax was working with Hux, who we see. Who is that? Commandant Hux is in this, played brilliantly Brian Gleeson. Yeah.
00:25:02
Speaker
yeah Brother of Donal Gleeson who plays Armitage Herc. So we got the Hux father and son thing now established in Star Wars canon, which is lush. So Hux is in the book trilogy with this Gallius Rex. So Thrawn was almost going to be in that book trilogy and they've obviously kept him back for this. So this is a continuation of what Gallius Rex set up in the first place, which was a way to try and unite the Imperial Remnant as they rally in like these kind of early fights against the New Republic.
00:25:34
Speaker
Sure. Okay. So that's who these people are. They are like warlords that are part of the Imperial Remnant. I love that they've all looked different. They've all got different interpretations of what the Empire is to them. One of them we've now seen in the Mandalorian trailer, who is like the kind of furs. He's wearing furs. He's on the side.
00:25:53
Speaker
I get the feeling his days are numbered. Yeah. From what we've seen. Quite possibly. We've seen Din marching into this snow base like he's obviously to take him out. So he's there and he's quite, I don't know, rebellious seeming almost. But then we've got this short woman who feels like she's being very reserved. We've got Commandant Hux who's very confident, almost overconfident.
00:26:19
Speaker
And Palรคon, who is... Okay, so Palรคon is the old English guy who's got a moustache. Yeah. And he looks very traditional. He's Grand Admiral Thrawn's kind of right-hand man. Right, okay.
00:26:32
Speaker
And he's lifted from the old expanded universe where Thrawn was first invented. he was there as well with Thrawn in a similar role okay so a lot of those kind of EU fans like the pre-Disney canon fans were like very excited to see him there and he is the kind of liaison with Grand Admiral Thrawn and sure I love how in this conversation Grand Admiral Thrawn is referred to and it's like why is he not here yeah and Playon is kind of making excuses, i don't know if the writers knew at this point that
00:27:05
Speaker
Grand Admiral Thrawn is actually in a different galaxy this point. But not for long. So he, he as I think we talked about in this podcast before, he's from the original EU. He was the original big bad in the post-Return the Jedi Empire. Yeah.
00:27:23
Speaker
And he kind of still is, in a way. They've brought him back into the Disney canon. They've commissioned Timothy Zahn to write a new load of books. He's written six new books about Thrawn, setting him up in the days of like the Empire and before that as well. Oh, wow. Okay.
00:27:40
Speaker
So there's a six book new history of Grand Admiral Thorne, which brings us to where we are now. So, well, it no, it brings us to the point where he appears in Rebels because he's in Rebels. Right. Okay. Which is like 10 years before this, five, 10 years before this point.
00:27:56
Speaker
So he's there, he's like this kind of mysterious player in the background and maybe he's going to be the one that pulls the Imperial remnant together because there are all these factions, they seem to be trying to get on.
00:28:09
Speaker
they're not We're seeing all this through Gideon's eyes. Yeah, definitely not really. We're seeing it all through Gideon's eyes and he's obviously playing them all. Yes. And he's trying to make hit a play for overall leader. Yeah, he's just being an asshole. Their questions are where is Thrawn because Thrawn is supposed to be the one who's doing that and he's not here and we know why not. but like He isn't here. So Gideon's trying to fill the void. I'm still asking, where is Ray Sloan? That was my question that I thought Ahsoka could have been asking when she got hold of Morgan Elspeth.
00:28:41
Speaker
Ray Sloan is is in the Aftermath books as this kind of Grand Admiral who could have been in this same position. So they're always trying to figure out who is going to pull them all together because that's their weakness, is their division. I'd love to see a live-action Ray Sloan. 100%. Such a cool character. Yeah.
00:29:00
Speaker
What is interesting is that in the aftermath books, at the end, spoiler alert, she goes off into the Unknown Regions with this bit of the Imperial remnant, including Commandant Hux, who is going to set up ah The new stormtrooper regime
Mandalorian Faction Dynamics and Leadership
00:29:18
Speaker
with his son, his son Armitage is sort of set to work gathering kids to become the new stormtroopers for what will become the First Order. It's not spoken about. Nobody names it at that point in the Aftermath books. Nobody names it here, but the First Order is part of this kind of plan. yeah But equally, Palpatine had his own plan, which is Project Necromancer, I guess. He's like...
00:29:44
Speaker
Is that what we're going to say Project Necromancer is like the kind of... I think yeah. I assumed that that's what Project Necromancer was. To bring him back to life through cleaning. Yeah. Yeah, and Gideon's like jumping on the back of that.
00:29:54
Speaker
Yeah. ah feel like Gideon is going rogue. Same. Yeah. But he's trying to appear that he's got the plan. Yes, like he knows what he's doing. But I'm interested to know which of these Imperial Warlords maybe know about Palpatine's plan. Because I think Brendol Hux probably does. He doesn't let on. He's very cagey in this conversation, but I feel like he knows a bit more about Project Necromancer. And Gideon sort of says to him, you know, you're the expert on cloning because because of Project Necromancer.
00:30:25
Speaker
It's the fact that Gideon's going bit rogue that makes me think his days are numbered. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah he cannot survive this. No. Because we've got... Thrawn is not going to stand for it. Absolutely not. And Thrawn... See, you're in for a treat with Thrawn. Okay. He's a fantastic actor. Okay. Yeah, I've heard about him several times through this, but I still have not... He's intriguing as a character. He's like cool to look at. He's got blue skin and red eyes. Excellent. He's a chiss.
00:30:57
Speaker
He's a phenomenal tactician. Like he's an expert in that. Yeah, yeah. He lacks political knowledge. He's not very good at politics. That's what we get from the novel novels that have come out recently. yeah Like he's very blind to interpersonal strategy games. Like if he was in this meeting, I don't know that he would have done very well because there's all sorts of that going on. yeah And by the way, shout out to the cinematography because it's like an entirely hollow meeting apart from one person. Yeah.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yeah. They're all like looking at each other. Like I still don't quite understand how hollow works. It means they must all have this set up. Yeah. That's what I assumed. I assume they're all in a room, a similar room in their own bases with all the surround hollows. Yeah. Yeah. It's like an evil Jedi council. yeah Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the equivalent of that, isn't it? Yeah. yeah I really love how he walks into the middle of it at the end. Yeah. By way of like, okay, I'm your new boss. I'm just going to do this. Yeah. Very cool. See, this is where Thrawn wouldn't be very good at all of that kind stuff. Okay. He is so good at like how to manage your fleet, how to win an interspatial battle. You know, he's at that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:07
Speaker
but no good at this game playing yeah sure and this with throne like you've got peleon who's super loyal to him but also you get this from the books that because he's an alien a lot of them don't like him because it's quite like a a thing in the empire that they're all humans yeah yeah but throne has risen really high as an alien yeah yeah That's interesting.
00:32:32
Speaker
Space racism. I think, yeah, exactly. It's like xenophobia, sort of the equivalent of white supremacy, but human supremacy, I guess. Yeah. Which has always been there. Like if you look back through the movies, it's always the empire is run by humans, mostly white men up until quite recently, especially. Yeah. Yeah. And definitely no aliens. Whereas the New Republic and then the Resistance after them, you know, they're all like interspecies and yeah everybody has a voice and a seat at the table, which, it's kind of cool.
00:33:03
Speaker
That's why i also think Ray Sloan is a cool character. yeah As a black woman. Yeah. yeah and she And she met obstacles. It's kind of implied in the Aftermath books about how she was beaten down. She's also in A New Dawn, which is one of the first Star Wars novels that came out in the new canon, which describes how Kanan and Hera met um in terms of rebels. And she's like much lower down. She's under this guy called Count Vidian at the time. And she's frustrated. She's trying to progress in...
00:33:32
Speaker
the you know Imperial fleet and not getting there. But she does get there through her own wits and brilliance in Aftermath. But then it opens up a whole load of questions of like, why is she not here? I presume she's in the Unknown Regions at this moment, but then why is Brendol Hux here? And yeah yeah, it's all super interesting. And i feel like...
00:33:56
Speaker
Grand Admiral Thrawn ended up leaving the galaxy because of the events of Rebels. So he's out of the picture. Somehow he's in contact with Palรคon, who's still here.
00:34:09
Speaker
Palรคon? Palรคon, don't know how to pronounce his name. Pelรฉon is like his voice currently, and Pelรฉon is an old white man. You know, he fits that thing. So it's kind of almost a strategic thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Thrawn isn't even here to represent himself. And the xenophobia isn't now an issue because he's got this like voice person yeah ah to represent him in the traditional military white man with a moustache. In an English accent kind of way. Oh yeah, because that's the other standard. If you're English, you're also probably evil. That is true. The empire is all about yeah British people.
00:34:49
Speaker
don't know how we feel a about that.
00:34:53
Speaker
Welsh, it doesn't matter. Yes, exactly. Do we hear Welsh accents in the Empire? Yeah, we do. Oh, do we? We've got the one Welsh accent in the Empire. In the First Yeah, in the First Order of the Empire, yeah. We've had him on the Of course we do, we've had him on, he's great. He's a Welsh legend. Yes.
00:35:14
Speaker
But... They are few far between. Yeah. I feel like the stiff upper lip English accent is more the empire. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, now we want some Welsh New Republic or rebels. I'm sure there are. There's some Scottish rebels. I've heard some Scottish rebels. Again, I think in the in the sequels maybe.
00:35:34
Speaker
Let's get more regional accents. Yeah. And then there's the whole Tyneside-Ferrox thing going on in Andor. lot them are very northern. Yes.
00:35:47
Speaker
So northern is like Outer Rim. So maybe this Wales has probably got a corner of the Outer Rim as well, I reckon. Yeah. Which, I'm happy to live there. That's fine. So, anyway, this conversation.
Mandalorian History and Cultural Identity
00:36:02
Speaker
Anyway. We've talked around it a lot. It's a lot about what Gideon is trying to do. He's trying to play a game. He's trying to make a move. He wants help. He's using this sort fight with Mandalorians, I feel, to build his ah resources. He wants TIE interceptors. He wants bombers. He wants three Praetorian guards, yeah which I don't blame him, to be honest. They would be helpful fighting the Mandalorians.
00:36:26
Speaker
But he also knows he's building this like little arsenal of ships and people power. And they're going to let him have it because they are very disturbed as well about the Mandalorian thing. Mandalorians. They did not anticipate this.
00:36:40
Speaker
So Gideon the entire time is just giving off. I wrote it down later on, but he's just, he's so obsessed with the Mandalorians. It's almost embarrassing. He's like, yeah why you so obsessed with me? and Is there a reason? you know Maybe he was Mandalorian or something.
00:36:59
Speaker
to know. Yeah, he is yeah very obsessed. But I think he's very obsessed because he doesn't underestimate their power. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, well, he wants it, doesn't it he? He definitely covers it and he's trying to yeah and to get that kind of power for himself. He's quite obsessed with building the perfect troop, isn't he? Because he keeps the dark trooper and he like he likes the best skarama. Dubstep troopers. I mean, he says it in this conversation. he says, we're going to take the best of each. We've got yeah the Jedi who have got the Force. Yeah.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah. We've got the clone troopers, which were definitely a force to be reckoned with at the time. And he would have been there in the Clone Wars to see all of that. And we've got the Mandalorians, who are renowned fighters, warriors. They're incredible. They've got Beskar on their planet, which is makes you impervious to so much. yeah So it's just like great armor, great fighting.
00:37:49
Speaker
If you've got the force mixed in with that, and the ability to clone, to build an army quickly, that i can see his point. This is like how the Imperial Remnant can survive. yeah And I guess they all begrudgingly agree.
00:38:04
Speaker
And that's how he gets his way and he gets his interceptors and his bombers and his Praetorian guards. yeah It's going to be very interesting in The Mandalorian and Grogu, which we already know from what we've seen in trailers,
00:38:18
Speaker
is going to be quite a bit about Imperial Warlords. We've seen one of these guys in the trailer. I feel like we've seen one of the others in a still, I think. can't remember the details of that, but we've seen the cards, the Sabacc deck, which implies that Din Djarin and Grogu are being commissioned to go and take out Warlords one at a time. yeah Maybe we're going to see some more of these. Maybe we're going to find out a bit more what's going on. Is that going to leave Gideon in a place where he's got less competition?
00:38:48
Speaker
If he indeed continues his, you know, through cloning or whatever, maybe. But we've got Thrawn as well to add into this equation. yeah Who knows? It's going to be interesting to watch. Oh my God. Lots of intrigue.
00:39:04
Speaker
Yeah. The conversation basically sets up our finale. He says, we' will be rid of the Mandalorians once and for all. Long live the Empire. And we know where we're going. We know what's happening.
00:39:16
Speaker
oh Cut to navarro Get all the Mandos together. yeah We see the light cruiser with the Mithosaur painted underneath.
00:39:28
Speaker
How do they paint a Mithosaur on the bottom? the bottom of light cruiser. Yeah. That's a good point. Must be hovering atmosphere with Mandalorians with paint pots standing on top of gauntlet fighters. don't know, I'd love to watch it. They've got jetpacks. Paint dripping everywhere. They've got jetpacks. Can jetpacks hover? We didn't find this out. We did jetpacks in West Anguilla Girls recently. We didn't find we were. And we found out that they're rocket packs, not jetpacks as well, didn't we?
00:39:57
Speaker
True, yeah. Although I feel like somebody says jetpacks later in this episode. Yeah, I think they do. Yes, yeah. They call them jetpacks, but we know that they're rocket packs. No, we know they're rocket packs. They didn't read the rule books.
00:40:13
Speaker
I love that Grogu's just casually sitting on Bo-Katan's lap while she gives lovely little explanation of how this is going to go down. i love it. but We get Night Owls name checked, which kind of answers our question that we've been speculating. Is Bo's faction called the Night Owls? Kind of. I think that's the answer to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:40:36
Speaker
We've got this lovely tense music cue ah that goes along with Bo's exposition. Yeah. And it's kind of like both of them are telling us that this could go bad. yeah And we see Paz saying to his son, take the children inside. yeah He's expecting a fight here. Because basically, yeah what we've got is ah a kind of a meeting between these two big factions of Mandalorians. Children of the Watch and then we'll call them Night Owls, a convenience. And I love the fact that when that starts to happen, it is very tense. The music this whole thing is quite tense. And the acting is very tense between all of the Mandalorians. Yeah.
00:41:15
Speaker
The armourer is going to try and pull it together. She appears clanging her tools, which I love. Yeah. Great sound. Such a good sound, isn't it? So satisfying. It is really, yeah.
00:41:26
Speaker
Sonically as well as just symbolically as well. like like Yeah, of course. I would put my faith in the armourer. Although at this point, is is she who you were talking about, Catalan, in terms of like, could she be a spy?
00:41:43
Speaker
oh ah actually, I was saying she's definitely one I was worried about, but the one I was referencing at the beginning was someone else. Oh. I'll leave that to you to reveal one. Oh my goodness. This is so exciting. but She uses the forge symbolism as a way of unifying, which is a really good symbolism for the whole rest of this episode because yes that's where they're ultimately trying to get to. Yeah, yeah. The Grand Forge.
00:42:10
Speaker
She invites everybody to make camp and they're going have a feast, but it is tense. Still tense. Grief appears to break the ice yeah with a bottle of Coruscant wine. yeah Oh, that bottle looks amazing. It does look amazing, doesn't it? Fantastic design. Plum wine-y thing. Mmm. I want some of that. Yeah, can we get it? Like, do they sell it in Batuu? What is it? Disneyland style. Like, I want my bottle of Coruscant wine. That's a bit of merch they should definitely do. 100%. Yeah. He whisks Mando off to give him a gift. Yes. This is the best present.
00:42:48
Speaker
This is so good. So brilliant. Yeah. I ge love IG, now IG-12. He's now IG-12. He's got a little Anselen driving him for the moment, but not for long.
00:43:01
Speaker
Din is not having it at all. No. He does not like the idea of Grogu. He doesn't want Grogu having more autonomy than he already does. And he doesn't trust droids. Yeah, all of those things conspire to make him not happy about this.
00:43:17
Speaker
I love the Anselen climbing down the arm. Yes. Gives that brilliant line that you chose. Bad baby. It takes so long to climb down. to yeah He's really small.
00:43:34
Speaker
Some brilliant puppet work. Shout out to the puppeteers of the Anselens. So good. And before we know it, Grogu is in there and he's got the yes-no game ready to go.
00:43:46
Speaker
Which is going to be key in quite a few scenes throughout these two episodes. It's really important. He needs to have the yes, no buttons. clanks around the office. He's got the hang of it straight away in Yes, yes, yes. I love that CU-28 grabs the bust of Groove Caracers straight away. It's like his known defence. This gets out of control. ready. I'm going to smack it with this. But the IG, the thing, because obviously Grogu can see out of it when he's driving it, but the head turns quite lot as well. So I'm wondering what the head's up to. Interesting. Because there's a couple of shots where IG's just there and Grogu's obviously inside it. And the head does move and move around like it's looking at stuff. But like,
00:44:36
Speaker
yeah I wonder if that feeds Grogu or whoever is driving IG, whether it feeds some like information about what's behind. Is IG, is it just the body and it's an empty shell? It's an shell now, yeah. That's what Grief kind of says, yeah. He says it's like... It doesn't have a memory circuit anymore. He says think of it vehicle. As a vehicle, yeah.
00:44:57
Speaker
But it's going to be a vehicle with scanners maybe or with yeah some of IG's add-on functions. They've kept some of the useful stuff. It's only really the memory circuits and like the kind of droid personality that they've removed. All of the functioning still exists. yeah so I love this for Grogu. I think this is great. for Me too. It brought me so much joy. I laughed so much. It filled my heart with warmth.
00:45:25
Speaker
An option for my favorite line was um when he's trying to buy that through and Amanda goes, this isn't working for me. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely terrible.
00:45:37
Speaker
So, small geeky moment. It's a Tarsant, the creature, yeah the alien that they buy the food for. We see another one in, think it's in the High Republic books. So, he was Supreme Chancellor called Vith Drellick.
00:45:55
Speaker
Ooh. And also, Tar-Sent system, this nearly made it into Geek Girls, is mentioned in the Return of the Jedi Galaxy Guide from West End Games. So I don't think West End Games created the species, but it did create the system from which the species comes. Okay. He looks similar to a Jedi in one of the comics. Yeah. could be I think you might be right. I think there might be a Tar-Sent Jedi. Yeah.
00:46:20
Speaker
i I remember a comic where they fight Asajj Ventress. a gang of them, and he's one of them. yeah Could well be. We've seen them in the sequel trilogy as well. I think there's one in The Resistance. Wow.
00:46:33
Speaker
they're pretty cool. Yeah. Great comedy thing. Like everything just gets messy. Yeah. Yeah. Din's not having it at all. Din's not having it. He's not impressed. Grogu's just pummeling the yes button. He's living his best life. yeah Yes, yes. Who can blame him?
00:46:58
Speaker
There's a very tense feeling in the Mandalorian feast. We see an Axe rolling his eyes. It's not having it. But Bo, I think Bo takes control here and she speaks like a leader. She says, Mandalorians, it's time to retake our home world. I really love her development in this episode. yeah She's gone from the moody, you know, Oh, she was so moody. She was such a teenager for so long. But she's really, from their experience Plazir 17 or whatever it was called, she's taken control of the situation. She's got the Darksaber. She feels like she got it through mostly legitimate means now. yeah. And she's here to retake the planet. Yeah.
00:47:40
Speaker
yeah I love Bo as a character. and She's such a badass. Me too. I really hope she's in. shit Katie Sackhoff has been denying her like that she's going to be in the film. She might not be in the film, but she's going to be back. There's already rumors of Mando season four, I'm pretty sure. okay And I feel like she there's a place for her in Ahsoka season two as well, because she was part of the Rebels community.
00:48:05
Speaker
You know, there was like a lot going on with her and Ahsoka and the Rebels crew. There's room for her in Ahsoka season two, definitely. Oh, was not absolutely. Mando and Grogu, yeah. Did you notice in the um in that big scene, in the Children of the Watch faction, there's like one Mando whose his design is really similar to Boba Fett. He's a green a of orange. I know. Ooh, there's a fan. He's a little Boba fan right there. Yeah. There's ah endless games of like re-watching this which I've done a bit of in this re-watch of looking at all the different designs. Because I think one of the most interesting things about the Mandalorians is their uniqueness. And that they all follow a code and the children on watch follow very strictly. But within that, they've got flair. Yeah, loads of different design things. Yeah, their armour is all unique. Some of them have got the little scope things, some of them haven't.
00:49:00
Speaker
The night owls all look a little bit more uniform than the children the Watch, do they? Yeah, it's all blue. On Wednesdays, you wear pink. Yeah. These Mandalorians wear blue. Yeah, they definitely have more of a kind of costume, like a uniform type thing going on. Yeah, definitely. Which is, yeah, interesting because they're the ones that are more relaxed and they're taking their helmets off. Apart from Bo-Katan, who does not take off her helmet, and obviously Din as well, they're like...
00:49:31
Speaker
kind of representatives of both factions in a way because Bo-Katan has been welcomed into the Children of the Watch but she's also still the leader of the Night Owls so she and the Armourer and Din are like the kind of triangle in the middle of all of this that keeps it all going keeps all together Just a quick sound thing. I love the sound of the fleet arriving. The engines sound great.
00:49:54
Speaker
They do. Gauntlets have such... Are they all called gauntlets or is it just Bo's ship? I know they've got a ship name, but i can't remember what it is She refers to her ship as the gauntlet, and I don't know if that's the name of the ship design.
00:50:06
Speaker
Oh, no, neither do i I feel like we talked about this in a previous episode. We probably did. Yeah. I don't remember though. I can't remember last week. I can't remember last week. But they do have an amazing sound. remember us talking about the sound as the sublight engines kick in on our ship. They almost break the sound barrier. There's like a thump to it, which is really amazing. Yeah, yeah.
00:50:26
Speaker
yeah But they have great cruising sounds, like they their sublight kind of thrusters or whatever. Amazing. They sound nice. Especially like with the Imperial cruiser that they've nicked. It's got a great yeah yeah That cruise was a great sound. Yeah. so Sounds lush. I've written down that there's a really lovely entering Mandalore atmosphere music cue that happens here. Yeah. There's bows going, me too we're going to lose comms. It feels like there's a snippet of the original Star Wars fanfare.
00:50:57
Speaker
yeah from the second part of that like the b theme of it yeah mixed with like the b theme of the mando theme like it's got the guitars of the mando yeah yeah and as soon as they get onto the planet as well there's all that kind of that's where the guitars kind of come in and you get all the fret noise on the on the delays and stuff and that sounds really cool yeah it's nice amazing nice cue So here we are. Yeah, we are coming into Mandalore. We're just taking the floor out from underneath. Did they give them any warning before they just dropped the floor out and dropped them out? I think she did. I think she's like, yeah, it's time to go. Drop, team, go. Oh, does she? Okay. I think so, maybe not. heard Din go in and go, they're ready. And then the floor just gave way. Yeah.
00:51:43
Speaker
but I like how they get their first look because they don't get to see from the cockpit. So their first look is through the hatch when hatch opens. And we we kind of focus on Paz saying it's worse than I thought. Yeah. An axe drops the I was here when it happened, like which is like, wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't fancy the drop. No. They're ready. Remove the flaws. One of the children of the watch, you see, he's got a Death Watch symbol on his shoulder pad.
00:52:14
Speaker
Oh, wow. Yeah, which is really cool little Easter Okay, so I had a question about the Death Watch in a minute. ah I'll ask you that in a minute when we get to it. But we get down onto the planet and then there's another there's time for a tiny tiny, quick...
00:52:30
Speaker
Bow plan. Yeah, yeah. She has another, like, the belan a leadership speech thing. Form up Let's go. I love how they've got different weapons. Again, it's this thing of, like, the individuality of Mandalorian. Some of them have got little hand blasters. Some of them have got rifles. You've got Paz with his light repeater. yeah you love that. Oh, my gosh. That gun is amazing. Incredible. Love him.
00:52:54
Speaker
so Yeah, she's she's definitely bringing this group together. It's a select crack team, isn't it? They're like the the scouts yeah ah that we talked about earlier here to just figure out what's going on to see how safe things are. Yeah, she says form up in a really positive way yeah and it feels like they're bonding. We've got IG there as well.
00:53:15
Speaker
like Just watching that lot walk across yeah the s surface Mandalore is a vibe. It's so good. As soon as we get this ship coming into view as well, that's another really amazing. I've got another really amazing music cue for that moment.
00:53:27
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. That's really cool. So this this sled thing, it's like a sled ship. Oh, I love it. It looks very piratey. Apparently it's called a langskib. Okay. Which is a bit like piratey damn ski a A langskib. The Langskid. Yeah. These guys, they're like a pretty desperate sounding. yeah They ask for food, yeah but they recognise the night owls and they recognise Bo-Katan's voice. and So this is where my questions were. My first question is, how long ago was the Night of a Thousand Tears? So how long have this lot been surviving on scraps and whatever it is that they're surviving on?
00:54:02
Speaker
I don't think we know exactly. I think there's a bit of speculation about it. It's in the original trilogy era, I think. Right. So it's like at the height of the empire. Okay.
00:54:14
Speaker
So between five and ten years, I should say, I guess. Okay. So they've been eking out for quite a while at this point. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Since you've mentioned the Night of the Thousand Sears, I'll pop this in here. I'm a huge history nerd. So when they said that, I was like, I know exactly what they're like. Not referencing what they've been inspired by maybe is the Night of the Long Knives, which was when the Nazis purged a lot of political enemies.
00:54:42
Speaker
And there's so many crossovers of like World War II Nazi stuff with the Empire and in Star Wars. It's just, especially that episode in this season of the one with Persia there's loads in that. But yeah, The Night of the Thousand Sears, I was like, oh, I've heard something similar before. Wow, yeah. I'm not a history nerd, but I'm super interested to find out about that.
00:55:08
Speaker
Did You Know Kessland? There's a book written by Kemshall, I think his name is... Apologies, Chris, if I've got your name wrong. And it's it's like a history of the Galactic Empire.
00:55:20
Speaker
And it's written as a ghostwriter almost for a character from the sequel trilogy who is played by the guy who plays Merry from Lord of the Rings. Oh, yeah. He's got a very small part in the Resistance. He's like yes on the Resistance base in Rise of Skywalker. He is a historian.
00:55:37
Speaker
And his character has written this book as a history of the Galactic Empire and the rise of the Galactic Empire. But Chris Kemshall's written it. himself in the real world. So it's like a kind of in-universe history book.
00:55:49
Speaker
I've not read yet. I've got it. I got it for Christmas and I can't believe I'm not ready yet. It's supposed to be incredible. Kenland's Googling right now. at this. I'm Googling it now. What's it called? I think it's called The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire. I can't wait. His little face lit up. I know this an audio medium, but that was great. Yeah.
00:56:11
Speaker
Rise and Fall of the Galactic camp Empire by Chris Kempshaw. Oh, I see it Yeah. It's got like the Empire symbol on it falling apart. And it's a good one to read, possibly before Mando and Grogu, because I think there's stuff about the Sabacc deck in there and about the Imperial Warlords.
00:56:27
Speaker
So, yeah, it could be a little bit of homework before we see the film. And it's all canon? It's all canon, yeah. It's very recently come out. Yes. And apparently it's quite a hard read because of the parallels with fascism and Marxism. Of course, yeah. Chris Kemschel is a historian. Like, he is a massive history geek. So he thought, how can I write Star Wars book? And so he just wrote, like, a Star Wars history book, which is genius. Oh, that's amazing. I'm going to have to read that. You will love it.
00:56:55
Speaker
yeah i'm sure That's right up my street. That is. Because... The amount of parallels between you know Nazi Germany and the Empire is so many. i mean but You could tell from like when the first films came out that the Empire is based off of that. But it just gets even deeper and deeper and they draw a lot from it.
00:57:15
Speaker
As you go It's really fascinating. Yeah. Awesome. I need to read that book. I'm on a mission now. It's an actual book. like I've got the copy of the actual physical book, which I'm not so good at reading those. I'll dip in and out.
00:57:29
Speaker
But like if it's on my phone or on a screen, I can read it. It's like 21st century brain can't go with the analogue paper anymore. But I do need to put it near my computer so I can pick it up sometimes and have a little actual reading break. I've been getting back into analogue paper books because I was reading a lot of the Kindle. When I realised I could email PDFs to my Kindle, that was the end of the year. It a great way to read. yeah took me 10 years to figure that out, mindfully. I feel like reading analogue paper books is good for the soul. I feel like our sleep would be better if we're doing that. yeah
00:58:06
Speaker
I do sometimes try and get back into those habits, but the phone creeps back too easily. It's a tough one. yeah Can I recommend queer young adult fiction for getting back into reading? Because young adult fiction, so easy to read, and then if it's gay, it's better. I've read so many. i'm here for that. Actually, I think the last few books that i read probably fall into that category. Yeah, yeah. As Star Wars produced more...
00:58:39
Speaker
variety of books because they have got lucasfilm publishing have got like a bit of a a new plan and since they've come to the end of the high republic which was like a sort of four or five year massive book plan many books all came out since then they've talked about a new kind of mission to release books in different genres and the first of that is a romance book that's coming out um can't remember the name of it It's coming out later this year, I think, which is a specific romance genre. I mean we've already had Star Wars books that have heavy romance in them, like Lost Stars, for instance.
00:59:11
Speaker
But I think this is more specifically, and it's laying the foundations for the fact that there might be like horror Star Wars novels or potentially more queer specific Star Wars novels. I mean, there are, to be fair, in the Disney book canon, there are loads and loads of queer stories. Loads of queer stories. Yay! of all different kinds, which is amazing.
00:59:32
Speaker
yeah The story group has got many queer representatives in it, I think, and certainly the High Republic movement, which was, I think, five main authors had queer representation within that, so that helps.
00:59:43
Speaker
But yeah, it just makes for really interesting, diverse storytelling, which is super cool. In the same way that we now have many human characters of different races and different alien species as well, we have way more diversity than we ever had. And it's it's rich for storytelling. Do you think, I know George Lucas has said many times, he's made stars for kids. Do you think they'll ever do like an R-rated film or series? And or is. Yeah, i mean, I suppose in a way and or is, yeah. In themes. Yeah.
01:00:14
Speaker
Definitely. It's still not visually, like we still don't get graphic violence in a way, not in a kind of R-rated way. No, no, yeah. I guess it's like a 15 would give Andor, mostly because of the thematic content. The swearing attempted sexual assault and all sorts of stuff in Andor. Yeah, yeah.
01:00:34
Speaker
It's pretty grim. Yeah, it is very grim. It's very hard. It's definitely not for kids. So I guess that... I mean, I think Maul, Shadow Lord, is very violent. thought that. Again, we're not seeing gore or explicit, but we are seeing Maul kill people very violently. It's definitely not for kids, I don't think. And with Maul, we know what his end is. So we know he's still what he is until the end. So we're watching the Maul series from a point of view of a villain. And he's like our main, I know we're following the captain the police, but Maul is like the
01:01:14
Speaker
He's your protagonist, basically. The protagonist, yeah. Yeah, the show's named after him. Yeah, exactly. And from a kid's point of view, you don't get that much with no kids' shows. No. you fall I mean, we haven't with Star Wars. It's been a challenging, I know, because a lot of fans have been clamouring for more stories about Dark Side characters and so on. And we had the Acolyte, which kind of was going to do that and then sort of could have done if it had continued. One of my most disappointing things is dropping Acolyte. yeah' The way they ended that first season with a massive name drop cameo situation of an absolutely fascinating Dark Side character that we all were dying for. Yes, yes, yes. But the show got dropped because of the fandom menace backlash. Like...
01:02:00
Speaker
Why did they have to be so bitchy about it? Because they could have had that amazing story. We were going to get like how Palpatine came to be and everything. Maybe we still will, under a different name. I feel like that's what they're doing. They're letting the dust settle and then they'll come back with that. And maybe that will be one of these more dark stories. I feel like we're never going to get like explicit violence. No. or I feel like Andor and Maul are probably as close as we're going to get to that.
01:02:26
Speaker
I enjoyed the acolyte. Yeah, I loved the acolyte. I thought the acolyte was great. I wait to re-read it. It's set up so much. I haven't seen it yet. You will love it You are like a planet of lesbian witches. in. I'm Bring it. No, it's really cool. it's It's interesting storytelling. Like the structure of it was very controversial. There are two episodes that are almost the same thing.
01:02:51
Speaker
but told from a different perspective. Now I love that, I love those sorts of stories, but a lot of people didn't. And a lot of people didn't love the lesbian witches because of course they didn't. Because they're wrong. They're misguided. They need to go away and rethink their lives. Yes.
01:03:10
Speaker
But yeah, I'm here for all of the different types. i love I've said this many times on the podcast. I'm a lover of all of the different storytelling. I love reading kids' books. yeah I'm surprised I've not watched Young Jedi Adventures yet. I should have. I will do. I'm here for it. I love all of the ages stuff. so I mean, the content is always written to appeal to a wide variety of people. Sure. And if you love Star Wars, it's all there for you. Yeah. Depending on what mood you're in. I also, before the sequels came out, The the Rise of Skywalker and all of them, I kept saying to myself, no i do and I didn't have an audience. No shame. when i When I was protesting on the streets, I was shouting... But basically I was saying like they should do like before Phantom Menace and before the Skywalker saga because I think a whole clean slate of characters and no like having to figure out, if this person comes in now, why weren't they in the original and blah, blah, blah, blah. Just a totally clean s slate of stories for Star Wars. So when I didn't act like him, I was like, yes, this is great. Yeah. But The High Republic, there's so much. And you're a comic guy. there's There's comics for The High Republic. They release comics alongside the novels. There's young adult books. There's kids' books. I've read them all. I love them. It's a whole thing of like, it it's far enough before that it doesn't matter that they don't get too much into like, where do these people come from? Where did Qui-Gon come into it and all of that? It's too far before it for that, which I like.
01:04:48
Speaker
so But it has still got Yoda. It's got, what's his name? Ransom. this is Some of the Jedi Council members who are really old. Is it Ki-Adi-Mundi? Yeah, Ki-Adi-Mundi might be... Because he's an acolyte. He was in the acolyte, yeah. He's not in the books. I think he's not that old. But there are other species that we recognize from the Jedi Council. The snake guy. can't Oh, I know what you're thinking of. He's got like a white beard.
01:05:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. quite a bit. He's funny as anything. Yeah. So there's all of that, but there's also like a world of new characters. And it's really interesting how they describe the Jedi at that time. It's very different. And it's a whole new perspective on the Force.
01:05:26
Speaker
There's yeah a new species of creature. The bad guys who are incredible, they kind of feed in bit some of what was in the Acolyte, which ultimately I think there is more to come. And I think they're going to weave some of that into more of the current Star Wars.
01:05:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is a tangent. This is the best tangent. I've really enjoyed it. See what you mean? you bring up Star Wars history, you can't expect us to go down a round of applause. We're going to talk about We're going to talk about it. It had to be done. It had to be done. It did. So...
01:05:59
Speaker
Where we are is the survivors, the surface survivors, which are this third faction of Mandalorians, they're all in. They're going to help. They're going to take them to the forge. They're going to take them right to the forge. They know where it is. the Great Forge. yeah This is where they call, they ask them if they're Death Watch. And this is where I was going to ask you who are slash were the Death Watch, please? No. Well, both the factions here, Children of the Watch and the Night Owls, I think i think both trace back to Death Watch. Catlin, you're nodding. I'm hoping. Yeah. right Because well the Death Watch that I'm thinking of anyway is led by Pre Vizsla, who right obviously Paz is related to yeah And Bo-Katan was Pre Vizsla's right-hand woman. Yeah. And then when Maul took over, well, when he allied himself with Maul, she didn't like that. And then Maul killed Prie Vizsla. And that's when Bo-Katan split from Death Watch. Because some of the Death Watch stayed with Maul.
01:07:01
Speaker
And that's where you get Maul Mandalorians, the red and black ones with horns, like Gass Axon and Rookcast. Okay, Rookcast. I'm both. I'm both. I'm both.
01:07:13
Speaker
No, no, continue, continue, continue. Me and Brandon was at Se and Sia before you came. Before came on, yeah. Sia was late, everyone. I was late, yeah, yeah. I'm always late. They know this about me.
Is the Armorer Rook Kast?
01:07:26
Speaker
We were saying there's a rumor going around that the armorer is Rook Kast, who was one of Maul's top lieutenants in his little Mandalorian group. Right. So there is a rumor going, based off like the armorer's got horns on her helmet, the red brass plate. And also the fact that she has mentioned...
01:07:48
Speaker
she's cryptically talked about in The Mandalorian about the fact that Children of the Watch were kind of a splinter of Death Watch somehow. She's referred to Death Watch. Yes. And the fact they're called Children of the Watch, you know. They're the next set down. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So it could be.
01:08:07
Speaker
still don't whether she's Rookcast. In Maul Shadowlord, we've got this new animated show, Maul Shadowlord has recently come out and Rookcast is in it. right And if they could have voiced cast her as Emily Swallow, but that might have been a bit too too on the nose. The fact that they didn't cast Emily Swallow to voice her suggests that maybe it's not Brooke cast, but maybe.
01:08:31
Speaker
is we certainly This is why can't wait to see what happens to Rukkast in that series because I'm still holding on to that she might be Armourer. And we were saying maybe the reason that they've released more Shadow Lord just before Mandalorian and Grogu comes out, which is super weird from a promotion's point of view. yeah it could be that there is a reason for that and maybe the Armourer is that reason. Who
Satine Kreese and Death Watch History
01:08:52
Speaker
knows? Ooh, what an intrigue. Also, I'm hoping to get into why Rukkast has stayed with Maul because he technically betrayed them all at the end of...
01:09:01
Speaker
yeah his time with him because Gar Saxon was his like second in command yeah and he got arrested and then actually Gar Saxon I going too many spoiler de details here I might be let's just as you say that there was there were there was division within the Death Watch camp. Right, okay. Maul loves Division and I think created a load. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She just came down on that side of it, I guess. Yeah.
01:09:35
Speaker
It would be interesting when we do our Clone Wars rewatch. Okay. Yes. Nice. We can get into all this and try and figure it out. By then we'll have some more information because have seen Mandalorian and Gregor and the rest of Maul Shadow Lord. Sure. I just love that all this together. Awesome. The Death Watch were, if you remember, we've talked about it a bit before, that for a while there was a leader of Mandalore called Satine Kreese, which is Bo-Katan's sister. yeah Her leadership was peaceful and they kind of put down their weapons during the Clone Wars era. They tried to be a peaceful planet and Death Watch were a splinter group who didn't agree with that and went off to live on the moon of Concordia, which yeah the armourer
Din's Loyalty and Relationship Rumors
01:10:16
Speaker
mentions in a bit. yeah She says they were hidden on Concordia, yeah which again is that got a bit of clue. Maybe she's Rook-Ass. But yeah, they so they went off onto Concordia and they came back and sort of retook Mandalore with Maul as
01:10:30
Speaker
death watch as their kind of like military martial warrior you know they wanted to re-establish that on Mandalore it all went horribly wrong because of Order 66 and yeah whatever but yeah can I give a quick shout out to you know Branwen in the Clone Wars series the guy who's like the puppet leader of Mandalore oh yeah Olmec yes yeah yeah that old guy he's got a stunning armour Yes. That colour scheme is beautiful.
01:11:06
Speaker
We could just do a whole season of a podcast on different Mandalorian almonds. You absolutely could. Maybe one of our rando episodes that we've had to be about Mando armor. Yeah, sounds good. Okay. So, where are we? Where are we? We're on a voyage. We're on a voyage. Bo's having a bit of a crisis of confidence and Din steps in to be very, very sweet.
01:11:31
Speaker
This was almost one of my, yeah, that was almost my line. Your song is not yet written. yeah I will serve you until it is. yeah nice Yeah. Some people I've heard on podcasts talking about vibes between Din and Bo. No. no We know that the vibes are with Bo and the Armourer. The vibes of Bo and the Armourer, 100%.
01:11:50
Speaker
Din is just, you know, what was yeah he's the guy that hangs around with the lesbian couple. Yeah, he's the third wheel. He's the he's the he's the gay daddy who's got to look after his kid while in the presence of the anti-lesbians.
Mandalorian Masculinity and Youth's Role in Unity
01:12:09
Speaker
I'm enjoying it.
01:12:11
Speaker
I do love that conversation that they had and I love his like loyalty, him like laying down his loyalty. We've already known that, the way he spoke about her in in the last episode when he gave her the Darksaber and explained why she is worthy of the Darksaber.
01:12:26
Speaker
He is her biggest cheerleader and I'm here for that. It's really cool. He's great. But meanwhile, Axe and Paz are playing chess. Oh, God. checkers or whatever it is some kind of strategy game which I love like the rules that they start throwing down like their difference in rules and I love how that is a thing that like did people play games in a different way yeah they have their own little rules well apparently because we used to play a lot of shithead card game oh great I remember that yeah such a good game apparently the Welsh rules are different Ah, interesting. When I moved to England, the rules of shithead were different. And was like, whoa, now wait. How dare they? did it turn into a brawl like this? Sometimes, yeah. Only because I was instigating, but...
01:13:11
Speaker
It was inevitably going to come to blows. yeah Yes. yeah My note for this was Paz and Axe are demoing some good old toxic Mandalorian masculinity while Bo just watches and signs.
01:13:24
Speaker
Just let them find it out. They'll figure it out. I love that Paz is always throwing people. Yeah. yeah yeah He's very much a brawler. Considering he's got the most wild gun ever. He uses fists a lot. Yeah, he's good at brawling shooting. He is a brawler. And he's got his Viber knife as well. Yes. Threatens him with a knife. Pretty grim. Quick shout out to Bo's line earlier about it's their own conflict between them defeats them. Yeah, I had that one written down. Yeah, that's a great line. It is always our own division that destroys us, is what she says. I feel like that rings true to politics today. It's true. It's very true. Yeah, it's a very big parallel. And the fact that Gideon is saying that that's his hope, you know, is that that was his intention to create that division. And yet he is part of this remnant of Imperials that has clearly got division as well. We've not seen that clearly in the show yet, but it was implied in the Shadow Council conversation we just saw. But it's in the expanded novels and everything. The Aftermath trilogy sets all that up about this division and this power grabbing thing is massively parallel to what's going on in the world at this moment. Sadly.
01:14:33
Speaker
um But we've got to hope maybe the Mandalorians, they do unite and they overcome all of that. And it shows that you can overcome all that. We don't have to do it. Anyway, yeah.
01:14:45
Speaker
Grogu steps in for this because he can. And this is it. The future is in the youth. And I've said that so many times lately in the last few years. Shout out to the young people who are fighting for unity and Yeah, all of that good stuff. yeah So Grogu's there for that.
Mandalorian Monster Encounters
01:15:00
Speaker
There's a musical theme here, which I noticed quite a few times in this episode, which has got these high slidey strings. Yes. We heard it earlier on when Grogu first got IG, when he first got into the IG control unit thing.
01:15:12
Speaker
It was almost played for comedy then because of the slidey strings. It's like slightly comedic, but it's also like a kind of maybe it's a new Grogu theme because we hear it later on as well. grogu when he's driving yeah yeah grogu and he's like he's now got a bit more autonomy yeah yeah interesting gta yoda yeah yeah he's got it i like he just steps in he pulls them both apart and he just pummels the no button yeah yeah which is quite sweet no no So the Armorer, we see a bit of the Armorer going back to the fleet because she's going to explain about these survivors that they've discovered.
01:15:52
Speaker
And the cinematography as she yeah goes out of the atmosphere and we see her ship approaching the cruiser, it's like, what? So good, visually stunning. Okay, then Trinator. Okay.
01:16:06
Speaker
Is that what it is? I just wrote giant worm. It's called trinator. Okay. We don't anything else about it apart from that it's called a trinator. It's got a little entry. I think it's in one of the encyclopedia books or whatever. Oh my gosh. Something had to chase them underground, basically. Yeah, completely unnecessary. Except that it's They don't even bother to really fight it. They just run underground. They literally abandon ship and find that they're quite near the forge, so that's handy. Mandalorian just can't resist chucking a massive monster in, can they?
Discovery of Imperial Base and Beskar Plans
01:16:38
Speaker
Favreau. Favreau loves his big creatures. We've had one in nearly every episode of Season 3. I love the little symbol of showing that they are starting to become allies with Axe and Paz lifting Grogu together. That's nice. That's nice. Thematically beautiful. Yeah. I feel like we've lost a few Mandos with this attack, though. I feel like it took a couple out before they escaped. Most of them managed to escape. Yeah.
01:17:07
Speaker
But yeah, we're into... We're into the forge. We're into the forge area. Yeah. and pretty much straight away, we've got an attack, an ambush. Yes. Now then, can I jump in back then? Yes, do it. Yeah, of course. Okay.
01:17:23
Speaker
Is this where your suspicion... okay This is where my suspicion came in. Right, go on. I'm with you. Basically... the attack happens and ask volunteers to go to get help immediately immediately and i thought this is very suspicious based off of as soon as these guys come in he's like oh i'll go off and get help And the fact that he just lost command of the flea to Bo, like, two episodes ago. yeah I was like, is he is he really bitter about that? And then, you know, the situation is painted in a way of, like, oh, there's no escaping. And he's like, oh, yeah, I'll give it a go. And he just escapes easily without anyone tailing him or shooting him. So I was like, oh, my God, he's flying up to, like...
01:18:10
Speaker
the Empire spaceship up up in space, and he's going to be like, yeah, we got him. So I was big time thinking Axe is the traitor this film. Yeah, the spy, possibly. I had armor suspicions for the same reason, because she did the same thing. Like, oh, I'll go back and tell the rest of us about these survivors. And thank goodness, neither of those things came me, because yeah I like both those characters, and I didn't want them to be traitors. No, same.
01:18:37
Speaker
But I totally get that, yeah. he He is very, very quick to exit. And I mean, he plays it as like a heroic thing of like, oh no, I'll fly up through the atmosphere. I can go out through that gap. Sure you can. I can fit through there.
01:18:51
Speaker
Did you notice in the fight, like some of the Mandalorians are pushed over the edge they're falling and going, like, don't you have jetpacks though? Can you just? Yeah, they do have jetpacks. Fly back up. As with the troopers, because the troopers have got jetpacks too. Yeah. Unless it's spy surprise, then you've not got that long to activate your jetpack. How do you activate a jetpack? Is there a little thumb button or something somewhere? Clenching your bum. That means they should be fine as soon as they're off that wall. I mean, it's the thing that's closest to the danger part of the jetpack. Just do that. You'll be fine.
01:19:36
Speaker
So these troopers are Imperial Armoured Commandos, apparently. that's the Yes. And they're wearing Beskar, which differentiates them from regular troopers that wear plastoid armour. Right. And they are pretty serious. Yeah. yeah they They're difficult to defeat. yeah They've got access to all these Beskar. Gideon's been kitting them up.
01:19:55
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, they're pretty serious. If you watch Rebels, we see this armor with Gar Saxon. Yeah. Imperial Super Commanders. Yeah. It's the episode, I think. Yeah. Yeah. My notes all get a bit weird around here. It's kind of all like... Yeah, well, it's all very action heavy at this point. It's all quick. They kind of take out the troops pretty well and they start chasing them through the corridors, which become increasingly new looking and refined. They must be getting suspicious until they suddenly emerge into this...
01:20:25
Speaker
Hangar. Starfighter hangar, which is really threatening. There's a really kind of threatening music cue as we see all the interceptors hanging from the ceiling like bats, as we love them yeah doing. And suddenly they realize that there's an Imperial base here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My note was it's all starting to look very Imperial. Yeah. Around about now. It's pretty pretty bleak. And Din and a couple of the Mandalorians get cut off by a blast door. Yes. And they fight pretty bravely to take out some of the Imperials, but the Imperials kill the other two quite quickly and yeah surround Din. They're using whip cords like the Mandalorians as well, so Gideon is not messing about. He's he's seeing all of the things that Mandalorians have that were obviously destroyed
01:21:09
Speaker
originally created to defeat jedi that was the whole point of mandalorian weaponry and he's just using all of that yeah my note here was that the imperial troopers their jetpack sound is different to the mandalorian's jetpack sound and it's more sinister and It's kind of a... Sinister jetpack sound. Yeah, which is really weird. like You wouldn't think of a jetpack sounding sinister, but they do. there's like They've got a lower tone to them and it's like a more... Yeah, there's something else going on in the sound design that makes them sound more sinister. Nice. Evil jetpacks. Beau kind of references that earlier on because she says those aren't Mandalorians when they're first approaching. Yeah. I think she detects that it's a different sound. Yeah. yeah
01:21:54
Speaker
Gideon, dramatic entrance, of course. Yeah. I mean, he's so extra. He is incredibly extra. um ah He says, thank you for gathering the Mandalorians all in one place. And he then goes on to explain what he's been doing. that He's yeah been using Vestar here. Lovely, lovely little bit of exposition. Yeah. Yeah, he answers one of our earlier questions about how the Armorer manages to make an entire suit of armor out of a tiny little bit of Beskar. He says he's forged a new Beskar alloy dark trooper suit. So I think he's implying that Beskar has to be alloyed with other things, really. Realistically, it's too valuable a thing.
01:22:33
Speaker
But it still works very successfully. And it's got him inside of it, which makes it better. Yeah. he's den He doesn't say why exactly, but he does say they're going to create an army using cloning of the Jedi and Mando tech, yeah which implies that maybe he has got Force stuff, which I think we're going to find out more about in the next episode.
01:22:55
Speaker
But he orders the interceptors and the bombers to go and take out the fleet, which is obviously we're going to be following them in the next episode. Yeah. It's not looking good. He says, in a few moments, the purge of Mandalore will be complete. Yeah. He sees these as the only surviving Mandalorians, which it could be. We've got these three factions, Night Owls, Children of the Watch, and the survivors from the surface. Yeah.
01:23:17
Speaker
Are there more out there? I feel like there are more because there have been various references in this episode that there are more Mando's out there. So even if you wipe this lot out, there could be more. I suppose the others are probably more like Boba in terms of just being alone or... Odd ones out, yeah, Yeah, yeah. I have two notes about Gideon here. We've got Gideon's armor looks like the Maldoloreans. Yeah, yeah. Which might feed into that theory that he's ex-Deathwatch or Mandalorian. Yeah. and my other note is Gideon's voice under his helmet sounds like Emperor Zurg from Toy Story.
01:23:52
Speaker
It does, actually. Oh, my God. Yeah. There is a sort of certain ridiculousness about Gideon, which I love. you He's a classic Star Wars villain in that way. For the listeners, Branwen almost choked on her water. Yeah, there was a spit take there. I did a little spit take off mic. Oh, God.
01:24:22
Speaker
Oh, dear. Yeah, he is being very big. And Bo says she should have killed him when she had the chance, which, yes, she absolutely should have done. Yes, have But I don't think it would have made any difference because there's still this theory of is he actually a clone at this point? is he a clone? We know that he escaped. We think he escaped because we saw Carson Tava discover the the shuttle with a bit Beskar. There's been something going on there.
01:24:48
Speaker
But was that something else? Had he already made... Clones. the super trooper things with best car armour or what's going on we don't really we still don't really really know at this point maybe there'll be more revelations in the last episode I can't actually remember because it's a time I can't remember either I watched it not that long ago if you're watching it for the first time with us hey so are we know effectively but he says to well he's he's manipulating the blast doors here this is where they open the blast doors which is from the New Hope Star Wars A New Hope yes close the blast doors open the blast doors yeah But they're using the blast doors as a way of like cutting them off.
Paz Vizsla's Redemption and Mandalorian Unity
01:25:25
Speaker
yeah But he wants to open them because that he's just going to take out all of those troops, like the Mandalorian she's got gathered around her. yeah and She's not going to let that happen. Yeah, that she's cutting her way out with the dark saber.
01:25:40
Speaker
And Paz says he's going to stay behind to cover them. When he says, fall back or cover the rear, i knew he was doing knew what he was going to Yeah. You just knew from that line, no, he's done. We've seen a lot of him in this episode. and We've kind of had a bit of a journey with him and him sort of overcoming his prejudice against the night owls. Yeah.
01:26:02
Speaker
And he's finally got there and he's just like bonded with Axe a bit. Yeah. and Yeah. Now you know it's his time, which is brutal. I feel like this is my moment, Branwen. This is my time. You said earlier, this is why I'm here. This is why I picked this episode. It's all because of this scene. mean, it's one of many reasons why you're here. Yes, let's see. It's the only reason. It's the only reason. The only reason. Paz Vizsler.
01:26:28
Speaker
All right, go on. So i've I've loved Paz since the first time we saw him. And he wasn't in the first series that much. But then he's he slipped back quite a lot. And I really enjoyed him as a character. yeah Mainly because I think it's just my personal taste of I love when rivals start teaming up. yeah Start becoming allies. I also love... yeah Paz isn't a villain, but that theme of like a villain's redemption arc is always fun. an antagonist. He's antagonist, yeah. He antagonizes Din. Oh yeah, big time. That theme is used a lot in cinema and TV a lot at the moment. You see it all the time. I mean, Star Wars is doing it with Boba Fett. He's now getting a redemption arc. But when it works and when a character needs it, i think it's brilliant. I think also, even if you get snippets of it, in Rebels, Maul teams up with Ahsoka and Kanan and Esdor for a brief second to fight Inquisitors, and then he betrays them instantly. and so But that little moment of like, oh, you know, people who shouldn't be allies yeah working together, I've always enjoyed watching. So that's one reason why I loved Paz, because he was the antagonist, but he's become like a big ally to Mando and Bo. So...
01:27:46
Speaker
Two things. I was gutted that he died because I loved him and I thought yeah he was starting to become like a loyal right-hand man to Bo, which would have been a cool parallel to when Bo was a right-hand woman to pre-Vizsla. Yes, the mirror image. Exactly. I thought that would have been really nice.
01:28:03
Speaker
Also, quick joke, pre-Vizsla, present Vizsla. That's been in the back of my mind. of it. Post to the name. now Your name is now Post.
01:28:23
Speaker
Post Vizsla. Oh, my dad's pre-Vizsla. Sorry, I'm going on something. And then the other thing, though, I love, though, is that this is one of the coolest deaths in Star Wars, I think. yeah I love that Favreau's gone, look, if I'm going out, I'm going to give myself one of the most heroic, badass fights. Yeah. It's so cool. I love his gun. I love that it overheats and he has to ditch it. Yeah. It's like, it's orange. It's almost melting. it's Yeah, it's melting. And then he's like, oh, I'm just going to charge at them and start throwing people around again. Yeah. Yeah. We're going for a brawl instead. Yeah. Back to my brawl. He's an absolute tank. He is a tank. I imagine him like stinky. He's just ripped underneath that. The guy's like he must pure a muscle. yeah But then, of course, the Praetorian Guard just come in and...
01:29:18
Speaker
It's sad. doesn't really stand a chance. It's brutal. It's really brutal. He takes out so many of those troopers beforehand, though. Oh, my gosh. He single-handedly decimated that platoon. It's such a cool scene. I feel like what you were saying in the first part of what you were talking about there, his character arc is almost a representation of what we've been talking about in terms of division yeah and how we need to unite, how he has overcome his prejudice. And Axe had prejudice as well, but I feel like Pazza's was more like expressed. yeah in a way
01:29:49
Speaker
And he'd got to that point of being, as you say, back on Bo's team, which is, you know, the opposing team as far as he would have originally thought, to the point where he's now prepared to self-sacrifice for the cause. And yeah there's something really powerful about that, particularly in the times we are living. Yeah. yeah so shout out to Paz.
01:30:09
Speaker
Gone too soon. ah I would have loved to have little bit more of him being like Bo's right-hand man, but you can't have everything. No. I mean, there's nothing to say we won't get like some armourer content of like prequel stuff where we can see him as part of her movement of Children of the Watch and he was her right-hand man. You know, he...
01:30:31
Speaker
He certainly delivered in that role and there certainly could be some extended content about that. It'd be interesting to see if the Armorer does turn out to be Rookcast, how that came to be and how he came to be part of her team. yeah yeah I'm sure it's in somebody's head somewhere. It's got to The name Vizsla in Star Wars is very it's a big name. It's a big name to carry. We've got lots more to find out about that because you know we've got all the original Vizsla Jedi yeah stuff.
01:31:01
Speaker
It's all huge. The Darksaber, which although is no more, is still a massive legacy of of that family name. Yeah. It's incredible. The camera lingers on him. Yeah. It's a really like emotional, they give it the space it needs. Yeah. It's the three arrows in the chest death again, isn't it? Yes. Yes, it is. Yeah, it's a Boromir death. 100%.
01:31:25
Speaker
Yeah, we get the slidey strings. This sort of Grogu IG theme comes back over the credits. It's like what brings us into the credits, which is really interesting because maybe it's more about the Mandalorians teaming up. Maybe that's more what the theme is. I don't know. Anyway, yeah it's an interesting theme. I feel like we have heard it earlier on. Yeah, we have heard it before. It's quite a...
01:31:45
Speaker
After that moment, though, it it does seem, i thought it was quite a cheery theme to end on. Yeah, in a way, although it has some melancholy to it. It's like tragedy, comedy, all in one. It's multi-purpose theme, fair play. yeah.
01:32:00
Speaker
And it's all feeling a tad hopeless now at this point. It gets very, like the theme over the end, because we know they've been changing the arrangement to suit the episode. This was a very gradual build as we were left with our feelings about Paz. It's very brass heavy, which I think brass instruments often represent those big warrior types that Paz clearly was, you know, just from his physique and his armour and his like fighting skill and everything else. It's a very brass heavy arrangement.
01:32:29
Speaker
R.I.P. Paz. He had a really cool design as well. yeah he just looked cool. His armour, his gun, it was really cool design. His gun was an extension of him. like Iconic. Yeah. Iconic gun. So heavy to carry around all the time. Yes. Sure.
01:32:47
Speaker
Sure. This was an epic conversation. i feel like it's an epic episode. Not much actually happens. It's definitely a part one of two, yeah but so much built into it. The Shadow Council, the unification of Mandalorians, Gideon's big plan, cloning, Praetorian Guard. like We've had a lot in this episode. It's been a big one. The fact that we can just whiz by Trinatorre.
01:33:13
Speaker
like That was the least interesting part. It's just inconsequential, yeah. um That was a plot device that looked cool in order to make them go underground. Yes, yes, yes. But thank you, Catalan, for being part of this conversation. We've gone down some rabbit holes. It's been so great having you back. Thank you for indulging me. we already have you scheduled in for some Clone Wars episodes. I'm really looking forward to those and maybe a one-off episode or two as well. I know we've got some plans for that. I'm sneakily begging Bramon to come on more now. I hear there's going be a duel. Yeah, yeah, there's going fight. The word on the street, there's going be a fight.
01:33:58
Speaker
There is going be more than happy to facilitate because I think it'd be hilarious. It may happen in kind of phase. In a few weeks time. going to buy a lightsaber. Okay. I've got one. I'll bring mine with me. I'll marry.
01:34:15
Speaker
um We hope you have enjoyed listening, dear listener, to our wild and wonderful breakdown of Chapter 23. We're going to be back next week with another excellent returning guest for Chapter 24 to wrap this rewatch up. my goodness. And then we are watching Nementalor and Grogu together with loads of our sisters with us and brothers of the Force, our siblings of the Force. Yay!
01:34:40
Speaker
And it's going to be epic. It's going to be so exciting. Until then, follow us on all of the things. You know where to find us. Facebook, Insta. All of that. Blue Sky, YouTube. We're there on all those things. Spread the word if you like our podcast and give us a little review if you can. That would really help. Perfect. ah Yeah. All things. we're We're here for you. Chat with us. Send us messages. we want some of that interaction. Yeah.
01:35:04
Speaker
But yeah, we'll be back next week. Until then, we'll see you soon. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.