The Mandalorian and Grogu with Chris Gethard

Summary

Blank Check Podcast: “The Mandalorian and Grogu” with Chris Gethard

Date: May 24, 2026
Hosts: Griffin Newman & David Sims
Producer: Ben Hosley
Guest: Chris Gethard

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Episode Overview

This episode of Blank Check takes on the newest “Star Wars” film: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026), joined by comedian, podcaster, and recurring guest Chris Gethard. Grappling with both excitement and disappointment, the hosts and guest dig deep into the malaise around modern Star Wars, the movie as an exercise in IP maintenance and merchandise, the tension between corporate mandates and fan expectations, and the unremarkable pleasures and frustrations of the film itself. Along the way, the trio explores what made Star Wars meaningful, the rise of the “Andor” phenomenon, fandom malaise, legacy, and the ongoing question: what do fans (and kids) really want?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter and Mando Impressions

• The hosts warm up with an offbeat take on Mando’s minimalism, doing joking impressions of Din Djarin’s stiff conversational style.
• ([00:25]) Griffin: “You guys aren’t ramped up by the high energy, the Mando, when he says things like, ‘Okay, Grogu, come here.’”

2. Chris Gethard’s Contrarian Stance

• Gethard notes early he liked Mandalorian and Grogu more than critics, but overall still feels let down by modern Star Wars.

• ([02:41]) Chris: “I feel like I’m already gonna be the bad boy and say I liked this movie way more than the reviewers did.”

• Gethard canceled a volunteer first-aid shift and social plans—emphasizing the marathon nature of a Blank Check taping.

3. Cultural Relevance and “Defeat” of Star Wars

• Panel reflects on the struggle for Star Wars to matter in pop culture; “admit defeat about the cultural relevance” is suggested as a path to more honest enjoyment.
• ([10:11]) Chris: “We’ve kind of just have to admit defeat about the cultural relevance of Star Wars and then we can go back to enjoying the movies again.”

4. Review Contexts: Who Is Star Wars for Now?

• Gethard saw the movie in suburban New Jersey surrounded by kids, which colored his softer reception—it plays for children, if nothing else.
• ([18:40]) Chris: “I also got to watch it in that context… [the kids] want to see monsters fighting… It’s a movie for kids. And, like, I don’t buy that as a defense exactly, but I was like, certainly that’s the tone it’s going for.”
• Griffin and David attended a press screening dominated by critics and “fandom journalists”—largely quiet.

5. Corporate Mandate versus Narrative Growth

• The group unpacks how Disney pushed for a movie instead of a fourth season of The Mandalorian, and Favreau’s struggle to retrofit TV plans into a “standalone” feature.
• ([22:10]) Griffin: “You can just tell that this was a corporate mandate… They had the season figured out, and Disney was like, ‘Can you make a movie instead?’”

6. Emotional Stakes, Narrative Stagnation, & What Ifs

• Movie criticized for recycling the Mandalorian/Grogu status quo: no character development, no new Grogu powers, yet again flying away in a ship.
• ([24:19]) Chris: “As I walked out, I went, did I really just watch those two fucking assholes fly away in a ship again?”
• ([25:33]) Chris proposes that maybe there was once a plan to kill off The Mandalorian, with Grogu turning “dark” for narrative stakes—but it was squashed by corporate powers. Griffin speculates there were at least “seeds” of this idea, though David strongly disagrees, calling “death as maturity” a tired trope.

7. Star Wars as Moral Compass—What’s Replacing It?

• The Mandalorian and Grogu is deemed narratively hollow compared to earlier Star Wars as a moral fable.
• Gethard discusses how his son gets emotional education not from Star Wars, but from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
• ([53:14]) Chris: “I remember watching [Avatar] with my son… oh, everything I got out of Star Wars, he’s getting out of this show.”

8. The Andor Exception and Mandalorian’s Decline

• The 2022–25 Andor stands out as the rare creative, thematically mature Star Wars—“a miracle” for slipping through.
• ([48:02]) Chris: “We also have to point out… that [Andor] hits and is truly special, is a phenomena, is a miracle.”
• Contrast to Mandalorian’s later seasons, which lose the “Lone Wolf and Cub” intimacy for convoluted, lore-heavy plotting.

9. Expanding Universe Bloat & The Lucas/Filoni Legacy

• Mandalorian S1 praised for its simplicity and accessibility.
• Later seasons and new projects are criticized for endless lore, Filoni’s self-referential priorities, and risk-averse, nostalgia-driven storytelling.
• ([47:02]) Chris: “What is the extended universe stuff that has now been knocked out of canon into legends that I want to reintroduce?”

10. Merchandising & Star Wars as a Children’s Brand

• Discussion of how Grogu (Baby Yoda) is the franchise’s lifeline, with toy sales now seemingly dictating creative direction.
• ([107:17]) Griffin: “But the merch was insane… At some point, maybe the merch is the thing.”

11. Missed Opportunities & Narrative Timidity

• The film’s climax and Grogu’s arc are seen as conservative; movie never lets Grogu say a word or change at all.
• ([104:56]) Ben (jokingly, about Grogu): “He could have said nummies. He could have said daddy.”

12. Star Wars as an Ex and Cultural Touchstone

• Wistful sentiment pervades: Star Wars is now more of a beloved ex than an active, creative obsession.
• ([178:01]) Chris: “That’s someone I used to date who I was deeply in love with—and… we don’t love each other anymore… but we can still text.”
• Blank Check gang eats Grogu-shaped snacks and opens Star Wars toys.

13. Andor as the High Water Mark (Again)

• Renewed appreciation for Andor and its effect on connecting Old Star Wars to contemporary themes of protest, disillusionment, and hope.
• Deep dive into its production—how Gilroy, a Star Wars “outsider,” pulled off something so trenchant within the system almost by accident.
• ([124:45]) Griffin: “He pulled it off in the way that most miracles happen in this level of like corporate art… Something slipped through the system.”

14. Old Heroes, New Hope, and Nostalgia Fatigue

• Long debate—sometimes raw—about Luke Skywalker’s arc, the pain of the sequels, and how Andor made the original’s naïveté look thoughtful (and tragic).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Chris Gethard on Star Wars Declining as Moral Epic ([54:04]):
  “Star Wars used to be something like… for a lot of us, I think… if you weren’t that religious, Star Wars kind of gave you what religion gave you.”

• On the Movie’s Repetitiveness ([24:19]):
  Chris: “As I walked out, I went, did I really just watch those two fucking assholes fly away in a ship again…”

• On Grogu's Narrative Stagnation ([25:43]):
  “This little Muppet sells toys. We can’t ever have them change is very frustrating corporate thinking.” – Chris

• On the Film Being for Kids ([19:26]):
  David: “It’s a movie for kids. And, like, I don’t buy that as a defense exactly. But I was like, certainly that’s the tone it’s going for.”

• On Corporate Control ([22:14]):
  Griffin: “Favreau has said this himself… They had the season figured out, and Disney was like, can you make a movie instead?... It is crazy to me that it’s not just several episodes mushed together that he claims all of that was thrown out.”

• Andor’s Exceptionality ([48:02]):
  Chris: “Which hits and is truly special, is a phenomena, is a miracle…”

• On Filoni & Fandom ([140:41]):
  Chris: “His greatest strength and his greatest weakness is that he really, really cares on a granular, detailed level about the things he cares about.”

• On “The Ex” Analogy ([178:01]):
  Chris: “That’s someone I used to date who I was deeply in love with and… we don’t love each other anymore. But we can still text.”

• Three-Minute Plot Recap ([86:12–87:26]):
  The trio summarizes the entire film’s “plot” in barely a minute, poking fun at its simplicity and predictability.

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Impressions, Opening Skits ([00:05–01:20])
• Gethard’s “Bad Boy” Reputation & Dedication ([02:41–04:00])
• What’s Wrong With Star Wars Now? ([10:11–11:16])
• Reactions to the Screening Experience ([18:40–19:24])
• Merch Over Story—Grogu as Profitable Center ([22:10–23:35], [107:17])
• Rumored 'Dark Grogu' and Killing The Mandalorian—Controversy ([25:33–34:01])
• “Andor” Praise and How It Happened ([48:02–50:18], [124:18])
• Avatar the Last Airbender as Successor Fantasy Epic ([53:14–54:30])
• Plot Recap Challenge ([86:12–87:26])
• Nostalgic Toy Unboxings & The Snack Segment ([178:54–179:59])
• Gethard's Birthday & Reflections on Loneliness ([81:00–82:09])
• Blank Check Origin Story & Gethard’s Legacy ([194:09–194:49])

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Additional Highlights

Extended Lore & Franchise Disappointments

• Ongoing frustration at Star Wars' “peak TV” fatigue: stretched stories, “prestige” for prestige’s sake, and refusal to let big characters die or change.
• Some warmth for Marvelized Star Wars elements (Skeleton Crew, Acolyte), though both seen as “should’ve been movies” stretched thin for streaming content.
• The entire episode is loaded with off-topic but hilarious tangents—a true sign of Blank Check's commitment to breadth over rigid structure.

Food & Merch Madness

• Throughout, the hosts munch on Star Wars tie-in foods (Grogu-shaped chips, blue “Nilla Nummies,” etc.) and riff on the existential hollowness of Disney’s merchandise empire.
• ([183:57]) The segment with a Mandalorian voice-changer toy ties the themes together: “This is what it’s all about, folks… this movie exists to create these bags.”

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• Broad Consensus: Even the guest with the warmest take (Gethard) “liked” the film only relative to expectations and broader critical drubbing. All agree it’s narratively safe, emotionally stunted, and mainly an exercise in IP stabilization and toy sales.
• **Star Wars is no longer the “moral force” or cultural unifier it once was—yet, it’s hard to let go, and the community finds solace in rare gems like Andor.
• Fandom: Modern fandom is fragmented and near-impossible to satisfy, with Disney and Lucasfilm forever whipsawed by competing demands—the magic, perhaps, is gone, but the nostalgia burns ever on.
• The Next Generation: Kids respond to Grogu and to whichever new “my first Star Wars” content arrives; grown fans must learn to find peace with what’s gone, or risk heartbreak anew.

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Endnote

Blank Check ends by reflecting on intergenerational Star Wars love, favorite new “fistos,” and Gethard’s hope that someone, somewhere, will one day “leak” that Disney really did consider a Dark Grogu. In the meantime, there are always more snacks, more toys, and, for better and worse, more Star Wars.

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For further references:

• “Andor” / Tony Gilroy praise and how it happened: [124:18]
• Three-Minute, One-Breath Plot Recap: [86:12–87:26]
• Gethard’s avatar musings: [53:14–54:30]
• Modern Star Wars as ex-lover analogy: [178:01]
• Merch segment and toy unboxings: [178:54–179:59]
• Franchise “state of the union,” hopes/fears for future: [140:41], [143:12], [161:05]

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If you loved, hated, or felt numb about this new installment in the Star Wars saga, this episode brings catharsis, context, and a bit of hope. Maybe, in between all the snacks and cynicism, that's all we need.

Transcript

[David Sims]

Blank check with Griffin and David.

[Griffin Newman]

Blankjack with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the shy with blank Jack.

[Chris Gethard]

This is the podcast.

[Griffin Newman]

What? You guys aren't cheering? You're not ramped up by the high energy, the Mando, when he says things like, okay, Roku, come here.

[David Sims]

Where's that feel like? It's a lot of him going like, okay, and where do I go now?

[Griffin Newman]

I'll give it a shot.

[David Sims]

You're saying they need to be shot by me?

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, fine. By me.

[David Sims]

I'll ask one to two questions and then just do it anyway. Yeah,

[Griffin Newman]

Mandalorian, thank you for helping. I don't help feels like help. Maybe a little bit.

[David Sims]

Bye. But I mean, you know, it's a fine line. A man with no name who doesn't speak, obviously, can be cool. Can't be cool.

[Griffin Newman]

I saw a really good quote, and I want to see if I can find who it was. I was reading through reviews yesterday, and I saw. I think it's the greatest distillation of what this movie fucks up to. Me.

[Chris Gethard]

Can I speak it?

[David Sims]

Yeah, you speak. Can I do my impression of Rod of the Hutt really fast before I forget?

[Chris Gethard]

Oh, boy.

[Griffin Newman]

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Can we get a photo in time? Hold on, hold on. Fuck.

[Chris Gethard]

The physicality is fierce.

[David Sims]

And then, of course, with the addition of. I'm not like my dad. I'm a good guy. I'm not like my dad.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, I'm my own man. You're a giant slug.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's just.

[Ben Hosley]

He's like, you're not a man.

[David Sims]

What are you talking about? I'm not like my dad. I'm like, will this come up again? He's like, not really.

[Griffin Newman]

My. My little sister.

[David Sims]

Your dad's dead. I don't care.

[Griffin Newman]

Like my little sister. Romley had when Revenge of the Sith came out, a toy that was a Darth Vader mask with a voice changer inside. And it's one of those things where she was like, that's so cool. I can sound like Darth Vader, and it's like, kind of all it's going to do is make your voice deep and reverb.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

There's not a $30 technology at Toys R Us that makes you sound like James Earl Jones.

[David Sims]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

And the Rod of the Hutt voice performance sounds like Jeremy Allen White wearing that toy where all it's doing.

[David Sims]

Not like my dad's just pitching his

[Griffin Newman]

voice down and reverb.

[David Sims]

Why'd you hire him?

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly.

[David Sims]

Sound like him or anyone?

[Griffin Newman]

No. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Great.

[Chris Gethard]

Get.

[David Sims]

What were you saying? I'm sorry.

[Chris Gethard]

I feel like I'm already gonna be the bad boy and say I liked this movie way more than the reviewers did.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, okay. More than.

[Chris Gethard]

More than.

[Griffin Newman]

Would you identify yourself as liking it or would you say that you just like it more or you just sort

[David Sims]

of, like, thought it was.

[Chris Gethard]

All right, well, first thing I want to say.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Is you guys asked me to be here at 11am huh. And I canceled plans I had at 7pm Just in case. We are still talking about this.

[Griffin Newman]

David has said it's not.

[Chris Gethard]

No intention of it, but just so the fans know, I'm literally. I lit your podcast without exaggeration, canceled a commitment to drive an ambulance for a volunteer first aid squad. I got someone else to cover the shift.

[Griffin Newman]

This is true.

[Chris Gethard]

I don't know if we'll be done.

[David Sims]

You really. I mean, I understand that's probably in New Jersey.

[Chris Gethard]

I do need a little bit of transit.

[David Sims]

Right. You got the transit buffer to worry

[Chris Gethard]

about that still anticipates a 6pm Memorial Day week. We could still be talking at 6pm and I might have to get back through traffic.

[David Sims]

I mean, you could be. I won't be here.

[Chris Gethard]

I might be.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it's a wise.

[David Sims]

There'll be a David shaped hole in the wall.

[Griffin Newman]

Look, you're going to leave it all on the field today. So even if you make it back to Jersey by 3:00pm by. By. By noon.

[Chris Gethard]

If we. If I make IT home by 3pm we have failed in our promise to the fine fans of the Blank Check podcast. Shout out to Ryan, who works at the Dublin Pub in Morristown, New Jersey. I was there one night.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay?

[Chris Gethard]

So he said him and his all. All his friends listen to Blank Check and are on a WhatsApp group about it.

[David Sims]

This isn't your fault, guy. I just have to speak to this right away.

[Griffin Newman]

What?

[David Sims]

There's a problem developing in our podcast where now every guest comes in and is like, don't you worry. I'm not working for a week after this. Yeah, all the time. We're going for it. Okay. Never leaving. I leave.

[Ben Hosley]

Alex, record breaking episode this week. I don't know if we can necessarily announce the guest or can we.

[Griffin Newman]

We can.

[David Sims]

It was Tracy Letts.

[Griffin Newman]

Tracy Letts.

[David Sims]

Who has better. You know, who has things to do.

[Griffin Newman]

One a Pulitzer came in.

[David Sims]

A man of letters.

[Chris Gethard]

And I'm going to beat the program for let's. But I'll get there. No, I wanted to Kill my get comes through. You threaten to run through the wall. Like the Kool Aid man shows up.

[Griffin Newman]

He says, let's get out of here.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, serious.

[Chris Gethard]

The guy who's been here from the very beginning, the guy who's part of the very DNA and fabric of this show.

[Griffin Newman]

As we often say, the three of us would not know each other if not for you.

[Chris Gethard]

Everybody says I'm the bad boy of blackjack. Mostly me. But maybe I'm the glue holding this goddamn thing together. But goddamn, Tracy, let's walks through and you'll stay as long as he.

[David Sims]

Well, there were. There were two issues. One, of course, I do not want to be rude to Tracy Letts, who is an estimable person. Two, we did have another thing to record after he was done, so I couldn't leave.

[Griffin Newman]

It was a very long.

[David Sims]

It was a very long day, I'm going to admit. My wife was like, are you okay? And I was like, legit. I am not okay. I'm up. And I was up all day and pretty much tomorrow. Yeah, I was just like.

[Ben Hosley]

That was.

[David Sims]

We can't do that again.

[Griffin Newman]

It was too much.

[David Sims]

Too much.

[Griffin Newman]

So stay tuned for that episode. It's a corker.

[David Sims]

The episode I thought was very good. It was holding it together. Broken, but two gears.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Used to run, you know, like shows, you know, big scale. Kind of like you got all these balls. You understand the logistics and the.

[Chris Gethard]

I'm also a father. I'm also a father and a husband. And I understand, I understand all of it. But.

[David Sims]

But at the same time, you're like, if we don't.

[Chris Gethard]

Well, no, David, I mean, I understand all of those obligations. And I also feel like, you know, if there's a counterpoint, I would say even with all those obligations on the table, I never shortchanged the people.

[Griffin Newman]

Beyond that, you never did. Has Gethard.

[David Sims]

You've never short changed.

[Griffin Newman]

Ever seen a self destructive or self harming bit that he hasn't run headfirst into? If I know one thing about the man, my friend, you know, like a little. My hero.

[David Sims]

You're a little bit like, yeah, well, you know, those were the glory days. That's, you know, back when you always got that itch.

[Chris Gethard]

Oh, yeah. But I mean, we can do something ridiculous.

[David Sims]

I feel. I think about your face all the time, though. On that TCGS episode.

[Griffin Newman]

Was it the Chris Gethard show for

[David Sims]

those who don't, you know, was it when Fallon was on or maybe Hugh had just been on.

[Chris Gethard]

Oh, that was a bad night.

[Griffin Newman]

That was the first time I ever went live and you're like, people are actually paying attention.

[David Sims]

I just plugged this show on national television and that episode was particularly chaotic.

[Chris Gethard]

It was horrible.

[Griffin Newman]

It was ruin this show. You went on Jimmy Fallon. You got network TV coverage for a cable access show.

[Chris Gethard]

Yes. And I said, call up and, or show up and do whatever you want.

[Griffin Newman]

Try to ruin on Fallon. You said, tomorrow night I'm going live. The theme is ruin the show.

[Chris Gethard]

Show up and ruin my show.

[Griffin Newman]

Do anything you can. You can stay. You even suggested you can stand in front of the camera.

[Chris Gethard]

Yes. And then.

[David Sims]

It's a good bit.

[Chris Gethard]

It is a good bit. But what I didn't anticipate, and I say this with love, I think, you know, I think there are other people who have done renegade talk shows like Eric Andre, who I think is hilarious and who I love and admire. Great.

[Griffin Newman]

Jimmy Fallon. One of the wildest out there.

[Chris Gethard]

But I was, I was going to say, I think one of the things Eric Andre has that made him more successful than me is like he can be ruthless if he has to.

[David Sims]

Totally.

[Chris Gethard]

And I don't, I, I, I don't have it in me. Like my boundary on ruthlessness is not extended.

[David Sims]

Everyone had for the mile long peer

[Griffin Newman]

to walk what was about to say.

[Chris Gethard]

But I was just going to say on that show, what I didn't anticipate was that a lot of green comedians that we probably would not have been booking at that point.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Chris Gethard]

Used it as a chance to come grab screen time.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what happened.

[Chris Gethard]

And I didn't have it in me to just be like, get the out of here.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right. It was, it was kind of a worst.

[Chris Gethard]

It wasn't weirdos wandering off the street who I could speak to in a certain way. It was young artists who ultimately I do feel very much proud of my ability to support young artists. But unfortunately I'm not going to trash young artists who show up in costumes.

[Griffin Newman]

It was a bunch of Din Grogu who hadn't yet learned the way.

[David Sims]

Din Jaron and Grogu, you've sort of combined them. No, no, no. Excuse me.

[Chris Gethard]

Oh, right.

[David Sims]

Grogu's first.

[Griffin Newman]

I have only recently watched the Mandalorian season three, which I finally polished off.

[David Sims]

You probably have a little fresher than

[Griffin Newman]

I. I had tapped out on everything. Post book of Boba Fett.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

A year ago we put this episode on the calendar. We were looking ahead at the schedule and we went like. We basically never book guests on new releases.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And usually sort of a pain for

[David Sims]

them because they Would have to watch the movie right away.

[Chris Gethard]

If.

[Griffin Newman]

If we do.

[Chris Gethard]

It's.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a thing we usually do at the last second because something sort of makes sense. A year ago, we were looking at the schedule, we were like, gotta get guest back on what's the right thing for get.

[Chris Gethard]

And you guys were throwing episode ideas and I forget it kind of organically came up. Maybe we just do a Star wars episode. So my. My commitment to the Star wars bit actually makes functional sense and doesn't distract from anything else.

[Griffin Newman]

Of course. And I do want to call out, I'm wearing a Spider Man 2 T shirt today and a Spider man hat. I do want to talk about Spider Man a bit. I have some Spider man talking about. I genuinely want to do. I think it's important we talk about Star Wars.

[Chris Gethard]

I have two other franchises that I also want to bring up. I do want to. Just to answer the question. Yeah, I would say I did land on the side of enjoying the experience of watching Mandalorian and Grogu.

[David Sims]

I think that's fair.

[Chris Gethard]

It had things I liked. But I do think that the sadder conversation is, what is this anymore? I think we all need. And I do. I also will say I think the Blank Check podcast honestly does matter in. In the world of film nerds. You guys and J.D. amato, I think, came together and. And showed people that Speed Racer was in fact a good movie. And now they say they're like, credit

[Griffin Newman]

to Emily or she does well.

[Chris Gethard]

And. But there's think pieces. I mean, JD's my guy.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

But there's think pieces out there about how Speed Racer is actually good. I think that started with Blank Check, but I think Blank Check is a really good place for us to have like an honest, not histrionic, not Internet commenty, ragey conversation about, like, we've kind of just have to admit defeat about the cultural relevance of Star wars and then we can go back to enjoying the movies again.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't even know if it's.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah, they are not meeting the moment in any way. And there's so many ways that this movie shows that. But then if we can get past the fact that they just refuse to do anything that meets the moment outside of Andor. But then we hear about all the weird backbiting behind the scenes about the Gilroy Filoni stuff where it feels like the Andor stuff is not appreciated.

[Griffin Newman]

There you sit. Here I go.

[Chris Gethard]

I saw a movie where a rocket ship had turtle feet.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

I saw a movie where Baby Yoda and a Bunch of Babu Fricks scaled

[David Sims]

a vertical wall that I was fine with.

[Griffin Newman]

David and I are right. There's things I like. There was like a 20, 25 minute section that David and I were locked in on.

[David Sims]

But I. I want to report to you guys.

[Chris Gethard]

See it together.

[David Sims]

We just saw it together in imac. I didn't get the invite well because it was.

[Chris Gethard]

I knew a year ago I was going to be on this episode. We did book run during one of the busiest weeks of my life when I was already canceling other plans. I had to find time to fit this in. When I didn't get the chose to

[Griffin Newman]

not go to the afterparty for Colbert's final taping last night so that you could be rested.

[David Sims]

Everyone settled down.

[Griffin Newman]

Beauty sleep.

[David Sims]

Everyone settled down. I started a press screening which, you know, I only get that invite a few days earlier and I had a plus one. I brought Griffin. Yeah. Ben didn't go.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben solid by himself last night.

[David Sims]

I also figured like, you would probably just see it in Jer. You know, you would see.

[Chris Gethard]

I know I'm giving you. I'm giving you the.

[David Sims]

The comfort of.

[Chris Gethard]

You're giving me bad boy.

[David Sims]

I honestly.

[Chris Gethard]

You don't get mad at a dog for barking. You don't get mad at Gu for being a bad.

[David Sims]

I was a little annoyed at the. The screening because I like, my wife was out that night. We had to like get a babysitter because I was like. I got. Because it's like she was like, is there going to be another screen? And I'm like, it's Disney. They're just kind of like, you show up or you.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's also acknowledge the other thing.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

We were coming from City Field where we had spent the afternoon at Star Wars.

[David Sims]

That was fine.

[Griffin Newman]

Star Wars Day, which I will say also I think factored into our experience of being very, very underwhelmed by this movie. Was Star Wars Day with the Mets was a. An experience that reminded me more of what I like about Star Wars.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Than the Star wars movie I saw that night.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, Mr. Met was dressed up as the Mandalorian.

[Griffin Newman]

I thought he gave a better performance than Pedro Pascal. I thought he was a little more locked in.

[David Sims]

He was locked in the T shirt canon. There was just a lady dressed as Padme and I want to.

[Griffin Newman]

Episode two and this canon. Right.

[David Sims]

You know, like they were just kind of doing like there was just a stormtrooper walking around. You know, like you could kind of like high five them and they had

[Griffin Newman]

like good video package stuff.

[David Sims]

They had great video packages. And you didn't see this because of where our seats were. Exactly. But on the screen for every picture a little bit.

[Chris Gethard]

Your current enthusiasm for the New York Mets Star Wars Day versus what I can only imagine your tone and body language will be for the actual Mandalorian experience is making me sad. Making me sad.

[Griffin Newman]

In fact, we went to City Field. We took the seven.

[David Sims]

I'm currently. We took the upper side. Yeah. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

You saw the film.

[David Sims]

I'm currently all in on the Mets. It was also a great game, like, start from Nolan.

[Griffin Newman]

See, I didn't know any about that. I wasn't watching any of that stuff.

[David Sims]

Great game. It's true. We were. My friend Ellen was there, and she

[Chris Gethard]

was like, I really.

[David Sims]

I hope I want to get Griffin into it. Like, And I was just like, Griffin's been going to sports games all his life.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, his.

[David Sims]

He knows how to entertain himself at a sports game. He gets his food.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

He's got his, like, business.

[Griffin Newman]

Check out the merch.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

He's not. You're not about to be like, griff, look at this guy. Like, let me get you in.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, she did turn to me at one point, and this is Ellen Cushing, who co hosts your secret podcast.

[David Sims]

It's different. Not secret podcast that you should all listen to.

[Griffin Newman]

She turned to me at one point and went, so, Griffin, what relationship do you have to baseball? And I'm like, everyone thinks that. I've just been, like, never looked at it. And I'm like, this was shoved down my throat for 12 years.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

There was extended prison.

[David Sims]

That war was waged.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

You know, I'm not gonna wage that war. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It was much like Andor we fought so hard for our freedom. The Gorman master from the tyranny. I mean, I've been talking about this with my therapist lately.

[Chris Gethard]

I'm like, about Andor.

[Griffin Newman]

No, I should talk more about and Orthor. I don't know if she's watched it, but I feel like Until I was 12, I played two sports a week.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Kept making me do it. Seem true they did that. I've known you. I've known you almost 20 years now, and that does not ring. Isn't that crazy? Crazy sports. Was it Manhattan sports? Were you playing, like, highlight?

[David Sims]

I was in Manhattan, too. I did all the little league sports like, they had.

[Griffin Newman]

I did basketball in particular. Yes.

[Chris Gethard]

Would you be shocked if he was like, I had to play two sports, and it was racquetball and chess. Like, would you be shocked if I'm laughing.

[Griffin Newman]

Would you be surprised that when I got to high school to fulfill my PE Requirement, I took a physio ball class? That was when I had the agency to lean into the bit. What is up until.

[David Sims]

The hell? Is that like, where you got, like, a medicine?

[Griffin Newman]

Basically, like Lamaze class. It's. Yeah. Doing exercises on a big medicine.

[David Sims]

Kind of like rolling up and down or whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And I almost got incomplete. They were like, I'm not even joking. I'm not even joking.

[David Sims]

They were like, what's the right field of you doing this? Because you're not like, how do we

[Griffin Newman]

make this from 13 on? I was exactly what everyone thinks I was from before 12 in gym class

[Chris Gethard]

discussing Betty Friedan with the other kids in gym class. Like that type. Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Not to stereotype with the girls. Until I was 13, I was doing baseball, I was doing soccer. They made me go to basketball camp. Roller hockey, boxing.

[Chris Gethard]

You boxed?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Chris Gethard]

There's not a no.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, this shit was a nightmare.

[Ben Hosley]

And by boxing, were you just a punching bag?

[David Sims]

He was foxy boxing.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, no, I wasn't, like, competitively boxing against people, but my dad was like, you should learn how to defend yourself. And I'm like, what if I'm a professional podcaster? And he's like, what's a podcast? I'm like, I'm gonna figure out how to make this a thing.

[David Sims]

Do that instead. And I'll defend myself on Mike. Thank you very much.

[Chris Gethard]

You guys really don't want to talk about the man.

[Griffin Newman]

And then we've gone through all of it. The game was good.

[David Sims]

Game was great.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then we went to the movie, and, you know, we're watching the movie, and I would say, you know, we're chatting a little bit, we're sitting in the back row, and, like, you know, a lot of times we're whistling this ain't really, you know, light My Fire. And then the Grogu part, which we'll talk about more, where it's only Grogu, right? Where he's in the swamp alone trying to help. Like, two minutes and I massive thoughts on. I whispered to Griffin, like, not saying, this is good, but I'm more interested. Two minutes later, I was like, I'm officially declaring this part of the movie good. And I was like, I came aboard.

[Chris Gethard]

And up until how long into it?

[David Sims]

Basically, the whole Grogu alone segment. I was very into it.

[Griffin Newman]

Spoilers. The Mandalorian wakes up again.

[Chris Gethard]

Now, again, I know that anytime I'm. I don't want to lean in too much to my relationship with your guys. Fans. But anytime that I have a counterpoint to you guys, it does set me apart.

[David Sims]

Don't worry about it.

[Chris Gethard]

I got very restless during that.

[Griffin Newman]

See, I was restless during every other part.

[David Sims]

I would agree.

[Griffin Newman]

And David and I were checking it. I did, like, hate this movie. It did not inspire enough to, like, make me angry.

[David Sims]

It is not the worst Star wars movie.

[Chris Gethard]

No.

[David Sims]

Can we agree?

[Griffin Newman]

No. Not even.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Chris Gethard]

And Solo, I would argue.

[David Sims]

I think I prefer solo to this.

[Griffin Newman]

I do as well.

[David Sims]

I like, but I mean, it's probably kind of okay.

[Chris Gethard]

I would say I liked this better than Keep going.

[Griffin Newman]

Are you gonna say it?

[Chris Gethard]

Most of the prequels and sequels, that's okay.

[Griffin Newman]

That a little.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I'm not there.

[Chris Gethard]

If I had to sit down and watch one of them again. Yeah, I might watch this one again because it's standalone and not tying me into a bunch of lore that I know is kind of a headache and confusing.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, I'm. Look, I'll say this. This probably will end up being a Star wars movie. I rewatch a lot because I, of course, suffer from insomnia, and this movie was threatening to put me asleep when

[Chris Gethard]

you had a press screening. I will also say I saw it in Morristown, New Jersey, where I was in the theater, and there were two moms who brought a group of about nine boys who all seemed to be about 11 to 13 years old.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

So I also got to watch it in that context where as I left the theater in a way that I promise was not too creepy.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

The mon. One of the moms made eye contact with me, and I was like, how'd they like it? And she was like, they.

[Ben Hosley]

So I'm like, I had the same exact experience.

[Chris Gethard]

That's a lot different than seeing it with a bunch of professional reviewers. No offense to one of my favorite viewers. Hey, it's Sims. It's Sepin Wall. It's everybody else, baby.

[David Sims]

That's very nice of you.

[Griffin Newman]

Chris Steppenwall was at the screening. Oh, was he?

[Chris Gethard]

I'm sure he was.

[Griffin Newman]

He texted me it in a room

[Chris Gethard]

with Sims and Steppenwall, I think sets the. A different Simpson. Simpson step and go right down the list. That's a different environment than. Than eight kids in Jersey who like monsters fighting. They want to see a poison snake.

[David Sims]

Hear you on the kids.

[Chris Gethard]

They want to see dragon snake.

[Griffin Newman]

They want to see irl, Derek.

[David Sims]

I very much was like, yeah, it's a movie. It's very much like a movie for kids. And, like, I. I don't Buy that as a defense. Exactly. But I was like, certainly that's the tone it's going for.

[Chris Gethard]

Experientially though, I had that, I would

[David Sims]

say at a Star wars press screening. Yes, there's a few learned espresso sipping. There is a lot of people who work in the sort of fan and genre journalism. I'm very enthusiastic about Star Wars.

[Griffin Newman]

I would say it was. It was majority like fandom journalists over film critics.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin Newman]

I will throw out. It was like pretty silent. It was very late in the movie. In that same section, I want to say where I turned to Dave and I went. I think that's the first joke that landed like that got a laugh from the audience. Outside of like one ice.

[Chris Gethard]

The jokes were bad. The dialog was bad.

[Griffin Newman]

The jokes.

[Chris Gethard]

The score was awesome.

[Griffin Newman]

The score's awesome score was legitimate. Luda Gornson, beyond innocent.

[Chris Gethard]

The score was good enough that multiple times throughout the movie I clocked. This score is cool and weird.

[David Sims]

What's interesting about the score, it's different. Like. And it's like, there's not a lot of stuff in this movie that felt too different. The score is one thing where you're like, I also.

[Chris Gethard]

Even as someone saying I liked it, like seeing a movie and obviously spoilers. Right. We don't need to say that seeing a movie where it. Where Roku establishes no new powers that we haven't seen in the show. To my memory, he does not. Healing and lifting.

[David Sims]

He does that already.

[Chris Gethard]

And literally it ends with them getting just the two of them back in a fucking spaceship and flying away. Which is a thousand times again. I'm like, this reflects so much. Corporate boardroom.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Chris Gethard]

A little bit drooping analysis in a way that's frustrating. That again, the refusal to meet the moment. Holy.

[Griffin Newman]

I have to sell the balance on a couple things. Having rewatched season three recently, they do at one point dub him Din Grogu.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's like a family name is the family.

[Griffin Newman]

Except that they're training him as a Mandalorian. Even though in season two and Boba Fett, both Ahsoka and Deep Fake Luke trained him.

[David Sims]

So the idea kind of is like, but I don't want to be a Jedi.

[Griffin Newman]

The idea is that he's the of hyper. He's like the first Jedi Mandalorian. But they don't do it Force using. They don't do it in this movie. Yeah. But season three, they're like, he is canonically Din Grogu. And when they start calling him Din Grogu, they don't stop calling him Din Grogu, which speaks to kind of what you're saying, which is this movie is in this insane. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Place where the movies have just been on ice. The TV shows have become this unwieldy thing. Grogu as a character is the one thing that undeniably has been working for them. Selling toys, making money hand over fist. Right.

[Ben Hosley]

Don't.

[Chris Gethard]

With Grogu. When totally kind of all we want to see is some character development from.

[Griffin Newman]

And you can just tell that this was a corporate mandate. Favreau has said this himself that they had season four at least, like, broken down into outlines, if not, like, basic, like, scriptments. They had the season figured out, and Disney was like, can. Can you make a movie instead? And they scrapped all of that and they wrote a new thing from scratch. And it was because he said a. It felt like what we had was designed for TV and it wouldn't work in film because you need to tell one cohesive story and not be episodic. I would say this movie fails on that front. It is crazy to me that it's not just several episodes mushed together that he claims all of that was thrown out. And that would potentially maybe be a season four if they go back to tv, which is the real issue here. You're making a movie that is not like a finale to a TV show. It's not the graduation. It's just here's another adventure. It's a little bit bigger in terms of length. We don't want to make it too tied into the lore of the three seasons of the Mandalorian, let alone the book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, what have you. So it's like, basically not building on anything for the people who have watched that. But if you haven't watched that, it doesn't really, like, get you into the world well. Or make you care about these characters outside of just Grogu being cute. And I saw Babu Fricks on a

[Chris Gethard]

little Dune buggy fly. Like, they gave me that stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

There's stuff.

[Chris Gethard]

But I saw Weaver in a Rogue Squad.

[Griffin Newman]

We're gonna talk about her.

[David Sims]

Talk about that.

[Griffin Newman]

I saw someone in a review say

[David Sims]

nothing else she did was good.

[Griffin Newman]

Things already were getting out of hand when season three of the Mandalorian lost the intimacy of the Lone Wolf and Cub dynamic.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And the standalone adventures.

[Chris Gethard]

They did try to make this one kind of Lone Wolf and Cub and Cub, where the second Cub was Jeremy Allen White. He Has a jacked.

[Griffin Newman]

He's sort of. It was Lone Wolf and Cub and Bub kinda wild. It's insane that I want to keep.

[Chris Gethard]

I wanted that's because we would do

[Griffin Newman]

of like, they're gonna make a movie with, like, Hot Jabba's son. Like, he's played by Jeremy Allen White.

[Chris Gethard]

I just want to be clear, though. Even me saying, like, I liked it better than the reviewers, I think being in a theater with a bunch of kids helped. My final feeling really was like, going from a show that I loved that season one made me feel like maybe Star wars is back on track. That the end of the movie. As I walked out, I went, did I really just watch those two fucking assholes fly away in a ship again like that. That, like, I. I liked it better than the reviewers and I still walked away like. It's not how movies were. Movies characters are different at the end than in the beginning. And they just copped out on the very basic narrative choice. At point A, things begin, and in the end you see how characters change and how that affects the narrative.

[Griffin Newman]

If this movie would even claim to have an emotional arc.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It would be, well, the Din Djarin, the Mandalorian himself, who learns that someday Grogu's gonna grow up.

[Chris Gethard]

Well, that.

[Griffin Newman]

That is. And it, like, vaguely accepts it. If.

[Chris Gethard]

Can I put.

[Griffin Newman]

We know one thing about Grogu, it's that he ages so slow.

[David Sims]

Well, he's allowed to grow up. That we can't stop. Sell him in toy form A.

[Griffin Newman]

We can't sell him in toy form B. Timeline wise, I think Mando will be dead before Grogu even hits puberty.

[David Sims]

Possibly.

[Chris Gethard]

Can I. There's a thing I do want to talk about that I wrote down.

[David Sims]

Please.

[Chris Gethard]

Ties in directly to what brought in

[David Sims]

notes, the written right napkin and.

[Chris Gethard]

And what I don't want to do

[Griffin Newman]

file under his arm.

[Chris Gethard]

I don't want to dwell in the era of fan fiction. It's boring.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Chris Gethard]

But to the exact point that we're saying right now of, like, this little Muppet sells toys. We can't ever have them. Change is very frustrating corporate thinking. And there is a thing that I perked up for that I only want to put out there as, like, fantasy booking, so to speak.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. I wonder if it's the same thing.

[Chris Gethard]

I thought because Only because I have a feeling that if I say this out loud right here, the day after the movie came out on the Blank Check podcast, that I have a feeling it may be revealed at some point that corporate interference interfered with something I thought they were about to do.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[Chris Gethard]

And I have.

[David Sims]

Just say the thing, please. What is the thing?

[Chris Gethard]

Why are you already mad at me? David, this is our already mad at me.

[Griffin Newman]

We never would have met.

[Chris Gethard]

I drove from New Jersey. I paid tolls and congestion prices.

[David Sims]

Absolutely. Cover your travel. Geez. Just tell Ben.

[Chris Gethard]

Drove very far.

[Griffin Newman]

Business expense, you know.

[David Sims]

Noah told you to move to the boonies. Sorry. Sorry. He's happy. He's kind of like. He's kind of like a kayak. He got a kayak. He got a kayak.

[Chris Gethard]

So it's our best dragon. The dragon thing scratches.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Mando, the.

[David Sims]

The poisoning.

[Chris Gethard]

They established this poison is going to kill him. Get lost.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Right in the Grogu comes back.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah. He puts them in the weird little mud hut he tries to build. Bonks his head a couple times. It's sort of cute, but I've seen it a million times.

[David Sims]

I laughed. And then they kept doing it. I was like, guys, you got me the first time.

[Griffin Newman]

By the way, Bonk was the laugh in the audience. That was the one.

[Chris Gethard]

I'll also say too, nobody loved Babu Frick's original appearance more than me. You guys heard it true. I don't know that. Multiply it by four and put him on a fast little dune buggy is like, come on, guys. I I treading on why people hated

[Griffin Newman]

the E. Posted a negative letterbox thing and people in the comments went, how was Babu Frick? And I'm like, this is the trick. They're pulling in. The marketing people are like, Babu Frik's in it. And I'm like, no, this is set decades before Rise of Skywalker. At best, we are watching Babu Frik's uncles.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

That's some of what I'm about to say.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Some of what I'm about to say is tangled up in the existence of this timeline that they're down to. But he's there with the fucking scratch. They establish that they have said so many times that Grogu doesn't speak. Right. They explicitly say he doesn't speak. These all feel like choices here.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

I will tell you when I'm watching Mando with that scratch.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

I am brought back to one of the most influential moments of my entire childhood. Which is Transformers the movie, which I did not see in the theater.

[David Sims]

I've only seen it once. But is Optimus prime dies in it. Someone famous

[Griffin Newman]

1986 year old fantastic prime dies. Orson Welles was dying when he recorded

[David Sims]

Orson Welles Plays the Plan.

[Griffin Newman]

He plays Unicron. He Is a giant transformer the size of a planet.

[Chris Gethard]

It's incredible. Fantastic use. Fantastic use of weird Optimus, by the way. Incredible.

[David Sims]

But Optimus.

[Chris Gethard]

Let me talk to you about this. Let me talk to you about this. So because I'm older than you guys, I was watching Transformers episode by episode as a six year old child.

[David Sims]

It was like one of your first genres.

[Chris Gethard]

I'm hanging on things half an hour, half an hour, half an hour.

[Griffin Newman]

Is it the Matrix of power? Is that Matrix of Leadership?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Right? Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Now my parent. I did not have. My family didn't have money growing up and that was the same year we. My parents bought a new house. So there was zero disposable income. Plus I don't think anyone in my family wanted to sit through the Transformers movie.

[Griffin Newman]

But also you're not getting hot rod that year. You're not getting.

[Chris Gethard]

I never had the big Transformers toys. I only ever had mini bots. Many of them bought a corrupt like headmaster.

[Griffin Newman]

So we talking mini bots. Okay. Many look at many bots whenever we do.

[David Sims]

Michael Bay.

[Chris Gethard]

I don't see Transformers the movie. I'm also six years old. I think it was 86 it came out.

[David Sims]

You're right.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. This is the anniversary.

[Chris Gethard]

I'm six years. I turned six in May of 86. Okay. I don't see the movie. Thank you so much. The show comes back on in the fall. For some reason. It was not on at 3:30. I was watching it before school. And before school the new season comes on and it is revealed to those of us who didn't see the movie because at six you're not catching spoilers. I turned on this show and realized they fucking killed Optimus Prime. And when I tell you without exaggeration, I remember distinctly falling to my knees and grieving the death of Optimus prime as a six year old boy. That's not an exaggeration.

[Griffin Newman]

It is widely reported as one of the greatest kind of like corporate boondoggles of all time. On the level of New Coke.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Where it. It really damaged the brand.

[David Sims]

They were like we're doing this. And then they were like what have we done?

[Griffin Newman]

Reverse flying in the theater.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Chris Gethard]

They also sold a bunch of Hot Rodimus. He went from hot rod to Rodimus Prime. Yeah, they sold toys for him. Was the blue and red guy's name Alpha of something reason they did this?

[David Sims]

Like what was their.

[Griffin Newman]

It was dramatically.

[Chris Gethard]

There is a story.

[David Sims]

It wasn't like some like we need to get rid of Optimus because we don't like the voice Actor.

[Chris Gethard]

I have read that they wanted to

[Griffin Newman]

killing the Michael Bay movies.

[Chris Gethard]

I've read that they wanted to kill duke in the G.I. joe movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

But it was flagged that it would be like really disturbing to kill a human.

[David Sims]

So they used the idea.

[Griffin Newman]

They were around the same time.

[Chris Gethard]

I think they just point being though

[Griffin Newman]

they were looking and it was cool. Can we end on a downer note?

[Chris Gethard]

I think it was that I'm watching Mandalorian and Grogu and I go, are they really about to kill Mando?

[Griffin Newman]

It did kind of feel like that's interesting.

[Chris Gethard]

And I have a feeling there was a script where he was gonna die. And I have a feeling where then Grogu's gonna come back and we're gonna watch Grogu go ape. We're gonna watch Grogu murder those huts in a way.

[Griffin Newman]

Let him finish.

[Chris Gethard]

I think. I think you're gonna see him wield how he's. He's gonna pull off fights that fucking Ray park as Darth Maul didn't pull off.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

He's gonna do disturbing. That's more disturbing than we saw Vader do in Obi Wan. The most redeeming aspect of the Obi Wan series, we're gonna see him fight more with more fucking Yoda shit than Yoda did versus Count Dooku. And it's gonna end with him finally saying. He's gonna say. He's gonna end with him saying his first words, my father. He was. And we're gonna realize that Jabba the Hutt's son is witnessing it. And we're going to see a franchise that so canonically says that sons hang on to the sin. It is the responsibility of a son to reject the sins of the father and not carry them forward in generations. We're going to realize that Mando's refusal to have Grogu trained fully with Ahsoka and Luke was about the emotional attachment. The most dangerous emotional attachment in this franchise since Padme and Anakin himself. And we're going to be left with a cliffhanger that suggests that perhaps Grogu is reactivating as the Jedi Master Yoda was. Or perhaps the Sith have been reborn because Mando was not brave enough as a dad to let his son go live his own life. And it's going to be one of the most. It's going to be the best and most intriguing heel turn since Hogan joined the goddamn nwo. And somebody came in and said, we can't do it. Grogo's got to stay a good Guy.

[David Sims]

There is no way they were ever going to do.

[Chris Gethard]

I will predict that someone will hear this on blank check and it will eventually come out that there was talk of killing Mando and turning Grogu bad. I would bet money.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I agree with you. On two out of so much more interesting. I. I agree.

[Chris Gethard]

It would be finished before you make sure.

[David Sims]

I'm making the face. I'm making the face.

[Griffin Newman]

I thought there was no universe in which Grogu ever turned bad. No, I did think for a second. This feels like at some point someone pitched can Mando die? It got shut down almost immediately. And they were like, what if he's out of commission for 30 minutes?

[Chris Gethard]

It's a great. It's not great. It's a far more intriguing movie if Mando dies.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I agree with you. It felt like that was killed immediately.

[David Sims]

Guys are crazy.

[Chris Gethard]

David Sims, you're letting me down right now. No, you're letting Crazy down right now.

[Griffin Newman]

Absolutely.

[Chris Gethard]

You're calling me crazy.

[David Sims]

I'm just getting yelled at, so I will actually shut.

[Chris Gethard]

You're literally calling us crazy.

[David Sims]

You guys have ranted for five minutes about how you think they wanted to kill the Mandalorian in the first Mandalorian. That is Let him fucking nonsense. Okay, sorry.

[Chris Gethard]

But like, no, that got weirdly heated. Yes.

[David Sims]

You guys were like yelling at me after

[Chris Gethard]

you started selling a notoriously mentally ill friend of yours that he was crazy on Mike Career suicide 2017, highly rated.

[David Sims]

I raved it in the Atlantic.

[Chris Gethard]

Thank you so much. But it's insincere security of mine to be called crazy.

[David Sims]

Sorry. You're crazy about this. No, it's just like, why the would they kill?

[Chris Gethard]

This is a dup to grow and change, take a narrative chance and to meet the moment. We are not living in a time of happy endings right now.

[Griffin Newman]

Different together.

[David Sims]

You guys are triggering me because I think the worst, worst worst dramatic choice any franchise ever makes is that death is a. Is like a way of, you know, conveying storytelling, like maturity.

[Chris Gethard]

But you don't think in Star Wars a father dying.

[David Sims]

No, it's been done a million times. Boring.

[Griffin Newman]

So boring.

[David Sims]

Sure, go ahead.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree with you generally.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Oh, he died. Great. Now it's important.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it was a thing that probably in sitting down ideation. Oh, we have a Mando movie on the schedule two years from now. We just. Throughout our season. What's the movie about? I bet you it was pitched at one point and he is just asleep for 30 minutes. Was the solve for that the reason why I am Inclined to feel like Gethard, that there were seeds of intention somewhere, even if they were nipped out immediately, is that the movie is all trying to be about what happens to Grogu when the Mandalorian's gone. How is he going to be on his own? And the only good section of the movie, as we said, is him being on his own. It is different than just killing a character for emotional weight or growth, because the whole notion of the movie is, can this thing survive on its own? I also think the only section of this movie that had any narrative tension to me was, oh, I'm a little bit worried about Grogu now. He doesn't have someone protecting him.

[David Sims]

You're Occam's razoring yourself. You just. It's not that they were like, should we kill the Mandalorian? They were like, we need a Grogu section. I really think they just fundamentally were

[Chris Gethard]

like, anything with it.

[David Sims]

Of course, this movie has the mandate of not doing anything.

[Griffin Newman]

But he.

[Chris Gethard]

They couldn't even say, give him a little light, let him go crazy because his dad's mom was a literal card

[David Sims]

with a blank head and a question mark on it of like, this is the real bad guy. And you're like, oh, okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I turned to David, I go, it's Sigourney, right?

[David Sims]

They don't hire because she's the only famous person they got.

[Griffin Newman]

Looking at the opening credits, there's no

[David Sims]

surprise cast members or there's some secret, you know, reveal they're gonna do of either a new celeb or who's. Who's back or dark Grogu, you know, Filoni will start dark, and it's like Thrawn or whatever, right? Instead, they're just like, oh, that was just the bald guy you saw right at the start. Yeah, that was just him. We're. And that's that. And that. That. That's done. He absolutely is just kind of like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stop, stop, stop. Don't worry, nothing happened.

[Chris Gethard]

It's like close circle, us getting heated, which I do apologize for. David, how much do you think that was from the start? How much do you think that was corporate interference? Because I think Griffin and I are both on the side of what I can think. Tanked to death.

[David Sims]

Filoni wanted to do a Mandalorian Ahsoka crossover series.

[Griffin Newman]

When I introduce the podcast, and then I feel like we can do all of this.

[David Sims]

Haven't introduced them.

[Griffin Newman]

This is why I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help you.

[David Sims]

Well, sometimes you're trying to help me, but I am in the middle of saying something and you say, can I do something

[Griffin Newman]

about to tip off. It's a massive conversation.

[Chris Gethard]

Is this all still?

[Griffin Newman]

This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[David Sims]

I'm David.

[Griffin Newman]

Podcast about filmography. Directors who had mass success early in their careers given a series of blank checks. Make whatever crazy they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. This started out as a Star wars podcast. And then for the first five years, even when we moved on from Star wars, new Star wars movies were coming out and we kept talking about Star wars and Gethard would come on to talk about other movies and we'd still talk about Star wars. And people loved it until they hated it. Some were calling a dark grogu turn. And it has now been seven years. Star Wars Movie. Now to set up your point, in that time, here are films that have been announced and then canceled.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Patty Jenkins.

[David Sims]

Rogue Squadron.

[Griffin Newman]

Rogue Squadron announced at Disney Investor day live stream in 2021 in a video

[David Sims]

with an Air Force guy or whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Chris Gethard]

Rogue Squadron might have been cool.

[David Sims]

Who knows? Like, who can say? David, what's the matter?

[Griffin Newman]

I'm going to share for you a horrifying tale, A tale of woe and suffering.

[Ben Hosley]

Whoa.

[David Sims]

This is scary.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a tale of human error, of failing on my part.

[David Sims]

Tell me.

[Griffin Newman]

We went to the Wisconsin Film Festival. Sure. Visited our dear researcher JJ Bur I'm scared. Already participated in a screening. We. We dined out, we had fried cheese, we curds. We drank Wisconsin beer. What was the mistake?

[David Sims]

Tell me.

[Griffin Newman]

I forgot to pack my.

[David Sims]

Oh Jesus.

[Griffin Newman]

AG1.

[David Sims]

You didn't bring your AG1 to Wisconsin?

[Griffin Newman]

This is a. Fuck. This is an ad read. This is a personal endorsement from experience. They got the travel packs because the thing I love about AG1, they give you different form factors. They different give. Give you different ways to handle it. I forgot to pack an ag one. I was there for 72 hours. It. It took a week to undo. A week to undo. I'm not going to get graphic about this, but it just goes to show, as I always say in these ad reads, AG1 has really become load bearing within my life.

[David Sims]

Yes. AG1, of course. It's a daily health drink. It's clinically shown to support your gut health, fill in some nutrient gaps. It's got 75 ingredients including five clinically studied probiotic strains.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

So it's replacing a need for multivitamin probiotics and More for you. It is a pillar of existence.

[Griffin Newman]

Anytime I get thrown off of the routine, I am reminded just how helpful it is to me. Getting through any day.

[Ben Hosley]

Yes, spring brings daylight savings, packed calendars and changing routines. One scoop, 22nd. That's all it takes to keep your gut routine steady so you can reset, recharge, and embrace the season without missing a beat.

[Griffin Newman]

You get the starter kit they give you like a tin tub. They give you a scooper, they give you a shaker bottle. Right. You get the monthly or however, whatever cadence subscription cadence you want to set, but you get the delivery of the bags of powder. And it's just like I pour that into the tub Every morning. Just one scoop 8 ounces of water into the shaker. Shake it up, drink it. The world of difference and summer's drawing near. People are going to be going on vacations, sure. They're going to be traveling. Those travel packs really make a difference.

[David Sims]

Look. The benefits of AG1 energy. The superfoods and B vitamins in AG1 provide nutritional support to help you stay steady and consistent.

[Griffin Newman]

Big time.

[David Sims]

Daily energy support to keep you moving through the spring. Immune health. Daily immune support that helps you stay your best power banks, antioxidants, probiotics and functional mushrooms.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Whoa.

[Griffin Newman]

Mushrooms are functioning, trust me.

[David Sims]

AG1NextGen delivers five strains of clinically studied probiotics that have been shown to support digestion, immune function and alleviate occasional bloating. Go to drinkag1.com check to get an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 for your free AG1 welcome kit.

[Griffin Newman]

I love to drop in that K2

[David Sims]

with your first AG1 subscription order. That's a $72 value. Yours free only watt supplies last go to drink ag1.com check.

[Griffin Newman]

Also canceled or announced and never realized. Untitled Taika Waititi movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Rian Johnson trilogy. Sure. David Benioff and Trilogy.

[David Sims]

Was that. That was movies, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Trilogy.

[David Sims]

These things are all canonically dead, correct? Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And then at the Star wars celebration three years ago, they came out and said, we're finally ready to announce the next couple movies.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Here are the three. James Mangold is gonna make a movie. That's the earliest thing we've ever done on the Star wars timeline.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It is the birth of Jedi years ago. The first Jedi Sounds cool, but sounds

[Chris Gethard]

like the old dark horse.

[David Sims]

It's like these things where they bring a guy out and they're like, he's got an idea.

[Griffin Newman]

And he just signed the contract a minute ago and gave us One sentence.

[David Sims]

And everyone's like, what's it called? When's it coming out? And they're like, see you later. But yes, that is a thing.

[Griffin Newman]

The second thing they announced was episode 10 or.

[David Sims]

Or something like it.

[Griffin Newman]

They said it was episode 10. Okay, Daisy Ridley is back.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

That this is episode 10. They had just fired. What's his name? Lindelof. Damon Lindelof. Like, or.

[David Sims]

He walked away.

[Griffin Newman]

Damon Lindelof had been on a secret movie that was then retroactively revealed to have been episode 10, which was announced with Daisy Ridley's coming back. That movie was originally going to take a different direction. Now they were like, it's the Continuing Adventures of Rey. That movie has had seemingly no public progress.

[David Sims]

Although it doesn't seem entirely dead. They keep trying to figure out what that is.

[Griffin Newman]

The third movie that was announced is Dave Filoni has this master plan, Feige style. Of all these series, they're building up to Thrawn as the Thanos, right? And he is going to make a movie that counts as basically the phase one finale of the entire Disney plus project. It's going to be Ahsoka and Mandalorian and Boba Fett and fucking everybody.

[David Sims]

Who the fuck is Thrawn? You know what, Ben? It's just a great question throws from

[Chris Gethard]

the Timothy Zahn novels. He's one of the only people from the extended universe they've brought into Canada Blue.

[Griffin Newman]

He's the blue guy. Okay.

[Chris Gethard]

Those old Timothy Zahn novels are fucking great.

[David Sims]

You know, people.

[Chris Gethard]

I remember, I remember them being great. I read them, to be fair, when I was 12 years old.

[David Sims]

I also read them as a child. I don't really remember them. I remember Thrawn being cool, but. Right. They brought him into the show.

[Chris Gethard]

Alien Race. What was that species? Those, like, assassins that were under his thumb?

[David Sims]

I wish I could tell you, and I'll Google it. They brought him in. He's played by what, a third Mickelson or whatever. Which Mickelson is this?

[Griffin Newman]

Sir, we've located a third Mickelson. It's something Mickelson. Mickey Mickelson.

[David Sims]

And I think I already said this on an episode. I can't remember what. Lars Mickelson.

[Griffin Newman]

There we go.

[David Sims]

He has, like, Joe Biden energy where they're like, meet Thrawn. Like, the scariest. And he's just like, hello, you should get Ahsoka. I'll see you later. Like, he doesn't do anything.

[Chris Gethard]

Well, this is the Filoni thing, right? He has no energy. Like, bring a character from an Obscure cartoon that he also is behind. And it's just. Okay. It's also. There's a thing that's here.

[David Sims]

Look at him point pointing. You know, just the way the Filoni shows brought back Hayley Christensen to play Anakin. And he's like, here I am.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, the major project of the Filoni shows, of course, is that when Disney buys Lucasfilm.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

They go, here's the canon of Star Wars. The canon of Star wars is the six movies that have been theatrically released.

[David Sims]

Indeed.

[Griffin Newman]

And the Clone wars cartoon show. Yes. End of story.

[David Sims]

And I think was Rebels in the work.

[Griffin Newman]

Rebels was the first thing started by

[Chris Gethard]

them and a bunch of comic books.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Well, once those started, they basically said, but all previous comics.

[David Sims]

Comics and books.

[Chris Gethard]

The Marvel relaunched.

[David Sims]

But the prior stuff is now consigned to what they call Legends.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly.

[David Sims]

And is not canon.

[Griffin Newman]

Marvel is now going to start new comic series. This is the start of the new canon. We're going to do new cartoon shows that is expanding.

[Chris Gethard]

That will just say the Lando series.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[Chris Gethard]

Very good. And gives you a lot of background. Comic book is a comic book that does a pretty good job of explaining everything you've ever wanted to know about Lobot.

[Griffin Newman]

I would tell you a few questions. I will say I think the first two years of the Marvel comics were really excellent. And I was reading all of them. And then, like everything else, it got overwhelming. There was too much.

[David Sims]

I lost the tv.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[David Sims]

We all. The first season, the Mandalorian rocks.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a triumph.

[David Sims]

And like, you know, I feel like even those early novels, like the new official novels that were being written in the wider.

[Griffin Newman]

People were, like, dialed in the first High Republic novel. People were all about the reason.

[David Sims]

Reason is because they were really making an effort, like, to, you know, they were picking talented people. And they were right. They were like, yeah, we have to make. And then, as you say, they, you know, start to lose the threat a little bit. There's too much stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

I also think Filoni wheels spinning. I think Filoni's major project from the outside has seemed to be. I want to salvage things and bring them back into the canon. It has felt like that is his priority on the work he does.

[David Sims]

He's a bit of a keeper of the flame.

[Chris Gethard]

What is the world building?

[Griffin Newman]

What is the extended universe stuff that has now been knocked out of canon into legends that I want to reintroduce. So, like, Thrawn was not on the Clone Wars. They reintroduced Thrawn on Rebels. It was a big deal. Holy shit. Thrawn counts again and then live action. Thrawn in Ahsoka, this feels the pipeline of what he's been doing for the last 10 years is just, let me pick my people, let me put them in a cartoon. Let me make them live action. They count again.

[David Sims]

Next.

[Griffin Newman]

Repeat, repeat, repeat. That movie is supposed to be the payoff of all this.

[Chris Gethard]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And then as you are setting up here.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

The movie mysteriously kind of disappears. Doesn't really get talked about again. And there's a sudden surprise announcement. Mandalorian and grogu movie coming. 2026 standalone adventure. Does this negate or replace season?

[Chris Gethard]

There's a whole other aspect.

[Griffin Newman]

And they were like, I don't know, maybe we do another season after this or maybe it would just be other movies.

[Chris Gethard]

And then we also have to point out, which I think everybody knows and. Or which hits and is truly special, is a phenomena.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a miracle.

[David Sims]

And we will talk about it, of course.

[Chris Gethard]

But it just also say, just to only tie it into what we're saying here, that with this thing that's regarded as phenomenal, that's getting credit with something that I bet drives them nuts, even if this wasn't Star wars, how does

[Griffin Newman]

this even come out of the Star wars system? Like, a lot of the praise is backhanded.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Like what?

[Chris Gethard]

You start to hear that there's bitterness about this and who knows how true it is, but the Internet rumblings are that sides there's like a baloney bitterness about the Gilroy of it all. Yeah. You hear these rumblings.

[David Sims]

Filoni has his garden. The Ahsoka regards it as his.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

He's kind of left to it and

[Chris Gethard]

has apparently indicated that he's not a huge fan of Andor, which is only the more frustrating for all of us hardcore fans who feel like Andor is the thing that nailed it.

[David Sims]

And it's also just the thing that felt different.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also.

[David Sims]

That's good.

[Griffin Newman]

Entirely different philosophical approaches. Do you want to make things that are exploring the ideas already within Star wars in new ways or do you want to just kind of circle back to what Star wars has been? You know, and it's a lot of like, you know, can I make movies that feel like the old movies? And Filoni, it's like, can I reintroduce my friends?

[David Sims]

Well, and like Filoni, we should acknowledge, is George Lucas's like, apprentice.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

His Padawan learner of sorts.

[Griffin Newman]

He was the guy that Lucas the

[Chris Gethard]

Roy Thomas to his Stanley.

[David Sims]

Right. He brings him over from Abadar the

[Chris Gethard]

last airbender to talk about. I think it has major implications.

[David Sims]

Very briefly talk.

[Chris Gethard]

You brought it up. I was actually I was, I was trying to be

[Griffin Newman]

squirm in his hands on the table.

[David Sims]

I don't know much about. Always heard is like a lovely guy. You know, everyone's always like he's a sweetie pie. But like I do feel like he's the last like keeper of the flame of like the Lucas 2000s era of star Wars. A little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a feeling of even though George Lucas is still alive. I'd say it's a little bit like Steve Whitmire with with the Muppets where you know, he was eventually pushed out of playing Kermit. But there was this feeling of Jim chose him and now Jim's gone. We have to all kind of follow what Steve says is right.

[David Sims]

Right. Because it's like he's still invested with Jim's energy and we don't want like. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's odd when George is still alive, but there is this feeling of like I don't know. George picked Dave.

[Chris Gethard]

Ralph is the most overrated Muppet.

[Griffin Newman]

I just need his name is Ralph.

[David Sims]

I feel like you've said that before.

[Griffin Newman]

Respect.

[David Sims]

You like to bust that.

[Griffin Newman]

Boys has been doing a Muppets month and Weger loves Rolf but hates all of the Electric Mayhem. He has the exact opposite take which

[Chris Gethard]

is David, do you hate when I'm on this show? The Internet always says you do. And today's the first day where I really feel like it might be true.

[David Sims]

I do not. I do.

[Griffin Newman]

I know. I I we're having a great time.

[David Sims]

I low key again. We'll just stress you. Tuesday was very traumatizing for me and I'm feeling a little anxious about the amount of branching things going on. But no, I love having you on the show.

[Chris Gethard]

I know I've been through. To be fair, I won't do it. I have been threatening to the boys to make this entire episode about Avatar

[David Sims]

the last seen it right? Have you never seen it?

[Griffin Newman]

I've only seen the first three episodes for when I auditioned for the Shyamalan.

[Chris Gethard]

I gotta say one thing about it because it's lore.

[Griffin Newman]

We said back in the you watched it recently.

[Chris Gethard]

My son found it. My wife and I both realized separately that we would go in to tell him it was time to turn off the TV and would sit and watch full episodes with him him and then asked him at the age of then six, hey, can we once he finished it, can we Go back to the beginning and watch it together again as a family.

[David Sims]

Right. Like, can we.

[Chris Gethard]

Actually, I. I will say it is. It's a 2005 Nickelodeon cartoon.

[David Sims]

I think people know it.

[Chris Gethard]

Incredible.

[David Sims]

Like, Griffin doesn't know what it is.

[Griffin Newman]

I just haven't watched it.

[Chris Gethard]

But when you watch it, I kind of always lumped it in. There was a phase there where Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, these things that either were from Japan or inspired by Japanese.

[David Sims]

Right. When it was on, I was college, and I was a little bit.

[Chris Gethard]

I was old.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

I was 25 years old when it came out.

[Griffin Newman]

But my sister was the exact right age. She was weirdly into it because it's not. It's that kind of thing.

[Chris Gethard]

It's not weird.

[Griffin Newman]

She tried to get me into it, and then I had. I got an audition for what was supposed to be Shyamalan's trilogy. Yeah. To play soccer.

[Chris Gethard]

You were gonna play soccer?

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, I didn't get the.

[Chris Gethard]

You almost played soccer.

[Griffin Newman]

I did not get any.

[David Sims]

Griffin is one of the leads of Avatar.

[Griffin Newman]

I remind you, they made soccer like a fucking hunk on the. On the movie. And he's not funny, but he's kind

[Chris Gethard]

of a crybaby on the show in a hilarious way. But I just.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, but that's the. I've only ever seen the first.

[Chris Gethard]

The first three I've watched Avatar about, I would say, six months ago.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Chris Gethard]

Instantly, really, really fell in love with it.

[Griffin Newman]

You've been texting me about it a

[Chris Gethard]

lot, and I've been talking a lot about it with people. But at the steals, I had lies with Korra. You're the one who told me Korra's underrated. Worth the watch.

[David Sims]

I. I stick up.

[Chris Gethard]

But, David, I don't know if you had the same feeling. I remember watching it with my son.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Chris Gethard]

And the reason I want to tie it into today's conversation is that I had this feeling that was maybe slightly heartbreaking for me, but also made me really happy for him, which was, oh, everything I got out of Star Wars. He's getting out of this show.

[David Sims]

Oh. Like that you're not able to have the Star wars shared experience or that

[Griffin Newman]

Star wars isn't meeting him where he lives today.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Kids today can just go watch an adventure movie and be like, star wars cool.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Chris Gethard]

It's all of us who are old and who grew up with it who feel like, why can't they fucking figure out the moral tales again? But since 2005, I legitimately think you could put, I'm not blowing smoke I don't know if you'd agree with this, David, but I'm like, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Avatar the Last Airbender are, to me, the three fantasy epics that teach kids morals, right and wrong, good and evil, how to exist in a scary world. Avatar's very layered. So since 2005.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Chris Gethard]

Kids don't need Star wars to do that. Avatar has been doing that for a few generations.

[David Sims]

It's like there's more options.

[Chris Gethard]

But I think it's part of why. I think. I think it's part of why I can go to Mandalorian and Grogu and not be angry. Why I can. I can go because I don't think.

[David Sims]

Riffer. I were angry. We're just. No, that was a bit of a nothing burn.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but we're really doing nothing here. Come on. Like, I felt exhausted by it.

[Chris Gethard]

I just think that as an adult, when you watch Avatar and I watched it with a kid, but I do think there's something to be said for, like, okay, Star Wars. I'm sadly recognizing that Star Wars. Star wars used to be something like, for a lot of us, I think a lot of us grew up. And if you weren't that religious, Star wars kind of gave you what religion gave you.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

And we get mad that it's not that anymore, but, like, maybe we can let that.

[Griffin Newman]

It does need to change. We do need to let things go, as Kylo Ren said.

[David Sims]

Yeah, right. Let the past go. Like, the first one came out from Last Jedi.

[Chris Gethard]

The first one came out a year after the bicentennial and, like, predicted Reaganism and good versus evil, and it was at same time as the Ramones and this whole idea of, like, look backwards while also establishing the future.

[David Sims]

You're not going to recreate that.

[Griffin Newman]

No. Well, no,

[Chris Gethard]

Ramon, you think about the cultural moment, like a new hope, metacultural moment that ties into looking back at the 50s and moving forward to the 80s. And Star wars was part of that. And, like, the heroes we needed them were Luke Skywalker and Rocky. You know, like, it gave us these heroes that write the moment.

[David Sims]

I don't know if we want to bring back Johnny Ramone right now. I don't know what he think of our current president. He might be a little too into it.

[Chris Gethard]

The most important band of that era was also looking back while re establishing an exciting future. Star wars refuses to fucking give that to us anymore. And then when they almost do with andor a bunch of people involved in Star wars publicly, at least, they get mad about I was going to say it's sad. It's sad, but we got to start letting it go if we're ever going to be able to enjoy these movies as anything except a toy factory.

[Griffin Newman]

Weirdly, I think, you know, differing opinions. But Last Jedi really, really tried to do that and instead it launched a culture war rather than becoming part of a convers of what it was commenting on.

[Chris Gethard]

No argument.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[Chris Gethard]

End of my contributions to the Last Jedi.

[Griffin Newman]

Great. And then, and then. And or I agree with you. Is sadly because of how fucking cyclical humanity is, is really in conversation with what's going on in the world today

[Chris Gethard]

and inputs into the original trilogy in a way none of this other stuff does.

[Griffin Newman]

But it is fascinating to me that now having finally watched it for the first time, it's the greatest fudgeing TV show. It's unbelievable. It's an astonishing work.

[Chris Gethard]

I have. I thought too. I think if you watch the two seasons of Andor.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Rogue One and the original trilogy, that's the perfect Star wars experience.

[Griffin Newman]

I finished Andor last night, so I have not done the Rogue One rewatch post. Andor. I'll let you know how that goes. I. I imagine because even like certainly I care a lot more about let's say Cassie and Andor. Yes. But let's also say a little guy that I know you like, Chris Gathert.

[Chris Gethard]

Who's this?

[Griffin Newman]

Someone who you've said is maybe the new kid hit FISTO of the Star wars universe.

[Chris Gethard]

Oh, we. If you want to get into a FISTO discussion, we talking.

[David Sims]

I have a billion to say.

[Chris Gethard]

But Sagara is the current FISTO of Star Wars Kit. FISTO is no longer the FISTO is now the title.

[Ben Hosley]

I'm down.

[David Sims]

I love Sara. It's awesome.

[Chris Gethard]

Character is the most interesting, the most.

[David Sims]

I'm playing ref.

[Griffin Newman]

Give.

[David Sims]

Give him the force. I really need to talk for a second.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, David.

[David Sims]

Go on Avatar. The last snare Bender. Very good show. Wonderful. I think it's good that I can't wait to watch that with my kid. That'll be great. I also can't wait to watch Star

[Griffin Newman]

wars with my kid.

[David Sims]

I think there's room for all of this.

[Chris Gethard]

My kid was unimpressed by Star Wars. Well, I'm gonna ask you.

[David Sims]

Okay, so maybe this is part of your.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, oh, but you didn't take him to the movie yesterday.

[Chris Gethard]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, but you weren't interested.

[David Sims]

This is your emotional journey you're on. You're right. You tried to get your kid into Star wars or like you get, you know, you Showed it to him and he was kind of like, eh, right.

[Chris Gethard]

And with Avatar, I saw him getting.

[David Sims]

You got it organically.

[Chris Gethard]

Everything Star wars gave me when I was his age, Avatar's giving him now. This idea. We live in a layered world. People are put upon your phone.

[David Sims]

Okay, okay. All right, Wait, wait. I still need to reply. Okay, so Avatar, I watched that in the pandemic. My wife had already watched it when it was on, so she knew it. And it was one of those pandemic things of like, we ought to watch something all the time, right? Like, the TVs just got to be on because we're so bored. So I watch all of Avatar, all of Korra. Like, then, remember I was watching with election night, 2020 Biden, Trump, when Trump. Tragically, I mean, he won. We all know he won, obviously, right?

[Griffin Newman]

When he was lied to and the public was lied to.

[David Sims]

No, like, I remember, like, we were really stressed out election night. And like, I was like, I'm putting on Avatar. Like, we were not going to know anything for a few hours anyway. I remember us watching it.

[Griffin Newman]

It's sort of a cherished memory.

[David Sims]

Love Avatar. Got the steals Griff.

[Griffin Newman]

Love that, love that.

[David Sims]

Haven't re. Cracked that. But I have been kind of like, yeah, that'll be perfect for my daughter in like a year or two to like, pretty soon.

[Griffin Newman]

And you haven't done Star wars with your daughter yet, but we know it'll several friends, mutual friends of ours who have kids around your daughter's age and they're too older. We have like a bunch of friends who have all in the run up to Mandalorian been like, is it time to show my kids Star wars who have gone through them and have Star wars obsessed kids now? I would say it's not a thing that's completely bouncing off the entire job.

[David Sims]

And my daughter's pretty interested in Star wars because the toys are like what she's seeing.

[Chris Gethard]

He likes the toys. He likes the characters.

[Griffin Newman]

He Kid Fisto gave him some Kid Fisto toys. You did.

[Chris Gethard]

You gave him a Kit Fist onesie when he was born.

[Griffin Newman]

And it was also a Coca Cola onesie. It was soda and Kit Fisto. Gethard's two favorite things.

[Chris Gethard]

That is true. He likes Boba Fett.

[Griffin Newman]

His fizz, sure.

[Chris Gethard]

But the sense I get from the kids his age is like, I can look back and I didn't know this as a kid, but I'm like, all right, I'm gonna wind up not being a practicing Catholic. And Star wars is a little bit more of My moral and ethical.

[David Sims]

Which is great. Great.

[Chris Gethard]

They're not getting that out of it.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's a big ask. It's a big ask where you're like, I need my kid to essentially religiously connect.

[Chris Gethard]

Avatar's a little bit closer, but that's fine.

[David Sims]

That's a good. At least. That's good at least. He's not like, I love. I mean, I don't know what the. What the bad version of this is.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah, he's not out here, like, watching looks maxing videos. He's not getting in on that. He's not like, dad, can I eat elk's meat? And can I eat elk meat and get a jaw reconstruction surgery?

[Griffin Newman]

What year do you introduce a kid to clavicular?

[David Sims]

I don't know, 12, 13. Just the second they sort of start asking questions about their body, you're like, oh, these are questions can all be answered by Mr. Clavicular.

[Griffin Newman]

Someone who has it figured out. Height, lying re. Saw Gerrera, Kit Fisto or L. It

[David Sims]

would be awesome if there was a scene in any of the Star wars movies where someone said to kit Fisto, like, you come on pretty strong. You know what I mean? Like. Because, like, what I love about Sarra is that even Stone Skarsgard, you know, even he's like. He's a lot like, you know, we need every weapon in our toolbox over here, but my God, is that man tough to do.

[Chris Gethard]

I love it because it takes Star wars from Rebellions are built on hope and goes, no. They're sold on hope.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

They're built on lunatics like Stalin, Skarsgard, and Sawgrass.

[Griffin Newman]

Skarsgard's name is Lutheran Rail.

[David Sims]

Lutheran Rail.

[Chris Gethard]

It's lucid. And like, that's who. They're built on extremist mania. And when you watch by Luke Skywalker and the branding.

[Griffin Newman]

I was gonna say when Andor And

[David Sims]

I was like, I gotta watch Rogue One. Right away. You put it on. You're dialed into Cassian. And then there is Jyn Erso.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

And you are after watching andor kind of like, I don't care about you or your dad.

[Griffin Newman]

This is my exact concern.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah, I like that. That. And maybe I'm giving them too much credit because I love so much.

[David Sims]

And Cassian's, like, flirting with her, and you're like, you have a baby.

[Chris Gethard]

But I. I do like the idea that. That all these characters were operating in their own little vacuums to foment this thing and barely know each other and putting their lives on the line and this explicit non trust stuff in that

[Griffin Newman]

movie in a better world too.

[Chris Gethard]

Andor and Rogue One retroactively make one of Luke Skywalker's lines in A New Hope.

[David Sims]

Hope.

[Chris Gethard]

So sad.

[Griffin Newman]

Which one?

[David Sims]

I used to Bullseye womb.

[Chris Gethard]

Have we talked about this before? I'm not sure that's the line. That line becomes so tragically naive. And you realize everyone else in that room must hear that kid say that and go, I hope he's not in my squadron because not only is he dead, he's gonna get us killed.

[David Sims]

Sure, sure, sure.

[Chris Gethard]

Then like the contextualizing of that. Yeah, that Luke is legit a new hope, like optimism was dead.

[Griffin Newman]

The thing that brought it back about Andor is that like. Right. It feels like, like, I know.

[Chris Gethard]

See what the Empire did.

[Griffin Newman]

It makes original Star wars even richer because it is not diminishing it by being like, well, that's like silly, frothy surface level kid. It's being like, no, this is like religious myth. These are the sort of like figures that we can prop up as miracles that help sell a belief system and

[Chris Gethard]

literally allow society to move on from A New hope.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And it's like, here's actually the historical account count. Here's what was happening.

[Chris Gethard]

Whereas the book of Boba Fett says, what if this character you've always wanted to see kick ass becomes a low level, county level bureaucrat? He effectively becomes a county's sheriff.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

We should also mention, I think everyone knows this, but Dave Filoni is now in charge of Star Wars. He is now the creative head at this moment.

[Chris Gethard]

And I like a lot of what he's.

[Griffin Newman]

Kathleen Kennedy stepping down.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Like some of what he's done. Have you watched all of Clone Wars? No. Right.

[Chris Gethard]

I've watched a lot of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

He was announced as president of Lucasfilm in January 2026. However, Linwyn Brennan, who's a longtime like, ILM person, was announced as like co president.

[Griffin Newman]

Similar to the James Gunn situation, where she is sort of the business person and he is the creative person. Right. Because there is only one Feige who is seemingly good at doing both of those things. And anytime they've tried to make someone do both, right, it's been a calamity. And I think part of the worry if people trying to do an autopsy on the Kathleen Kennedy era, their takeaway was, this is kind of one of the greatest producers in Hollywood history. Not kind of inarguably one of the greatest producers in Hollywood history, but she worked with incredible creative minds and storytellers. She was never Someone generating stories or even developing material as much. And do you need a balance between someone who understands the logistics of production and management and someone who can have the big overarching story view? And in theory, Filoni is now placed to. He's not. Because it's over at this moment.

[Chris Gethard]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

At this point, at the moment we're recording, that is his position.

[David Sims]

Right. But like Kathleen Kennedy's obvious eye was for, you know, talent. He had a great eye for talent.

[Griffin Newman]

Correct.

[David Sims]

And you know, it paid off for her pretty well with Star wars until

[Griffin Newman]

I would argue she started getting the yips, I think.

[David Sims]

Well, from what I'm aware, and I

[Griffin Newman]

guess I have enough goss mostly from the audience.

[David Sims]

Last Jedi freaked out Disney, not Kennedy.

[Ben Hosley]

Correct.

[David Sims]

Kennedy loved it. Iger. Etc, fans are yelling too much. So no more of that. Whatever that was.

[Griffin Newman]

Not only that, that. It was like, that was the best production they had. That was the only Star wars movie that wasn't riddled with reshoots and panic. And she was unbelievably happy with the final result.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And people like to erase from history. It made so much money because it was divisive. People like to be like. And that one disappointment grainted it did not. In the year 2017, three of the ten highest grossing films in history were Kathleen Kennedy Star wars movies.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Force Awakens was number one of all time. It still is domestically. Rogue One was in the top 10. Last Jedi was in the top 10. So it was working.

[David Sims]

Yes. I mean, one would argue. Oh, but then the movies after Last Jedi didn't do as well. It's like. Well, yeah, because they were solo.

[Griffin Newman]

Immediate problems.

[David Sims]

The shambles.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And Episode nine, which people are sort of like, you know, oh, that's J.J. abrams's fault. It's like fundamentally what happened with episode nine was Carrie Fisher died.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And they had to completely dynamite what they were doing.

[Griffin Newman]

They also had a director that they were losing confidence in.

[David Sims]

They fire a director, they bring in Abrams two months before production starts or whatever. So late.

[Griffin Newman]

They push it back four months when they needed to push it back two years.

[David Sims]

Right. And Abrams is like. I don't know. I guess.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I mean, he's just.

[Griffin Newman]

Which you know, many people think. And I, I don't think this is a basele conspiracy theory. There's actually a lot of evidence that points towards this, that Palpatine was entirely a reshoot thing.

[David Sims]

I mean, that it seems impossible. I have no idea. It's so crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm not going to go down this rabbit hole. But there's stuff that. That makes it seem somewhat valid, but yes, it I. It does feel like they started to freak out. We should mention also that the first season of the Mandalorian TV show. A show we all love, or that first season, we all love.

[David Sims]

Production, by the way, two months after. It doesn't matter.

[Griffin Newman]

Carry on.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

One month before Rise of Skywalker comes out, Disney plus launches. And their big launch title is first episode of the Mandalorian.

[David Sims]

It was before episode nine is when Mando started by a month.

[Chris Gethard]

And in unison, the world says, they put a little baby Yoda in a.

[David Sims]

I mean, truly love.

[Chris Gethard]

They stuck a little Yoda in a Pokemon.

[Griffin Newman]

We couldn't love this more.

[David Sims]

I remember episode one, which ends with the reveal of him. Yeah, I was like. Like a baby Yoda. I don't know. And by episode like three, you're like, baby Yoda is one of my family members. I love baby Yoda.

[Griffin Newman]

A conversation was.

[David Sims]

Everyone agrees.

[Griffin Newman]

They were so mysterious about that show. Can you believe it's weird? John Favro, the Iron man guy, he's making a TV show for Disney plus. But they're saying it's not going to be cheap. It's going to be really expensive. It's going to look like a movie. Right. They got Greg Frier to shoot the first season. That's incredible.

[David Sims]

Right? But they're also like, it's called the Mandalorian. And I remember at the time being like, that's nerd.

[Griffin Newman]

That's nerd.

[David Sims]

Like, this is supposed to be like, you know, for the masses.

[Griffin Newman]

That feels like pluses launch. And the other part of it was they kept saying there's a twist in the first episode. That's why they're being so secretive. I remember you and I saying, I'm gonna so annoyed if he's Boba Fett.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And instead, the twist is, we've cracked the code. We've created. We found fire. This is Grogu. This is like a new element on this earth that is infinitely powerful. And we all were like, that puppet's pretty good. What is this show? And then the show's in it.

[Chris Gethard]

Weirdly cool.

[David Sims]

Because of that cool, weird energy, the

[Griffin Newman]

show reveals itself to be like a western, a like, standalone. He's a bounty hunter. He goes out in a mission. You meet new characters every time we've ever wanted. And it's like, here's the cleanest new entry point to Star wars in forever. Anyone can watch this. Actually. It is free of kind of lore.

[David Sims]

Yes. The only lore is like, it's after Return of the Jedi. Yeah. The Republic kind of exists.

[Griffin Newman]

This.

[David Sims]

The Empire is still kind of, you know, hanging around.

[Chris Gethard]

Really.

[David Sims]

You don't really need to worry about it. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And I just loved. I was like, this is TV. This is not a 13 hour movie. This is. Every episode is 30 minutes of an. Of an adventure style.

[David Sims]

Because I'm just remembering that's what I loved. But there, you know, when they start being like, let's learn more about The Creed Season 2. Let's meet Cartoon characters.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's hear about the dark immediately.

[Chris Gethard]

And that's Filoni being too protective of his own.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yup. And the stuff he loves. It's both. It's like, what's the lore that I grew up on? And what's the lore that I made in homage to the lore that I grew up. Basically.

[Chris Gethard]

I will say in general, I think the Disney plus stuff gets a real bad rap and I understand all the disappointment and sharing it. I generally think there is something redeeming about most of the shows. I like Obi Wan and Asuka better than average.

[Griffin Newman]

I disagree on those two.

[David Sims]

I can't really go there with you. I watched him.

[Chris Gethard]

I can see with Obi Wan, hugely disappointing to once again waste the potential of you and McGregor. It's just.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that's.

[Chris Gethard]

It was just.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the only good thing.

[Chris Gethard]

It is just.

[Griffin Newman]

I think him and Moses Ingram both give good performances and everything else in the show is bad.

[Chris Gethard]

I do think for the first time since his introduction, we get to see why the galaxy was truly scared of Darth Vader. And like, I'm not going to be mad at that.

[David Sims]

Yeah, no, it just is sort of like what was. He was like fighting with Inquisitors or whatever.

[Chris Gethard]

Three of the towns showing up as this cloaked.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

I mean, figuring black and people are fucking dying and getting their fucking three of the shows torn up. Like, that's. I've wanted to see that my whole life.

[Griffin Newman]

Arguably all become the exact same thing. This was my big takeaway from grinding tape and watching a lot of these very close together. Right. Because I got really turned off by Mando Season 2, where I was like, guys, you're doing the exact thing I was praising you for not doing in the first season. Why is every episode reintroducing a character from Lore and being like, look, it's Bo Katan. Here's Bo Katan Steel. It's Ahsoka. Here's Ahsoka's deal. And then it ends with the deep fate. Luke And I was like, I'm out on this.

[David Sims]

The Deep Fake Luke is indefensible.

[Chris Gethard]

You think so?

[Griffin Newman]

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

[Chris Gethard]

I mean, the deep fake performance. But the idea of Grogu traveling to go train with Luke Skyler, you can't do it.

[David Sims]

Do something else.

[Griffin Newman]

You can't. That's how I look.

[Chris Gethard]

I mean, that's what they need to be smart enough to realize.

[David Sims]

It looks like this and it's clearly like a robot.

[Chris Gethard]

And that's where it becomes, let's deep fake loot. Yeah, that becomes like, let's just show our dick in public. You know what I mean? Like, just like take our dick out of our pants, basically, is like kind of the effect. Like there's no. You can't actually.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, that created like a Mark Hamill soundboard. It's not even him giving a voice performance. Because the other thing that happens in the Mando movie has a lot of this is they become so obsessed with the tech of like, we're pushing virtual production and the pipeline and the volume and all this sort of stuff. We have our own proprietary deep fake thing that rather than just bringing Mark Hamill, an incredible voice actor, into a booth, having him give dramatic line readings and then putting a digital effect on it to try to make him sound younger. They like study every second of line delivery he's ever given as Lute Luke and put it into a computer and then basically just do like text to speech. So every line reading Luke gives is flat. Because it's like, grogu, I will train you now. That bums me out. But more than that, watching all these shows close together, I defend Skeleton Crew and the Acolyte. I think the cardinal of both of

[Chris Gethard]

those shows, Skeleton Crew, got good reviews. In general, Crew was like. Like, let's do a Spielberg, let's do style thing in. In the world of Star wars so

[Griffin Newman]

late that people had kind of tapped out.

[Chris Gethard]

But I do think the people.

[Griffin Newman]

There's an upswing.

[Chris Gethard]

I think it was under watched. I think the people who watched it appreciate it.

[Griffin Newman]

No one was really against it. I just think it all kind of shrugged it off.

[David Sims]

They shrugged it up because it's also Skeleton Crew. Sort of like this movie is kind of like we're just kind of doing our own thing over here. We're not really trying to mess with larger stars.

[Griffin Newman]

Crew. I genuinely appreciate that.

[David Sims]

It's more.

[Griffin Newman]

I think both Skeleton Crew and Acolyte have the exact same core problem, which is they should have been movies. They both have like peak TV issues for me where I'm like, yeah, this is a two hour story that's now stretched to five or six hours.

[David Sims]

Acolyte I genuinely like.

[Griffin Newman]

I like a tremendous amount, but really, I do think it would have been better as a movie I haven't even watched. You should watch it.

[David Sims]

Acolyte is one of the ends.

[Chris Gethard]

I watched the first episode.

[David Sims]

This probably won't sell you.

[Chris Gethard]

I heard such bad things that I was like, I guess I think you

[Griffin Newman]

would find it interesting. Interesting.

[David Sims]

It is one of the only things in Star wars since, you know, the Disney takeover, that one engages with the prequels, which I think is like, vital if unless, you know, we're not about to junk them.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the primary mission is to engage with the weird stuff happening between the margins. And the prequels, textually, not in a

[David Sims]

lore sense, engages with like, Jedi rot.

[Griffin Newman]

The ideas.

[David Sims]

You know, the idea of like, what happened. That like Yoda's like, I'm not, not seeing this coming. And then episode three ends.

[Chris Gethard]

How did the Jedi become this bloated bureaucracy?

[David Sims]

And that's not witches.

[Griffin Newman]

It's got witches. It does have witches.

[Ben Hosley]

And it's got all this, like, interesting ideas about how witches are related to

[Griffin Newman]

the force but demonized.

[Ben Hosley]

But like, they stand kind of in

[David Sims]

between the dark side. Or like, there's only one way to use interesting.

[Griffin Newman]

It's about the birth of the Sith. And it's also about how up it is that Qui Gon Jin just abducts a kid. Like, that's the starting point for the show, clearly, as you watch it and just be like, it's weird. Is this a thing they do all the time?

[David Sims]

So fundamentally insane. To this day, the Qui Gon's like, I won you in the bet, so I get to take you. And he's like, can my mom come? And he's like, I didn't include your mom in the bet and I don't want to hear about it again. Get on the spaceship. Eight year old accolades me in a way.

[Griffin Newman]

I think people get pissed off.

[David Sims]

I can't go with you. I'm like, why? You are a fucking Jedi. Just take her. Her. What's gonna happen?

[Chris Gethard]

What?

[David Sims]

Watto needs a 50 year old woman like, that badly?

[Griffin Newman]

No, he sells her off immediately. Once he's gone, Anakin's gone.

[Chris Gethard]

No.

[David Sims]

Why? She wasn't in the bet I made with a bug.

[Griffin Newman]

Dude, mom, spaceship's a little heavy. We already have 80 Astro say that.

[David Sims]

It's just like when you're a kid, you just Kind of like.

[Chris Gethard]

Of course.

[David Sims]

Because when you're a kid, like, every story is about, like a kid. Kid being orphaned or separated from. You know. But then when you're an adult, you're just like, quon, just take her.

[Griffin Newman]

That is what Acolyte's about. Like, Acolyte is digging so deep into the text of what has been made and stuff that George did and being like, what does that actually say? What is that reflective of? Right. And if these movies, the prequels are about, like, how the Jedi were taken down by their own arrogance, then, like, where does that start and what was going on? Big picture. I think it's a really good show. I think it would have been better as a movie. I think the exact same thing with Skeleton Crew and Obi Wan was Skeleton

[David Sims]

Crew really should have been.

[Griffin Newman]

Really should have been a movie.

[Chris Gethard]

Obi Wan should have been.

[David Sims]

Obi Wan was to be a movie. Right?

[Griffin Newman]

Obi Wan. They had hired Steven Daldry and they had started building the sets and it was going to be the next standalone after Solo. And when Solo underperformed, they were like, let's slow our roll and redevelop this for T tv. And you can tell. You can tell. It feels so padded. And Ahsoka, Obi Wan and what Mandalorian becomes are all. And Boba Fett and Boba Fett. But those.

[Chris Gethard]

None of them are great.

[David Sims]

But I forget the book.

[Griffin Newman]

But. But I was saying those three in particular, what kind of blew my mind is that they're all the same show, which is like a stoic character, has a younger ward that they're trying to protect while they're looking for one thing. And one mysterious person has changed chasing them.

[Chris Gethard]

It's all Lone Wolf.

[Griffin Newman]

They're all that.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

And just the slider. Slightly different.

[Chris Gethard]

We've talked about this.

[David Sims]

I've never read the manga. I've seen a couple of the movies.

[Chris Gethard]

They are a delight.

[David Sims]

I believe it.

[Chris Gethard]

I mean, Wolf and Cub is so.

[David Sims]

It is fun too.

[Griffin Newman]

Animated is animated. It's Clone wars continuation.

[Ben Hosley]

I was just following along as we were talking through all of the. The like releases in order. Mall Shadow Lord.

[David Sims]

I've never even heard of that. That's new.

[Griffin Newman]

Cool shows that are also animated. Bad batch.

[Ben Hosley]

Right, right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

And this is a miniseries that's following up on Mall David. Sorry, you were about to say. I just had to answer Ben's Mall Perplexion.

[David Sims]

I. And I forgot about Mall Sh. I feel like they just got into this sort of the Disney. Whoever. Lucasfilm got into this kind of of endless trick on themselves. Of like, well, it can't be a movie. And it's like, well, why can't it be a movie? And the answer could be like, well, because that's too similar. You know, like Obi Wan. We've done something like that already. Or we don't want to do a prequel again. Why can't Skeleton Crew be a movie? Oh, it just doesn't feel big enough.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, that's.

[David Sims]

That's more of a kid thing. So we can't just. Why can't, like, Acolyte be a movie? It's too complicated. It's too dark. You know, Tone.

[Griffin Newman]

It might be too weird.

[David Sims]

I almost feel like it can be a movie,

[Griffin Newman]

right?

[Chris Gethard]

I almost feel like that's giving them too much credit. I feel like they go, why should this be a show? And instead of a movie? And the sad answer to me is, because a movie, they'll give us 20 bucks once. Well, and a show, they'll give us 10 bucks 12 times for the year.

[David Sims]

There's a little of that. But, like, if you have a hit movie, you're making ungodly money.

[Chris Gethard]

One would think. But they had a streaming service to launch.

[David Sims]

They did, but they started to write. Move off of that.

[Griffin Newman]

Trying to unwind this now, and you're seeing in all the tendrils of Disney where they had been like, please make more stuff for Disney plus, because all the money is going here. And now they're like, how do we train people off of thinking these things are unspecial and making them think once again that it's worth paying to go out on a Friday night?

[David Sims]

Like, you know, I think they just got in their head of like, well, the next movie's got to be something big, right? It's got to be something, you know, we. We've had a couple flops. Like, we kind of need something that's going to set the new tone.

[Griffin Newman]

Longer the gap goes on, the more they feel the pressure of, well, now it's got to be even bigger to justify the return of Star wars movies.

[David Sims]

And so they've sort of compromised with, like, well, if we have a movie with Ryan Gosling as a star fighter, well, you know, that'll be good enough. And that's the next movie that's coming out next year. Right? You're aware of this.

[Chris Gethard]

I'll buy a ticket.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure. As well.

[David Sims]

But, like, with Mando and Grou, it felt like Filoni was like, here's season four. Filoni and Favreau, I guess, were like, We've written season four, I guess we want to do it. And Disney's like, that's going to cost $300 million. It's going to suck. It's got, I'm sure the script has so much thrawn and fucking, God knows, Dark Sabers. Right? Like, I'm sure it's like heavy on lore because they've said like, we pivoted from season four lore to something that had no lore. Right. We, we want, we made sure the movie was going to be a clean entry point. You know, Favreau said like, we didn't want to do any of the lore. So Disney's clearly like, can you just do a movie? And float is like, sure. Can it be a big movie? No, no, no. Can it just be fun movie with baby Yoda in it?

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, kids.

[David Sims]

It's her kids.

[Ben Hosley]

It's for basically middle school.

[David Sims]

I mean, this movie is flirting with being a PG. It's a PG 13 because it's got enough kind of like gun shit.

[Griffin Newman]

I guess it feels pg, but it

[David Sims]

feels kind of pg.

[Chris Gethard]

And I solidly aiming for kid reaction.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

I think what you're saying.

[David Sims]

And it just has this from beginning to end, it's like, yes, sure, the bald guy is in season three.

[Griffin Newman]

I guess I forgot about, which I did not remember even though I had watched one week earlier.

[David Sims]

But it's basically just kind of like all you need to know is the Mandalorian and Grogu go on adventures together. They're going to go on an adventure.

[Chris Gethard]

I do feel like fundamentally one of the questions we're circling around is it seems like no one in the Disney era is asking the question of what do people out there need? No, because people used to get something they needed out of Star wars. And that's why it's a franchise that for 50 years has meant so much. Like, one thing that really stood out to me about Mandalorian and Grogu that I think is so insane. And I get it. I get what the world we're living in. I get the blend of visual. No, no, no. I mean like the, the Star wars universe is one with creatures and masks and a combination of, of, you know, always the debate about practical effects versus

[Griffin Newman]

digital, all this stuff.

[Chris Gethard]

But I go, we are in an era where everyone's relentlessly talking about the loneliness epidemic and how much loneliness is killing us. And we literally have a movie where you only see human eyes for it's five to six minutes of a two hour and 15 minute movie that like everything is either A mask or digital. Like we're living in a world where everyone's fucking lonely. And I can speak for myself. I'll get weirdly vulnerable this deep into a Star wars thing where I go, I am literally like a mental health advocate working to get kids less lonely in schools while also struggling deeply with the fact of, oh, I'm a living. I'm so relentlessly lonely on a daily basis.

[Griffin Newman]

You and I were saying this yesterday that you're people who, for outside perception, people would be like, you got like a friend base and you're like busy and you're doing stuff. And we're like, you and I are both like.

[Chris Gethard]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Burdened with the fundamental loneliness.

[Chris Gethard]

Literally lonely. Like, my birthday is tomorrow and I never have a birthday party and reached out to friends because I go, a birthday is a reason that people will actually come out. And I need to connect with people.

[Griffin Newman]

I forgot that that was part of this planning was to do this the day before.

[Chris Gethard]

A birthday present to myself is to be called Crazy by David Sims.

[David Sims]

On my apologize for calling you crazy. I mean, you are. Your notion that Mandalorian would die and Baby Grogu would turn evil at the end of the kids movie a little crazy.

[Chris Gethard]

All I'll say is this. When it leaks that that was proposed. Okay, we're gonna see who is crazy excited for that. I just wanna say, like the idea that I watched a 2 hour, 15 minute long movie where I did not look at human eyes is just such a lack of grace of like, what do people need apart from Sigourney?

[David Sims]

It's like, you're right, right?

[Chris Gethard]

It's like his helmet comes off one time and he says, I'm gonna kill you to the huts. And it goes right back on. And we've seen versions of that in the show before. And it brought me immediately back to Princess Leia in that first movie with the blaster up, looking around the corner and she's stone faced and badass humanity. But she's teeny tiny with these big doe eyes and she's a princess.

[Griffin Newman]

It's primal.

[Chris Gethard]

And you sit here and like, you don't even realize it in the moment, but then you watch it over and over again. You go, oh, for like a. A late teenage era princess who's a tiny diminutive person. To have that steely resolve is masking so much fucking pain and fear. And you immediately are sucked in by Carrie Fisher's eyes.

[David Sims]

Yeah, totally.

[Chris Gethard]

And then now what they give us is a movie where Jeremy Allen White is playing a Jack Yelling that he's not like his dad.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm not like my dad.

[David Sims]

I just want to take another look at.

[Chris Gethard]

It's hard being a hut Sometimes you're

[Griffin Newman]

like, it's like all of them.

[Chris Gethard]

Like, I want to love baby Yoda, but like, I don't give him.

[David Sims]

But he's a cutie.

[Griffin Newman]

He doesn't have big eyes, but he's the only addressing the eyes complaint.

[Chris Gethard]

But he's a puppet doing cute and like, I just kind of need someone in my life to make eye contact with me.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree.

[Chris Gethard]

And tell me a story that explains to me what's good and what.

[Griffin Newman]

Wish you a happy birthday.

[Chris Gethard]

And that's what Star wars used to be.

[David Sims]

Yeah, well, right. You are yearning for Star. Star wars as you keep coming back to this is this sort of like more moral force which, like, you know. That's right. That feels kind of long lost. And it's tough for any but like, you know, franchise to hold.

[Chris Gethard]

You know, part of the disappointment is that film, you know, film fans and film nerds like getting vocal on the Internet. Comic Con nerds like getting vocal on the Internet. Star wars is a flashpoint for all of them. Like, another big point of what's going on right now is like, this is a franchise that spoke to us on a deep level for a long time and just swings and misses and asks us to pay them for another shot. Here's.

[David Sims]

It's all like the boomers who made like Star wars, you know, had a sort of a more woo, woo. I'm, you know, speaking positively. Right. Like this kind of like posthip hippie, you know, these interests, you know, this sort of expansive view of things.

[Griffin Newman]

There's a larger issue.

[Chris Gethard]

Optimism mixed with the punk cynicism, cool

[David Sims]

film making different these days.

[Griffin Newman]

I think there's a larger issue, in

[David Sims]

my opinion is Grogu needs cooking.

[Griffin Newman]

Grogu d need cooking. Someone should address this. I've watched in the last Couple of Months 6 seasons of Star wars television, you know, movie for the first time.

[David Sims]

I want to formally congratulate you on doing it.

[Griffin Newman]

You thought I wasn't going to get it done?

[Chris Gethard]

We haven't even really started talking about

[Griffin Newman]

Andor I. I want to try to do something here. I want to try to do something here. Ben, can we.

[Ben Hosley]

What's up?

[Griffin Newman]

As an exercise.

[David Sims]

Ben's eating the cookies. Do you want to bring this? Do you want to mention this?

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, I'm just hungry. Yeah, I just wanted a snack.

[Griffin Newman]

By the way, there's. There's a merch. Spotlight. Including A food spotlight at the end of this episode. I got bags under the table, but Ben's snacking on Grogu.

[Ben Hosley]

You guys want some? There's plenty of shit here.

[David Sims]

I do want some blue.

[Griffin Newman]

I do want Ben. All right, I got Ben. Can you stick your tongue out quickly?

[David Sims]

Oh, man, that's a blue tongue.

[Griffin Newman]

Can you start a counter for three minutes? I think I can. And I'm not saying this is all we're talking about it, but I just want to, like, actually run through the entire plot of the movie in under three minutes.

[David Sims]

Of the Mandalorian and Grogu.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yeah, go.

[Griffin Newman]

Because I was. I was practicing this on the way here.

[Chris Gethard]

I think you can honestly do it.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Three Almost R me.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, ready?

[David Sims]

Start.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, we start with Mandalorian on a bounty hunter mission trying to capture a warlord. He brings him back to Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver's like, cool. I got two more missions for you. One is find Rad of the Hutt, Jabba's son, and free him. Bring him back to his aunt and uncle. Secondly, here's a mystery warlord. Can you find this guy Rad?

[David Sims]

My help.

[Griffin Newman]

He goes to find Radio Rada. Rad is like, I don't need to be freed. I like fighting because my dad was bad, and so. But by the way, I know where that warlord is. I can bring you to him. But then Mando gets captured by the same people, and he gets caught in the fight with Rada. They escape. They find the warlord, bring them back to Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver's like, where's Rada? He's like, radha didn't want to be freed. She's like, this sucks because we work closely with the aunt and uncle. Can you go make things good with them? He goes back to the aunt and uncle. They're like, you. They throw him in a pit. He gets scratched. He falls asleep. Grogu, who's been separated from him and started, was about to go Gremlins 2, Gizmo mode. Like, Rambo style. Badass instead just learns to be alone. Meet Steven McKinley Henderson on a porch. Then Mandalorian wakes up, and they have to escape. And all their friends come and help them escape. And then Sigourney Weaver is like, thanks for your work. That's the entire movie, right?

[Ben Hosley]

And for some reason, that was a minute 14.

[David Sims]

And for some reason, Weaver decides they need to, like, nuke the hut. Like, house. They're already a movie. It's kind of like, I don't know something's got to blow up.

[Chris Gethard]

That was. That was wild. It was a bit of an eagles in Lord of the Rings moment of like if you.

[David Sims]

She's like, hi. And he's like, I'm out of here. And she's like, don't worry about it. Let it go.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's jump quickly. Cuz the bombs, right? It's shot already.

[Chris Gethard]

I also was like, man, like, you didn't even have to kill the Nazgul to get the eagle. Like you could have done that the whole time.

[David Sims]

Look, look. The eagles and Lord of the Rings is too complicated for this day. I would say.

[Griffin Newman]

I was fairly detailed there. Was I not pretty?

[Chris Gethard]

I mean, the only thing you left out was Scorsese. Star making turn by Scorsese.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah. Who? Who? But, oh, but Scorsese is not actually vital to the plot. He's just kind of like rad is over there.

[Griffin Newman]

He's an informant who doesn't want to give information, which is funny.

[Chris Gethard]

That was so hard that that character shines.

[David Sims]

Other part of the movie we were

[Griffin Newman]

like, I cannot believe how locked in he is.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He's giving this his all. And it has personality and humanity.

[David Sims]

Does it speak to something that Martin Scorsese who has sort of, you know, grumbled about franchise filmmaking. Right.

[Chris Gethard]

In interviews, prepared all of us a little dish.

[David Sims]

Ben's giving me some mando cookies. It's a lot of cookies. I don't know I'm gonna eat all those, but thank you, man.

[Griffin Newman]

I got five other food items in my back.

[Chris Gethard]

Real cool banana pudding with these blue Nilla wafers.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true. But call it like he plays essentially banana wafers or something.

[David Sims]

Like a guy being paid, you know, to like a shill.

[Griffin Newman]

Like in this movie, a flat meat stand. I don't know anything. Don't ask me about it. I don't know.

[Chris Gethard]

Maybe an incredible impression of Martin Scorsese as that street card on specifically.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I ate it.

[David Sims]

It tastes like vanilla wafer. I guess there's no like blue flavor.

[Chris Gethard]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

But the cognitive dissonance of it not being blue flavor does brain a little bit.

[Ben Hosley]

Should properly name it. It is Grogu Nilla Nummies. Says right here on the box.

[Chris Gethard]

Nummies.

[Griffin Newman]

David.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

You look like a man who doesn't know that. Fast Growing Trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers.

[David Sims]

I had no idea.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, well, David, they have all the plants your yard or home needs, including fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs and houseplants. My home is littered with all of these and they're all grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy.

[David Sims]

It's like your local nursery, but anywhere. You live with more plants than you'll find anywhere anywhere else. And whatever you're looking for, fast growing trees helps you find options that actually work for your climate, space and lifestyle.

[Griffin Newman]

For me, all inclusive, I'll take any kind of tree you got.

[Ben Hosley]

Griffin, I know you're, you know, a green thumb.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. And I think I got 10 green fingers.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

I think you're gonna agree with me on this that, you know, you go to a garden center and you just find it so overwhelming and inconvenient.

[Griffin Newman]

You took the personal statement out of my mouth. Mouth, Ben. That is how I feel.

[Ben Hosley]

And then here's the other thing. You try to hire some landscapers.

[David Sims]

It's too expensive.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm so tired of spending every day of my life on the phone with landscapers.

[Ben Hosley]

Listen, with fast growing trees, it's just so reassuring that you know you're going to order plants and they're guaranteed to be healthy and to thrive.

[Griffin Newman]

But let me guess, when the trees arrive, it takes a really long time for them to grow.

[David Sims]

They have their alive and thrive guarantee. It promises your plants arrive happy and healthy. No green thumb required, just quality plants you can count on. Plus, get ongoing support from trained plant experts who can help you plan your landscape, choose the right plants, learn how to care for them every step of the way.

[Griffin Newman]

Can you imagine if Wall E had a promo code for fast growing trees? That movie would have been solved. It never would have even existed.

[David Sims]

Right now they have great deals on spring planting essentials. Up to half off on select plants. And listeners of our show get 20% off their first purchase when using the code check at checkout. That's an additional 20% off. Better plants have better growing at fast growingtrees.com using code check at checkout fast growingtrees.com code check. Now's the perfect time to plant. Let's grow together. Use check to save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply.

[Griffin Newman]

David?

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

They say that the eyes are the window to the soul.

[David Sims]

They do say that.

[Griffin Newman]

What does that make our glasses?

[David Sims]

The windows?

[Griffin Newman]

The window frames?

[David Sims]

I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

The curtains.

[David Sims]

Yeah, the curtains.

[Griffin Newman]

The point is, if you are a glasses wearer like I am or like our own producer, bed is true. It's a big decision.

[Ben Hosley]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Because this is how you introduce yourself to the world. This is how you engage with other people. You make eye contact through the frames. Sometimes it's just time for a refresh. Totally agree.

[David Sims]

All right, well, so what about Zenny Optical?

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, the glasses, the eyewear, they got fun shapes, sizes and colors. They got a lot of colors, right? Statement pieces. Bold statement pieces, they call them.

[David Sims]

And they're inexpensive.

[Griffin Newman]

I would say they're an online eyewear shop with prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light lenses, all starting at under $30.

[David Sims]

That's crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

That is very low.

[David Sims]

I feel like glasses often cost more than $30.

[Griffin Newman]

Way more.

[David Sims]

But you go to Zending.com, you pick a frame, you upload your prescription, they ship it to your door, you. And no appointment, no store, no upsell at the counter.

[Griffin Newman]

Easy.

[David Sims]

At that price, something kind of shifts. You're not like, do I need new glasses? You're like, why don't I try something fun? Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Sometimes you got an old pair, they got a scratch on them, it's annoying. But you're like, am I going to go through the hassle? Or the screws start to get loose and you find yourself taking out that microscopic little screwdriver over and over again to tighten them up. At this price, why not just get another pair?

[Chris Gethard]

Ban.

[Griffin Newman]

I ordered a pair of the Magoo. I think this is funny.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

We all know from Mr. Magoo, the cartoon character who can't see, and Zenny is saying, let's solve that problem. Let's give you glasses called Magoo. They're blue and green, two of my favorite colors. A nice boxy frame.

[Ben Hosley]

You're not agonizing over one pair. That has to do everything for the next two years. Get the ones for work, get the fun ones.

[Griffin Newman]

Got some options.

[Ben Hosley]

Get the pair that only matches one outfit at under $30. You don't have to justify it.

[David Sims]

Exactly. They've got 150,000 five star reviews.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And if you've never want glasses online before, they have a virtual try on so you can see how it's gonna look on your face before you commit. If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now's the time. Go to zenni.com podcast and use code podcast15 for 15% off your first order. The styles sell out, so don't sit on it. That's Z e podcast promo code podcast15.

[Griffin Newman]

David and I as, as he said, are sitting here at the theater. And I want to be clear. We're considerate moviegoers. We're not talking the whole time, but occasionally we turn to each other and whisper one sentence. And I would say about every 20 minutes, one of us would turn to the other and go, go. Is this really all there is? Like, we kept being like, there must be some, well, story idea that the trailers were hiding, not a big twist.

[David Sims]

But it's not that I wanted that.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

Like, it's not like I wanted the third act of the movie. I was. I was basically like, is this movie going to be what it looks like? Which is just kind of like a disposal.

[Griffin Newman]

They got to find one guy, except they find the warlord halfway through, and

[David Sims]

then you're like, he's bald.

[Griffin Newman]

What is the movie now? You turned to me and said, I actually don't know what the rest of the movie is.

[David Sims]

Right. And so then I'm like, right. Will the third act be AI Luke? And you know who you know? Take your pick.

[Griffin Newman]

Shows they're a bad surprise. Behind the Mr.

[David Sims]

Door, Grogu Short shoots some lightning or grows wings or.

[Chris Gethard]

We don't really don't think Dark Grogu would have been a more interesting third act.

[David Sims]

No, you really triggered me there because it's the kind of I hate the most.

[Chris Gethard]

You know, we're actually screaming at each other.

[David Sims]

I really. I really hate the Someone Needs to Die for a Movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Can you guys say that you love each other just so we can. Thank you very much. Here's my pitch that hit me. But when we got to that section,

[David Sims]

I was like, are they going to do some slop? And then they didn't.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

But instead it was just kind of like Mando's.

[Griffin Newman]

Why did you even make this? What was the idea?

[David Sims]

Get away from the hut.

[Ben Hosley]

What's your pitch?

[Griffin Newman]

My. My pitch?

[Chris Gethard]

Can I just say one thing to close out that thought, please? And I think this actually is truthful. This does feel like the exact Star wars movie you would make at a cultural moment where it feels acceptable to people to remove Stephen Colbert and replace it with Byron Allen's comics.

[David Sims]

I mean, just kind of like, let's

[Chris Gethard]

not hurt anyone society, where it's like, we are looking. We're looking for something and we're not getting it actually hurt.

[Griffin Newman]

You.

[Ben Hosley]

Heard you just traveled over here from New Jersey. Anything you want to let me share about that?

[Chris Gethard]

We need to be talking about this link called Lincoln Tunnel Traffic. Byron Allen. We gotta be talking the Lincoln, the Holland, the George Washington.

[David Sims]

Like one of the crazy, you know, great comic figures of our lives.

[Griffin Newman]

That is. That is a brutal comparison. It is 100% on point. It's not even about inoffensiveness. It's about the sort of like the whole Weirdness of Comics Unleashed is you're like, this looks like comedy, but it. Something feels off.

[Chris Gethard]

Everything's for sale. Everything comedy.

[Griffin Newman]

But it's in a hollow way. And it's so packaged and strategized and they're acting like this is organic conversation. But it's neither standup nor interview.

[Chris Gethard]

And it's getting an 1130 slot which used to be sacred to the American this.

[Griffin Newman]

As if it's the legit thing. When this used to air at 4:00 in the morning. And this was only watched by people who were struggling. People who should not. It was awake, drug addict. Yes.

[Chris Gethard]

Literally. Core demographic. The core demographic was men in hotel rooms debating whether they wanted to live through the night.

[Griffin Newman]

Some of the worst nights of my life had been watching Comics Unleashed and it wasn't because of Comics Unleashed. Comics Unleashed was meeting me where I was.

[Chris Gethard]

You and I both just revealed that we watched that show while having suicidal ideation.

[David Sims]

I just also want court. I just want to shout out to that while we're all talking right now.

[Ben Hosley]

Everyone has a blue tongue.

[David Sims]

This is true. Immediately Nila Wafer talking about killing ourselves. It went blue. Immediately.

[Griffin Newman]

Nilla nummies, nummies, nums, nummies.

[David Sims]

Right? All right. Griffin, can you get back to my flag? My own metal your pitch. I hope you're doing okay, Chris.

[Griffin Newman]

So like minute 30, 40. I love you, Chris.

[David Sims]

I love you guys. You're doing all right. Right?

[Chris Gethard]

Funny dissonance for us to do that bit while eating these treats.

[Griffin Newman]

I gotta say, you're you. You're making a little sinker face while you're eating vanilla nummies.

[Chris Gethard]

We've never stopped talking.

[Griffin Newman]

We never stop talking. Look, it's the most respectful way to honor the movie is to just keep snacking.

[Chris Gethard]

Keep buying the product, baby. We don't give a Say whatever you want about our movie. You're literally eating our tie in product while you about our movie. We're giving you what you want. Disney. We did. We were underwhelmed by the movie. And thank you for the blue Nilla Wafers.

[Griffin Newman]

You corporate minute. Like maybe 30, 40 of the movie. They go to get Radha Rada's like, I'm not like my dad. And Din Djarin's like, okay, I guess I'll leave. And then they gas them.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And as he's starting to pass out, he's like, grogu, run. I'll find you later. And I was like, oh, is the core idea of this movie? Because I'm not asking. In going from TV to film. Make the movie really big in a. All plot threads connect. Thrawn comes in deepfake loot kind of way.

[David Sims]

Way.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm like, can you tell me a story that could not fit within an episode? Ideally, that's a story of greater emotional range.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I want. Not necessarily even scale. That's bigger than the TV show. A lot of this is the murky, uncanny valley of the more that TV has become like movies. Does movies feel like tv? And how do we make this distinction? We saw it in imax. Weirdly, anytime it went to the IMAX ratio ratio. What is closer to the traditional old school TV range? It felt more cinematic because it didn't look like Disney plus.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Which is now super widescreen. This whole weird backwards thing we're living in. Right. All I want is for this movie to be like, we came up with a story that is two hours long, that has an emotional through line.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

That's not an episode and doesn't feel like a couple episodes smushed together. And when then. Mandalorians getting gassed. You're like, they're gonna make him do the Dejaric fight. Which for the listeners who don't know, is the hollow chessboard that Chewie has of the Millennium Falcon where He plays against C3PO and then leans back and looks awesome. Let the Wookiee win. We see, like, the real version of that in this. It's like a pit fight. Right. With all the big creatures. And he's like, grogu, go. I'll find you. And I was like, oh, is the big idea of this movie movie that they get split up?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

That it is. Grogu has to fend for himself on his own, and Mandalorian has to deal with the emotions of feeling what that's like. Now. We've already split them up. Season two ends with Luke taking him. Mando's really upset. And it's the first major boondoggle in the greater Mandalorian experiment is they resolve that. Not in a movie. Which would have been a storyline fitting for a movie movie. Or season three, they resolve that in the second half of Boba Fett, a different show. So then season three starts, and it's like, this is resolved now. I'm training you. And then season three becomes basically a Bo Katan show. As you said, David, it's largely Mandalorians talking about politics and caves.

[David Sims]

Right. They're in a cave. It's like, dark.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

There's like a big lake with, like, a. What A serpent or something that they're like, fish, right? We. We maybe don't believe that it exists.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's like, shoulders think it's fake.

[David Sims]

And they're just like. And they're just. There's, like, a lot of, like, to what extent should we wear our helmets? And I'm like, guys, I'm also. Shut the.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm watching it. And I'm like, this show is barely about the Mandalorian or Grou at this point.

[David Sims]

They all kind of just sound like Emma Thompson. So I can't, like, tell which one is which. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

This movie still makes a big point of, like, the disgrace of his helmet being off. And I'm like, I thought all of season three was litigating the helmet, that thing, and sort of going, and maybe we're not that serious about the helmet thing anymore.

[Chris Gethard]

Chill with the helmet. Truly, literally, to the extent that I

[David Sims]

was almost like, is this. Was this written before season three? Like. But, like, no. Like, it was not.

[Griffin Newman]

You also have a very famous actor who is famously, infamously not done most of the physical performance for this character across the previous three seasons, plus Boba

[David Sims]

Fett credit to him. Like, his stunt performers are second and

[Griffin Newman]

third bills, single card billing. Like. Like, big, big ups for the transparency on this.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But it is fascinating that this movie is like, we had Pedro Pascal do one sequence, right? We had him do one sequence that starts with a little emotional dialogue and then is one big action set piece the rest of the movie. I'm like, did he ever meet Sigourney Weaver? Until the press? Yeah, right.

[David Sims]

Definitely not.

[Griffin Newman]

But after the Dejarik fight, he just immediately reunites with Grogu and then the movie has them split up and get back together, like, two or three times until. Until it finally does the thing where he's asleep because he was scratched by a space slug or whatever. And then there's 20 minutes of him having to fend for himself. And I'm leaning in because I'm like, this. I mean, this is the thing. Grogu is the star. This is the thing they like. And the biggest reason, the exact point

[Chris Gethard]

where I. I would actually say.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, it's also puppet stuff, which I like.

[Chris Gethard]

One of the things that I was most disappointed, though, by. I'm like, at least we'll see Grogu finally level up, up. And instead I just saw him continue to be able to just lift.

[David Sims]

I cannot deny that they consciously, clearly were like, we're not going to have him level.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also. It's A conceptual up that they have him level up way too fast. When he starts training with Luke and when they start showing him do the Jedi, it always looks dumb. I think in your words, he looks like a idiot jumping around. You said that about someone in the prequels. Maybe Grievous back in the said that

[Chris Gethard]

about many, many people.

[Griffin Newman]

I think so. But it looked silly. And they gave him too much power too quickly. And they've already set up this thing of he ages really slowly. When the Mando meets him, he's already hundreds of years old. So he's. But he's a baby. So any growth is going to be so slow as to be indistinguishable. And the money is this character needs to stay in this exact form. I agree with you that it feels like dramatically. He should say at least 1/2 by

[Chris Gethard]

the end of this one thing in the style of Yoda and watch every theater go.

[Griffin Newman]

Totally. But they're two terrified of. With the magic of whatever the sanctity

[Chris Gethard]

of literally have T shirts literally have him say, dad, wake up. You must. When Mando's passed out and watch everyone cry their eyes out.

[Griffin Newman]

Or Nummies could have said nummies. He could have said. He could have said daddy.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, Daddy.

[David Sims]

I want more nummies.

[Griffin Newman]

Daddy Nummies.

[Chris Gethard]

Have him do one new force power or say one thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

And. And satisfy everybody. But that would. That would disrupt the status quo at

[David Sims]

the Derek G. I don't think would

[Griffin Newman]

like that would like what?

[David Sims]

Him talking like Yoda. I think that would annoy me.

[Griffin Newman]

So he just says daddy. What if he just says daddy at the end?

[David Sims]

That would obviously wreck me because. Well, because I'm a mark for this stuff right now. Yes, but.

[Griffin Newman]

But even that.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

I want him talking like Yoda.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, the two major reasons. Say Green when he talks, he's a Yoda. He's a Yoda.

[David Sims]

I mean, this is the debate, right?

[Chris Gethard]

Of like he's a Yoda and a Yaddle. All due respect, right?

[David Sims]

Like, it's like we don't.

[Griffin Newman]

They don't call him Baby Yaddle.

[Chris Gethard]

That's true.

[David Sims]

Did Yaddle talk that way? I know, yeah. I'll eventually made like a cartoon appearance or something. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

I remember the first season. Yeah. Bryce Styles Howard played Yaddle. Do you remember the first season?

[David Sims]

I mean, that might be true.

[Griffin Newman]

It is true. I'm not joking. Love her.

[David Sims]

Love her.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'm very pro. Bryce first season. We all call him Baby Yoda. Disney's like, please call him the child. Don't call him Baby Yoda. His name isn't Baby Yoda. And we're like, okay, so his name is the child. And they're like, no, he has a name, but we're not telling you you yet. I remember when the Ahsoka episode dropped in season two, she calls him Grou. And the Internet was like, do we like this? Did they just. It up is the sanctity, the purity of just little cute thing eats things. We. We have a name we like for him. Ruined. Eventually, everyone comes around to Grogu for a name. This movie refuses to even make a move as strong as his name is Grogu. They're like, nothing new about this guy. And part of it is, as they've said, their strategy in this is a Movie now is they're like, there is one thing that the current generation has grown up with of kids under 10 as their star wars that feels proprietary to them.

[David Sims]

It's Baby Yoda.

[Griffin Newman]

Even if they don't watch the show. Yeah, Baby Yoda is just omnipresent culture.

[Chris Gethard]

My son has a Baby Yoda water bottle.

[David Sims]

My daughter knew who Baby Yoda was before she knew any other point.

[Chris Gethard]

They say Grogu, by far, my son is by far most familiar with Baby Yoda as a Star wars thing.

[David Sims]

Probably doesn't know much about Yoda.

[Ben Hosley]

No, Right.

[Griffin Newman]

It's the second thing, which is the Cars effect. Every Cars movie made less money than the previous one. They made three theatrical films and two Planes movies. And they all dropped.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

But the merch was insane. And they kept being like, I guess we got to make another movie to keep the merch relevant. And at some point, they're. They're like, do we. Maybe the merch is the thing.

[Chris Gethard]

That merch still flies off the shelves totally for that.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Maybe we can leave it alone. There hasn't been a Cars movie in almost 10 years. But they're just like, do we gotta do it again just to, like, the brand deposits? And that's some of their math. I don't think they were responding to a false notion of the public is demanding this. But it was a real path of least resistance thing. And also, so if our, like, majority shareholders are freaked out about our lack of action on Star wars is the promise, hey, I bet we're gonna sell twice as much, five times as much grogu shit in 2026. Is that good enough? And it feels like that's the only justification for this movie. And I feel like if in that scene where he's gassed outside The Dejaric scene. They are actually split up for the next hour plus of the movie. And that's what the bulk of it was, that Mando's trying to figure out how to get back to Grogu and Grogu's trying to fend for himself. That's different than what they've done on the show. And that is a story that I feel like could sustain a slightly longer

[Chris Gethard]

narrative would give us something.

[Griffin Newman]

And. And they're instead.

[Chris Gethard]

What I saw. Yeah. Was them get back in a spaceship.

[Griffin Newman]

Just.

[David Sims]

You're so mad that they. But it is about the scene where they just. Grogu. Amanda is like, I need to take a break. And they, like, go back and they take a break. And then he's like, okay, let's go again. And I'm like, did we just do like a commercial break?

[Chris Gethard]

Like, is this a movie?

[Griffin Newman]

There's a scene in this movie where they listen to our episodes with Gethard talking about Star wars in the past. And I'm like, why are we watching them listen? It's not even a video podcast.

[David Sims]

It's just like it felt like television the whole time.

[Griffin Newman]

Like the final moment back in the spaceship.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

He lets Grou push the button.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And you pull that button.

[Griffin Newman]

I didn't let you push side. And you went, he gets to push the button now. And that to them is their notion of, like, look at the character growth.

[David Sims]

Because they're like, we planted the sea in the first act. He was like, don't push the button. Can I say elemental storytelling?

[Chris Gethard]

I want to say one very nitpicky thing, please. And Griffin, you just rewatched the seasons of the show more recently. Me, I also found myself feeling very not into how often Mando uses dog language to tell Grogu what to do.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I don't like telling him.

[Chris Gethard]

Heel.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

The heel thing they. They think is funny and it's not fun.

[Chris Gethard]

It's like, is he your kid or is he a dog?

[Griffin Newman]

It is. It is clearly that. It's. It's bad comedy instinction. It was. It ended up being funny a couple times. And I think when it used to happen, when it happens early year mostly in the first season, the joke is this guy doesn't have bedside manner.

[David Sims]

But at this point, at this point,

[Chris Gethard]

that this is his child. My dad. I watch it and I'm like, that's child abuse.

[Griffin Newman]

It's just seem like a now when

[Chris Gethard]

parents treat their children the same way they treat their animals, you know, because they're bad parents.

[David Sims]

Yes, obviously. The Mandalorian is supposed to be, you know, whatever, a man, a few words and so on and so forth, forth. But, yeah, there's not much of a connection that you can detect because of how muted and flat.

[Griffin Newman]

But this is. The seasons lost their way. I mean, you have the end of season two when Luke comes on the ship and takes him.

[Ben Hosley]

So.

[David Sims]

Right, right. So season one is perfect and is the one that ends with the Taika YT robot saving them and everyone, like, all the characters melting from all the episodes sort of come together, and it, like, it just felt like great tv

[Chris Gethard]

does that also, though? Mark, I don't want to say.

[David Sims]

No, let me just let me finish before we write. Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Basically ends with him being like, I'm gonna keep the kid. Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then season two ends with, like, Giancarlo Esposito wants the Dark Saber or something. And then Luke Skywalker shows up to

[Griffin Newman]

rescue them, and he likes them all,

[David Sims]

but then he takes.

[Griffin Newman]

I have to train him. And Mando takes his helmet off. A tearful goodbye, showing his face to Grogu for the first time. Time. And the emotional growth is he cares more about connecting to this creed than the creed. And he's showing his emotions. The stoicism wall is over.

[David Sims]

And Ahsoka's in season two. Like, she drops in somewhere in there

[Griffin Newman]

and she trains, train him a little. And I guess she's the one who tells Luke to go find him.

[David Sims]

And then Book of Boba Fett was in between those two seasons.

[Griffin Newman]

So, like, the first half of Book of Boba Fett is Boba Fett being like, do I want to be a sheriff, a mayor?

[David Sims]

I'm in charge.

[Chris Gethard]

I guess the fact that he just becomes a sheriff, which is an elected county position, there's never been truly, you know, what's so wild about Boba Fett?

[David Sims]

Let's leave Tatooine. Let's go.

[Griffin Newman]

And the season ends with him kicking Fat Bib Fortuna off a throne and going, I like that chair. Are you taking his position?

[Chris Gethard]

No.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe just the chair we have.

[Ben Hosley]

Say your thing.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

I gotta say this. On this show we have created, and honestly, at this point, our own language, which is ludicrous, but the idea of a Fisto as represented by Kit Fisto in the prequels, the character that you see and you go, I want more of that. And we said today that the current person holding the crown of all Fisto actually saw Gerrera, who is dead. But in the Star wars universe, even Fisto has been out. Fisto by Saguerrera. We've never talked about the fact that the most famous and iconic Fisto is Boba Fett. Starting in the original special.

[David Sims]

The original where fans are just like the holiday special. What's the deal with that guy? Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting.

[Chris Gethard]

And.

[David Sims]

And then Vader says no disintegrations. And you're like, so he's fucked up. Huh?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, ah, so he's done disintegrated.

[Chris Gethard]

We've been begging him to get him. Right.

[David Sims]

We haven't used to be specifically told.

[Chris Gethard]

They have mishandled him so much that we've never even addressed that he's the original Fisto.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Chris Gethard]

But he's actually the. He's the most mishandled. The attempt to fisto to give the fans what they want.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Chris Gethard]

In an incorrect way with a fisto.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Leads to what we have now with Boba Fett, which I would actually argue should now be phrased a swing and a misto. It was a swing and a misto.

[David Sims]

Was.

[Chris Gethard]

He's the ultimate swing and a misto. You have a Fisto, which is Fisto himself. The absolute representation of what this should be.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Chris Gethard]

Tease us with some intrigue and then don't give us too much. Make us watch some deep cut cartoons to find out more.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Saw Gerrera currently there with. I would say we're probably not the only people. Ben and I clearly kind of begging, like, if you can get Forest Whitaker to recommit to a prequel about how that came to. To be.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

I will put. But, you know, his backstory is great too.

[Ben Hosley]

I went down a rabbit hole

[Griffin Newman]

character. Right.

[David Sims]

That was. The weird thing is that saw Gerrera not looking like, you know, Forest Whitaker because like that they didn't have that idea yet. But he is in the Clone wars cartoon first, you know, and like. And like is a minor character that they decided to recycle for Rogue One. But then obviously Forest kind of of just transform the character and everyone kind of forgets that now that character. It's the rare example of a jump from the cartoons being interesting.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And done very. In a very considered way.

[Chris Gethard]

You also have to imagine that you're going to an actor of that caliber who, whatever you tell them to go, says, thank you so much for your input.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Chris Gethard]

I've got this from here. And you actually shut the fuck up.

[David Sims]

And I think also Rogue One is crazy where it's like. Because, like he was going to be in more of it. There's the scene where he like rescues her and I think.

[Griffin Newman]

Think there's stuff the trailer. He has two different haircuts. One of the haircuts never shows up in the film.

[David Sims]

Decided to cut of their relationship because like in Rogue One he's a little weird because you only really see him, you know, in the last days of his life. Yes. And he's crazy.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then. And. Or gives you much more seasoning on him. But it is still basically like you need to understand how this person became.

[Griffin Newman]

He's an anarchist.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Yes.

[Ben Hosley]

He's kind of like the Weather Underground.

[David Sims]

Right. Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

We're just gonna blow up the dirty work. He's the one who's getting done. And they all love to pretend. It doesn't have to be that blood machine.

[David Sims]

Von Ma is the least like, she's the most like, we need to win over the people hearts and minds. We can't just be blowing up and he. A little closer.

[Chris Gethard]

That's like, actually, we need to kill Mountbatten.

[David Sims]

We need to.

[Chris Gethard]

How about we bomb a boat and kill an ancillary member of the road?

[David Sims]

We do that. But also I don't care if. Right. If we're going to kill some civilians. Like they're all culpable.

[Griffin Newman]

Blah, blah, blah.

[David Sims]

You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing dirty. And Lutheran is more on that side of things. But Lutheran has some control. Whereas Saw likes to like Huff.

[Ben Hosley]

Like is the inverse of Vader.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Well, that they kind of do that in Rogue One of like he kind

[Ben Hosley]

of sounds like the suit.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Ben Hosley]

I mean, I love it though.

[Chris Gethard]

It's one of the most psychologically up characters in Star Wars.

[David Sims]

But what I love about Lutheran is he's like, I'm a bullet casing and I'm gonna be spent. Like I will be done. And I know I will die.

[Griffin Newman]

Incredible character.

[David Sims]

And I know like. Like that I. It's in service of something important. And I know that I'm like a sin eater. Like, I will do the bad stuff. I know I won't be remembered. That's fine. Like I, you know.

[Griffin Newman]

He basically shows up at the end of episode two in the first season, I think. And I was watching the first two episodes and I was like, yeah, this is good. But there are a lot of great TV shows that people tell me for years to watch. And I watch them and I'm like, I get this. This is well made. But I don't like TV this much. Or, you know. That's right.

[David Sims]

And you've been hearing for years from people like me who watch and.

[Griffin Newman]

Or you love Star Wars. This is the greatest.

[David Sims]

You don't understand. It actually rocks. Like it actually. It's not good.

[Chris Gethard]

It stands up in.

[David Sims]

It's the best thing they've ever done apart from the big two. I mean, I don't think that's really to being Empire. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

I. I basically. I'm inclined to agree with that.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

My only regret is that they won five seasons.

[Chris Gethard]

I think previously on the show about Rogue One. And I think. I think if you view andor Rogue One as a package deal, I think time will only perhaps elevate them even more.

[David Sims]

Possibly. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But I also think part of its power is that it's building something underneath the foundation of the original Star Wars. It's in conversation with the original. Conversation serves it. It makes it better.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly. It doesn't feel like it's like, you know, messing with it.

[Chris Gethard]

I'm saying this as a callback, but also really, there's so much eye contact.

[Griffin Newman]

It truly.

[Chris Gethard]

There's so much.

[Griffin Newman]

And actors making choices. That's what space is about.

[Chris Gethard]

It sense the idea that like it's not digital that you go like, oh. Sometimes the way a street revolution starts is someone takes a spoon and bangs on a frying pan so you have time to lock your door.

[Griffin Newman]

Those first.

[Chris Gethard]

That's the most human real ass.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, those first two episodes I'm like, this is well done.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Second episode ends with Skarsgard on a train. I lean in a little bit.

[David Sims]

I agree.

[Griffin Newman]

Got interesting. Okay. Third episode starts with him introducing himself to Andor. Like two minutes in I text you guys, guys. Andor's the best shit ever. I get it immediately. I see the whole thing now. Just the entire conception of his character is so perfect and so smart. And then his performance on top of it. And then everything feels like that where you're just like, oh my God. I'm watching them practice rebellion runs in the mountains of how they're going to infiltrate these things. They're doing their play right. This is like the fucking Cuban revolutionaries. Like it's so smart about like commenting on human history and also the text of Star Wars. And this is a big thing I felt watching all these shows and watching this movie and you saying David, like the 70s creatives. More woo woo. And all of this. There's a bigger thing which is the magic of Star wars is that George Lucas put basically the entire history of storytelling into one container. He was like, what if you could make a 3 in legend exists with Saturday morning cereals and religion and samurai and westerns and all of this and he put it all on a blender and then he kept pulling from different genres. What if you have an alien kind of mob boss? That's Jabba the Hut. What if this, what if that? And you kept building and building. And the longer Star wars goes on, Star wars starts to become more and more about itself. The prequels, for all of their faults, are not about themselves. They are him saying what like this is actually what's like the foundation of this world I built. You know, it's about me commenting on the cyclical nature of how, you know, fascism rises and falls and all these sorts of things. The human instincts and structures and governments, you know, and people in power. And the Disney era has had this really uncomfortable relationship with. Are we trying to comment on Star Wars? Are we trying to make a new Star wars for the current audience? Or we just trying to point backwards for the things that the fans love minus any of the deeper meaning? I have not watched much Clone wars, but the people I know who love Clone wars, and I'm sorry, I'm forgetting who said this to me, but someone recently was making the case for why Clone wars were so good and what the problem with the live action shows and specifically the Filoni led ones have been. And they said this thing that Filoni did that was really smart on Clone wars first handful episodes roughly going, that was the stuff that felt a little more passed down by George. And then Filoni starts to find his own voice. And what he did was he clocked into George was pulling from so many movies he had watched, so many stories he had read, books he had read and stuff. Filoni just starts watching like Turner Classic Movies and going like, oh, here's like a be noir from the 40s. This is kind of an interesting plot line. Could I transpose this onto Star Wars? And part of Star wars, to me the magic is that it's taking a different mode of storytelling or a different genre and finding how to put it into this universe. Andor is doing that. Andor is like, what's the Star wars version of Battle of Algiers?

[David Sims]

Right, Totally.

[Griffin Newman]

And it rules and it's in conversation with everything and it's deeper and more meaningful for that reason. I think acolyte does that. I think even Skeleton Crew in a very superficial way, while not being self

[David Sims]

burden or whatever inside Star wars and

[Chris Gethard]

said that in unison.

[David Sims]

We did.

[Griffin Newman]

And Mando, it's right. Mando smartly why the first season works so well is it's like, wow, what if you just did. Yeah, Do Lone Wolf and Cub? Do gun smoke? You know, do like half gun Will

[Chris Gethard]

tr or whatever question that I have for you, Griffin, having just watched it though, because we've talked so much about how. And again, I. I'm the one who liked the movie the most, had fun watching it, saw I enjoyed and still kind of rolled my eyes. But like, part of it feels like, like, don't change a thing about Grogu. He's our money maker.

[Griffin Newman]

This is about Star wars and beyond that, it's about Grogu. It's like about like, it's so my.

[Chris Gethard]

But then we also talk about, you know, from Force Awakens, the Last Jedi to the Rise of Skywalker, how they're constantly unwrapping what's been done based on overthinking fan reactions and this and that. How in the world, in an era where it's clear that the creative and corporate culture is leading to so many moments like that, let alone the number of high caliber filmmakers that have been announced and then it's been pissed away, how the fuck does Tony Gilroy get two seasons of a show on that? So clearly meet the moment in the way no other Star wars is, in which he does a show about regular street level people trying to deal with the encroachment of fascism at an era where the news is so heavily dealing with all over the world, street level protests of people trying to fight back against the idea of no kings dragons. George Floyd, Minneapolis.

[Griffin Newman]

So last year, so I can answer the miracle.

[Chris Gethard]

How did he pull that miracle off of getting it off?

[Griffin Newman]

He pulled it off in the way that most miracles happen in this level of like corporate art, which is like something slipped through the system. There was a mistake and it was actually. It solved a problem to let him do this. That same deep pandemic Disney investor conference day where they announced 87 projects and these things that used to happen behind closed doors were suddenly live streamed and none of us had stuff to watch. So many people were watching it and it was being reported on. They announced these movies that didn't happen. And they announced like eight TV shows and half of them never manifested. There was some new Droid show that never happened. There's the Gina Carano show that never happened. There's the Lando show that never happened.

[David Sims]

Oh boy.

[Griffin Newman]

And Andor is part of that lineup. Andor was of the things they announced that hadn't actually like been going. And Ahsoka was part of that as well. Well, Andor was kind of highest priority. A they have Diego Luna on A contract. They're trying to negotiate his holds. He's a busy actor. They're like spending money to keep him available to do a show.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

They hire writers quickly, they start developing it. They put months of work and money into it. I think there's some amount of pre production.

[David Sims]

Well, Jared Bush. It was Jared Bush's show.

[Griffin Newman]

And it was also Stephen Schiff who had come off of the Americans. There were a couple different teams.

[Chris Gethard]

Jared.

[David Sims]

No, Jared Bush develops the show. The Zootopia guy, he writes a pilot behind Zootopia.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the original?

[David Sims]

Yes. He writes a pilot. He writes a bible.

[Chris Gethard]

So it wasn't Gilroy at first?

[David Sims]

No, not at all. Then Shift is hired as the showrunner.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And then Gilroy joins in a little later. And that is how this all happens.

[Griffin Newman]

It's what happens with where they, you

[David Sims]

know, where he's like, I have a few notes. And then it's like he seems to have just kind of taken over and in a good way.

[Griffin Newman]

Like my understanding is, you know, Rogue One, they said like, the movie has problems, can you come and fix it? And he was like an assassin. And they credit him with solving a lot of the issues, even though it cost a lot of money. Was a lot of panic late in the day. And so they're like working on this and they're like this Utopia guy, Stephen Schiff, who's coming off the Americans, oh, let's hire a spy show guy. None of this is working. And they're like, can Gilroy come in and give us the three fixes?

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

And he sort of says like, I think you sort of don't have any. Anything. And Kathleen Kennedy challenges him and says like, okay, if you could do anything, what would you do? And he goes, let me think on it. And he comes in and pitches it. And basically there was enough money sunk into it that it was prudent to do something with it. Yeah. And then I think they got excited by it. Yeah. And they were like, let's fucking support this. But he never could have pitched that from the get go.

[David Sims]

I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so.

[Chris Gethard]

And it doesn't seem like there's any part of the them that's going to look at. I don't know about the actual subscribers, but the critical praise and the fan, like they matters. Well, they listen to the negative fan love to the point where they have, I think that Abrams unwrap Gian's movies, but they don't listen to the positive fan love to go like what's our next political story?

[David Sims]

But how do you replicate. Andor they're like.

[Griffin Newman]

That's like, well, Saw Guerrero.

[David Sims]

Well, you know, people, they.

[Griffin Newman]

The Book of Saw.

[David Sims]

Hell yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Buzz, Buzz, motherfucker Guerrera from the Book of Saw.

[David Sims]

You know, like, it's like this weird series of accidents that led to this thing. It cost a fortune. They don't want to do that. You know, I mean, partly it's Covid, partly it's streaming tv, you know, but

[Griffin Newman]

also Gilbert was like, if we're doing this, it has to look real. We need, like, bodies in places.

[David Sims]

They set it in, like, real places.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Mando was shot entirely in la, which they keep saying.

[David Sims]

And people have been making fun of Favreau for trotting that out. And obviously it's like Favreau is.

[Chris Gethard]

He's doing right by the industry.

[Griffin Newman]

Exactly.

[Chris Gethard]

He is doing right by.

[David Sims]

In Hollywood, where a crowd understands, like, that matters right now. And I. I think that's fine that

[Griffin Newman]

he's doing human being. It's a great move.

[David Sims]

But some people are kind of pointing out, like, hey, man, Star wars is kind of defined by, like, going to a really crazy place or whatever, or even Australia or, you know where. Yeah. And cool landscapes. And instead, like, you're having a conversation with Rod of the Hutt in what's clearly like nothing.

[Chris Gethard]

Credit to Fab. Like the unions.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Chris Gethard]

You know, and the out of work people. And the.

[David Sims]

What he's saying is, I didn't do this in Bulgaria, guys.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[David Sims]

You know.

[Chris Gethard]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what he's saying. They weren't going to shoot this in real places anyway. Favreau has basically become a guy who seemingly doesn't like fresh air or daylight anymore.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, you're right. It was a binary. It was either they go to Eastern Europe or they shoot this in stages in America, but it was going to be shot on stages. That in and of itself is not a death knell. But it's like every decision on this movie is a version of that. And there's even a story. There's a Vulture article that came out yesterday. At the time we're recording this about,

[Chris Gethard]

like, the clown scene in la. I read that.

[Griffin Newman]

No one's talking about it. Everyone's normal about that piece.

[Chris Gethard]

Every. Did you read it? Yeah, I was just jumping in to make a joke.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no, no.

[Chris Gethard]

Anyway, you're the Vulture piece.

[Griffin Newman]

You were saying it was the. It was asking the question of why is this the thing that they mentioned made. What was the strategy here? Is it gonna work? It's not opening well. Right. The reviews have been bad. Everyone's kind of shrugging about it and they call out. This movie was very cheap to make, especially for Star wars. It cost $175 million. LA was so grateful to get production entirely there, they gave a 25 million dollar rebate. It cost less than 150, which for Star wars is nuts. I know. It's an insane amount of money. It's nuts. It's money that was spent to put a lot of people to work and create jobs and fucking whatever. But they also have this anecdote that two friends texted us yesterday. Yeah. And I was like, there's the review right there. And they go, Disney just trusted Favreau because he's like a smart, steady hand. He launched the Marvel Universe, kind of

[David Sims]

launched live action Disney in a way.

[Griffin Newman]

He doesn't stress out. He gets things done. He works fast. He works quick.

[David Sims]

Quick.

[Griffin Newman]

He's such a multitasker that one day when they were filming easy interior shots of Mando and Grogu in the cockpit, he also spent his time grilling up 500 grilled cheeses on a griddle for the cast and crew. And I'm like, this feels like a movie made by a guy who's also making sandwiches at the same time.

[Chris Gethard]

Chef. Call that.

[Griffin Newman]

There are TV shows that feel like, you know, we joke. This is a show you're supposed to watch while you're folding laundry.

[David Sims]

Laundry.

[Griffin Newman]

This is a movie made by someone who's in the act of folding laundry. And it's like, it's the whole thing there where you're like, it's great that he brought production back to la. That's nice that he made sandwiches for everybody. I don't know, maybe the scenes in the cockpit should be better.

[Chris Gethard]

I would not be shocked if this movie outpaces the financial projections that the reviews are dismal about because people are going to bring their kids to it.

[Griffin Newman]

The Thursday numbers, which. Which is not a kid thing. Right. The kids will come in the weekend, matinee the afternoon, just wait to watch it.

[Chris Gethard]

Streaming is now also.

[Griffin Newman]

It's also a problem. Problem.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

But the Thursday previews when you went to see it are lower than what Solo did. And Solo opened on this exact same Memorial Day weekend and made 100 million for the four day and like 80 for the three day. And this is looking to make less than 80 for the three day. So it's coming in below the low watermark.

[David Sims]

It's coming in at Solo or worse. Yeah, it could. You Know, because it's a family movie, you know, you could see some improvement. It's kind of like a rainy weekend. Yeah. That's sort of good and bad. You know, like that can help drive people to theaters.

[Griffin Newman]

But their triumph would be we did the exact same number as Solo. The idea of them doing demonstrably better than Solo is basically out of the question.

[Ben Hosley]

But also when they make a bunch of money from all the toys and

[Chris Gethard]

the dummies

[Griffin Newman]

and it's cheap.

[David Sims]

It wasn't that expensive.

[Griffin Newman]

They shot solo two times. Solo cost like $400 million.

[Ben Hosley]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

They're, they're going to be fine on this. But like, like, what's the long term gain of it's fine when Star wars is kind of in crisis and andor is starting to feel like an aberration.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And like, I guess Felon's hope is next year we have this other movie comes out. It'll work and it'll do well. Yeah. And my skin is saved.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

But if I'm in charge of Disney, I'm seeing this go over so poorly. This is going over poorly.

[Griffin Newman]

It's going over poorly.

[David Sims]

It got bad reviews and it's not doing well financially.

[Griffin Newman]

Checks barely even talking about the movie itself.

[David Sims]

Checks mostly just talking about Nilla Wafers and Avatar the last air Bender.

[Griffin Newman]

They're saying it's a good episode. I can't tell if people are going to be upset that we're not talking about the plot. But I did do that three minute challenge thing and that was 114.

[Ben Hosley]

Our editor is struggling a little bit with the screaming, but we'll, we'll make.

[Griffin Newman]

I didn't even think about that. Thank you.

[Chris Gethard]

Thank you.

[Griffin Newman]

Alen Smith cut that part out. No, we can keep it in. Triple it.

[David Sims]

Nope.

[Chris Gethard]

Appa's last day is the best. Oppa lost days. That's the best stretch of appetite.

[David Sims]

That's, that's very good. I mean, I love all the bossing stuff. Say stuff a lot. I think that stuff's really, really special for kids especially like, you know, like teaching them about totalitarianism and about like

[Chris Gethard]

replacement and refugees and all this stuff. Nickelodeon cartoon.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. No, I watched it. I don't question it for a second.

[Ben Hosley]

It took me years to watch Potalorian and Casco.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, sure.

[Ben Hosley]

So I said text to you, but

[David Sims]

I was just saying is. Sorry. I just finished with Is Filoni fired? Right. Like, is there a world where someone above at Disney is like, Star wars needs a very strong hand at the hill Now. Star wars is a little Lost. We need to do the James Gunn thing that DC did. We need to bring in a respected creative force. I have no idea if they do or don't. I don't know. But like, if I'm in charge of Disney right now. Kathleen Kennedy has gone out into that good night. And Filoni, with his cowboy hat, he's in this movie. He's wearing a stupid hat.

[Griffin Newman]

Trapper Wolf, God bless him.

[Chris Gethard]

Do you think what TD's performance at that robot is when he said I'm the. And I won't take notes anymore?

[Griffin Newman]

I think so.

[David Sims]

I think it's all part of it. I think. I think a lot of contributed to that.

[Griffin Newman]

And he was really feeling himself girdling sandwiches.

[Chris Gethard]

I was so wrong about. I. I thought that Thor movie was going to do the God Butcher stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

That's one of the funniest runs you've ever.

[Chris Gethard]

A lot of your fans are making

[Griffin Newman]

fun of me, but I would.

[Chris Gethard]

I would say if you read the comics.

[Griffin Newman]

No, you're right about this.

[Chris Gethard]

He betrayed it. To have his own character make jokes.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Chris Gethard]

He betrayed everything amazing about the story so he could keep coming back and personally making jokes.

[David Sims]

Thor, Love and Thunder, which. Did you ever catch up with that?

[Griffin Newman]

I still have not seen it. It is the only MCU movie I haven't seen.

[Chris Gethard]

I haven't seen Iron Man 3.

[Griffin Newman]

Obviously. I regret to inform you it has one flaw, but otherwise it is maybe our favorite Marvel movie.

[Chris Gethard]

It's the one flaw that I was cut from.

[Griffin Newman]

Correct. Obviously. It's the only thing that could have improved.

[Chris Gethard]

It acted opposite Don Cheadle and it

[David Sims]

got hit the cutting great actor.

[Chris Gethard]

Fortunately, he could not overcome the massive deficit I brought.

[David Sims]

Oh sh.

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

But Thor Love and Thunder is one of those things where I'm like that kind of slipped under a bit of a sort of post Covid radar.

[Griffin Newman]

It doesn't get.

[David Sims]

But I think it actually does not get enough how bad it is with

[Griffin Newman]

that level of riffing. That's freaking sublime. Yeah. Then. Then the source material goes out the window. The riffing was freaking sublime. It. The riffing was riffing.

[David Sims]

What did you want to say, Ben, about the Mandalorian pos.

[Griffin Newman]

Excuse me. The Porian and cast goo.

[Ben Hosley]

I sent you a text.

[Griffin Newman]

Can you just.

[Chris Gethard]

Right now?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Look at.

[David Sims]

Quick look.

[Griffin Newman]

The great Pat Reynolds are our longtime Photoshop artist. Titled this episode the Pod Podalorian and cast goo. We give him.

[Ben Hosley]

No, I don't want to make you here. I'll just show you the picture.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, I know.

[Chris Gethard]

I found it. I found My phone.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. Because I do think there's some powerful stuff going on here. He doesn't. You know, we rarely even give him notes. Sure. But he usually drops the thing, like, a day or two before it needs to post. And we just trust the process. He sent this photo yesterday, and it did have us reeling.

[David Sims]

I even showed it to my wife, and I don't show her every, you know, Photoshop that crosses my desk.

[Ben Hosley]

And was. Was she smiling?

[Chris Gethard]

She.

[David Sims]

She.

[Chris Gethard]

She.

[David Sims]

She was laughing.

[Griffin Newman]

I like that you came to Casco's defense. Because Marie.

[David Sims]

Yeah. They were like, oh, curse. Now I'm like, cursed with awesomeness.

[Ben Hosley]

This is good.

[Griffin Newman]

We've really landed on something. And in fact, maybe Blank Check's first movie is the podcast Lorian and cast group. Because I think we could sell a lot of Casco merch.

[Ben Hosley]

I think so.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, look, I know we're being critical of this movie, but we. We can do it. Right. Right. If we sold, like, cast goo cookies and.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Are you looking at this gaff?

[Chris Gethard]

This is really strange. It's kind of an achieve. I wish I wasn't in the room with you.

[Griffin Newman]

Wish you weren't in the room. Are you saying you want to be Photoshopped in? Do you want to be Zeb or Ellis?

[Chris Gethard]

I mean, I did. I did. I did think maybe I would be in there, but that's okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Do you want to be Zeb or Rada?

[Chris Gethard]

Mia's Rada.

[Griffin Newman]

So I think Rad is the right. Get this Rada and yours.

[David Sims]

There's.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay, you remember, email Pat right now

[David Sims]

and let him know. Griff.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Until this second, I forgot about Zeb.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep.

[David Sims]

And they told you not to forget about Zeb, obviously.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, Eminem said that.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Right. But so Zeb, who's in Star Wars Rebels.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Who's like which?

[Griffin Newman]

I love Rebels. Rebels is a show I actually watch.

[David Sims]

Love is Too Strong, but I watched most of it. I felt it somewhat disappeared up its own ass eventually.

[Griffin Newman]

But I enjoyed it, David. The exact same relationship. I don't remember if it was three or four seasons in total. I loved the first season of that show. Much like Mandalorian.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

At season two, I was like, I still like this season three. I'm like, it's getting really into tying back to Clone wars. And then I never finished the show.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

The start.

[David Sims]

Well, did you love In Ahsoka, where, you know, all those characters are flesh and blood now and they deliver lines like this. We have to go get the.

[Chris Gethard]

I liked it fine. I mean, I also just I. You know, I like Rosario Dawson. I do, too, so much. I'll watch her. I'll watch her be pensive and exist in this love. Rosario Dawson existing in a liminal space where she rejected Jedi is never be. Can never be human again.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, I'll watch taking a nap for four episodes of that season.

[Chris Gethard]

You guys are so harsh.

[David Sims]

I'm not harsh. I watched all of that TV show. It was a lot of hours I put into it. It was very low energy. It was very, very.

[Chris Gethard]

Her face is lit up by the

[Griffin Newman]

lightsaber I was watching.

[Ben Hosley]

It's a white lightsaber.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the white lightsaber. I was watching it and I was like, what is this acting style? Why are they, like. Like this? What does this remind me of? And then I cracked it. I went, this is children doing Shakespeare. This is when you see a high school production of Shakespeare, and it's like, no one knows what they're saying, but they know that it's supposed to be performed. Seriously. And so you just make an acting choice that is serious. I like.

[Chris Gethard]

I like the. So confined.

[Griffin Newman]

And I'm watching Obi Wan.

[David Sims]

Fine.

[Griffin Newman]

I like, just be so juiceless.

[David Sims]

Quite juicy.

[Ben Hosley]

Can I share my joke with Chris?

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah, it's time. I. Yes, I've heard that there's a joke.

[Griffin Newman]

I struggled to watch Ahsoka. I was really struggling. And I made this commitment to. I'm going to watch all the shows before this episode. And Ben was a real friend, and he helped me.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, because in a little more context,

[Griffin Newman]

we're just say the joke first and then give the context. I think this is the way to do it.

[David Sims]

Okay, well, whatever.

[Ben Hosley]

So Griffin's struggling. I say, do you want me to come inside and jump on the bed while you're a soaking?

[Chris Gethard]

Got it. Got it. No context needed.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. So the context is we workshop this joke a lot.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

It's been in the works for, like, two months.

[Chris Gethard]

I pitched it.

[Ben Hosley]

I. I mean, I said it in real time. When we were on our trip, we

[Griffin Newman]

were drunk in the back of a car. And you said, is a soaking anything? Is there a way to make that mean something?

[David Sims]

That's. That's when the Mormons, they, they. They. They jiggle the bed to.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Because they can't move, but maybe someone else can't move.

[Griffin Newman]

You can insert, but you can't.

[David Sims]

When you say you can insert, it's like, I think already some rules are.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe what they do here is they insert.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And then they go, well, I'm not thrusting. And Then someone else jumps on the bag like. Like a bunch of monkeys.

[Chris Gethard]

Jury duty did a. They did famous joke.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Griffin Newman]

So Ben was joking that I was holding my finger over the play button so that I didn't want to press it. And then he started jumping on the bed, soaking, and that's a token.

[David Sims]

So Z. Zeb.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, Zeb. Now, I like all Rebels. I think every character is well conceived and fun. And the way they've translated to live action, all of them have become so boring and sad. And Zeb's thing is basically a. He's based off of like the original Ralph Macquarie design, which is fun.

[David Sims]

Chewbacca.

[Ben Hosley]

Right, right.

[Griffin Newman]

Which most of Rebels is original Macquarie designs. Back to the drawing board. I like that his character is basically like, what if the pilot. Pilot is kind of like a big kind of monkey bear alien who's almost got like a football hooligan vibe. Right. He's like a bit of a tough guy, but he's funny and he'll give you shit. Whatever this shows up. They just act like everyone's gonna be cheering that he's back. He's from a TV show that's now over 10 years old. They brought him in for one scene, basically a like blink and you miss a cameo in one episode of Mandalorian Season three where he never interacts with Mandalorian or Grogu. And now he's just like their friend who pilots their ship. Even though Mando famously loves piloting ships, is a pilot skilled, and they don't do any work to introduce him. They don't do anything to make you like this guy. He no longer has the traits that made him likable in his previous show. And they just act like we're all like, thank God Zeb is here and he's there and he disappears and he.

[David Sims]

Grogu pushes the button.

[Griffin Newman]

Why do you think he's gone from the movie? And then he's like, oh, Zeb's back.

[Chris Gethard]

I do have a follow up question for something you said, David, and it ties into this, which I think you said. Like, is there a chance Filoni gets fired?

[David Sims]

Yeah. Or at least. Or maybe fired might be strong, but like. Exactly. Pushed again over to the side of like, you know what, you can be in charge of cartoons.

[Chris Gethard]

But I kind of. I think one of the thing that seems clear about him and I don't know him, is that it seems like his greatest strength and his greatest weakness is that he really, really cares on a granular, detailed level about the things he cares about.

[Griffin Newman]

This Is true.

[Chris Gethard]

And that's what made so much of his early stuff feel so great and connected.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Chris Gethard]

And is why we're all sitting around like, who the fuck is Zeb? Like, that's clearly. It's, it's good and bad. My question is if someone is brought in to share that load or to become the feige of Star wars that he is maybe proving not to be fundamentally, is that better if it's someone who really loves Star wars or someone who doesn't give a fuck about, you

[Griffin Newman]

know, who doesn't give that much of a fuck about Star Wars. Star Wars.

[Chris Gethard]

Who's that?

[Griffin Newman]

Tony Gilroy.

[Chris Gethard]

Could you hand the whole thing to Gilroy? Would Disney ever.

[Griffin Newman]

No. And he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do it now. Right.

[David Sims]

Because it is. Right. The challenge is. It's like James Gunn was, I guess, down for it. But it's like, right, do you want that job? It's like kind of this weird executive managerial job.

[Chris Gethard]

You always need someone that's like, I just want good stories. The Star wars stuff will come in.

[Griffin Newman]

Or at least a 50, 50 SP split, you know, versus Filoni's interests. Feel 90 maintaining the tenants of Star Wars.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

In a very kind of like literal way you say, you know, do they bring someone else in? Do they push him aside? The question is beyond who would even want to do that? Because it feels like such a poison chalice. And the fandom has become so impossible to please. I feel like the fandom speaks as if they're monolithic. Even though it's like a shattered like 40 part fandom with different feelings. You know, it's like modern Christianity that's like a bunch of different sects. And then they're speaking as a monolith and then Disney reacts to them like they're also a monolith. So you're never actually making something that pleases everyone. And everyone's like, no, Star wars is for me. And why are you not making the thing that I want? Which is a struggle. I'm not against the idea of this being a movie that's just for kids to get the new generation in. And if kids are loving this, I'm happy. The screening we went to, our buddy Matt Singer brought his daughter who I believe has not watched the show.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know if she's ever seen the original Star wars movie.

[David Sims]

She's seen some Star Wars, I'm not sure.

[Griffin Newman]

Certainly not specifically a big Star wars fan.

[Chris Gethard]

And was said you brought her to the press screen.

[Griffin Newman]

Matt Singer. Brought his daughter.

[Chris Gethard]

Got it, Got it.

[Griffin Newman]

And he, he, you know, was. I thought you did have a. I did not. He brought his daughter, who I think is nine and was just kind of like I want to see that movie because I like Baby Yoda. And he said that she enjoyed it, but she also enjoyed like her green colored sprite as much as she enjoyed the movie. And it was just sort of the general celebration of Grogu was enough. I'm not gonna be like cynical of that. I like anything that like makes people happy that isn't aggressively harmful to society.

[Chris Gethard]

We will all be dead sooner than those children. They need those children spending their. When they are in the workforce.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes. But I, I question is there even an obvious or semi obvious person to point to of should that person take over Star Wars? Because when people were angry about the movies four years ago, everyone would have said probably makes sense to hand it to Favreau. Sure. And if not Favreau, Filoni is the bad fan choice. And now both of these guys have kind of like stepped up in it.

[David Sims]

Well, but I, I mean I personally would never have wanted Felony to be in charge of Star Wars Bavro. I could have seen that happening. Yeah, yeah. He's, he's more got that kind of like vague exec. Yes. Kind of status now.

[Griffin Newman]

I would rather see him be in charge of a Cubano truck, for example because it feels like that's what really makes him happy. It's so funny that he made one great giant franchise movie. One franchise movie that was a mess, then made his self referential. I'm struggling working within these corporate demands. I just want to be doing my little thing. Food truck. Got that out of his system. Has become the ultimate like studio hired hand guy. Has become the like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I figured out how to take all difficulty out of the filmmaking process and I will do nothing controversial. David.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Quick question. If you be honest, I solemnly swear

[David Sims]

I will tell the truth and nothing but it.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you. When did you last actually think about how much fiber you're eating? Can't say.

[David Sims]

I can't say I think about it

[Griffin Newman]

enough actually think about it.

[David Sims]

I don't know.

[Chris Gethard]

I.

[David Sims]

Not, not recently enough.

[Griffin Newman]

Talking protein. I'm not talking calories. Fiber. Fiber.

[David Sims]

It's important.

[Griffin Newman]

Fiber. In the US fewer than 1 in 10 adults hit their daily recommended intake. And fiber isn't a bonus nutrient. It's foundational fullness, gut, health. Something certainly affects me. Energy, blood sugar. It touches all of it. And as someone who struggles with I'd

[David Sims]

say I do too.

[Griffin Newman]

Digestion issues. Sometimes I try to be mindful of fiber and that's where Huel comes in. Sponsor of the podcast H U E L

[David Sims]

Hauser.

[Griffin Newman]

Here's what Huel actually is. It's not Huel Hauser, who was himself California Gold HU is nutritionally complete food. One bottle or one scoop gives you everything a real meal is supposed to give you. Protein, fiber, carbs, 27 essential vitamins and minerals. This is like the cast of Ocean's Eleven in terms of how star studded it is in the digestive world. It's designed by nutritionists to be a full meal, not a protein shake. You have fuel instead of food, which you don't have time for. A healthy meal. As someone who's not good at scheduling and structuring his life, I will admit they sent over a big box the chocolate peanut butter flavor. And I have a couple times realized, oh, I forgot to eat a meal. Grab a bottle of this out of the fridge. It hits just right. Some days I'm locked in. I go to the gym, I meal prep. For me, those days are called never. It literally never happens other days. And I call these days every day. I look up and realize it's 2pm and I've had coffee and nothing healthy. That actually is a little bit too accurate. Fuel is the first thing that's actually helped me stay consistent. Instead of falling off every time my schedule blows up in the way I just said the ready to drink? I grab on the way out the door. 35 grams of protein, 7 grams of fiber, 27 essential vitamins and minerals. No artificial sweeteners under 5 bucks. And don Cheadle, uncredited. Cheaper than a latte. And it fills me up so I'm not back in the fridge five minutes later. And David, the powder. The powder is also super easy. It's 40 grams of protein, same complete nutrition. You shake it with water and it's a meal ready in under a minute. I wish there was some kind of limited time offer. I wish there was an offer with a ticking clock. Yes. Wait a second. You can get hu today with our exclusive offer offer of 15% off online with the code [e-mail] check. That's h.comchk new customers only. Thank you to Huell for partnering and supporting our show.

[Chris Gethard]

Can I ask a question?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, please.

[Chris Gethard]

And I just also want to say I think you guys would agree. Yeah, I think I've put the bad boy of blank check bit on hold for this episode. I think we've had a Thoughtful discussion with a lot of good points.

[Griffin Newman]

I think your blank check's good. Boy.

[Chris Gethard]

Some passion along the way that maybe led to some early moments of contentiousness. But I think all in the spirit of the debate.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. It's emotional arc.

[Chris Gethard]

And I think that you and anyone listening can hear that we are, I believe two hours in and I'm only bringing this up for the first time now. And I want you to. You know, I have. I hope that that's a reflection that I'm asking this genuinely and not trying to force any past divisiveness back into the spotlight. For real.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Chris Gethard]

When I watched Andor.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

And I watched Rogue One, I mentioned before that I did have that It's. It's not that much harder than shooting womp rats in the T14 back home. And you know, Luke was so naive, so innocent and it actually like a new hope is obviously you kind of know this, but it just underlines he's hope.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

He's a farm boy who represents this idea. Like not only. Not only does he step up in the face of people like who know the history of Cassian andor killing someone who's like, you're on my team, but you're making too much fucking noise, Blau. You're dead.

[Griffin Newman]

But also he's a vessel. He's an idea to believe in. He's a. He is blonde hair, blue eyed boy with optimistic optimism.

[Chris Gethard]

How. And I don't.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, boy.

[Chris Gethard]

You see where I'm going. I know.

[David Sims]

I just want you to say it.

[Chris Gethard]

How do we. Like I sink my teeth into that. Luke. And it actually gets me choked up thinking about the beauty of like, all right. Any. There is no revolution in real life that can lose sight of hope and optimism. And Luke is the reminder of that in this universe that we love of.

[Griffin Newman]

But I think the other thing about is that history repeats itself.

[Chris Gethard]

But when we get to the Last Jedi and Luke himself is cynical, that's not even slightly heartbreaking.

[Griffin Newman]

No, it is heartbreaking. But that's the point. That's what it's using. That's the story engine is that it's heartbreaking.

[David Sims]

I just don't have this relationship with Luke that you do. I just don't at all.

[Chris Gethard]

Why do you like

[David Sims]

Solo? You seen that?

[Chris Gethard]

Why are you yelling at me?

[David Sims]

Because you're. You're like, why do I like Star Wars?

[Chris Gethard]

I'm being so gentle about even bringing it up because I think it's a valid question in light of andor respond.

[David Sims]

It's just like it's just not what I feel about. I just don't care about Luke now.

[Griffin Newman]

I care about Luke. But I. I think it's more interesting to have these things tested.

[David Sims]

It's also just so funny.

[Griffin Newman]

To me, it's the same as you.

[David Sims]

Forever and ever. Everyone's like, I can't believe Rian Johnson did that. I'm like, episode seven begins with, he has vanished.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the exquisite corpse he was handed.

[David Sims]

And number two, George Lucas's entire plan for his secret trilogy was the exact same thing.

[Griffin Newman]

It was the exact same thing. It was going to be more focus, but it was gonna be heavier on Wells. Luke on his own island.

[Chris Gethard]

I really am not trying to have a fight. Yeah, I'm really not trying to poke a beehive again. I'm not doing a bit. I just will say the dismal nature of Andor building up to the dismal ending of Rogue One, linking right to Vader on the ship and throwing you into Luke's story.

[David Sims]

Right?

[Chris Gethard]

With the new context of, like, this world is falling apart. This kid's aunt, uncle got killed. He's leaving this world, and he somehow still believes that, like, he has the idiocy, the audacity, if not idiocy, to think he can actually blow up the Death Star. But then he does it because it's page 20 knowledge.

[Griffin Newman]

He's a young man. He hasn't experienced anything.

[Chris Gethard]

All I'm trying to put on record is that that's the Luke I love. And I'm just leaving it at that. I'm not trying to have a fight about it. That's the Luke I love.

[Griffin Newman]

Sometimes you like you. You love your dad. And then he gets old and he's, like, racist. And you hear like, how's this the same guy? Not speaking of my own father, but

[Chris Gethard]

they don't make a movie. But the credits can roll before your dad gets racist. That's. That's why it's fiction.

[Griffin Newman]

But then you're questioning the entire enterprise

[Chris Gethard]

of ties into, do we need more Star Wars?

[David Sims]

Okay, but here's the thing. We're going to have more Star wars because it's happening.

[Chris Gethard]

I'm really. You guys can feel it. I'm being a good boy.

[David Sims]

Died with a Episode nine.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Any chance to sort of properly resolve whatever you felt about the Luke story or any of the other sequels died with Episode nine, which had no story.

[Griffin Newman]

They whiffed in a way that pissed off both sides because everyone was unhappy other than Chris. Gather blank checks.

[Chris Gethard]

If episode Ocean fight looked cool.

[David Sims]

Some Things Looks all right. If episode nine had successfully kind of given you a satisfying conclusion to the stories of Rey and Finn and Kylo Ren and maybe Po. But like, those big three. No, but I'm just saying, like. No, but if you had given them satisfying endings, then you would have been

[Chris Gethard]

like, string them to a tree and

[David Sims]

chop his head off.

[Ben Hosley]

Hey, come on.

[Chris Gethard]

Here.

[David Sims]

Come on.

[Chris Gethard]

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

[David Sims]

Please, forget it.

[Chris Gethard]

No, no, Just run out. I respect you. You're smart and I respect you.

[David Sims]

Please, dudes. I'm so out of energy at this point.

[Chris Gethard]

It's too late. It's gone.

[David Sims]

I just. I'm not. I'm honest with you guys. I'm not mad, but I get cut off so much that I just. My brain can't fire anymore. I don't remember what I'm trying to say.

[Griffin Newman]

You were saying. If it had given satisfying endings to the main character, then the Luke and

[David Sims]

Leia and Han stories in the sequels might not hurt your feelings as much.

[Chris Gethard]

They might be a fun debate. Then instead of a.

[David Sims]

It would be like, Luke did that and had all that in service of what happened to Kylo, which made sense, and Rey, which made sense. And instead it was like, Rey decides to be Skywalker because she thinks that's nice. Kylo died. He. He was. All right, the last 20 minutes. There it is.

[Chris Gethard]

Ultimately, Po.

[David Sims]

What? What is. Where. Where does Po end it? I don't know.

[Griffin Newman]

He's around and rolling his eyes. Could Palpatine return?

[David Sims]

No, but I mean, like, after that. Is he around? He's around. He blows up the Empire and Finn, I guess, like, maybe meets. Meets his sister or his friend or something.

[Griffin Newman]

Wasn't his sister. And she's not Lando's daughter, but she's.

[David Sims]

But she's like. I don't know. She's like him or something because she

[Griffin Newman]

also was a Stormtrooper.

[David Sims]

But maybe they have Force powers. We'll deal with it later. And it's just kind of like the movie just kind of ends with, like, I don't know. Everyone's all right.

[Griffin Newman]

Can we talk?

[David Sims]

Sorry.

[Griffin Newman]

The other elephant in the room.

[Chris Gethard]

It is tough to be like, all right, it could be an interesting debate, but, like, we don't even blue it. We don't. We fundamentally don't trust that anyone's at the wheel of this entire thing.

[David Sims]

Luke's in episode nine, right? Like, he's like.

[Griffin Newman]

And Han Solo. They bring both of them back as force ghosts. Han Solo.

[David Sims]

Han Solo. I remember because that moment is. Is fine, because he doesn't even Speak. But Luke is like, talks. What does he say? He's like, son, I'm sorry, but Luke has like the scene like Ghost Luke sits with ghost Yoda and they're like, hog. Hey, Ray Skywalker. I like the sound of that.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Drink Schlitz. Like what? Like, I just, you know, it's just like if, if there had been, then maybe you wouldn't be so mad or.

[Chris Gethard]

I'm not mad.

[David Sims]

Or whatever your emotion is about the sort of the leader arc of Luke that they blew. It's.

[Chris Gethard]

It's. I don't even care to relitigate it. I'm sorry that got any of us this upset. I just really.

[Griffin Newman]

Star wars is touching.

[Chris Gethard]

I just really think Andor underlines the naivete of Luke in a way that I think it really underlines what I always liked about.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree. But that's the naivete of a young man and also a white man who's not being challenged in the same way that Andor is. I mean, that's part of what Andor is about.

[David Sims]

Nice, fun. Part of the juice of Andor. Totally.

[Griffin Newman]

And even down to over the top way, he is like coded as immigrant within the universe of the movie.

[Chris Gethard]

Never going to be the poster boy. He's hidden in the shadows.

[David Sims]

Can't be the poster boy.

[Griffin Newman]

What I would equate it to, G is part of the enduring power of Jesus as an idea for people to believe in. We're talking about Jesus now. He died very young, right. As a pure symbol, kind of have to die to. And there's the. There's also, you know, the promise of he's going to come back someday, but if he never comes back, we can all project how helpful he would be to today. And I think there was a similar thing because you make this trilogy, it ends with Luke settling the universe. Right. And now he's become the Jedi Master. And then George Lucas is like, I'm stepping away. And by the way, if I were to do more, they'd be prequels. It just takes Lu Luke off the board where it's. We all have our headcanons of how great Luke could be. Right. And then he does the prequels and people are disappointed and then they come back.

[Chris Gethard]

Not have. I will. I will say not another word about it. I'm just putting on record Andor made me like the Luke I met when I was young.

[Griffin Newman]

Totally. But that guy can't live forever. Like he. Life experiences are going to change him and test him.

[David Sims]

I mean, the thing that sucks. And then we should just of course. Return to. Well, we should be done soon.

[Griffin Newman]

Talk a little.

[David Sims]

There's some toys we need to.

[Griffin Newman]

A little rot.

[David Sims]

A little bit of rot. But it's just like, that was your shot with Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher.

[Griffin Newman]

That's the thing they absolutely up is never putting the three of them in the same frame while they had the chance. And that's a JJ Up.

[David Sims]

It's a bit of a JJ Up. And it's just kind of a. Like, you know, you had all those guys. They all look great in Force Awakens. It's like, you know, the energy could be there.

[Griffin Newman]

Harry dying is a tragedy. No one could have anticipated that. That was force majeure disaster. Right.

[David Sims]

But just generally, it's kind of like, we saw old Han Solo that kind of rocked.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[David Sims]

We saw Luke Skywalker. Old Luke Skywalker. People, complicated feelings, but he gave a big performance.

[Griffin Newman]

He did.

[David Sims]

We saw old Leia. You know, there's little bits where you're kind of like, kind of rocks, but, like, there's not much of it. And it's sort of. You know, and it's like. And now if they're like, hey, we're gonna do episode 10, it's like, yeah, but you're not gonna do it with them. So that's that over.

[Griffin Newman]

But.

[David Sims]

So now what are you gonna do?

[Griffin Newman]

Our friends who've been watching Star wars with their kids are all like, ray still fucking hits.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah. Ray rock.

[Griffin Newman]

Like, what's watching this today? You know, born after these films ended, that trilogy ended. Did Are like, I'm. I'm buying Ray. I'm buying Ray. Like, I'm buying Luke. Both of these work for me. Like, I'm buying Anakin. I mean, that's the interesting thing about our friends with kids under 10 who have shown them all three trilogies are like, they're in on all three of these arcs. They like the innocent. They like seeing the innocent go bad. They like seeing the different versions of what the innocent becomes. That all works. The elephant in the room. I think we should just talk about very briefly.

[David Sims]

They brought in the reference room, the

[Griffin Newman]

rot in the room, the hut in the room. It was revealed earlier this year that they had been deep in development and had green lit. And Lucasfilm internally was ready to go on a movie that was going to be directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Scott C. Burns, one of his regular collaborators. That was the Kylo Ren movie that was basically Adam Driver being like, we gotta undo this rise of Skywalker.

[David Sims]

Clearly, Driver just being like, that character personally.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Yes. Like, and we didn't do it.

[Ben Hosley]

Right.

[David Sims]

And can we just bring him back and, like, do a better thing?

[Griffin Newman]

Right. And no one knows exactly what the take was on how he's back or what, you know, it was. But it was going to be set after episode nine, and it was going to be called the Hunt for Ben Solo and not be episode 10 proper. But it be this Kylo Ren Ben Solo movie. And Lucasfilm greenlights it. Kathleen Kennedy greenlights it.

[David Sims]

It went along some amount of time.

[Griffin Newman]

Disney says no to it.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And Kathleen Kennedy did an exit interview earlier this year where she was like, that's the only time that's happened that we wanted to make something, and they overruled us. And the argument that was given to us is, we don't think you've justified in the story undoing his death.

[David Sims]

Right. It's like, I just don't see how he's alive.

[Griffin Newman]

Right. Versus, like, Mando and Grogu. I got no questions about. They're on another adventure. Adventure. And it speaks to, like, what a mess this thing is. We're kind of what everyone wants is a movie that could undo the damage of 9. And I accept some pretty stupid logic if it leads to a good movie that is functional on its own terms and leaves me feeling like these characters are in a better place.

[David Sims]

But then it's like, what, you're gonna make a whole movie that, like, exists to fix continuity? Right. And it's like, on the one hand, sure. On the other hand, should you just do something else, just forget it. Just, like, lob the ball to another field.

[Griffin Newman]

But then I'm also like, if Adam Driver wants to do it, that's already more of an argument.

[Chris Gethard]

That's the thing. That's the baffling part that you have an enthusiast, Adam Driver and Steven Soderbergh, that want to play in the sandbox.

[Griffin Newman]

That's an energy that Mando doesn't have. Where Pedro Pascal's like, so what, five days total? Right.

[David Sims]

Speaks to the Disney thing where they are not hearing Soda Driver. That's. They're hearing like, they're gonna be expensive. They're gonna have notes. They're gonna push back. You know, like, they're probably hearing just kind of like, those are artists. We don't want to deal with that. We just want to make something that's like, you know, we can control.

[Griffin Newman]

The thing with Soderbergh was part of his big pitch was I figured out how to make this movie cheaper. I think these Movies got too expensive and that created a fear around making big creative decisions. He's been figuring out how to shoot movies on I iPhones. This wasn't going to be that. But he was like, I think I can apply some of what I learned to make a movie that costs half as much as what these other things cost. Closer to probably the budget of this movie. And said like it would be great if we could free Star wars up to have different budget levels. You know, this is the thing that Marvel eventually is that the movies got so big they couldn't make a smaller film.

[David Sims]

Right. Right.

[Griffin Newman]

So everything has to be $300 million worth of justification. And I, I to some degree commend that Mando's small, sort of.

[David Sims]

At least he's not trying. Right. To be the start of something new.

[Griffin Newman]

It's not cacophonous, but it's like it really places a lot of its bets on Rad of the Hut, who is ripped Ab Laden. Jeremy Allen White with a pitch down voice whose characterization is just. My dad was shitty. I'm trying not to be like, not like my dad. I'm like a muscle brain pieces from

[David Sims]

the, the chess thing.

[Ben Hosley]

So Chris.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I. This character, I'm actually watching a Twitter video of it right now. This character here, he is sucks, sucks, sucks.

[Griffin Newman]

This is like really rough.

[Ben Hosley]

This is like hard to watch.

[David Sims]

Can I ask so bad where you saw the film? Ben, you actually. I know you saw it with some

[Ben Hosley]

kids, but I saw the Cobble Hill Theater.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, that's kind of a fun.

[Ben Hosley]

And what actually I think enhanced it for me as like on an emotional level is that the 15 year old kids that were there were talking throughout the entire movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

And that where they get distracted from the film.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Ben Hosley]

Because I could then lock in on my anger at like this kid whispering to his friend that that's Jim Jeremy Allen White up there on the screen or whatever the fuck. What did you ask me?

[David Sims]

Oh, just were they. Yeah. Were they into the movie? Were they like this? They loved it. They were laughing at everything. Every bad joke.

[Ben Hosley]

They were like rolling in the aisle.

[David Sims]

Maybe we're the old heads and we just need to let it go.

[Ben Hosley]

Every time Grogu came on screen, there was a group of like girls. They were just like. They were just like.

[Chris Gethard]

That's what I mean. Group. I understand projections.

[Griffin Newman]

Thank you.

[Chris Gethard]

But I watched a movie where I'm like, it's not for me.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

I have to let go of the idea that Star wars is going to give me anything to actually chew on like it really legitimately used to. But like the kids in that is

[David Sims]

andor almost a problem because it demonstrated that that can still be done. And we're like, why don't you do this all the time?

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

This is the fascinating thing is I've been so deep in Star wars and the closer we've gotten to this, the more I've been watching right to to make my deadline my self imposed dead deadline. And the majority of the stuff I've watched I have not liked. And a lot of it I found kind of a slog to get through and kind of boring. And I'm not a binge watcher in general. So that notion of being like to stay on schedule, I gotta watch three tonight has like often felt like true homework in a way. This job of doing the podcast and having assigned viewing usually does not yet the more I'm watching the stuff I don't like as much as watching watching the stuff like andor that I love. I've come out of it just being like I'm remembering how much I love Star Wars. Like when I see andor it reminds me everything that makes me love Star Wars. And when I watch the stuff I don't like, it reminds me of what it's not doing. Which reminds me of what I do like about Star wars where I just like have bought three Star wars shirts in the last two weeks because I keep being like Star wars, what'd you buy? They're like old comic art shirts which I kind of like. Like it's the Marvel comics. Isn't it funny the characters how all

[David Sims]

these like bespoke folk T shirt shops online and stuff and like, you know, like with these sort of like indie designs of. We like like X Men or Star are basically just kind of like, you know those guys on the street who would just have weird T shirts that were kind of like bootleg.

[Griffin Newman]

Bootleg stuff has become official.

[David Sims]

Right? We're that yeah, it's 45 please.

[Griffin Newman]

Right.

[Chris Gethard]

Like it's like Nightcrawler, right. Do I have a 98 deal for you? You. And by the way, you don't know if this is drop shipping company in China that might take eight months to send it to you or is it

[Griffin Newman]

like a hypebeast company run by VC people?

[Chris Gethard]

I almost think to, to speak to what we just touched on andor almost feels like a really profound accident that it ever slipped through.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Like I, I think that a lot of the explosions of nerd entertainment when you look at them historically actually match up with points of major societal anxiety. Yeah, right, totally.

[Griffin Newman]

And we're living through one of those moments, right.

[Chris Gethard]

Like superheroes were invented by young Jewish creators as Hitler was rising in Europe. This is when superheroes were invented, like,

[Griffin Newman]

and feeling empowered as survivors making it through the other side.

[Chris Gethard]

No, well, that on, on 60s Marvel was a combination of those same Jewish creators. Now also talking about survivorship and nuclear anxiety.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Chris Gethard]

All the origins of the Marvel, civil

[Griffin Newman]

rights, a lot of civil rights.

[Chris Gethard]

But you look at Spider Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, X Men, all nuclear anxiety leading into social movements, Children of the atom, feminism, racial anxiety, all of it. Right. The same years that race riots were happening in major American cities are the same years. Marvel's exploding.

[Griffin Newman]

And Star wars about the Vietnam War.

[Chris Gethard]

Exactly.

[Griffin Newman]

Another era, a new form of fascism on the horizon. It's about all of these things.

[Chris Gethard]

And now we don't like. I don't know know what to point to that's doing that now and then. And. Or maybe it seems accidentally or Trojan Horse did in a way that feels like such a tease compared to everything else, which is like now they fight a big dragon snake, now they fight a couple robots, and now they. Now, now they fight this and that, and now they fight the whole chessboard and now they fly away.

[Ben Hosley]

Oh, the chessboard are the monsters.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes.

[Chris Gethard]

Oh yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

You didn't love that, Ben.

[Ben Hosley]

Well, cuz they just looked like nothing.

[Chris Gethard]

Yes, they just looked like monster fight after fight.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben, thank you for calling that out. I. I have a thing I want to say about this. So the chessboard was done by Phil Tippet, who's like one of my favorite film artists of all time.

[David Sims]

The original Star wars movie with the little puppets.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it was play, guys. It was the first moment that Phil Tippet really kind of shone in the process because he was brought in as sort of an additional guy to do do stuff. They had shot the Dejaric chessboard as actors in costumes and it didn't look good. And George was like, can we get a Harryhausen's type thing? And they were like, Tippett's good at stop motion and he does that. And it leads to the breakthrough of him being the guy who cracks the tauntaun and the atat and all these sorts of things. Right? And then Robocop and Ed209 is like a legend to me and like a genius. And I watched this documentary about him that was called. Let me look it up quickly. But I watched it recent. It's a documentary made by two French guys that's mostly just kind of like, information, informational about the entirety of his career and his worldview and whatever. And a lot of his compatriots were talking about him and what makes him so great. And they said the thing about Phil is a lot of people start with detail and build out a design from there. And Phil always starts with really elemental shapes. He lands on a shape that's interesting and then he lands on a personality connected to that shape. And then he works into the finer details. Tail. And it's like. Right. You see the Dejaric chess board for like seconds. And the different shapes on that board, beyond being different colors feel so distinct and recognizable. This movie shows them for 10 minutes.

[David Sims]

They move all around.

[Griffin Newman]

They covers them in a way where you basically never see them full body. You can't distinguish between them. And these are very hone designs by a genius. They brought Phil Tippet in to work on this movie. He did what work? A lot of the special effects feel like they are CGI trying to approximate Phil Tippet stop motion. Especially the little walker that Mando's on in the snow at the beginning of the movie.

[David Sims]

Hated that.

[Griffin Newman]

But I. I sucks. But then I felt like the big robots at the end might have actually been some version of stop motion. It certainly they felt very robocane. So he's involved in this process. Like, this is a guy that Favro idolizes and yet he's not getting what made this guy guy's work work.

[David Sims]

What I didn't like about the opening sequence, apart from just generally kind of low energy. The weird thing of him going up and down the mountain in the walker, it just felt like a video game when you. Where you like one of those open world games where you like end up. No, it's like you're like, I'm going to go this way. And then you like, climb over a mountain by sake. Like, it just didn't make any sense, the physics of it.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, why would they be walking in the mountain?

[Chris Gethard]

He is a character.

[Griffin Newman]

Narrow fly.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

But there is still a part of me that's a sucker for like Empire starts with a big dumb battle on H. Totally.

[David Sims]

And it's smart battle.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a big, smart battle.

[David Sims]

It's really a cold open.

[Chris Gethard]

I. Yeah, it's a cold opening.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben has quit the podcast.

[Chris Gethard]

I guess I'm still just a bit of a sucker. Like, there's still just enough of a kid in me that's like, maybe they didn't nail it in every way. But like, I'll watch the heroes climb into A Star wars walker machine. It's like a.

[David Sims]

They gotta convert fingers.

[Chris Gethard]

They got a convertible ATST. They got an open top ATSD.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, this is me being 100 honest.

[Chris Gethard]

I still am charmed by that.

[Griffin Newman]

I wanted to feel that so badly. And because I was like feeling so ramped up on Star Wars, I go into the screen with David and I'm like, I'm not excited for this, but I bet when it starts, some of the key jangling is going to get to me, right? I bet they're going to start showing me things that are Star Wars. By the way, I like these characters. I love that first thing season. I like Grogu. Grogu's like a marvel, right? Like, they nail the execution of this character on a technical level, which is half really high level puppetry. And the genius of Grogu is when he's digital, they make the digital look like a puppet. They use the limitations and like, Grogu just works visually this whole movie. And I sat there and I kept waiting for anything to give me any feeling of joy. And I wasn't sitting there with my arms crossed. I wasn't like, this sucks. I just felt bored. And I don't know if it's that I like maxed out on Star wars, if coming off of Andor the bar was set too high, it being so fresh in my mind, or if I just am like, guys, we can't be doing this. Like, there has to be something new. I see the trailers for the he man movie, which is another dumb baby thing that I love so much. And like, the trailers have not been great, but I'm like, I guarantee you I'm going to sit there and they're going to show me characters and I'm going to point at the screen.

[Chris Gethard]

I got hope for a Ram man.

[Griffin Newman]

People are starting to say, it's kind of good. I'm starting to be some okay responses.

[Chris Gethard]

Whereas the Street Fighter movie.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, you're out on that.

[Chris Gethard]

I don't know about that.

[Griffin Newman]

Interesting. But yeah, I'm like, if I see Ram man ram into a bunch of guys, I'm probably gonna like my heart.

[Chris Gethard]

You have real connections to he man.

[Griffin Newman]

I, I, I have been Oro.

[David Sims]

You've been Oro.

[Chris Gethard]

Wild thing to be.

[Griffin Newman]

Isn't that insane? Yeah, it, it really is. It is. A Orko and Arthur are the two things where I'm like, it's actually crazy that their characters are. That meant that much to me when I was young that I got a chance to play. And I like think about this Stuff where it's like, in both of those cases, I want to do my own thing. But there's a legacy of these characters I want anyone who, like, grew up with them to recognize. Not that it's identical, but that, like, the spirit of the thing is captured. But how do you do something new with it? I spent years professionally thinking on this stuff so much in a microcosm only how it relates to, like, these characters.

[David Sims]

Characters.

[Griffin Newman]

And just be like, it's got to be new. Otherwise you're just doing an impression. But also, don't try to make it your own thing and disregard the past entirely. And I just. This movie, to me, felt like it was just like snow. Right? Like hoth stuff.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Like, you like that? You like Walker Like I do, and I'm like Walker. Like I said, I'm like 5 out of 10. I ate my chicken fingers. If my kid was old, older, you know, old enough to see it, I would have taken my kid and been like, yeah, it was all right.

[Griffin Newman]

You would have had a better time. I'm not like your daughter than me, because she would have gotten a little something.

[David Sims]

Totally. And I'm not, like, just gripping my hands together going, no bad. But I am just kind of, like I say, really getting my blood pumping. Yeah, I was tired. All right, we got to be done talking about that movie, because I know you have toys to show me or whatever. Like, I. I'm. We. We cannot ignore the.

[Ben Hosley]

We at least shout out embo.

[Griffin Newman]

It's crazy that we didn't even mention that there's. There's a assassin. The skinny assassin character hat. He basically becomes the antagonist for the second.

[David Sims]

I called him, man.

[Griffin Newman]

I kind of like the character. I thought he looked cool.

[Ben Hosley]

Apparently, he's from.

[Griffin Newman]

He's from one of the animated. He's from the Clone Wars.

[Chris Gethard]

He's a floney thing, right?

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, he's a felony creation.

[David Sims]

I definitely thought he was what Constable Zuvio you did, and you went, that would beo.

[Griffin Newman]

You were like, that would be the

[David Sims]

coolest move I. I did. I just. I thought he was cool.

[Chris Gethard]

I like that he has a dog. Thought that wolf was cool.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, no, I thought the wolf.

[Chris Gethard]

Can I say this is the wolf.

[Griffin Newman]

He had a little dog.

[Chris Gethard]

He has a wolf. Oh, that's like his grogu. Yeah, I'm going to say something. It's going to make me sound nuts.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, you either got.

[David Sims]

Here we go.

[Chris Gethard]

Oh, no, never mind. It's the type of thing that I say.

[Griffin Newman]

You have to say it, and then we're Going to do food and toys.

[Chris Gethard]

I think if you're going to have the wolf pick up one of the babu fricks with its mouth, just kill the babu. I agree with you.

[Griffin Newman]

I agree with you 100%. The courage that you're convinced.

[David Sims]

I think it's okay if maybe one is me. Much like, like two Ewoks, like, die in Return of the Jedi, right?

[Chris Gethard]

And you have it roll over and going. And it's kind of sad.

[Griffin Newman]

It's kind of sad a little bit. It's good.

[Chris Gethard]

It brings you in again. Like the corporatism is showing. When it's like, well, we can't possibly. We can't possibly kill one of the babu fricks. The children will be sad. It's like, then don't have the wolf ever put it in its mouth, but don't go halfway. Kill the babu frick.

[David Sims]

Is there, like, I just like the Star wars thing of like the Anelians. That's the frick aliens, where it's like, so do they. Do they just all, like being mechanics? Is it a world of mechanics?

[Griffin Newman]

This is where Star wars gets weird with its like, racism.

[David Sims]

Are there no Anelians who are like, I make pizza. Like, someone's got to eat.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm working on an ep, Dad. I like me.

[David Sims]

Maybe they're like just old guys with a bunch of goggles.

[Chris Gethard]

Maybe. Maybe they're like Cornish minors. Maybe it. Maybe it happens to be an industry they have excelled in culturally for decades. Let's.

[Griffin Newman]

Let's go with.

[Chris Gethard]

So we bring them to Michigan and have them. They're like the Cornish miners of the Star wars universe.

[David Sims]

You remember how Carrie Russell is in Episode nine is like a lady with a helmet or whatever.

[Griffin Newman]

She's a spice dealer, right?

[David Sims]

And like, I've forgotten that, but there was Babu Frick. And it was like, Babu Frick.

[Griffin Newman]

Babu was on her shoulder. And we forget that she existed.

[Chris Gethard]

And like that Bob, fantastic act.

[Griffin Newman]

Don't see her. Perfect.

[David Sims]

Incredible.

[Griffin Newman]

She wears that helmet the whole.

[Chris Gethard]

Maybe one of our best living actors.

[Griffin Newman]

She's up there. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Bob Rufric only survives because Spielberg at the end was like, what? Where's Bob?

[Griffin Newman]

Where the frick is Bob?

[David Sims]

Are you guys idiots? So they have him, like, pop up and go like, hey, hey.

[Ben Hosley]

Okay, I know we're trying to move on and I think you should do your thing. I want to at least because we've been slamming on this movie. I want to call out some good

[Chris Gethard]

stuff quickly at the end. I went on record from the start that I liked it better Than I thought I was going.

[Ben Hosley]

Here's one thing I want to shout out out is I like all of the shady droids that work for the twins. I think there's awesome design there. And even the assassin we've been talking about, Embo. He has some other guys in his crew.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Including the one that's headless.

[Griffin Newman]

I think that the stuff that felt very tippet to me. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the. The stuff he worked on directly. Cuz he's got a pretty major credit in the film. I noticed. Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

But I just like the idea that there's mercenary droids.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

No, but that's been in Star wars before though. But I guess it's cool. It's cool and it's.

[Ben Hosley]

It's different and sure, I'm trying to.

[David Sims]

I don't know. I don't know why.

[Chris Gethard]

And speaking positively about most of the Disney plus stuff. Like I said, I liked Obi Wan more than most people. I liked Ahsoka more than most people people. Found Book of Boba Fett. I watched it all.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it was.

[Chris Gethard]

I found it.

[David Sims]

I didn't hate that. It was a little disappointing.

[Chris Gethard]

I didn't.

[Griffin Newman]

I think it gets worse.

[Chris Gethard]

I think the Mandalorians like the stuff on the Mandalorian world. It got away from what I liked about the first season, but on its own I liked it well enough.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure.

[Chris Gethard]

But I. I think I've had to kind of almost start treating Star wars as like, that's someone I used to date who I was deeply in love with.

[Griffin Newman]

That is how I feel right now.

[Chris Gethard]

And put.

[David Sims]

That's a great way to.

[Griffin Newman]

And I'm buying

[Chris Gethard]

still text like it's an ex that I'm still friends with, but we don't love each other anymore. But we can still text. There's a reason you fell asle when

[David Sims]

you had like a. A week long like vacation with them later, like it was like back to the glory days. Andor is you had to leave it.

[Chris Gethard]

You know, like andor is when you are frustrated in your current relationship and then while you're on the toilet, you check your ex's Instagram to see how they're doing.

[David Sims]

I don't know, man.

[Griffin Newman]

Maybe that's why I like Anderson so much. I also, I feel like my relationship to Star wars is closer to it being the X where I'm like, we're friends and it's good. Is she still dating that guy? You know, I want to believe again. No, no, no, no, no, no. The opposite. I want to Believe, like maybe there's like a universe where it could work out again, even if it seems unlikely.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah, you've. We've got to get past the base

[Griffin Newman]

of emotions is so strong culturally.

[Chris Gethard]

We have to get past the idea that we're ever getting back together with what?

[Griffin Newman]

David? I bought this toy for George Lucas talk show. We were in Pittsburgh and Connor wanted to do the George Lucas pit show, which is an insane idea. So I was like, oh, can I get a Grogu that does something so I can act like Grogu is a patient. This toy is called Galactic Snack. And Grogu, he's got a weird open mouth, and if you push his tummy, his cheeks flex. And the idea is that he comes with little. Little snacks, little niblets, and you feed them into his mouth and he chews them sort of. Let's see. Yeah, there you go. They go down there.

[David Sims]

They go down.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, Far back now. This was. I was just doing it for visibility. It's more about. You can do it facing up. I bought this for the show and then the theater had bad eyelines, so. Or sight lines. Yeah. So it didn't work at all. I'm gifting you this for your daughter.

[David Sims]

Oh, sure.

[Griffin Newman]

She will. Have fun with it. The food's in the backpack. Then this is what Mandalorian and Grogu is all about. It's about merchandise and it's about snack in. So I found four different food items. We don't have to eat all of them now, but I at least want to just introduce them.

[Chris Gethard]

One feeling. I know where you bought them.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't think you can guess. I'm holding a big Target bag.

[David Sims]

These are so many toys.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, no, they're not toys.

[David Sims]

They're food.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, you're saying your box of toys.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Did you get these as well?

[Ben Hosley]

I did.

[Griffin Newman]

Great. Ben and I parallel thinking great. Okay, Fan foods officially delay. Delicious Outer Rim ranch flavored chips. The cutest chip in the galaxy. The chips are shaped like Grogu. I find this pretty morbid.

[Chris Gethard]

There is a part of me that this is bringing me back to growing up in the 80s where Mr. T's face was just on everything though.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, it does feel like that. So that we have two boxes of Nilla wafers. We have two boxes of fan foods. Did you buy anything else?

[David Sims]

Ben was late to this. I mean, not late, but like, you know, delayed because he was buying these at Target. Yes, yes, you have.

[Ben Hosley]

Did you also have one other thing?

[Griffin Newman]

Purchase Muddy Bites cookies and cream filled waffle cones with green vanilla filling.

[Ben Hosley]

No, I didn't. At the Target I went to.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, so that's. That's a proprietary item to the Griff bag. Did you purchase this?

[Chris Gethard]

What is that?

[David Sims]

What the is that? It's like a.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a. It's called a pop. A pop poles.

[David Sims]

Oh, boy.

[Griffin Newman]

At home movie theater popcorn kit.

[David Sims]

Does it make popcorn?

[Griffin Newman]

It's three buckets and two bags of microwave popcorn. But most interestingly, galactic stardust popcorn seasoning.

[David Sims]

Oh, sure.

[Griffin Newman]

I don't know what that tastes like, Ben.

[David Sims]

The stars, of course.

[Griffin Newman]

What was the other item that you bought?

[Ben Hosley]

Well, because I knew it was Chris's birthday tomorrow, so I thought it would be nice to at least get him a gift.

[Chris Gethard]

That's so nice. Thank you.

[Ben Hosley]

So here, I'll. I'll give it to you. One sec.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, here's the galactic seasoning. It doesn't have ingredients listed on it. This unit is not marked for individual so.

[Ben Hosley]

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Chris Gethard]

This is really.

[David Sims]

And this was worth you being delayed?

[Griffin Newman]

This was worth that.

[Chris Gethard]

This is a Mandalorian and Grou electronic mando mask.

[Griffin Newman]

Wait, so are you saying it's a voice changer mask like the one my sister had? Is this going to make you get Jeremy Allen white voice?

[Chris Gethard]

It said. It does seem to have a thing that if you hold down the button on the side and speak.

[David Sims]

Is it way. Oh, there you go. Okay, so it says mando stuff. So it's not like you can put it on and be like, Donald Trump did nothing wrong in mando. Like Griff. Can I ask why there are two Star Trek poster things on my desk?

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, you can ask.

[David Sims]

Okay. Why? I'm not mad. I'm just wondering. Yeah, they're little, little pictures.

[Griffin Newman]

I thought you might like them because they're interesting little, like, promotional paintings I found at a vintage store. I think it was when I was in Pittsburgh. Action figures of the Malcolm McDow villain from Generations, of course. Tillian Soren and Alrey Woodard's character from First Contact. We love her. And they both came with these posters, and I thought you might like them.

[David Sims]

I like them fine.

[Griffin Newman]

I thought that nice little original art.

[David Sims]

I just like that they're anything with that kind of 90s feel.

[Griffin Newman]

That's what I'm saying. That's why I thought you'd like it. I thought it was your.

[David Sims]

I'm proethetic. I'm pro.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. I'm putting the ears on this popcorn bucket. I think this has been a good episode. I think we've gone on a Journey. There have been ups and there have been downs.

[David Sims]

Look, if we just literally like broke down. Okay, Chris. Okay, someone get a picture of this. Cuz this is pretty good. Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

This is really.

[David Sims]

Although it is underlining that the Grogu. The Mandalorian is the most quotable guy. Okay, he's just saying lasers. Just not even worse. Mandalorian. What was that?

[Chris Gethard]

I am the Mandalorian. It's a mask. Literally says I am the Mandalorian. What if the next one is I am not Boba Fett? Some of these are just sound.

[David Sims]

I don't think the sound effects were a good call.

[Griffin Newman]

I need some information. I need some information.

[David Sims]

This is what he talks like.

[Griffin Newman]

Where is Ron?

[David Sims]

Hi.

[Griffin Newman]

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night.

[Chris Gethard]

Thank you, stunt man.

[Griffin Newman]

You look great.

[Ben Hosley]

You're so welcome.

[David Sims]

Truly excited.

[Chris Gethard]

Kind present.

[Griffin Newman]

This definitely feels like the most thematically appropriate way to sort of wind down this episode. Because this is. This is what it's all about, folks.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Unfortunately, this movie exists to create these bags. It exists for toy and for snack.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

For Namis.

[Ben Hosley]

But we'll make sure to post pics of all of this stuff.

[David Sims]

Social. God, this thing is freaky.

[Chris Gethard]

It.

[Griffin Newman]

It is weird, right?

[David Sims]

The cheek movements.

[Griffin Newman]

I thought it was going to be really funny and then you just couldn't see it from the stage. But I'm sure.

[David Sims]

Kind of cute.

[Griffin Newman]

It's kind of cute. The cheek movements are weird and I thought they'd be. The creepiness would play more visually. So we think this is going to end up at like a 74 day. 75.

[Chris Gethard]

Oh, you think?

[David Sims]

It's not going to make a hundred fought four day.

[Griffin Newman]

That's where people are projecting right now.

[David Sims]

Let me see what the. Yeah, we're doing, I guess sort of the box office prediction game.

[Griffin Newman]

Yep. Yep.

[David Sims]

So it opened. No. It had 12 million previews. That's the exact number that Captain America Brave New World had.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

That made 104.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

My guess is that Manda will be slightly over that because it's more kid friendly.

[Griffin Newman]

Uhhuh.

[David Sims]

So I would guess that it's like low 100.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay.

[David Sims]

4 day. But obviously the word of mouth is not great. Although nor was it great for something like Captain America Brave New Worlds.

[Griffin Newman]

That's true.

[David Sims]

But I just think the kind of like, dude, it's a fucking rainy Memorial Day weekend and baby Yoda is on a screen like, take your kids. Like what's good? That's the worst that could happen.

[Griffin Newman]

I'm. I'm gonna say 85 obviously the other

[David Sims]

contenders at the box office right now are Curry Barker's Obsession, which is already like a kind of a breakout hit.

[Griffin Newman]

It looks like it's maybe gonna go up this weekend. It's certainly gonna. It feels like number two dethroning Prada. It's a very good film.

[David Sims]

It's good.

[Griffin Newman]

I liked it.

[David Sims]

It's quite effective.

[Griffin Newman]

I shouldn't say very good, but I liked it a lot. I had a good time.

[David Sims]

It's effective.

[Griffin Newman]

It's very effective. That's a good way of putting it. You're a good film critic.

[David Sims]

Oh, Jesus.

[Griffin Newman]

And a dear friend.

[David Sims]

Please relax.

[Griffin Newman]

Sorry if sometimes this show gets annoying to do.

[David Sims]

It's quite hard.

[Griffin Newman]

This is the way we kind of got a Mando Grogu relationship. Sometimes you have to tell me to kneel.

[David Sims]

It's funny how Griffin's kind of trying to apologize for cutting me off.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, it's. It's a somewhat self aware bit.

[David Sims]

It's pretty good. Devil Wears Production two is. Is doing fine. Like it's.

[Griffin Newman]

It's holding fine.

[David Sims]

I mean, yeah, exactly. Like, it's like. It's good. Mortal Kombat 2 is doing, you know, the kind of 60% drops one expects of a Mortal Kombat movie. But like, hey, everyone's happy. You see Mortal Kombat 2. No, not bad.

[Griffin Newman]

It's a lot of fun.

[David Sims]

Do you like the katana?

[Chris Gethard]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Do you like Baraka? All of our friends are here.

[Griffin Newman]

This is probably the best katana movie.

[Chris Gethard]

Raiden's in there. Maybe I'll take. Take flyer on it.

[David Sims]

Sheep Detectives. That's holding on. Is there anything else new this week, Griff?

[Griffin Newman]

No.

[David Sims]

No, Right?

[Griffin Newman]

No counter programming. I know, right?

[David Sims]

I mean. Oh, no, there's. There is counter programming, right? Because there's.

[Griffin Newman]

There's what?

[David Sims]

Isn't there one thing? I'm gonna look it up. Yeah, there's. I love Boosters.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, sure.

[David Sims]

But I assume that'll it's not right.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And then there's this horror movie, Passenger,

[Griffin Newman]

which Andre Orvidal, whose movies I kind of like.

[David Sims]

What else did he make?

[Griffin Newman]

He did scary stories to tell in the dark and he did Autopsy of Jane Doe, I want to say.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah, those are both kind of interesting. Funny because it's like Deadline is referring it to as like the Melissa Leo horror film Passenger.

[Griffin Newman]

Sure thing.

[David Sims]

And I'm trying to imagine how many people are like walking up to the box office being like, I hear this, a new Melissa Leo movie. I think next week, though. I think this is something Mando didn't see coming. I think Back rooms is going to eat its lunch. Lunch a little bit.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean they're saying backrooms might open to 15 hours.

[David Sims]

Backrooms is one of those things where it's like you don't understand. Every 20 year old is very locked into like liminal spaces.

[Griffin Newman]

This is an A24 movie directed by a 22 year old.

[David Sims]

He's. He's 21. No, he's 20 years old and he will be turning 21 in a month.

[Griffin Newman]

He can. I interviewed him recently. Legally. This movie is about to open. Incredibly large. It's an adaptation of a viral YouTube video. Video. It's like a real changing of the guard moment for Hollywood. It is.

[David Sims]

It rocks. It's a good movie. And I liked him a lot. He was really smart. Just kid self taught during co how to make like visual effects and you know started making YouTube shorts and kind of rocks.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like he was housebound by both the pandemic and arthritis. I can't himself Blender. Yeah. Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

Except I didn't learn blender. I got a faulty bucket. It's got. Got two right ears.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that doesn't look right.

[Griffin Newman]

Grogu bucket. So we'll post a picture of. I've been fussing with it trying to figure out if I. It is. Yeah. It's a rare variant.

[David Sims]

Chris, is there anything we haven't covered that you wanted?

[Chris Gethard]

Very thorough.

[David Sims]

We did. Are you sure? Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

No. We got to all my notes. I haven't watched Kora yet. It's next up on my list. Avatar is very good though.

[David Sims]

Has your son watched Korra?

[Chris Gethard]

He started watching it. Yeah. But then we decided to watch it as a family.

[David Sims]

Okay. Okay. So he put it. What else is your son into?

[Chris Gethard]

That's been the big one lately. Jurassic World has been very big for him.

[David Sims]

World?

[Chris Gethard]

The whole Jurassic World cartoon.

[Griffin Newman]

I've heard that show.

[Chris Gethard]

The films are too scary for him. I can say that Jurassic World seems to be very big with kids in his age group.

[David Sims]

Dinosaurs.

[Chris Gethard]

You know, dinosaurs are back in a big way. And what else? That's about it. He went through an Italian brain rot phase. I'm really glad that's over.

[David Sims]

I don't know what that means.

[Griffin Newman]

Oh, Asa Erlich was really into Italian brain rock.

[David Sims]

Is that.

[Griffin Newman]

It's so funny that David Erlich was like my child will never watch western animation. It will make you feel only it'll

[Chris Gethard]

make you feel worried. He did get very into how he got him very into like tooo and. And Miyazaki stuff.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

These AI generated ADHD cartoons called Italian Brain Rot Tongue Tung, Tung Tung Sahor, Crocodilo, Bombardilo.

[Griffin Newman]

All have insane names and they look like nightmares.

[Chris Gethard]

YouTube coffee with YouTube nonsense. I don't know if it's like Russians influencing my child to betray America someday.

[Griffin Newman]

It's one of those things where it's like, oh, this is just like random AI slop. And you're like, no, it feels like this was made by a human hand for some nefarious purpose.

[Chris Gethard]

There's also like rap songs that have 55 million views on YouTube. That is AI generated rap sung by the T Rats. But I will tell you, I'm glad that phase is over. In the beginning of first grade, my son would often say to me, who's your favorite brain Rot? And I would go, I don't know, man. Tongue, tongue, Tongue, Tongue tongues to her. And he'd go, who are your favorite 17? And would not stop until I named 17 brain rots. And when I tell you this happened like three times a day, every day, it was starting to drive me into madness.

[Griffin Newman]

Chris, I congratulate you on making it through that period and I hope you never have to like look back.

[Chris Gethard]

Although some of the songs are catchy, some of the AI generated rap, I,

[Griffin Newman]

I'm sure they are beautiful Anonymous.

[Chris Gethard]

I mean I still have the, the

[David Sims]

Pink Fong lion song. Anyone out there, get at me if you also listen to that a hundred times.

[Griffin Newman]

Never going to listen to that. I don't want it infecting my brain. Beautiful Anonymous is still one of the best podcasts.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah, Beautiful Anonymous just celebrated its 10 year anniversary.

[David Sims]

Promising timelines.

[Chris Gethard]

I, I will ask to all, all bits aside, I know I've been the bad boy to blank check fat boy, but go listen to an episode because I'm trying to get that show to survive. Truly. We have a contract to 2028 and I'm trying to just like get people back into it.

[Griffin Newman]

And it's an incredible show. It's. And it's like a good thing you do not to be self righteous about it.

[Chris Gethard]

Yeah, I feel good about it. And then also on June 11, we're doing a what's in the Dumpster Live stage. Yes, we're.

[David Sims]

We're paying homage to the, the ten year anniversary.

[Chris Gethard]

Ten year anniversary of the one episode of my show. Everybody universally liked. Paul. It's going to be live at ucb. Paul Shear will be there. This hasn't been announced yet, but Manzouka arranged his schedule. He'll be coming in.

[Griffin Newman]

Hell yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

I've reached out to spoiler person from the first dumpster. I won't say it. To see if he wants to be there on stage. And yeah, it's already sold out, but there will be a live stream ticket for 10 bucks, so you can watch that live.

[David Sims]

And what's the date on it, sir?

[Chris Gethard]

That's on Thursday, June 11th. 11th.

[Griffin Newman]

Thanks.

[Chris Gethard]

And. And if you're in New Jersey, my beloved New Jersey, I've got tickets on sale in Red Bank, June 19th.

[David Sims]

Oh, we're Chris Kevin Smith's.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Oh, yeah, the secret stash places, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah, we're Bank New Jersey, you guys,

[Chris Gethard]

you've been smart, Castle. I've been there with you.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, yeah. And then I went to a Dogma screening there. And did you go there one other time?

[Chris Gethard]

Pretty great.

[Griffin Newman]

I really love it.

[Chris Gethard]

I really love it.

[David Sims]

Like, you know, SM Castle you like.

[Chris Gethard]

Or the fact that he owns a movie theater.

[Griffin Newman]

He bought his childhood movie theater the. The Smod Castle Cinemas in Atlantic Highlands. Is that correct?

[Chris Gethard]

Yes, yes, I know. You know him better. You've worked with him and you know

[Griffin Newman]

him much better than on the He Man Show.

[Chris Gethard]

I know.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

But I can. I want. I do have to say meeting Kevin Smith and you realize he's just exactly.

[David Sims]

He's just like this.

[Chris Gethard]

You hope he really is exactly who you want him to be. And it's good.

[Griffin Newman]

You know, I. I weirdly get asked about him a lot.

[Chris Gethard]

There's something very special about it.

[David Sims]

So large, especially for our generation.

[Griffin Newman]

But people are like, you're friendly with him, right? Like, you know him. Like, what's he actually like? And I was like, he's actually everything you want him to be.

[Chris Gethard]

He's wearing a suit jacket and denim shorts and down to tell stories. Laughs a lot.

[Griffin Newman]

I think the people who are the most cynical about him are completely disarmed when they meet him. When you see just, like, how thoroughly genuine he is. And he's incredibly thoughtful and smart.

[Chris Gethard]

He is, as you can imagine, as a DIY jersey creator, he looms very, very large in my history.

[Griffin Newman]

I mean, we.

[Chris Gethard]

And I'm the. One of the biggest Mall Ra defenders you'll ever meet.

[Griffin Newman]

Gu. We were only going to have him be the guest for that show, and I threw out the flyer and I said, I think we should ask Chris. To be honest. I think beyond the fact that it's like a mitzvah to have you two guys, like, engage on stage and connect as people, I was like, I think it will make for good entertainment. I think you guys are going to get into it. And you did you start just naming locations and the audience was applauded.

[Chris Gethard]

It was fun.

[Griffin Newman]

It was great.

[Chris Gethard]

Thanks again.

[Griffin Newman]

No, you're the best. And I said it before very cleanly with no cross talk. The three of us would not know each other without you. On the most fundamental level, there's no universe which the show exists.

[David Sims]

Maybe Griff and I are acquaintances, but, like, obviously these bonds were forged.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'm. I meet Ben in the basement because he's signed to become the second producer of talking TCGS podcast I do with Riley Solomon.

[David Sims]

Thrilled by the assignment?

[Chris Gethard]

No, I was a weirdly popular show in its time from what I was.

[Ben Hosley]

Yeah, it did well.

[Griffin Newman]

And David and I only meet because Alyssa Stanoa tweets that the two of us should be friends because we're both active in the gethard community.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Well, I will say, at this point in my career, which has slowed down a lot, it is very strange for me to be in rooms sometimes and realize I am just strangely a person who can sometimes walk into a room and realize, oh, most of these people know each other because of me.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Chris Gethard]

Which is strange to say for a guy who is generally pretty socially uncomfortable and sort of off in the corner. But it's a point of pride that I've been able to work with so many great people and smart people such as yourselves over the years.

[Griffin Newman]

You're the best and we love you and it's always a pleasure to have you on. You were never shadow banned. I need to communicate that very clearly.

[David Sims]

Why did you think it was sad or shadow banned because you felt like

[Griffin Newman]

there was a gap Post Spider Man

[Chris Gethard]

2 that was ill. Because I'm mentally ill, brother.

[Griffin Newman]

I heal you big time. My brain is so bad. It's crazy.

[David Sims]

A lot of people like being on the show. We're always just trying to, like, match guests to thing.

[Griffin Newman]

Well, you know, we'll say, like, Matt Singer is about to come back on the aforementioned Matt Singer. And he was like, thanks for having me on. Like, I hope I can be on again sooner than three years from now. We were like, shut up. You were on six months ago. Like three years later. Are we doing. And this. This has been the way.

[David Sims]

Oh, God.

[Griffin Newman]

Clearly we talked about the movie a little bit Smidge. Oh, the one.

[David Sims]

This was bad.

[Griffin Newman]

The one connection I was going to make. Do you know who was the DP on this film?

[David Sims]

Who?

[Griffin Newman]

The man who shot Clerks.

[Chris Gethard]

Is that true?

[David Sims]

Yeah. Is that true?

[Griffin Newman]

Kevin Smith's Jersey Body.

[David Sims]

Who?

[Griffin Newman]

Like, that was his first first.

[David Sims]

And morats and chasing.

[Chris Gethard]

Yes. Underrated.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'm just saying, like, you guys

[Chris Gethard]

don't like seeing the spaceship that looks like a turtle?

[Griffin Newman]

I like the ship. I like the anel. Okay.

[David Sims]

Turtle.

[Griffin Newman]

And.

[David Sims]

Oh, Stephen. The rocking horror chair.

[Griffin Newman]

And grilling some sandwiches. I guess. And then scrutiny. I guess the only two good characters, the ones who grill meat, are puppets grilling meat.

[David Sims]

I mean, I know Scorsese wasn't really a puppet. Yeah. Voiced by esteemed members of the artistic.

[Griffin Newman]

But I'm just saying is that what is really kind of activating Favreau the most as an artist is being able to tell the story of people making sandwiches.

[David Sims]

Yeah, you're. You're so right. I'm seeing here David Klein shot a bunch of the book of Boba Fett.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah. He's become the default Disney plus Star wars guy. I just bring it up because, like, he was a guy bootstrapping it with the Kevin Smith thing. Learned how to be a DP across those movies, and now is shooting Star Wars. And I know that, like, Kevin's been doing screenings all weekend with him talking to the audience afterwards, which is really fun. At the Smodcast Castle Theater. So shout out that if you're in the the area and you need to still see the movie. Sorry that we ruined it for you. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Next week is an episode. It's a movie that I kind of hoisted upon, David. It's called Master and Commander's Far side of the World.

[Chris Gethard]

Right.

[David Sims]

That's next week.

[Griffin Newman]

David very quickly sets the rules in place that it is his episode.

[David Sims]

Yeah. You're like, you try some, like, one bit at the beginning. I'm like, we're not doing that.

[Griffin Newman]

You were insert yours.

[David Sims]

I was like, like, no, best step off.

[Griffin Newman]

But don't worry, it is. It is absolutely you and. And John Hodgman.

[David Sims]

We have Andrew Stanton coming up. There's plenty of Griff material in the future.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no, no. I was saying don't worry that you go off.

[David Sims]

No, we. I think we had fun on that episode. John talks a lot about boats.

[Griffin Newman]

Hodgman talking boats. It's a. It's a good episode. So, yeah, we're finishing that up and then. Yes, we've already sort of soft announced it, but Andrew Stanton is coming right after that.

[David Sims]

We will be covering disclosures Day as well.

[Griffin Newman]

Yes, yes. There are a couple summer releases that will take some breaks. Odyssey obviously comes in the middle of Stanton, but we'll be doing Finding Nemo through Toy Story 5 and then Scorsese Starting right after that. Martin Scorsese. I don't know if you know this. The guy who plays the flat meat dealer.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

In the Mandalorian and Grogu movie. He name is also directs movies LARP or whatever.

[Chris Gethard]

I'll have to look him up and

[Griffin Newman]

we're gonna cover him on the podcast.

[Ben Hosley]

We also have a Patreon. We're currently. We just recently covered Mortal Kombat and we're gonna to soon kick off our RoboCop series on June 1st.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Ben Hosley]

You can sign up for that at patreon.com blank check.

[Griffin Newman]

Guys, I'm so excited to take a nap. I'm like I'm really.

[David Sims]

Don't worry, Griff. We have like six ads to do

[Griffin Newman]

after we stop recording a post Ad nap is the sweetest nap of all.

[David Sims]

I'm so excited to pee.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I love ra.

[Griffin Newman]

His abs, his body. His body. Brain. His sparkling.

[David Sims]

What do I love?

[Griffin Newman]

His dad. You love his dad, right? His dad's a good person.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And he's just like him.

[David Sims]

I miss him. He had some riz again.

[Ben Hosley]

I'll shout out. A lot of the images we've been talking about will be posted on our social. Also sign up for our newsletter. We have a substack called Checkbook where they also have a lot of that stuff. If you don't engage with social media

[Griffin Newman]

and I'm sure Marie is going to have a lot of Mandalorian and Grogu thoughts. A movie she has many times said she is excited to never see.

[David Sims]

Can't really argue with her.

[Griffin Newman]

And as always, David, you were trying to remember things you love.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Griffin Newman]

And I just want to end this episode in a positive note. I love you and I want to remind you that you love Coaxium, which I think is best served cold.

[David Sims]

I think. Isn't it actually best served cold? I think you did it wrong. It has to be cold. So good job remembering that Coaxium should be cold.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay, so I'm responsible.

[David Sims]

Yes. Nice.

[Ben Hosley]

I guess that's how we're going to end it.

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah.

[Ben Hosley]

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas and our Associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

[David Sims]

Episodes.

[Ben Hosley]

Follow us on social @blank checkpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.

[Griffin Newman]

Ben, are we recording? Okay, and what I'm about to say is going to sound like it's pre roll, but I both want you to keep it in and actually do what I ask. Okay?

[David Sims]

Ben?

[Griffin Newman]

Yeah, it'll make sense if a second.

[Ben Hosley]

I. I'll do what you ask.

[David Sims]

Okay. Kayfabe.

[Ben Hosley]

Not like blanket state.

[Griffin Newman]

No, no, no, no.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Griffin Newman]

Okay. So kayfabe starting now. Ben, can you put a filter on my voice and post.