The ‘Star Wars’ Rankings and the 'Andor' Miracle

Summary

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The Big Picture

Episode: The ‘Star Wars’ Rankings and the 'Andor' Miracle

Date: May 4, 2026
Host: Sean Fennessey
Guest: Chris Ryan (The Watch)

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Episode Overview

On Star Wars Day (“May the 4th”), Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan convene for an expansive conversation centered on the legacy and placing of Andor Season 2 within the vast Star Wars canon—both movies and TV. They dissect the “Andor miracle,” why the series stands apart from other Star Wars entries, and how it reflects and refracts both cinematic and real-world history. Along the way, the pair draw distinctions between showrunners Tony Gilroy and Dave Filoni, evaluate the state and future of Star Wars on screen, and rank the franchise's movies and TV entries. The episode is rich in analysis, personal anecdotes, and cultural critique.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Star Wars Day and The Force

• [02:12] Opening banter about Star Wars Day and the meaning of "the Force."
• Chris Ryan on the Force:

  “No, I don’t [believe in the Force]. And I think Andor kind of brushed that aside... you start to see it as a lens through which to view reality and view history.” (02:17)

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2. The ‘Andor’ Journey: Reluctance, Discovery, and Impact

• Sean shares his delayed journey to Andor Season 2:

  “Andor Season Two aired essentially a year ago... and I never got around to it until January... I watched it after much prodding from you.” (03:14)

• Fear of overhype met with delight:

  “But sometimes that can be very dangerous to raise expectations like that... I was so, so delighted for it to be in my wheelhouse...” (04:11)

• Immediate appreciation:

  “Season two to me was the superlative season... I felt was most kind of fascinating in terms of what I’m interested in, which is this collision of writing and filmmaking...” (04:15-04:54)

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3. ‘Andor’ as Star Wars’ Crowning Achievement

• Chris’ assertion:

  “I think it’s the crowning achievement of Star Wars, especially in my adult life. Obviously, nothing will ever change my relationship to the first three films... but I’ve been thinking about this a lot since Star Wars has been kind of stalled out for a while...” (04:54)

• Discussing the generational resonance—do Star Wars stories still connect with new generations? (05:43-06:06)

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4. Tony Gilroy vs. Dave Filoni: Two Visions of Star Wars

• The contrast between Gilroy (realist, reluctant job-taker) and Filoni (mythology keeper and superfan).

• Chris, on their dichotomy:

  “It’s almost a dark and light side of the Force thing. You’ve got this incredibly progressive and provocative side with Gilroy... and a very, very kind of traditional and almost... reverent side of things with Filoni.” (07:31)

• Sean admits he “doesn’t really click with Filoni’s tone of storytelling,” while extolling Gilroy’s approach to characterization and narrative stakes. (09:15-10:28)

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5. The “Ground-Level” Star Wars: Marginalia, Reality, and Class

• The Kevin Smith ‘Clerks’ reference and the longstanding fan appetite for "the marginalia"—the Death Star janitors, the working class of the galaxy, etc. (10:28-11:05)
• Andor as the show that finally delivers on this promise, depicting:
  • Espionage
  • Internal rebellion politics
  • Everyday resistance

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6. Structure, Risk, and Stakes in ‘Andor’

• Sean on structure:

  “Those three-episode arcs... feel like individual novels pulled from a series around one or two characters...” (14:18)

• Chris on the show’s rare freedom:

  “He got the miracle chance to tell the story exactly the way he wanted to tell it... you can actually rewatch this because of the collection of short stories that it is, rather than the novel that I think people think of it as.” (12:55-14:18)

• Bravery in character deaths vs. "chickening out" in Rise of Skywalker:

  “This show frequently introduces characters and kills them three episodes later or five episodes later or two years later...” (17:09)

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7. Andor’s Political & Historical Resonance

• Analyzing Andor’s roots in real-world revolution, 20th-century history, and modern politics (set against “Trump era” America/Europe, per Sean).

• Chris:

  “Lines from the show being used as placards in, like, no Kings Marches and stuff.” (21:03)

• Paranoia, conspiracy, comparison to 1970s political thrillers (“Taxi Driver,” “Network,” “All the President’s Men”), and how few contemporary projects can achieve this. (21:34-22:50)

• Memorable Reference:

  “That’s the thing that is so clever about it... everyone feels that they are the most important person in the execution of the plan and that they have the most at stake at any given time.” (25:39)

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8. Nuanced Portraits of Rebellion

• The complexity of the Rebellion as a fractured, internally competitive, and often compromised coalition—far more than “good guys vs. bad guys.”
• Drawing comparisons to The Wire:

  “It’s the Wire thing... there’s a kind of deliberate, thought-through quality to the show...” (28:02)

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9. The Gorman Massacre Episode (Season 2, Ep. 8)

• Sean:

  “In addition to Cleia’s arc... the thing that confirms the show’s greatness for me is the Gorman massacre... a very interesting and fascinating piece of filmmaking.” (39:23)

• Discuss the “miracle” of integrating real historical atrocities (e.g., Reichstag Fire, French Resistance) into the Star Wars context, and how the show uses emotional weight and tragedy as storytelling.

• Chris:

  "I still think the thing that blows my mind is Cyril’s death from that whole thing... they spent so much time on a guy whose life amounted to pretty much nothing..." (39:50)

• Sean:

  “It just got me very emotional. It’s like I’m crying at this Star Wars TV show...” (41:05)

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10. Humanizing the Galaxy: The Power of Perspective

• Sean:

  “...It makes something like Alderaan being exploded feel more weighty in the other films... you come to realize that they’re populated by people who have no idea who the fuck the Skywalkers are...” (47:41-48:38)

• ‘Andor’ as a work concerned with the cost of rebellion, the lived experience of ordinary (“off-book”) people, and the consequences of power plays—absent the mysticism and myth of Jedi and the Force.

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11. Performances & Characters

• The show’s success is rooted in casting:

  • Well-known actors in key roles: Diego Luna, Forest Whitaker, Stellan Skarsgård, Fiona Shaw
  • Complete unknowns who come to define the story beats—a signature of great modern television (36:49-37:41)

• Chris on the Partagaz-Krennic scene:

  “Gilroy really is the Shakespeare of the business meeting.” (31:23)

• Chris on Skarsgård:

  “He has like three of the four or five moments articulating the thesis statements of the show... Luthen is often confronted with possible capture or death and is just like, I’m either going to talk my way out of this or I’m not.” (51:23)

• Sean on Diego Luna:

  “He has leading man good looks and not leading man energy... a young Dustin Hoffman kind of little twitchy... neediness and a little bit just angsty as an actor.” (49:27)

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12. The Ranking Exercise

The Big Picture Star Wars Rankings

1. Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. Andor
4. Return of the Jedi
5. The Last Jedi
6. Rogue One
7. Revenge of the Sith
8. The Force Awakens
9. Attack of the Clones
10. The Mandalorian (S1/S2)
11. The Phantom Menace
12. Solo: A Star Wars Story
13. The Rise of Skywalker

• On where ‘Andor’ lands:

  “Is Andor the third best thing? Now, I know you said Andor is basically your favorite Star Wars thing.” (68:29)
  Chris: “It’s the most intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant movie to me as an adult. But these [Empire, New Hope] are two of the most important movies of my lifetime as a child.” (68:45)

• Brief side-discussion on where Mando & Grogu might eventually fall: “Can it get above Attack of the Clones? ...I think it can.” (80:57)

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13. The Future of Star Wars

• Skepticism about whether the “Andor miracle” could ever be repeated:

  “I don’t think for the next decade at least.” (57:05)

• Lukewarm to pessimistic notes on upcoming projects, e.g., Mandalorian & Grogu film, Starfighter, and other proposed spin-offs; skepticism about their capacity for similar innovation and depth.

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Notable Quotes

• “It’s almost a dark and light side of the Force thing. You have this incredibly progressive and provocative side of things on one hand... and a very... reverent side with Filoni.” — Chris Ryan (07:31)

• “This show frequently introduces characters and kills them three episodes later... or tells you in the beginning of the series, like, this guy’s gonna die.” — Sean Fennessey (17:09)

• “There’s been something adult unlocked here... It’s mature, it’s thoughtful, but it’s not afraid to be transgressive against the religiosity we bring to Star Wars.” — Sean Fennessey (12:15)

• “Andor is a show set inside of a movie that itself was set inside of a movie. But within this show, there could have been five or six shows.” — Chris Ryan (55:04)

• “Lines from the show being used as placards in, like, no Kings Marches and stuff.” — Chris Ryan (21:03)

• “It just got me very emotional. It’s like I’m crying at this Star Wars TV show.” — Sean Fennessey (41:05)

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Most Memorable & Important Segments (Timestamps)

• [04:54] – Chris crowns Andor as the franchise’s “crowning achievement.”
• [07:31] – Contrast between Gilroy and Filoni (“dark and light side”).
• [14:18] – Structure of Andor: Three-episode arcs as “short stories.”
• [17:09] – On Andor’s courage to kill characters and defy fan service.
• [21:03] – Real-world protest inspiration from Andor’s dialogue.
• [39:23] – The Gorman Massacre episode as a narrative and emotional peak.
• [68:29] – Ranking Andor as the third greatest Star Wars screen entry.
• [80:17] – Summarizing the Star Wars rankings and reflecting on series legacy.

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Additional Highlights & Easter Eggs

• References to shows and films influencing Andor: “Taxi Driver,” “All the President’s Men,” “The Wire,” John le Carré adaptations, Melville’s “Army of Shadows,” BBC’s “Sandbaggers,” Fritz Lang, “Guns of Navarone,” “The Third Man.”
• Anecdotes about watching Star Wars with children and the continuing relevance of the original trilogy for younger viewers.
• Chris’s appreciation for how unknown actors anchor the series, reinforcing its gritty, human feel.
• Offhand speculation on the fate of upcoming Star Wars projects, with an undercurrent of both resignation and hope.

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Final Takeaways

• Andor is hailed by Sean and Chris as a transformative work for Star Wars, one that re-centers the saga from myth to human, historic, and political drama.
• The show’s mature themes, willingness to embrace risk and darkness, and reliance on “marginalia” are seen as both a high point and an exception—in all likelihood, a miracle unlikely to be repeated by Disney-era Star Wars.
• Their thorough, loving, and critical rankings reinforce the original trilogy's magic while making a passionate case for “Andor” as the most essential Star Wars of this era.

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For listeners wondering if they should watch Andor, Chris says:

“I think he [Gilroy] got the miracle chance to tell the story exactly the way he wanted to tell it.” (15:22)

And Sean’s verdict:

“I do feel like when I watch the show what I think Gilroy has talked about... those three episode arcs... feel like individual novels pulled from a series.” (14:18)

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Full Rankings Recap:

1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. Andor
4. Return of the Jedi
5. The Last Jedi
6. Rogue One
7. Revenge of the Sith
8. The Force Awakens
9. Attack of the Clones
10. The Mandalorian
11. The Phantom Menace
12. Solo
13. The Rise of Skywalker

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(End of summary)

Transcript

[A]

I'm Sean Fantasy and this is the Big Picture a conversation show about Star Wars. It's May 4, which is the best possible opportunity to talk about a year old season of television. That's right. We're finally digging into andor season two and putting it in the hierarchy of Star wars movies and TV shows. Helping me to do so is my pal, the number one Tony Gilroy whisperer in the land. Chris Ryan, thanks for having me. We will dig into the show, rank the movies, talk about the future of this beloved franchise right after this. This episode is brought to you by the autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo. The Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo is built for travel. You can earn rewards wherever you book your favorite hotel site your go to airline and more. You you get five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants and other travel and one point on other purchases. Whether it's a big vacation or a quick getaway from booking your stay to that first meal when you arrive, you're turning your trips into rewards with the autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo. Learn more@wells fargo.com autographjourney Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that. Bullspend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO? LinkedIn Ads generates the highest roas of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. You can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull. Spend, advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com thebigpicture that's LinkedIn.com thebigpicture Terms and conditions apply. Well, may the fourth be with you. Chris, how are you feeling?

[B]

You as well, man.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

I know this is a big holiday for both of us.

[A]

It is.

[B]

But it's cool to honor it in this way.

[A]

Do you believe in the force?

[B]

No, I don't.

[A]

You don't?

[B]

No. And I think andor kind of brushed that aside is any kind of like childhood sort of like attachment to some of the stuff In Star wars, like, you watch Andor, and you start to see it as a lens through which to view reality and view history.

[A]

Let me share a little bit of my personal experience with you and how it connects to Andor. So over the last 10 years, and especially the last five years, you have seen me evolve or devolve into a person who has less and less of a relationship to television. You host the signature television pod in the universe, the Watch.

[B]

I don't know about that, but thanks.

[A]

That's my opinion. Okay. And that show, you know, you have to watch a ton of tv. And so every once in a while and increasingly less so, you'll say, like, hey, did you check this out? Or what'd you think of this?

[B]

Yeah, usually for its cinematic value or something. Genre that I think you're gonna just respond to very well. Right.

[A]

You've always been very generous in that way with recommendations or just being curious about what someone thinks about something. And I did watch the first season of Andor effectively while it aired, but you started sending me messages about andor season two, because you were watching it. You and Andy were covering it on the Watch, and I was like, yeah, I'll get to it. I'll get to it. I'll get to it. I'll get to it. And last year was particularly busy on the big picture. We did the 25 for 25 thing, and we were coming out of a long Academy Awards season, and I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do on movies. And so, you know, and. Or season two aired essentially a year ago, started airing at the end of April of 2025, and I never got around to it until January, and I watched it earlier this year after much prodding from you. And then a lot of people. I think people heard me say on shows that I hadn't watched it yet.

[B]

Yeah, that was starting to become like, Bill's big Lebowski thing or something like that, where you're like, I know it's going to be great, and I'm going to love it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Can I just maybe simulate the experience of loving it?

[A]

But sometimes that can be very dangerous to raise expectations like that and to have so many people that you trust and so many people you don't even know say, like, you're gonna love this. This is so in your wheelhouse. And I was so, so delighted for it to be in my wheelhouse now. I knew what it was gonna be because of season one. And I think there's an interesting conversation about season one versus Season Two. But season two to me was the superlative season and it was the one that I got. I felt the most connected to the show and I felt was most kind of fascinating in terms of what I'm interested in, which is this collision of writing and filmmaking that is happening on this show with some remove from it. What do you make of this TV show? Where do you think it stands?

[B]

I think it's the crowning achievement of Star wars, especially in my adult life. Obviously nothing will ever change my relationship to the first three films and how it created for me or gave me something to call my own that were very old myths and very old stories. And now spoken about this so well with like the relationship between the Joseph Campbell stuff and Star wars and it really is our translation of all that stuff. But I've been thinking about this a lot since Star wars has been kind of stalled out for a while, you know, especially in the movie theaters, about whether we need it anymore and whether or not it's something that is actually as durable as maybe we once imagined and whether or not it's actually something that really resonates with people anymore, especially younger people.

[A]

Well, we. It's an interesting choice there because we were fortunate to already get the movies in the way that we did at the age that we did. And I just went through this with my daughter where we just watched all the movies and boy, they still work. They still work on young kids. I think the question you start to ask yourself is in your 20s, your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, do these stories resonate in the same way? And can they? Can the new versions of them keep resonating?

[B]

Yes. And so we also are. I'm saying that off of the back of the sequels, which I think I went into with a lot of optimism and curiosity, and by the end of it was like, so we just did the first three movies again, right?

[A]

The Rey trilogy.

[B]

And we're just never going to be able to get out from under the Skywalkers and we're never going to be able to really get out from under these iconic performances from those first three films. And in some ways, Filoni, even though Dave Filoni, who now is a sort of creative president or the co CEO of Lucasfilm, is not real. I really don't vibe with his vision of Star wars and his staging of Star Wars, I think is actually like an interesting choice for this job because I think he takes things up to a certain point in time and is like, I'm going to explore all these pockets of history of the galaxy, but not push the ball forward or upend the apple cart when it comes to your expectations about what Star wars can be.

[A]

So that's the thing that I find really interesting about this era. Of the shows and the films. Filoni and Gilroy are probably the two people who have brought the most to what you can call gap filling, where their interest in the stories is a lot of like, well, what happened when. Before this went. Went on. You know, Gilroy obviously kind of got backdoored into it by working on Rogue One. And that isn't. That entire movie is premised upon. Well, here's what happened right before the movie started.

[B]

Yeah. And it's worth pointing out that they could not be any more different in their approach to Star wars lore. Star wars as an institution. Whereas Tony Gilroy came in almost as a job for hire to work on Rogue One and wound up taking over a bunch of the reshoots for that movie, then actively tried, like, campaigned against doing andor and against himself being involved and sort of infamously wrote a long memo as like, nobody should do this, but if they were gonna do it, this is what they have to do. And Kathy Kennedy was like, sir, you've gotten yourself a job here by accident. Dave Filoni's been studying for this job for most of his adult life. Like he has studied at the foot of Lucas. He is the keeper of the timeline of the galaxy, like history. Everything he does is in service to the rules of Star Wars. So you have like this incredibly progressive and provocative side of things on one hand. I mean, it's almost a dark and light side of the Force thing. And then you've got a very, very kind of traditional and almost, I wouldn't say safe, but I would say like, reverent side of things with Filoni. And that's where Star wars found itself up through andor. And then I don't think Tony Gilroy ever wanted to do what Dave Filoni is about to do for Star Wars. But they have made a choice to go with Filoni as the sort of driving force.

[A]

They're so interesting to compare. And I can't really say too much about Dave Filoni's work. Cause I haven't watched Clone wars and I haven't watched Rebels. So having not seen those two series where he really made his bones as a storyteller, that's my understanding. But I have watched roughly 75% of the star wars live action series, a lot of which he has shepherded co Shepherded kind of helped navigate.

[B]

I think Andor's the only one that he hasn't had a hand in. Well, I may be accolade, I guess, but yeah.

[A]

And, you know, I've found many of those shows to be quite leaden and dull and unfeeling in some ways. And I know that people can disagree and we can kind of talk about the ones that we've seen as we go through this discussion. But I don't think I'm really click with his tone of storytelling. Whereas Gilroy, you know, I am an affirmed Michael Clayton superfan, and I find his level of characterization and story and also what kind of what animates internal struggle for him and how it comes out in action and characters to be the best of the best. I think he's the most interesting mechanic of character storytelling that we have until he gets to throw himself into this world that I had really ever only seen enunciated by Kevin Smith. And in Clerks, very famously, there is the moment when Randall and Dante are talking about how the Death Star works and the idea of maintenance and the people, the cost of doing business in the Empire, which when I was a teenager, blew my wig back. I was like, I didn't realize you could think about pop culture this way.

[B]

We got dozens and dozens of stone conversation of guys like you and me at parties or in dorm rooms being like, what about, like, what. What happens at Moss Eisley? Like, what's the deal there? Like, what do those guys do? You know? And then, like, interrogating those ideas. Andy and I, for a long time when. When they announced that Star wars was going to become a television property as well, we were like, here's the opportunity to do the Mos Eisley show, and here's the idea. Opportunity to do Death Star Janitor show, if you wanted to really go for it. There is a huge swath of Star wars fans.

[A]

I remember you guys talking about this.

[B]

I want the marginalia. I want, like, the little stories. And in some ways, that's what Rogue One was. It was a throwaway line in A New Hope that became an action adventure movie and basically a heist movie leading up into it. And then Andor is Rogue wanting Rogue One, where it's like, well, what happens before that? What leads this guy to the point where he's like, I'm gonna go on a suicide mission to save the Rebellion.

[A]

Yeah. And the first season of the show, I think, is quite interesting, but ultimately not as satisfactory because of that way that it's built the way that you're describing it, where if you can get on board with it as a pure espionage story and about a story about a person ultimately committing to an idea and committing to a movement that he's skeptical of at first, it's very effective. I like that the series immediately shows you Cassian shooting a police officer in cold blood. And just like this is noir storytelling, I'll never forget watching that first 20 minutes for the first time and just feeling like Star wars has never done this before.

[B]

He got it. He did it.

[A]

There's been something adult unlocked here. It's not adult in a lurid way. It's mature, it's thoughtful, but it's not afraid to be transgressive against maybe some of the religiosity that we bring to Star wars. And that this whole endeavor is very ground level. It's about individual people coming together to make change. They don't always agree with each other. They don't always really have the same specific political valence, but broadly speaking, they know that they have to come together to overwhelm something that is more powerful than they are individually, which is such a great idea. But the first season ended and I was like, okay, we have a lot, like, a long way to go here.

[B]

Yeah. Well, it's worth noting that it was originally conceived as a five season show and that it was going to be a season per year leading up to Rogue One. And I don't know how much of the story that they actually sketched out of what, how many episodes and how many of the seasons they really were like, and then this happens and this happens. And one of the cool things about Andor is you can actually rewatch this because of the collection of short stories that it is, rather than the novel that I think people think of it as. It's really about the most important 10 to 11 to 12 moments over the course of five years. And they're broken up into these three episode arcs. So you have the Aldhani arc or the Gorman arc or the prison arc. And you can kind of pick and choose. If you're like, I'm gonna skip the first three episodes of season two, or I'm gonna skip this, or I'm skip that and go back and revisit it, which is strangely, like, for as much TV as I have to watch, I think, because there's so much new stuff all the time, I look on people who are like, I'm just rewatching succession for fun. That's what I don't have time for. And that's what I have no interest in doing. But Andor I have revisited a lot. Maybe not like episode by episode. I'm doing an andor rewatch. But I will go back and be like, I went back for one line that I wanted to see or. And now found myself sitting there for 40 minutes watching an episode.

[A]

I haven't been able to do that yet. And it is something that I want to do. I did obviously revisit a little bit just for this conversation that we're having. But I do feel when I watch the show what I think Gilroy has talked about and some of the other authors of this series, which is those three episode arcs that you're describing, feel like individual novels pulled from a series around one or two characters. So by citing Le Carre or Alan Furst, which are those books are sacred texts for you, really operating in that mold. Which like, does a lot of television do that at this point? Like, I feel like it's. There's something. It feels something very novel. Forgive the double usage of the word to saying like a few episodes of our series are basically one tract of story and then we're moving on and it's part of a wider experience. But like the Prison Break experience in the first season is a completely different show. The production design, the characters that are featured, the tonality, the energy, the lighting, like everything is just different from the previous three episodes that have come before that.

[B]

There's something to be said for Andor's probably. I think Andy and I were just talking about this with a different series maybe.000. Oh. We were talking about this on the physical media podcast that has yet to be released. But it's almost a vestige of this boom time of streaming television where they were like, yeah, you tell us. You know, here's a bunch of money. And so Kilroy got like $600 million or whatever it wound up costing to make this show. But they weren't like, you have to prove it every three episodes or we'll talk to you at the end of season one and we'll see where we go from here. Or, hey, it's a big hit. You've got to come up with 35 more hours of this now. It kind of feels like because of COVID they weren't going to be able to keep mounting this. And because of people's schedules and because of people getting older and because of how time consuming it was, they were like, we can do this in two seasons. And I think he got the miracle chance to tell the story exactly the way he wanted to tell it. And so even in those three episode blocks he's got. He knows why the prison break is important. You know, he knows that this is when everyday normal people who have been stepped on by not just the Empire, but just life and the world are like, yeah, you know what? Fuck these guys. I am against it. We don't have to just, like, accrue credits in some weird way in this prison when we find out that, in fact, you're just walking to your death anyway. Yeah.

[A]

But one thing that I love about what the show does is something that I have groused about over the years around Star wars. And most specifically, when we talked about our draft, we talked about the lack of courage in not killing Chewbacca in Rise of Skywalker, where that felt like a real kind of, you know, chickened out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Bending the knee to the fandom, too. That, like, we wouldn't take this away from you under any circumstance. This show frequently introduces characters and kills them three episodes later or five episodes later or two years later, or tells

[B]

you in the beginning of the series, like, this guy's gonna die.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And not just Cassian, because he's gonna die in Rogue One.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

But they're like, this guy knows that this is gonna kill him.

[A]

Well, that's the other thing. Maybe just we should say is like, this show's called Andor. Andor dies in Rogue at the end of Rogue One. And we're like, okay, so we're going to watch this guy's whole life knowing what it's already leading up to?

[B]

We know the ending that they made this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If you think about everything that happens in the sequels and how they're just like, we'll kill Han Solo, but, like, we're going to bring him back almost immediately as Ghost and he's just Harrison Ford.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Not like in any way, like, do you like Yoda?

[A]

We've got Yoda here as a force. Ghost and the emperor.

[B]

If you heard that Star wars has always done that. You know, it's like as soon as Darth sacrifices himself for Luke, he's back in some capacity. But I always was. It wasn't the fact that they brought Chewbacca back that would upset me. It was the fact that it was like, you want your cake and you want to eat it, too. You want us all to go through the anguish of seeing a beloved character die and then instantly take away that feeling by bringing him back to life. In the case of Chewbacca, it's like, oh, a mistaken identity. But Andor kill does not have that move. Now, you could say, like, oh, like a bunch of these people could have survived, but not the hero. And from the first decisions that he's making, where he's stealing things and killing security guards, like you were pointing out, like, it sets him down on this. It sets him down this path.

[A]

Yeah. It's really interesting because it's so evident that Gilroy brings none of the infantile romanticism that most of us do to Star Wars. I mean, it's just. I kind of don't blame JJ Abrams for doing the things that he did, because it's like, this shit matters to me, man. Like, there is a kind of possessiveness, a youthful possessiveness to these stories. But if you don't have that or you don't care about that, you might be better suited to telling some of these stories in some ways.

[B]

Yeah. I think he's got a heretic sensibility when it comes to this. And you start with Star wars when you're a kid and you're like, this is about good versus evil, and this is about a kid who's from nowhere being special like me, I think. Or you can just be like, it's about the really cool guy who comes along 30 minutes into the movie and is who I want to be when I grow up. Whatever it is.

[A]

I think the same goes for Leia. I've watched that happen with Leia taking Star Wars.

[B]

The idea to take Star wars and be like, this has Russian novel backbone. Like, we can go. It would be one thing if they were like a sitcom set in Mos Eisley, like, at the cantina. That would be, like, fine. Or I'm sure there's versions of that that would work. But he saw it, and he was like, no, this is gonna be. What is the Rebellion? They keep throwing that word around in the first few movies and into the prequels. No, Rebellion's a revolution. And I can put everything I've ever read and everything I've ever thought about resistance into a story about a doomed protagonist who's gonna give up his life for, like, you know, against the object of fascism, which is the Death Star. And to see that, like, that's true. Point guard play. To be like, I can see where the cut is coming, you know, I'm

[A]

so interested, though, to situate the movie in time because there's just so much. There's a lot of history, American and European history, that he is kind of working his way through as he draws Some of these characters. But Rogue One starts in the Trump era. You know, the film's in production at that time and being put out in the world. And then this series is happening over the course of the second Trump term. And a lot of these ideas just feel like they're in everyday life in a lot of ways.

[B]

Lines from the show being used as placards in, like, no Kings Marches and stuff.

[A]

Exactly. Which is just such an interesting crossover. And obviously you can see that Gilroy's thinking about that, maybe not literalizing it as much when he's being interviewed so as not to draw too much overt obvious political tension.

[B]

But if I was thinking he would rather be the person who was warning us all when things felt good than be like, oh, the show is weirdly prescient, and now kind of being brought into a zeitgeist to talk about fascism.

[A]

Well, that's the thing is, even over the course of the last nine to 12 months of American history that has transpired since the show ended, a bunch of stuff that's in the show feels like we watched a version of it at home. And I think that the show is. One of the things that the show is really adept at. Very skilled, is portraying paranoia and dread, which I find most stuff these days it can accomplish. And I'm so interested in the idea that. Because we recorded the 1976 draft and we talked about a bunch of movies in that draft, Taxi Driver Network, all the President's Men that Time, of the conspiracy thriller and how it seemed to be echoing something we were feeling in the culture at large, that people were doing things behind our backs and that those things that they were doing were nefarious and that we should be concerned.

[B]

And that's maybe why those movies evolved, continued on in the consciousness and, like, remain rewatchable.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Never expired. This show's the same thing. See. I mean, it's doing the exact same thing. I was struggling to think of, like, a really good conspiracy thriller movie of the last few years.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, would you call how to Blow Up a Pipeline a conspiracy thriller?

[A]

But that's a movie about direct action.

[B]

Yeah. A little bit more confrontational. And it's what it is about.

[A]

That is a good example.

[B]

But when you watch Krennic lead the working group that's going to plot out the fake resistance on Gorman.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

To be the catalyzing event that allows them to mine the planet to death.

[A]

This is when that exact kind of storyline, that strain of the story is what took the show I think from very, very good to truly great and exceptional to me, and the way that that is all drawn and it's not, it's not subtle, it's fairly clear what's happening here. But enunciating the way in which power operates under authoritarianism and the way in which people's emotions are stoked so clearly and what is undergirding all that and what people want from foreign territory is just an incredible act of writing. And taking someone like Krennic, who I love Ben Mendelsohn, but is a fairly one dimensional character in Rogue One, and an actor who can sometimes view one note. It's a note I love. It's one of the beautiful ones.

[B]

He can be flamboyant, he can choose scenery, sure, yes.

[A]

But I think he imbues him with a much more deeply insidious and kind of pathetic nature. And the way that he flexes his power is amazing. And then you also realize within that framework that he's also.

[B]

He's got a boss too, working for a higher power.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

That's right. The reason, for me, the counterbalance has to be that the other side of the conflict is as complicated as the Empire. And that is the flip of Andor. And it would have been easy to just be like, these guys are resistance fighters. Their aim is true, their motivations are pure. And the reason why these guys wind up being sacrificed, the reason why so few of these characters ever show up again, is because they're all fucked up. And they all decided to give their lives over to a fight. And they have their ideas about how the fight should be fought.

[A]

They frequently don't agree.

[B]

I mean, the Rebellion, quote unquote, is all these different factions and hanging by

[A]

a thread by every turn. It's the great drama of the show.

[B]

Yeah. And they basically is, you know, funded sometimes knowingly, sometimes not, by these rich people who are indulgent to the ideas, but, you know, not willing to get their hands dirty. And they've got this guy Luthen, who can't come out and just say straight up, I am Axis. I am the guy. So he's pretending to be an antiquities dealer and he and Cassian go all over the galaxy and meet all these different people, like Saw Gerrera. And, you know, and they're all like, I think I'm the Rebellion. You know, I am the Luthen of my storyline. And they're like, yeah, checkmate, man. Like, you're gonna do what I need you to do here.

[A]

I know. Well, that's the thing that is so clever about it, is that everyone feels that they are the most important person in the execution of the plan and that they have the most at stake at any given time. I would say Luthen, weirdly, is the only person who doesn't have any anxiety about that. He is like the true philosophical militant where he kind of follows through on every single step that he feels is necessary for this work and it is his life's work. But Mon Mothma is a completely different, completely different figure. Yeah, she's a public facing figure who clearly got into this line of work to help make change and make society better and safer. Witnesses something happening, but can't act publicly against it until she absolutely has to and does. But the idea of drawing together spies living in secret but publicly politicians, true down and dirty rebels who are doing the grunt work and are being eliminated time and time again while trying to accomplish one incremental thing that gets you over years time a step further to vanquishing whatever the perceived evil is. I find it hard to kind of hold the whole show in my head. That's one of its greatest points.

[B]

This is why, like, I'm not really looking at my computer. Like I. There's those. There are episodic sequences of this show that still are with me like they were yesterday. And like that whole Aldani thing is essentially like exactly what you're talking about, where you've got the Ebon Moss Bachrock character who's essentially an outlaw. You've got Cassian, who is one trigger pull away from just being the Ebon Moss Baccarat character. Nemec, who is the political ideologue and winds up being perhaps the most important person in the rebellion in some ways

[A]

because, like the Marx Lenin figure.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And then you've got these dutiful soldiers like Faye, who are all working for Luthen and trying to get Luthen's, you know, the light of Luthen to shine on them. What a fascinating collection of portraits of people in resistance that aren't just all, like, we all have a common goal. Let's work for it. It's like, no, like Mon Motha might as well be like a blue check lib person who's like, I thought maybe if I just voted the hardest it would work, but it turns out I'm gonna have to raise money and give it to separatist groups.

[A]

No, I mean in all examples of dramatic political social movements, whether it be the civil rights movement in America, whether it be changing Changes in Chile. Like, you can like look at all these examples that Gilroy cites or that are clear inspirations on it. There are warring fact. There are people who don't agree about the way in which it works. One of the things I really like about the show is it shows you characters who seem minor and become major over the course of two seasons. Yeah, it's the Wire thing, you know, which is there's a kind of deliberate like thought through quality to the show that I. It's one of the reasons why I struggle with television so much is it often feels like they're like, I hope we get renewed and if we get renewed, we'll come up with some more stuff to do. And I fucking hate that. And I know that it's the business and I don't really blame the creatives who are working in that environment. But in this particular case, even if the show didn't get to have its five seasons, seeing Clea in the way that we do.

[B]

Yeah, that is of many artistic masterstrokes. I wonder if Clea might be the greatest one.

[A]

It's the kind of what her character gets to do and become over the final three episodes of the season. Gives me chills to think about that.

[B]

Yeah. But what she doesn't get to do, I mean like any other television show on, she is just like the woman who's in the store who says, you can't do that. Luthen.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, and that's in every fucking show is there's a character who's just like, hey, Hiro, you gotta think twice about this, right? That that person to be the person who like saves the rebellion by killing Luthen and then escapes and gets the only salvation almost of anybody on that show is her and Bix getting out of there.

[A]

You know, it's beautiful though, and it really. It's a real genuine payoff if you've stuck with the series through all of the episodes, that spending time with them, caring about them, trying to understand who they are. But like, I didn't feel any affection for Clea through the first 20 episodes of the series, you know.

[B]

Actress.

[A]

Yeah, she's interesting to look at and she has great chemistry with Stellan Skarsgard and they're kind of like father daughterish quality. But why is this person matter?

[B]

This is the. I would say this is a good case for TV is this is I think also Gilroy getting off book English badass actors and then being like, oh, like they can handle even more of this stuff. And another example of this, on the imperial side of things is Partidaz, who is this ISB kind of counterintelligence chieftain who runs terrifying meetings. In fact, one of my favorite lines is, nobody get comfortable. This is not a meeting. Call your families. You're not going home tonight. Nobody. I mean, Gilroy really is the Shakespeare of the business meeting. But that last scene that he has with Krennic where they've put out an APB for Clea, and it's like, what are we gonna say is the reason behind basically like turning the entire eye of the Empire on one person? And Partagaz is like, she's dise. She has a virus and if she's exposed to anyone, she'll cause thousands of deaths and she needs to be quarantined. And you know, the guy, the underling, goes running out of the room to send this, and you know, it's just Krennic, it's just Mendelssohn. And I can't remember the part of guys actor.

[A]

His name's Anton Lesser and he's in

[B]

Thrones, and you've seen him a hundred times, and he just turns to Krennic, and this entire time he has been like, so still and so precise, and he just, like, his shoulders drop and he's like, you were supposed to be ready, man. Like, you were supposed to have the Death Star built by now. Like, I can't. And Krennic's like, I can't protect you. You're gonna go down for this, you know, to write that character into that moment and give these two guys an unreally spoken intimacy with each other because they've come up through the military academy together or whatever, it will just set off fireworks in your brain if you. When you're watching it. And that's what when it's good television can pull off, right? You know, when it's Mad Men and when it's the Wire and when it's Deadwood and when it's this, it's. It's like cooking at a level that maybe even movies can't achieve.

[A]

You know, I think there's. I will admit here on this podcast, this movie podcast, that that is true.

[B]

We just don't get that routinely enough.

[A]

And here's my thing, and here's why we're talking about it today. The moment that you're describing is also very similar to moments that happen in the Parallax View. We don't have as much time spent with the figures in that world, but that sense that there's something between two people and that they're making a choice and one has more power than the other. Movies can do that. And this show doesn't exist without movies. And I would say that that is the foremost inspiration on the show. Now the time spent and the novelistic quality, the scope of the story, definitely that's a huge influence there. But there are so many movies about this idea and so few television shows about this idea of revolution and change within societies because it's hard to dramatize this. Like one of the reasons why the show is so acclaimed is cause it's been so rarely achieved.

[B]

But the only reason they got to make this show is because they called it Star Wars.

[A]

Exactly. Exactly.

[B]

The only reason they got to make this show is because it was the Death Star that they're trying to blow up. If it was just overthrowing a sci fi government, there's no way. There's no way they get to build Gorman, you know, but because he could go into a timeline and be like what's this? We've never built that we should show this, you know, like that's it.

[A]

I was thinking about the different kinds of movies that are heavy influences on this show. And there are multiple. Because of that trio episodic structure that you were describing. But it's. You know, we've got revolutionary classics, a lot of European films like Z and State of Siege, the Costa Gavris movies. You got army of Shadows in the Jean Pierre Melville films. You got Battle of Algiers is clearly a huge influence back in the news thanks to one battle after another. You've got Prison Break movies, sure. Stalag 17, bridge on the River Kwai, Latru Man, Escaped spycraft movies, all the Le Carre adaptations. The Conversation you noted that Sandbaggers is a big influence on this show.

[B]

It's a BBC show from the early 80s, late 70s, early 80s. It's available on prime video and it is basically a special operations department of the British Secret Service or the British MI6. It's really only told from the perspective of guys waiting for the phone call to come back in to be mission accomplished. And it's just dudes smoking and doing inter office politics and trying to manipulate members of Parliament or members of Whitehall into doing their bidding. And it's. I don't know if Tony saw it, but it is a very good and or precursor.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

You know it is saw Gerrera and Luthen talking in a cave rather than the fight that they're talking about.

[A]

Yeah. There's another form of movie that is no longer Very popular, but was at a time which was this sort of World War II adventure resistance movie like Where Eagles Dare. And there's some Fritz Lang movies like Hangman. Also die.

[B]

Guns of Navarone.

[A]

Guns of Navarone is a big one. I think Guns of Navarone is probably pretty dramatic influence on the show given the sort of like men on a

[B]

mission quality and also changing the scope of the sort of physical landscape that they're in. A bunch.

[A]

Yeah. And then also my personal favorite kind of movie like this is the sort of post war racketeering, espionage, the Third man and the Conformist, the lives of others people kind of operating on the fringes of a very vulnerable society. And the show is clearly interested in all of these things. And in fact, it's sometimes like replicating moments from some of those films or at least recalling them specifically. And you mentioned this already, but this idea of the really the off book British actor. The show does what so many good TV shows can do, which is it takes complete unknowns to us and just says, like, come into the world with this person. And in fact, this show would be much worse if it was a bunch of famous actors. But the fact that you've got certainly some holdovers from the films. You've got Diego Luna, you've got Forest Whitaker, familiar faces from Rogue One, Mon Mothma. Yes. Genevieve O'Reilly, you've got her. But then you introduce Dylan Skarsgrd in, I think, one of the great performances of his career. Ben Mendelsohn returns from the film. Fiona Shaw is introduced in the first season, giving an amazing performance. Katherine Hunter, Benjamin Bratt, these are all people we've seen before quite a bit. But then all these other people, Denise Gough, who I, you know, British actress who I'm sure I've seen before.

[B]

Mind blowing.

[A]

Perhaps the best performance in the series.

[B]

Yeah. Her and the guy who plays Cyril have this truly indescribable, weird relationship that I think is such a beautiful invention of this show that really could have only worked because they get such a long duration of time circling one another, being with one another and splitting apart.

[A]

Kyle Soler is the actor who plays Syril Karn. Even someone like Richard Samill, who is the Gorman leader who believes that his people are prepared for resistance, who's a longtime working German actor. And the thing I recognize him from immediately is Inglourious Basterds. He's the German lieutenant who is beaten by the bear Jew. And it's like, oh, right, that guy. And then a whole bunch of new Faces. You mentioned Kyle Soler, who I'd never seen before.

[B]

I don't know Faye Marseille, who's in Thor, but is quite amazing in this.

[A]

Terrific. In this, we mentioned Elizabeth Dulau, Adria Arjona, possibly the first time I saw her in season one, and has now gone on to become a. You think she'll be Wonder Woman?

[B]

I think she is Wonder Woman.

[A]

Are you excited about that?

[B]

Sure. Yeah.

[A]

Do you think there should be a Wonder Woman? Do you think that's a character that should exist?

[B]

You think they're just like, James Gunn's doing a great job. We're gonna keep everything as is once they do the merger?

[A]

No, I don't, but we'll see. Could be wrong.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You gonna see Supergirl?

[B]

Probably. Would you see it if you weren't obligated to?

[A]

Wow. It's hard for me to even fathom that life. You know, one thing, speaking of Supergirl that I like about the show too, is that even though it is does feel like a hand to hand spy show most of the time, when it needs scale, it can get that Star wars scale up.

[B]

I mean, Luthen's spaceship fight is among the great set pieces in Star wars history.

[A]

It's incredibly cool. The other thing is just I knew I was in good hands in season two when Cassian steals the TIE fighter and I was like, holy shit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is actually what it would be like if somebody tried to fly one of these things, you know, like that was another way of kind of tilting our perspective of what we think this world really is, where it's like, it's human beings. It's not just stormtroopers pushing buttons and moving things around. Yeah.

[B]

Cassian escaping from Aldhani while paralyzed guy is giving him the instructions of, like, when to turn to get out from under this, like, incredible, like, natural light explosion happening in the sky. The prison break on Arkyna with Serkis.

[A]

Unreal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So to me, the. In addition to Cleia's arc at the final third of the last season, the thing that confirms the show's greatness for me is the Gorman massacre. Thought we could take a little bit of time to talk about episode eight and why it's a very interesting and fascinating piece of filmmaking. Can you take me back to when you and Andy were doing the pod? What was your reaction to that episode?

[B]

So I think that we were like, this was the one thing that had been in the air that this was gonna happen. So when Gorman starts to get mentioned at the beginning of this season, if you were doing any online reading, people were like, this is canon. So there was something that happened there. And if you want to get nerdy, you can get into like Wikipedia and you can start reading some of this stuff. And there was some incident that happened on Gorman, and Tony basically used that and he was like, this is where everything is going to come to a head. I still think the thing that blows my mind is Cyril's death from that whole thing. And the idea that they spent so much time on a guy whose life amounted to pretty much nothing and who has forgotten to history almost instantly. But there are so many achievements within that episode. What did you think when you saw it?

[A]

I think I was amazed by the way that they integrated real life history into that scene. I mean, it's seemingly a moment that shows the French resistance, it shows American political movements. It's extremely violent and upsetting.

[B]

That's echoed in the backed and cross sequences in one battle of basically double agents working on the orchestrated.

[A]

The orchestrated rebellion and the Reichstag fire and all of these different moments in world history where authoritarian state incites people to fight back so that it can make a larger point in its efforts to seize power. And I don't know, it just got me very emotional. It's like I'm crying at this Star Wars TV show. And especially because I have had such a blah relationship to most of the TV shows, I was really taken aback by how sharply drawn I think all this was. Even though you know where it's going. I mean, in two episodes earlier, as you said, Krennic essentially explains what they're going to do. Like, we know where this is all headed and Luthen and Andor have these conversations and Andor kind of warns Luthen about why this shouldn't happen, how they're not ready and.

[B]

But Luthen and Krennic are like, we need this to happen.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Because of what's going to come out.

[A]

That's right. And these two men being so savvy about the way that these things work. You know what it reminds me of a little bit. And I'll just share this personal piece with the world at large, me and you and Zach Baron. Occasionally we'll have some conversations about politics.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And whenever we're having that conversation, I find that you both are a little bit more hopeful than me. And I tend to see the world patternistically. And I'm like, well, this happened here. And then four years later, this is going to happen here. And I think I'm always trying to think about it as, like, no matter how painful or bad things get, things swing back. It's not good that they're swing. You know, they swing back to the negative side, but that this has to happen for this to happen, and that there is a group of people in the world who try to manage power that way, that they say, like, well, if we do this here, we'll do this. And then there's some people over here who are much more impressionistic or reactive or impulsive. And the movie really psychologizes that so well in the individual characters. The idea that both Krennic and Luthen knows that you gotta break a few eggs to put a light gloss on it in order to get the things that they want and how deeply that affects somebody like Andor who has fully thrown himself over to this movie. He's finally accepted that he is a rebel.

[B]

Almost every moment, I think, throughout the entire series, Cassian has an actual objective. That is not what Luthen wants him to do. It's either find my sister, find Bix, get back to Marva, get out of this whole fucking thing. Like, all these things that are never, like, defeat the Empire. And he is an unwilling participant in the beginning of Rogue One, when you first meet him, he's like, so I've become a murderer, I've become an assassin. And these four people on a base somewhere in Yavin send me out.

[A]

Oh, and he resents Jyn so much, and he's so angry with her. When they first come together in the movie. Yeah, I just. I again feel like that is such an incredible act of writing to make us feel like there are people who are true believers who can't see the big picture. There are people who see the big picture who are true believers but have also been made cynical by their own dedication to the cause.

[B]

Or there's Mad Men, there's Saw Gerrera, Saw Gerrero, also smoking Rydro. And just like, I just wanna live in a constant state of guerrilla warfare.

[A]

Yes. Which is also. I mean, there are people in real life movements who operate that way, you know, who bomb throw, literally. So I find all of that to be incredible. I think it was kind of a relief to me to not have to worry about where the show is going. That's another thing, which is kind of

[B]

weird because I think we probably go into a lot of these expanded timeline experiences being like, what is the point of this? We know where this is going.

[A]

It's the prequel problem. And for that reason, I guess I'm still Trying to wrap my head around how this happened, how they let this happen, and how could they let this happen and not let so many other things that sounded cool happen.

[B]

I think that because this was still on the side, and I think that this doesn't mess with Skywalker's a $600 million side, though. Well, I mean, for a brief Bob Chapek moment, we were like, hey, you got scared.

[A]

Better than Iger

[B]

scared. Money does not make any so. But, like, they. They were pouring money into Star wars, and Kathy Kennedy, to her credit, somehow got them to greenlight this. I'm sure she also was like, they are not going to give you $1 billion to make five of these.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But, you know, we can. We can tell a really great story, and this will go down as one of those great unacknowledged masterpieces of television, like the wireless, where, you know, true heads know how good this is. I was curious whether or not you felt like the end of season two, sort of after. After Luthen and Clea's storyline and after the Dedro storyline is all wrapped up, did you feel like it rolled too heavily into Rogue One in a way that, like, almost was too deferential to Rogue One? I mean, I think Tony always knew Andor was gonna end with the opening moments of Rogue One the same way Rogue One ends with the opening moments of A New Hope.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

But I felt like it gave Rogue One more resonance to me, honestly, when I went back and watched Rogue One after Andor.

[A]

But doesn't Rogue One open with a flashback to Jyn's childhood?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So it's not like a direct. It picks it right up.

[B]

But I think he's getting on the ship to go to find Galen Erso's daughter or something.

[A]

No. I was like, this is fairly logical to me. I'll tell you what. In the same way that. One of the things about Rogue One that I really enjoy is that it ends exactly where a new hope picks up.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And I'm like, this actually feels coherent to me. And it gives you both things. It gives you CGI Princess Leia receiving the plans for the Death Star and walking on. But it also gives you Vader, you know, wreaking havoc and doing something we hadn't quite seen before. I think the show does the same thing. Speaking of Vader wreaking havoc, this show features no lightsabers, no Jedis, brief mention of the Force, brief mention of the Force, just very little of the core mythology.

[B]

And the Force is kind of treated like Maha, like They're like, hey, I don't know, space healing. Like, I need a doctor, you know?

[A]

Yes. Which is such a fascinating choice and indicates, I think, probably how a lot of non believers feel about believers in the world, you know?

[B]

Well, it also blows out the aperture of the Star wars galaxy to all of a sudden have somebody be like, hey, man, don't touch my shoulder. Like, I need actual. You know.

[A]

What else it does, though, for me is it makes something like Alderaan being exploded feel more weighty in the other films. Like, it gives more literal gravity to these planets because you come to realize that they're populated by people who have no idea who the fuck the Skywalkers are, who probably don't even know who Darth Vader is. You know, like, there is this expansive galaxy, and that's a word that you hear used or you see on the scroll at the beginning of the film, and you just come to accept them as expressions of the titanic nature of existence that is being fought for. But by dispensing with all of those things that feel so essential to these stories that the Skywalker saga, you get more humanity. You get more, like, the sense that maybe this is a real place that could exist.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it's like this would be the equivalent of making a movie about Dark Ages England, but having King Arthur just be somewhere in the background.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

And rarely, but rarely do we get that kind of like a depiction of a time period.

[A]

Oh, can I tell you what I always thought would be a cool idea for a Star Wars TV show? You reminded me of it earlier. It's sort of. To that point, I think it would be cool to have a kind of, like, have gun will travel style show that just follows one blaster, but it goes into the hands of different people. So every episode.

[B]

This was the promise of Mandalorian when it started is it did feel like an episodic Western from, like, the 50s and 60s.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I wanted to talk a little bit about. I wanted to hear about some of your favorite performances. Like, I know we kind of went through the litany of people that joined the show, but did you have anything in particular that jumped out at you?

[A]

Yeah, I think it's easy to overlook Diego Luna, even though he's the titular character and he's a person who's constantly pushing back against what we want to happen. He's one of the people who, for the first season and a half, is like, he's kind of doing the thing, but he's not fully committing. And he's such an interesting actor to me because he has leading man good looks and not leading man energy. He's a much more vulnerable and suspicious type as an actor, but has almost

[B]

a young Dustin Hoffman kind of little twitchy. Yeah.

[A]

Neediness and a little bit just angsty as an actor. And I've heard Tony talk with you and Andy about just how clearly how much he likes, admires Diego and that he wouldn't have done this without him.

[B]

Also, Diego was essentially the on set ambassador for the larger project because Tony would be like, I'm writing, I'm approving, I'm doing cuts and stuff like that. And Diego was there every day doing all these scenes.

[A]

Yeah. So I think he gives a truly special performance. I think the two new faces, Elizabeth Dulau and Faye Marseille, are they'll like, if not the heartbeat, then the pulse of the show in a lot of ways. And the constant cutaways to them in a room alone, just trying to navigate and make sure everything is okay. It's very similar to looking at Gene Hackman in the conversation. And you're just like, something is not okay right now. What is wrong? What is it he's hearing? What is gonna be around the corner that could blow everything up. This sense of suspense that the show has. So I really love them.

[B]

She has a great reaction when some guy comes into the antique store and tells them that Aldani has been attacked and she has to pretend to still be a clerk in this store. But she's also looking at this guy who she knows is essentially the orchestrator of this. And her eyes are kind of wet and she's just like. It's a great moment.

[A]

Yeah. What about you?

[B]

I would say Skarsgrd. I think that he has like three of the four or five moments of articulating the thesis statements of the show. And I think he's like somebody who uses probably at this point like a bit of his physical limitations. Like, he is not going to do a lot of running around to his advantage where, like Luthen is like often confronted with possible capture or death and is just like, I'm either going to talk my way out of this or I'm not, but I'm not going to run. You know, we're not gonna go scooting across and having like a fake 70 year old man set piece here.

[A]

Yeah. I think there's also something about his character as an actor where he's kind of ornery and confrontational as a performer. Like most of his best characters are sort of like, are you fucking kidding me? And that's perfect for Luthen.

[B]

No, it's a guy who's like, mourning the loss of his life but not his death. But, like, I gave everything to this thing that I'm not even gonna be able to have a victory lap for.

[A]

Yes, totally.

[B]

But there's a conf. Confrontation he has with Saw in the first season where he's basically like, hey, I know you want to go ride shotgun on this mission, but we're gonna let this guy basically get caught by the Empire so that they think they've got a beat on us. And Saw's like, well, what if I tell him that's what you're gonna do? And he's like, do what you wanna do. Like I'm. But, like, you have to decide right now if you're gonna go or not.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And it's like he's caught by a crazy guerrilla military leader, but he stands stock still and is just like, it is what it is. And it's just a great moment of, like, the conception of that character coming to life for me. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Shout out to the friends with the same niche taste as you. You know, ones that will join you in watching a three hour silent film about the cats of Europe followed by a cheesy superhero blockbuster. State Farm brings that same supportive energy to Insurance. Their 19,000 local agents are there to help you choose the coverage you need so you can spend less time thinking about coverage and more time in front of the big screen. Go [e-mail] like a good neighbor. State Farm is there.

[A]

One other thing I want to cite is I love the scenes between Genevieve O'Reilly and Ben Miles, who is her high school pal, who is funding, then

[B]

gets in over his head.

[A]

Yeah, he's a banker who goes into some debt, has some money troubles, and then, you know, suggests he may expose Mon Mothma and what she's doing for the rebellion. And then Luthen does what Luthen does.

[B]

I was told I would be taken care of. And this is sort of like, he's the great. You see all these billionaires now who are like, turning. Maybe they're pivoting to the right and they're all like, hey, I gave heavily to the Dems for years and now I'm the bad guy. Like, fuck you.

[A]

I mean, that's such a subtle dagger to that whole wing of people who have flipped in the last five years. And I love the interplay between those two actors and Ben Miles, who's like an actor you've seen before, but I'm sure you don't know his name, has just such a smarmy, insinuating quality. And he's really put Mon Motha on the back foot. I mean, she really is terrified for her future. And then there's that wonderful scene is at her daughter's wedding where she has to kind of perform and has this exultant dance.

[B]

Well. Cause she knows that now. She's in too deep now. She's gone past the. Because I think she knows what's going to happen to him when he leaves the wedding. Andor is a show set inside of a movie that itself was set inside of a movie. But within this show there could have been five or six shows you could just do Mon Mothma's palace intrigue show.

[A]

Yeah. The Diplomat for Mon Mothma.

[B]

Yeah. And it's, it's a testament to being able to take small sections of story and imbue them with the depth that you would usually give an entire others series.

[A]

You want to shout any other superlatives out before we move on?

[B]

Well, to me, the show is all about the conversations that happen between characters within it. So I think I've referenced a couple of these, but I wanted to throw out some of my favorite scenes that aren't set pieces but have the importance of them. When Lutheran recruits Cassian in that warehouse. And Cassian, he's like, your dad got hung out in that public square and Cassian pulls the blaster on him and he's just like, if you want to actually stick it to these guys, you have a decision to make. Come with me. Cassian saying goodbye to Marva. Probably the most heartstring, tugging moment of the series. And that's when she's like, that's just love. You know.

[A]

These are both season one moments. Yes.

[B]

And Luthen's sunrise speech, that's in when he's just like, I'm never gonna see the fruits of my victory if it does come to pass. And then honestly, like the Krennic 2 for him interrogating Dedra and the amazing moment where Mendelssohn puts his finger on the top of Denise Gough's head, which was unscripted apparently. And the Krennic and Partagas moment that

[A]

I mentioned, one other one that is so great is it's not much of a conversation, but when Cyril spots Andor during the Gorman uprising and he's like, it's you. And Andor's like, who are you? Just like A perfect stroke of we know everything, but not everybody in this world knows everything in realization. And also, you pointed out Cyril's death, which is so perfect because it's basically like a blaster shot from the side that we don't even see coming. That's just like old school Western, you know, it's like a John Ford movie. Will Star wars ever do anything like this again? Can they afford to do anything like this ever again?

[B]

I think I don't want to say something as silly as in our lifetime, but I don't think for the next decade at least.

[A]

Yeah. So we have the Mandalorian Grogu film coming later this month. Seen, I guess, roughly a fifth of it so far. Wasn't that impressed. I hope it's good. I hope I like it. But it's crazy how big this show feels and how small what I saw on a big screen felt. And that's kind of the inverse of what you want. Not that Andor would have been achievable as a film. It wouldn't have been, but it could have been directionally, like a kind of story you could have told over a period of time. Baked within the world. Yeah. And that's one thing that it felt very missing from what I saw, at least from Mandalorian Grogu and even what I feel was missing from the show, the Mandalorian, which I did like the first two seasons of.

[B]

Yeah. The first season especially is quite good,

[A]

but I never really felt like the bigger story, the sort of like the wraparound.

[B]

I don't think there was supposed to be one. I don't.

[A]

Is it Din Dajaran's like, quest for

[B]

clarity kind of the way I think Favreau was making. I'm sure they were in collaboration, an episodic Western, but Favreau's like. You know what would be cool is if Werner Herzog was chasing this cowboy across space.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Which is cool.

[B]

Yeah. And he's got a baby and he's got to protect him. And it's a samurai movie. Yeah. And then I think Filoni is like, yes. And also the Mandalorian have a rich history of, like, this sword that they have, you know, like. And like all this stuff that goes into it.

[A]

The Dark Saber.

[B]

The Darksaber. Yeah. Which I think, you know, like, there are people who are like, that whole story is amazing. And you gotta go and read about this character.

[A]

I thought that stuff was cool.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Giancarlo Esposito. And. Yeah.

[B]

I think the more crucial movie to talk about is Starfighter, which I don't know anything about. But given Gosling's sort of pivot to optimism and sort of more light hearted fare, I'm going to safely assume is like a really heartwarming, comic heroic film.

[A]

I mean, will it be Han Solo as a Jedi? That's, I'm a little concerned about that because of the genius of the first Star wars film is there's Han Solo and then there's the Jedi.

[B]

Yes. And is it like a glib Jedi? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it's like Han Solo with a young Jedi, you know, but I don't think that augurs well for the idea of let's have Chandler Lefax, you know, like Star wars high school movie.

[A]

Would love that. You know, like, would honestly love that.

[B]

Probably not.

[A]

You know, it's funny, when there was

[B]

a moment in Star Wars I was like, rian Johnson and Benioff and Weiss are gonna get one. I, I, you know, I would be interested. I don't think Mangold's High Republic show is a movie. Is that gonna happen or it still

[A]

is on the long list, so maybe it could happen over time. Alice has a book out of the library, out from the library right now called, it's like Jedi School or Young Jedi Adventures or something. And it's written as almost like, gosh, it's not an epistolary novel exactly, but it's like a series of documents, some diaristic, some of like homework assignments from a young kid who's gone to Jedi school. And so I read this book to her and there are all of these kind of like, it's like found media inside of the thing that shows you like, well, here's what Yoda told me today. And I thought to myself, like the Goonies, but Star wars or something like that would be a lot of fun. Yeah, you'd have to accept it. And this is some of what, gosh, what was the most recent Star wars series called?

[B]

Acolyte.

[A]

No, after that. About the young kids with Jude Law.

[B]

Oh, Ghost.

[A]

Skeleton Crew.

[B]

Skeleton Crew, yes.

[A]

Skeleton Crew has some of this quality, whereas a little bit more childlike, a little bit more Flight of the navigator.

[C]

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[A]

to you by Spectrum Business.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

So visit spectrum.combusiness to learn more. Restrictions apply Services not available in all areas okay, just rank some stuff with me. Okay, let's do the exercise.

[B]

We're going to do the exercise. And I think one thing that I, I don't know that I thought about much while watching Andor in real time, but when we did the draft a couple weeks ago and I revisited the prequels, I was like, narrative wise, it's closer andor is closer to the prequels than it is to the the original films in terms of all of the like taxation, senatorial process, parliamentary games. Like a lot of Andor is like how are we going to explain a mining project, right?

[A]

You know, it's interested in the bureaucratic nature of the empire.

[B]

And, and I thought but there's, but

[A]

there is a key difference. Okay, well the Key difference is the performance style in the prequels, which is obviously not very good, is classic melodrama. And the performance style in Andor is a very clean, pure. It's not naturalistic, it's tight. It's like every character is portrayed by Robert Ryan. It's very straight talking, very clearly delivered. And it's not grand, the performance style either. There are speeches, but it's not Shakespearean.

[B]

No, it's the Michael Clayton school of acting.

[A]

Exactly. Which is obviously our favorite thing. But you're right that the subject matter is closer to that than the original trilogy or even the sequels.

[B]

It did make me laugh, though. I think Topher Grace famously has done recuts of some of the prequel movies. And I was like, could you do a Tony Gilroy cut of the prequels that would actually kind of get closer to that? I don't know if you could do it with those performances per se, but I wouldn't mind going back in time and seeing Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, and. And Ewan McGregor are in a Tony Gilroy trilogy would be pretty cool.

[A]

It would be very exciting. But even Sam Jackson, it's like he's a little off his game in those movies, you know?

[B]

Yeah, well, we can get into that now. I mean, when we did the draft. So I did the more or less the Rewatch project, you know, skipping through stuff that I basically singed in my memory.

[A]

I've seen rewatched everything this year, and

[B]

knowing that we were also going to do this ranking, I found myself having this funny impulse to get some reclamation projects going.

[A]

Good.

[B]

I really, really, really tried, for instance, to revive Solo and didn't work out. It's not Aaron Reich's fault. It's the script's fault or whatever they. I think that that was like, wouldn't it be cool to do a young Han Solo movie? And nobody stopped to be like, what's the story? And nobody stopped to be like, here's something that Tony has mentioned a ton of times when he's talked to me and Andy and I've heard him talk about it in storytelling in general. Is intention the idea that, what's the story's intention? What is your style's intention? What is this actor's intention? And I don't think Solo. I dare say I don't even know if Rogue One in its original conception had, like, an intention. It's cool.

[A]

Cool idea. Yeah.

[B]

It's a cool idea to have the Death Star with modern special effects, But I don't know if they were like, yeah, we have a complete, clear idea that we can get from A to B without somebody coming in and being like.

[A]

But that's hard. And that's not something that I think most studio executives respond to, because intention implies theme. That there is an emotional, intellectual core to the work that you're doing. As opposed to, this is why this should be made. And this is why this should be made is because people want to see it, because they're curious about how they got the plans of the Death Star.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's actually at the absolute intersection of Star Wars. Problem.

[B]

Yes, but the problem. One of the issues is that's a Wikipedia entry. That's not as.

[A]

But so is. Andor if done wrong.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Where'd the Rebellion come from? Who were its chief architects? Who pushed the ball forward? Could have been really boring. Could have been really action packed.

[B]

No, it could have been House of the Dragon. It could have just been like, hey.

[A]

Precisely.

[B]

You know, like, here's. I'm walking in and I'm gonna say what I want.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So for you, there are 28 pieces of no.

[A]

14.

[B]

So we're just doing movies here.

[A]

Movies and. Or Mandalorian and Grogu.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Or. Excuse me. Movies and. Or the Mandalorian, if you want to talk about. The Book of Boba Fett, if you want to talk about. They would Obi Wan Kenobi. I haven't seen those shows. I don't think they're successful. I don't think Ahsoka is successful, personally. Haven't seen the two animated series. I haven't seen the Clone wars film. So we can only work with what we were.

[B]

How high would andor go here?

[A]

Well, so I think we can dispense with, like, is it Empire and A New Hope at the top of the rankings?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And what order would you say they go in?

[B]

Well, I am now in a New Hope phase.

[A]

Okay, tell us about it.

[B]

I just think that there's some parts of New Hope that I find a bit dull. Like, I find Dagobah a little bit dull.

[A]

You mean in Empire.

[B]

Sorry, An Empire. Yeah. So I have New Hope a little bit above Empire right now.

[A]

No kidding.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is this just you trying to undermine my draft status or.

[B]

No, it's just. I think I talked about this. I was just like. I just think New Hope kind of rocks from the first note to the last. And I think Empire maybe gets.

[A]

We spend a lot of time on Tatooine in A New Hope. It's like a lot of Luke wandering around the Desert.

[B]

You get the fucking binary sunset. You get the origin of him being

[A]

crabby and he's avoiding the Tusken Raiders.

[B]

Tusken Raiders are still cool.

[A]

No, I mean, it's great. When Obi Wan shows up. Do you find I'm negging the most important movie of my life?

[B]

But, you know, would you put Andor above either of them?

[A]

I wouldn't, but only because it cannot exist without them. And my pitch is gonna be Empire One New Hope, two New Hopes is Andor the third best thing. Now, I know you said Andor is basically your favorite Star wars thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

At least because of the phase of life.

[B]

I mean, it's the most intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant movie to me as an adult. But these are two of the most important movies of my lifetime as a child and ones that I still watch once a year, you know, as an adult.

[A]

What do we do about the New Hope Empire situation?

[B]

Coin toss. Like, I don't know, like on Survivor. Yeah.

[A]

What'd you think of that?

[B]

I have Mr. Beast right here.

[A]

Beast games on the Star wars rankings. Holy shit.

[B]

Is Mr. Beast really one of the most famous people in the world?

[A]

I believe so. I don't really know who's in front of him or behind him. It's probably. You're in there.

[B]

But, like, Mr. Beast is more famous than Bill.

[A]

Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, I'm just asking Bill simmons.

[B]

Yeah. If Mr. Beast and Bill were both at a Lakers game, who gets more like, hey,

[A]

well, that's kind of a loaded proposition there.

[B]

It's a home game for Bill.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I think. I think Mr. Beast is more famous.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

How many? How many? Doesn't Mr. Beast have 500 million YouTube subscribers? It's a lot.

[B]

I think Bill's probably had 500 million listeners over the course of his career.

[A]

I do not think that's the case. Do you have a coin in your pocket?

[B]

I don't have any change. I'm going to give you Empire because it's your podcast.

[A]

Thanks.

[B]

Empire 1 New Hope 2 and or 3.

[A]

You think that's crazy?

[B]

No, that Andor is better than Return of the Jedi, which is kind of silly.

[A]

Just be nice.

[B]

What?

[A]

Just be nice to Return of the Jedi. It's underrated at this point, in my opinion.

[B]

I like Return of the Jedi.

[A]

I'm just saying, is it possible that anything could get above that? Thank you, Lucas. Keep filling those in.

[B]

Could get above Jedi at 4.

[A]

Can any prequel or sequel get above Jedi?

[B]

I'd have the Rogue One conversation I'd have the highs of Rogue One.

[A]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, seriously.

[B]

I'd have the conversation. I'd take the meeting. You don't like to take the meeting. You like to be definitive in your proclamations. I like to take the meeting. I like to say, like, yeah, let's get coffee. Let's knock it out. I'm gonna go out. I'm gonna have a cigarette. I'm gonna come back in, we'll talk some more, you know.

[A]

Rogue One over Return of the Jedi?

[B]

I think it's a. It's just a conversation to have.

[A]

I'm fascinated. I probably wouldn't put Rogue One over Revenge of the Sith.

[B]

Oh, I would.

[A]

I wouldn't put it over Jedi. Last Jedi. Rogue One is really cool, but Rogue One, to me, actually commits an interesting sin that you could argue andor does, too. But Rogue One does it in more overt ways where with Rogue One, I can feel all the archetypes from other movies being plugged into that movie. You know, the individual characters that represent the team that they all work on. I'm like, oh, well, this is Dustin Hoffman from Papillon. Oh, this is, you know, a character that Donnie Yen has played in Five Samurai movies. And, you know, which is cool. And it kind of scratched that part of my brain in a way I enjoyed. But I was like, this is barely a movie. Like, they just kind of took all these archetypes and slung them together.

[B]

Okay, so you have Return. Let's. You have Empire Strikes Back. A New Hope. Andor would you put Last Jedi for above Return of the Jedi?

[A]

I don't think I can.

[B]

Okay, so Return of the Jedi 3, 4.

[A]

What do you. You like Last Shadow? You're not like an all. You're not a major allegiant.

[B]

I may be like, the last man in the world who doesn't feel very strongly about it one way or the other, you know, Like, I thought it features some incredible sequences. What?

[A]

That's the funny way of putting it.

[B]

Well, you know how, like, it's either you're on one side of this war or the other, and I'm somehow. I'm Switzerland here, you know? Like, I think the discourse around it overtook the movie itself. And when I tried to rewatch it, I was like, there's lots of stuff that I like. I find the Luke and Rhae stuff a bit tedious to watch, like, on the planet of, like, and her sort of apprenticeship.

[A]

It is a bit tedious at this point.

[B]

And the Casino Planet stuff is awful. But then there's some really cool stuff in it. And this is the best driver.

[A]

You don't like Benicio?

[B]

He's good.

[A]

He's good.

[B]

I like him more in the way of the gun.

[A]

I'll bet you do. So what do we do here? This is really the pickle of this whole enterprise. Is the original trilogy magic andor falls in our lap some 50 years later. Like, holy shit. Yeah, this happened.

[B]

And then there's 17 other things or whatever.

[A]

Yeah. And I like all this stuff. I gotta say, I went and I saw the prequels with my daughter. We had a great time. It was fun. Good.

[B]

If I had a daughter, I'm sure I'd say the same thing.

[A]

I don't know, man. Like Attack of the Clones, Yoda's fighting Count Dooku. I'm like, this is pretty cool. I'm just a kid again.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Nothing wrong with that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I've told this story before about fighting with Chris X on the phone when I moved to New York. And he was like, you keep talking about this fucking prequel shit, man. This is garbage. And I was like, I don't know. I kind of enjoyed it. I think it's okay to have kind of enjoyed those movies. Their flaws are huge. Their flaws are vast.

[B]

It's just funny because at this point, we have these more than a dozen things to choose from. And as hard as I tried, I just couldn't figure out a crazy zag Pick. Or like I said, with Solo, this isn't like watching James Bond movies. And you're like, actually, never say never.

[A]

I'll tell you where my gut would take me on this one. I would probably go. Five, Last Jedi. Six, Rogue One. Seven, Revenge of the Sith.

[B]

So you have Rogue One over Sith here in this telling.

[A]

Because with you in mind.

[B]

Okay, thank you.

[A]

Navigating this with you, probably. Force Awakens after Revenge of the Sith. Yeah. Which I think is a very fun movie.

[B]

Me, too.

[A]

And certainly it absolutely mimics the arc of A New Hope. But there are moments. Han on the ship. It's true. All of it. Kylo killing his father. There's stuff in that movie that I'm like, these are movie chills.

[B]

It's actually a good way of summarizing how I feel about those sequels, which is like, there are a dozen across the three movies. Wonderful moments. And I don't think I can coherently tell you the story of those three movies.

[A]

I can, but only because I've spent so much time with them recently.

[B]

I'm a disclosure. But the story of Force Awakens.

[A]

You were over at my house with Alice, and she's brought out the book, the little golden book retelling of the stories. And she was just narrating it to you word for word because she's committed it to memory.

[B]

Very fun reading to Alice. Moment. Because I've gotten to start pitching relief on reading to her at night.

[A]

Oh, my goodness.

[B]

First of all, very cute thing is that she eats apples before she goes to bed. And she eats them very close to your face while you're reading. This is true. And so she's, like, crunching down while I'm reading a Spider man book to her, and I stop to kind of look up at the crunching, and she goes, keep reading.

[A]

I'll return that in kind. Keep ranking. Please keep ranking.

[B]

Force Awakens.

[A]

Force Awakens.

[B]

And then you can put clones here.

[A]

I think it's clones. And then I think is a little messy. I don't really know where you go from here.

[B]

I think Solo goes here. Well, okay. Wait, it goes.

[A]

I think it might be Mando.

[B]

I was gonna say Mando. Mando is a show.

[A]

Is Mando even better than clones? I think it might be what they

[B]

did to Mando as a secondary action

[A]

at the end of the first season, though. It would have easily been in the top six. Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it's better than. I would probably put Mandalorian Season one. Definitely above Revenge of the Sith for me.

[A]

Definitely above. Yeah. I think it would have been right behind Rogue One. That was.

[B]

But then when they turned it into here's two seasons, then they're going to do Boba Fett, but in the middle of Boba Fett, they're going to lose their nerve and do a. I hated that. A Backdoor Mandalorian Season 3. A.

[A]

Okay, let's make Mando 10.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I think. Is it then Solo or is it then Phantom Menace?

[B]

I can't. I have to put Solo above Phantom Menace. I find Phantom Menace to be almost unwatchable.

[A]

Phantom Menace has Duel of the Fates, though. I know you don't like it. You don't care about it.

[B]

It's fine.

[A]

Solo doesn't have a single moment that's as good as Duel of the. I'm overruling you. Phantom Menace is above Solo.

[B]

You don't think the train robbery in Solo is. Or the bossy joke. It's game when he walks in and Donald Glover's like, everything about me is true.

[A]

That part is fun.

[B]

Yeah, but it's not as good. It's not magical, okay?

[A]

To me, Duel of the Fates is magical. And then that would leave rise of Skywalker 13th and the worst thing that Star wars has done.

[B]

And they have to hold that, they have to take that.

[A]

What a consequential film. I mean, really a film that I think changed this entire franchise past, present and future.

[B]

We've been talking about Star wars as an industry and as a business story and as a behind the scenes story for almost as long as we've probably been talking about Star wars as a story that means something to us. Is there any sliding doors or moment in the sort of production history or the gossip history of Star wars that you're like, God damn it, I wish that had worked out. Whether it's Ryan finishing the trilogy, I'll

[A]

tell you, I don't think that was ever realistically going to happen. I don't know the details, but I remember. And maybe it's Andy who's brought it up a few times. But wasn't the original idea of the first JJ movie, the Michael Arndt script, the lightsaber's falling from the sky.

[B]

It's falling out from space into a planet and it lands. Yeah.

[A]

And there was something about the refresh concept there and not having too much fealty to what's come before that I think messed with that trilogy. And that trilogy, which I think is ultimately one third very cool, one third very entertaining, and one third disastrous, could have been something completely different. And I never actually read that script. I don't think you might have read it. Did you read it?

[B]

I don't know that that script in its entirety ever got out, but I think people were like, here are sections from Michael Arn's script. And they've used some of it. And some of it is about hunting for Skywalker and looking for where Luke has gone. But it's funny. I mean, that's one of those things where it's like that broke Van's brain that Luke abandoned his friends. And I'm like, who cares?

[A]

I never even crossed my mind. I know. It's so interesting the way the different relationships that we have with these things. Is there anything else for you, a sliding door that you think would have been interesting?

[B]

I think JJ is the sliding door. I think JJ's the guy who made Super 8. The guy who kind of was originally just sort of like, I love Star Trek. I'm happy to be on Star Trek, getting this job and then being like, ultimately my job is to remake New Hope and remake, you know, Jedi and try to Use these people, these older actors, as much as possible and keep them present in these movies. I thought they cast those sequels wonderfully well, but ran out of script to give them. And so, like, there was just basically not enough for Oscar Isaac to do, and there's not enough for John Boyega to do. Agreed. And they didn't make the tough choices. For every moment of Ben Solo killing his own father, you get 100 things that you're like, huh, you really pulled out of the spin at the last second.

[A]

Totally agree. Totally agree. The Star wars rankings, according to us, number one, the Empire Strikes Back. Number two, a New Hope. Number three, andor number four, return of the Jedi. Number five, the Last Jedi. Sure, we'll get some good feedback on that one. Number six, Rogue One, a Star Wars. Number seven, Revenge of the Sith. Number eight, the Force Awakens. Number nine, Attack of the Clones. Number 10, the Mandalorian. Number 11, the Phantom Menace. Number 12, A Star Wars Story. And number 13, the Rise of Skywalker. Where do you think Mandalorian and Grogu will go on that list? Gut check. Can it get above Attack of the Clones?

[B]

Yeah, I think it can.

[A]

It could.

[B]

It could.

[A]

It could.

[B]

I find it very strange how unclear what this movie is about. The fact that we've gotten so close to its release.

[A]

I know, having seen the beginning, but even what I know through the first 20 minutes, I'm like, this is the movie.

[B]

Or that they're like, we did tell you what the movie's about. And you're like, that's it.

[A]

Could be, yeah. Thanks for doing this, Chris.

[B]

Well, thanks for having me. And thanks for watching Andor. What's your next big TV project?

[A]

I'm watching Euphoria in real time.

[B]

Did you watch Episode three?

[A]

I'm not caught up yet. Okay, so I've seen the first two, and it's a show I like. I haven't finished Succession Season four. Not Succession Industry Season four.

[B]

Oh, you did finish it.

[A]

I haven't. Okay, so that's on the plane to Cannes. That's what I'll be doing.

[B]

That's the exact place they'd want you watching it. It's being serious.

[A]

Well, that's exciting. Hey, thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh and to Sarah Reddy for powering through a series of recordings this week. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Later this week, a very special treat, a very fun podcast. The Physical Media High Council will return. We'll see you then, Sam.