Friday, March 29, 2024
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Project Bradford Episode 006 Rise of Skywalker

Recently the AVNation team was talking about movies. We were discussing movies that we did not feel lived up to their billing and hype. Rise of Skywalker immediately came up. Tim Albright said he enjoyed the movie. We all guffawed and decided to record a rebuttal. We also wanted to test some new podcasting tools. There are spoilers in this episode. If you haven’t seen The Mandalorian Season 2 or The Rise of Skywalker you may want to skip this episode until you do. We feel we have waited long enough for everyone who wants to see the items, has seen the items.

Paige Flennikin is AVNation’s Sales Director. Mitchell Toolen is AVNation’s Producer. You can find them at AVNation.tv or on LinkedIn (MitchellPaige). Little known fact, Paige now gets the entries from the contact form on AVNation’s website.

Under the media is a transcript of the conversation if you would prefer to read the content.

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Transcript

Tim Albright 00:38
Alright, here’s the here’s the thing, what was the Rise of Skywalker? It is not high theater, it is not going to win an Oscar anything. But after 40 years, I enjoyed myself. It was enjoyable. It was two hours of escapism, of wrapping up everything from the 1970s today, there were certainly problem with it, but I was entertained. And for the amount of money I spent, it was good money spent.

Bradford Benn 01:07
So welcome to Project Bradford. As you can see, I’m not here alone. I have a couple other friends from AVNation who are going to help me educate Tim, I’ll start at the beginning with the most important person on this entire podcast besides me, which would be Michel. Michel. Michel Toulon is the producer of AVNation. But can you go ahead and introduce yourself

Mitchell Toolen 01:33
I don’t, I’m not used to this because I’m normally in the background. I am the producer for AVNation, which means I am recording and editing everything that you see in here, except for this show, thank goodness. I mean, except for this show, because Bradford’s got it under control. Just the alternate title

Bradford Benn 01:51
of the other guests. Is the AV sales director or AVNation Sales Director, Paige Flynn, akin to get close and sweet. And so let’s see, I know she’s an opera singer. But why don’t you go on and tell us other things about yourself? That might be interesting.

Paige Flennikin 02:10
I’m also the project manager at AVNation. So any needs you have come to me and I will make all your AVNation dreams come true. I live in Kansas City. And that’s about you know, all the interesting. I’m a big Star Wars fan. That’s why I’m here.

Bradford Benn 02:27
So you guys have heard what Tim said. saying that it was fine entertainment, that he feels like he got his money’s worth. So I look at it the other way of the I didn’t like it as the ending of a 30 year saga, actually 40 year saga. But I figured guests first so I’ll let you to fight it out over who’s going to go first what

Mitchell Toolen 02:58
I kind of wanted to, I kind of wanted to throw it back to you guys. And Paige actually sort of answered this. But are you guys fans of Star Wars? Like, for me personally, I might get ostracized for saying this by the call. But I was raised on the VHS Special Edition ones with the CG and all those fun enhancements. And I was Don’t kid. Yeah. I didn’t know better. And I don’t I you know, I enjoyed them. I play the game. I played more of the games, like dark forces was was where I was at. So when the movies came out, I went, this is a thing. Oh, these aren’t very good. Okay, and, and moved on with my life with the prequels. Oh, so when these came out, I was kind of like, cool. But I wanted to see how you, you know how you guys felt on that?

Paige Flennikin 03:54
I think that the 70s ones are more probably close to your heart, Bradford. And, the prequels are more like my era because I’m a little bit older than you Mitchell. And even though obviously, George Lucas caught a lot of grief over the prequels because there was, I mean, there was a lot of things that happened in those that could have been done better. But when comparing it to the latest movies, I think that I mean, I sent you guys that funny George Lucas spoof this morning where he says it makes Attack of the Clones look like Citizen Kane.

Bradford Benn 04:41
Now, I will say that for me, it’s a little different. Because I saw them on the big screen in the 70s and 80s. And you know, big, you know, as I say kind of like Harry Potter is to certain people of the younger generation. Star Wars was too This was the big defining movie, and the prequels. I don’t acknowledge that episode one exists, I only watch the machete order. For those of you aren’t familiar with the machete order, it’s a new hope or the original Star Wars, then Empire Strikes Back, then two then three, which I forget the name of, and then Return of the Jedi, which was originally Revenge of the Jedi. And I still sometimes call it that. And then you go to seven and eight. And for some reason, nine just doesn’t play on my on my BluRay player anymore. Yeah, I know. I don’t know what happened.

Mitchell Toolen 05:40
The disc scratched because you’ve watched it so many times for critical analysis.

Paige Flennikin 05:45
Yes. There’s, I mean, it’s from Tim’s statements. I think that if you take it out of the context of being in Star Wars, if you take the giant Star Wars nerds out of all of us and just watch it as a movie, on its own, it’s entertaining. You know, there’s really great graphics. There’s a lot of good fight scenes, but in the overarching, even within its own trilogy, it just doesn’t mix. There’s just so many holes in the plotline and so many, like random out of left field things that happen that you’re like, wait, what, like, Where did this come from? This has nothing to do with the Last Jedi or the Force Awakens. Like, how is this the end to this massive? Like you said, 40 year saga?

Mitchell Toolen 06:38
Yeah, I feel like it’s hard because this thing doesn’t exist. Film doesn’t exist in a vacuum it has things behind it, not just the whole franchise. But I don’t think we can talk about Rise of Skywalker without getting a little bit into stuff like the Last Jedi or maybe even Force Awakens a little bit, which for me, like Last Jedi was so polarizing. Everyone either hated it, or, or was so a fan of it. But to me, it was the biggest thing that it did was that it did nothing. It was wheel spinning, essentially, where plots went, some were kind of interesting, and then just kind of came back to where it was. And through no fault of their own in a way they I mean, I can’t give them too much blame to say that because Ryan Johnson the way that the last one went that when you have your finale, you’re like, where do we go? What do we do? And as dumb as the things they do, it’s like I it’s hard to say that’s more of a weird, middle management thing about the whole trilogy and how terrible that entire thing was, how structured it was.

Paige Flennikin 07:57
Yeah, they had no blueprint for it. They just kind of were like, making movies. It felt like like there were I feel like the only character that had a true arc was Kylo Ren. Yeah. And they even ended his as like, okay, we’re done now. Like we’ve wrapped it up. He’s done.

Bradford Benn 08:16
I’ll disagree I think I think Rey has a has a story arc. It’s not his. Kylo is the story arc protagonist.

Mitchell Toolen 08:28
I think she has an arc until it gets like overwritten by the stupid stuff in Rise of Skywalker.

Bradford Benn 08:36
You mean like the ending scene where Luke Skywalker is old. And Princess Leia, known as she’s a Princess Leia is standing next to him as the force goes, she’s not General Organa at that point, she’s still Princess Leia because they made her young, unlike Mark Hamill, who was old and the same problem. At the end of at the end of Empire Strikes Back at the Ewok scene, they put young Anakin Skywalker next to Yoda, and Ben Kenobi, and I’m like, this is where you guys are messing up. It’s, you’re not even following your own rules. You know, I understand. Okay, you might want it to make it look like the actor that’s playing it. But come on that one, like, basic continuity error,

Mitchell Toolen 09:30
I think to be fair on that part. I don’t know. We don’t exactly know when Carrie Fisher passed how much they had. So that probably wasn’t her it had to be a stand in but I can’t deny that and I was I have this in my notes that I get like, the uncanny valley. there’s a there’s a hair on the back of my neck reflex that happens when I see creepy CGI, Carrie Fisher in this movie. It’s just like it’s not right. This isn’t right. This is this is great. As the as kenri camels upper lip in the theatrical release of Justice League, it’s like I can’t look at it. Ah, what is wrong with you?

Bradford Benn 10:12
And to your point, Mitchell Carrie’s daughter, Billie Lourd, I thought played her body double in the Jedi fight scene. They had enough footage, according to a lot of people because they had all that footage from when she was in space during Last Jedi, so they would have had tons of footage. So it’s kind of like going back and putting Anakin in is just a bad a bad continuity. And when the hell did you did, did a layer become a Jedi? When did she go to training? I was like, What? Did I miss something?

Paige Flennikin 10:59
Okay, so in Last Jedi, when the ship got blown up Kylo Ren, like backed off, but then they blew it up anyways. And she got sucked into the vacuum of space. Not only did she survive that, but then she Jdei’ed herself back into the pod where then she was just like, in a coma for a little bit. And then she was fine. Or she was like, in recovery.

Mitchell Toolen 11:23
And that’s, you know, that could be arguably another one of those things that the problems of the reboot in a way where like, that was my big thing about the Force Awakens is that it’s been 30 years between Return pf the Jedi and, and the new series. But nothing has changed. Not even the Republic, it is still the resistance. They’re still the underdog despite beating the Empire, Han Solo was still a smuggler. It’s because it is status quo is, is the important thing here. It would have been if someone maybe would have if someone who would have thought that’s a feels like a phrase that could have happened, um, that you know, I you could set up Hey, Leia had some for stuff going on. Introduce that in do things like that. Instead, they kind of feel like because it’s the third move we had ramp in. I don’t mind like having Geneva having for stuff. And it’s probably some I’m sure there’s, there’s some guy, I can just think of some guy who’s like, well, in the novels that are no candidate, I don’t care. Did this whole thing and Mara Jaden? Yeah, I’m, like

Bradford Benn 12:44
Canon has been shot to hell. It’s still kind of like they decided canon is going change a little to bring in some of the stuff that they think is better to bring in stuff from the Clone Wars, the cartoon series, and this and that, and Solo and Rogue One,

Paige Flennikin 13:05
They stick true to the, to the comics and all of that, like, the Clone Wars and Attack of the Clones and all of those. Okay, so if they were to have stuck to that and incorporated that into the story, Palpatine coming back would have made sense, because in the comics, he makes clones of himself. And in the comics, he comes back, but he has like that blue glow. That is representative of how he died. Like it’s his spirit. But he was like, his, I can’t remember which one it was, I was under him. Put him into this clone. And that’s how he lived on and that’s how he survived death. That’s what he learned from his Jedi teacher. That would have made sense, but instead, they’re just like, hey, b t dubs [by the way], he didn’t die. Here’s Palpatine on this weird hook.

Bradford Benn 13:56
But then you you couple that with the fact that I had never seen the force heal anybody before. Until gorgo did it? Sorry, spoiler if you haven’t seen Mandalorian season two, it’s your own fault at this point. But until Grogu did it or Baby Yoda did it or The Child did it, he did it the Thursday night before the movie released. And I got to think that was purposeful so they could show that the Force can heal. I’m like, Listen, why didn’t like the force heal, you know, Skywalker,s hand or, you know all this other stuff.

Paige Flennikin 14:47
I did some research into this because I thought the exact same thing where the F is this coming from like left field. So apparently, in the fanfiction lore, it has to do With the dyad, so they should be the only ones because their life force is connected, it makes them stronger. So therefore they can heal. So therefore those two should be the only ones able to heal. And it should, according to the fanfiction almost paralyze them to use this power because it is sucking their life force from them to heal this. So that is why Kylo Ren Dies at the End. Okay, that makes sense. Sure. But didn’t she also heal him after that battle when he was dying, it would have taken all of her life force to bring him back. Even though he wasn’t dead. He was dying, she would have had to fulfill him. And then she would have been paralyzed by having used all of her life force. Instead, she back flipped off of this ship. And then or this broken Death Star and then took off in a ship and also heal that snake. Like, what?

Bradford Benn 15:57
Yeah, seems to me that’s more of the I can understand that. It’s like, she didn’t have to use all of her life force because she was, you know, Kylo wasn’t dead. He had a fatal wound, but she repaired the wound which kept him from dying. She lost like three years.

Paige Flennikin 16:15
Yeah, yeah. But she had Oh, like, there’s no, it doesn’t there’s no connection from healing the snake, keeping him from dying.

Mitchell Toolen 16:25
There’s no time. We don’t we don’t have time to explain. It’s, it’s fine. I remember even at least when I first saw it, I don’t think I did. I don’t think it crossed my mind. But checking out the second time. First off, you owe me an evening because I regret it. spending the time to take notes for it. But they had they mentioned the dyad thing twice. Like he says it once and then Palpatine is like you are that thing. Oh, that was important. Okay. I yeah, I just, I can kind of get around to the healing. I mean, it’s been in games, but that’s more of a mechanic thing. But it’s just like, it’s fine. There’s so much. It’s so much worse. To get into that I think,

Paige Flennikin 17:13
I think I think you’re right. Absolutely. The dyad should have been more touched on. But I think that might be the disconnect between having different writers on the first second and third movies like obviously, JJ Abrams was first and third. But Rian Johnson in the middle just was like, I don’t really want to do this. So I just didn’t.

Bradford Benn 17:33
I’m going change gears a little bit and move to the actual characters. Just because, you know, I don’t want another Matt episode where we go for four hours. Rose got pretty much written out.

Mitchell Toolen 17:47
Oh, yeah, she got the worst.

Bradford Benn 17:50
Yeah. Finn met that new, the new Stormtrooper that decided to leave and I’m like, why didn’t you use the existing characters you jad? Already?

Mitchell Toolen 18:06
The characters in this movie don’t really have anything to do. I mean, they have, they have stuff to do. We got MacGuffins to get MacGuffins to get more, there’s always another treasure or mystery box to jump to, to get into but like we keep adding new people. And yet we don’t really do anything with our old ones. The only like, Rose shows up and I can’t like I remember how her actress got like bullied off a social media blitz. And basically, we’re just catering to those people by just being like, Yeah, but she’s not important right now. It’s just Finn giving a little pat on the shoulder is like you did good buddy. friendzone now, goodbye. Thanks.

Paige Flennikin 18:52
I love you saving my life. I think the major flaw with like Rose and the other desserter that he met on the island. I think it’s comes back to Finn. Because they what I think they were trying to do and this is just my personal opinion is they were trying to make like a love triangle for Rey. Like he would be her light side love and then Kylo would be her dark side love that way it would give some tension some a little bit more like the pull on both sides. But it just didn’t quite come off that way. He seemed very friend zoned with Rey like there was no like, break through between them. And so I think they put Rose in there to kind of give us a little bit more character development for Finn. And then that went on in the Last Jedi. But then I mean she kissed him said I love you risked her life for him and then we get to the last movie and it’s like, stay on the ship Rose. I’m going to hang out here with my new Islander chick.

Mitchell Toolen 19:55
Yeah, but I also I I don’t feel Like I got, I mean, there were like hints of romantic chemistry but I don’t think I got any of it on like Finn and Rey.

Paige Flennikin 20:07
Well, it’s the way he acts the way he just chased after her like a lost puppy dog constantly but Rey never reciprocates.

Bradford Benn 20:16
It was kind of like Solo chasing Princess Leia in the first movies.

Paige Flennikin 20:23
yeah, it never came back.

Mitchell Toolen 20:25
Well, that’s, you could you could say that a lot with a lot of things to this. It’s like this thing from the old movie. But worse. We have to put it in because people need to remember. Do you remember this? This thing from Star Wars?

Bradford Benn 20:42
Leia having the medal that she didn’t give to Chewy 40 years ago?

Mitchell Toolen 20:47
Why? Why even that’s such a it’s not for them. It’s for the audience. And it’s just like, why they did a lot.

Bradford Benn 20:56
And it’s actually worse than just ignoring

Mitchell Toolen 20:59
Oh, yeah

Paige Flennikin 21:03
That’s quite a few fan favorite moments that I’m like, guys, just make a good beat and will love it.

Mitchell Toolen 21:11
I’m just trying to get out. I’m just tried to run through the characters that we have, because we have Zorii played by Keri Russell, a friend sort of. She was Felicity, I believe on Felicity with JJ Abrams, it almost felt like a thing where you’re just like, Hey, we know each other. You’re doing a billion dollar movie. I’ll be in here for a day. Like Greg Grunburg showing up. And he was on alias., but it was just kind of like, I’m here. I’m a dude. And it wasn’t ready.

Bradford Benn 21:48
The left stuff from Last Jedi hanging out like the final scene of Last Jedi has that young kid using the Force to get the broom? And I’m like, Oh, this would be a great thing. Yeah.

Mitchell Toolen 22:04
Now, I just wrote it off.

Paige Flennikin 22:06
You had to because the next movie had nothing to do with it. It’s like Last Jedi was like, if you take Last Jedi out and then watch The Force Awakens and then Rise of Skywalker, it actually makes more sense that way. I mean, obviously, there’s some things missing. But the storyline overall is like, okay, I think that Disney took such a step back in the creative liberties and freedoms and just let these writers make great movies, which is what they’re good at doing. But they didn’t give them any kind of blueprint of this is our storyline from Force Awakens, you have to continue that it didn’t happen. This is where we’re going. This is where we’re starting. And that’s why I was saying, I feel like the only character that has an arc is Kylo Ren, because Rey, she starts with an arc, but it’s very quick. like think about the earlier movies, like it takes them years of training to become a Jedi, yours. And she’s just like, Oh, I got this now in the first movie, like halfway through the first movie. She’s already doing everything. There’s her arc. She’s done. There are two more movies. And they tried in the next two movies to develop her backstory, but they didn’t they just dropped it on us.

Mitchell Toolen 23:21
You know, I and that was the one that was kind of one of the few things that I liked a decent amount of things as a whole I think there are there a lot of issues but going Rey you’re an orphan, it doesn’t matter. What’s kind of cool, I think, and it could have been a good point. And I feel like they had to double back and be like, Ah, no, that doesn’t make sense. Star Wars is a super closed universe when you think like there’s so much possibility for stuff but when it always comes back to, “No, it doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t matter what you accomplish. You are the daughter granddaughter, they tried to do a Luke I am your father thing here and it just is a wet fart. Yeah. And I think that it would have been cooler if even if Palpatine had come back which I’d still have issues with, but it would have been would have had been a better thematic thing of the person he least expect is a nobody to be the one that rises and beats him not. Oh, it’s my granddaughter. Let’s not even Yeah,

Paige Flennikin 24:36
I agree. I think that is kind of cool. She was a scavenger obviously she had some backstory, but I think that they it seemed like they were grasping at straws bringing property back.

Mitchell Toolen 24:47
Oh, they were just like, we got to find somebody to connect this to Otherwise the fans won’t care. They’ll be like, Who’s this new guy? I don’t know. Which I think is what they did that with Snoke.

Bradford Benn 24:57
The big thing that got me was when they’re like chanting and building up when the Dark Side is chanting and building all those Star Destroyers I’m like, why aren’t there’s a bunch of Jedis on the other side doing the exact same thing.

Mitchell Toolen 25:15
why did we have to use space magic to do that? instantly? You’ve been playing? You’ve been apparently in the background for 30 years you couldn’t have. We couldn’t have been like we’re doing from praying this we had to be like, well, people aren’t going understand that we’re just going space magic. Boom. Yeah, was really, drastically, the power levels of that what Palpatine can do is really vague and stupid.

Paige Flennikin 25:41
Yes, it is.

Bradford Benn 25:44
Palpatine I thought was kind of like Obi Wan Kenobi when he got killed. His body disintegrating and became the Force. You know, it mainly evil Force, the Dark Side. But you know, I was like, same way Luke disappeared and Leia disappeared. Same way. You’ll notice supposedly disappeared, And Palpatine was like, I’m back. And I’m like, I’ll bring everyone else back. I like those other people.

Mitchell Toolen 26:13
Yeah. It’s funny in a way that it’s I was we saw a kind of debate of whether the Palpatine on Exegol was the original guy. Was he the dude was he is he like a super old dude. And these guys that we saw, like at the end of Return [of the Jedi], is that a clone? And it got destroyed? Or did he survive getting thrown off a thing? ignoring the fact that that makes Darth Vader’s redemption story, and his whole thing a moot point that his entire life is just kind of useless now. And is it that and it’s like, it’s not that it’s vague enough. It is vague. It’s just not told. So we add like, our brains are just forced to be like, well, we got to fill in the cat stuff now. And it’s almost like that’s their intention. They’re like we’re not going to do it.

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Bradford Benn 27:17
Some dude in his basement is going to be like, I will put the strings together and find out why Palpatine looks like death from Bill and Ted. Like John Nash in A Beautiful Mind this goes with this goes with this.

Paige Flennikin 27:23
It just there’s no quick connect. It just doesn’t make sense.

Bradford Benn 27:26
They did the exact same thing with the comic relief of do the little wheel droid. I’m like, What the hell was he there for? That should have been R2 (Artoo) or BB8.

Mitchell Toolen 27:39
It looks exactly like a Lego character. just slap that Hasbro license on that. Sold now.

Bradford Benn 27:48
I was like it’s Clippy, it’s Clippy from Microsoft.

Mitchell Toolen 27:54
At one point it says sad and I thought of the robot devil going you can’t say how you feel that makes me angry.

Paige Flennikin 28:05
I know there’s a there’s a lot going on. And that just doesn’t make sense. These especially around the characters and I feel like they did create good characters. They just didn’t go anywhere with them.

Mitchell Toolen 28:21
I think like especially in this one. Poe and Finn have this like buddy cop dynamic going on when they’re when they’re connected. I’m like, I want to see more of this. This is kind of what I’m going for. I really like that part. But we don’t have time for it. We’re just going to blaze right past it. You know, we bring up the already shows up and try and kind of gives a little shade of two, or at least depth to Poe. Oh, he was a spice runner. And you’re like, well, that’s an interesting thread. Are we going to pull on it now? Okay. There’s no time we got to move on. There’s no time is basically the entire plot of this thing. It’s like they’re constantly just shoving in stuff, where you just go where you don’t have time to say, Wait, what? No, wait, what? No, it’s okay. We don’t have to. Like I remember my first thought when I first saw it was man this action, like their first scene where they’re driving through the snow thing to get a message. I’m going this is a little fast paced, but you know, we got to pick up we got a thing at some point, it’ll slow down, right? And it really doesn’t, except when more and more important stuff happens, pal. They give us a Palpatine message and don’t use Ian McDiarmid to say anything that would be the smart thing because he you know he’s not like known for being hammy and talking. That part just kind of goes up and again, like I have it in my notes like a wet fart. He just goes somehow and returned 15 years later.

Bradford Benn 29:54
It was even in the opening credits. The opening score. And I literally went, what the fudge

Mitchell Toolen 30:03
I honestly, I was. Were kind of okay with that I took my notes sequentially so I’m having to scroll around with it. But I, you know, with Star Wars especially like the first one, the opening crawls are a staple of the series. And for something like the first one you’re like, well literally no one knows what going on. We got to we got to put the stuff in it. So I mean, it’s not the worst crawl. I think the Revenge of the Sith I think the Revenge of the Sith one where they says there are heroes on both sides is maybe still the worst one.

Bradford Benn 30:37
No, I think the crawl is a good thing that had to be there.

Mitchell Toolen 30:40
Where I’m just like, Oh, I get it. I but I do agree. I don’t like it, there’s the whole show don’t tell thing. And a lot of exposition is just kind of doled out because we don’t have time. We could if we had the foresight to put these things out and plan it like a series. We would have that but big time we don’t. So yeah. And I I am just flabbergasted by it. Because anytime there’s something interesting going on, it kind of it just doubles down on it when we have the scene where we get to a moon of Endor let’s ignore the fact that we have a dagger. I don’t know when this thing was made but it matches up with wreckage of the Death Star to it and she knew where to stand exactly so it would match up

Paige Flennikin 31:46
point the thing, pull the thing out and hold it just right

Mitchell Toolen 31:49
Yeah. And and we’re like oh, but we can’t go there right now. The waves are too risky. Okay, cool. We can slow down. Jana and Finn oh they’re having a moment because about the Stormtroopers and Stormtrooper people like conscripting children. Wow, what an interesting Oh, no. Rey just went and took a skimmer. She’s got skin in the plot. There’s no time we got to go

Bradford Benn 32:17
I’m still trying to figure out why she stole a skimmer. Because to me, I’m like, Force jump out there. You’re doing this teleporting lightsabers via the Force and teleporting.

Mitchell Toolen 32:29
It doesn’t matter. There’s no there was no danger involved literally like and also the others, they get there fine. They’re just kind of show up later. Like that’s just nothing.

Bradford Benn 32:38
Why were there spider webs?

Mitchell Toolen 32:41
spider webs?

Bradford Benn 32:43
How do you know there are spiders in space? There were all sorts of spider webs on the Death Star

Mitchell Toolen 32:49
They were already on there. You know, how do I know

Paige Flennikin 32:52
Once she got into that? How do you know where to go? Like, looking from the shore…

Mitchell Toolen 32:59
don’t worry about it.

Paige Flennikin 33:00
Then all of a sudden she’s like, okay, it’s in here.

Bradford Benn 33:04
Well, I took a picture of it with my mind’s eye.

Paige Flennikin 33:09
I wish they would have actually given her that dual lightsaber. That thing was cool.

Mitchell Toolen 33:14
That was such a trailer tease that I ended up hating it more in the thing where it’s like it’s just a projection and unlike Luke training and he fights Darth Vader’s image in his head is in the helmet. You’re like, Oh, that’s it. This is like Nah, it’s just kind of there because you want it’s reminds me of the same shot in Rogue One’s trailer that they didn’t even use where lady whose name or actress I forget is like in Imperial armor. You’re like, is this a betrayal is the thing you’re like, no, it’s nothing. It’s all nothing Don’t worry about and it’s not. It’s all like, I was reminded in a lot of these action scenes of a 2016 Shane Black movie called The Nice Guys. It’s got Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. It’s a funny neo-noir detective story. And it was it’s hilarious, but it’s also got really good action. And the action is just usually just them shooting at each other. Now those guys they’re shooting bad guys. But the reason that I’d say engaging is because the characters are good. Yeah, the story is interesting. You have Rey, doing a backflip to cut a Tie Interceptor fighter, like going full Neo and all the energy in the world. And I’m like, my eyes just glaze over because I’m like, I don’t care. This is in service to anything in the story? Yeah, why did the story basically stop just to do an action scene?

Paige Flennikin 34:44
Why did that whole thing happen?

Mitchell Toolen 34:46
I don’t understand that at all. We’re Indiana Jones. Now we got to go. We got to go get the, we got to go get the thing to get the thing to get the thing so that the movie can happen. Yeah. Now, a lot of a lot of it ends up being totally useless.

Paige Flennikin 35:01
Yeah, he crushed one and then she lit his Tie Fighter on fire. And then Luke was like, don’t worry about it. It’s okay.

Mitchell Toolen 35:10
One of the biggest of many Last Jedi like recants there’s so many of these things in the in the thing where they’re like, well, oh man that Last Jedi was, especially when forced loot comes out and goes, this is the most important thing. And everything else I said last time was wrong. And that guy was a hack. It’s just such a like, What is going on? There was no tying vision. There was no one. At least with Last Jedi. Rian Johnson was the one dude kind of getting everything together. But here they’re like, Ah, no, no, we can’t damage control. It’s too different. Everything is scary. Yeah. You got to bring back Lando. We got to bring back these guys. Yeah, get see 3PO is very important

Bradford Benn 35:58
I don’t know why 3PO had a red arm.

Mitchell Toolen 36:02
Does anyone know? Why is that important? Why did why did? What’s her face? How did she get in? Luke’s lightsaber? It’s time that’s a story for another time

Paige Flennikin 36:14
Rey ended up from the after the big battle between like when she and Kylo Ren teamed up to go against Snoke. Okay, so that’ll happen. They both got knocked out. He wakes up alone and General Hux says Oh, she left on Snoke’s ship then literally the next scene she is on the Millennium Falcon.

Mitchell Toolen 36:36
Don’t worry about it. It’s fine. He was he was already the spy at that point. I guess which you know what for? For motivations being pure spite. I kind of enjoyed that. Yeah.

Paige Flennikin 36:52
I don’t care if you win. I just need him to lose.

Bradford Benn 36:55
Yeah. I thought that was a great line.

Paige Flennikin 37:00
Did you guys get any like with Force powers with Finn?

Mitchell Toolen 37:08
Yes, yes. But there’s no time. Oh,

Bradford Benn 37:14
I thought they were alluding to it when he met Jana, “of the we just felt it”. You know, and the fact that like he and Rey kind of had this thing that wasn’t a thing. That was a thing. But it wasn’t pulled. But it was Rey and, you know, it’s kind of like, okay,

Paige Flennikin 37:31
yes, Finn goes lightsaber to lightsaber with Kylo Ren and holds his own for a while. Yes. indicator.

Mitchell Toolen 37:38
I don’t mind that. He doesn’t like, you know, he doesn’t do his own Force pushing and stuff like that, that it’s all that it’s all sensing stuff. But it doesn’t feel exactly like that. It feels more like he has the script in the back of his pocket. Like, we need to go there. Why? They told me. Yeah, it’s yeah, it’s many times where they’re just like, oh, yeah, yeah, I use that thing.

Bradford Benn 38:02
I get up out of the medical Bay, I pull all the hoses out, and I just start walking around and no one sees me

Paige Flennikin 38:09
It would make it worse. If they would have developed him having some kind of Jedi senses like at the beginning, when he went in Force Awakens, when they come out of that Cantina, he’s holding the lightsaber, he’s the one fighting with the light, or he’s the one going after it. That’s where all of that first starts with him being like Rey’s side on the light. But then in Jedi, they just send them to a casino planet with Rose. Like, what?

Bradford Benn 38:37
And then BB8 steals the show. And then they completely dropped that section when they get to the ninth movie.

Paige Flennikin 38:44
Yeah. And then they’re like, Oh, he’s sensing things again. And it would make more sense of him chasing Rey around trying to find Rey because he would be the only one able to do that if they had developed his character. Because Don’t worry about it.

Bradford Benn 39:01
I’m also kinda like, I’m trying to remember when Poe got shot, and he got injured. He had his arm in a sling. Why didn’t Rey heal him?

Paige Flennikin 39:12
Yeah, she’s got these healing powers.

Mitchell Toolen 39:22
I mean, do you remember when chewy got blown out for all of three minutes? Yeah.

Paige Flennikin 39:28
How did he end up on a different ship?

Mitchell Toolen 39:30
They just go now there’s another ship, and it doesn’t let you and it doesn’t. The thing that bothers me more about it, not just that, you know, let’s start with that. This whole thing is kind of Rey’s fault. And everyone just goes it’s okay. It’s fine. There’s no conflict. There’s no like you like you made Chewy die

Paige Flennikin 39:51
Why did you shoot lasers out of your hand like Palpatine and blow up a ship?

Mitchell Toolen 39:54
Yeah. And later we get a scene where Rey goes oh, I sense Chewy Wouldn’t that be more interesting if he was gone for more than just a minute? Like I think I timed it accurately three minutes later because we don’t i don’t know we don’t want the kids crying in the theater something like oh no they killed the big dog it just like he was alive. Don’t worry about it. Tension didn’t deflate.

Bradford Benn 40:22
Yeah, but you now need to buy the action figure where he doesn’t have his bag and bandolier to match the movie. Because I know that was a lot of this movie.

Mitchell Toolen 40:35
Yeah, those jumper guys who fly now Yeah, that is that actually that again? Felt like another like slap the Hasbro thing on it with the with catapulting action. We only have it just to have treads so they can wrangle it up and blow it up.

Paige Flennikin 40:54
And Poe says, “they fly now?”. He’s like always like he says it what we are all thinking. But also it’s like, it’s still dumb. Don’t worry about the humor.

Mitchell Toolen 41:04
That’s I think it started like last night was the thing where I’m just like, why is this happening? I mean, it’s not like it’s not like they were super serious movies, prequels being what they are notwithstanding. But it’s like what it just feels it feels Marvelly, but in a bad way. Like we’re trying to get it. We’re trying to get those clips, but it really doesn’t work at all.

Bradford Benn 41:35
Like the previous ones in four, five and six. It was the interaction between the characters that made it funny. It wasn’t lines. And here they’re writing the lines. And I’m like, you’re forcing it. You’re trying to make Poe a mechanical, make him the comic relief. And I’m like, yeah, this isn’t good. There were so many other things that could have been developed and you’re making him comedy. Then as I’m watching the Stormtroopers fly. I was like, Okay, I can deal with that, because the Death Troopers that we saw on the Mandalorian once again, spoiler sorry, but the Death Troopers, they flew. I was like, Well, okay, that makes sense. Wait, why don’t they have more Death Troopers then?

Mitchell Toolen 42:18
I liked better when they were Dark Troopers. Yeah. That was the whole dark forces plot. Yeah, that was cool. We had to go back to some semblance of a plot.

Paige Flennikin 42:29
Yeah, I think these three movies, especially this last one makes us all have, like leave the theaters scratching our heads. Like we have more questions now than we did. Iou really analyze the last two movies and realize how much doesn’t make sense. Like I never thought I could watch a movie that’s supposed to be the concluding factor and have more questions than I did in the first place. Like it just leaves much to be desired.

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