Episode 25: (22 BBY) Clone Wars S1 E17, S1 E18 & Star Wars Visions Episode 3

It's like 10 years from now.

We'll have a revisitation of the Big Book of Boba.

John Minor says that you can talk about the movie set in Episode 5.

The Jedi face off against the evil Midnight Scientist who sciences at midnight.

And then head off to Wallyworld to explore their roots.

I'm not discussing the other thing.

Today we discuss Clone Wars Episode 117, 118 and Visions 3 in this edition of the 11 Parsecs Podcast.

Hello and welcome to Podcast number 25 of the 11 Parsecs Podcast.

My name is Eric, I'm here with my good buddy John.

Hello.

And today we are discussing Clone Wars Season 1 Episode 17 and 18 and also Visions Episode 3.

If you don't know that much about our podcast, basically what we're doing is we're going through all Star Wars New Canon, Disney+, quote unquote, Star Wars New Canon in order, in BBY order.

And we have progressed through movie number 2 and we are now in the Throes of The Clone Wars.

And when I say the Throes of The Clone Wars, I mean that at 22 BBY there is a ton, ton of Clone Wars episodes that need to be watched if we're going to reach our goal of actually watching and reading everything that is possible for Star Wars New Canon.

So, again, we're in Season 1 Episode 17 and 18.

This week we're reviewing those two episodes and then next week we've got a comic that we're going to go back and read and it should be pretty good.

How's it going, John?

I'm doing very well. How are you?

I'm doing pretty good, man. I'm excited about this episode.

I'm excited about this podcast because of the episodes that we watched.

Should we just dive right in after we discuss Beardge?

Yeah, let's dive right in after beer. But I know that you're most excited about Visions Episode 3, but we'll get there.

I'm hiding it. I'm trying to hide it.

I can tell.

But you can see through the mic.

Yeah, we're not in front of each other. We are over Discord. You can't answer, but I can.

Alright, what are you drinking, John?

Tonight I have From Sycamore, which is in Charlotte.

North Carolina.

Close to home, huh?

Pretty close to home. Right next door.

I don't think I've had anything from Sycamore. I thought I had, but I don't think I have.

This is Mountain Candy. It's just an IPA. Sorry, I thought it was a double IPA. It's an IPA.

Mountain Candy. Does it give a little description on the can or anything?

I don't think I can read that. It's kind of blurry. Hop something. It's got hops in it.

Oh, okay. My guess is a Citra. Citra's the rage right now.

Yeah, I see a lot of Citra.

I am drinking Pick a Nick Basket by Cherry Street Brewery.

Cherry Street is our local brewery, which is less than 2 or 3 miles from each of our houses.

It is an imperial brown ale with raspberry, boysenberry, peanuts, and peanut butter powder.

It's like a peanut butter jelly sandwich.

You lost your mind?

Yeah, it's 8% alcohol too, which is crazy.

Imperial Brown. I don't know that I've ever had an Imperial Brown.

I've had an Imperial Brown, but it has been quite some time.

I've had an Imperial IPA, of course, and an Imperial Black, I think is what it was called.

Yeah, I've had that. Imperial Black.

But I don't think I've ever had an Imperial Brown.

I understand it's a brown ale. Ale is fermentation at the top. Lager is fermentation at the bottom, I believe, if I'm not mistaken.

It seems that way the other way around.

Yeah, it's 50-50. I had a 50-50 shot on that.

I think ale is at the top because I remember A being at the top.

But I don't know that I've had an Imperial Brown, which I don't really understand how that works because this is super flavorful.

I always thought that you had to let it really sit for a while to become Imperial, but we'll see.

We'll see what happens. You ready to pop the top?

Eventually, we'll see what happens if we ever open these stupid things.

Yes. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Somebody wants their beer.

All right. You ready? 3, 2, 1. Pop it.

It doesn't want to open. There we go.

Okay. Yeah. So I have cut my nails and I can't get this thing open.

Let me see. Hold on a second.

Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.

I know. I'm trying to find something that I can use as a lever here.

There we go. Okay. Sorry about that. I apologize.

I wanted to make the cool sound, but I didn't.

There we go. That's a good one. That's a good sound.

And it is super brown. Wow. That is very, very brown.

This is going to be a sipper, I think. Definitely a sipper.

You can tell yourself that? Yeah, I can tell myself that, but we'll see.

Ask me at the end of the podcast if I drank all of it because this is a very rich beer.

I don't think I'll finish this. All right. We'll see. We'll see what happens.

All right. How was yours? I'm going to take a sip of mine.

It's delicious. It's a delicious hazy IPA.

Mine is definitely very rich and definitely very poignant. Like, I don't know. Ooh, man, tart almost.

The raspberries and boysenberries, I think, are making it super tart.

That is a, I will say, a risky selection for a podcast, my friend.

It is. It was a risky selection. I went by the brewery today and was just looking through the cabinet.

And I got another one called Dark Necessities. I'll probably drink next week. They look really good.

But I wanted to try this just because I'm like, you know what?

And actually I had gotten confused.

I sent you probably about six months ago a jar of lingonberries, if you remember.

Yes.

Because I love lingonberries from IKEA and that taste.

And you said that you would never cook with them, I think.

And I went ahead and sent you a thing.

And for some reason I was thinking boysenberries was lingonberries.

Yeah, that's not. No.

They're not at all. Yeah.

Because I just tasted this and I'm like, this does not taste like lingonberries.

And I was like, that's why it's boysenberry, not lingonberry.

Anyways, welcome to the Berry Podcast, episode 25.

Talking about berries.

All right. Let's dive right in. Let's dive right into episode 17.

Again, we're in the throes of Clone Wars.

This thing is, okay, so we got lucky, I think, this week in that we watched episodes 17 and 18,

which just happened to be a two-episode arc.

I really enjoyed that.

I really enjoyed that.

Actually, on the second one, I didn't even realize it was going to be,

I kind of thought everything wrapped up on 17.

Yeah, so let's talk about episode 17, Blue Shadow Virus.

Evil scientist Dr. Nuvo Vindi is recreating the dreaded Blue Shadow Virus

in his secret underground lab on Naboo.

When he captures Senator Amidala and Jar Jar Binks,

Anakin and Obi-Wan must mount a rescue operation.

Yeah, I got a ton of notes that we can talk about.

I first wanted to say that the scientist very much felt like the weird, experimental,

Nazi, crazy scientist to do it from the very front of the subsets.

Let's talk about the scientist.

First of all, he's got the head of, did you pick up on this,

the head of Balok's puppet from Star Trek, the original series?

No, I did not.

You know that green puppet?

I know exactly what you're talking about.

Yes, yes, I do.

Now that you say it, I get it.

That is his face.

That is his head.

Yeah.

That was the first thing I saw.

And then, yeah, I wrote down, he's got the voice of a mad German scientist.

And then later in the episode, as they start to apprehend him,

and he basically just goes insane, he's got the voice,

this is a throwback for you, he's got the voice of the evil midnight bomber,

what bombs at midnight, from The Tick animated series.

Ooh, see, okay, yeah, so I have to admit, I, no, I watched The Tick,

I did watch that one, I watched that series, I watched the live action also.

I don't remember the midnight bomber, though.

The evil midnight bomber what bombs at midnight!

It does sound like that, that's a very, that's a very.

Yeah, baby, you got to go all the way, I'm going to go all the way with bombs!

Yeah, he was very animated, I will say that.

And also his little triangle of death.

We'll probably replace that in post with an actual clip from the show.

And I go, yeah, baby, because I'm the evil midnight bomber, what bombs at midnight!

Ah, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

No, that's fine. It was pretty loud to me, I liked it.

His little triangle suitcase of death, where he just keeps kind of throwing things,

it's like, he's really annoying.

He really is, to the point where it's just like, why did you just throw three, dude?

If you really want to end this, I mean, if you really want to go on,

just dump the whole suitcase at Obi-Wan, he's not catching all of them.

It was just like, I don't know.

Well, okay, let's not worry about that, because that was annoying.

Okay, if you throw something trying to get it out of the hands of a Jedi,

what's the first thing a Jedi would do?

Yeah, he's going to use The Force to catch it.

He's going to Force catch it!

Yeah.

Right? But they don't do that, because, you know, drama.

Well, it's got to be drama, you got to have something in there.

But, again, the best stories are where they play within the rules that they set up for themselves.

And with something so, they could have, you could have set it up like that.

Like, he throws them in different directions.

Yeah, he does.

And so he's got to reach out with The Force over there,

and he's got to reach out with The Force over there,

and he's got to reach out with, you know.

You could play within the sandbox.

You don't have to break all the rules.

I'm just saying.

Yeah, I agree with you.

One of the things that I noticed about this episode, too, is the carryover.

And I know it's supposed to be like this, so it's not a big deal,

but the Jar Jar messing something up, but actually not messing something up,

that kind of like situation that happens every episode that Jar Jar's in.

Yeah.

And I'm getting tired of it.

I'm not lying.

It's like we're on episode 17 of the season, and I get, if you want to focus on Jar Jar, that's fine.

But it's just kind of like, oh, Jar Jar did this.

He screwed everything up.

Oh, wait, he actually didn't.

And it's just like, oh, man.

This time it was a little more obvious that that was where that was going to go, I thought,

that his blundering is going to be beneficial.

Okay.

Because in some other cases, like when they were attacking that base, the blundering looks like it's going to cause a real, real problem,

and then it ends up being beneficial.

Yeah.

In this case, I thought it was kind of an obvious setup.

You're talking about the cloud base from like, I think it was episode 7 or 8, where they're up on the cliff and all that kind of stuff?

No, no, no, just recently with the pirates when he was stumbling all.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

But this, this with the bug, it's like, okay, that means that's going to mean something.

Anyway, I'm with you.

It is kind of one-dimensional.

If he shows up, that's what's going to happen.

Yeah, but again, that's just the way his character works out.

Yeah, I know.

We keep saying this.

We're not the target audience.

But yeah, agreed.

One thing I did really enjoy about this is that the robot that is used this week,

it just happened to be this episode in Boba Fett.

The little chef robot was the same robot that we saw with the bomb in this episode.

So I don't know if that I knew that guy was familiar.

It just happened.

It just happened to line up.

And I don't know if it's the exact same robot, but it's the same.

No, but yeah.

So the little one that waddles off of the bomb is the same.

Yeah, yeah.

The little belt.

Yeah, exactly.

Is the same one that we see in what would now be, I guess, technically last week's Mando,

where they're the shoe chef and the general cleavis guy with all the knives and stuff.

Yeah, we're trying to spoil anything.

I don't think that's really spoilers, but still.

I just thought it was neat how they lined up.

Like, we just happened to see both of them at the same time.

And I was like, oh my gosh, it's the same robot that we just saw.

Yeah, that didn't click with me.

I was like, I know that robot type, but why do I know that robot type?

And I'd already forgotten that we just saw that.

I got kind of some lost vibes from this episode, too.

Like the bunker type deal.

Oh, the hatch?

Yeah, the hatch and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, that crossed my mind.

And I don't know if that was...

No, I don't think that had anything to do with anything.

Okay, you don't think so?

Okay, yeah.

I just thought that...

No, it's just, they had to have an explanation as to why no one knew where the base was.

Okay, fair enough.

There's your explanation.

It's underground.

Pop-up cameras and all that kind of stuff.

Overall, I enjoyed the episode.

I mean, it wasn't bad to me.

It wasn't amazing either, though.

But it was a good story.

I liked it.

I liked the fact that it was something that everyone kind of knew would be a galaxy-wide problem if it got out.

I don't know.

What did you think?

It was fine.

The guy was...

As I said, the German scientist guy was annoying.

He had some really impressive stretches of monologuing.

He did.

He explains everything.

Everything I'm going to do.

They gave him a lot of lines in this.

Like, almost too much.

Just...

I don't know.

You're just kind of like, dude, you're losing me because you're talking so much.

Like, stop.

Yeah, and I guess we can pick it up in the next episode where they resolve this problem.

But I have real issues with the resolution.

Well, let's go on to the next episode.

All right.

So, first off, 1-100.

What you got?

Oh, for this episode?

For this episode only.

Not the art.

This episode only.

It was pretty good.

I actually enjoyed it, even though I had some issues with it.

It was, I guess you would say the character of the mad scientist was intriguing in the end

because it made me think a lot of things, especially about the evil Midnight Bomber.

And it's always fun to think about him.

So, I would say, like a 79.

Yeah, I was going to go 78.

We're starting to meet on scores, John.

I was going to say 78.

It's a bad thing.

It's not a bad thing.

It's called consensus, John.

It's called consensus.

So, let's talk about episode 18.

Episode 18, I really thought that that 17 episode was going to be self-contained.

And then we're back on talking about the fatal Blue Shadow Virus because I really thought it was over.

Like, I didn't think that it was anything past that.

18 surprised me.

Let me read you a little excerpt here.

The fatal Blue Shadow Virus is released, infecting Ahsoka, Padme, and many clone troopers.

Anakin and Obi-Wan must fight to find an antidote on a mysterious planet from which no visitor has ever returned.

My notes just say, wait, this is an arc.

The Blue Shadow Virus continues.

Yeah.

And I said, oh, it's that damn rabbit bunny droid thing from...

Yeah, anyways, so the virus leaks, gets all over the place inside the bunker.

They've got to go find an antidote.

The antidote happens to be on this planet called Mystery of a Thousand Moons.

Yeah, it's a fetch quest.

Can I just say, because this is basically, this is the only note I wrote down.

Viruses don't have antidotes.

Yep, agreed.

But...

That's not how that works.

But, but, but the pre-COVID world did not realize that.

And it is fine.

In Star Wars, you can do what you want.

Yeah, you can have an antidote to a virus.

Sure, why not?

So, the antidote virus ends up being this root that's only found on this one planet.

Anakin and Obi-Wan go to the planet and meet this kid that's kind of like hacked a bunch of droids.

Peter Pan!

Yeah, Peter Pan, exactly.

It's Peter Pan.

Good call.

I never made that association, but that's very good.

Yeah, so they meet Peter Pan and they end up climbing down this cliff and fighting this big monster to get the root,

which they only grab one root, which is really weird.

I'm like, you're fighting this monster.

You get at least two.

Yeah, get two or three.

You get at least two.

Yeah, get a bunch of them.

Back up to the back up.

That's right.

Anyways, they get one and they come back up.

And the thing about this planet is that it lasts a certain time.

One of the moons of this planet has built a defense mechanism, or the Trade Federation I think is what it was.

No, it's a Ghost with lasers.

It's not a Ghost. The people have never been able to leave this planet.

So they, over generations, think that there is some kind of Ghost in the sky that does not allow them to leave the planet.

So...

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm sorry.

Let me, let me, seriously.

I thought it was like over the span of a couple of years or so.

You're saying it was generations?

Did I miss that?

Oh, I made an assumption that it's generations.

The Separatists pulled out and put this thing in place and the kid said, you know, the spice trade dried up when no one could leave the planet.

Right?

All trade stopped.

That's like, that's like a maybe a five-year deal.

Okay, I took it as in like, yeah, I guess the kid, yeah, the kid does say that like he almost remembered.

Yeah, okay, fair enough.

He just talks about all the...

And that was also weird because when they came into the city, they really set it up like, there is no one here.

This is like a Ghost town.

And then there's this one kid with all of his droids and then it totally shifts to, no, there's lots of people.

Yeah, there's tons of people.

Yeah.

And also too...

That was bizarre.

Yeah, and also too, I didn't understand the, he said like 50 top fighter pilots have left and never returned.

Like they get destroyed on the way back up.

Yeah.

From this Ghost.

Yeah, you see a hollow from...

Yeah, but, but then again, I'm like, were these people already on the planet?

Like, like what, like this is that five-year thing.

It was like, were they already on the planet and then they tried to leave after the five years?

I don't know.

I made the assumption that this was this Ghost that has been passed down from generation to generation and it's the lore of what it is and why you can't leave.

Because it's...

People don't need that much time to get all the superstitions.

Yes, they do.

They don't.

They don't, don't they?

No.

No.

I may have to go back and research a little bit on this episode because I felt that it was something that has been around for a while.

That's why it was a Ghost slash Demi-god-ish type thing that's keeping them here.

Or they all, they all actually believe that.

Interesting.

I don't know, honestly, the answer to that question.

It was, if there's one weak spot of the episode, other than the fact that viruses don't have antidotes, it is the fact that the MacGuffin there was kind of weak.

So, oh, we can't leave the atmosphere or we can't leave the planet.

50 people have tried and not one of them, not one of them had the thought of, let's find out where the lasers are coming from.

Well, they don't have time.

I think that was what was conveyed during the pilots is that Obi-Wan and Anakin figured out that there's a gate thing going on here and that it's coming from a certain moon or whatever.

I think it was a moon.

So, they understood what was going on.

Whereas the pilots, I don't think, had the resources or the knowledge to understand something's happening.

I'm just dying.

And all the people down on Earth, of course, are just like, all the people down on the planet are just looking up like, oh, he just died.

He didn't make it out.

The Ghost got him.

It's like a, yeah, it's a never-ending story type situation.

Yeah, it's like, hey, we're going to run through the things, run through the two statues with the beams coming down.

Oh, wow.

Thank you for pulling that in because I had no idea where you were going.

So, it's like nobody's ever gotten past it and everybody just kind of sees the dead bodies.

Very nice.

Yeah.

Very nice.

Anyways, so, so, anyways, Obi-Wan and Anakin fly up to leave.

They're like, we're leaving.

Sorry, we got to get out of here.

We got to go help these people with the blue fog.

And they're flying up and they see what happens where it's like the Trade Federation's moon kicks in and it creates this gate, this blocker thing.

And they fly back down.

And when they come back down, they're like, no, look, this is not a Ghost.

This is not.

And this is, again, why I thought these people had been living with this for a while.

They're like, this is not a Ghost.

This is not some type of lore.

This is an actual machine that just creates a big lightning arc around the planet whenever somebody's trying to leave.

We have a plane to beat it.

Fly back up there.

They beat it.

They leave.

Everybody's happy on the ground because, hey, The Ghost is gone or whatever you want to call it.

I feel like it's got to be more than five years.

It's got to be at least older than that kid.

Let me say that.

And we're back.

We, of course, you know, we're on a podcast where we can't edit anything.

So, John, what did you discover?

I discovered that the Separatists left the planet Iago during The Clone Wars, which is what we're watching.

So this just isn't happening.

We're pretty early in The Clone Wars at 22 BBY2.

So you are correct.

I don't know why these people think it's a mysterious Ghost already.

It's only been a couple of years.

But, you know, it's very funny.

It's like, what if, how do I say this?

I'm like hitting myself.

What if people thought COVID was some kind of weird Ghost?

But it's not very far off from people thinking it's a microcosm.

I feel like the writers felt like they had to do that angle because if everybody on the planet was like, yeah, there's this thing, a machine up there that kills you if you try to leave.

Well, the obvious thing is you try to break the machine.

You try to go up there and figure it out and you break it.

If you assign it to a supernatural phenomenon, what are you going to do?

Yeah.

So let me read a little bit off Wikipedia.

Wookie-pedia.

There.

Really, really great.

IAGO was a mysterious planet located in the Outer Rim territories at the fringes of the known galaxy that was surrounded by a thousand moons collectively known as the Moons of IAGO, at least one of which was populated by a race of beings known as Angels, which we see in the episode.

During The Clone Wars, the conflagration of the moon was so intense that it was impossible to see the moon.

Battersea of independent systems constructed a laser field that prevented anyone from leaving the planet before the planet before the field was destroyed by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, freeing the Eogians.

But yeah, that makes it makes more sense.

So, yeah, you are correct.

And I think five years might even be a little too long.

I still think probably.

Probably. Yeah, it's not a long time.

But I'll tell you this.

If I were writing this episode.

Yeah. I and I wanted to do this fetch quest to kind of drag it out a little bit.

Why go to the trouble with all this planet and the defense system and all that stuff?

Why not have them have to go find the roots in more of an Indiana Jones, like go into the Forbidden Temple kind of thing?

I think that'd be way more exciting.

I agree with you.

But I happen to think that maybe the Eogians are going to come back in later on.

That's fine.

And that's the case.

This was the Anakin Obi-Wan freeing them.

So now that they're like, oh, these guys are heroes going from there.

I don't know.

It sullies the episode a little bit.

I was thinking that this was like a generational thing.

I was thinking that this was like, like, like grandparents telling their kids The Ghost of Iago is up there.

I would. Yeah, I would say because the visuals as they approach the planet, as they land in the city, it has a really WALL-E vibe to it.

Yeah, agree. Totally agree.

Yeah, totally.

So that's what I was thinking was, OK, man, this thing has been abandoned for a thousand years.

Yeah, that's exactly.

Yeah. And that's probably where I made my my wrong assumption was that it was like something like that.

This place has been around for a long time that no one's gotten off the planet.

Yep. The other thing that was the main thing that really kind of bothered me in the episode was they really do, as is often the case in a show like this.

They really had it both ways.

If the virus gets out, it is the end of all things.

OK, let's just open up the the thing and everybody's fine.

Yeah. Yeah.

And everybody's fine for a while because then you got to think about they had to go to this planet, get the antidote and then come all the way back.

Well, yes.

And we saw the what do you call those big, big like bulbous tick camel cow things?

Oh yeah.

They're like huge ticks.

Yeah.

Obi-Wan always rides.

Big old ticks.

Yeah.

They died immediately.

Yeah, they did.

Well, to be fair, though, they drank the water.

I don't know if it's since because he talks about that.

Concentrated.

I see.

Yeah.

Well, the scientist dude talks about that.

He's like, I've been working on making an airborne like after they find the place.

So I think that being in the water is one thing versus actually airborne.

But yeah, that was another.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

What?

That that's a huge, big problem.

So it was in the water outside of the lab.

Yep.

That was a non aerosolized version, because as soon as somebody uses that water to cook anything.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah.

Everybody's dead.

And those things died immediately like that dude was like washing his face or the girl was like washing her face and immediately.

No, no, no, she was about she was about to drink the water.

She was about to drink it.

And yeah.

And then you look up and you see the stuff raging through not raging, but stuff all through the water system.

That's got to kill everything downstream to.

So I mean, it's not just what you would think.

Anyways.

Anyways.

Yeah.

Dramatic.

Drink the damn water.

Dramatic license.

All the gunmen are gone.

But that's that's the.

Oh, my God.

All the gun.

The poor.

They're gone.

The guns are gone.

And those big fish things that bite each other, like the bigger ones, the bigger ones, like the little Russian doll things.

They're gone.

Yes.

Everybody's gone.

So we basically obliterated all ocean life.

That planet is doomed.

Even if it's not aerosol.

DOOMED!

We've still destroyed so much organic material on this planet.

Anyways.

Crazy German scientists.

Sucks.

You know, maybe maybe there'll be more downstream effects from this episode later on in the series.

Thank you.

That joke clap.

But yeah, it was good.

I mean, it was it was a very rushed episode and I get why it was rushed because they have like two different settings.

They have multiple characters doing multiple things.

You also have Padme and Ahsoka trying to help the clone troopers that are still there.

Rex makes it through, of course, which is great because I love Rex.

But, you know, all the other clone troopers are still getting sick.

And I want to say some of them actually died in this episode.

They covered up one of them with, you know, with cloth and all that.

They covered up one of them with, you know, with the cloth thing, which means you're dead.

Yeah.

Well, he was cold and sleepy.

He's just sleeping.

He's just a little sleeper.

He's a little tired.

Yeah, I don't know.

It was good.

I felt like the angels that they introduced was a big deal that we should take note of that for later on.

Yeah, that was introduced and then nothing.

Yeah, that was like, wow.

And it was a very it was a very big introduction.

Like that was very well drawn.

Like you tell it was almost drawn a little bit better than or rendered a little bit better than the rest of the show, too.

Like it was supposed to be like a moment.

You could tell it was a moment.

Yes.

Let's make an impression.

Oh, you know, angels and then nothing.

And that was it.

The angels from Milius Prime, which was one of the moons of this planet.

Yeah, I don't know.

I thought it was a good episode.

It was good.

It was a good two part series.

It was a good show.

I don't know if I moved anywhere more than my 78 from last time.

I don't know. Honestly, I'm ready to move on to Visions 3 because that's going to be way more fun.

On that bad signal, let's move to Visions 3.

We've been working our way through the Visions series. We're in these long Clone Wars episodes.

We're trying to grab some other series that don't have time scales attached to them like Visions.

Which are a serial series of 8 total episodes.

You really don't know when they exist.

We're throwing these guys in there. Throwing some comics in there. Throwing some books in there.

Doing a bunch of different things so we have different things to discuss every week.

Besides just The Clone Wars episodes while we get through The Clone Wars episodes.

Again, the last two podcasts we've reviewed.

Episodes 1, which I think we were both in agreement, was pretty good.

It was what we expected anime.

The second one we had very divergent opinions on.

I enjoyed it. It's a very pop, high school-y anime type episode.

You did not enjoy it.

We are now at Episode 3 which is called The Twins.

Twins born into the Dark Side clash aboard a massive Star Destroyer.

It's not just really a Star Destroyer. It's kind of like a twin, Siamese twin joined Star Destroyer.

Get it? It's twins. Get it?

Get it? It's twins Star Destroyers.

We talked about this on the Discord server.

If you don't know about our Discord server, please go to 11parsecs.com.

You can join our Discord server. It's very fun.

We talked about who the voices were for this. Do you remember who they were?

No.

The female twin was Alison Brie, of course from Community and Glow.

Or not Glow. I always call it Glow.

What's the Netflix wrestling show?

It's going to kill me.

I always call it Glow because Glow used to be a thing.

All American? I don't know what that is.

No, no, no. The women's wrestling show.

The women's wrestling show.

It's not actually wrestling. It's like a documentary version of a fictitional women's...

A mockumentary.

No, it's kind of a mockumentary.

It's a documentary.

Oh my gosh. This is going to kill me. What is it called?

It's Glow. Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia in the 80s and 90s, we had what was called Glow,

which is Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, which came on before WWF came on.

It was basically women's wrestling. It was the whole show, drama, peace thing.

It was very similar to WWF. It was the week to week back and forth between different teams of people and that kind of thing.

This show was... Hold on. I've got to let the show up.

So anyways, Glow, growing up, when I watched it, was Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. It was the actual real deal.

There's a Netflix show based on Glow itself and Alison Brie is in that. She was also in Community.

You know Alison Brie. If you saw her face, you'd be like, oh yeah.

And then also, the male twin is played by... Doogie Houser.

Doogie Houser. That's all he gets? That's all Neil Patrick Harrison gets?

Neil Patrick Harrison gets is...

What do you want from me, Eric? Let me ask you a question.

I love us reviewing movies. I love it. I love it.

Why do you hate me so much that I must watch...

You didn't like this one?

I actually did make more notes on this one than the last one.

I'm not talking about note quantity. That's not what I'm getting at.

Note quantity is an indication of how...

Interested you are, maybe?

Yes, how interested. So, the first thing I wrote was, this is fantastic art. The art is fantastic.

It really was. It really was. It really was really good.

Then it transitioned, I guess, when he's in the hangar about to leave and she confronts him.

It's like, okay, could you dump a little more exposition into one scene in an uber anime style?

And that's when I'm out. I'm done.

Just to make sure I'm following you. I understand this because I wouldn't say it was a difference.

Whenever everybody is masked and you don't see any facial features, you thought the art was really, really good.

But then once somebody rips off a helmet and you see the wide-eyed anime...

And ultra drama.

Yeah, well, that's anime.

Okay, fine.

But that is when it lost you. Whenever they had the helmets on, you were kind of good with the art.

I'm good with the art. I'm good with the art, period.

Okay, the whole thing then.

Well, when it went over the top, anime drama, and...

I guess that was really it. Just so insane.

It just went so insane.

Yeah, so let me ask you two things.

Number one, the fighting scenes. I really enjoyed the way they did the layering in the fight scenes.

I enjoyed the epileptic people must have had a time with this episode.

It was very flashy but really good.

And then you get a little bit of that Holdo maneuver from Episode 2.

Yeah, sorry.

From the second or third trilogy.

Episode 8.

Yeah, so you get that Holdo maneuver, kind of slow moving.

Which was a still shot.

Did you notice that it was a still shot that they panned?

No, I didn't.

I thought it was great.

I don't think so.

It was a still shot.

That they panned and I thought that was very well done.

That was so good.

Yeah, it was really good.

But you'd already lost me by that point because he gets pulled out of his X-Wing.

Yep.

Right?

And so he's got wavy hair in space.

And you're talking.

What is going on?

Well, also not just that but he lands on the X-Wing and there's a thud and a push back.

Almost like the X-Wing is producing gravity.

So, science out the window, Jon.

Let's just chunk science out the window.

That takes me out.

I mean, come on.

This is Star Wars, man.

I know that Star Wars plays fast and loose.

It's a version of Star Wars.

Okay, so you're making me jump to my last note.

And that is because these are twins, right?

These are twins created in the dark side.

Right.

Is this a what if for Star Wars?

Yeah, I think so.

All these are what ifs.

They're not canon.

They were very specific in saying that these are interpretations of Star Wars story drawn by and written by these artists.

It is as close to what if as you can get in the Star Wars universe.

It's not canon.

Okay.

Yeah, so they're side stories.

We just want to take the thematics of Star Wars and enjoy them in a different way.

And they're clearly stated.

That's partly my fault because right away when I see the twin Star Destroyers with the big giant blaster cannon thing in the middle, I'm thinking, okay, that looks cool.

Where would that fit in the chronology?

And I immediately, yeah, I'm fighting it.

And that's really why we're kind of reviewing these one off on different episodes to fill in for The Clone Wars because there's not really a time for these either.

I mean, you don't like, you know, you have the Ronin thing from Episode one.

There's an R2 droid in there.

I think there's other stuff that can get in The Clone Wars.

The Clone Troopers post Clone War kind of dated a little bit.

But then again, you're also kind of like, all right, this dude's going around collecting Kyber Crystals from from, you know, bad Jedi.

And he's kind of like, no, no, that doesn't make any sense in the timeline.

You know what I mean?

So it's its own stories.

It's its own thing, you know.

Anyways, I pledge to try to approach Visions 4 with that mindset.

It might slip, but I will try.

Yeah, I think I have a little bit of an advantage because I read comics.

And with comics, you have annuals, which are like kind of like, like just a bunch of short stories at the end of the year that they put out that kind of don't have anything to do with anything else.

That can or cannot be part of canon type situations.

It's just like fun stories.

And I think that's really what Visions to me at least seems like, is that it's like a, it's just like just a bunch of people.

Hey, here's the Star Wars universe.

You have a license to use it, you know, from the licensee.

Go crazy.

Do something.

Do something cool that other people might be like, you know, it's kind of neat.

It's a neat way that they did that.

And it also honestly probably spawns a lot more ideas down the road.

And it gets reception.

So you can gauge whether like the Ronin episode was really good or the Twins episode was really good.

Maybe we should incorporate a story something like that in the canon, you know, further down the road.

But it's just kind of like a free form.

Do whatever you want with it.

And sorry, I probably should have prefaced the series with that better whenever we started watching it.

That's why I enjoy the high school thing or the band thing.

It's just kind of like, you never see this.

You would never see this.

It's like a tag and link type thing.

Like you would never see this on a TV screen.

You would never see that.

That's correct.

You would never see that.

You wouldn't.

And then you do.

And then you do.

And it's just kind of like, that's kind of a cool take on Star Wars.

That's I think that's what you got to go into this vision series with.

Okay.

I know.

Duly noted.

I know.

Duly noted takes a big sip of the beer.

Duly noted, Eric.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, let's start talking about what else you've been watching.

So we've got the Star Wars stuff out of the way.

We're both pretty big sci-fi geeks.

I mean, what do you even watch lately?

What have you been reading?

What have you been doing since the last podcast?

Yeah, I'm debating how much we want to get into Boba Fett.

Yeah, I think we can touch on it.

So this episode will probably come out two weeks after the latest episode aired.

So we're not going to do explicit spoilers, but we may talk about things in the round.

So just for anybody that's listening to the podcast, the episode that just aired, I believe, was Chapter Five.

I'll put a link to that in the show notes.

I don't think this is very spoilery, but there's a bit of The Mandalorian in it.

So there's a bit of it.

That's not stop, stop, stop.

Okay.

So if you want to cut off this podcast now, we totally understand.

Um, but we're going to talk about not explicit spoilers.

We're not going to try to spoil anything for you, but we're

talking about the episode.

Okay.

I'm going to say that if you don't want any spoilers, I'm going to say,

just, just, just skip to the end because I want, I want to talk about the episode.

Um, okay.

Let's talk about the episode.

Now we're still going to do our own episode of the episode.

It's part of the timeline at this point.

I know, but that's when we get there, we have years from now.

It's like 10 years from now.

Yes.

We'll have a review, a revisitation of the big book.

Boba John, my nurse says that you can talk about the fat Episode five.

So did you, did you know, did you know anything about this episode?

Uh, coming, coming into it?

No, no, whatsoever.

Like once I, so, all right, so, okay.

I opened up Twitter.

So we have an 11 parsecs Twitter account.

Please go follow it.

We just announced new episodes and I kind of, uh, have a bunch of people that I

follow that are star Wars kind of geeks.

Star Wars, explain Imperial Senate podcast.

Those kinds of really good guys that make great star Wars stuff.

Um, I followed them and I opened that Twitter up instead of my personal Twitter

and I saw something and it was about Bryce Dallas Howard.

And I was like, okay, that's awesome.

I was like, that's awesome.

Bryce Dallas Howard's in this episode.

I love Bryce Dallas Howard.

This is perfect.

Black Mirror, everything.

Like she's really, really good.

And then, um, and then I saw the next thing was about how it was so, uh, Mando

that there was a really no effect going on.

And I was like, damn it.

Cause I did not want to see that.

And I kind of ruined it a little bit for me.

I kind of wish I had been surprised whenever, uh, me and the wife sat down

to watch it, that, uh, I didn't know that it was going to be completely Mando

centric,

See, and that's, and that's what I saw on Twitter.

I saw one tweet.

I don't even know who it was from, but it basically said that, uh, the

Mandalorian took over this episode.

Yeah.

Like, oh man, ruining Mando like that.

And is the same thing as ruining Wirtle.

Like I, like it makes me so like I've, I've filtered out.

Every word will tweet possible.

Anything with any of the different color boxes, it doesn't show up on my feet.

Anything with the word Wirtle in it doesn't show up on my feet.

Like I can't stand.

That's like, that's, that's the one thing that I really enjoy is that, is that

there's a collective humanity that says, no, we're not going to ruin this for

other people.

And then Mando, my gosh, the episode comes out like what?

8 AM something like that on Wednesdays by nine 30, you got people tweeting.

Yeah.

People are commenting on it already.

I haven't even had coffee yet.

Yeah.

So I can't, I can't go to Twitter.

I definitely can't log onto YouTube because all the guys are going to, or all

the, I shouldn't say guys, all the guys and girls are all the people on YouTube

that I follow for star Wars are going to have like screen grabs.

They're like, definitely trying to get you to watch their episode.

So then she's like the most ridiculous screen, the screen grab that you can

pick, you know what I mean?

So that you watch the episode because you're like, oh my gosh, look at that.

Um, yeah.

So it's like, you know, I, I, uh, you know, I'm a huge fan of Screen Crush.

Ryan Aries, uh, Twitter.

Do you follow him on YouTube?

Uh, yes.

Yeah, I know you're talking about it.

I watch it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Really, really, really good guy.

Really good analysis.

Two things that are really getting mad about him though, is that number one,

it's got the Easter egg thing up, but he's usually actually pretty good

about choosing the screen grab.

He doesn't like give away any spoilers or anything on that.

Um, but also he does like fake trailers, like fake trailers for

movies that haven't come out yet.

And, uh, I'm always like, what I'm in for.

And then I get excited and then I'm like, oh, Screen Crush.

I'm like, this is just a fake trailer.

Like, it's not real.

He's just showing this to, you know, get views and I get it.

I mean, do your house.

I'm fine with it, but anyways, he's a great channel to subscribe to on YouTube.

I highly recommend him, especially for stuff like Mando or, um,

above a fed or anything like that.

He's a really good reviewer later on down the line, but you do have to put

up with a little bit of, uh, of, uh, stuff inside his feed, in my opinion.

Um, I, yeah, it was, it was a great episode.

It was the best.

I hate saying it was the best episode because I really enjoy Boba Fett.

I really do.

Like the first four episodes were really good, but I feel like this was the best

episode and it had nothing to do with Boba Fett.

So it's kind of like, like, like, like, I hate saying that.

Like, I, like, I, I enjoy both that.

I don't want that to go to the wayside.

I'm wondering if this is a new recipe for Disney+.

I'm wondering if, if Disney+ is going to start in the middle of every series,

like in the middle of, I haven't watched that guy.

I don't really think if I'm completely telling you, telling, saying something

that does happen, but if in the middle of Hawkeye, like episode four or five,

where they know the crowd is so attached to the show, they throw in an episode

about Dr.

Strange, completely about that.

That's like, I, that would have been weird.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's, that's kind of weird.

That would have been weird.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's, that's what I'm saying.

That's what it feels like, at least with this.

I think that to me is, is sending a signal.

First of all, I think they had where they wanted to go with the series.

This had to happen to kind of catch you up and weave in some new, new threads.

Yeah.

But I think they're also trying to send the signal that this is going to be a, a, a tapestry

of, you know, an interwoven multi-series story.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I agree with that.

Which is fantastic.

I love it.

Yeah.

Favreau and all those people see, oversee all these things.

So, I mean, I, I, I enjoy that.

Yeah.

I agree with you.

I enjoy it.

Was it surprising?

Yeah, it was surprising.

And I liked it.

I liked Bryce Dallas Howard directly.

It was like perfect too, like it was it was really good. I mean it was really well written

I don't think she wrote it. I believe she just directed it, but

Man, it was good. That was good episode. That was a really good episode and I enjoyed

so it is funny because my wife asked me to pause like

10 minutes in the episode and kind of describe what the Darksaber was and all this other kind of stuff and I've bought all stuff

On Legends pretty much, but I think it's good

there's gonna be a parody with what happened with Bokuton and all that stuff in in this and

And but what was funny was like when we unpaused it and kept watching they kind of explained

Really good. Like it was really like yeah, it was really like, okay. Well that body need to tell you that this episode is is a very

Looking for is a very back history

episode which

When you think about it on the outside

I mean, it's kind of it's kind of the same history for Boba Fett as it was for the Mando

So it it kind of is a Mando episode or Canada it kind of is a Boba Fett episode at the same time

So it's you know, it's I think I think the people that were saying no, this is an episode of The Mandalorian

So Boba Fett, it's actually not it's a pretty good history lesson the history lesson on The Mandalorian

You know as a whole or the Mandalorians as a whole which is applicable to both shows really I

Appreciated the little catch-up on the Darksaber because I certainly remember seeing the darks

I didn't know what the Darksaber was. I don't I don't know any of that. So when it popped up in Mandalorian

That was weird. And so a refresher on what the Darksaber means. Yeah, that was good. I like that

yeah, and I enjoyed the fact that it talked about how

Then again, sorry spoilers, but this is really spoilers from The Mandalorian not necessarily both it

How it talked about how Bogota was kind of shunned because she didn't earn the Darksaber. So it was like a

It was a thing within the Community where they're just like look you didn't earn this

You don't necessarily get it and then you got the Mando who didn't really want to earn it, but did earn it

So it's kind of like people are now like, you know

I'll challenge you for that because I you didn't even want this thing, you know, and he yeah watch the episode really good

I really okay. Can we address that because what if

When the for what's her name the forger person of the armor?

Yeah, when she said do you accept the this challenge for a duel if he had said?

Mmm, no, no, I'm good. You know, I don't that's great. That's a great question

You have to win the Darksaber in combat. I'm not gonna fight you. Yeah, I'm not gonna fight you or either

I'll fight you without the Darksaber

You know, is that if I don't use it does I don't know what the rules are?

I don't know what the framework is here

Yeah, I don't know I mean maybe it's you gotta usurp the person if you usurp the person then then you get the Darksaber

no matter what or do you have to actually

Fight against my using the Darksaber like I don't know. I don't know what the rules are

It seems like it seems like the whole Mandalorian communities is a very gray area with the rules to begin with. Oh, there's always yeah

There's always yeah stuff like this when from whence does the Darksaber originate?

There was a Mandalorian Jedi and I think he was the only Mandalorian Jedi

I'm so what which no no, no, no, no it which which work which comic which cartoon which oh

So this goes back to Boba Fett's in

The Darksaber I believe is in Legends like it's it's it's back in the Dark Horse comics, which is what what era?

What are we talking about? Oh, you mean like within the so publication?

Here's where we get weird because this is pre Disney+. So I believe the Darksaber was around the late 90s for us

The late 1990s was published a comic book

By dark so it's it's a total ripoff of the Elder Wand from Harry Potter, okay

No

It would be before those two

What why that was that was that was um Rowling was writing that in early 90s

Mid 90s at the latest. Oh, wait a second. Hold on. We're gonna have to if only there's a way we could look

So I was completely wrong. It wasn't

It was in The Clone Wars

It was in The Clone Wars 2000 from that. What's our what year was that? What year was that again?

That was two Zero one Zero Joe. So that that's after the

Harry Potter that's way after

Okay, okay, okay. All right, so so so

Tell me about your exposition about how it's like the Harry Potter wand

Well, they're the Elder Wand had to be won in combat. Otherwise, it was a poor

A bad one for you. It didn't work very well, right? So the same sort of thing here

Except here if you don't win it in combat the dark saber, then your whole people suffer

So so okay, so there's the people outside the user suffer

whereas with the Elder Wand there like they're like and the one thing that I don't necessarily get with the with the dark saber is that

It gets heavy for him, even though he won it in combat like it

He doesn't know how to use it properly.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was a Jedi.

Which was easily...

I don't think it was... Potter was in the late 90s, wasn't it?

Was it early 2000s?

No.

Joseph Campbell, man of a thousand faces for everybody.

Anyways. Anyways.

Anyways.

Um...

Alright, so what else are you watching?

What else are you reading? What else are you watching?

I've got a book that I'm reading right now.

So we're both...

Yeah, you go.

Yeah, okay.

So we're both into the Lie of the Jedi series.

I'm still reading mine. You've already completed book one.

I'm still... I'm getting close to the end of it.

So we'll hopefully have it on a new podcast.

I'm also reading a book called The Story of Sushi.

Which is very surprising.

Like, it's a very...

It's a very...

I always associate sushi with Tokyo, Japan.

You know, like all these different places.

And it's a very, very good book.

It's very enlightening about the world of sushi.

How did you come upon this book?

So Trevor Korsen wrote a book that I read probably about four or five years ago

called The Secret Life of Lobsters.

Which is... I read really random.

I love random, random books.

Like books about salt. Books about lobsters.

Like just really weird books that are just about some small thing that I just find super interesting.

And he wrote The Secret Life of Lobsters, I think I want to say about four years ago.

And a really good book.

It's all about lobsters.

I don't know how to describe the book.

What's on the covers is what you're getting.

But it's a whole book about like lobstering and like the trade of lobsters through the first two, three hundred years.

Or the first two hundred years of the U.S. and like all this other stuff.

And why lobsters are worth so much because they're not there anymore.

You know, all this other stuff.

And when I saw that he came out with this book about The Story of Sushi, I was like, he's really good.

And he writes in a very good way that's...

Talks to the layman.

The person that doesn't know that much about the subject.

But he's very knowledgeable about it.

And I think he spends like two years researching whatever the next book is.

And then writing it for everybody.

So, highly recommend it.

Trevor Corbison, Story of Sushi.

Really, really good.

I'm only halfway through it.

But I'm very willing to say that it's a very good book that you may enjoy if you enjoy minutiae.

I guess is the best way to say it.

I'm intrigued.

I will say I'm intrigued.

I'm going to look that up.

Actually, wait another week or two and I'll give you the book.

Okay.

I'll have it back.

I'm playing Battlefield 2042 still.

I don't know.

Are you playing anything new?

Are you playing anything?

No, the last thing I played was Horizon 5.

Yeah, Horizon 5.

It was great.

It's so weird because there's so many big blockbuster games coming out right now because they got pushed back during COVID.

And now they're actually starting to get released.

I just don't want to play them.

Like there's just stuff that I just don't like.

Like Call of Duty and like all these others.

I'm just like, I'm done with that.

It's been saturated almost to the point where I just don't really care to play.

And yeah, anyways, so video game wise, I'm kind of in a lull.

Show wise, me and the wife are going to start Hawkeye this week.

We need to catch up on that.

About time.

I know it is about time.

I know you got done with Expanse.

I'm still halfway through Season 5.

I need to finish Season 5 and then 6.

I'm enjoying the heck out of the show.

It's back in at least in the middle of Season 5 where I'm at.

And I'm watching probably one episode a night.

It's gearing.

I mean it's running on all cylinders.

I feel like at least Seasons 4, 5, and 6.

I guess 6 is the last season, right?

Well, that's debatable.

But we can't talk about that because you're still in Season 5.

Okay, fair enough.

I'm saying the last produced season that's already been done.

As of right now, Season 6, yeah, the show has wrapped.

Right, so I'm halfway or I'm back probably about 3 quarters of the way through 5.

And, man, that show is just continuously good.

Like all 60 minutes, so good.

It's cliche at this point, but it truly is the best sci-fi on television.

By far.

Your physics mind I think is why you say that.

Like you you it's grounded.

It has solid stories real characters.

We weren't going to talk about this.

Yeah we're not.

It is.

I brought it up.

I'm hoping that you'll dance around season six.

But yeah.

Try to think of anything else that I've been watching.

Just to let you know it's a workout so we can discuss it in future episodes.

It's just slow.

Slowly but surely.

But I'm watching Kanto.

It's pretty good.

We have not watched that one yet.

We need to watch that.

I've heard really good things about it was it was good.

It was really good.

Like it was it was a very unique movie like the story is really well written.

Of course you know everybody knows the music's being played.

You know it's like top 100.

I don't know whatever the hell the lists are now.

But the movie itself the writing on it is pretty darn good.

It's it's in the of course the animation is amazing.

But I was impressed with it.

We watched it like kind of a family movie night.

I want to watch it.

And yeah it's pretty good.

Yeah we need to make a point to make that happen.

So thanks for joining us for episode 25 of the 11 Parts 6 podcast.

I think next week we're going to try to go for that Princess Amidala comic.

We got to do that.

And there's also a small short story that we're going to review along with probably episode 19 of season one of Clone Wars.

Yeah.

Until then.

Episode 26.

We will see you there.

Stay safe.

This is the 11 Parts 6 podcast episode 25.

If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to subscribe and leave us a good review.

And be sure to check us out at 11 Parts 6 dot com and discord.

I'm Jonathan Smith with the unscientific Eric Thompson.

Thank you for joining us.

Yeah baby.

You got to go all the way.

I'm going to go all the way with Bob's.