Episode 30: (21 BBY) Clone Wars Season 2 Ep 18 / Ep 19 / Visions 5

Oh boy.

Tell me how you hated this one.

Tell me how you hated this one.

Because I'm eager to hear it.

In this episode, the Jedi take on Gojira.

King Kong captures Manhattan and breaks our hearts.

And everybody wants a lightsaber.

We'll discuss Clone Wars episodes 218, 219, and Visions 5 in this edition of the 11 Parsecs Podcast.

Hello and welcome to episode 30 of the 11 Parsecs Podcast. My name's Eric and I'm here with my good buddy Jon.

Hello. That was a weird one.

We haven't been, we haven't recorded in about two or three weeks.

We've been on some vacations and some COVIDs and some all sorts of stuff, but we're back.

Today we're going to be talking about episode, or sorry, season 2, episode 18 and 19 of The Clone Wars, which regards the Zulu Beast.

And also Visions Episode 5, the 9th Jedi.

So, how's it going Jon? Doing alright?

Doing very well, but I am a bit parched.

Oh, okay. Well let's just go ahead and wet our mouths with some beer.

Before we even get started. Let's wet our mouths with some beer.

That's a really weird saying that I'm going to start saying a lot more, I think.

Let's wet our mouths. Let's all wet our mouths.

Hey, hey, that's the next thing I'm going to do. Next time I'm giving a speech at a wedding or something, I'm going to be like,

Hey, hey, listen up. Let's all wet our mouths.

Let's all, see Bob and Janice over here? Hey, let's all wet our mouths for them. Come on, everybody.

You wet your, yeah, you wet your mouths. Let's go.

Everyone wet your mouths, especially you, Grammy.

Alright, what are you drinking tonight, Jon?

So tonight, another Cherry Street. I see a Cherry Street. I love it. I got to try it.

Local Brewery. Our Local Brewery. Our Local Brewery.

Our Local Brewery. Yes, just down the street.

Trident True. I've never seen this before.

No, I've never heard of this. What is it?

It is a double IPA. Okay.

So, I mean, you know, nothing crazy.

This is Trident, like the C guy, like T-R-I-D-E-N-T?

Yeah, it's got it cracking all over the can.

Oh man, I'm so intrigued now.

Trident True. I thought, and dear God help me, I thought it might be a sour when I saw the name.

Mmm, yeah.

You know, like sour like the C.

And it doesn't say anything like that on the can, so it better not be a sour beer.

Okay.

You know, you could really make a really good IPA or double IPA with a little bit of the sourness, and I wouldn't mind it.

Like, I'm not a Ghost brewer, that's not my style, but still, like a little bit of different flavor to kind of like offbeat the hops and stuff.

I don't know that that wouldn't be that bad if it's Manute, if it's a barely flavor, you know what I mean?

You don't mess with my IPA.

Alright, alright. So, I am drinking a double IPA in honor of you.

It's Wild Leap Alpha Abstraction, which you may have had on this show, I believe.

Sounds familiar.

So, I bought a five pack, I bought a six pack of these, like, no, I bought a six pack of these, well somebody stole them.

No, I bought a six pack of these guys like, I don't know, maybe a month ago?

And I specifically saved one of them because they're delicious.

And I specifically saved one of them just for the podcast, just because it's absolutely delicious.

Are you ready to pop tops, John? Are you ready to wet your mouth?

Well, I want to wet my mouth so bad.

Okay, three, two, one.

And I'm not a caveman. I brought a glass, it's a nice frosted mug.

Seriously, you really got to pour it in a glass.

I know, it's good, it's good.

With a good beer like this.

Alright, here's the sip.

Oh, yeah, that's just as...

Mine, mine has to sit, mine has to sit.

Oh, mine doesn't because I poured it well.

Hey-oh.

Hey, yeah.

Fine, I'm going to plow through the foam.

Sit so I can wet my mouth.

That's the second time I've done that.

I'm going to wet my mouth.

That's the second best thing to say to a wedding.

Hey, for Janice and Bob, let's plow through the foam.

That is freaking delicious.

Yes, I'm going to have to try this.

You've really peaked my...

It's different, too. It is different.

Now I've got to read the can.

What are the hops in it?

It's way too dark in the studio, I can't read this.

Nope, no chance of me reading that.

But I will, I'll update you on what I can find out about this beer.

Different flavor, definitely a different flavor.

Well, I am... Did you buy it recently?

Could I still go buy it, you think, today?

I acquired this just for this podcast.

Oh, nice. Okay. Like recently? Like yesterday?

My listeners, not necessarily your listeners,

but my listeners deserve nothing less.

Okay, fair enough. Mine's a month old and I bought one that was...

I already had one stolen. But regardless.

All right, look, let's wet our mouths and talk about Zillow Beasts.

Because that's what I wanted to do this morning.

I got up, I was like, you know, I've got to go to work.

You know, it's good, you know, I enjoy my job, you know, it's going to be fun.

Bye.

You know what I'm really wanting to do is wet my mouth to talk about Zillow Beast.

Wet my mouth.

Alright, so Season 2, Episode 18. We're still in the throes of Season 2 of The Clone Wars.

We got a lot to talk about with these two episodes.

So we watched Zillow Beast and the return, I think, of Zillow Beast Returns, which is the...

The Zillow Beast Strikes Back.

Zillow Beast Strikes Back, I'm sorry.

Episode 19.

What a catchy title.

It is. It's pretty good. I wonder where they got that.

Yeah, so Episode 19, Zillow Beast Returns.

Let's talk about the first one. We're on the planet of Malastare.

And some people choose some bad decisions and this beast comes out of the ground.

And it's a really good Kaiju-esque episode for me.

These might be my two favorite episodes that we've seen out of Season 2 of The Clone Wars.

I would agree with you 100%.

Yes, the dragon reveal when you see the dragon.

That was super cool.

When you said that people make mistakes, I mean, they launched the bomb.

That was a good idea, right?

Yeah, well, that's kind of the thing.

So they wake this beast.

They didn't know.

They didn't know. You're right. You're right. I should say that.

They didn't know. They wake this beast.

I think maybe more of the lines of what the planet species decided to do once it was awoken was maybe more of a mistake.

Yeah, the whole arrogance in Star Wars.

Leading to disaster.

Do you know the name of the species?

Because they were the Sebulba species from Phantom, right?

Yes, they were.

The podracer guy?

Well, yes, John. They're called Dugs.

Okay, that brings no bells.

Yeah, I was able to look that up pretty quick.

So, yeah, the Dugs, they walk on their hands, blah, blah, blah.

You get Sebulba from the original trilogy.

It's not the original trilogy. Do not say that.

Sorry, sorry. The prequel trilogy. My bad.

Pre-trilogy.

Yeah, my prequel trilogy.

So, yeah, they're just full of, as you said earlier, arrogance, hubris, everything under the sun.

And they just think they can destroy this thing because it's what their forefathers did whenever they encountered this thing.

I don't know. I just I feel like I really enjoyed Anakin flying down and kind of losing the battle and figuring out that he can't do something.

You know what I mean?

That was a that was a neat kind of twist of the episode, in my opinion, just because I was kind of like, hey, he can't.

Like, this is one of the first times that he's honestly been faced with something.

He's like, what do I do?

You know, like, I can't my lightsaber does nothing.

You know, like, I can't hurt this thing.

We've got to figure out a different way.

You know, Mace, you know, somewhat understands it.

One of the things, though, that I still find so funny in these episodes is that, like, they're so worried about our Mace is so worried about about killing this thing.

But the clone troopers and dogs are dying, like left and right.

Like, it's a very weird, like, dynamic to me because it's just kind of like, OK, I understand this one life.

But like, are all is all life equal or is this guy just super, super big and equal to tons of other lives because he's so big?

You know what I mean? Like, or because he's a rare, maybe the best way to say it.

I think it's probably it has to be the rarity because they slay animals left and right.

If they're the quote unquote, I'm doing air quotes, bad animals.

Right. Some animals, you know, you got to preserve them if they're cute.

But if they're mean, then you just cut their heads.

So so so two things. And this could go 50 50 either way.

Do you think there was an ulterior motive with Mace knowing that the lightsabers weren't working, that he wanted to keep this thing alive?

And or did he really look at this thing as so rare that he just wanted it to continue living?

Like, I felt like I felt like it was definitely the latter while I was watching the episode.

But then when you get more into Palpatine in the second episode, I'm like, did Mace kind of like want to keep this thing alive because he.

Why? Why would he want to do that? Well, I mean, we see we see in the second episode.

And let's let's talk about that. So we're talking about episode 18 up until now.

This thing escapes. They escapes the hole that it was blown up in or what have you.

And they end up being able to capture it. So in episode 19, this thing's being transported back to curse of all places to take it.

I don't know what people are thinking here, but they take it to curse on and they start to do experiments on it.

And Palpatine realizes that that that they can't necessarily fight this thing with lightsabers.

So is there some type of armor that makes it better than everything? Let's do some science experiments on it.

And of course, stuff goes amok, stuff hits the fan and this thing gets out into the middle of curse on just starts destroying every building and everything.

I absolutely love the episode 19. It felt like a like a Godzilla on a rampage type situation.

And I loved it. What do you think? I mean, were you the same page? I mean, it was just.

Well, yeah, it's funny you say Godzilla because this was King Kong.

Or King Kong story is a King Kong story. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. Agreed. They go to the exotic locale and they capture the actually.

Right. The Beast. And then boom, they're back, you know, where they really shouldn't go.

New York City. In this case, the capital, capital world. Yeah. New York City.

And of course it gets out because everybody wants to see King Kong just lay waste to New York.

Yeah. So it has to get out and it has to just just destroy stuff.

It was a little weird, though, because they have a shot where it looks at the Senate building, the giant Senate building.

And it's like, that's where they are.

How does it know that? Yeah. And it's drawn.

It's drawn to Palpatine.

Like it's drawing. It's drawn about how I don't know.

And I don't know if it's if it's I don't know if it's a force thing or what.

But I felt like that was kind of the edge in Episode 19 was that it didn't like him at all.

Because if you remember, like the beginning of Episode 19, he kind of raises an eye at Palpatine when Palpatine's talking.

Oh, he gives the death.

And it's like he's he's latched on him.

And I don't know if it's just his immense evilness.

Palpatine wants to kill him.

Well, yeah, he's fully aware of they.

That's why this episode ends up with me totally rooting for the beast, because they portray it as intelligent.

Yeah, no, it knows what's going on.

And it knows that Palpatine is his mortal enemy now.

Because Palpatine is being really it.

This was a nice, nice, you know, progression to see Palpatine being really kind of nasty.

A little bit of the villainy coming out, you know, yeah, kill him.

You will kill him or I'll find somebody else or number one, it coming out in front of other people like like not yet.

And then number two, just the fact that it's showing, in my opinion, that at this point, this beast is smarter than the Jedi.

I mean, like it knows something's evil with him and it's going after him, whereas the Jedi are like, oh, yeah, OK, yeah, we'll do what you want.

Yeah. And that's why at the end of the episode, I'm like, you guys suck.

Yeah, agree. You suck.

You took him where he should never have gone because Palpatine had ulterior motives and and you ended up having to kill him.

You suck. But I really enjoyed the last little like two minute montage where they talk about how you want some clone.

Like, yeah, that was good.

Yeah, that was I was just like, oh, yeah, here we go.

I was like, OK, we're really starting to get into like like this doctor scientist lady.

Like, she's going to say anything to anyone.

Like, I mean, like what is what is her biggest fear, because I mean, she knows she shouldn't be cloning this thing, you know, and it's like, oh, OK, like like like this is where this is where the normal population can start to see evil in Palpatine.

But the Jedi are still blind as blind can be, in my opinion.

That's my opinion at the end of it.

She's the who's the who's the geneticist in Jurassic Park?

Is it Dr. Wu or Dr. Henry?

Henry Wu? Yes.

Yeah. Dr. Dr. Wu.

Yeah. She's she's that character.

And in the Star Wars universe, she's the muse that's kind of like, maybe we shouldn't do this.

Like, yeah, we shouldn't do this.

But does it? Yeah, because they're following order.

Yeah, I agree.

So I am very curious to see where this goes.

Yeah, I think we're going to see those little beasts later.

I think it's going to be further episodes.

I don't know that, but I'm hoping that that's the way it is because I really love these episodes.

This was by far my favorite of season two.

Borderline, maybe my favorite of all The Clone Wars episodes we've watched thus far.

I can't say it's my favorite, but I'm hoping it's the way it is.

I can't say it's my favorite of all of them, but it is definitely up there.

I really enjoyed it from the beginning where you see Y-Wings, because I love Y-Wings,

or at least the precursors to the Y-Wings, to the ending, which made me actually root for the beast.

Good stuff. Yeah, agreed.

And we got a Wilhelm scream.

That's yes, we did.

I have it in my notes.

Absolutely.

Now that we've talked about that in the previous episode, I'd say that all the time.

Like, I look for that Wilhelm scream and I love it because it shows up everywhere now.

And I always knew it did. It was subconsciously, I never thought about it.

Yeah, it's very good.

Yeah, great, great, great two episodes.

I hope that this, you know, we're not gonna continue with the Zillow Beast,

but I do hope that this continues on with this kind of like larger story or like bigger things.

I enjoyed that.

It was good. Really good.

All right, now we're moving on to Visions Episode 5, The Ninth Jedi.

Oh boy.

Oh boy.

Tell me how you hated this one.

Tell me how you hated this one.

Because I'm eager to hear it.

Because so to be fair, I only watched Visions up until I think Episode 4,

whenever I watched it for the first time.

And I was like, I'm gonna watch it again.

I was like, I'm gonna watch it again.

I only watched Visions up until I think Episode 4, whenever I watched it previously.

And then I've been saving these for when we both watch them together.

So I really want to know what you hated about this one.

I didn't, I didn't hate this.

Yes. So would you say this...

Sorry to disappoint you.

Would you say this is your favorite one so far, Jon?

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, for the chase scene, if nothing else.

Even better than the Ronin Episode 1?

Oh yeah. That was more stylistic.

Okay, okay. Fair enough.

So you were better with the art with this one?

Yeah, this was, this was, it was well done.

It wasn't over the top anime.

I agree with that.

I agree with that.

That one was like, I don't get it.

I don't get it.

But this one was good.

And of course, the the the what is it?

The MacGuffin of the episode where you have the lightsabers and change colors,

depending on the person wielding it.

That's neat.

And of course, it was required for the for the plot for that to happen,

you know, and that was a nice, nice thing where you see all the red lightsabers.

Like, oh, no, this is this.

So this is definitely the first episode that I was bummed that these stories

are not in canon, because I know with the rodent, you know, episode that I really

liked, we got the book.

I'd love to see more in this kind of side universe.

The Star Wars.

I really enjoyed this episode.

I thought I thought it was really well done.

I thought the delivery of the payoff was perfect.

Yeah, I thought it was really good.

I really, really enjoy this episode.

That being said, it's not canon.

So it's it stinks because you're not really guaranteed to have any type of

more buildup of this story.

But I thought this was a great little like seed to plant and just be like, oh,

this is so good.

Oh, yeah, it was really good.

I was in my notes was this would make a good series.

Really?

Really?

Really good.

Start of a good series that I would watch.

Totally.

Yeah, and it doesn't it to me.

It doesn't also this can be like a what if type situation.

It doesn't have to be canon.

Like just give me this little side story with these artists and this story writer

and like all this other kind of stuff that's maybe like four or five episodes.

I love it.

I would absolutely love it.

Now.

I don't know what the budget looks like for that because this was really well

done animation.

I think and that's one of the things that I completely agree with you on is

that this wasn't over the top anime from a stylistic point of view, but it

was very well drawn and very well kind of like scripted and written and man.

It was so good.

This this this is very I can't decide whether I like this one better than the

first Star Wars Episode one or this one that they were both really good.

But man, this one has a whole story as a whole story like it's it's amazing

what they packed into that time frame like yeah, and the fact that see I

always struggle with that that it's not canon.

I have that in my head.

I know that but I'm always struggling with it because subconsciously I keep

trying to fit it in where does this fit into Star Wars and it gets it just

gets exhausting after a while.

You can't I can't really switch that off.

Yeah.

No, and I agree.

And then the same thing with the the road and one for the first one.

It's like this is amazing story and then he pulls out like all the different

red crystals that he's harvested and you're like, wait a minute.

Can you do that?

And then you're like, oh wait, this doesn't it doesn't matter anymore.

It doesn't fit.

It doesn't it don't try to fit in a timeline.

Don't wait.

Why am I doing that with my brain?

But that's part of this podcast and that's what we do.

But now but yeah, yeah, such a good story.

I employ anybody who has not seen Episode five of visions to go watch

that it is so good and I would love if they like expanded on that up that

episode, you know, I mean it is so good so good.

Yeah, storyline writing the gathering of people try to figure out what's

going on.

So yeah, my only quibble is it's all fixated on lightsabers.

It is and all those Jedi show up and they that's all they want to know

is where's the light servers.

You got a light service.

You can show up with lightsabers.

Where my lightsaber?

What is the freaking deal with lightsabers?

Why are they I get it?

They're cool.

But why are they so and well, they don't talk about it, but I kind of get

the drift from the episode that there's only certain people in this

universe that can build them and well, they say yeah, the lightsabers

disappeared before the black and the black.

So they're all blacksmith that you know, of course at the beginning of

the episode.

He's the only one if you're a Jedi.

Well, that's it.

That's it.

That's that's the thing.

That's the line.

We have to draw.

We can't make the connection with the old universe because you built your

own lightsaber.

That was part of becoming a Jedi.

Yeah.

Yeah, let me correct myself.

They have they are force users.

They have force powers.

What is it about having a lightsaber?

Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, I can make you can you can like throw people and it's almost like

this is like 2,000 years and this is the drift I got it never says this

never explains it but I forget the drift.

This is like two three thousand years after the Jedi.

Nobody knows this sacred art of building the lightsaber anymore.

These people are force sensitive.

But if yeah, I agree with you if you're force sensitive, you can get by

without a lightsaber.

It's not like it's the end of the world not to have a lightsaber. Maybe

it's like this kind of like thing where you want to show off that you

have force and you can you know how you have a lightsaber but it's more

of a status symbol at this point versus an actual weapon.

I would think you know, I guess I can accept that they certainly act

like they're nothing until they get the lightsaber within their then

they're everything.

It's just that that part a little you know bothers me a little bit

because also do how do they how do they know there's no better lightsabers

like like like is there one or two people that have them and they're

known as like, you know demigods that like that walk among the men

and women and because they have a lightsaber even though they are

force-sensitive just like they are.

Yeah, I don't understand the the status reference of the the lightsaber.

But I don't have to. I mean, it's good. It's a good. It's a great episode.

That's right, Eric. You don't have to understand. Consume!

Consume and want weapons. You must want weapons.

Yeah, I don't know. This was really good. Really good episode.

We got lucky this week. I feel like we got really lucky with The Clone Wars and Visions.

Both were awesome.

Hey, beer update. While you were off researching Dugs,

You mean while I was remembering in a half second exactly that there was a Dug?

Yes, accessing the remote corners of your brain is what I meant to say.

I was able to read the can and discover that Trident is the name of a blend of Humps.

Really? What are the three Humps?

That's why it's called Trident True. Trident Blend of Humps.

And the three Humps are?

It does not say. It's a blend.

Proprietary secret blend.

Fair enough. I'll let Chase read that.

I know some of those guys over there. I'm fine with it. I like those guys.

Tell me what the Trident is!

I like walking there with a Trident.

You make luck, Jimmy. You tell me what the Trident is.

You will yield your secrets.

And then I will wet your mouth.

It's not like I can do anything with them. I just want to know what they are.

I won't say it on my podcast.

Seriously, I can't make beer. I don't know what to do with the knowledge.

Alright, John. It's been a couple of weeks.

It's been a couple of weeks since we've recorded.

I know you are on the front lines of the coolest sci-fi and other shows going around and streaming.

Oh, I got something for you.

I want to hear. I've got some stuff too.

So let's move on to the back half of the podcast.

What are you watching? What are you playing? What are you reading?

Hit me up.

Have you ever heard of the series?

I think it was either two or three seasons and I think it's done now.

It's on HBO Max at this point. It's called Raised by Wolves.

My brother, during the first season, finished the finale and immediately texted me.

And was like, oh my God, you've got to watch this. You've got to watch this show.

I've had it in my queue. I have not watched it yet.

I understand that it is...

He professed almost that it was mind-blowing.

My brother has read a lot. My brother is very sci-fi heavy.

He really watches a lot of stuff and he was just amazingly impressed by it.

And I just haven't gotten around to watching it yet.

We do the thing with HBO where it's like, I'll sub for a couple of months and then I'll back off and not pay for it for a while.

Yeah, the churn.

And then I'll jump on it again when you've got Game of Thrones prequel series coming out.

So I think that's the reason I haven't watched it.

Same thing with Westworld or finished up Westworld where I was.

But yeah, I have heard very, very good things about it.

Have you watched all of them yet?

I think I'm on the final episode of season one.

I think that's where I am.

So people that I follow on Twitter wouldn't shut up about it, so I said fine.

I looked into it and yeah, that sci-fi looks enjoyable.

I won't go into any of the details because you need to go in, I think, like I did, which was blank.

No expectations, no understandings.

Other than this, you will know this, it's about Androids trying to raise human children in a far off planet.

That's it.

That's all you need to really know.

Was it a previous story that was in book form?

Like was it Philip K. Dick or something like that?

I have no idea.

Not a clue.

And so I really can't go much more into it than that.

I will say that for me it started out strong.

It's had its kind of ups and downs a little bit lately.

So I am very curious to see where it goes.

But people did rave about it.

So in season two it must get...

I'm just curious.

I'm curious to see where it goes.

Well, I mean it's HBO.

I can recommend it.

You're very, very good about looking at it.

If you get a season two, that means it must have been pretty good.

Because people liked it.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting into season two.

Interesting.

You've moved it up a few spots, Mike, you could say.

Definitely watch it.

Yeah, it's good.

It is very...

I love seeing the imagination brought to the screen with money.

You can tell there's a budget and they pursued it.

It's well spent.

So did you watch Westworld?

Yes.

First season, awesome.

Second season, what the hell is going on.

Third season, what the hell is going on.

Why am I watching this again?

Four seasons.

I've just started.

You can stop.

You can stop.

You can stop.

Yeah.

Don't.

Don't.

Yeah.

So I watched I watched all the first season.

Loved every bit of it.

And watched three episodes of season two.

It was just like, I don't know about this anymore.

I had to keep going.

I don't know why I watched season three.

I feel like I need to push through it, especially with a new season.

And I feel like it'll get better.

But now you've just ruined that.

So I don't know.

I think it's like almost like a like, I really, really enjoyed that first season.

It was so good.

And then, man.

And that's where they should have kept it.

They should have kept going with those kinds of stories.

Yeah, they did not.

Yeah.

The third season, I was just kind of like, or sorry, the third episode

of the second season, I remember just being like,

why am I spending my time watching this?

Like, what? What?

Like, what is what is happening?

Yeah. So I was thinking about starting that back up.

Well, so me and the wife have been watching Umbrella Academy season three.

Did you watch?

Oh, I have not watched that yet.

No. You watch one.

And I'm caught up.

OK, good. Yeah, I'm caught up.

I just haven't started season three.

There's so much on right now.

Oh, my God. Everything's hidden.

It's like everything from COVID's hidden.

Same time.

Yeah, it's it's it's good.

It's really good.

It's of course, also

me and my daughter have been are finished up season.

The last season of Stranger Things, which every single season,

I sit there and think, I don't know if I want to watch the next season

because I know it's going to disappoint me

because it can never be as good as the last season.

And then I'll be damned.

I mean, this season was great.

Have you watched it?

I am on I'm up to the final episode.

I've not watched.

Yeah, I like what is it, two and a half hours, two and a half hours.

And let me tell you what I tell you, John.

Yeah, I was really, really

I put it off for a long time because I was like two and a half hours

is a huge investment.

At the end of that two and a half hours, I was looking for director commentary.

I was looking for extra credit scenes.

I was looking for anything more I could get.

It was so good. Consume.

So good. Consume. So good.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It was it was so good.

Like, I don't know how they keep that show so good.

The writing is just amazing.

Duffler Brothers are.

I don't I don't know how all that stuff manifests in their head.

It's so good. So good.

And it's a poppy show, too.

Like, it's so like like part of me wants to be like, oh, yeah, this season's OK.

You know, you know, it wasn't as good as the other.

It is. Oh, my gosh.

Like they're so this.

Yeah. Season four has been very good.

It has. And it gets.

Oh, yeah. We all talk about it.

Anything else you're watching that's out of the ordinary?

The boys. Oh, yeah.

I haven't started the season.

The boys. You have not watched any of this.

This season. I'm caught up, but I haven't watched the season. Yeah.

I know. I know.

It's so. Yeah.

Only finite hours that I have to watch.

And I love the boys. I'm not at all.

Have you heard anything about this?

And I have so many words on my Twitter.

Like I have so many media like like honestly, it's like

it's like I will like like I'll start to read Twitter

like I'll get a coffee, my coffee in the morning, I'll start reading Twitter

and I'll see somebody start to say something

and I just cut the tweet off like in my head

and I go to my muted words and I just start meeting different words

because I'm like, I can't I don't want anything ruined.

Like, you know, yeah.

I can't say.

Yeah, don't don't. I don't want anything ruined.

John, there's so many things you're like, did they really?

Yeah, I know. I'm sure there is on.

Well, let's think about the last season.

Some of the stuff that I'm like, well, think about the first season

like the whale, like there are so many things that I'm like,

there's no way they can go further.

Error. Nothing. That's nothing.

You have no idea.

I knew that show.

I knew that show was like one of my own shows, like a show that I knew

was going to push so many boundaries that I would love.

And that first episode of season one, when that poor dude's girlfriend,

like you're just like, are you serious?

And then you're like, OK, OK, OK, the shock opener.

Yeah, the when when that the camera

who it was was riding that guy's face.

Yes. And kind of carried away and pulped his head.

Oh, my gosh. Yes, yes.

Yeah, that's nothing. That's nothing.

Is that nothing? Pulped his head.

You I have I have stared at the TV screen

with my jaw just open.

Well, that's the thing that they just show. That's the thing, though, is

they've got to keep pushing it every season, like more and more.

I know that. And my God, the creativity.

Yes, is really something.

That's what's got to come in. It's not the gore.

It's got to be the creativity. It's got to be the creative.

No, it's the it's the flat out.

Holy crap. Yeah.

What did I just see?

Which is which is great for kids who grew up on on for me, not on YouTube.

We didn't have cable.

And then we got to college where we could watch some type of cable programming.

And then this is just like the next leap forward.

This is like, OK, we're going to really wreck your brains in a minute.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. What else? What else you've been watching, playing?

Put that one. Put that one at the top of your playlist.

No.

You've already given me two. I don't know where to go from here. I've got to finish up Umberlake Academy.

And then um...

No, it's worth it. It's a good show.

It's a good show.

Raised by Wolves is one of those things. You're watching it, you're enjoying it, and you're appreciating it.

The Boys is just holy crap.

Oh my god.

Really?

Really? I just had that in my face?

That? Really?

And then that happened.

I like the diversity.

I like the thinking man stuff.

I like the just pure like, whoa, here we go.

Comic book, here we go.

See, and that's why the brilliance of this that I can't talk about without giving it away is

let's just say it, what they depict ties into a recent

Oh, stop, stop.

Internet discussion.

No, that's all I'm saying. Just an internet discussion.

I'm not even going to say what it's about.

No, because it goes to wreck my brain thinking about what you're talking about.

Nah, it's a thing. Don't worry about it.

Beyond that, um...

God, I'd have to...

Video gaming? Have you been gaming at all?

I started Far Cry 5.

Oh, okay.

I did not expect you to say that.

Really? Yeah.

Why?

I don't know. I've never heard you really talk about the other Far Cry games.

Oh, I...

That's the one with Juan Carlos Casito?

Nope, that's 6.

Oh, okay. 5 is the one that's on the island?

Which I forgot was even a thing. 5 is out on Game Pass.

Okay, so 5 is the one with the uh...

Yeah, the blonde guy.

Montana Religious...

Oh, no, no, no. I haven't played that one.

I haven't played that one.

Yeah, I played 4. That was fun.

What are your thoughts on 5?

I just started it.

And it's...

I love the dedication to the world so far.

Yeah.

Those games are like...

The open world kind of shooting games to me

are kind of blending in my mind now.

So I can't really differentiate between which one's which.

Especially with the Far Cry series where you're on an island, you're on an island.

Juan Carlos Casito one though.

That one really, I'm just kind of like,

alright, that's some pretty good acting.

That's gotta be a pretty good storyline I would suspect.

But, um,

yeah, I haven't given him a try.

Yep. It's been a while.

So when I saw it come on to Game Pass,

I want to give it a shot.

Yeah, let's talk about how awesome Game Pass is.

I mean, seriously.

Like, I don't...

I'm sure Microsoft

understands the dynamics

and understands the money-making opportunities with it,

but I get so many games off Game Pass now

that like,

I rarely buy games anymore.

It's just like...

Well, it depends on what kind of gamer you are.

If you're the gamer that has to have the thing that just came out

and you don't want to wait for Game Pass

to get it like I did for Far Cry 5,

because they already have Far Cry 6,

then if you're more of a passive,

like, what can I play?

Oh, I'll play that.

It's amazing. It's perfect.

But if you have to have the new thing,

then that's not going to do it for you.

Well, I don't know.

So, EA Games, if you're into sports games,

you can get most of the sports games if you get the EA Game Pass part

that's now part of Game Pass Ultra.

Yeah.

A lot of people just...

A lot of the people that I talk to at work,

they're younger, they're probably in their 30s and 20s,

and they really just play sports games on the Xbox.

That's all they do.

And those games are actually included

in the Game Pass stuff now.

So that kind of takes that crowd out of buying newer games,

which is kind of wild to me that they're making enough money

that I guess they may be losing money, I guess,

to pay EA to be able to play those games on the Game Pass.

But also,

just some games

that I've been huge into,

like Fall Guys lately,

which is this stupid little game

where you just drive this little...

Have you played Fall Guys?

No.

I don't know how to describe it.

It's this little Play-Doh guy,

and you and 99 other people are in this Battle Royale type situation.

Oh, I know the game.

And you're doing all these stupid obstacles, and it's just fun.

It's just a fun game that you can waste 30 minutes with.

And they have the season pass things

and all that kind of crap, but you don't have to buy that.

And it's just a fun little game,

and I've been having a blast with that lately.

And it's free,

which actually, I don't even know that that needs the Game Pass

to have it for free.

I think it's everybody can have it for free,

and you just do the DLCs

and you get things you can buy from the game.

Yeah, I don't know.

The gaming world is changing so quickly.

I tried Xbox Cloud Gaming

about two weeks ago.

I was absolutely amazed.

You can literally be a business person,

take your Xbox controller with you,

and assuming either your hotel

has a Samsung TV or the newer Samsung TVs,

or just take your iPad

or your laptop with you,

you can play so many games streaming now

that you don't need an actual console.

I wonder if we're going to

very soon get to the point

where people don't own consoles

and just play the cloud streaming games.

Like, yeah, you're limited. Don't get me wrong.

Your library is limited.

Just as you said earlier with the Game Pass,

you're not getting those AAA titles off the bat

right when they come out.

If it's a Microsoft developed, wouldn't you do?

I mean, cause that's part of the Game Pass.

Like it, it, it amazes me how much progression I think we've had over

COVID in the video game sector that nobody's really acknowledged.

Like, I like, I feel like, like in the last three years we jumped, like what

would have been 10 years previous to the COVID and, and nobody really just talks

about it and I'm just like, man, as a kid, this would have been, you know, mind

blowing to me, like, like, like I can just take my controller to a hotel and

start playing all these different games that I have access to on the hotel TV.

That's crazy.

I don't know.

It's all driven by, by broadband access.

Oh, totally.

No, totally.

If the speed is fast enough.

It's all bandwidth.

I totally agree with that.

You don't need a console.

Why would you need a console?

And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not denying the progression of not needing a console.

It's just, to me, it's like under looked like, I feel like people I talk to are

still like, oh no, I've got my, you know, 3080 TI awesome PC rig over here that I

paid $2,000 for.

And I'm like, you don't need that anymore, man.

Like, like, you don't get me wrong.

That's if you want, if you want a hundred frames per second and crystal clear, you

know, you know, beauty in the latest AAA game, and maybe it's just me getting

older, but, but the latest AA game.

Yeah, you can have that.

But honestly, for a decent gaming, a very good gaming experience, if you just have

a broad game connection, you can pretty much play what you want.

You know, Forza Horizon five is a beautiful game.

I mean, it's absolutely beautiful and you can play it on a decent connection, you

know, an 80 to a hundred megabits, you know, pull down.

You can play that game in a beautiful way, like on a TV in your hotel with just your

controller, your personal controller.

It's like, it's amazing.

You're accessing a blade in the some server farm, right?

It's just some console somewhere else that's feeding to you.

And it's, and it's responsive.

It works.

It's very good.

And you're playing a driving game where you really have to have that kind of Twitch.

You know, movement and everything.

Again, again, yes.

But that's just, that's a factor of the access to the download and upload.

Yeah.

And if that's fast enough, it doesn't matter anymore.

And the programming behind it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Agreed.

It's, it's just, I feel like that has been so overlooked.

Like people don't talk about that.

Like people are just like, I have the latest, greatest hardware.

This is awesome.

I want this, you know, I want this, I'm going to queue up for this next console,

Jen, you know, it's just like, you don't need it.

Like the future's already here.

Like, why is, why are people not pumping this?

This is amazing.

This is absolutely mind blowing to, you know, a kid my age.

I think that's going to be one of those things that you're going to look back

and realize that the, the entire segment shifted under your feet and you didn't

even really consciously think about it.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

That's exactly.

You start, cause you started playing on, you started playing cloud games and you

just stopped the way you stopped buying disks, right?

And you started downloading the games.

You'll just stop downloading games.

Yep.

No, you're exactly right.

You're exactly right.

Like that's, that's, that's, I just feel like it's going to be a term for that.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like a, it's like a missed, uh, seamless shift.

Yeah.

A seamless shift.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm shift.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But also too, I feel like too, that maybe, uh, people younger than us are not,

uh, they're, they're, they're still worried about the hardware and they're

still using the hardware, you know what I mean?

Like it's like, it's like, that's such a niche thing though.

Come on.

That's a tiny fraction of the market.

No, no, I don't think so.

I think that if you look at, if you look at all of Microsoft's let's take, let's

take every single Xbox gaming hour today, you know, July 7th today, all hours that

are played, I'm going to say that under 3% are played on the cloud.

3%.

Like it's so micro like so micro.

What percent or what percent are played on PCs?

That I don't know.

Yeah.

PC.

Yeah.

Yeah.

PC service.

Those are the guys who care about hardware.

Those are the ones who care about that.

That's the ship expensive.

GPU.

No, that's the ship for me.

Is that like, it used to be the hardware.

It used to be the PC guys.

The guys blowed up, you know, like, like, and I was part of it.

I have a great PC upstairs.

Like the guys loaded up their video cards, loaded up the Ram all like, like, you know,

like, you know, like steam was it, and that it is what it is.

And that's, you know, that's, that's the way to go.

But then you've now got people that are like, no man, I'm staying on my Xbox.

Like, cause you've got this cloud, the streaming service, and that's like the

next level looking down at almost.

And I feel like people are like, nah, I'm not going to stream.

And I got my own Xbox and don't get me wrong.

You paid for it.

You should use it.

And you know, I'm all for it, but I, I, I feel like that that crowd is not looking

at the cloud streaming and going, holy crap.

You don't have to do anything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, if you get into the hobbyist, that that's, that's a category all to unto

itself and we don't need to bother with that because that's, that's our hobby.

They're going to do that.

But the funny thing is that for much of my adult gaming life, it was all driven by.

Better graphics, better graphics, better graphics, more polygons, all that stuff.

And then all of a sudden it didn't matter anymore.

And people started playing Fortnite and Borderlands and Fall Guys, right?

Where the graphics are not the point! Minecraft.

World of Warcraft.

Jesus Christ.

That was huge.

The graphics don't matter anymore.

That was a huge mark in...

I was a big EQ2 player and EQ2, they concentrated so much on having these beautiful graphics,

these realistic graphics and then they got their lunch eaten by World of Warcraft, which

was cartoon.

I mean, it was something so simple.

And then Fortnite is the greatest example.

You could have named, I mean that's exactly...

Not only did you have to worry about having the latest GPU and with the latest drivers

and everything working together, right, with the highest refresh monitors, not only that,

but it also was free.

It was such a revolution in the concept of gaming.

Agreed.

And again, Fortnite, which if you guys remember, they're locked in a lawsuit with Apple right

now because they didn't want to pay the 20% or the 30% tithe or whatever the Apple tithe

is for selling things via Apple.

What they've done is they've partnered with Microsoft.

So now you are able to go on your iOS device and go to play Microsoft Cloud games on your

iDevice.

And we are not getting paid for this, just to make sure nobody thinks we're shills or

anything.

Yeah, there's no money involved in this.

You can go on your iPhone, play cloud-based games with a controller on your iPhone and

Fortnite's free.

So if you want to play Fortnite on your iPhone, you could totally do it now.

It's just that you don't go through iOS.

So they're not paying the 30% tithe.

And that's a very interesting lawsuit.

I'm not going to decide on Apple and Android, but their ecosystems, I understand the fact

that you want somebody to monitor your applications that you load onto your phone so that they're

not terrible applications that are sucking in everything.

But also, there's a price on that.

But I don't know that that price is the best price.

I don't know where that price falls and where it should fall, that kind of thing.

But I do love the runaround that Epic and Microsoft have done with Apple iOS, where

they're just like, OK, yeah, you don't have to do it through iOS.

We'll do it through the web.

And you know what we call that?

You know what we call that?

Capitalism.

Capitalism, baby.

Agreed.

Agreed.

And I love it.

I love it.

I mean, it's impressive what you can do now streaming.

I mean, I'm still in utter amazement whenever, you know, like I was in California a few months

ago and me and my son were, it was raining or something.

We were eating pizza and we decided to load up Forza 4 at the time, I think.

I don't think 4 was out yet.

And yeah, we started playing Forza 4 with a good game controller on my Mac, my travel,

you know, work PC.

And we had a great time.

I mean, it was just amazing.

It was such good graphics.

We were in Palmsbury.

It was super fast, you know, internet connection, all that kind of stuff.

So that's, you know, definitely a requirement.

But I'm just like, we don't need these consoles anymore.

The hardware wars are over.

You know, you don't need it.

It amazes me.

It absolutely amazes me.

Yeah.

Good thing too, because you can't get them.

Yeah, seriously.

Yeah.

And you don't want to pay the 600 bucks for them.

John, you got anything else?

Any other books?

What are you reading?

You reading anything right now?

Am I reading right now?

No.

It's kind of taking a break from reading.

I'm a very busy man.

Yeah, I understand.

I understand.

I'm reading a John Cleese autobiography called So Anyway.

It's pretty impressive.

I'll give a full review when I'm done with it.

I'm only about 100 pages in, so I don't want to give too much away.

I didn't realize he-

You son of a bitch.

You do realize that we have a book we're supposed to be reading.

I read it.

John, that is now an audio book for me.

And I'm listening to it while I do Peloton.

And we'll talk about why that is.

Oh, so five minutes a day.

Okay, that's fantastic.

Nice.

That was good.

That was quality.

After this double IPA, I'm going to be on for 45 minutes tomorrow.

Can't even cycle straight.

I'm working my way through it.

I'm almost done.

So for everybody that's listening, we do have three more podcasts.

Well, not three more podcasts planned out.

We have tons of more podcasts planned out.

But we have three more in the books that we're lining up to do.

And the next two are going to be both Clone Wars episodes and another Visions episode.

And then the next one is going to be Light of the Jedi, which we're actually going to

be jumping back in time.

We've always gone by the timeline that is posted on our website at 11partsix.com.

But we're actually going to jump back to read Charles Sewell's first book, Light of the

Jedi.

And John read this book.

I sent it to John.

John read this book-

I think I read that pre-pandemic, goddammit.

No, it wasn't.

It wasn't pre-pandemic.

It was not pre-pandemic.

Stop.

That wasn't that long ago.

Are you sure?

I'm positive.

It wasn't that long ago.

All right.

But-

Doesn't matter.

I've got to read it again.

John's going to have to look at his Cliff Notes to see about the book.

But-

Yeah, Cliff Notes.

Should have taken Cliff Notes.

That would have been a good idea.

We're going to jump into that probably in about two episodes in a row.

Jedi the book I have been slow to finish it there's reasons for that and we'll talk about them on the podcast

But yeah should be good

Okay, yep

Okay, so thanks for joining us on episode 30 of the 11 parsecs podcast. We just got done talking about Clone Wars 1819

And guess what? Hey, we're actually jumping ahead a little bit. So um, or actually I shouldn't say jumping behind

so again, we're going by a list of

of chronological order based on

Star Wars actual

Years, I guess you can call them inside of the Star Wars universe and we're actually jumping back though to follow the Jedi

Which is season 2. I'm sorry

Yeah

season 2 episodes 4 & 5 for next podcast and then we're also gonna be watching visions episode 6 t ob 1 which

I don't know. That's a weird name T to Toby Toby. Maybe yeah, well Toby. Yeah

Yeah

Thanks for joining us we've enjoyed being back after a couple weeks hiatus

Thanks for joining us John, thanks for co-hosting with me and enjoying that beer

Always fun to do it

Wetting my mouth as we went we will wet our mouths again

This is the 11 parsecs podcast episode 30 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 parsecs.com and discord

I'm Jonathan Smith with that tragic monster of a man Eric Thompson. Thank you for joining us

You tell me how you hated this one