Episode 35: (21 BBY) Clone Wars Season 2 Eps 13 and 14, Tales of the Jedi Ep 1

We're a really terrible Star Wars podcast by the way.

I'm not a dictionary.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

I agree with you.

I'm just saying I don't even know that.

Like, I don't know that.

In this episode, the Jedi handle arachnids, the Duchess handles assassins, and baby Ahsoka

handles a toothy kitty.

We'll discuss Clone Wars episodes 213, 214, and Tales of the Jedi 1 in this edition of

the 11 Parsecs podcast.

Hello and welcome to episode 35 of the 11 Parsecs podcast.

My name is Eric.

I'm here with my good buddy Jon.

Hello.

And today we are going to be talking about two more episodes of The Clone Wars, which

we've been doing for a while.

But we're getting close to the end of season two.

These are starting to get a lot better too.

We'll, we'll, shouldn't, shouldn't preface the podcast by saying that.

But we'll talk about that.

And then also we, we watched Tales of the Jedi, the first episode of that, which I've

got some opinions.

So so yeah, that's going to be, that's going to be a good discussion too.

Before we get started, we always have a nice tasty cola poured.

Jon, what are you drinking tonight?

Well, thanks to you, I'm having something I've never seen.

I still haven't seen this in the stores.

It's called shirtless IPA, West Coast style.

And I know nothing about this.

Do you remember this beer?

Well, I remember it being very tasty, hence why I don't have one to drink with you tonight.

Yeah, we were supposed to share this on the pod.

Yeah, we were.

And time passes.

That was, that was a while back.

And I think I was just like, oh, this was a good beer.

And then I'd like halfway through it.

I'm like, oh, wait a minute.

I think I was saving it for the podcast.

I remember this.

Yeah.

Drink, drink, drink.

Yeah.

But it is a very good, it is a very good beer.

And I think I got it at West, or our, our, our local, our local Haunt.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I haven't seen it.

Greenline Brewery.

Where is Greenline Brewery?

Is that, is this a Georgia beer?

Uh, I don't think it was in the Georgia section.

Um.

It says something about Georgia songwriters.

Canton!

It is from Georgia!

It is a Georgia beer.

Look at you.

Yeah, well, that's, that's what's weird about our, our package stores, that we have like

a, a Georgia section for the beer.

We, we, we are very lucky in that our store has lots and lots of tasty beers.

We have a section in the Georgia on the right hand side, or if you're looking at the big

freezer, and then on the left hand side, it's got stuff from all over the US that distributors

bring in and et cetera.

And um, yeah, I didn't remember getting that from the Georgia side of the freezer, but

apparently I did.

Canton, Georgia.

I mean, that's, that's gotta be a pretty new brewery because Canton's not far from us.

And I don't think I've heard of it.

No, I've never heard of Greenline.

It's actually, I can read the can here, it's a contract brew, uh, from Big Kettle Brewing.

So Greenline is the, the maker of the beer, but they're contracting the brewing with Big

Kettle Brewing, which is in Lawrenceville.

So it's all over the place.

Interesting.

It's, uh, it's literally, we're right.

More than me.

I think we're honestly, like we live right in the middle of those two places.

In the heart of beer country.

In the heart of Georgia beer country.

So, so, um, I'm going with the 10th anniversary IPA that it was recently the 10th anniversary

of our local brewery down the street, Cherry Street.

And um, I've already had a couple of these and they're very, very good.

Very, very strong, but very, very good.

What percentage is the shirtless?

Oh, this is nothing high.

It's I think five, eight.

How strong is the 10th anniversary?

Oh, the 10th anniversary is a 10.1.

Let me grab it real quick.

Hold on.

Okay.

There you go.

Yeah, it was, it was, it was on up there and I was like, Oh no, it's just straight up 10%,

but it is a pint.

So I mean, I'll, I'll be, I'll be feeling it by the end of the podcast for sure.

Very cool design.

We'll post a picture of it.

Um, again, these are our local guys.

We support them.

Uh, very New Zealand hops, New Zealand, Rewaka and Nectaron Citra.

Hmm.

No, and Nectaron Citra, two separate types of hops, but New Zealand Rewaka.

It's the first time I've ever, I think had a beer.

Yeah, don't know that one.

Yeah, that's good.

All right, well let's drink.

Quit the, let's drink.

Uh, are you ready to pop?

Ready to pop.

All right.

Three, two, one.

Oh, and I shook it up again.

I always do this.

Yeah, you gotta do that.

Well, I'm sitting there reading the can and then I'm all like giddy about new beer and

I'm like, oh, all right, pouring.

Very nice smell.

Yeah, that was a good beer.

That really was.

I remember that one.

Oh, it's delicious.

Yes.

Very nice.

Almost a candy-like quality to it.

Yeah, it was.

It was good.

All right, so we're back on our Clone Wars biz.

Um, well, I shouldn't say back on our Clone Wars biz.

We've been on The Clone Wars biz for I don't know how long.

We're in season two.

For those of you that don't know this podcast, basically we're going through the entire Star

Wars Disney+ canon as of a date, man, probably about two years ago where we stuck our line

in the sand and said, hey, we're going to take the exact timeline as it exists today,

not adding any of the new stuff into it later.

Um, and we're going to take the exact Star Wars timeline, BBY chronological order, and

we're going to go through every single piece of audio dramas, uh, BBY.

Books, magazines, comics, shows, everything.

We're doing it all.

Now, the last, oh man, probably the last 12 podcasts we've been in, The Clone Wars.

We're doing about two to three episodes a podcast, but I'm enjoying it.

I didn't, like I said, we've talked about it before.

We didn't really watch it.

I watched maybe a couple of episodes of The Clone Wars throughout the whole, like,

what is it, nine seasons or 10 seasons?

And you hadn't watched any of them, I don't think, before we started this.

No, I think it's only five seasons, though.

Oh, no, it's on up there, I think.

What?

Yeah, man.

Yeah, I think they've got like at least seven or eight.

We'll figure that out as we go.

Maybe I'm wrong.

I could totally be wrong, too.

So, yeah, so we're in the middle or actually we're toward the tail end of Season 2,

now that I think about it.

So, if you remember, Jon, probably about four or five podcasts ago, we jumped.

We went from like episodes, Season 2 episodes like eight, nine, and then we jumped all the way up to like,

I think it was like 16 or 15.

15.

Yes.

And we watched from 15 to 19, I believe.

That was the Zillow Beast episodes and some of the other kind of cool.

There was one that was like a one-off with the six or the bounty hunters that were protecting that city of little like Monkey Lake things.

And we watched those guys and then came back and started doing really what most of the Death Watch stuff.

That's where we're at now with the Satine and that whole little mini arc.

And the episodes that we're reviewing tonight are episodes 13, which is Voyage of Temptation,

and episodes 14, which is the Duchess of Mandalore, which is the continuation of the Mandalore

kind of arc that if you ever go on any lists that are the summary list of what Clone Wars episodes you should most definitely watch,

these are all in there, all the Mandalore stuff.

And of course, it sets up, you know, the Fett series and some other stuff.

But let's start out with Voyage of the Temptation.

That was, that happened in February 7th of 2010, I believe, or February, sorry, February 5th, 2010.

And the Jedi and their clones defend Duchess Satine in the assassination attempts.

So basically, I'm not going to give a huge summary, but Satine and them are jumping on a ship to go back to Coruscant

and Anakin and Obi-Wan are protecting her and three or four different other senators on the Coronet, which is a really cool ship.

I really enjoyed that ship.

And did you notice if that is the same type of ship that we see in the Han Solo movie?

No.

It's like a super tall ship.

That's the only thing I remember about it.

It's like, it's like you see this, like, it's like a cruise ship at the top,

but then like the bottom just goes like forever and ever.

And it's probably like the crew sleeping quarters and all that stuff.

But I think in this show, that was meant to be the storerooms that we see the main kind of

progression of the storyline for this episode, for episode 13.

Basically, you got these four senators on, Anakin and Obi-Wan are protecting while they go back to Coruscant,

Satine's on the ship.

And then these spider droid things, like assassin droids kind of come out that somebody had stowed away.

And I don't know, what did you, did you like this episode?

Did you think it was pretty good?

No, I thought this was a very good episode.

The assassin droids were awesome.

Yep.

They were introduced with a really cool jump scare right at the beginning there.

That was very well done, very nice.

And then when they destroyed the assassin droid and you realized that they had all these

like little baby droids on the top.

That was creepy as crap.

Wasn't it?

That was really cool.

Very, very creepy.

I mean, really like, oh God, the damage that those things can do.

But then they end up kind of being useless.

So, you know.

Well, they just ended up being killable really easily or at least captured.

Very killable.

I pictured them like leaping onto someone's face and just ripping it apart, which would

make an interesting get show.

But they ended up, you know, just, yeah, they were just picked off easily.

It was not a big deal.

Yeah.

I mean, if you would have had them to have been more potent, like a little like toxin or

something like that in there, then you really got to worry because you're like, oh my God,

these things are everywhere.

And then even Anakin, though, whenever they escape, they kill one of them and then all

the little baby spider droids come out of the mom's back or whatever it was.

And even there, they're like, they're searching through like what looks to be somewhat like

a warehouse type thing for these little itty bitty droids.

Yeah.

And that's got to be, you know, the whole mess in and of itself, which was really cool.

And there was not just one.

I think there was like four that got brought on the ship.

Four of the baby droids?

No, the big ones.

Oh, the assassins.

Yeah, there were three or four.

Yeah, it was a lot.

It was a decent amount.

And a whole bunch of babies.

And that's a setup where it drives me nuts because they've set up a situation where that

would be that would be really freaking hard to find all of the little droids that have

scattered throughout the ship like cockroaches.

Totally.

But it ends up not being a big deal.

Yeah, no, it would not just that.

But like I was thinking the whole time I was like, well, why don't the mother spiders just

release all the babies first?

Let them figure out where everything is.

And then the big ones come out and then you're like, oh, no, it's big ones.

You know, like, I don't know.

It was very interesting.

Basically, what happens is they suspect that one of the senators that's with Satine is

part of the Trade Federation's plot to kind of overtake Mandalore and cause strife in

the Civil War so that the Galactic Republic will or sorry, the Galactic Senate will then

insert send troops into Mandalore and.

And pretty much occupy Mandalore and of course Satine and her side of the Mandalorians don't want that at all.

They don't even want to be part of this war. They want to remain completely neutral.

She's a fairly pacifist in pretty much every regard when it comes to this war.

Fairly pacifist? That's the pivotal moment at the end of the episode.

Yes, let's talk about that.

Extremely pacifist.

So I really enjoyed that last scene too.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

That's why it really went up in my estimation.

That's the wrong word.

I liked it more with the ending.

How about that?

Yes, I agree with that too.

And I think it just kind of shows what I think the neat thing about the ending too is.

So basically Satine and Obi-Wan are caught in this little like gambit because the senator that actually brought the assassin droids has Satine.

He's got a blaster to her head and she grabs the blaster.

She disarms him, grabs the blaster, but he knows that she won't shoot him because she's pacifist.

And then he also knows that Obi-Wan cares about Satine.

So he doesn't want to come across as not pacifist by killing him.

So he's kind of like playing both of them and then out of nowhere Anakin just chops him down.

And it's a...

Just right stab him straight through.

Just brutal.

And then the best is Anakin's just like, oh, all right, here we go.

That was it.

Like it was very like cautious.

And then the part that got me though was both Satine and Obi-Wan were just kind of like, yeah, all right, take care of...

Well, because they didn't have any role in that.

Right.

They didn't have...

Well, they didn't have a role in it, but they also don't really care that this guy was chopped down.

So it's a very interesting dynamic when it comes to the pacifist part of it.

Obi-Wan, I mean, he definitely defended whoever he needed to.

But Satine's just kind of like, okay, take care of the business for me.

I don't have to worry about it.

Well, if she had not been there, right, Obi-Wan would have sliced his hand off.

Oh, totally. Yeah. Agreed.

Yeah.

But he still could have sliced his hand off, right?

I mean, that's not killing him.

Well, we should probably talk about though that this episode really brings in...

I believe that very early on in the episode, you realized that there was a real relationship between Satine and Obi-Wan.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, like a very deep relationship.

And Anakin, you can tell he's just kind of like befuddled by this.

Because I really don't think he thought that could ever even happen with Obi-Wan.

You know what I mean? There wouldn't even be the temptation.

Yeah, and he's the stand-in for us because that's how I feel.

It's like, what?

Yeah.

He's been like...

You know, Obi-Wan's been like a monk for all this time.

And now we find out that...

Oh, no. And he says he would have left the Jedi Order for her.

Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves because I think that's 14, isn't it?

Isn't that the end of 14?

No. No, that's the end of this one.

Oh, is it the end of this one?

Yes.

Oh, okay. Yeah. She says, I loved you.

And then he was like, well, I would have left the Jedi Order. That's right.

Yeah, because he said, this is hardly the time.

And then he says, okay, fine. I loved you too.

You know what I mean?

As they're being held hostage by the dude with the kill switch thing.

Dead guy switch.

All right, John. You know what I'm going to ask you.

What?

One through 100, what do you got?

This one, I actually thought of this at the time I was watching it.

And I wanted to say it was like an 88.

Okay. Yeah.

I mean, I really...

The ending is what jumped it up probably five points.

Yeah, I had an 87.

The assassin droids were awesome.

No, they were great.

Yeah, and the whole, like, kind of two levels of the assassin droids, which was really cool.

And then also, too, there's a lot of...

Like, whenever he commandeers the ship, but he being the senator, the evil senator,

he commandeers the ship, he just goes in and just blasts people at the bridge.

Like, it's a no-hold-bars episode.

Like, it's a legit, like...

There was a lot of people that died in this episode.

Clones driving...

The one guy was begging for his life.

He's like, no, no, please, no.

Boom.

Yeah, and it's just like, oh, okay.

Wow, we're crossing some thresholds here with this one.

I liked it.

Yeah, I thought it was really good.

It's probably...

It's hard to compare with Zillow Beasts because I really enjoyed those two episodes.

But it's on up there for season two and season one, in my opinion.

I mean, it was a really, really good episode.

All right, let's move on to 14, The Duchess of Mandalore.

So this is kind of the cap, the feather of the cap, I think,

because I'm pretty positive that the ones after this were the ones that we previously watched.

So this would be the end of the arc.

Basically, Satine gets to Coruscant, and Death Watch is kind of mobilizing

because they think that, or they know that Doku is going to get Grievous to land the troops on there.

They know something's in play to where they're bringing war to Mandalore.

And it's completely against what Satine wants.

And then they get there, and then Satine's kind of like blindsided

because there's this video of one of the guys from her homeworld saying,

we're pretty much already at war.

Like, there's really nothing you can do.

It's already...

And she knows this person very closely, and she's like, what is going on?

This is not him.

This is not right.

So Satine kind of goes off on this mission to figure out what happened and why he's saying this.

And it ends up coming back to...

It wasn't the Jedi archives.

It was some other kind of archival place.

But she ends up being able to find out that this was some type of edited footage.

And she has it, but she's also pretty much a criminal at this point.

So she's got...

She gets blamed for the death of the guy who brought...

Her longtime friend from Mandalore who brought the footage.

The full footage. Oh, that's right.

Because like you said, it was edited down footage,

which is kind of obvious when you think about it,

because she said that he would never say these things.

Well, he did, but that was a tiny part of what he said.

What he actually meant to say, the full message was very, very different.

Yeah, it was. We don't need the Republic's help.

We got this. Leave us alone.

And then also, too, we get to see Padme a little bit in here,

where she's doing a little bit more of the senator stuff and the politico.

And it was a good episode. I don't know.

I mean, it was OK.

The pilot eating it was kind of out of left field for me.

I didn't think that they'd do that,

where they jumped off the the the little taxi thing that was run amok.

And he just goes right to the wall.

I was like, oh, OK, continue it on from last episode.

Well, the whole thing with the, you know,

the speeders into the trees and Return of the Jedi.

It's a thing. OK, fair enough. OK, fair enough.

The TIE fighters always hit a rock or something.

You know, it's a it's a it's a trope.

But no, I love the fact that there's the first of all,

you know, they're getting away on there or she's taking off on on her car.

And then you see the assassin has planted something on the car.

And it's like a tiny little bomb that takes takes out the navigation system.

So you you had access to her transportation

and you took out the guidance system.

Yeah, just plant a bigger bomb.

Yeah, yeah. That was that was kind of weird.

And it also, too, it was like not even really like a does it.

It was more like that, like the guy that dies,

the guy that dies, the pilot, it was kind of like,

oh, I guess our navigation systems are like it wasn't like even a big

like explosion thing, like like you probably could have just got under the hood

and messed around with it.

None of the same. Yeah.

None of that made any sense.

You know, it's not if my GPS goes out when I'm driving down the road,

I don't veer into a tree.

It's just OK, let's just pull over here.

Well, we don't know.

Coruscanti GP, we don't know this.

We have to take this.

So it drove him into the walk.

Actually, actually, I can find that it flew him into the wall

because he didn't know where it was going.

It was it was what?

On top of that, the fact that they're speeding along

and all they have to do is jump out.

Yeah, that got me.

All their forward momentum is totally gone.

Yeah. And they just step basically step onto a nearby roof.

Yeah. And all three of them roll a little bit.

Yeah. No, yeah, that was that whole scene was just kind of a weird thing

to show how in danger she was.

But I totally, totally agree with you.

It's like, where is this is a terrible assassin.

This guy must have been like the lowest of the low

that they sent a course on to kill her.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. Eventually he just gave up trying to shoot them

and threw a bomb down on them, which was a terrible idea

because that's hardly precise.

Yeah. And you could have shot them.

Yeah. We want to push it out of the way and then jumps up

and then he wings him off the cliff.

And I'm like, all right, well, let's get another assassin here.

You're going to need another assassin.

And then he zooms off in his little jet pack.

And I'm like, dude, you could have been flying around this whole like,

I don't know. Yeah.

Yeah. The more I talk about it, the more I'm just kind of like,

yeah, that really wasn't all that great.

It really was not a good episode.

Yeah. Fell flat.

So much of it fell flat.

It was not engaging.

You can tell when when something's not not engaging you

because you start nitpicking and that's what this was.

Well, I will say that I don't I didn't start nitpicking.

I started talking to you about it.

I did. I did have I did have the I did have the thing

where I was just like the guy just ran into the wall.

I was like, all right, let's just kind of add it in here

that we just progressing the story here.

But overall, I enjoyed the arc.

It did end on a pretty pretty not lame note,

but average note maybe is the best way to say it.

In my opinion. What do you got?

No, I agree with that wholeheartedly.

The episode before was the real pinnacle.

This one completed the arc, but I don't care.

And also to I found it a little weird that she's been

through like three or four life or death situations with it,

but there'll be one in the last like week

because technically this is not that far away from first episode

that we watched them in and and at the end of last episode,

they're like, I loved you.

I loved you too.

We just couldn't let it work out.

You know what I mean?

Like I had to go become a Jedi.

Like it was very very powerful and then on this one.

She's just kind of like your beard makes you look so old

or something like that at the end of the episode.

It's just like back to flirting thing.

I'm just like what I'm like this dude you saved your life like multiple times.

And now you're like now you're just kind of joking around like ha ha ha.

Let's go back to the old ways.

I don't know. Yeah back back to duty sort of sort of thing.

We see with bad May. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah agreed. Yeah, it's yeah.

That's it. That's a career women man.

I'm telling you it's a light parallel,

but I will agree with you that's parallel.

Yeah, I mean, you know overall I enjoyed this arc a lot.

I like I feel like I understand now why people put this on their list and very high on their list.

Even if we didn't have even if we didn't have The Mandalorian series.

I'd still say that this is a pretty pretty darn good little story arc that you really don't because we talked about it.

I think two podcasts ago where before this you really hadn't other than like the holiday special and stuff like that.

You really hadn't seen that much of the Mandalorians.

In anything I mean other than you know,

other than of course the original movies with with Boba,

but like you really didn't see in Django of course in the first place.

Genesis family that uses clothing.

79, 78, somewhere in there.

Okay. Are you going lower? I have a feeling you're going lower.

Yeah, I'm going lower. It just really did not much for me.

So I'm more like a, I want to say a 70, which sounds maybe a little too low, so we'll say 72.

Nah, 70.

The only thing bringing it up for me, of course, is that it's part of this arc.

But other than that, yeah, I'm tending to agree with you.

I'm tending to trend toward maybe like a 75, but my beer's kicking in.

I'm going to be feeling nice about it.

All these shows are great.

Okay, so let's go.

So we finished up, I was thinking about it the other day, I was like,

what all have we actually finished other than like singular books or singular comics?

We finished the Obi-Wan Anakin series on the comic books, which were awesome.

We're still working through Age of Resistance, that whole comic set.

We haven't started the core Star Wars comic line yet.

We will be at some point soon.

Okay, yeah.

So we really haven't finished anything, except we did get done with Visions,

which is, of course, a seven-episode serial series.

It's like smaller stories.

It technically isn't canon.

But we did start watching Tales of the Jedi, which I'm not going to say.

You lead this conversation.

I want to know what you thought about that.

Tales of the Jedi, Episode 1, Life and Death.

Yep, the Ahsoka episode.

Well, yeah, that's the first thing I was going to say is, it's baby Ahsoka.

I mean, that's cool.

Let's learn a little more backstory about her.

She's, of course, the first person you think of when you see,

what is the species there with the tails?

I keep wanting to say Twi'lek, but we've talked about this multiple times.

We really need to go over all the species.

Twi'lek, yeah, they're different.

They don't have the striped tails like Ahsoka does and her people.

We'll have to look this up.

We're a really terrible Star Wars podcast, by the way.

I'm not a dictionary.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

I agree with you.

I'm just saying, I don't even know that.

I don't know that.

I'm just kind of like, I need to go back.

Like I said, we need to come up with these flashcards,

and we need to be able to cycle through the flashcards

and remember all these different species,

because this happens every podcast.

Oh, yeah.

I barely remember the name.

I had to write down Duchess Satine, because I was not going to remember that either.

But regardless, it shows where she grew up,

or at least where she was born, I guess you should say.

Her culture, and you can kind of see where it's going.

Maybe I'm just kind of paranoid, but I could see where it was going.

They go off hunting, her mom and baby Ahsoka go hunting,

and it's just, you get the sense something bad is coming,

and something really bad was right behind you the whole time.

Also, I've got to say, did you pick up some Avatar kind of vibes?

Yep, that's exactly what I was going to say.

Here's the thing, though, is I picked up the Avatar vibe.

I totally did.

There's two things that I wanted to talk about here, where I enjoy,

A, the graphics are really good.

I thought it was really well done, but the story was completely, completely predictable.

And number two, I didn't know whether it was a recency bias type thing with Avatar,

so I didn't want to say anything about it,

and that's why I kind of wanted to see if you said anything about it,

but I totally felt like that, too.

And there's one scene where the mother's got the rifle,

and she's holding the baby, Ahsoka, on her chest,

and she even does the thing I think that they did in Avatar,

where she kind of has to aim a little bit differently,

because she's got the child right next to her.

You know what I mean?

No, I didn't pick up on that.

Yeah, and I was just kind of like, okay.

You know, it was good.

I don't know.

How was she going to carry that big deer back by herself?

I have no clue.

I have no clue.

Because she says she's going to.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I won't, you know, can I carry you and this thing?

Yeah, she sets the kid in the grass, and I'm like, well, there's your meat right there, man.

I mean, that's like putting it in the dog bowl.

It's like, you know, just like, oh, man.

Yeah, I mean, you knew as soon as she was taken by that cat what was going to happen,

and I felt like it was just kind of like a hollow thing at the very end where the old lady,

Deathra or whatever her name was, was just kind of like, yeah, she's a Jedi.

And now I'm like, I kind of want to be like, okay, well, what happens next?

Like, does somebody alert somebody?

Do they just know?

Do they come down and pick her up?

Like, how is this going to work?

Like, how is she going to get down there?

Like, how is somebody going to come take her away, and how is that going to go over?

You know, that would be a good, an interesting, not sitcom, not sitcom, but like a serial where you're on the Jedi team. You're with the Jedi team, kind of like, like Law and Order. Think of that, right?

But your job is to, you get a hint, you get a tip, and you go out to some far flung planet and you have to find, you know, you sense the vibrations in The Force and you have to find out which baby, which child, you know, and deal with the family and all that.

Yeah, no, totally.

It'll be fun.

Well, remember we had that, there was a Clone Wars episode where, remember the babies in the lava?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so I mean, we saw a little bit of that about how like, oh, you have to come take my child away or, oh, that's really the question. I mean, they're not, they're not going to forcibly take a child away. I don't believe they would.

But how do you, like, who is the great salesman, you know? Who is the guy that comes in there and is like, look, this child is extremely special. The old lady in the village saw this child is extremely special. We're all on the same page here. We can give her a great life, but she can never come back to you at all.

But see, that's where you have, right there you have a whole story of, you know, one of the Jedi, what are we calling them, pursuers, is conflicted because he can sense that this child is exceptionally strong in The Force and the family doesn't want the child to go. And the child, of course, is a baby, so it doesn't have anything to say.

And so there's a conflict between the two. I guess they'd be, would they be Master and Apprentice? Would they be like Padawan?

No, I think, if I remember right, during the audio book for Doku, Jedi Lost, they talked about how there was two of the people in the book were a team of people that actually went and found the Jedi younglings and brought them back.

That's probably where I'm getting this from. I'm not original. I'm probably just pulling something out of my memory.

I'm sure we'll encounter it at some point, you know, in the stories that we're going to watch.

It's a real, that's a series right there.

Yeah, seriously. And that's where it's kind of like, OK, well, I don't know, man. I mean, especially too, is you've got to think about that, that sales pitch in light of different situations with the Jedi, though, too.

You know what I mean? Like, are the Jedi on the wane? Are they, you know, are they doing really well in public opinion? Like, do people want their child to go do this? You know what I mean?

And it's just kind of like, and also, too, you've got to have other people that are just kind of like tailing these guys, being like, all right, well, if you don't take them, we'll steal them away. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, they're there. They're waiting. Yeah. For the if the Jedi don't get them, then these bad guys, these maybe Sith adjacent people.

Yeah. Are going to swoop in and just steal them. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's very interesting. It's a neat concept.

Are we are we about to see a series that set earlier, like way earlier? Isn't it one of the series coming out is set way in the like older public?

Yeah, well, there's a whole bunch of books and comics right now. So no, no, no. Series is coming up, though. Oh, what am I thinking of?

There is something coming out that I'm that made the acolyte. Is that what you're thinking of? Maybe that's what it is. Yeah.

Anyway, that's where I was going with this is set it, you know, a thousand years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yes. This was just gearing up. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I know. How long the Jedi been around? I thought they'd been around for. I don't know. I don't know if the the acolytes in the same time period. That's something I just don't I a lot of this stuff now is like I watch it whenever it comes out, but I don't do the homework on it because we're doing this podcast.

So I don't really know, like, when the timing is going to be who the characters in the story are, who are the actors and actresses that have been hired for it.

I see it come across and, you know, tons of Twitter feeds and all that kind of stuff. But there's really a Twitter feed called the space shipper. If you're ever out there looking for somebody new to follow who really does, he knows a lot.

He or she knows a lot and they really go into depth on you. This actor is going to be playing this role, suspectedly this role in this certain thing.

So if you're really into that and you want to do that, there's some really good Twitter feeds out there. But yeah, I don't I don't really know.

Like, I don't I try to keep up with it. But now that you say that, I wonder if it is going to be one of The Old Republic type stories, which would be really cool.

I mean, I'm still working on the book, but but we shall not discuss that.

We should mention. But to be fair to us, we we drew our line in the sand.

Sewell had mentioned that he was going to be putting that book out and then that had not come out yet. So when we drew our line in the sand and said, this is the timeline we're going to start focusing on and then we'll go back into the newer stuff later.

That didn't exist. That is a poor excuse, my friend. It is. It is a bit of a poor excuse.

But for Starlight Citadel and all those great stories. But yes, this is going to be this is going to be an interesting series to me just because I like the art.

I like the kind of mini sub 15 minute story. Like I think this one clocked in like 13 minutes. Like it wasn't long.

It's very short. Yeah. Oh, not at all. Yeah. It's it's very akin to visions. But this one is canon.

I was going to say this is canon. Now I'm on board. Yeah. So it's a it's a little bit different with visions because visions you were just kind of like, hey, this is a really awesome artist or really awesome storyteller.

Just randos. But yes, it was.

It was very, some of those episodes were very, very different.

This is going to be more, you know, akin with the canon itself.

And we're going to be reviewing the second one next week.

So it should be pretty good.

Yeah.

I'm going to enjoy this series and also too, because with visions, you

hadn't seen any of them when we went in, but I had seen some of them.

So I was, I kind of knew what was coming up.

Whereas this one, I got no clue.

You know what I mean?

Like I was kind of surprised.

I was like, Oh, this one's about Ahsoka.

You know what I mean?

Like, Oh, I was like, okay, cool.

So, so that'll be nice for me just because like pulling up a new episode

and be like, Oh, what, what am I going to learn about today?

And yeah, it'd be pretty cool.

I'm excited about it.

I don't think this, this is not, this is not worthy of a score.

It's such a, just a tiny little bit.

I agree with you.

I agree with you.

It doesn't need a score.

Yeah.

It does not need a score.

It just is.

Yeah.

Did you like it?

Yes or no?

Okay.

Yeah.

I liked it.

I liked it.

Yeah.

Predictable, but, but, but good.

You know, I liked it.

Yeah.

All right, Jon, we'll come to the second part of the show.

Geek Fest.

Um, what are you going to watch, man?

So the, the main thing I want to talk about is, uh, I don't know if you've

watched this at all or read the original books, but his dark materials.

I read the very first book and greatly enjoyed it.

Okay.

And this was, this was probably about 15 years ago, whenever they, whenever they

started talking about the movie, um, the, the, the, the Nicole Kidman movie.

Yeah.

The Nicole Kidman one.

And, um, and I remember seeing, you know, somebody was just talking about

how, Hey, this is a really good book.

It's a really good book.

My wife was really into Harry Potter at the time.

And I was just looking around to see if I could find maybe something else that

she would read, um, that may be kind of fantasy, but not like full on in like

the stuff that I read, like high fantasy, that kind of stuff.

And, um, and I read it and I thought it was a pretty, I thought it was a very

original story.

Let me say that like the whole, like.

Yeah, it was good.

It, I enjoyed the book, watch the movie.

Movie wasn't bad.

I don't know that I necessarily thought it was great either though.

Like, are you, did you just watch the movie or did you read the book?

Uh, my friend way back, uh, gave the trilogy to me and said, read these books.

Okay.

Trust me.

And so I read the first one and had the same similar reaction like you.

It's like, nah, that was good.

Okay.

Let me start the second book.

You didn't touch the second book.

I did not.

I did not read a page of the second book.

Okay.

So it's, it's, it's well beyond spoiler, well beyond spoiler.

So don't feel free to, I'm not going to, I'm not, you're not really going to spoil it.

It's just, it veers off like, whoa.

Okay.

The first book was fine, but second book, I'm on board.

Third book.

Holy cow.

Are you serious?

It got better.

This is not what I expected this conversation to go.

I thought, I thought you were going to say the second book got worse.

And then by the third, when you were just like, Oh, interesting.

Okay.

Okay.

When they, when they came out with the movie, uh, I thought it was

the movie, uh, I thought, okay, fine.

I hope this does well because I, they got to make the second movie

and they've got to make the third movie.

There's no way they're going to make those.

So how many, how many years did you make them?

I was about to say, cause I remember seeing golden compass, the first one,

but I did not remember even seeing anything about a second one.

Did they quit on the second one or did they actually come out with

all the first one did so poorly.

Uh, they, they, they, they tried and there was the studio had no interest.

I wonder if it was because they maybe cast some really heavy hitters in that.

Like it was Nicole Kidman and then, uh, Daniel Craig.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Didn't Daniel Craig.

So I wonder if it was just going to be very expensive for them to make

us and the special effects.

I mean, the polar bears and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, that was, that's an investment of the movie.

I'm not, I'm not knocking that.

Um, I wonder if it just didn't live up to its budget.

Not necessarily.

I'm saying, yeah, right.

Okay.

It didn't, it wasn't a bomb.

Well, I think it was kind of considered a bomb, but it didn't make anywhere

near enough to justify, uh, such a budget.

So it was dead.

It seemed, it seems like something that's right.

Prairie Amazon or somebody like that or Netflix to come in and pick up that IP.

Well, but they just did HBO max just released all three seasons.

HBO max did wait or HBO, but whenever HBO, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait.

I'm super confused.

Now released all three seasons.

You thought we were talking about the books?

No, no, no, no, no.

I knew we were talking about the books and then I have only seen the movie

with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

Yeah.

They just completed, they've just completed the whole series on HBO max with,

um, Daffney Keene.

Is that her, the, the kid's name?

So I'm a little confused.

Is it, is it just two more movies?

It's a series.

It's three seasons.

Um, I don't know the number of episodes, eight, 10 episodes per season.

Okay.

Okay.

That's, that's, that's where my confusion was coming in.

I thought you were saying that HBO made two more movies.

You're saying there's actually a full on.

Three, three season full, all the books, all three seasons done.

Okay.

Okay.

So, so season one is a retelling of golden compass.

Right.

Okay.

And season two subtle knife and season three, uh, crap.

Amber Spyglass, that's what it's called.

Okay, well I will add these to my list.

So you're saying you really enjoyed them?

Yes, I still recommend reading the books

because the books of course are better.

But they did a very good job,

they did a really good job with the series.

And I used to want, like if I had an IP as you would say,

that I loved, right, I would think,

please God make a movie out of this.

I want to see a movie of this. I don't think that anymore.

It's please make a series of this.

Wow. As you have pointed out in the past

because well look at a series you've got 8,

9, 10 hours for a book versus 2 hours.

And I can really dive in.

Yeah, and I'm fine if that series is even lower budget

overall than the movie

because you have more time to explore the characters

and you have to get to know the characters better.

Right.

Which is a good thing.

I no longer hope for movies, I hope for series.

That's the transition we made.

Yeah, and it's funny you say that because,

it's going to sound bad, but like whenever,

I have gotten to where I much rather enjoy

8 hours of coming down here with my family

and watching Loki than going to see another Marvel movie,

movie theater. You know what I mean?

Like don't get me wrong, I enjoyed that experience.

But like I skipped Black Widow,

I skipped the latest Black Panther, all those.

I'm just kind of like I'll wait until they hit Disney+ Plus.

You know, I'm just not, it's just it's kind of pricey

to go to the movie theater now.

You know, we're dropping a little bit,

you know, 60, 70 bucks just to go to a movie theater.

You know, it's just kind of like I'll wait.

But then, you know, and you're hitting the nail on the head.

Like whenever I hear about a new whole series

coming out like Moon Knight, like Moon Knight

was a perfect example.

I was like, oh man, this is like kind of obscure.

I'm going to learn some stuff about this guy.

You know, I know who he is on the surface,

but I don't know his character deeply.

And then you get this like ridiculously good.

And I think part of it's probably been helped by the,

what do they call the tech that they used in Mandalorian?

And I think they use it in some Moon Knight scenes too.

What that big giant blue screen.

Yeah, the big giant blue screen that you can use Unity

and move pieces around, like you can take 3D models

and kind of say, hey, here's a scene.

Now put the light over here

and everybody in this whole stage now sees it.

You know what I mean?

And so I think that's probably helping out

or was just kind of like a nice little bonus

whenever they started jumping into all this.

But no, I'm actually in agreement with you, John.

I think I am.

Don't get me wrong, I love movies.

Like I like going to see movies at a movie theater,

but it's getting fewer and far in between.

Well, compare and contrast, if you will,

Andor, the series, which we have talked about, we love,

versus that movie called Solo.

Oh, stop.

I liked Solo, you know that.

You're just digging at me now.

Imagine if Solo had gotten the Andor treatment.

Okay, fair enough.

That's a great example.

That's a great example.

I agree with that.

That's light years better.

Yeah, because you could have explored all of Kira

and where all she goes afterwards and all the like, yeah.

No, I, okay, fair enough.

Now, here's the question though.

Could you have got, well, she did Game of Thrones.

I can't say that she would have done another series.

I mean, maybe the movie was an easy one for her to be like,

yeah, I can go do this for like 12 weeks

and be done, or Paul Bettany's character

or any of those other characters.

I'm sorry, I don't know Han Solo's actual character name.

I mean, actual actor's name.

Nope, not a clue.

But Henry, I wanna say it's Henry, whatever.

I think it's Harrison, Harrison something, Ford, Chevy.

But that being said though, like, yeah,

it's an interesting, that's a very interesting

thought process, and I think you're right.

And it's not being greedy on just wanting more time.

It's just the fact that you also have this,

it's not one movie to wait for.

It's like every week you get like a new thing

if you wanna go, you know what I mean?

Like you get like a new episode,

you get a new part of the story.

Yeah, interesting, I like it.

So, okay, so if you had, let me say this.

Before Disney+ came out with Disney++,

before they knew how successful,

well, how financially successful versus actual like

fandom successful is a little bit different.

Before they knew they had this new tech that they could do,

Mandalorian was gonna explode,

you know, they were gonna have all this baby Yoda stuff

and all this stuff.

Before that, do you think that they're now

pulling movies in and just saying,

we're just gonna do a series on this?

Like stuff that they had like 10 years out planned,

because you know that they do.

You know they have stuff like 10 years out planned.

If they're just like, no, no, no, no, guys,

we're not doing this anymore, we're doing a series,

whether you're on board or not.

I can't even begin to pretend to understand

the financials there, because with a movie,

even now, you still have a release,

and you have the box office take and what have you.

I don't really understand how they know

what's going on with streaming.

They may have the raw numbers, but how does that translate?

Yeah, I don't know.

How does it translate into subscribers?

I've got no idea.

Even kind of more interesting take on it too is that in China, of course, they only allow X number of US, I think it's English based movies, but I think it's US created movies into the country per year.

So it's like a big deal.

Like Avatar got a spot and there's a term for it.

I forget what it is, but basically you have to go through all the screeners for the People's Republic.

You have to go through all the screeners for China to get through these gates and then you get to become one of like these 30 movies per year.

That's actually a US based movie that gets released in China.

And now I'm sitting back being like, well, I mean, do you get a bypass that with a series?

Because the series goes straight to Disney+ Plus where...

I don't even... is that available in China?

Well, it's always available with a VP and a credit card.

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

It's kind of like a... are you getting around it?

You know what I mean?

Like...

I don't know how that works.

I really don't know.

Yeah.

I don't know if it's available even with a VPN.

Yeah.

Yeah.

From a technical standpoint, I don't know how that works firewall wise, but I'm just saying if there's kind of like a will, there's a way maybe.

I don't know.

Could more people see it?

You know what I mean?

Like, I mean, I guess technically the same person that's finding the hole to get through to go watch something streaming on Disney+ Plus could easily find a movie that came out in the US.

Probably faster in all honesty or a bootleg somewhere.

You know what I mean?

So, yeah, maybe that's not as interesting of a question as I thought it would be when I asked it.

But that being said, though, I wonder if there's any type of like kind of like money making bypass that you kind of get with going around an actual movie theater in international markets or something.

I don't know.

You know, so I don't I don't know if we can get away from your globalist agenda and back to the material at hand.

I'm debating whether to recommend the series to you or do I want to tell you to go read the books?

I think I.

Yeah.

Silly, because as we know, you don't read.

No, I.

Excuse me.

I actually have been reading a lot more lately than I normally do.

I just don't necessarily read the books on my signed.

If it's if it's a side, it's a different story.

I look at the book differently than if I have to go to it.

Yeah.

So it would be me assigning you the book.

So it's it's it's a catch 22.

Yeah, there we go.

There is.

That's that's that's actually pretty good.

I will simply say this.

Watch the series if you want.

That would be easier.

And just know that if you only know the first book or or season, you I think you're in for a treat.

OK, well, I mean, I kind of like feel like I want to read the book.

I mean, that it sounds like it's.

Yeah, you I'll let you I'll let you know.

So so I did.

It's funny you say that because I did go back and started reading.

Now I haven't I've been I haven't picked it up in about a week, but I did start reading Leviathan Wakes from The Expanse books, because somebody mentioned to me that that they enjoy the books actually better in the series.

And I'll tell you what, I really enjoy that TV series.

So I was kind of like if I really enjoy the TV series, I must really enjoy the books.

That's on my list.

I heard the same thing and I believe it.

So it's on my list of eventually I will.

Go read the books. Yeah.

And it's one of those it's one of those books where like or one of the stories that like I'll read, like, you know, like 40 or 50 pages at a time and then set it down and not pick it up for another couple of weeks and then go back to it, you know, and read more of it and that kind of thing.

So it's like a press.

I when I get into a book, it's I devour.

All right. So speaking of devour, can I change subjects?

Do you mind?

Not good.

Willow. I ran through Willow in like two nights, three nights.

OK, that was good.

That was good.

That was good. You suggested on the last podcast.

I did. I thought you did.

Well, OK, so I mean, it was it was good.

It was good. Oh, I think I made the point.

You made the point that you had gone back and watch the old one first, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you had to buy it.

Watch the original.

And then but it was clear at various points.

I'm not the target.

Yeah, totally. Totally.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I agree.

And that was the first thing I actually when I got done with it, I was like, I told my daughter, I was like, you need to watch this.

This is like geared for you.

But like kind of the original Willow was too.

I mean, it's kind of like it was geared for us back then, but not, you know, I mean, it's kind of.

No, it's different when you when you break fourth wall.

The no, not the fourth wall.

When you when you start playing like modern hardcore music or something.

What am I trying to say?

Oh, but that was modern rock.

It's like you just broke me out of this whole world.

Willow, the movie didn't do that.

It was it was standard fantasy.

But I'm saying that, you know, John Williams kind of score.

And this just has to go in that everybody's a smart aleck and they got to.

Yeah. Yeah.

Play the rock music.

And, you know, we're all.

Yeah. No, stop doing that.

So, yes, you are completely correct.

The kids of today will not recognize what it was.

It was a radio head.

It was like all sorts of different things.

Nirvana, Nevermind, sung by a different singer.

So you don't. Yeah.

Yeah. But.

Kids, I don't like the quips.

I'm going to call them quips where the quick comebacks, they're just kind of.

It didn't fit in the movie.

It didn't fit in the show.

There were just times...

It's the Marvel effect.

It's the Marvel effect.

The Guardians of the Galaxy effect.

Everybody's got to have that ready quip.

No, no, no.

The comics were just as cheeky as the movie was.

The Willow comics?

No, the Guardians of the Galaxy comics.

I'm not talking about that.

That's fine for Guardians of the Galaxy.

It's fine for, obviously, Deadpool and things like that.

But they made a massive success off of that tone and style.

And so everybody's emulating.

Properties that should not be emulating it are emulating the Marvel tone.

And this gets tiring.

And just to be clear to everybody, we're not talking about story elements here when we say tone.

I'm talking about literal words and comebacks that they say in the movie.

They just kind of pull you out a little bit.

Yeah.

And that made me feel like it was definitely geared toward a teenish audience.

But man, I still loved it.

I loved every bit of that.

Sure.

And it's fine that it's for a teen audience.

Like I said, I'm not the target demographic.

I still enjoyed watching it.

It was great.

I feel like you had a better opinion on it last podcast.

Because I remember being like, okay, number one, I've got to go watch Sorsha.

Because I remember Sorsha from the first movie.

And I want to see Sorsha again.

What's going on here?

How is she part of the story?

All that kind of stuff.

And then my second thought was, is Matt Martin going to get in this?

Because, you know, I just didn't know if he'd be in this.

We heard his voice.

We did hear his voice.

We did hear his voice.

And then I enjoyed the characters of this.

It felt very ‑‑ and this is going to sound weird just because I just watched the trailer today for the new Dungeons & Dragons.

But it felt like a very Dungeons & Dragons type party setting.

Like you had this hulking guy.

You have other people who are the magic users.

And I like those kind of stories.

So I took a liking to this show pretty quickly.

I literally ran through it probably in two, maybe three nights.

I thought it was really, really good.

Yeah, you can do that when you wait for all the episodes to be released.

Yeah, that's exactly what I did.

I was watching it week by week.

That's why I don't do it week by week.

I can't do that.

It'll get to be week four.

And I'm like, no.

I got something else to do tonight.

There's something else that I finished watching, too, that I was going to tell you about.

What else have you been watching?

I've done a lot of reading lately.

And I don't know if you know ‑‑ I'm sure you know The Martian by Andy Weir.

Yep.

Right?

Yep.

So he had a book, or he wrote a book called Artemis.

Yep.

Did you read that?

No, I have not.

I own it.

It's sitting on my shelf, but I have not read it.

It's in your to‑do list?

It is.

It's quite good.

It's not all that deep.

It's not a very big book, but it's quite enjoyable.

It's not a continuation of Martian, right?

It's not the same character?

Not at all.

Okay.

No, no, no.

And I don't know if I've mentioned before, but his ‑‑ I think it's his latest book, Project Hail Mary.

I have heard of that.

I don't own it.

Yeah.

That has become probably one of my favorite books of all time.

Oh, I knew you were going to say it.

Wow.

That is a ‑‑

I so thoroughly enjoyed that book.

It falls in the category of please someone give me a lobotomy so I can read it again.

Wait, wait, wait.

So which one came out first?

Artemis?

I think Artemis came out.

Yeah, I think so.

I think I've had it on my shelf for a while.

Hail Mary's, I think, is most recent.

Okay.

And I saw it come out and read a brief, you know, the little blurb, and I thought, yeah, I want to read that.

And it's so good.

It's just so good.

Can you give me a set up to the story, the story itself?

Of course I don't want to spoil anything.

Yeah, yeah, and that's exactly what I'm asking you, you know, for me and the audience, because I've got this glowing of a review.

I'm going to have to read it.

You know what I'd tell you?

I would honestly tell you, because of the way the novel is structured, I would tell you that you need to read that book cold.

Okay, fair enough.

Don't read the jacket.

Don't read any review, of course.

Read it cold, because that's practically what I did.

I respect him as an author.

Yep.

And it, God, it's so good.

It's just so good.

Was he the author that wrote The Egg?

Yeah, yeah, so he has this short story that he wrote, and I feel like it was a while back, maybe 10 years ago, the short story came about.

And this was, man, I want to say that Martian was already out as a book, but I don't know that it had gotten the acclaim that it had gotten, and it definitely, the movie hadn't started or anything like that, I think, when this story came out.

But it's called The Egg.

I'll send you a link to it.

Everybody on this podcast, free, it's short story, it's out there on the net.

I'll find you a copy.

It's somewhere.

It may have been published in like a magazine or like one of those short story science fiction novel things.

But it's a great book.

Luke Skywalker was a Jedi.

Maybe next week we'll be starting that book just because you are, you are, it is very rare to hear you give that glowing of a recommendation.

Yeah, and contrast that, like I said, Artemis was a fine, a fine read. It was enjoyable. I liked the world building there. Really good story. Nicely done.

Hail Mary, Prachi Hail Mary is just next level. If you're a sci-fi guy.

And it's funny to be honest with you too, just because I've only really heard people talk about Artemis more than Project Hail Mary.

And maybe it's just because of the newness. That's probably what it is. How long ago do you think it came out?

Artemis? No, no, Project Hail Mary.

Oh, I think I read it like a year ago.

Oh, okay. So it's been out for a while then. Okay. All right.

It's been out for a little bit. One of the, I saw a tweet today that reminded me one of the astronauts on the space station was reading it.

Like they had a picture of her reading it.

How cool would that be? How cool would that be?

Yeah, it'd be pretty cool.

Sorry, I'm talking to myself after my 10% beer. I just thought how neat it would be to be reading like something like, because I immediately went to The Martian, is be reading The Martian while you're literally in space.

And then being like, well, do I know how to grow potatoes? Like, you know what I mean?

Like, you're just kind of like, I don't know what I would do. You know what I mean?

Like, I'm prepared. I feel like I'm prepared, but am I prepared?

You have that like, yeah, you have that kind of imposter syndrome thing going on, which you don't want in the middle of space.

Yeah. So that's, that's, that's on my list now.

I'm, I'm really amazed that you haven't mentioned this to me beforehand because we just went out for beers like a week or two ago.

And, and you didn't mention this to me.

Well, I mean, I read it like a year ago. I think.

I know. I know. I know. I'm glad you save it for the podcast.

So I, I, well, I was reminded by reading Artemis because that was the next, not his next book.

But yeah, that was the Harbinger for that.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Have you watched anything else or you just really been reading the whole time?

Playing anything? Video game wise?

No, I haven't been playing anything.

So we. I'm trying to think of.

Yeah, so I haven't. So I got back into Destiny for a little bit and then I was just kind of like, I don't want to do this slog again.

So I haven't, I don't know that I really opened up anything.

I haven't played some Fortnite stuff with my son, but not much gaming wise.

Trying. There is a game called Triangle Strategy, which is like Final Fantasy kind of tactics a little bit that I've been playing a little bit on the PC, but not much.

But I'm trying to think. I feel like there was another series that I just wrapped up that I was like, oh, I'm going to definitely talk to John about that.

But I am. I went back and restarted Rings of Power.

Upon your suggestion, you said get past episode three because I remember I was stuck on episode three and I was going, I don't know if I want to keep doing this.

And then I have to admit, I watched four and five and I'm on six now. And yeah, it totally picks up. It really picks up very well.

There's still quite a lot of anger about that series out there. And I think we mentioned before, whatever. Don't watch it. That's fine.

Yeah, but you should watch it because it's actually pretty enjoyable to me. Yeah, it was good.

So I got a question for you. And you never did much tabletop gaming or anything whenever you were growing up.

I don't think I think you told me that you never really played Dungeons and Dragons or anything of that nature.

You definitely a little bit. OK, you did. OK. OK. So, so, so, you know, the kind of the history of Dungeons and Dragons, how big, you know, a company it is.

And I shouldn't say company, but how big of a I hate using the term IP again, same podcast, but like how big of a thing it is, I guess is the best way to say it.

Yeah. Really popular with the Satanists. Yeah, really popular with the Satanists running through sewers with swords and all that kind of stuff.

So the big hoopla here lately on the way that they're rewriting this type of license.

I am not going to pretend that I know anything about this people. So, so please, I know all, you know, six thousand you're going to write me in and just be like, write into me and just be like, you have no idea what you're talking about with the open game license.

This is what I really I freely have nothing, no nothing about this.

But there's been a big hoopla like in the last two weeks about this license that they have that allows other people to operate within its gaming system and so, you know, products and how they want to change that and some other stuff.

But I started to see backlash against the Dungeons and Dragons movie that's been in the works for, you know, I don't know, two or three years since Covid probably.

And they released another trailer yesterday or today, I forget which. And oh, man, I am so pumped for that movie. I am so pumped for that movie.

That is like my childhood. Like if you had if you had said that there was going to be a movie about this exact thing to me 25 years ago, I would have been like, oh, man, I'm so pumped.

I would have been like, this is the best thing in the world.

Now, that being said, I was a huge Dragonlance fan and they had a Dragonlance

semi animated movie that came out probably about 15 years ago.

That was just absolutely terrible.

And then there was actually a Dungeons and Dragons movie that came out

probably about the same time, about 15 years ago.

That was really terrible.

But this looks great.

Did you watch the trailer?

I've not seen that. You said there's a new trailer?

There's a second. There's a second trailer.

Yeah, there's a so there was a first trailer and the second trailer

I probably only adds about 50% more to what you've seen in the first trailer.

But man, I think it looks really, really good.

No, it looked really good.

I'm almost to the point where I don't want to watch trailers

past a certain point because they start to give so much away.

Yeah, I agree with that.

That's happened so often. It's like, OK, show me the first one.

OK, I'm in. Done.

Yeah, I'll mark it on my calendar and I'll go see it.

But that's about it.

Yeah. And speaking of going into the actual movie theaters,

I will probably go to the movie theater to see this.

This like I said, this was like a legacy thing for me when I was a kid.

I was like, this is this is what I want to see on the big screen.

And I hate that.

Like, I guess all this stuff's popped up about this open gaming license

and all this other stuff.

And again, I don't understand it.

They could totally be the wrong.

I have no clue about the branding, the commercialization.

I think Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons and Dragons

and all the people that do Magic the Gathering.

And, you know, I think that, you know, I've really been I'm naive about it.

But man, I'm so happy for this movie.

And I hope that it doesn't bomb

because people are getting all upset about this.

The only reason I'm bringing this up is because we talked about

the Rings of the Power and you were talking about how people were

kind of giving it poor views and such on the net.

So angry about it.

I know. I know.

I don't understand why people get so angry about stuff anymore.

And we I don't want to recast this conversation.

We've had this on the podcast.

We definitely covered.

Yeah, we know why we covered any crap, but it sucks.

I yeah, it just and that's what like I'm already starting to see.

Like people will be like, oh, this boycott Dungeons and Dragons and stuff.

And I'm like, oh, man, like, come on, you ruin things

without even seeing them. We don't know yet.

It could be the best movie ever.

You don't know. It could be terrible.

And I'll be the first to admit that it's terrible when it's terrible.

But I don't know.

The only reason I brought that up was because you talked about the

the Rings of Power.

Have you heard anything about that series?

Are they redoing? Are they signed on for a second season of that?

Do you know?

I think I think it's it's greenlit, but I'm not sure.

Yeah, that just I think it's greenlit.

Yeah, I was watching when I was watching it last night.

Number one, I always forget that they're like 70 minutes an episode,

which is insane when you really think about it for a show.

But also to the sheer cost of that.

I can't. I mean, well, that was a big story.

That was how much of sucker costs like a billion dollars.

Yeah, I sit there.

I sat there last night and I was like watching like one scene

and just I sat back and I was just like, how do you pay for this?

Like, my gosh, I mean, and I remember somebody saying that it was like

kind of like Beezus's pet project.

You know, he was he was always a big fan as a kid, that kind of stuff.

But yeah, that's it's a lot.

Just a tangent really quickly, and then we got to wrap things up.

Yeah, we're we're closer than I think most people realize to

all of that being generated.

And so writers just have to type in a prompt, you know?

Yeah. And then boom is all, you know, the visuals, all of it's generated.

And that sort of technology is world changing. Yep.

In ways we can't even begin to comprehend right now.

So much of that stuff.

Yeah. And it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's

it's it's it's it's it's it's

it's kind of interesting that you can have so many little

tech people doing that kind of stuff.

And so many in like this span of content consumer

we're dealing with here on the show.

We're talking big chunk videos.

You know, like in there.

It's like, why is billing this private?

It's just kind of gets your kidzone spec will have to do that job,

and I'm not I'm not at all into that stuff.

I just don't like it anymore.

And I feel like it's it's going back up, and it's going back up.

You're just going to have it

almost depend on the algorithm to find stuff that you think you'll like you

know what I mean like there's just so no no no oh no no no no so much algorithm

is gonna know what you like and it's gonna generate stories that entertain

you for you but then I can't talk about my friend John on the podcast because he

saw a completely different movie that's true so where's our cut where's our

collective love well your friend John will be a generated John did you see

that movie yes I saw the film and it was wonderful yes you were always the best

on the podcast I'm sorry that I had to bring you down watching that I'm sorry

wait a minute wait is this John or this what is going on I give you like a

FaceTime and you're like up in space or something reading novels about space and

space station and I'm like John did you not just talk to me about the movie no

no no that's my AI generator he's just gonna talk to you about it he's gonna

tell you sweet nothings in your ear okay so thanks for joining us on podcast

number 35 11 par 6 podcast next week we're jumping ahead remember we talked

about how we had already watched I think episodes 15 through 19 of this season

that was the Zillabies episodes

We are jumping all the way ahead to episode 20.

So, John, thanks for joining me and thank you for drinking beer with me.

Happy to do so, always.

I did finish it. I did finish my 10 year anniversary tempered sun.

Now that I'm kind of canned, I'm like, oh man, it says tempered sun.

Until next week, stay safe.

This is the 11 Parsecs Podcast, episode 35.

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 11parsecs.com and Discord.

I'm Jonathan Smith with that Marvel of a man, Eric Thompson.

Thank you for joining us.

Oh, these shows are great.