Episode 634-Star Wars Andor Part 1 review/discussion

0:03 Ching Way, Spos Beer Luck is acting very Weirds. Captain Pike's Discos wife king on Sen me after. Like Boimer, Tendy Starbransom is very hard. Sport Drive Black Alert, Torgio has gone perserved feature bad Meth Edward is any facists were Checkov's wearing red Teeter's cat. Cam back sat You has had enough for that penny of make it, So everybody, lets. Go about the series. You can drawing us up the phone. Now about the series.

0:45 We're coming to your services. Now we talk about the series. Comes of the show now. Coming well, good evening Trek E's Trekkers and Star Wars fans around the globe. I had to add that one in there. Welcome to Trek Talking and Beyond. That's right, Beyond is back. We're back from the Beyond. And it's Thursday, May first, twenty twenty five, episode six hundred and thirty four. Can you believe that? And we're gonna go beyond tonight. We're gonna be talking about Star Wars indoor. See see my Darth Vader shirt here. So we're gonna be spreading our wings a little bit. And for the next month we're gonna be talking about Star Wars and Or. But before I get ahead of myself, I'm your most excellent host, Uncle Jim.

1:40 Welcome to the podcast. I want to introduce you to my awesome trek experts. We'll start out with Paul. Paul's out in Portland. How you doing tonight, Paul? I'm well, Uncle Jim, busy, crazy week, but ready to dive into the phenomenon that is and Or tonight. And we are gonna dive deep, deep, deep dive. Also in Portland, we have a very own Eric. How you doing tonight? Eric? Doing pretty good? Man. I got some contractors working in the studio right now, so I'm in Studio B accompanied by my good friend Grogu and gig It out the Transformer over here, and a few other friends on my shelf. So yeah, really looking forward to talking about and Or tonight. Awesome, awesome, And we're gonna stick with the Portland theme and we're going to go out to our very own miracle worker himself, David. How you doing tonight, David?

2:25 I'm doing pretty good. I can't wait to talk about and Or while I eat some donuts. Uh oh, they're not moldy donuts. You're not going to get sick like that moldy cheese incident we had before, are you nope? No? Okay? Good? Make sure you bringing up for everybody too, you know. And also not from Portland but from Las Vegas, the birthday boy himself, Charles. How you doing tonight, Charles? I'm doing good. I may be more listening to the and door stuff because I have not gotten around to it yet, but maybe it has encouraged me to finally get two it this summer. Absolutely absolutely, and usually I would play this really funky, weird Al Yankovic version of Happy Birthday, but that was on blog talk radio and it went away. So I guess we're just gonna have to suffice by saying Happy Birthday to Charles, and that it's been a lot of fun having you on the podcast these last few years, and I look forward to many more podcasts with you.

3:26 Happy Birthday, my friend. Thank you. Same here. And you guys can head over to trek Talking dot com and why we're over there. You can find all six hundred and thirty twelve now it's more like four hundred and fifty because we have limited space of our podcast. There's some great shows over there. Please head over there and check it out. Why you're there though, there's links to our Patreon page, which is hosted by the Birthday Boy himself, Charles, and for only two dollars a month, you can help us keep this podcast alive. If you can also do a one time donation using PayPal and all that information you can at trek Talking dot com. While you're there though, Up in Saratoga, there's this really cool place called the X Files Preservation Collection. And right here I'm holding up a nice autograph picture from the X Files Preservation Collection. It's autographed by Mark Kudra, who is the set dresser, and Chris Waddell, who's the special effects assistant on the show. And I will send that to you absolutely free. So if you're an X Files fan, you definitely want to get your hands on this. If you have to go to trek Talking dot com, click on the little green talkback mic and tell us why I should send that to you. It's that simple, So head over to trek Talking dot com, run, don't walk, and get it done right now. We would absolutely love to send that out to you. So on tonight's show, we're going to be talking about and Or Park one, which is going to be episodes one through three one year later, Sargrona, Tima, and Harvest. We're going to talk

4:57 about all three of those episodes because they release them in blocks of three, and if I'm correct in my assumption, each block is a year, So this was four years prior to Battle of Yavin and then the one the next one is going to be you know, another year and another year, and the final episode will be one year before if I'm reading them correct. So that's what we're going to talk about. We also have our fans shout outs, and that's where we get to say thank you to fans just like you out there for supporting our podcast. All Star Trek is global, and you're going to find out just how global it really is with our fans shout out. We also have some Star Trek polls, and every week I try to dig really deep, get some.

5:40 Ethical conversations going. And I decided, you know, I've been deep and ethical for long enough, so let's just do something stupid and something fun. So one of our polls this week is entitled rikers Beard. We did this once a couple of years ago on blog talk radio, and now we're going to do it here, and we're gonna we're gonna discuss the different phases of Riker's beard and exactly what version of Riker beard you guys like them best. But you're not going to get off really that easy because I do have another ethical question the time that Captain the Card violated the prime directive to save Wesley's life.

6:21 We're going to talk about that one as well, so I'm not letting you off too too easy, but we're going to have some fun with that. We also have a Star Trek Birthdays where you can find out what Star Trek actors you share a birthday with other than Charles. And of course we're gonna wrap things up with our Star Trek News. We have an article about the Doctor talking about Starfleet Academy. Chattner says what and the terrible effects that tariffs are having. On Star Trek collectibles. So that's what we have plan. And while you're over on our Facebook page, which you can get through Tough Trek Talking dot Com or you can go to Truck Talking and Beyond on Facebook, you'll see pin to the top of the page, Live Long and prosper and on there, I'm just going to ask you to tell us where you're listening from and leave some emoji's there because it gets my attention. And if you see a heart next to your name from yours truly uncle Jim, that means you want to tune in because your name is going to be mentioned and a fan shout out. So Eric, take us away and get us started with our fan shout outs for this week.

7:28 Absolutely, Jim, we're gonna We're gonna start out this week heading over to the Scottish Highlands and we're gonna say hello to William Dunbar. Thanks William for saying hello to us, and I cannot wait to make it to your part of the world. It looks so beautiful there. Yeah there's a and I want a real, real Scotch egg, not one from the German restaurant down the street. So thanks for saying hi to us, and live long and prosper to you, sir. Also saying hello this week to Bao to Rosa ros Angela Prato who is from Bao or Zanci in the state of menas ure Ice and I look those up and mostly got the pronunciations right. That's in Brazil. We have tons of support down in Brazil and ros Angela. You are one of those amazing supporters that keeps our flame burning in that beautiful place. So thank you so much for listening to our podcast. Also saying hello this week to Ed Bjorndahl, who is saying hello to us from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island up north in Canada, the birthplace of Confederation. That's right, eighteen sixty four, that's when y'all decided to form your situation up there.

8:42 So Ed, thanks for pointing that out to me. It was something that I didn't really know about, and I went and looked it up. Thank you for listening to our podcast. And last but not least, I want to say hello this week to Jan James, who is saying hello to us from the Gold Coast in Australia, living us that Astro flag, which I'm positive is what got Jim's attention, good thinking. Thanks Jan for listening. Charles, who do you want to say hi to? All right? Thank you Eric. Let's start off with a couple of top fans. Top fan of Heidi Potts from Tacoma, Washington. Welcome a, Heidi. I love heading to your area right around Laborty weekend. Welcome a top fan Jeffrey Wilson from Wooster, Ohio.

9:35 Welcome Jeffrey. Welcome Rob Robertson, who started in Rhode Island, moved to Massachusetts, then the Vermont with Uncle Jim, and then went to New Hampshire where he thinks he's finally gonna stay. I guess you scared him off, Jim, and also welcome to Joshua Cronan from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Welcome Josha and Robert. David who's on your list? Yeah, thanks Charles. I would like to start off my list with Steve Broffman from Cleveland, Ohio. Thank you for listening, and I got a top fan here. David Walker from Boise, Idaho, USA.

10:21 Thanks for listening and let's see next time my listens Amy Joe tim from Green Bay, wisconshin thanks for listening. And another top fan, Jimmy Barker from California Live, Wyoming. Thank you all for listening. And Paul who's on your. List, Well, you know David Idaho, Ohio, Florida. They're all great, right, I mean, yeah, but I like the fact that we have international flair, right, that we have people in other lands, other countries or the languages who not only like Star Trek and science fiction, but like our podcast. To me, that feels pretty good. First of all, we're going to go to the magnificent land of Iceland, Okay, to our pal Steiny Einar's who is saying hello to us from that magical It's not really a continent, really, it's really an island, a really big island. It's a subcontinent. Maybe we should call it a subcontinent, but whatever it is, Iceland is amazing. I spent a few hours there as a child, changing getting a plane refueled, so didn't get to see much other than the airport. But I'm dying to go back and immerse myself in one of those phenomenal hotsprings. So one of these days, Siny, I'll be darkening your door. Never worry. In another Nordic land, we have Helsinki, Finland, where our friend Johann Savola resides. So Johann, fantastic to know that you're out there spreading the science

11:51 fiction enthusiasm that kindles you and keeps you warm in cold weather. So great to know. Moving to a little bit warmer are over on the continent. We have a top fan, Luciano Vulcan. I wonder if that's a birth name, Luciano or an adopted name. I'm not sure. It's certainly apropos to the Star Trek universe, though doesn't say where in Italy that Luciano is from. Piedmont's you know, Tuscany. It's up to us to guess. I guess. But next time, Luciano, let us know where you hell from? Where do you where do you? Where do you get your gelato? Where are you hanging out? We'd love to know and celebrate you even further. Top fan, Luciano Vulcan. So great to hear from you, And finally for me, We're gonna go to the magnificent country of Spain to Madrid and wow, Spaniards, you went through hell this week with that massive power outage that is still I think getting resolved. But Spain and Portugal got hit with a massive disruption of electricity this week, so and I'm hoping that our friend Rebecca Gonzales Gutierrez there in Madrid is doing okay and is recovered and has their phone charged up and is able to listen to the podcast and get caught up on whatever science fiction you may be reveling in. Maybe it's and or and you'll have something to relate to from our broadcast tonight. So we'll see good day for me, Rebecca, and I'll pass this longitudinal conveyance over to Uncle Jim.

13:22 Can you guys hear Can you hear me? We can definitely hear you, all right. Well, something something's wrong with my mic. No, we can hear you. Maybe you can't hear us. We can hear you. You can hear me. We can hear you, Uncle Jee, Yes, it's all right. I can't hear I can't hear you, guys, though, I don't know if if I'm coming through or not you are Can someone give me a thumbs up? Or okay? So I want to say thank you the top fan, Heather d Cam from the San Francisco Bay area. Welcome to the show, Heather. I also want to say thank you to Diana die Man who's listening to us in Ruper, Idaho, USA.

14:06 Thank you for being a fan. Also, Mmy craw Maker from Prescott, Wisconsin, so thank you so much. Amy. And last but not least, Bruce J. Fish from Brooklyn, New York, thank you so much for being a fan. And that wraps up our fit shout out. If you guys would like to be featured on a fan shout out, just go to our Trek Talking Beyond page and tell us where you're from. Leave some emojis and you'll be all set. All right. That brings us up to our star poll.

14:48 You know me like no win what you thought about the show? Then we try to share your opinions with all of our minions out there because they listen worldwide. So tell us just what you think. Get together we will all drink. Canar and robulin an. All right, now, we can't hear Jim anymore, so I'm just gonna go ahead and go with the polls. So Jim's got two polls for us this week. The first one is from Next Generation. In the Next Generation episode Justice, Captain Picard violates the prime directive to save the life of Wesley Crusher. Do you agree with his choice? And David, you probably have a clip of this, right, let's do it?

15:49 Bomb of time? What the boy brought here? Now? Brother? I guess you know a lot has happened. I know, can't the pig? Are you going to let them kill me? No? But I must find some way to prevent it. That you understand, how can we let this happen later? To her? They threaten everything we respect. Our law, our peace, a tranquility and order. You are powerful, but do not do this to us.

16:32 We beg you at least study what we were without law, hurtful to each other, savage leaving. I understand perhaps your system of law and punishment is better than any system we once had, But we do now have a law I must obey, and part of it says that I must protect my people from harm. We did not ask you to come here, which with. Another law that we must obey. We are all sworn not to interfere with other lives in the galaxy. If I save this boy, I break that law, and you should be executed.

17:13 If you do so, I. May suffer almost as much. Starfleet takes the prime directive very seriously. No, it is God who will punish you. That thought has crossed our minds. Your God up there may insists that we obey our non interference directive? Sir? Does this mean if you save me the entire crew could die? You're not involved in this decision, boy. I'm sorry, sir, but it seems like I am. We can't transport a will block into this signal stand by for six to be my Wesley, Lieutenant.

17:56 Our laws have been violated. What a justice? What of justice to Wesley? Does he deserve to die? I'm truly sorry, Leato, but I must have justice for my people too. Transport room, energize, transporter. Room, come in. We can't energize the beams, sir. Everything checks out, but we're getting no results. God has prevented your escape, then your God is unfair. My son had no warning that his act was criminal. We cannot allow ignorance of the law to become a defense.

18:37 I don't know how to communicate this, or even if it is possible, But the question of justice has concerned me greatly of late, and I say to any creature who may be listening, there can be no justice so long as laws are absolute. Even life itself is an exercise and exceptions. But has justice ever been as simple as a rule book? Seems to eat of a vote a Greece for him? Wow? What do you got to be?

19:17 No justice? As long as laws are absolute, that they give him all the good lines? Man? Okay, So we asked our listeners if you know violating the prime directive in this case was a okay, And eighty nine percent of the people who responded to this poll said yeah, it was legit for Card to violate that prime directive to save Wesley, and eleven percent, which is a non zero number, said no, he should have let Wesley go. So I don't know, what do you guys think about this one? Well, David, you want to start anybody? Anybody? Can you guys hear me? Anybody? I'll jump I'll jump in. Okay, okay, a little bit of let's throw some lower decks in there. Why wasn't this planet's planet researched about the laws it had before we sent an away team on to this planet. I think that especially, I think the fact that if they have such major they have death, they have sending people to death for minor infractions, as I believe it was for him walking in the walking in the grass.

20:35 Yep. Then I would say, okay, these are our laws. Oh and you didn't know about the laws, but these people are guessed to your planet. You sit there and say, okay, well you're breaking our laws. But it's not a law to me. And maybe I should have been more familiar with the laws of your planet before we came and visited, just as I have the issue complaining about California's they've got some laws that they are allowed that are not the same laws in Nevada. They are against the law in Nevada. And it's just okay. I think you need to understand the laws of where you're going to and first and second contact should know about this stuff before it occurs. So I agree with Ricard. I think he did the right thing and that she should not have been Can you guys hear me make since the Wesley didn execution when it's a law that we don't understand, we can hear you, Jim. We just can't see you.

21:49 Anything going on. Hello, we're chit chatting. About the bull question. Yeah. All I know is I think that those wardrobe department choice should be against the law. I where no buttocks have gone before. I mean, there's like all kinds of visible nonsense happening that you know, no one really I think knew that there was a thing called high deaf coming and boy like everything, and it's just like this is I think one of the you know, it's just like we all now, uh you know, look, I think back very fondly on Next Gen. Right man, there were some clunky episodes in season one, and this is one of the clunkiest. Yeah, right, I mean it really is.

22:33 It's just like the writing is so you know, college grad students, expository my feelings, what it is. It's just it's so not like normal dialogue. It's just really super tin eared. And lord, how high is Wesley's voice. I mean it's like it's like his voice isn't even when everybody's gonna die, everyone on the enterprise. So by I mean, it's just it's it's oh gosh. I mean, you know, he was growing up, dude, so we went through it. Yeah, but then maybe it was I know, you cause there's ways around it. Let's just put it that way.

23:15 But yeah, I guess I would be with Picard. It's just this is an awful silly one. I mean, it really is. I mean, this is this is a very silly question, I think to be belabrick. So I'm quickly move on. Yes, Picard did, because you can't allow a regular character to get killed on an episode of ongoing television's solid solid pretty much not so. Yeah, I don't think there's any great ethical conundermere. Well, it's also reference. This was an this This was a season one episode eight episode. Very very very low. We can hear you. How about that very.

23:55 Early in season one? We can hear you. Yeah, they were just finding their sea legs here. I don't know something I must it must be the storm here is effective on the internet. Because I'm losing you guys. I I can't hear Jim enough to up to him right now. So yeah, I think we should just go ahead and move on to our second poll question. David, watch play that video. Yeah, we can hear you, Jim. It's not technically a video, it's just a screen. Oh yeah, there's no video for this one. All right, So we asked our our listeners, Uh, which beard do you like the best? The zero Riker Beard, the one Riker Beard, the two riker beard, or all four Rikers?

24:51 You can't make me go back. I'm pretty sure that's grateful dead or fish fish following Riker right following. It's it's constantly being attacked by the borg right. Bill, Bill Walton, Riker, I mean, unkempt beard is just not a good look. I mean, lord, lord lord. It just takes us back to our caveman origins. I mean, it is kind of amazing how different he looks with a beard versus no beard. In general, I you know, you forget about that season one where he didn't have the beard. Yeah, you do. And he's kind of likable without the beard, right, I mean, I you know, I mean it's everybody. It's so interesting to look at the first season stuff, right, because everyone really was finding their way, right and as as you know, he got a lot of grief for being wooden in the first season, right, But he's a very likable performer, right, he really is. I mean it's just like you go back this it's you know, it's you know, it's it's hard not to like his performances.

25:53 He's really good. So I'm in the zero in one area. I think those you know, I think that's you know, not not so much gandalf Riker. I don't think I like that. I'm kind of in the same blacket here. I mean, I like it when he doesn't have a beard. In fact, and I believe it was instrorection, he also shaved his beard, so he went back to being oh. Did he I can't remember that? Yeah, I have to go check that out. But then you have to watch this contract. I can't remember which one a wig now. I don't remember. I do remember he shaved off. I don't remember when that was, Yeah, I don't remember. Well. According to our listeners who responded to this poll, twenty six percent of the people who responded to the pole like the zero riker, the no beard riker, so solid quarter of the people. Thirty eight percent, which is the biggest number, falls on the one riker, which I think, you know, makes a lot of sense. That's the riker that we get the most in the series. Twenty seven percent of our responders like the two riker beard, which of course is from Star Trek Picard, you know, and a beard that has aged like a fine wine, we might say. And then of course nine percent of our responders did like the full on Jerry Garcia beard.

27:13 We've got to get those nine callers on the air, man, I want to hear what's going on with that. They're lit, they're lit. I didn't get a chance to throw my opinion, But ge I wonder which one I'm going with? Yeah, I'm going to two. Yeah, classic classic, distinguished, Yeah, you know, a more distinguished. Do we have any controls that can help elevate Jim's volume. Do we have anything that we can use on him, because he's I could hear him, but it's just so. Small volume on his computer. Yeah, I've got it turned up to maximum.

27:54 You're a little bit louder. It's a little better. Where is your mic? Is it in the computer or is it handheld? Where is it located? Right here? Put it by your throat? Put it like right here, right here? That's right. Yeah, so we can hear you any better? That's better. Right by your vocal cords, like at the bottom of your T shirt. That's the spot. Okay, cool, I kind of like the two Rikers. Makes sense? Yeah, a refined Riker cool? All right, Well that does it for our polls this week. Guys. Okay, we dug deep, didn't we? We did? Yeah? The Rikers, you know. Yeah, but David's right though, he did shave his beard off and insurrection. Yeah, when Jordy, when Jordi got his site back, Riker's beard fell off.

28:45 Yeah that's right. You're manually driving the ship. Yeah, go figure that out. Because he looked with the joystick, right, that was pretty awesome. He didn't have a beard in season one, so his beard fell out. I don't I don't know, I don't get it. I'd have to go back and rewatch an Nemesis, which I don't know if I'm going to or not. Insurrection. Yeah, yeah, so at any rate, So that wraps up our polls, guys. Yeah, a lot quicker than I thought. I thought we were gonna have more discussion. But we did. You were gone for most of it. Yeah, okay, we were busy. We were busy talking about the Edo's costumes.

29:26 They were they were quite unique, weren't they. Yeah. I mean it's just like if it's a word you can use if like if you. Know, uh, who's the guy who ran Penthouse magazine? Uh? Can I even remember? I don't know. Yeah, if that guy, Bob GUCCIONI if if Bob GUCCIONI had ended up breaking the guy who produced Star Trek, that's what it would have looked like, right. It was just like crazy. And I think the tops are you know, the tops might work because they're kind of nicely ventilated, you know, but the the bottom ones, particularly for the guys, I can't imagine that's comfortable. New it's powerful uniform.

30:06 How could a society just run around. It kind of reminded me a little bit of Logan's run. You know. They just run around doing anything they want, as long as they don't fall in the flowers. Yeah, yeah, stay away from the flowers. So all right, well I guess I guess then we're ready for some and ors. So all right, take it away, David, roll the tape. Maybe there we go. We're no war. You want to fight? Who do you want to win?

30:56 The remains. The world turn around? Hollows have come. To bean. Really stars, Now. What a swell part of this? Remember this moment. You're here, You're right here, and you're ready to fight. All right, guys, there it is. That was the trailer for Indoor season two, and I think it's safe to say that ninety percent of the footage that we just saw was from the first three episodes. I would say pretty much most of that footage was all from the first three episodes that we're gonna talk about tonight. And uh, without any further ado,

32:30 Charles hasn't had a chance to watch season one, so he's just gonna sit in and join us. I will let Paul jump in and start, and uh, I'm going I'm I'm going to I'm gonna go and try I'm gonna go and try to find Jamie and see if I can get her to come on with us. So I'm gonna I'm gonna jump off here for a second while Paul starts up, and I'm gonna go get Jamie. I want some brief recaps of episodes. Is that what you're looking for? Yeah, you, guys, We're gonna cover all three episodes at once, because that's how they were really. Okay, cool, So I'll just do sort of a fast and loose, you know, consolidation of storyline. I think that's quicker than us doing episode one, episode two, episode three. Okay, so let me do that. Yeah.

33:10 So, so Paul's going to take it away for the benefit, and I'm going to go try to get Jamie. So I'll be right back, guys, All right, all right, So I'm just gonna kind of do quick recaps guys, if that sounds good, and to just jump in as you care to, and then we can start going over in detail. So a lot of folks may not have watched the show yet for all I know, right, I know Charles hasn't yet, and I want to make sure that we do this in a way that like doesn't alienate people who have not seen it yet. This is the second season, right, and or had an incredibly strong critical reaction because it was so unlike conventional Star Wars, right. I mean, it was really like, you know, kind of the tagline sort of became like Star Wars for adults. Right. It did a little bit more dramatic content than you'd usually seen Star Wars. Very little of the Jedi nights, very little of the Force, very little of that type of stuff. It's more like a slow burn seventies conspiracy thriller, right, So, but spread out to like you know, TV series season length movies like the Conversation from Francis Coppola Three Days of the Condor Marathon Man, It's a lot more like that kind of thing, right. And it's a spy picture, right, It is a spy story. So the second season that we're focusing on here right now, it starts one year after the events of the first season, so a lot of stuff has happened, right, So, well.

34:30 And Paul and remind folks, when this entire television show is set in the Star Wars universe, right. Folks, who aren't familiar. You hear the abbreviation bby a lot, right, and what that stands for is before the Battle of Yavin. Okay. The Battle of Yavin is the end of Star Wars, right, That is, when Luke shoots his proton torpedo and blows up the Death Star. That's the Battle of the Havevin. So this is all leading up to the events before that. You kind of want to have seen the movie Rogue One, okay, which was basically the prequel to all that that leads up. You know, we always hear about the start of the original Star Wars where Princess Leah gets the plans to the Death Star, the stolen plans to the Death Star.

35:13 Rogue one is the prequel to Star Wars. That shows us how they got those stolen plans, okay, And so that's all about this. The and Or series is a prequel to Rogue One. It shows the nascent formation days of the Rebellion before it became the Rebel Alliance. Right, There's still a lot of chaotic stuff happening. Their organizational cohesion is not that strong. So that's been a background. Would we agree in terms of the setup there? Ye? And the first, you know, it says right out of the gate this first episode, it's been a year, right since the events of the first season, and it begins with the dynamite action sequence, right, you know, the whole tie avenger heist, right, the prototype, experimental advanced prototype that the Empire's got, and we see Cassie and they just jump right in there. We don't need to understand why it's important. We don't need to understand what led up to this, you know, if it prevents them from making more, we don't know. All we know is is an action sequence.

36:12 Cassian is there disguised as a test pilot and his goal is to steal it, right. And what's interesting is there's one of his cohorts there, this woman Nia right, and she's afraid to even look at him, but he is encouraging her to see him, right, and that it's okay, don't you know, invest yourself right, Because I think a theme that we see through these initial three episodes is that the first step towards building loyalty and cohesion for the rebel alliance is trust. You see that theme rising up quite a bit in the course of these first three episodes, right, So we're kind of with this initial episode, we're getting back into Cassian's head, and then we jump around to a lot of different planets as these plots start moving, right, I'm going to try to consolidate storylines as much as possibly here. But you see with these stories is there's a pattern in this show of tension building and building and building, and then it just explodes. Right, And we're getting like four three episode arcs here, and we're tonight talking about the first arc one, two and three.

37:16 So we spend a lot of time on a planet called Chandrilla, right, which is the estate of extremely wealthy Senator Mon Mathma, who we've seen in the original Return of the Jedi right many Bothman's died, you know it's man Mathma, right. And the sets are amazing here on the Chandrilla estate. I mean very little of the digital volume here. They are built sets and they're walking around on tangible environments, which is incredible. And we're setting the tone for this big wedding that's happening, right because the Alliance needs funding and so she's kind of had to arrange a marriage of convenience for her daughter, right to make sure that the funding stream comes through. There and I love Mon Mathma. She's a phenomenal actress, right, really does a great job. It is really her reaction when she sees the luth and Rails arrive. He's like the mastermind, trigger man, like the most dangerous guy essentially in the alliance when he shows up and he's in his kind of you know, I'm a wacky antique stealer disguise, right, and he's assessing everything the entire time. And when they're talking Mon Mathlen Luthen, it's almost like in a kind of code, right, they have to say what their intentions are without being publicly understood. So it is fascinating. There we see there's a character we briefly saw in the first season who was in an old friend of Mon's take Kolma, right, and he was initially, oh, yeah, I'll back the Rebel Alliance, but now he's got all these

38:47 money troubles which don't seem to be leaning into a good direction. Right. Meanwhile, on the farm planet of Mina, Raw and Or's friend Bix is having all these nightmares from the previous season where she was tortured by an imperial doc for Gorshed Right. Basically the doctor Mengela of the of the Empire, and she's having a lot of PTSD, right, And so they're in this kind of refugee storyline on this farm planet with Wilmann and Brasso, who we all know from the first season, right, And it is very timely storytelling because you know, they are undocumented workers. They don't have a visa and they're hiding out from the Empire trying to work as you know, supporting the agriculture of a planet sound familiar a little bit, and you know, really keeping out of the crosshairs of the of the Empire this whole time, right. And then the Empire shows up to do what they call a you know, an Imperial supply census, you know, an audit, right, and they're you know, they're happy to find whatever else they may come across in the course of their audit, right, And it's they clearly point out that the undocumented workers in the Empire are what we u that they depend on, right.

40:01 So that's all being set up there, and then we go over to the storyline I just love the most is when we're with the empire folks, right, and we're with the villains at the Malfied divide and Krenick Okay, director Krenick, the great Ben Mendelshahan, right, who was a pivotal character in Rogue one. Here we see his early development. Right. It's kind of want to be moth target if you're not true. Krenick is right, And he's explaining all about this planet that they have their eyes on called Gorman, Right. Nave is a wacky tourism video. Right, It's this remote planet. They're famous for their great skill weaving cloth. It's kind of a sophisticated planet where it's like the Milan or Paris runway of the Empire. Right, And they do a lot of resources. They do a lot of fine clothes and things like that. And he mentions the Empire's energy project, right, which is essentially you know the Death Star if you have read between the lines there when he's talking about all these good things. Oh there Empire's energy unlimited power project. Right.

41:06 And what's great is they're doing all this scheming and planning and including the propaganda office, which you've never seen before. Right. They get into the more adult aspects of the Star Wars world and they peel back the onions more and they even call the Propaganda Office the Ministry of Enlightenment, which is just frightening but really great, and they're you know, really working on the idea of you know, creating an enemy out of thin air. Right, and Dedra Miro is I think easily my favorite character on this whole show. She is just absolutely phenomenal. She is just sort of the ice queen, if you will, of the Empire and the ISB the Imperial Security Bureau. There she is trying on some clothing, right, but she is just it's a phenomenal performance. I mean, absolutely one of the best performances in all Star Wars. She is just chilling and fascinating the watch. She's just great and of great stuff there.

42:00 So she suggests that the way to do is infiltrate the Gorman resistance and make them a scapegoat to help further justify what the Empire's up to. Right, And then all that these initial setups are happening, and then Cassian lands that stolen tie fighter on this jungle world that is initially we don't know about, and he runs into this really rudderless, incompetent band of rebels, right that they just cannot get together. They have no trust yet, and so they're completely split apart and fractured, and they've resorted to tribalism essentially into splitting into two groups. And they're very miss untrustworthy of Cassian. They don't believe he's a rebel because he's stressed up as a Tie Fighter pilot.

42:42 So they've killed one person already who they didn't know who they were, who was supposed to be Cassian's contact, right, but that person's now dead at their incompetent hands, and Cassian's in a very sticky position with this stolen TI Fighter as a result. So that's the end of one year later, the very first episode. Do we want to talk about that at all, guys, or do you want me to do recaps for the other two as well? I thought we were going to go through the entire three episode. I can do that. Yeah, I can do that, Okay, So I just want to make sure that I'm not talking too much because that's a historical problem for some of us. So let's go to the second episode, Sagrona Tima, okay, And a lot of learning about mon Mathma's culture on this planet of Chindrilla. We've heard a lot about it in comics and stuff, but we'ven't really seen it in a movie that much before, so it's kind of interesting.

43:34 So Dedra Miro, Imperial Matahari, is tasked with taking on this whole Gorman project. At director krenics the hast and he says, basically, pretend it's a demotion, right, but it's really a chance for her to prove her merit. Right. So there's a lot of things going on in the Empire that aren't really what's going on, a lot of pretending, a lot of falsehoods being depicted. Right. Meanwhile, Cyril Karn, who was a lower level Imperial operative that we saw in the first season, he's moved up at the Bureau of Standards, right, and he's still this official, self important weed. But what's interesting is he sort of jumped in and saved Dedra at the end of season one, and now they're together because the year has passed, right, and they have a very weird relationship, it seems, but they're together and they're living in an apartment together on Coussant, right.

44:29 So meanwhile, back at Monmathma's house on Chondrilla, things are getting very very tense. Her husband Paren makes this speech about oh, we all need to have fun, and he's making a speech at his daughter's you know, the night before the wedding, right, But what he's really talking about is self indulgence and not getting involved and like how billionaire class can basically just fritter away and carry on but doesn't really take any stakes and things or you know, exhibit a conscience, even as the Empire is you know, growing and flexing their muscles more then our take hole. My guy is really in trouble with mon Mothman. Now, okay, he's been hurt financially. Is funding of the early days the rebellion has become more of an inconvenience, and unfortunately he is drinking a lot and being very loose lips.

45:18 And as soon as you see Luthen looking at him, you can kind of see where this is going. It's like, you know, you are a liability man, and if Luthen Rail thinks you're a liability, your time on this earth is not long. Meanwhile, back on Mina Raw, the Empire's audit is closing on Bix And this is a weird place of Star Wars. We've never gone before, really, not this overtly because you have this horrible imperial lieutenant who's leading this audit on the farm and he had basically has sexually predacious designs on Bix, right, I mean you can see it from a mile away. He's a predator, right, and it does not look good. And over on that jungle world with Cassie and they're all just completely divided and they're finding some chewed up human remains that don't look good. But the rebellion feels very leaderless here. We need a man Mathma at this point, right, she is yet to step into the mantle of that role. And the rebellion just feels like they do not have a magnetic North to help them, right. They actually resort the two disparate factions of rebels on the jungle. They resort they trying to settle their problems with like the rock paper scissors thing. They try to row Shambeau their way out of it. It's ridiculous, right, this is how out you know, it's very kind of allegorical what they're saying here.

46:34 And there are literal monsters in the jungle out there while they're just busy dicking around, right, they're going to eat them up. So during all this chaos and this monster attack. Cassian steals the tie Fighter and flies away, and during the reveal when we pull back, we see that this is Yavin for right, this is where the rebel base was at the end of Star Wars. So it's a really cool reveal because we see the temple and the jungle there, and it's like they don't know it, but they're actually at the if they'd got their shit together, they were at the very place that would end up becoming like the key Bass that is all of that climactic action at the end of the regular Star Wars. So it's a really cool reveal. That's the second episode.

47:14 Real quick, let's get into the third episode where things really explode, because that's what happens. Things build and build and build. That's a great shot there. If you're looking at this, that's Davos Skulden right there, and that on the left that is Clia, who works really closely with Luthen. That's Luthen in his disguise as the antiques dealer. There. They're doing all kinds of crazy and various stuff. Okay, so we're back on Coruscant and this scene is one of the best scenes of the season so far. I love the scene so much. We're with Dedra and Cyril in their apartment and Dedra's crazy, controlling, weird mother. Edie comes back. She's always a lot of fun to watch, and you know, they're having her over for dinner to you know, meet her, and it is hilarious watching Dedra Miro try to fake a smile in the mirror while she's getting ready to meet her here and basically after about five minutes, Dedre just basically sucks away all of Edie's power over Cyril, and Cyril just collapses on It is a hilarious moment. It's a great scene. It's definitely, you know, weirdly comedic. It's a very disturbed, weird, dysfunctional relationship.

48:26 Right Meanwhile, back on Chandrilla, Man Mathma is giving her daughter a final plead don't go through with this wedding, which seems weird just because they kind of really are dependent on the financing that this arranged marriage caused, right, so she's almost undermining her own position by doing that. But it's just a sense that she's realizing she's going to have to give up a lot to commit to where she needs to go, and I think she's still reckoning with that as we see in this episode, right, Davo s. Goulden gives the young married couple the gift of this priceless statue, and there's this great scene where we see Ta Kolma getting really drunk again, and there's this wonderful scene where man Mathma and Luthan are talking about what to do and they're basically talking about killing him without saying it. And again they just have to they just have to kind of use code as a way to communicate in these social situations. And I just love the way it ends with you know, her refusing to admit what she needs to get into right and what's necessary, and Luthen's just like, how nice for you.

49:31 It's an incredible moment, really really amazing performance. And then this show uses music a lot, which is unusual, not like that weird contemporary music we heard in the trailer there. I mean that was just kind of a marketing thing that I thankfully they haven't repeated. But they use what would be contemporary music in this world right that the people would be listening to. And it's almost like a rave going on at the the wedding dance right, and man, Mathma basically just you know, she just starts drinking heavily, realizing she's not in control of all the things she needs to be and she hasn't really committed herself yet, and she's just basically dancing it out right because she knows that Tay is on his way to get killed from a character called Sinda, who we know from a previous seasons disguise is like a chauffeur to take him moment, and we're never going to see take home again. He's gone right, and it's just really great. We don't need to see it. We just know it, right, We just know it. And Cassie and finds out where everyone is over on Mina Round. He drops everything to go head over there with the Tie Fighter to save his friends, and then we get into this really horrible moment where this awful, skeazy lieutenant tries to extort sex out of Bix Colleen, which is the most severe thing I think we maybe have ever seen in Star Wars. But given that this whole show is about what fascism does, would argue it's wildly appropriate. So for people who freaked out

51:04 and say a rape scene is not Star Wars. Well, you know, maybe you've been shearing for the wrong side and you're not really confronting what fascism and the empire is all about. So and it's really it doesn't actually happen, which is good, but it's pure empire and pure fascism. And the message we're getting from this really strenuously is, you know, the Empire is not here to enforce the law. They're here to use the law for their own benefit. Right, laws serve the Empire, not its citizens. That is what this is all about. Right And they and Bix gets a hammer and kills the guy rather dramatically, right, and Cassie and shows up in the tie Fighter and blows up a troop transport. Everything gets crazy. Everyone's trying to, like, you know, flee for their lives. But a key character who is part of their unit, a guy named Brasso, who was really fundamental in the in the end of season one, he doesn't make it and he's and you kind of get the feeling that Cassie and feels Brasso died for nothing. It's just it's not a triumphant moment other than Bix escaping that awful fate. Plus they leave behind poor Robot B two Emo there and they leave I mean around behind. So it's a pretty intense scene.

52:25 I mean it is you've got to Basically, these first two episodes really set everything up right, and so much of the focus I think to really focus on with this these initial episodes is on what's going on with mad Mathma right as this the whole wedding is evolving of her child, where is her arc moving to as she steps into the mantle of being a leader. Remember at this point she's a senator, you know there in you know in yeah, coruson with where the emperor is. We still haven't seen the Emperor yet. I don't know if we will on I'm kind of dying to though. I think it would be amazing if we do get to. But I love the Imperials that they show. We really get to see those cats up close, and they're pretty nefarious and they're really great. In particular Ded Ramiro's boss, major part of gas right, this guy was on Game of Thrones all the time. Phenomenal evil, just brilliantly acted role.

53:23 He's just great, And so it all builds up to this big you know, there's a Brasso, right there, it just builds up to this tremendous clash where you know, finally Cassion gets to come in and try to save people at the last minute, but there's the feeling of like, can you ever really save everyone? Right? And it seems like people keep having empty deaths and die for nothing. So and that's where we go. And then next it takes us into the second arc that we'll be talking about next week of episodes four, five, and six. So that's kind of the stage set. That's way enough of me talking to set things up, though. So Eric, have you watched all three of these episodes, sir?

54:03 I have watched all three of these episodes. I watched them over the last couple of days, so they're pretty fresh in my head. I'd love to hear your thoughts, man, So. First and foremost, I love the fact that they've got this kind of ABC D story thing going on on the four different planets. You know, I think one of the cool things that we've always seen in Star Wars is that these planets provide great backdrops for whatever the drama is that we need. You know, you think about Star Wars and you think about places like Javin for or Dagaba or Hoth or you know, these these types of things. And so, you know, I've always loved as an architect. Anytime we get to see Corraussant, I get excited because I just think the architecture and the design that they put into representing the city at the center of the empire. I think it's just it's just really fulfilling for me. So so yeah, the four different planets, the four different stories. One thing that feels very different to me, I think in this season two so far is that it felt like season one really focused a lot more on the character of Cassian and Or, and here we're getting more variety, We're getting a lot more onn Mathma, We're getting a lot more kind of b stories, like the two kids who were in love on Mina Rao and how that adds flavor to the whole thing.

55:32 And I like that. In fact, it almost has me wondering why they decided to call this show and Or, and why they didn't call it like Star Trek, Rebellion or you know some other name that was kind of had a broader umbrella than focusing on the last name of this one character. You know, I mean, like if when there was a show called Obi Wan Kenobi. You knew it was going to be about Obi Wan Kanobi, but it doesn't feel like the show's about Cassian and or it feels like it's about the rebellion being built. So you know, he's gonna move into prominence though, because he's well, I mean. He was the focus of Rogue one too, so that, yeah, I totally agree with that. I also totally agree with your your statement about the sets just being off the hook.

56:19 I mean, they they are doing some really amazing world building here, and you you feel like you're in these areas, and I do think that that's partially because of the authentic sets and it not all being digital screen type stuff. The design is just so spot on. I mean, I I hate to say it, but to me, it feels like Star Wars is doing a way better job on design than Star Trek is doing these days. I find a lot of the Star Trek ships to be kinda meh. The worlds that they put together are kind of mayh. But to me, the design that they're putting into Star Wars right now is just really crazy. You know, It's funny.

57:03 This picture just made me think about the planet of Mina Raw When it first came up and you see these fields of wheat, the first thing I thought of was that stupid? What was that? Zack Snyder two parter Rebel Moon? Did you ever see that? I got through about half of the first part of it. It was just. It was so bad. But the kind of like farm setting just made me think of that briefly. They're doing a way better job with that farm setting here. And once again, the machines, the architecture, the whole like silo contraption thing there. Was just so super cool. What about the costumes too, man.

57:43 I mean the costumes, the hair, everything is just really it's this show just is like high design on all sorts of different levels. Absolutely. I guess the last thing that I want to say about it is that one problem I think that some people mentioned about season one was they felt like it was slow. They felt like the pacing was slow, They felt like some people felt like it was boring. You know, aside from the tie fighter scene at the very front of the first episode here, which was action packed like right off the bat, a lot of this show is still pretty slow. And I don't have a problem with that.

58:25 I think that they're building right now. You know, they spent it in probably I don't know what percentage, but probably thirty five or forty percent of that episode on the wedding, right and all of the details of the wedding, like all the little ins and outs and rituals and you were mentioning the dance, and just the number of things of details that they added to that. You could say to yourself, why do I want to sit through an hour long show where twenty five minutes of it is a wedding. Well, it was a pretty kick ass wedding and it was pretty interesting, and it provided this great backdrop for all of these little conversations to be able to happen while while the event is going on, which I think is very realistic. You know, the world is not a place where two people always go off in a corner and have a conversation. There's often these sort of like deal making things going on in public, or discussing ins and outs of the rebellion going on in public in hush tones. So I think the pacing of the show is still great. It feels like it's got little blips of action when it needs to have little blips of action. Those broken rebel guys. I mean, you know the planet where the two groups of rebels kind of start fighting each other. I thought was was brilliant because it does show, as you were just saying, why they need a leader, they clearly all have the same kind of ideas of what they want to do, but they don't know how to do it because nobody's

59:57 kind of leading the charge focusing them. Right, It's like they're just raw. They're raw, you know, docter and emotion and I hate the Empire, but they don't know what to do about it, right, Yeah. And it's just I find that really interesting, right, And it's just to me, it's just like I feel like if Tony Gilroy has a model in his mind, I mean, to me, I think he's drawing more from like a lot of seventies pictures, like even like The Godfather, Right, pictures like The Godfather and The Deer Hunter had like super long, extended wedding scenes in them, right. And but but you keep cutting away to the other little details of things that are happening on the periphery where people are up to no good. They're either you know, having relations in a hidden bedroom or they're planning to kill somebody, or they're you know, getting rid of the police or whatever.

1:00:41 I mean, it's just these little touches that are happening around there, and then gradually, slowly things get closer and closer together and then something you know, absolutely, you know, kinetic and explosive will happen. So I just love that kind of pacing. I mean a lot of it's just I grew up with pictures like that, right, and I'd love to see that sensibility in you know, basically flipping off you know, the conventional TV storyteller that says, you know, I must make it action packed, and this is like something exciting. I mean, I like character and theme right and strong writing, and I just think it's really effective here. This second season has been amazing so far. From me, I love it.

1:01:23 Yeah, I would agree, Yeah, go ahead. I was gonna kind of go off of what Eric mentioned about the set about how Star Wars set is getting to the point where it's just like when you watch that scene where man Mathma is walking through her house, you know, the camera is like going back and you could just see all the stuff that was in front of her, right, and then it was just like it just kept getting more and more and more. It was just like, whoa, it's just actually a set or just cgi I couldn't. Tell, but I think it's a set because at one point it's like they're using some really unusualn't had a chance of research the episode and usual lenses to where you're kind of like, it's really bringing in this kind of like panoramic view, right, But I think a lot of the times they're like, I know, there's a subway depot in London that they've used a lot for both of these for like the image you have right there right where they can go and actually use a big, cool, futuristic looking, you know, existing location, and I think that's way better than the you know, and certainly better for the actors right than to have to be acting up against the volume and stuff.

1:02:32 So yeah, it definitely helped the actors like really focus on like their role because if they can see the environment, they can play with it and they can literally just like act as they're going, And to me, I think that actually helps them a lot better. But kind of like you know, acting on a reaction kind of thing. So who's your favorite characters that you like? David who do you find yourself just excited when they come on screen? Man, Mathma, I think just because I know what how her role is from like watching Return of the Jedi kind of thing, because I know she's gonna be there.

1:03:14 But I mean, I wanted to mention that this particular show, like you mentioned, more of an adult version of Star Wars, and it really reminds me a lot of Game of Thrones. It really does like you don't know who's gonna die, who don't know what's gonna happen. But of course you know certain characters are gonna survive because of you know, we know their story, how it end. But as far as like all the people in the wedding, that whole scene, I was kind of confused, like who is who because I've never seen this guy before. But yeah, to me, I got really like here, for instance, that guy in the gray in the middle there between Mathma, Yeah, that's her husband. Okay, So I'm still a little confused about who's who in this whole scenario here.

1:03:58 There's so many characters, man, a lot, right, I know, it's very easy to get confused by them. I mean, because it's just the show. Just asked you to go with it sometimes and then you. Figure it out. And I actually haven't seen season one for like over a year, like when it first came out, so I kind of forgot a lot of what happened then. And then coming into here, I goes like, Okay, I know who's. This shit, but not you. But to me, as it was going from you know, the storyline ABC, and now there's a d apparently they're going back and forth with machines. That really got me confused a lot of time, because if it wasn't for the planet environment, I wouldn't have known what exactly what's going on.

1:04:41 What kind of confused me. So I have to rewatch it, and I'm probably gonna start from season one again to try and figure out like how the story progressed. But yeah, so far, I really enjoy it. It's getting to the point where it's I mean, from what we saw on the toy we know k K two show or whatever his memorage s. K two, Oh yeah, from from Rogue one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that roguat guy. He could of show up, which would be great because he was always hilarious and just bitter and brutal and just you know, he's great and the voice actor. He's the guy from Suinity, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So just overall, I mean, I like Rogue one. I really enjoyed Rogue one a lot, and knowing that this is a prequel, it's really interesting to see how their character developed to go through. And I'm hoping for more seasons rather than there's a season two because I'm interesting and probably deserves it. Loose a good five in my opinion, They're all done, man, this is it. They're only two seasons.

1:05:50 Oh yeah, they's planned out that way. Initially, they were originally going to try and do more, but they just said, let's get in and focus and really, you know, amp up the beats. So they want this to lead directly into Rogue one at the end of the season. So that's what I've been hearing. That's what That's what Paul was saying, was that the each each batch of three episodes is a year, and there's only four years from the Battle of. We're kind of getting like for this season, we're getting like four movies? Is it the way to look at this season? Like there are three episode increments, really, but we're getting like four badass Star Wars movies, right That all lead up to Rogue One, which is incredible and just so hard to predict. I mean a lot of stuff. Why do we start talking about you know, four or five and six next week? I mean, man, it's hard to.

1:06:34 I Mean one of the brilliant things about Rogue One that then and Or is also doing is that we already know how this all ends, right, and yet it's so interesting. We still care about the characters, we still care about how it happens. We already know the rebels are going to win, we already know they're going to destroy the dust Star, but right there, but somehow we are just enthralled with the character. And that's the writing. Man, That's. And really good casting on this show, right. I mean, I just don't enough cannot be said about you know, I think the you know the I think Diego Luna does a great job right as the hero. But but the supporting actors are just stelling scars Guard as you know, Luth and Rail he's just.

1:07:20 Uni and Denise Gau as as Dedra. I mean, she is just spot on. She's the one that I get excited about every time she comes on the screen. I just I love everything she does. She's amazing. She's I mean, I'm very proud to say I have. I think I'm up to date with all of my and Or action figures, right, And I was a little giddy when they made a Dedra Miro action figure. I was just like, that's that's badass, you know, but really cool characters all the way through there, and uh and things happened just suddenly that you weren't expecting, right, And it's just let Jim get in here, man, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, keep going, guys. Well, I don't think you guys really want me to get in here because we're about to hear completely different opinions.

1:08:07 And I respect everything that you guys have said, but I disagree with you. Art is subjective, man, So it's very subjective. I found Season one to be a total bore. Put me to sleep. I've said that before. And this and Or has divided the Star Wars community in a big, big way because you have people like you, guys, and people like me, and it's it's it's caused a big divide in the world of Star Wars. I felt that the rape scene was completely just just not necessary on call for I agree with you, Paul, we all know what goes on. But this is Star Wars. When I was a teenager, when I was a kid on a paper route, I'd collect my money, I'd run on, plunk down my seventy five cents, Yes, seventy five cents, that's how old it was. And I would see Star Wars every weekend. Every weekend I went to see Star Wars.

1:09:06 It was a fun popcorn movie, get away from everything, have a good time, good versus evil, the good guys win. It was a fun, feel good movie. They have taken that out of Star Wars. They're turning Star Wars into Star Trek, where all we need now is Captain to Card to show up and give some ethical, you know, speech about why the Empire is evil. So I'm I'm really not digging this at all. The scene with the blue milk drinking guy and his mother reminded me of Aaxana Troy. I just didn't dig that scene at all. The Rock paper Scissors scene on Yavin was a joke.

1:09:46 I just the wedding, Oh my god, they dragged down the wedding for freaking forever. Three episodes of a wedding boring and and Or spends half the time time locked up in a tie fighter. We don't even see him really much in the beginning and at the end. So yeah, I didn't feel about it the way you guys did at all. But it started out phenomenal. Started out. I was like, Wow, maybe they're gonna get away from the season one snooze fest, and they did. We got to see some Stormtroopers taking over the Weak planet, which I thought was really awesomely cool, and Krenick was To see Krenic, I was like, yeah, Cretic, Yeah, I love the credit character.

1:10:37 And to see them scheming to take over the Spider planet there, Golum whatever it was, Gondorman, you know, and they're going to actually infiltrate the rebellion and make sure that the rebellion is the rebellion. So I find it kind of ironic that the Empire themselves might be the ones that start the very rebellion that brings them down. So there's a lot here that I liked. I still feel that it's just moving too slow, and that they're taking the Star Wars out of Star Wars and turning it into Star Trek. And yeah, I remember an episode of Discovery last season where Debtmer takes Booker's ship and flies it around the Orion Green Queen ship and they send the fighters out and have a space fight around the ship, and all the Star Wars, all the Star Trek fans were up in arms because they're turning Star Trek into Star Wars with space battles, and I feel that they're doing the same thing here. I don't want to see rapes on Star Trek on Star Wars. I just I don't think it belongs there. You know, Star Wars is made for kids, and you don't want kids to watch this. It's too adult for children. And I'm sorry that I disagree with you guys on that.

1:11:55 Well, I would just say this is not this. I think they would the greatest of the show. It absolutely this is not thus Star Wars for children. Right, And you've we've we've said many times in this show that like a lot of times with like franchises, right, and you've said this about Star Trek. Right. There's different flavors like do you want to go into the Baskin Robins and there is just well, we have Vanilla, and we also have Vanilla. Oh, we have Vanilla, and we also have today a special Vanilla. I mean you don't want a bunch of different alternatives, right, different kinds of stories. And no one is you know, saying that this is where Star Wars needs to go, right, But this is a for for folks that want, you know, this type of storytelling who like this. I don't think it's I mean, there's still other kinds of I mean, I think we were seeing very currently right shows like Ahsoka and Mandalorian, very much like the Star Wars you're evoking, right. Still, I agree that those are.

1:12:47 Looking forward to Grogu and the Mandalorian movie. Yeah, this is just a different, you know, different type of storytelling. It's different for ever darker. Yeah, absolutely for everybody. I am very much looking forward to. One of the things that disappointed me about season one was and Or meets K two s So, well, wait, and Or meets an Imperial Droid and I thought this was going to be K two s oh, but it wasn't. I'm I'm really hoping that we see K two s O. In fact, I know we are because I see his names in the I m b D credits. So yeah, K two s O is going to show up, and I think for me, that's really going to bring it closer to to Rogue one, which which in my opinion, is the ultimate Star Wars movie is Rogue one. So when they bring in K two s O, when we get to see that relationship developed, I'm all for that.

1:13:39 I'm also looking forward to seeing uh uh, the Rebel Alliance guy that's a terminator what's his name there from Rogue one, the guy that breathes with a breathing mask and he's got a robot foot and a robot arm, And I'm yeah, I also saw his name in the credit, so I'm looking forward to seeing him. My point is that we are four years before Battle the Avin. The next three episodes are going to be three years, the next three are going to be two years, and the last three are going to be right before the battle. I'm hoping that as we move closer and closer and closer to the Battle of y Avin, or for those of you, for Rogue one, that we're going to get closer to the characters that we know from Rogue one, and we're going to get to see some of their background and some of the character building. I just find all the whispering, all the stuff to be just not what I'm looking for. In my opinion, I did.

1:14:41 Shall we not continue talking about the show? Then? Probably on the podcast? Oh no, absolutely not. We talked about the Orville and I absolutely despised that show, and we went on and on and on and with the Orville forever. So I thought that the scene in the wheat field, seeing stormtroopers running across a field of wheat firing at Braxo, was it Braxo? That was like that was like a scene that I never thought I'd see stormtroopers on a farm, you know. Was different. So there were some things I liked about the show, and there were some things I didn't like about the show. There was enough that I liked about it that I'm really psyched to see, you know where it goes. And I want to see k Twoso show up. I want to see saw Guerrera and uh yeah, so that you know, that's my take on it. So, and we all have different opinions.

1:15:34 And you want a more traditional kind of Star Wars. You don't want the parts of it to make you uncomfortable. The parts that make me uncomfortable. Are you referring to the rape the tentative rape scene. Yeah, yeah, that had no place to be in a Star Wars movie in my opinion, I mean, it didn't. I mean, when I was growing up watching Star Wars, I didn't have to know. When I'm watching Darth Vader, I didn't have to know that Stormtroopers were evil and the Empire rape people. I was a kid, I was having fun. I didn't need to. I just don't think this is that that's not the same audience though. I don't think this is made for the people like you who were kids who took their seventy five cents. This is made for you know, they don't want kids watching the show.

1:16:16 That's true. But I am that kid that plunked down my seventy five cents from my paper route. I'm the same kid. I mean, I you know, I go to see Star Wars movies because I want to get away from the trumpy and bullshit that's going on. And you know, so I didn't feel that that scene belonged in Star Wars. And the fandom is split on that. There's people that are grouped me and people that don't. And that's fine, That's totally fine. That's what it's all about. And I hope that our listeners, our listeners that listen to the show, have their favorite hosts and the people that they like to hear their opinions, and so it's okay to have a different opinion. I'm going to keep watching the show.

1:16:58 I'm uh. I'm very hopeful that the next three episodes are going to be closer to Rogue one. So they're gonna they're gonna ramp things up a little bit more than they perhaps they are, and I'm really looking forward to seeing where they go with this. So I just had a couple of things that rubbed me the wrong way in the first three episodes, that's all. Yeah. I think it would have been a lot and more left confusing if they would have changed the name from Android, because otherwise you're gonna see a bunch of Andoian running all over the place. You got to watch those andorians. But yeah, I that that was my take on it. So yeah, so cool. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's why I let I let Paul go first, I let you guys talk about it, and then you know, I went last, because I knew that I I knew that that I was going to be in a completely different area than you guys. And that's okay, that's totally Okay, there was episodes of Discovery and the Card that we talked about that you guys hated that I liked, and that's that's what keeps the world rolling. You know, we have different opinions and that's cool.

1:18:06 So let's see what they do with the next bunch of episodes, which which I started watching before the podcast, but only got a little bit through the next episode, which looks very promising. So Charles, Charles, unfortunately, who hasn't seen any of it. He's getting everything ruined for him. Unfortunately, not really. By the time I get to episode one, I'll have forgotten a lot of it was said, and they'll be fresh. Good, good, good good. So yeah, I really want to see Alan Tudic come back as K two s so he's one of my favorite, back to what Paul said, I don't other than Cassie in Unfortunately, I don't really identify or really care about any of these characters except for Cassie and himself. So that's why I'm kind of looking forward to bringing in K twos so because he was one of my favorite parts of Rogue one, and I really want to see Saal Guerrera and you know, maybe those characters will oh and Krenick. Who doesn't love Krenick. Guys, come on. Krenick is like the grandma parkin of and Or.

1:19:14 So I was really psyched to see him, and I hope we see more of him in his scheming evil stealing the silk from the Spiders going on. So, actually, the person I'm really psyched to see you to come on the show is Darth Vader. I know this isn't supposed to be lightshaber dueling stuff, but his presence there, just being able to command like certain change. I know that James old Jones had passion everything, but I don't know how they would ai hit voice in or whatever. But it would be interesting to see Darth Vader come back and this particular show, he very well could. I mean he was in Rogue one, he was chasing after Princess Leah, so he is around. We very well could see him. You never can tell. There I did.

1:20:02 There were a lot of Easter eggs that I that I caught. One of them was when when Kranick is sitting around the table with his Imperial Espionage group of people there he mentioned a character from the original Star Wars movie. He mentioned General uh Wolf, Woolgrant Jogrin. Oh, General Wolf Lauren. He is in Star Wars. He's he's the Amirlston in the white sitting at the table next to the dude that Darth Vader chokes in Star Wars. Hm, that's him, so which I thought, Oh wow he mentioned his name, was like, I know who that dude is, so you know he's going to show up at some point because we know he's in Star Wars. So yeah, that was it.

1:20:49 Oh yeah, I thought the tie the Tie Defender was just incredibly awesome. You know when when Cassie and steals it, it's got missiles, it goes into uh up light speed, which tie fighters can't, but this one can. It has a huge cockpit that holds like eight or nine people. The storm troopers don't have to wear a breathing gear in this particular tie fighter. It's not exposed to the to the elements of space like regular tie fighters are. So I thought that was really cool too to see her this this super advanced tie fighter. So yeah, that's it. That's my thoughts on and Or episodes one, two, and three. Anybody have anything to say before we move on?

1:21:32 Well, speaking about that tie Fighter ship, why wasn't it show banged up when he kept running it into the cliff and it's like what it has? Shield? Okay, anyway shield? So just I know she's not on tonight, But what is your daughter? Your daughter? You mentioned it been watching this elive? Where does she fall? Is she more with you or is she or like open to new things? No? No, No, she's very close minded like me. She you know, she likes things to be very very this aim and she's very closed minded, just like I am. So no, I had to explain to her what what for for bb y men before the Battle of Yavin. She didn't know what that was, so I had to explain her what that meant and where this ball's on the timeline, and uh, she's really looking forward to seeing actually you know what I have. I have her response right here.

1:22:27 But does she like it on the whole? More thumbs up and more thumbs down? No? She uh, she said. She says here that she loved the Star Wars original series flashbacks and the hints of the Rebel Alliance forming. She loved the Stormtroopers and Cassie and Andor's attempts to fly the Type Fighter. And she's really looking forward to seeing K two s O and she gives the show a thumbs up and if her hair was in better shape and she wasn't in her pajamas. I was trying to talk her into coming on the show because she hasn't been with us since we went to this new format, so she was trying to call in on her phone like we used to do. I couldn't get her to come on and show herself with messed hair and no makeup, so I apologize for that, or she would have been here. So that's that cool. Yeah, So any any other anyone else want to add anything about Indoor Season two, Episode one, two and three.

1:23:29 Do we have a live listeners who are adding in common at all? Charles? There is anybody in the chat room? I sent out invitations to everybody. So far, I'm not seeing anybody pop in the chat room. Nobody's in the chat room. Okay, so there's your answer. No, I did send up and we according to my screen, we are on Facebook Live, but I still don't know where. Yeah, I don't know where it's where it's broadcasting, but he says, we're I'm Facebook Live somewhere. So when do when do Episode four five and six drop it's tonight, right.

1:24:10 Well, they've already dropped. They dropped like tuesdays they are. Right, yeah, I think they're coming out every Tuesday. Every Tuesday is the new Ones hit. So yeah, I'll have to watch four, five and six. So that's it, guys. Yeah, that's that's all she wrote. Eric, you went to you were at Trekknda Roga, right, yeah? Did you? Did you happen to visit Fort ty Kander Roga while you were there? I did not know. There's a scene in and Or where they show the the spider planet gouram is it and the graphic that they show. The first thing I thought of was that's Fort tay Kanda Roga. It was. It was a five point if you guys go back and watch it. The way the city is set up, it's a five pointed star type of setup, exactly like for Tight kind of Roga.

1:25:04 And I noticed it right away when they showed that exterior shot of the city, I'm like, Wow, that's just a space version of ty kind of Roga. That's pretty damn cool. I thought so. All right, guys, So that's it. So what are our overall thoughts on and Or. Paul, you want like a what are you looking for? Like we usually number you. Usually do you know one point seven or way? Oh okay, Like I led like a numeric grade for just the first three season, first three episode, three episodes, I give it a ten. I gave it a ten. I think it's courageous and important storytelling. I think it's very timely to what we're doing. I think it should be commended for not recycling the same old tropes and for digging into more uh you know, thoughtful and uh tension fields filmmaking. So to me, it's it's exemplary. Yeah, I would definitely give it a tent and encourage people to, you know, put their preconceptions on the shelf and give it a try, especially if you like good suspenseful spycraft and storytelling.

1:26:08 How about you, Eric, Yeah, I have to agree with Paul. I think it's probably the best Star Wars show that I've seen in recent memory. So I really really like it. Yeah, I'll give it a ten. How about you, David? Well, I'm actually going to be giving it an I got really confused with a lot of the things, and so there's still some things I'm public gonna have to try and go over again when I shoot it once again. But yeah, I'm I think for me right now, and I might go op if I see it later. But yeah, and I'm not going to be nearly as as praiseworthy. I do have a very closed mind. I'm very closed minded person, you know. I have to mention that up front. I'm not very open minded and I don't like to see things from other points of view.

1:26:59 Being close minded as I am, I'm gonna go with a three point seven for the first three episodes, unfortunately, but I have a feeling it's gonna get better. I hope it's gonna get better. So there you have it. Charles, what's our overall score from our Truk Sperts, Well, the. Trek Spurts aside, they give it a seven point nine. Seven point nine, still very very very respectable. All right, guys, that wraps up our and Or season two episode one, two and three discussion. Next week we'll be doing four, five and six, and you know what that means. It's time for our star Trek birthdays. That was not a Clinton song, all right, Worf says that every week, But we love Grumpy Wharf anyways, So This is a part of the show where we do our Star Trek Birthdays, and we always start off our Star Trek birthdays by sadly enough remembering those members of our Star Trek family who are no longer with us, and for that we turn to.

1:28:17 Eric, Yeah, Jim. This week we're gonna remember four members of our Star Trek community who have gone before us. The first is actor Fred Phillips. Fred Well, actually not an actor, He's actually a makeup artist. He's the makeup artist for the original series and for Star Trek the Motion Picture, and is actually the father of fellows Star Trek makeup artist Janna Phillips as well. For his work on Star Trek the Motion Picture, he received a nineteen eighty Saturn Award nomination for Best Makeup from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, which he shared with his daughter and Vey Neil. Phillips credits as a makeup artist encompass other films such as nineteen thirty nine's The Wizard of Oz, nineteen fifty six, Is Around the World in Eighty Days, nineteen sixties, House of Usher, Blacula from nineteen seventy two, and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest from nineteen seventy five. So plenty of really amazing stuff under this guy's belt. And you know, think about Spock's ears, you can think about Fred Phillips. So happy birthday to Fred Phillips. We lost him all the way back in nineteen ninety three and he was born April twenty sixth, nineteen oh eight. Happy birthday, Happy birthday as well.

1:29:36 To Vic Parrin, he's the actor who played Tharn in the original series second season episode Mirror Mirror. He really got his career going back in the beginning in the radio version of gun Smoke, and I think that's probably because of the voice that he had, because over the next forty years he was in a bunch of movies and television series, then eventually started doing even more radio work. He appeared in multiple episodes of television series like Dragnet and that sort of thing. But then he earned a number of voice only roles, including many on Star Trek the original series. Believe it or not, sometimes the voices that you hear in the background were just his voice, arguably.

1:30:26 But I will say that arguably his most famous voice only role was that as the control voice on both seasons of The Outer Limits, for which he provided both the opening and closing commentary for each episode. And if you've seen that show before, you know exactly the voice we're talking about. So Vic Parrin, pretty cool guy, pretty cool voice that I think we all could recognize, you know, in a vacuum. We lost him all the way back in nineteen eighty nine. He was also born April twenty sixth, nineteen sixteen. Happy Birthday, Victor, Happy Birthday as well to Charles Seal, the actor from New York, New York, who appeared as Ed the Bartender in the TOS third season episode Specter of the Gun. He's perhaps best remembered for his many appearances as mister Crinky on the television series Dennis the Menace. He also made several appearances on Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and The Virginian, and made brief appearances in a number of classic films, including several that were directed by John Ford and starred John Wayne, most notably nineteen sixty two's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Happy Birthday, Charles Seal, and last but not least, this week, our last remembrance is actress Madge Sinclair She was a Jamaican born American actress who played the captain of the USS Saratoga in Star Trek for the Voyage Home. She also played Captain Sylvia LaForge in the Next Generation seventh season episode Interface

1:31:59 and yes, that LaForge. She was Jordie's mom. Although she did not receive on credit for the Star Trek four role, she was the first female Starfleet captain that we ever saw in Star Trek. Believe it or not, a little bit of trivia there for you. Outside of Star Trek, Sinclair's probably best remembered for her six year, three time Emmy Award nominated role as Nurse Eernstein Schup on the CBS television drama Trapper John MD. She also voiced Queen Sarah be in Disney's The Lion King from nineteen ninety four. She of course, I don't know if you know this or not, but not only was she Jordie's mom in Star Trek, but she actually played LeVar Burton's mother in three prior television projects as well.

1:32:48 Yeah. So interestingly enough, Sinclair's character on TG was also the wife of Edward M. LaForge, played by Ben Veren, and Ben Veren was also on Roots, of course, which is where LaVar Burton started his big career other than reading Rainbow. So there's like this whole kind of neat thing where there's lots of intersections between between these three people. So Madge Sinclair, Jordie's mom unfortunately lost at a very young age fifty seven years old back in nineteen ninety five. Happy birthday to Madge Sinclair. And that does it for our remembrances this week. So I will pass the birthday candle over to Charles.

1:33:30 Thank you, Eric. Let's start to Happy birthday to Emily Bergal, actress who played Bethany and Star Trek Enterprises third season episode North Star. Happy birthday to Becky Wallstrom, actress from Chicago, Illinois, who played Visian Go Jenitor in Star Trek Enterprises second season episode Conjenitor. Wolst on my list, it's a happy birthday Olivia burke Lund portrayed engineer Marla Gilmore in Voyagers fifth and sixties in episodes Equinox and Equinox Part two. Paul, who's on your list?

1:34:19 Thank you, Giles. First of all, we'll say hell, Happy birthday to Bonnie E. Beecher, a former actress who played Sylvia in original series episode Specter of the Gun, kind of hanging out in the bar doing all that stuff there, hanging out with checkof, checking out, check off, checking in with check off, all that good stuff, right, So there you go, all the stories she could tell, right, and did a lot of good cool TV work. Also the wife of sixties countercultural icon Wavy Gravy. And I'll tell you, I don't think you're you may never come back from that one. I mean, that's that's that's on the bus Ken Kesey style there, if you will. So pretty wild, Bonnie Bee. What a bunch of stories you must be able to tell. But very cool and also part of the Star Trek universe. Happy birthday to Jeffrey Binnie Okay, who played the character of Compton in the original series third season episode Wink of an Eye that we have embodying the great tradition of Red Shirt temporary existence. So there we are, So happy birthday to you, Jeffrey Binny.

1:35:32 This one should very recognizable name the fabulous Kirsten Dunst, who folks forget was actually before she became enraptured in Spider Man's Web and interview with the Vampire. She started out playing both Headril and the illusory Castra Troy in a seventh season Next Generation episode Dark Page. It out early there, before she became the big star that she ended up being so very cool And I can't believe I've got this person on my list. I am baffled that somehow, Eric didn't you know, bend time and space or the powers of cut and paste, somehow get this luminary on his list. It is astonishing to me because I apparently have the honor of saying Happy Birthday to the splendidly amazing Kate mulgrew aka Captain Catherine Janeway in all the different iterations of Voyager wherever she has been, including her superb work on the Netflix series Orange is the New Black. She can do it all and amazing performance, and of course we've really enjoyed her continuing to embody the Janeway character on Star Trek Prodigy, And there's ever know, and then your rumblings will we see Jane Way again?

1:37:03 You know, I think there's a lot of affection for the Janeway character and where are we going? Will we continue to see her embody that role? I think we don't know for sure, but I think there's certainly a lot of opportunities for that to happen. But what a wonderful character. I'd really like to get as much of my friend Eric's thoughts on Kate willgrew as possible, because I think you're best suited my friend to be able to opine on her this day of her birth. Well, I mean, I'll out of all of the people I've seen interviewed on television multiple times, she just seems the most intelligent, the most confident with herself. She just really has a good head on her shoulders. I like the fact that she focuses on things like understanding human rights and you know, sort of these these values that we really like to see in Star Trek. She lives those on a daily basis. And if there was a person out there in Star Trek that I would want to meet, it would probably be her. I've I haven't met too many people because I don't usually pay the money to go meet them at the at the conventions.

1:38:20 But I'll tell you what, if she ever shows up at a convention in Portland, I will absolutely be in line and I will pay whatever I need to pay to be able to talk to her for a few minutes. I just feel like she would make me smarter by just letting me talk to her. So yeah, I think she's She's really something else. Kate Mulgar is really a special, special talent and person from what I can tell on screen, amazing. So yeah, come back. Orange Is the New Black is an absolutely phenomenal show if you missed it. Her character a Rehtter, a Russian who runs the kitchen, Yeah, is out standing, absolutely outstanding. Check it out. You won't be disappointed.

1:39:07 For sure. I think you're at bat Jim. You got the next birthday. I only have one, only have one, and she's not a kling on butt. She did kick Freddy Krueger's ass, which is why I grabbed her. We want to say happy birthday to Lisa will Cox. She's the actress who portrayed Utah in The Star Trek The Next Generation third season episode The Vengeance Factor. Hailing from Columbia, Missouri, but she's best known for playing Alice Johnson and a Nightmare on Elm Street Part four, The dream Master and a Nightmare on Elm Street Part five, The dream Child. That's right, she kills Freddy Krueger well once well twice, but he comes back. But yeah, she gets to kick Freddy Krueger's ass and she's awesome. So happy birthday to Lisa will Cox.

1:39:56 And that, my friends, wraps up our Star Trek Birthday for this week. We'll have more next week. And now it's time for our Star Trek News. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secure channel. Incoming transmission enter authorization. Code, command codes verified. Define parameters of program level nine. Authorization required, specifying parameters. Transfer updata is complete. A black alert, A blank alert. All right, Eric, this is our favorite segment and you get to start it off, buddy.

1:40:37 Yeah. I mean most of the time, I this is a pretty light segment and we kind of like to make fun of some of the fun, cute, dumb things that William Shatner says. This week's a little bit different. I'm I'm this is just really it's almost hard for me to read this, but I'm going to read it. And it's all for all everybody out there who loves William Shatner. You deserve to know the things that come out of his mouth. So William Shatner decries presentism, rewriting of history in media and literature. Famed Star Trek actor William Shatner decried the erasure of history and rewriting of literature in a fiery post. Quote, It's called presentism, and it was used to wreak havoc on history several years ago, when statues were torn down, books were banned, and things renamed to prove how progressive the world had begun, Shatner said on X, calling to mind the days following George Floyd's death in twenty twenty, where cities across the country were burned and statues were toppled in protest. Shatner also claimed that Paramount Plus had quote intentionally garbed his famed intro line to boldly go where no man has gone before, calling the change presentism at its finest hour. They of course changed it to where no one has gone before. However, the phrase remains intact on the streaming platform. Shatner later said, quote, they must have restored it. The monologue used to be imperceptible to the background music. Shatner also shared his frustration

1:42:09 over Wokis forcing changes on Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie series quote, Obviously you were not around when the Wokies coerced the Library Association to change the name of the Laura Ingles Wilder Literary Award to a generic name because of presentism and their objections on how Native Americans were depicted in the late eighteen hundreds. There's apparently a line in one of the books where Laura wrote of a character who said there were no people who lived on the prairie, only Indians, and there were only one or two other lines, which, with presentism, are culturally insensitive but reflected an opinion of eighteen sixties America.

1:42:53 He added. In twenty eighteen, the Association of Library Service to Children's a l SC board voted unanimously to rename the Laura Ingalls Wilder as the Children's Literary Legacy Award. The decision was made in consideration of the fact that Wilder's legacy, as represented by her body of work, includes expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with alsc's core values of inclusiveness, integrity, and respect, as well as responsiveness. The a l SC said in a statement following the vote, so so yeah, there you go, your captain, Well, captain, my captain feels that many, many people in the world are Wokies. I'm not even really sure what to say about this.

1:43:47 Shaved down Wookie. Yeah, he's just kind of shooting off at the mid. I don't know. I don't rebll ever hearing his monologue on Star Trek being garbled before. Does anybody know what he's talking about? Well, at first I thought he was talking about the change from No Man to No One that the next generation made. I don't ever remember it being changed. I've never seen an original series episode where it was garbled. Yeah, me, neither. I don't know. I don't know where he came up with that. I'm not sure what he's talking about. Yeah, I don't know. He he came back from space and just I don't know, went off the deep end. And the thing is he complains about Paramount. They were upgraded to h High Death before they went to Paramount.

1:44:38 I think that was back in the Amazon era that they hit they were updated to High Death. So if they'd done any changes, that would have been done at that time, not when Paramount got them. All right, Well, this next story I found just for Paul because we talked about this last week when we were talking about the Enterprise, the new enterprise toy that was going to be coming out, and Paul mentioned this particular topic, and lo and behold the story popped up on my feed and I thought, well, this is definitely worth talking about. So Paul, this one's for you. Take it away, all right, man? Before I dive in, I just want to make sure that we get it out there, Jim, nobody thinks you are closed minded, brother, Nobody on their show does. We just think you like things that you like and you should always be able to feel confident that that's cool.

1:45:29 All right, I like to start Trekking five. Yeah, nobody thinks nobody nobody thinks you're closed minded. Man. It's just we don't all like the same things. And that's okay, that is okay, that is absolutely fine. You know, closed minded would be this guy William Shatner. All right, that's that's that's a closed minded individual. It was like, you know, yeah, So just much love to you, brother, make sure that just you know, don't take things the wrong way, and just as a favor, please. We'll have we'll have some fun. We'll definitely have all right, all right, cool, So, yeah, I do have a small toy problem. I do sometimes still collect toys. I do, and and I think that my wife may be happier because probably in this year, I'm going to be spending a lot less money on toys, right, because they're gonna be a lot harder to get because and this is an example of that, because very few toys, very few collectibles as such, are produced in the United States.

1:46:28 All Right, They're just not They're produced overseas. Right, it's a globe last time I checked, all right, am I? Right? Fellas is a spherical object. It might be like more like hot dog shaped or something. Yeah, okay, you know it depends on which end of the the prism you're. At, right, it's going really super fast. Oh yeah, we'll be careful where the bun hits you. Right. But so anyhow, we talked about this toy company XO six before on the show, right, and this is the company that you brought some was it the Sero figure man? Is that all right? Yeah? He brought over usually he's usually in the background. He brought over to the crib. He was just amazing level of detail and accessories on these figures. I mean, this is you know, this toys and then this craftsmanship, right, and XO six. This particular toy company is that craftsman ship, I mean really amazing, right, but this Star Trek figure maker XO six has suspended direct shipments to the United States.

1:47:31 They've announced their suspending delivery of their high end Star Trek toy figures to the United States citing recent tariff changes by the American government. Effective May second, which is tomorrow, the US will enforce a new tax rule for packages from China or Hong Kong, charging one hundred and twenty percent of the declared value or one hundred dollars, whichever is higher, increasing to two hundred dollars on June. Firm The company said in a say well, SF Express and China posts belief fees will apply after delivery. Implementation details remain uncertain. EXO six is suspended shipments to the United States addresses as are able twenty eth them will not resume until courier companies and US customs clarify procedures ensuring it is reasonably reasonable to proceed. The decision impacts all upcoming releases, including new figures from Star Trek Voyagers, Started Discovery and STARTUK, Exchanging Worlds and more. If US customer places that are ordered directly with EXO six because you can order directly from them, that order will be held until more favorable tariff conditions are in place their upcoming releases outside the United States. For those of you fans, like many of our fans who listen to us and collect outside of the United States, here's the current release plan and go check out their stuff online. If you've not explored check at least that that's not inhibited yet.

1:49:05 But you can go check out these figures on XO six Big like a lot of people shop at like Big Bad Toy Store. The last time I checked, they had a lot of you know, placeholder pages for EXO six figures. But check this out. April twenty twenty five, Next Generation Beverly Crusher, second quarter of this year, original series The Cage Spock. Wow cool this one? Okay? Undiscovered country General Chang right, Christopher Plummer? How cool would that be? Right in the original Klingon And then for Q three, so let's see Jennifer Marchi bom May June July August September. That would be summer right July August September months. For those folks outside of the United States, you're gonna be able to get undiscovered country Captain Sulu, Captain Sulu, Stranger Worlds, Brad Boemler and Stranger Worlds back at Mariner.

1:49:57 So cool. Moving into the one six figure scale, twelve inch figures of Boemler and Mariner. Pretty cool. So a lot of cool stuff. Now. The estimates for those orders are placed directly with us XO six. You should contact your vendor for estimated delivery dates. For orders placed within the company's retail partners, you might have a bit of a way these figures available for pre order or immediate purchase for territories that are not in the United States because all shipments to the US are suspended for now. So it's a sticky wicket Star Trek and collectible fans, and I'm just seeing this more and more. I mean, we've all seen the cost of things increase a lot of times.

1:50:38 If it's for figures that folks who know are going to be popular, folks like myself tend to pre order, right It's like it may not come out until you know, July or August or fall even right, very desirable overseas figures like from s H Figure Arts and Mafax. Right, this stuff doesn't really come out for months in advance. You got a pre order, especially popular, they'll sell out, so you got a pre order, but we don't even know now if those preorders will ever be fulfilled at least and Paul. Just yesterday or the day before, you might have gotten the same email Master Replicas is in the same position. So they stop shipping to the US now too. That's too bad, because they really I mean the new figure, they just did a tendy They just really yield today that you could see a really nice tendy figure in that five inch scale that they've been trumpeting that you know, we were lucky enough to have their man on the show here a little while back, right, really really great and it's a shame, right, So hopefully cooler heads will prevail or are well placed Asteroid will take care of all of our problems. I don't know, but I've been cheering for that event to happen for a while. But it's just the nonsense, right, It's just there's a lot of nonsense happening, and it's very difficult to be a science fiction fan and to be on this show and to not get political. From time to time. I think you almost really have to. I don't know how you cannot be Frankly, I think that's one of the reasons

1:52:08 I like and Or so much is because it's just it's really tackling fascism head on. So it's just it's speaking to me right now in a But yeah, I mean a lot of times in America, right we don't really listen to you until it until it starts costing you money, and then all of a sudden people wake up and realize what's happening, right, and it's I just can't imagine how we can continue to go down this road with this these policies. But I don't know, that's me. What do you all think, Well, it's just it's not just toys. I just paid off my jeep and I went up to the dealership. I was going to trade it in and buy a new one. Unfortunately, a lot of the Jeeps are manufactured in Canada, and Canada is now our mortal enemy, and so in order to order a new Jeep, I have to pay a twelve thousand dollars tariff and well dollars, and I was like, holy, forget that, forget that noise. So yeah, I didn't I didn't trade my jeep in and buy a new and I'll keep the one I have. So it's not just it's just not on toys, it's what do you got?

1:53:15 What kind of jeep do you ride? The one that I have is a Jeep Compass and that's fully loaded with a with a sun roof and everything, and I'll keep it. I'll keep it. I'm not I'm not paying twelve thousand dollars. I'm hoping that you know, this crazy tear of crap goes away or or something might happen. Whatever an asteroid, you know, Independence Day, it gets react, you know, happens for real and the Aliens show up and blow up the White House or something. I don't know, but yeah, I'm not spending twelve thousand dollars. No terror for crazy. That's just it's ridiculous. You know, the same thing with two hundred dollars for an action figure. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. And Canada is not our enemies? Do you hear that? GM, Chris if you're listening, Uh.

1:54:02 I think everybody. I'm a I love Canada and I really do. It's a big fan and I don't want to I don't want to assimilate them, borg like I just want to I just want to hang. I just want to hang. Yeah. So yeah, it's not just it's not just the Star Trek toys. It's it's across the board everything. So it's gonna start hitting Walmart pretty soon here, and that'll wake a lot of people up. It is. It's gonna it's gonna trickle down really really soon, and I think people are gonna wake up getting political. A lot of people are like, well, you know, these are the things he said he was gonna do that we voted for. And that's that's easy to say until you go to Walmart to buy something and it's double the price that it was yesterday. And then what do you say to these people, this is what you voted for, so you should should I get off the pot, dudes?

1:54:52 So you know, the way I look at it is, I don't really with glue dooming glue on anybody really, but well, I mean, the only way I could really shoot about the turf going down is just have those companies come here. I suppose then that would solve the turf, right, So until that happened, yeah, I don't know, Probably gonna have to be this way for a while, I would imagine. So I was watching thing, I. Was watching what happened, But yeah, I was watching a show on Nintendo switch to which is not going to be shipped to the United States due to this very same problem. And the guy they were talking to said, even if they were to build a factory here to build the Nintendo Switch here in the United States, it still would not solve the problem because all the parts for those are still have to be imported from overseas, so the tariffs would still be in effect. Even if the factory were built here and the Nintendo Switch were being built by American workers, the price would still be astronomical because the parts all have to be imported. So you know that that problem wouldn't go away even if the stuff was being built here in the United States.

1:56:00 So we're a global economy, and well, yeah I was. I was looking it up. I don't have the list in front of me, but I was looking curious about how much Legos out there. Legos built. Legos got suppliers in seven different countries. Yes, they've got one in Virginia, but there are six other major manufacturers in different countries producing Legos. So it's like, oh yeah, we got one built here, but they're built other countries. And yet oh yeah, now we're going to stack all these prices up because all the parts have to come from other countries, and it's going to cause more collectibles to go skyrocketing.

1:56:47 And everything else, and that's going to have a negative impact on the economy as well. Well. I'm very curious too. I don't know how this works, because you know, tariffs is different than other types of business, right, And I don't pretend to be smart enough to know, but I mean all of our current Star Trek shows are all filmed in Canada, right. I mean, I wonder what this change in our relationship between countries is going to have to do there? Will they be they will something? You know, usually they give these American companies like a tax break, right, which is why it's so inconducive to go shoot up there. They get all kinds of provisions. I mean, in one of those relationships will get you know, where the enmity towards what's going on will become stronger than the desire to retain them filming. Right. You've got to wonder if at some point it's going to impact.

1:57:35 I think I've heard stories that it could affect the summer summer movies because sure, you can release from the US, but then if you've got tariff to release the movie in other countries, people may not decide to watch it in those other countries or it's too expensive to get them movies, and they will run those those summer movies, and therefore these would use in the United States are not going to make as much money as they do because they want to make They make a little bit in the United States. It's international that's a big money maker for a lot of films. Who thought that we'd be talking about tariffs on this podcast?

1:58:17 Did you ever imagine that? Eric, No, because even Ronald Reagan thought they were a bad idea. Mister trickle Down himself, Mister. Trickle Down himself thought they were stupid. So yeah, there was a time for it, but it's not now, so wow. So anyways, so moving on unless anybody has anything they want to bring up about the tariffs and now it's affecting collectibles or our lives every day. But at least the price of eggs has come down a little bit, right, That's a good thing, I suppose. Coming from Canada.

1:58:58 Yeah, they might be. I was gonna make egg salad until I looked at the price of egg and I said, no, no, E like salad for you dude. All right, Charles, well you got the next story here, buddy. All right. Robert Piccardo Tea's major changes to character in Star Trek Starfleet Academy the Doctors returning to Star Trek. But he won't be the same man he was in the days as Star Trek Voyager or even Star Trek Prodigy. That is a word from Robert Paccardo himself. Ricardo and McGrew were on were the closing panel for Trek Talks four this year, the annual telethon benefiting the Hollywood Food Collation.

1:59:42 Asked by McGrew about the difference between Star Trek Fleet Star Trek Starfleet Academy version of the Doctor and the earlier version of the Doctor, Ricardo answered, I would say the Doctor is as we remember him, but deeper why he was. But more so, if that makes sense, he certainly has his sense of humor, but there's a depth above him now from the incredible sense of immortality we think we would agree to be it would be a blessing and a curse by immortality. Per Cardiff's referencing just how unbelievable old his character is. He's scarfully Academy. The show is set in the thirty second century, long after shows like Startric Voyager, and by the time we see him again, our favorite emergency medical hologround will be nine hundred years old. So what does that mean? What does that do to a consciousness? Our card used it's seeing thirty six generations of organic colleagues grow old and die around you. It does not necessarily predispose you to making a close personal relationship. Let's put it in that way.

2:00:58 So there's a lot of stuff have to think about. That's a little mind bending, and that's what's wonderful about science fiction to begin with. Serf ld Academy is expected to hear either late this year early twenty twenty six. No firm release date has been made available to the public. To see what they do. It should be anessing to see what they do with the doctor surviving over nine hundred years and what's happening. Hope he doesn't start time. I hope he doesn't start talking backwards like Yoda when he got nine hundred you know, yeah, walking around with a cane, grow some green pointed ears.

2:01:44 You never know. So, yeah, there was another thing speaking, you know about these tariffs and affecting Star Trek. I read an article online and I'm not sure about the legivity of it, but basically, you guys know about the Paramount and sky Dance merger, right, you've heard what we've all heard about that Apparently part of the merger has to be approved, and there's certain certain people that feel that Star Trek is too woke and that it needs to be changed. And Paramount Pictures may be listening to these people and have ordered reshoots of Strange New Worlds to make it less woke. And I hope that that's not true. I hope that's just a bunch of bs, because that would be disappointing if that were true. Wow, man, you know, I know that Paramount, you know, was suing mister Trump and they settled for that. They settled the case out of court and they paid them twenty six million dollars for no reason at all. Was that a bride for the merger? Could have been I don't know, but I hope it's not true. We'll find out when we see Strange New Worlds if it was meddled with at any rate.

2:03:11 All right, guys, I'm sure the actress will let us know if they tweaked it. If they had to have reshoes. Yesh. So this next story is a story that I've been keeping in my back pocket for just a time, Like just now. We've talked about on the podcast about the novels. Are the novels considered cannon because they're written from the movies which are considered to be cannon? Are they cannon? Because a lot of times these novels are written from the original filming scripts before their film, and then the movies trimmed and edited and cut, and a lot of the things that were in the original script don't end up on the screen, but they're still in the novel because the novel comes out prior to the movie. So is it still considered cannon? You can, you know, mull that over in your head and decide how you want.

2:04:02 But I always find it interesting to read the novels when I see the movies, particularly in the case of the best Star Trek movie ever, Star Trek five. There's a lot of stuff in Star Trek five about Cybach, and there's a lot of things in that book that didn't make the film that I scratch my head and say why. So, when Star Trek the Motion Picture had its anniversary, I found an article about that very same thing, and it's called Delve Deeper into roden Berry's Untamed imagination with Star Trek the Motion Picture. Novel the Motion Picture is the only novel Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, ever wrote. While the movie and book naturally share the same general narrative, there are key differences that, while not groundbreaking, are quite fascinating for those who enjoy such details. The most striking element of the novelization is how thoroughly it exposes roden Berry's characteristic traits. Yes, he was a brilliant sci fi mind and he may. And the way he composes the narrative and all is associated with high concept sci fi elements makes this book a thought provoking read.

2:05:10 Numerous parts of this book aren't presented in the movie, and here's a couple of them that the article cites. The first thing that they cite as being a difference is Kirk Bergrant's journey in this book while on vacation in Egypt, where Starfleet contacts him about the intruder iron emergency senceiver implant built into his head. That is true when you read the book. He's on a pyramid and the image that we see on the screen is beamed directly into his head, which is really cool and weird at the same time. And that's how he actually sees what we see the Klingon's getting destroyed. It's beam bright to his head and he heads right back to Starfleet headquarters to find out what's going on, which is we don't get to actually see in the movie. The next thing they mentioned is Kirk is briefed about the intruder via an old flame vice, Aarmiral Laurie Sina, who was someone Kirk lived with and loved while adjusting to light after his five year mission. Roddenberry is sure to reference the physical reaction Kirk has upon seeing his old love later in the story. Laurie is the other person besides commanders Sonak who turns into hot goo after running a foul and the Enterprise's malfunctioning transporter. That's right in the book.

2:06:33 That is his lover, his girlfriend that melts on the transporter pad. And like they said, roden Berry is quite descriptive about what is going on in Kirk's mind, and with those tight bodysuits, it's pretty evident what he's thinking, and the book explains it rather graphically. Another difference is while attending his culinar, Serenoy Spot can hear Kirk's thoughts, including how the Aram wishes Spock was with him to deal with the news of the intruder. Interestingly, in the same scene, Roddenberry describes his colinar would have hurt Spock of all thoughts of his formal Starship crew, including his former captain, someone he considered to be a foul loah though awf a lot, yeah, awful lot, a Vulcan word which means brother or lover. Rodenberry asserts Kirk and Spock we're more than former friends, but that they were rumors nothing more and nothing more ever happened between the two friends.

2:07:39 So there's a you know, there's a relationship that's developed by Gene Roddenberry in this book with Kirk and Spock that doesn't make the movie either, so check that out if you're interested. Another difference is after arriving on the Enterprise and fixing the engine, Spocks it joins to the space of the ship reserved for private times such as meditation, reading, or other erotic activities, the last of which Spock's acute hearing captures in distinct detail. The Enterprise intercepts Veger at warp and makes a nimble little maneuver that always keeps the Starfleet vessel pointed ahead on with the cloud. The approach between the Enterprise and Veger in the movie did not quite happen at warp speed. And another difference is as Decker interacts with the Aliah Probe, he tries to make love with it to better understand it between Vegre and the Carbon units aboard the Enterprise. When this happens in the book, Vger immediately shuts down the Alier Probe because the Aliah is being attacked by Decker because Vgre doesn't understand the act of making love. So those are some of the differences. There's a lot more differences in the book than in the movie. The story is told in the novelization of the first Star Trek movie is still worthy reading decades after its release. Classic scyb I recognizably from the time of Clark, Asimov and other writers which cemented the genre in The Hearts and minds of the world. And if you want to get to know,

2:09:11 you know, what Gene Roddenberry had in mind for Star Trek and what you thought about, you need to read this Star Trek the Motion Picture because it's, like they said, it's the only book that was actually written by roden Berry, and it's a it's an interesting read. It's a very interesting read if you have not read it, But you don't get to hear the awesome Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack. Of course, when I'm reading it and I get to the kling On part, I hear that in my head anyways, and I hear the Veijers sound effects and everything as I read the book, because I think the Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack for that movie is absolutely phenomenal. I think it's one of the best. So that my friends, that wraps everything up. Does anybody have anything they want to bring up or talk about before we wrap everything up for tonight?

2:09:56 Actually I did. I was going to mention, hey, audiobook fans, Derek and I would just chat about this earlier Star Treks. Star Trek Extranging Worlds Towards the Night just got released and the two of us are already starting to do the audiobook for the one, so might be one to pick up because we're probably going to talk about it one of these sometimes this summer. I hope sounds interesting so far, so don't do any spoilers, but definitely some interesting discussions about some of the crew members.

2:10:39 Strange New World. Is that the book by James Swallows? I think, yes, yes, yeah. All right, guys, So next week we're going to be talking about and or episode four, five and six, so you don't want to miss that. Head over to our Facebook page, Trek Talking and Beyond. I've got some new polls up there, so go over there and let us know what you think about the polls. You can also head over to Trek Talking dot com and there's all kinds of great stuff there. Leave us some note on the Little Green talkback Mike so that you can win this autograph picture that I have here from the Star Trek Preserve, I mean the X Files Preservation Collection up here in Saratoga, and I'm your most excellent host, Uncle Jim saying everybody please stay safe and be good to each other. Remember Star Trek fans are the best fans to live long and prosper. Thanks a lot for joining us tonight, Charles trek Talking. We really appreciate it.

2:11:31 Oh, I've always missed. Didn't get in much of the conversation, but still enjoyed the conversation. The chat always fun on trek Talking. And thank you so much to Paul for hanging out and trek talking with us. Thank you so much, Paul, Thanks a lot of fun tonight. And thank you so much to Eric for hanging out with us as well. Thank you, Eric. And thank you so much to David for not only hanging out with us, for making these awesome slide shows possible. Thank you so much, David. You're welcome. It's really fun. I really would end or listen. I'm hoping the moor can go from that, so we'll see. We will see next week and as everybody else hailing frequencies are closed. Good night, everybody, live long and prosper all patients. I'm ready for departure, sir. Some problem right, I'm just hoping this isn't the usual way omissions will go, sir. Oh, no, number what actually most will be much more interesting. Let's see what's out there.

2:12:38 Engage