*This transcript is produced using transcription software and reviewed for quality. Despite our best efforts, some passages may be incomplete or contain errors due to audio quality or software limitations.*
Matthew
Friends, we’re only a couple of days from the Mando and Grogu movie going out. By the time this goes up, the movie will be in theaters. And this is the primer that you need. Whether you’ve seen every episode of The Mandalorian and just need to brush up on some details, or you are going into this completely blind, this is the podcast episode to get you ready for Mando and Grogu. And I’m here with my two co-hosts, Erin and Alex. We’re going to see this movie pretty damn soon. How are we feeling?
Erin
I’m so excited. I can’t wait to get back to it. It feels like it’s been so long since we’ve had Mando content. We’ve had wonderful content in the meantime, but it’ll be so fun to see those characters again and get back to it.
Matthew
Alex, what about yourself?
Alex
It’s kind of a weird experience for me. I have been waiting for a new Star Wars movie since 2019, so it’s been — obviously we all have — seven years. And so I’m really excited to have Star Wars back on the big screen. Seeing a Star Wars movie for the first time on a big screen is one of the great favorite experiences in the world. But what’s been strange is that there’s been a ton of really good marketing for the movie and a lot of trailers and stuff out. And I’ve actually avoided some of the trailers and other opportunities to see footage because I want to be more surprised. In general, I know the very basic plot, but I feel like they did a pretty good job not really revealing what’s going to happen overall in the movie. They’ve hinted at things, they’ve given little bits and pieces here, but this is probably the Star Wars movie I’m going into with the least detailed knowledge about. And that kind of excites me because I get to just experience this adventure kind of untainted.
Matthew
I truly get that. And that’s honestly part of why we’re doing this episode today. Folks who’ve been long-time listeners know that I like to go into things with no spoilers whatsoever, no trailers. So often I don’t do a primer episode because I don’t know what’s in the trailer. Or if I do, I just talk about what’s happened before. Part of why I wanted us to do this one is that I did wind up watching the trailer kind of against my will because it was part of another movie I was going to see. But it was awesome. It got me excited, and it didn’t actually tell me that much about what the plot is going to be. So we’re going to talk some about what the trailer tells us in terms of characters and stuff like that. We’ll talk about that somewhat at the end. But we’re going to start by just talking about what’s happened in The Mandalorian show, what’s happened in some of the other shows or movies that might be relevant. Again, if you’re listening to this podcast, you’ve probably seen most of The Mandalorian, but it might have been a couple of years ago and you don’t remember it too much — or you might be deciding this is the move, you’re just a movie person. That’s great too. We want to get you up to date. So we’re going to speed run some of the basics of the show and then really get into stuff about season three. But let’s just start at the beginning. Alex, who’s the Mandalorian?
Alex
Who is the Mandalorian? Din Djarin — he’s played by Pedro Pascal. Essentially, he was a foundling, as they’re called. He was found by other Mandalorians after his parents were killed during the Clone Wars, and then raised with this strict creed — it’s kind of a warrior’s code where you never remove your helmet and let anyone see your face. And there are a lot of other rules; that’s kind of the big one. Throughout the multiple seasons, we get to see Mando kind of grapple with that creed after finding young Grogu. And he has a big long arc as he grows into the warrior we’re going to see in this movie.
Matthew
You mentioned that his parents were killed during the Clone Wars. They did something really cool in the show — they made droids actually look really badass and really scary. And you understand why he has a real problem with droids at the start of the show. The Mandalorian lore gets real long and real deep, but just to totally speed run it: they’re a warrior people for many generations. They’ve often had big beef with the Jedi and developed armor made out of this thing called beskar, and fighting styles aimed at fighting against the Jedi. There’s a Darksaber, which is kind of their version of a lightsaber, and whoever wields it shall be the ruler of Mandalore. One of the things that happened — and The Clone Wars goes into this a lot — is that one part of Mandalorian culture was like, look, we’re fighting too much, this is civil war all the time, we got to stop this, we got to end our warrior culture. That was led by a group primarily led by Duchess Satine. Fantastic character. Important to Obi-Wan.
Alex
And there was a majority of the planet that went that way.
Matthew
Exactly. But a bunch of them broke away and formed what they call Death Watch. Maybe not so great with the marketing on that term, but there we go. They went to this moon called Concordia and said they were going to keep the Mandalorian traditions, et cetera, et cetera. Lots of things happened. Maul gets involved and takes over Mandalore. The Empire comes and mostly destroys Mandalore, and the Mandalorians scattered. And this group gets started called the Children of the Watch. We don’t know if they actually started then or if they broke away a long time ago. But either way — if you think about any kind of culture in diaspora, different parts of the culture, when they’re all scattered because their home is destroyed or they’re forced to leave, will develop different ideas and different mythologies and different creeds. So Din Djarin grows up believing this is what all Mandalorians are. He thinks that you never take the helmet off, that you have to have this very strict warrior creed, but that it’s no longer about being a people — it’s about being a group. It’s about the foundlings, the adoptees. They take in people of any races. So he was brought up in Concordia, he goes out into the world, and eventually he finds Grogu. Erin, who’s Grogu? Or as we referred to him first — Baby Yoda.
Alex
I hate the term Baby Yoda. I’ve hated it since it came out. It used to frustrate me so much because he’s not Yoda. So many people were like, oh, it’s just Yoda as a baby. I’m like, no, that’s wrong. It’s just poor marketing.
Erin
People were confusing the actual timeline.
Alex
Yeah, no — it’s not Yoda. It’s a different character.
Matthew
He’s a child of Yoda’s species. Yes — who is 50 years old, but of a race that can live 900 years or longer. So he is the equivalent of a toddler basically at the time the show starts.
Erin
When we first see him, he’s in a bassinet. We don’t even know if he can really walk around much on his own. And by the end of the show, we see him — I mean, he swam, right? Didn’t he save Mando at the end?
Alex
He swam in the trailer for the movie. I don’t think we’ve seen him swim before that.
Erin
Oh, he did something.
Matthew
He did swim a little bit, but also he could bounce around, he could walk. And yeah, force powers — he stops fire. His force powers have gotten bigger and bigger to the point that at the end of season three, we have many spoilers for the show, he could basically create a sort of ball of safety in the middle of this huge explosion that killed Moff Gideon, but allowed Bo-Katan Kryze and the Mandalorians to live. He can also heal people.
Alex
He was our first introduction to force healing. That was slipped in there in the episode that came out a week before Episode Nine, so it wouldn’t seem crazy when Rey could do it.
Matthew
So he has Jedi healing powers — something that had been touched on in some Legends books and things like that, but this was the first time it appeared in this version of the canon. Other things we know about him: at first, Din Djarin thought that his mission was to capture Grogu and hand him over to these former Imperials — the Imperial remnants. He quickly was like, no, you’re too cute, I can’t do that. And that’s how he incurred the wrath of the Imperials and has been fighting them ever since. Also, he then saw his job as taking Grogu to the Jedi — and because he was someone who grew up mostly post-Order 66, he just knew them as this weird group of space wizards. Grogu went off with Luke Skywalker and then was working with him and with Ahsoka to learn how to be a Jedi. But Grogu actually decided, no, I want to be with the Mandalorian instead. And so they’ve been continually together. So where do we have Mando and Grogu by the end of season three and going into this movie?
Erin
I haven’t seen season three recently, but from my memory, they defeated Moff Gideon, they escaped from Mandalore, and Bo-Katan gets the Darksaber and is the ruler of Mandalore. And it seems like Mando and Grogu just kind of go off to continue their father-son adventures.
Alex
They’re given a plot of land on the planet Nevarro. That’s right. And the last thing we see is the two of them sitting on the porch, and Grogu is playing with a frog — super dad-son energy.
Matthew
Yeah, it’s a really cute kind of story. And in many ways it did seem like this could be the end of their story. But also, Grogu is now officially a Foundling. He is officially an apprentice. He’s a part of the Mandalorians, and part of Din’s job now. One thing we learned is that his name is Din Djarin, and apparently they’re one of the kinds of people where the family name comes first — because when Grogu becomes part of his clan, he becomes Din Grogu. So apparently Din is the family name. Doesn’t work with the Vizslas, but it’s not consistent — who cares? And the Armorer, who is this super badass member and pretty much the leader of the Children of the Watch, has for the most part been trying to keep the Watch in line, but has also been one of the ones to say we can kind of mellow out somewhat. Bo-Katan’s Mandalorians are from a different group — we can all now work together. She had said to Mando that he has to take Grogu on new adventures as part of Grogu’s learning and growing. So I think that’s going to be the impetus of where we go from here.
But also, they all have the chance to be on Nevarro. One sad thing is that the High Magistrate — people call him Magistrate — the High Magistrate Greef Karga was the ruler of Nevarro, played by legendary actor Carl Weathers, who did pass away two years ago. I think most of the shooting for the movie happened after he died, so I’m guessing he will not be in it. But it also seems like we’re going to be leaving Nevarro pretty darn quick.
Erin
Yeah, it seems like it. Similar to you guys, I haven’t seen many of the trailers or sneak peeks. I think I saw the initial trailer and, like you, Matthew, I saw one in theaters while watching a different movie. And I didn’t recognize any scenes from Nevarro or anything like that, so I think you’re right. They probably maybe start there, maybe it’s not even mentioned. We’ll see. But I’m excited for this film. Is it called The Adventures of the Mandalorian and Grogu? Or is it just called Mandalorian and Grogu?
Matthew
Mandalorian and Grogu, I think. Yeah, I think that was an early title, but it’s now just The Mandalorian & Grogu.
Erin
Anyway, so it could just be like fun little adventures. But we are still in that same time period as the Ahsoka show. So Thrawn is hypothetically around because he just wormholed his way back. That could be a mystery they’re keeping from us — a little touch about Thrawn. And we do see them fighting Imperial walkers and stuff like that, so they’re still up against the Imperial remnants for sure. It’ll just be interesting to see if that’s those who are left after Moff Gideon, and whether that was the Shadow Collective or something like that, the Dark Council.
Alex
I already talked about the folks that showed up like in—
Matthew
Yeah. So let’s talk about the Imperial remnants. What’s happening with those folks? The Empire had been defeated at the end of Return of the Jedi. And then in books, the last aspects of the Empire were defeated at what’s called The Battle of Jakku. So what’s happening with the Empire now? Because this is being set about 11, 12 years after Return of the Jedi — about 20 years before the story that kicks off with The Force Awakens.
Alex
Erin was just saying — Erin, go ahead. Talk about the Shadow Council. What are they?
Erin
Well, they’re mysterious. It seems like they’re a collective of the most powerful Imperial remnants and secret Imperial supporters. The Empire is gone — the Emperor is for all purposes dead, Vader is dead, there are no more Death Stars. For the most part, the Empire does not rule. The New Republic is really trying to get a grip on things. But the remnants — there seem to be more and more powerful ones that we aren’t aware of yet, that haven’t been named or really brought up. And correct me if I’m wrong, but in the small scene we got with that collective, there was some kind of reference that alluded to Thrawn — maybe that was part of their plan.
Alex
Yeah. They mentioned that they were basically waiting for Thrawn.
Erin
Like he was — I think the premise is that he was supposed to come in and be the seat of power on this council, not the Emperor, but like the new seat of power. And all of them wanted to wait for Thrawn, all of them believed he was still alive. But it would make sense that if they’d kept Thrawn’s involvement under wraps this entire time, I would be very impressed.
Matthew
Yeah. The idea at this point is that they’re waiting for Thrawn. But as Alex said, they’re not in agreement on that — there’s definitely a lot of infighting among them. But we can see in what they’re doing a lot of the seeds that will become the things we learn about in The Force Awakens and the sequels.
Erin
The First Order, you mean.
Matthew
Yeah, exactly. And in many ways, for those who grew up with the prequels and have always loved them, I think that’s fantastic. I think for a lot of folks in my generation, the prequels felt kind of disconnected and it was hard to really follow them, especially the jump from the second movie to the third. And the shows like The Clone Wars and a lot of the other books and stuff really helped to fill in those gaps. I think in the same way, The Mandalorian has been a big part of trying to fill in that period between the fall of the Empire and the First Order, the New Republic, and all that. Some of the seeds that have been planted: one of the Imperial remnants is — I think he’s either General or Admiral — but he’s the father of General Hux, who we meet in The Force Awakens. He’s a weapons manufacturer, I believe. There’s a great little Easter egg for lovers of the Legends books — the first Thrawn trilogy specifically. His kind of second-in-command for the most part is a guy named Admiral Pellaeon. And Pellaeon is one of the Imperial remnants, so he shows up. And one thing we learned over the course of The Mandalorian is that they’re all experimenting with cloning and trying to figure out how to clone things — and especially, can Force ability be cloned? That’s part of why all the Imperial folks want Grogu, because Moff Gideon especially, but some of the others too, want to see if you can use cloning to create a Force-powerful being. The implication is that this is all part of what’s going to lead to the creation of Snoke and eventually the cloning of Palpatine.
Alex
Yeah, it all connects back to — I mean, there’s a whole bit in the Star Wars Battlefront video game that talks about Operation Cinder and part of the Emperor’s contingency plan, basically telling all of his followers: it is your job to make sure I come back to life. So a lot of them are like, some of them are like, we must follow the Emperor’s orders even though he’s dead, and others are like, screw that, new Empire time.
Matthew
Yeah. Moff Gideon, for example, wanted to clone himself with Force powers. So where that was going to fit. And I think one thing we’ve seen from the trailers is that this movie is definitely about the New Republic and concerns about a new war starting.
Erin
Yeah, because we see more characters related to the New Republic, such as Garazeb Orrelios — we’ll see him. And Sigourney Weaver’s new character is part of the New Republic as well. Based on my little Star Wars game that I play, I know some other characters that are going to come back because they’re being announced as upcoming characters. So for me, I won’t spoil, but there are some fun cameos, and I think there may be some fun new droid characters too.
Matthew
I was going to get to that point, so we’ll get into that at the end. Garazeb Orrelios — probably my second favorite character after Hondo from Star Wars animation. We know he’s going to be a big part of this. And it’s important, I think, because I did watch season three of The Mandalorian over the last couple of days just to get it all back in my head — I had totally forgotten about Mecha-Grogu, that he gets to have a mech suit made out of an old droid companion. That was awesome. But most importantly, at the end, Din goes to one of his friends in the New Republic and basically says, look, I don’t want to join you officially, I want to be a bounty hunter — but I will specifically be a bounty hunter for you. I will be hunting down Imperial remnants that the New Republic wants to get but kind of has to do off the books. So where we leave him is that he is definitely no longer just “I don’t care who the person is, I just want to do the job.” He wants to be part of fighting the Imperial remnants and stopping the Empire from coming back, but he’s doing it as an independent contractor.
Erin
Yeah, it almost feels a little bit like Ventress — like, you start in bounty hunting and then you see something messed up involving a kid and you’re like, okay, maybe I need to shift gears a little and find a better way to do this job that still feels okay morally. So I think it’ll be interesting to see what that looks like. And I mean, he’s a bounty hunter — we saw him kill people all the time. Is he still going to be killing people, or is the New Republic going to want them captured?
Matthew
He does have a disintegration weapon, and the New Republic might not be quite as fond of that.
Alex
And the guy who hired him — just to throw it out there — is Captain Carson Teva, who is played by South Korean-Canadian actor Paul Sun-Hyun Lee. He’s one of the few Asian characters in Star Wars, and I appreciate that they’re trying to include more folks in this franchise.
Erin
That’s the character I was mostly talking about from my Star Wars game. I think we’ll see him again.
Alex
For sure, that makes sense.
Matthew
And if anyone’s seen Kim’s Convenience, which is a fantastic Canadian show, he is one of the main stars of that. He’s a great actor and he’s been a lot of fun. He’s been the main one the Mandalorian has been working with. But now we get to Sigourney Weaver, who at first I thought was supposed to be the main villain of this. But no — she seems like she’s going to be the main representative of the New Republic. She’s an X-wing pilot. I think she’s the leader of Blue Squadron, which is the squadron that keeps getting talked about. I think Garazeb Orrelios is also part of it. So yeah, that’s going to be an exciting part of all this.
Alex
A Christian name is being thrown around in this galaxy, y’all.
Erin
I didn’t know.
Alex
It doesn’t bother me. It’s just funny because I don’t ever hear that in Rebels — like when Hera’s mad at him and she goes, “Garazeb Orrelios.”
Matthew
Yeah. To be clear, we are all seasons of secular here. There’s no Christianity anywhere in the Star Wars universe.
Alex
If there was, Anakin is Jesus. But you know.
Erin
I mean, there are a lot of parallels.
Alex
We can’t get people going down that rabbit hole.
Matthew
It’ll get you deep. We’ll move on. So, Alex, why don’t you say what else you know about what’s happening in the movie so we know what we’ve kind of talked about with you — that also gives an indication of what the mild spoilers are. And then we’ll do the deep dive Easter eggs after we say goodbye. How much do you know?
Alex
I’ve watched all the trailers. I decided to do a deep dive.
Erin
More than me.
Alex
I purposefully avoided some things. On May 4th, they showed 25 minutes of movie footage in theaters, and I chose not to go — which is very unlike me. I just didn’t want it. It’s a two-hour movie, so that’s a big core-of-the-movie spoiler for me. But based on my knowledge from Star Wars Celebration and other trailers I have seen — basically a couple things are happening. First of all, Mando is indeed working for the New Republic, trying to prevent another war, helping fight against remnants of the Empire. At the same time, from my understanding, the Hutt twins that him and Boba Fett pissed off on Tatooine have a bounty on them.
Erin
Those Hutt twins are dead, are they not?
Alex
No, they’re in the trailers. Boba Fett killed them? I’m looking this up. Are we talking about the same Hutt twins? The two big ones that are on the — it’s fine, just keep going. Some Hutt — I’m pretty sure there were two — basically want him dead.
Matthew
Yeah. So we have the Hutt twins who are cousins of Jabba the Hutt. Jabba was obviously killed at the end of Return of the Jedi, and there’s now this kind of big power struggle happening in the underworld. And that’s a big part of what this movie is definitely going to be about. In a weird kind of way, it’s going to be a callback — in a lot of ways, although hopefully not in quality — to the original Clone Wars movie. Because the plot of that movie is an attempt by the Separatists to get the Hutts on their side by kidnapping — Alex’s nom de jour — Stinky. Stinky little Hutt, the actual name of which is—
Alex
Rotta.
Matthew
Rotta — thank you. Rotta the Hutt, the son of Jabba the Hutt. In that movie, he’s a little baby, and the whole fight is to capture him or save him in order to get the Hutts on the side of either the Republic or the Separatists. In this one, we know he’s going to be a major character. He’s being voiced by Jeremy Allen White of The Bear and Shameless fame.
Alex
That’s hilarious. And The Bruce Springsteen biopic. I have a lot of strong feelings about the Hutts speaking English, but we’ll talk about that in a second. So we know there’s going to be some shenanigans about — and he’s now working as a gladiator. We’re going to be spending a lot of time on the planet Nal Hutta and one of its moons. Does he have to go through a gauntlet fighting different monsters?
Matthew
Yeah, there’s a lot of it. It looks like we spend some time in the underworld — not literally, but the crime underworld. There’s gladiatorial-type fighting. There’s a lot of stuff that’s going to be happening in that world.
Alex
Which again, how does it all intertwine? They’ve done a very good job not really telling us how it all connects, because there are so many different storylines. Like, is it an underworld movie? Is this going to be about him helping the New Republic? Is it like he tries to help the New Republic and gets captured and has to escape? Does Thrawn play a role? There are just so many unknowns. And the movie comes out in less than a week — out next Thursday. I unfortunately had made plans way earlier to see it with other people, so Aaron and Matthew are seeing it together with some of our favorite fans of the podcast. But I’m also seeing it on Thursday, so we will be able to talk about it in earnest.
Matthew
We haven’t exactly scheduled when, but we’re definitely going to be doing a reaction — possibly later that night over drinks, which could make things more interesting. Possibly the next day or two. So — drunk Star Wars podcast.
Erin
Here’s one of my few complaints.
Matthew
Kind of like — this is one thing I just have to accept, but I don’t love. One of the things that happened in the original movies is that there was a pretty strong conceit that aliens for the most part did not speak English. I think the idea was — and if you think about alien biology — that we speak English and most human languages because of the way the human vocal system is formed. And Chewbacca could probably learn to understand English but just doesn’t have the vocal cords to speak it. Same with the Hutts and stuff like that. And so all of them spoke other languages, we used subtitles, and sometimes people understood each other. And sometimes you had someone like C-3PO interpreting. With The Clone Wars and then some of the other stuff aimed a little lower, they changed that somewhat — I think to make it more accessible for younger audiences.
Erin
A little more palatable.
Matthew
Right, exactly. And some of the younger Hutts definitely could speak English. We had the whole plot with Ziro the Hutt and this kind of weird gangster little story that happens in The Clone Wars that we did a great episode about. Sy Snootles is still the greatest moll that’s ever been a moll, in terms of the gangster’s girlfriend who gets whatever she gets.
Alex
Oh, you’re right. I didn’t really process that Ziro speaks English, but all the other Hutts in The Clone Wars still just speak Huttese except for his mom. But Gardulla doesn’t speak Basic, and neither did any other Hutts.
Matthew
And yet, I don’t think you hired Jeremy Allen White to just — go ahead.
Erin
I have a slight thought.
Matthew
What kind of Huttese delivery is that? Go ahead.
Erin
My thought — we do at least in one trailer hear one of the Hutt twins speaking in English, which is supposed to be Galactic Basic, but obviously we hear it. They’re not speaking Huttese, at least in that moment. But my thought is: it could be because in the original movies, Jabba is the only Hutt we really saw, and he was always in his element, his palace. That’s where he rules. People accommodate him. Whereas Ziro was very much the outcast of the family, all over the galaxy trying to do this and that. So I could see it as like, it would be more useful for him to be fluent in Basic, and it makes more sense that we see him use Basic because he’s communicating with so many other species. Whereas if you go visit the French palace, people are going to speak French. They might be able to speak English, but they’re going to speak French. So I wonder if the concept is that now that we’re seeing Hutts that are more out of their element, maybe they can speak English. And Huttese — it’s gurgly and deep, yes, but it is actual vocal sounds rather than clicks or roars or anything like that. So I think it makes it a little easier to just fudge.
Matthew
That is fair. And we certainly have seen humans and others speaking Huttese. Yawa Banta Putu is Huttese. That’s a fair theory. I still like the Huttese language and want them to mostly speak it, but I think you’ve squared the circle on it.
Alex
It is canon, by the way. I speak a little bit of Huttese.
Matthew
What else? Let’s talk about Garazeb Orrelios. Who is he?
Alex
Garazeb Orrelios is one of the main characters in the animated series Star Wars Rebels. He’s one of the main members of the Ghost crew that we see throughout that show. He’s a Lasat — these large purple creatures, very tall, kind of hunched over. He almost looks like a cross between a large gorilla and a tiger.
Erin
And I think they’re often spoken of in a similar way to Wookiees or Troglodons, just toned down about ten degrees.
Alex
Yes. And they have a long history — an honor guard — and Garazeb Orrelios was a captain in the honor guard and a really well-regarded individual on his planet. The species was thought to have been wiped out by the Empire. We later learned in Rebels that no, some of them did escape, and the civilization continued on a hidden planet called Lira San. So Zeb basically discovered that his planet was still there, but chose to stay with his crew and keep fighting the Empire. After the fall of the Empire, the only deep information we know is that he joined the New Republic and is a pilot and warrior and member of the New Republic, still fighting the Empire — or the remnants of the Empire now, I guess.
Matthew
Yeah. I think that’s right. He’s a wonderful character in a lot of ways. Both the Mandalorians and the Lasat share a lot of cultural identity with the Klingons from Star Trek — that kind of warrior people who are defined by strict warrior codes and things like that. And Zeb really has a wonderful story. All the hate that he has towards the Empire — there’s this great story in Rebels with him and a guy who was really responsible for the destruction of his home planet, and they come to understand each other, seeing more of that guy’s story that isn’t quite what it seemed. It is canonically a love story between the two of them. And I kind of hope they’re not cowards and will acknowledge that.
Matthew
Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s right. He’s a very wonderful character. Both the Mandalorians and the Lasat share a lot of cultural identity with the Klingons from Star Trek in terms of being warrior peoples defined by strict codes and things like that. And he really has a wonderful story. There’s this great arc in Rebels with him and a guy who was largely responsible for the destruction of his home planet — coming to understand each other and seeing more of that guy’s story. And it is canonically a love story between the two of them. I kind of hope they’re not cowards and will acknowledge that.
But we will see. Either way, he’s a fantastic character who I was always worried would be hard to animate or turn into a live-action role without seeming cartoonish, but all the clips I’ve seen, he looks fantastic.
Erin
So good. I’m so excited. And I’m so glad it’s been — what, almost 10 years since Rebels came out? I’m glad they didn’t try to rush something like that into live action, because he would not have looked as good eight years ago. So I’m excited.
Matthew
Rebels was 2014. Yeah, it’s been a while. So here’s one other cool little detail. Alex, do you mind if I give you a spoiler? It’s a cameo that’s kind of cool given the meta story around Star Wars.
Alex
Okay, go ahead and tell me.
Matthew
A number of years ago, you may remember there was this whole slew of directors who were really criticizing Star Wars and the MCU, talking about how they just weren’t real movies — more like theme park rides. I think that was a quote from Martin Scorsese. At the time, Scorsese was really pushing a movie I think was kind of autobiographical about him called Hugo. I don’t know what happened along the way, but Martin Scorsese is in this movie. He’s voicing a character named Hugo.
Alex
That’s hilarious.
Matthew
To me, that’s a real “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” moment. Somewhere along the way, someone convinced Marty Scorsese that Star Wars isn’t that bad, and maybe he could even have fun and be in the movie. Now, it might be as Han Solo actor Harrison Ford would say — that’s what the money’s for. I don’t think Scorsese needs money, but I just think it’s kind of awesome that he’s in it.
Alex
Yeah, that’s great. All right. What other characters or story beats do you know about from what you’ve seen?
Matthew
Not a ton. I do know — I did get to see that one scene at Star Wars Celebration. I got to see the entire scene, which I think now there have been clips released to the public, of Mando’s version of a hallway scene — basically on the AT-AT on a snowy planet — where he just wrecks an entire detachment of Imperial Stormtroopers. Like, he just destroys the AT-AT without anyone getting hurt. It’s very badass. So I know that he’s fighting the Empire — or again, the remnants of the Empire — actively on other planets.
Matthew
Yeah. So we’re gonna see where that goes. Well, I think we should just wrap up, it’s about time we get going anyway. So, Alex — this is so odd that you know more than I do about a movie before it comes out.
Alex
I decided to do a deep dive. Which is weird for me. But in part it’s because I don’t know anything about the plot — I just know some of the same things. And to me, the point of the primer is to fill people in. So Alex, the only other stuff I’m going to have is not plot related, but is about characters who are showing up. I think you don’t want to hear that. So I’d say, why don’t you give us your last thoughts on how you feel about this, and then we’ll show you the exit and Aaron and I can talk about some of the last stuff before we wrap up.
Alex
Erin’s like, I’m listening to whatever. All I’ll say is I’m super excited. I have tickets to see it Thursday, as soon as possible. And I’m also seeing it first thing Friday morning in Dolby Vision — and in IMAX Friday as well — to really try and get all the experience right away. It would not surprise me if I saw it a third time in the same weekend, honestly. I’m just so happy Star Wars is back on the big screen. I really hope people show up for this movie because I want Lucasfilm to get back to releasing films. I don’t need one every year like they were trying to do for a while, but once every two or three years it’d be nice to get a new Star Wars movie on the big screen. And I think if this does well, there’s potential for the first good animated Star Wars movie to be on the big screen — that would be really cool to see — or a continuation of Ahsoka or something else. But yeah, I’m really excited to see these characters. We’ve been with them since the Disney+ launch in 2019 — we were introduced to them during the pandemic — and it’s cool to finally get to see them on the big screen for the first time in such a long time. So I’m hyped. And if there’s not a reference to Rotta the Hutt being stinky, I will riot.
Matthew
Okay, so we had a whole discussion earlier about how we don’t need to nitpick when one of us gets a detail a little bit wrong. But I was debating whether to pick this particular nit — except you specifically referenced something. You talked about how it’d be great to get an animated Star Wars movie on screen. We had an animated Star Wars movie — though, did it go to theaters?
Alex
It was in theaters.
Matthew
Oh. That’s where Stinky comes from. But yes, it was not very good, and it did not last for long in theaters.
Alex
I thought it was a direct-to-TV release movie.
Matthew
Maybe it was later released there too, but I’m not doubting you.
Alex
I just had no idea it was in theaters at any point.
Matthew
I’m pretty sure it was in theaters for a little while. Crazy. Yeah, you remember it as a horrible movie — and it was Star Wars.
Alex
So then I would just say maybe our first good Star Wars animated movie to be released in theaters. No offense to our Ahsoka lovers — that was the first introduction of Ahsoka. Guys, calm down. But is that really the Ahsoka version you love? The Clone Wars movie version?
Erin
Yeah, she’s my girl. And the moment she snuck Rotta into the place — what’s it called — Jabba’s palace — there we go.
Alex
“The palace place” and “palace” are one letter different. Yes.
Erin
Also, just real quick, speaking of that movie — I recently saw a video that compared the lightsaber fight between Anakin and Dooku to the most recent fights in the Maul show. And it’s just crazy how far the animation style has come, especially for the fighting scenes. So I do hope we get another cartoon movie in theaters, because that would be great to see — like what I told my brother last night, I was like, Maul is like a major motion picture. I need to see this level of stuff on a movie screen.
Matthew
Yeah. And especially because I’ll admit, this is one thing I’m excited for with this movie — this will be one of only a few Star Wars movies that, as far as I can tell, probably will not have a lightsaber battle. We know Grogu is a Force user, and maybe he gets a lightsaber by the end of this movie, but I really hope not. He shouldn’t be there yet — he’s developing as a Mandalorian, not as a Jedi. I could kind of see Ahsoka or Luke Skywalker showing up, or maybe even Ezra. I do know they’re getting ready for Ahsoka Season 2. I hope this doesn’t go the way of the MCU where it feels like they’re stuffing in promos for that show. But at this point, there are no dark-side Force users who are our enemies, so I think we’re not really going to get anything like that. And I’m excited about that.
Erin
Not — I guess no one who wields a saber maybe.
Alex
Well, technically, we have Barriss and Shin, but they’re not in this galaxy right now.
Matthew
Yeah, they’re not connected to this world.
Alex
They’re out there in the universe, but they’re not involved. Okay, before I go — I’m going to embarrass Erin and tell our listeners that Erin just had her pinning ceremony last night for becoming a nurse, and Matthew and I both want to congratulate her. She worked her ass off in school and she should be very proud of that.
Erin
Thank you.
Matthew
Now we have a nurse on Star Wars Generations. If any of us are struggling with medical issues live on air, Erin can try to talk us through it. Don’t — she’s shaking her head. Do not. She does not want to be on call. What is she specializing in?
Alex
Mental health.
Matthew
So both Alex and I need a great deal of help with that, so fair.
Alex
So fair.
Erin
No, thank you for that. I was going to do it in my final sign-off, but you brought it up now while you’re still here. So — Erin has been wonderful, continuing to do this podcast while dealing with nursing school and dealing with work and all sorts of stuff. Now that she’s a nurse, as we all know, her schedule is going to get so much easier. It’s going to be really easy for her to be a part of this podcast — nurses are one of the most vacation-filled professions in America today. But yeah, Erin, serious congratulations. You worked your damn ass off in school. Well done. And you even managed to go through all the celebrations and be sober enough and not hungover enough to be part of this production today, which was apparently somewhat in doubt.
Alex
So Matthew, we have a mental health nurse who supports Anakin Skywalker.
Matthew
Oh, we are so far from that conversation.
Erin
This would have to be its own episode. Yeah, I can acknowledge I can mediate.
Matthew
We can look at a person’s crimes and also say that the mental health system failed them. And that Anakin Skywalker was utterly failed by the lack of a mental health system in the Jedi Academy.
Alex
Tune in for a future podcast at some point about the mental health of Anakin Skywalker and how he was failed by the Jedi.
Matthew
And also he was a dudebro fuckboy who completely manipulated Padmé.
Alex
Anyway — he was manipulated by an even more evil man. Okay. We’ll see.
Erin
There we go. Bye, Alex.
Matthew
It’s my new favorite way to end that conversation. Anyway, Erin, the one other big spoiler I wanted to talk about — do you remember who it is who calls Grogu “Bad Baby”?
Erin
Bad Baby. The Anzelans. Yeah, the little guys.
Matthew
Yes. Babu Frik — people may remember from The Rise of Skywalker — a small little guy who speaks in a funny voice and is kind of comic entertainment, but they’re really good with droids, really good at repairing things. Him and his group of people are going to be part of this movie. The Anzelans — I don’t know if it’s him specifically, because I guess he’s actually set 20 years later, but that group of people — and they’re going to be very involved in this movie. I’m super excited for that.
Erin
Alex just texted — he wants to come back and say his final line.
Matthew
No, he lost that right. Fine, fine, fine. Hold on. Okay, Alex. Alex wants to say one last final thing. I’ll just wrap up, we just did the only really big spoiler that I had. Erin, do you have any other big spoilers?
Erin
Do I have any big spoilers? No. I know very little. I’ve been studying.
Matthew
That’s fair. Not all of us are going to know everything going into this movie. So I hope this gives you a primer. If you have more questions, let us know — throw them at us. You can contact me, Matthew, at TheEthicalPanda.com. You can find all of our social media at TheEthicalPanda.com. Throw us questions. We’ve got a week before — well, this will come out the day of the movie, but tell us your reactions. Send us emails, let us know what you think. We’ll include all of that on a reactions podcast coming out soon after the movie.
So I will let Erin and Alex each say their sign-out lines. But on behalf of myself, thank you all so much for being a part of it. Stay classy.
Alex
That’s what I was gonna say! I’m saying it anyway. Stay classy.
Erin
“This is the way.”
Matthew
This is the way.
