The ‘Star Wars’ Rankings and the 'Andor' Miracle

[MUSIC] I'm Sean Fennese and this is the big picture a conversation show about Star Wars. It's May the Fourth, which is the best possible opportunity to talk about a year old season of television. We're finally digging into Andor's season two and putting it in the hierarchy of Star Wars movies and TV shows, helping me to do so as my pal, the number one Tony Gilroy Whisperer in the land, Chris Ryan. >> Thanks for having me. >> We will dig into the show, rank the movies, talk about the future of this beloved franchise right after this. >> Well, May the Fourth be with you, Chris. How are you feeling? >> You as well, man. Thank you. >> I know this is a big holiday for both of us, but it's cool to honor it in this way. Do you believe in the force? >> No, I don't. >> You don't. >> No. And I think Andor brushed that aside. Is any childhood attachment to some of the stuff in Star Wars? You watch Andor and you start to see it as a lens for which to view reality and view history. >> Let me share a little bit of my personal experience with you and how it connects Andor. So over the last 10 years, and especially the last five years, you have seen me evolve or devolve into a person who has less and less of a relationship to television. You host the signature television pod in the universe, the watch. >> I don't know about that, but that's my opinion. And that show, you have to watch a ton of TV. And so every once in a while, and increasingly less so, you'll say, hey, do you check this out or what you think of this? >> Yeah, usually for its cinematic value or something genre that I think you're going to just respond to. >> Right. >> And I'm very generous in that way with recommendations or just being curious about what someone thinks about something. And I did watch the first season of Andor effectively while it aired. But you started sending me messages about Andor's season two because you were watching at UNA and you were covering it on the watch. And I was like, yeah, I'll get to it. I'll get to it. I'll get to it. And last year was particularly busy on the big picture. We did the 25 or 25 thing. And we were coming out of a long Academy Awards season. And I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do on movies. And so Andor season two aired essentially a year ago, starting airing at the end of April of 2025. And I never got around to it until January. And I watched it earlier this year after you much prodding from you. And then a lot of people, I think people heard me say on shows that I hadn't watched it yet. >> Yeah, that was starting to become like Bill's Big Lebowski thing or something like that, where you're like, I know it's going to be great and I'm going to love it. >> Right. >> Can I just maybe simulate the experience of loving it? >> Sometimes that can be very dangerous to raise expectations like that and to have so many people that you trust and so many people you don't even know say like, you're going to love this. This is so in your wheelhouse. And I was so, so delighted to be in my wheelhouse. I knew it was going to be because of season one. And I think there's an interesting conversation about season one versus season two. But season two, to me, was the super-elidive season. And it was the one that I got. I felt the most connected to the show. >> Okay. >> And the most kind of fascinating in terms of what I'm interested in, which is this collision of writing and filmmaking that is happening on this show. >> With some remove from it, what do you make of this TV show? Where do you think it stands? >> I think it's the crowning achievement of Star Wars. Especially in my adult life. Obviously, nothing will ever change my relationship to the first three films and how it created for me or gave me something to call my own that were very old myths and very old stories. And now spoken about this so well with the relationship between the Joseph Campbell stuff and Star Wars. And it really is our translation of all that stuff. But I've been thinking about this a lot since Star Wars has been kind of stalled out for a while, especially in the movie theaters. But whether we needed it anymore and whether or not it's something that is actually as durable as maybe we once imagined and whether or not it's actually something that really resonates with people anymore, especially younger people. >> Well, we is an interesting choice there because we were fortunate to already get the movies and the way that we did at the ages that we did. And I just went through this with my daughter where we just watched all the movies. And boy, they still work. They still work on young kids. I think the question you start to ask yourself is in your 20s, your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, do these stories resonate in the same way? And can the new versions of them keep resonating? >> Yes. And so we also are saying that off of the back of the sequels, which I think I went into with a lot of optimism and curiosity. And by the end of it was like, so we just did the first three movies again. >> Right. >> The Ray trilogy. >> And we're just never going to be able to get out from under the skywalkers and we're never going to be able to really get out from under these iconic performances from those first three films. And in some ways, even though Dave Folloni, who now is sort of sort of creative president or the co-ceo of Lucasfilm, is not really, I really don't vibe with his vision of Star Wars and his staging of Star Wars. I think it's actually like an interesting choice for this job because I think he takes things up to a certain point in time and is like, I'm going to explore all these pockets of history of the galaxy, but not push the ball forward or up in the apple car when it comes to your expectations about what Star Wars can be. >> So that's the thing that I find really interesting about this era of the shows and the films. Folloni and Gilroy are probably the two people who have brought the most to what you can call gap filling, where their interest in the stories is a lot of like, well, what happened when before this went on? Gilroy obviously kind of got backdoored into it by working on Rogue One and that entire movie is premised upon. Well, here's what happened right before the movie started. >> Yeah, it's worth pointing out that they could not be any more different in their approach to Star Wars, or Star Wars as an institution, where Tony Gilroy came in almost as a job for hire to work on Rogue One and wound up taking over a bunch of the reshoots for that movie, then actively tried like campaigned against doing and or and against himself being involved and sort of infamously wrote along memo is like, nobody should do this. But if they were going to do it, this is what they have to do in Cate Kennedy. It was like, sir, you've gotten yourself a job here by accident. They Folloni's been studying for this job for most of his adult life. Like he is studied at the foot of Lucas. He is the keeper of the timeline of the galaxy, like history. Everything he does is in service to the rules of Star Wars. So you have this incredibly progressive and provocative side of things on one hand. I mean, it's almost so dark and light side of the force thing. And then you've got a very, very kind of traditional, I wouldn't say safe, but I would say like reverent side of things with Folloni. And that's where Star Wars found itself up through Andorra. And then I don't think Tony Gilroy ever wanted to do what Dave Folloni is about to do for Star Wars, but they have made a choice to go with Folloni as the sort of driving force. And they're so interesting to compare. And I can't really say too much about Dave Folloni's work because I haven't watched Clone Wars and I haven't watched Rebels. So having not seen those two series where he really made his bones as a storyteller, that's my understanding. Yeah. But I have watched roughly 75% of the Star Wars live action series, a lot of which he has shepherded, co-shepherded, kind of helped navigate. I think Andorra is the only one that he hasn't had to hand in. Well, I may be accolade, I guess, but yeah. And you know, I found many of those shows to be quite led and dull and unfeeling in some ways. And I know that people can disagree and we can kind of talk about the ones who we've seen as we go through this discussion. But I don't think I'm really clicked with his tone of storytelling. Whereas Gilroy, you know, I'm an affirmed Michael Clayton's super fan and I find his level of characterization and story and also what kind of what animates internal struggle for him and how it comes out in action in characters to be the best of the best. I think he's the most interesting mechanic of character storytelling that we have. I'm sure he's gets to throw himself into this world that I had really ever only seen and nonciated by Kevin Smith. And Clurx very famously, there's the moment when Randall and Dante are talking about how the death star works and the idea of maintenance and the people, the cost of doing business in the empire, which when I was a teenager blew my wig back. I was like, I just, I didn't realize you could think about pop culture this way. And we got dozens and dozens of stone conversation of guys like you and me at parties or in dorm rooms being like, what about like what? What happens at most? I mean, like what's the deal there? Like what are those guys? You know, and like interrogating those ideas. Andy and I for a long time when when they announced that Star Wars was going to become a television property as well, we are like, here's the opportunity to do the Moss Island show. And here's the idea, opportunity to do death star janitor show. If you wanted to really go for it, there is a huge swath of Star Wars fans who are like, talking about this. I want the marginalia. I want like the little stories. And in some ways, that's what Rogue One was. It was a lot of throwaway line in a new hope that became an action. adventure movie and a basically a heist movie leading up into it. And then Andor is Rogue One and Rogue One where it's like, well, what happens before that? What leads this guy to the point where he's like, I'm going to go on a suicide mission to save the rebellion. Yeah. And the first season of the show, I think, is quite interesting, but ultimately not as satisfactory because of that way that it's built, the way that you're describing it. Where if you can get on board with it as a pure espionage story and about a story, about a person ultimately committing to an idea and committing to a movement that he's skeptical of at first. It's very effective. I like that the move that the series immediately shows you like Cassie and shooting a police officer in cold blood. And just like, this is noir storytelling. I'll never forget watching that first 20 minutes for the first time and just feeling like Star Wars has never done this before. Yeah. There's something there's been something adult unlocked here. It's not adult in like a lured way. It's just mature. It's thoughtful. But it's not afraid to be transgressive against maybe some of the religiosity that we bring to Star Wars. And that this whole endeavor is very ground level. It's about individual people coming together to make change. They don't always agree with each other. They don't always really have the same specific political valence. But broadly speaking, they know that they have to come together to overwhelm something that is more powerful than they are individually. Such a great idea. But the first season ended and I was like, okay, we have a lot like a long way to go here. Yeah. Well, I it's worth noting that it was originally conceived as a five season show and that it was going to be a season per year leading up to Rogue One. And I don't know how much of the story that they actually sketched out of what how many episodes and how many like of the seasons they really were like and then this happens and this happens. And one of the cool things about Andor is you can actually rewatch this because of the collection of short stories that it is rather than the novel that I think people think of it as it's really about the most important 10 to 11 to 12 moments over the course of five years. And they're broken up into these three episode arcs. So you have the Aldani arc or the Gorman arc or the prison, the prison arc. And you can kind of pick and choose if you're like, I'm going to skip the first three episodes of season two or I'm going to skip this or skip that and go back and revisit it, which is strangely like for as much TV as I have to watch, I think because it's there's so much new stuff all the time. Like I look on people who are like, I'm just rewatching succession for fun. That's what I don't have time for and that's what I have no interest in doing. But Andor, I have revisited a lot, maybe not like episode by episode I'm doing an Andor rewatch, but I will go back and be like, I went back for one line that I wanted to see your reference and now found myself sitting there for 40 minutes watching an episode. I haven't been able to do that yet. And it is something that I want to do. I did obviously read a little bit just for this conversation that we're having. But I, I do feel when I watch the show, what I think Gilroy has talked about in some of the other authors of this series, which is those three episode arcs they are describing feel like individual novels pulled from a series around one or two characters. So by citing the caray or Alan first, which are the those books or sacred texts for you. It really operating in that mold, which like, it doesn't want to television do that at this point. Like I feel like it's, there's something, it feels something very novel. Forgive the double usage of the word to saying like a few episodes of our series are basically one tract of story. And then we're moving on and it's part of a wider experience. But like the prison break experience in the first season is a completely different show. The production design, the characters that are featured the tonality, the energy, the lighting, like everything is different from the previous three episodes and come before that. There's something to be said for and/or is probably I think Andy and I were just talking about this for the different series. Maybe zero, zero, zero. Oh, we were talking about this in the physical media podcast that was yes to be released. But it's almost a vestige of this boom time of streaming television where they're like, yeah, like you tell us, you know, here's a bunch of money. And so Gilroy got like $600 million or whatever it wound up costing to make this show. But they weren't like you have to prove it every three episodes. Well, we'll talk to you at the end of season one and we'll see where we go from here. Or hey, it's a big hit. You've got to come up with 35 more hours of this now. It kind of feels like because of COVID, they weren't going to be able to keep mounting this and because of people schedules and because of people getting older and because of how time consuming it was, they were like, we're working to do this in two seasons. And I think he got the miracle chance to tell the story exactly the way he wanted to tell it. And so even in those three episode blocks, he's got he knows why the prison break is important. You know, he knows that this is when every day normal people who have been stepped on by not just the empire, but just life and the world are like, yeah, you know what? Fuck these guys. I am I am against it. We don't have to just like accrue credits in some weird way in this prison when we find out that in fact, you're just walking to your death anyway. Yeah, but one thing that I love about the show does is something that I have groused about over the years around Star Wars. And most specifically when we talked about our draft, we talked about the lack of courage and not killing Chubaka and rise of Skywalker where that felt like a real kind of, you know, okay, bending, bending the need of the fandom to that like we wouldn't take this away from you under any circumstance. This show frequently introduces characters and kills them three episodes later or five episodes later or two years later or tells you in the beginning of the series like, this guy's going to die. Right. And not just Cassie and because he's going to die in room one. That's right. And they're like, this guy knows that this is going to kill him. Well, that's the other thing. Maybe just we should say is like, this show is called Andorra andorra dies and broke at the end of Rogue One. Yes. And we're like, okay, so we're going to watch this guy's whole life knowing what it's already leading us to. He knows that they made this. Yeah, it's it. If you think about everything that happens in the sequels and how they're just like, well, kill Hanseul, but like we're going to bring him back almost immediately as a ghost. And he's just Harrison for it. Exactly. Exactly. Like in any way like Yoda, we've got Yoda here as a force ghost. And the emperor, if you're always always done that, you know, it's like as soon as Darth sacrifices himself for Luke, he's back in some capacity. But I always was, it wasn't the fact that they brought Chubaka back that would upset me. It was the fact that it was like, you want your cake and you want to eat it too. Yeah. You want us all to go through the anguish of seeing a beloved character die. And then instantly take away that feeling by bringing him back to life in the case of Chubaka. It's like, oh, a mistaken identity. But Andorra does not have that move. Now you could say like, oh, like a bunch of these people could have survived, but not the hero. And from the first decisions that he's making where he's stealing things and killing security guards like you were pointing out, like it sets him down on this path. It sets him down this path. Yeah. It's really interesting because it's so evident that Gilroy brings none of the infantile romanticism that most of us do to Star Wars. I mean, it's just, I kind of don't blame J.J. Abrams for doing the things that he did because it's like, this shit matters to me, man. Like there is a kind of possessiveness, a youthful possessiveness to these stories. But if you don't have that or you don't care about that, you might be better suited to telling some of these stories in some ways. Yeah. I think he's got a heritage of sensibility when it comes to this. And you start with Star Wars when you're a kid and you're like, this is about good versus evil. And this is about a kid who's from nowhere being special like me, I think. Or I think so. You can just be like, it's about the really cool guy who comes along 30 minutes into the movie and is the is who I want to be when I know whatever it is. But the same goes for Leah. I've watched that happen with Leah. But taking Star Wars, he had to take Star Wars and be like, this has like Russian novel backbone. Like we can go, it would be one thing if they were like, a sitcom setting Moss Eisley, like at the Cantia, that would be like fine or I'm sure there's versions of that that would work. But he saw it and he was like, no, this is going to be what is the rebellion? They keep throwing that word around in the first few movies and into the prequels. No, rebellion's revolution. And I can put everything I've ever read and everything I've ever thought about resistance into a story about a doomed protagonist who's going to give up his life for like, you know, against the object of fascism, which is the death star. And to see that, like that's true point guard play. Like to be like, I can see where the cut is coming. I'm so interested though to situate the movie in time because there's just so much that there's a lot of history, American and European history that he is kind of working his way through as he draws some of these characters. But Rogue One starts in the Trump era, you know, the films in production at that time and being put out in the world. And then this series is happening over the course of the second. Yeah. Trump term. And a lot of these ideas just feel like they're in every day life in a lot of ways. Lines from the show being used as placards in like no more no kings marches and stuff. Exactly. Which is just such an interesting crossover. And obviously you can see the Gilroy's thinking about that maybe not literalizing it as much when he's being interviewed as it was not as I don't know too much like overt, obvious political tension, but. If I had to guess, I think he would rather be the person who was like warning us all when things felt good then be like, oh, the show is weirdly prescient, right? And now kind of being brought into a zeitgeist to like talk about like fascism. Well, that's the thing is even the course of the last nine to 12 months of American history that is transpired since this show ended. A bunch of stuff that's in the show. Yeah, feels like we watched a version of it at home. And I think that the show is one of the things that this show is really adept at, very skilled is portraying paranoia and dread, which I find most stuff these days. It can accomplish. And I'm so interested in the idea that because we recorded the 1976 draft and we talked about a bunch of movies in that draft, taxi driver network, old presidents men, that time of the conspiracy thriller and how it seemed to be echoing something we were feeling in the culture at large that people were doing things behind our backs and that those things that they were doing were nefarious and that we should be concerned. And then it's why those movies have all continued on in the consciousness and like remain rewatchable. That's right. Yeah. Never expired. This shows the same thing. See, I mean, it's doing the exact same thing. I was struggling to think of like a really good conspiracy thriller movie of the last few years. Uh, yeah, I mean, would you call how to blow up a pipeline conspiracy thriller? But that's a movie about direct action. Yeah, a little bit more confrontational and it's what it is about. But like that is a good example. But when you watch, uh, credit lead the working group that's going to plot out the fake resistance on Gorman. Yes. To be the catalyzing event that allows them to mind the planet to death. This is when that exact kind of storyline, that strain of the story is what took the show, I think, from very, very good to truly great and exceptional to me and the way that that is all drawn. And it's not, it's not subtle. It's fairly clear what's, what's happening here. But like in unseating the way in which power operates under authoritarianism and the way that which people's emotions are stoked. Mm-hmm. So clearly. And what is undergirding all that? And what people want from foreign territory. Um, is just an incredible act of writing and taking someone like Crenic, who I love Ben Mendelssohn, but it's a fairly one dimensional character. Yeah. In, in Rogue One. And an actor who can sometimes view one note. It's a note I love. It's one of the beautiful notes. He can choose senior issues. Yes. But I think he imbues him with like a much more deeply insidious and kind of pathetic nature. And the way that he flexes his power is amazing. And then you also realize, you know, within that framework that he's also, he's got to work too. Working for a higher power. That's right. That's right. Um, the reason for me, the, the counterbalance has to be that the other side of the conflict is, is complicated as the, the empire. And that is the flip of Andor. And it would have been easy to just be like, these guys are resistance fighters. Their, their aim is true. Their motivations are pure. And the reason why these guys wind up being sacrificed the reason why, so few of these characters ever show up again, is because they're all fucked up and they all decided to give their lives over to a fight. And they have their ideas about how the fight should be fought. And they frequently don't agree. I mean, the rebellion quote-unquote is all these different factions and hanging by a thread by every turn. It's something the great drama of the show. Yeah. And they basically is, you know, funded sometimes knowingly, sometimes not by these rich people who are indulgent to the ideas, but, you know, not willing to get their hands dirty. And they've got this guy, Luthin, who can't come out and just say straight up, I am Axis, I am the guy. So he's pretending to be an antiquities dealer. And he, and Cassie, and go all over the galaxy and meet all these different people like Saga Rera and, you know, and they're all like, I think I'm the rebellion. You know, I am the Luthin of my storyline. And they're like, yeah, checkmate, man, like, you're going to do what I need you to do here. I know. Well, that's the thing that is so clever about it is that everyone feels that they are the most important person in the execution of the plan. And that they have the most at stake at any given time. I would say Luthin weirdly is the only person who doesn't have any anxiety about that. He is like the true philosophical militant where he kind of follows through on every single step that he feels is necessary for this work. And it is his life's work. But Mon Moth was completely different. Yeah. She's like completely a singer. Yeah, she's a public facing figure who clearly got into this line of work to help make change and make society better and safer. Witnesses something happening, but can't act publicly against it until she absolutely has to and does. But the idea of drawing together spies living in secret, but publicly. Politicians true down and dirty rebels who are doing the grunt work and are being eliminated time and time again while trying to accomplish one incremental thing that gets you over years time, a step further to vanquishing whatever the perceived evil is is I find it hard to kind of like hold the whole show in my head. That's one of its creative. This is why I'm not really looking at my computer. There's those there are episodic sequences of this show that still are with me like they were yesterday. And like that whole all donny thing is essentially like exactly what you're talking about where you've got the ebemos back rock character is essentially an outlaw. You've got Cassian who is one trigger pull away from just being the ebemos back rock character. Nebuk who is the political ideologue and winds up being perhaps the most important person in the rebellion in some ways because the marks Lenin figure. Yeah. And and then you've got these beautiful soldiers like Fay who are all working for Lutheran and trying to get Lutherans, you know, the light of Lutheran to shine on them. What a fascinating collection of portraits of people in resistance that aren't just all like we all have a common goal. Let's work for it. It's like no like mon moth might as well be like a blue check lib person who's like I thought maybe if I just voted the hardest it would work. But it turns out I'm gonna have to raise money and give it to separatist groups. No, I mean in all examples of dramatic political social movements whether it be the civil rights movement in America, whether it be changing changes in Chile. Like even like look at all these examples at Gilroy sites or that are clear inspirations on it. They're warring factions within the groups. There are people who don't agree about the way in which it works. One of the things I really like about the show is it shows you characters who seem minor and become major over the course of two seasons. The wire thing. You know, like which is that's a there's a kind of deliberate like thought through quality to the show that I it's one of the reasons why I struggle with television so much is it often feels like they're like I hope we get renewed. And if we get renewed we'll come up with some more stuff to do and I fucking hate that. And I know that it's the business and I don't really blame the creatives who were in working in that environment. But in this particular case, even if the show didn't get to have its five seasons, seeing Clay in the way that we do. Yeah, I mean that's that is of many artistic master strokes. I wonder if Clay, I might be the greatest one. I it's the kind of what her character gets to do and become over the final three episodes of the season gives me chills to think about that. Yeah, well she doesn't get to do. I mean like any other television show on screen she is just like the woman who's in the store who says you can't do that Lutheran right right right and that's in every fucking show is there's a character who's just like hey hero you you got to think twice about this right that that person to be the person who like saves the rebellion by killing Lutheran and then escapes and gets the only salvation almost of anybody on that show is her and Bix getting out of there. Yeah, I know. It's beautiful though and it really it's a real genuine payoff if you've stuck with the series through all of the episodes that spending time with them caring about them trying to understand who they are but like I didn't I don't really have a fiction for Clay through the first 20 episodes of the series you know actress. Yeah, she's interesting to look at and she has great chemistry with Dylan Skarsgard and their kind of like father Daughterish quality but who wise this person matters. Sir, this is the I I would say this is a good case for TV is this is I think also Gilroy getting off book English badass actors and then being like oh like they can handle even more of this stuff and another example of this on the imperial side of things is part of Das who is this ISB kind of counterintelligence chiefden who runs terrifying meetings in fact one of my favorite lines is nobody get comfortable this is not a meeting call your families you're not going home tonight. Nobody I mean Gilroy really is the Shakespeare of the business meeting but that last scene that he has with Crenic where they've put out an APB for Clia and it's like what are we going to say is the reason behind basically like turning the entire eye of the empire on one person and part of guys is like she's diseased she has a virus and if she's exposed to anyone she'll cause thousands of deaths and she needs to be quarantined and you know the got the underling goes running out of the room to send this and you know it's just Crenic it's just Mendelssohn And I can't remember the part of Dad's actor. His name's Anton Lesser and he's an influence and you've seen him a hundred times. And he just turns to Crenic and this entire time he has been like so still and so precise and he just like his shoulders drop and he's like you were supposed to be ready man. Like you were supposed to have the Death Star built by now. Like I can't and Crenic's like I can't protect you. You're gonna go down for this, you know? To write that character into that moment and give these two guys an unreally spoken intimacy with each other 'cause they've come up through the military academy together or whatever. It will just set off fireworks in your brain when you're watching it and that's what, when it's good television can pull off. When it's mad men and when it's the wire and when it's dead wood and when it's this, it's like cooking at a level that maybe even movies can't achieve. I think there's, I will admit here on this podcast. (laughing) This movie podcast, that is true. We just don't get that routinely enough and. Here's my thing and here's why we're talking about it today. The moment that you're describing is also very similar to moments that happen in the parallax view. Like we don't have as much time spent with the figures in that world, but that sense that there's something between two people and that they're making a choice and one has more power than the other. Movies can do that. And this show doesn't exist without movies and I would say that that is the foremost inspiration on the show. Now the time spent and the novelistic quality, the scope of the story, definitely that's a huge influence there. But there are so many movies about this idea and so few television shows about this idea of revolution and change within societies because it's hard to dramatize this. One of the reasons why the show is so acclaimed is because it's been so rarely achieved. But. - The only reason they got to make the shows because they called it Star Wars. - Exactly, exactly. - The only reason they got to make the show is because it was the Death Star that they're trying to blow up. - Yeah. - If it was just overthrowing a sci-fi government, like there's no way, there's no way they get to build Gorman, you know? But because he could go into a timeline and be like, what's this? We've never built that. We should show this, you know? Like that's it. - I was thinking about the different kinds of movies that are heavy influences on this show. And they're multiple because of that trio episodic structure that you were describing. But it's, you know, we've got revolutionary classics. A lot of European films like Zee and Save Siege, the "Costocover's Movies," you got "Army of Shadows" and the "Jump Year" or "Millville" films. You got "Battle of Elgears," it's a clearly huge influence back in the news. Thanks to one battle after another. - Oh yeah. - You've got "Prison Break Movies." - Sure. - "Style X 17," "Purchase on the River Quai," "Litru," "Man Escaped," "Spycraft Movies." All the LaCara adaptations, the conversation. You noted that "Sanbaggers" is a big influence on this show. - "BBC Show" from the early '80s, late '70s, early '80s. It's available on prime video. And it is basically a special operations department of the British Secret Service or the British, you know, MI6. It's really only told from the perspective of guys waiting for the phone call to come back in to be like mission accomplished. And it's just dude smoking and doing inter-office politics and trying to manipulate members of parliament or members of Whitehall into doing their bidding. And it's, I don't know if Tony saw it, but it is a very good and/or precursor. - Interesting. - You know, it is Sogarera and Lutheran talking in a cave rather than the fight that they're talking about. - Yeah, there's another form of movie that is no longer very popular, but was at a time, which is a sort of world work to adventure resistance movie, like where Eagles Dare and there's some Fritz Long movies, like Hangman also Die, "Gun's of Navarrones" a big one. I think Gun's of Navarrones is probably pretty dramatic in films on the show, given the sort of like, - And also not a mission quality. - And changing the scope of the sort of physical landscape that they're about to share. - And then also my personal favorite kind of movie like this is the sort of post-war racketeering espionage. - The third man and the conformist, the lives of others, like people kind of operating on the fringes of a very vulnerable society. And the show is clearly interested in all of these things. And in fact, it's sometimes like replicating moments from some of those films, or at least we're calling them specifically. And you mentioned this already, but this idea of the really the off-book British actor, the show does what so many good TV shows can do, which is it takes complete unknowns to us. And just says like, come into the world with this person. And in fact, this show would be much worse if it was a bunch of famous actors. But the fact that you've got certainly some holdovers from the films, you've got Diego Luna, you've got Forest Whitaker, familiar faces from Rogue One. - Ma-ma-ma-fa. - Yes, Genevue O'Reilly, he've got her. But then you introduce the Lens-Garge guard, and I think one of the great performances of his career, Ben Mendelsen returns from the film. He owns Shaw, is introduced in the first season, giving an amazing performance. - Carva. - Yeah. - Catherine Hunter, Benjamin Bratt. These are all people we've seen before quite a bit. But then all these other people, Denise Goff, who I, you know, British actor, so I'm sure I've seen before. - Mine blowing. - Yeah, perhaps the best performance in the series. - Yeah, her and the guy who plays Cyril have this truly indescribable, weird relationship that I think is like such a beautiful invention of this show that really could have only worked because they get such a long duration of time circling one another, being with one another and playing with her. - Kyle Solar, is the actor who plays Cyril Karn. Even someone like Richard Sammel, who is the Gorman leader, who believes that his people are prepared for resistance, who is a long time working German actor and the thing I recognize him from immediately is in Gloria's Bastard. She's the German lieutenant who has been by the bear Jew and it's like, oh right, that guy. And then a whole bunch of new faces. You mentioned Kyle Solar who had never seen before. - Yeah, I don't think so. - Before I'd ever say, in Thames, but it's quite amazing in this. - Terrific in this. We mentioned Elizabeth Toulouse. - Gloria. - Gloria. - Adrian Arona, possibly the first time I saw her in season one and has now gone on to become a, do you think she'll be Wonder Woman? - I think she is Wonder Woman. - You excited about that? - Sure. - Yeah. - Do you think there should be a Wonder Woman? Do you think that's a character that should exist? - You think they're just like James Gunn's doing a great job. We're gonna keep everything as is once they do the merger. - Nope. I don't. But we'll see. Could be wrong. - Yeah. - You're gonna see Supergirl? - Probably. Would you see it if you weren't obligated to? - Wow. It's hard for me to even fathom that life. You know one thing speaking of Supergirl that I like about the show too is that even though it is, does feel like a hand-to-hand spy show most of the time. When it needs scale, it can get that starware scale up. - I mean, Luthan's spaceship fight is among the great set pieces in Star Wars history. - Incredibly cool. The other thing is just, I knew I was in good hands in season two when Cassie and Steel is the tie fighter and I was like, holy shit. (laughing) This is actually what it would be like if somebody tried to fly one of these things. You know, that was another way of kind of tilting our perspective of what we think this world really is where it's like human beings. It's not just stormtroopers pushing buttons and moving things around. - Yeah, Cassie and escaping from Aldani while paralyzed guy is giving him the instructions of like when to turn to get out from under this like incredible like natural light explosion happening in the sky, the prison break on Arquino with circus. - Unreal. - Yeah. - So to me, the, in addition to Clay's arc at the final third of the last season, the thing that confirms the show's greatness for me is the Gorman massacre. That way we could take a little bit of time to talk about episode eight and why it's a very interesting and fascinating piece of filmmaking. - Of course. - Can you take me back to when you and Andy were doing the pot or what was your reaction to that episode? (laughing) - So I think that we were like, this was the one thing that had been in the air that this was gonna happen. So when Gorman starts to get mentioned at the beginning of the season, if you were doing any online reading, people were like, this is canon. So there was something that happened there. And if you wanna get nerdy, you can get into like Wikipedia and you can start reading some of this stuff. And there was some incident that happened on Gorman and Tony basically used that and he was like, this is where everything is gonna come to a head. I still think the thing that blows my mind is Cyril's death from that whole thing. And the idea that they spent so much time on a guy whose life amounted to pretty much nothing and who has forgotten to history almost instantly. But there are so many achievements within that episode. I mean, what did you think when you saw it? - I think I was amazed by the way that they integrated real life history into that scene. I mean, it's a seemingly a moment that shows like the French resistance, it shows a American political movements. It's extremely violent and upsetting. - That's echoed in the back-to-cross sequences in one battle, like basically like double agents working on the other side of the world. - Yeah, the orchestrated rebellion and the Reichstag fire and all of these different ways. moments in world history where authoritarian state insights people to fight back so that it can make a larger point in its efforts to seize power. And I don't know, it just got me very emotional. It's like I'm crying at this star or TV show. And especially because I had such a blah relationship to most of the TV shows, I was really taken it back by how sharply drawn I think all this was, even though you know where it's going. I mean, in two episodes earlier, as you said, credit essentially explains what they're going to do. Like we know where this is all headed. And Luthe and and and or have these conversations and and or kind of warns Luthe about why they shouldn't have how they're not ready. And Luthe and credit are like, we need just to have that. That's right. Because of what's going to come out. That's right. And I'm just being so savvy about the way that these things work. You know what it reminds me of a little bit? And I'll just share this personal piece with with with the world at large. Me and you and Zach Barron occasionally will have some conversations about politics. Sure. And whenever we're having that conversation, I find that you both are a little bit more hopeful than me. And I tend to see the world patternistically. And I'm like, well, this happened here and then four years later, this is going to happen here. And like I'm think I'm always trying to think about it as like no matter how painful or bad things get, things swing back. It's not good that they're swinging, you know, they swing back to the negative side, but that all this has to happen for this to happen. And that there is a group of people in the world who try to manage power that way. They say like, well, if we do this here, we'll do this. And then there's some people over here who are much more impressionistic or reactive or impulsive. And the movie really psychologizes that so well in the individual characters. The idea that both credit and Luther know that you got to break a few eggs to put a light gloss on it in order to get the things that they want and how deeply that affects somebody like Andor who has fully thrown himself over to this movie. He's finally accepted that he is a rebel. Almost every moment, I think throughout the entire series, Cassian has like an actual objective that is not what Luther wants him to do. He's either find my sister, find Bix, get back to Marva, get out of this whole fucking thing, like all these things that are never like defeat the empire. And he is an unwilling participant in the beginning of one when you first meet him. He's like, so I've become a murderer. Yeah. I've become an assassin. And these four people on a base somewhere in Yavin send me out. Oh, and he resents Jin so much. And he's so angry with her when they first come together in the movie. Yeah, I just, I again feel like that is such an incredible act of writing to make us feel like there are people who are true believers who can't see the big picture. There are people who see the big picture who are true believers, but have also been made cynical by their own dedication to the cause. Or there's Mad Men. There's, there's Sagarera. That's right. Sagarera. Smookin, Rydro, and just like I just want to live in a constant state of guerrilla warfare. Yes. So I mean, there are people in real life movements who operate that way, you know, who bomb throw literally. So I find all of that to be incredible. I think it was kind of a relief to me to not have to worry about where the show is going. That's another thing. Which is kind of weird because I think we probably go into a lot of these expanded timeline experiences being like, what is the point of this? We know where this is going. Right. You know, it's the prequel problem. Yeah. And for that reason, I guess I'm still trying to run my head around how this happened, how they let this happen and how can they let this happen and not let so many other things that sounded cool happen. I think that because this was still on the side. And I think that this doesn't mess with Skywalker's a $600 million side. Well, I mean, for for a brief Bob Chapeck moment, we were like, hey, you got scared. You're like better than Iger. Scared money does not make any. So, but like they, they were pouring money into Star Wars and Kathy Kennedy to her credit somehow got them to greenlight this. I'm sure she also was like, they are not going to give you $1 billion to make five of these. But, you know, we can, we can tell a really great story. And this will go down as one of those great, unacknowledged masterpieces of television, like the wire where, you know, true heads know how good this is. I was curious whether or not you felt like the end of season two, sort of after, after Luther and Clay's storyline and after the, the dead story liners all wrapped up. Did you feel like it rolled too heavily into Rogue One in a way that like almost was too deferential to Rogue One? I mean, I think Tony always knew and or was going to end with the opening moments of Rogue One in the same way Rogue One ends with the opening moments of a new hope. But I felt like it gave Rogue One like more resonance to me, honestly, like when I went back and watched Rogue One after Andor. It doesn't Rogue One open with a flashback to Jen's childhood. Yeah. So it's not like a direct like it picks it. But I think he's getting on the ship to go to find Galen or so's daughter. Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, no, I, I was like, this is fairly logical to me. I'll tell you what in the same way that one of the things about Rogue One that I really enjoy is that it ends exactly where a new hope picks up. Sure. And I'm like, this actually feels coherent to me and it gives you both things. It gives you CGI princess Leia receiving the plans for the death star and walking on. But it also gives you Vader, you know, wreaking havoc and doing something we hadn't quite seen before. I think the show does the same thing. Speaking of Vader wreaking havoc, the show features no lightsabers, no jet eyes, brief mention of the force, brief mention of the force. Just very little of the core mythology and the force is kind of treated like maha. Like they're like, Hey, yeah, I don't know space healing. Like I need a doctor. Yeah. Yes, which is such a fascinating choice and indicates, I think probably how a lot of non-believers feel about believers in the world. Well, it also blows out the aperture of the Star Wars galaxy to all of a sudden have somebody be like, Hey, man, don't touch my shoulder. Like I need to actual, you know what else it does though for me? Is it makes something like Alderan being exploded feel more weighty in the other films? Like it gives more literal gravity to these planets because you come to realize that they're populated by people who have no idea who the fuck the skywalkers are, who probably don't even know who Darth Vader is. Yeah. You know, like there is this expansive galaxy and that's a word that you hear used or you see on the scroll at the beginning of the film. And you just come to accept them as expressions of the Titanic nature of existence that is being fought for. But by dispensing with all of those things that feel so essential to these stories that the skywalkers saga, you get more humanity. Yeah. You get more like the sense that this is maybe this is a real place that could exist. Yeah. I mean, it's like, this would be the equivalent of making a movie about Dark Ages England, but having King Arthur just be somewhere in the background. You know, and really, but rarely do we get that kind of like a depiction of a time period. Oh, can I tell you what I always thought would be a cool idea for a Star Wars TV show? You reminded me of it earlier. It's sort of to that point. I think it would be cool to have a kind of like, have gun, wheel travel style show that just follows one blaster, but like it goes into the hands of different people. So every episode is like this was the promise of Mandalorian when it started is it did feel like a episodic western from like the 50s and 60s. Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about I wanted to hear about some of your favorite performances. Like I know we went kind of went through the like the, yeah, the litany of people that joined the show, but did you have anything in particular that jumped out of you? Yeah. I think it's easy to overlook Diego Luna, even though he's the titular character and he's a person who's constantly pushing back against what we want to happen. Like we're kind, he's one of the people who for the first season and a half, it's like he's kind of doing the thing, but he's not fully committing. And he's such an interesting actor to me because he has leading man good looks and not leading man energy. He's like a much more vulnerable and suspicious type as an actor. But has like almost like a young Dustin Hoffman kind of twitchy. Yeah. And like a little bit, it just angsty as an actor. And I've heard Tony talk with you and Andy about just how clearly how much he like admirers Diego and that he would have done this without him. So like Diego is essentially the on sat on set and baster for like the larger project because Tony would be like, I'm writing, I'm approving, I'm doing, doing cuts and stuff like that. And Diego was there every day doing all these scenes. Yeah. And I think he gives a truly special performance. I think the two new faces Elizabeth Toulouse and Femre say are they're like, if not the heartbeat, then like the pulse of the show in a lot of ways. And like the constant cutaways to them in a room alone, just like trying to navigate and make sure everything is okay. It's very very similar to like looking at Jean Hackman in the conversation and you're just like, something is not okay right now. Like what is wrong? What is it he's hearing? What is going to be around the corner that could blow everything up? The sense of suspense that the show has. So I really love them. She has a great reaction when some guy comes into the antique store and tells them that El Donnie has been attacked and she has to pretend to still be a clerk in this store. But she's also looking at this guy who she knows is essentially the orchestrator of this and her eyes are kind of and she's just like, it's a great moment. - Yeah. - What about you? - I was like, I was like, I think that he has like, three or the four or five moments of articulating the thesis statements of the show. And I think he's like, somebody who uses probably at this point, like a bit of his physical limitations, like he is not gonna do a lot of running around to his advantage. Where like, Luton is like often confronted with possible capture or death. And it's just like, I'm either gonna talk my way out of this or I'm not, but I'm not gonna run. You know, we're not gonna go scooting across and having like a fake 70 year old man set piece here. - Yeah, I think there's also something about that his character as an actor, where he's kind of ornery and confrontational as a performer. Like most of his best characters are sort of like, he fucking kidding me. And that's perfect for Luton. It's a guy who's like mourning the loss of his life, but not his death, but like I gave everything to this thing that I'm not even gonna be able to have a victory life. - To see, yes, yes, totally. - But there's a confrontation he has with Saw in the first season, where he's basically like, hey, I know you wanna go ride shotgun on this mission, but we're gonna let this guy basically get caught by the empires that they think they've got a beat on us. And Saw's like, well, what if I tell him that's what you're gonna do? And he's like, do what you wanna do. Like, but like you have to decide right now if you're gonna go or not. And it's like, he's caught by a crazy gorilla military leader, but he stands stock still and it's just like it is what it is. And it's just a great moment of like, the conception of that character coming away from me. - This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Shout out to the friends with the same niche taste as you. You know, once they will join you in watching us three hours, silent film about the cats of Europe, followed by a cheesy superhero blockbuster. State Farm brings that same supportive energy to insurance. There are 19,000 local agents are there to help you choose the coverage you need. So you can spend less time thinking about coverage and more time in front of the big screen. Go online at statefarm.com, like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. - One other thing I wanna cite is I love the scenes between Genevieve O'Reilly and Ben Miles, who is her high school pal, who is funding the-- - I think it's in over his head. - He's a banker who goes into some debt, has some money troubles and then, you know, suggests he may expose Mon Mathema and what she's doing for the rebellion. And then Luthe does what Luthe does. - I was told I would be taken care of. And this is sort of like, he's the great, you see all these billionaires now who are like turning, maybe they're pivoting to the right. And they're all like, hey, I gave heavily to the Dems for years and now I'm the bad guy, like fuck you. - I mean, that's such a subtle dagger to that whole wing of people who flipped in the last five years. So, and I love the interplay between those two actors. And Ben Miles, who's like an actor you've seen before, but I'm sure you don't know his name, has just such a smarmy insinuating quality. And he's really put Mon Mathema on the back foot. I mean, she really is terrified for a feature. And then there's that wonderful scene is that her daughter's wedding where she has to kind of perform and has this exultant dance. - Well, 'cause she knows that now she's into deep. Now she's gone past, 'cause I think she knows what's gonna happen to him when he leaves the wedding. And/or is a show set inside of a movie that itself was set inside of a movie, but within this show there could have been five or six shows. You could just do Mon Mathema's Palace and Treeg show. - Yeah. - The Diplomat for Mon Mathema. - Yeah. And it's a testament to being able to take small sections of story and imbue them with the depth that you would usually give an entire other series. - You wanna shout any other superlatives out before we move on? - Well, to me, the show is all about the conversations that happen between characters within it. So I think I've referenced a couple of these, but I wanted to throw out some of my favorite scenes that aren't set pieces, but have the importance of them. When Lutheran recruits Cassian in that warehouse and Cassian he's like your dad got hung out in that public square and Cassian pulls the blaster on him. And he's just like, if you wanna actually stick it to these guys, you have a decision to make, come with me. Cassian saying goodbye to Marva, probably the most like heart string tugging moment of the series. And that's when she's like, that's just love, you know? - These are more season ones. - Yeah. - And Lutheran sunrise speech, that's in, when he's just like, I'm never gonna see the fruits of my victory if it does come to pass. And then honestly, like the credit to for the him and terror getting dead, and the amazing moment where Mendelssohn puts his finger on the top of Denise Goff's head, which was unscripted, apparently, and the credit can part of it as moment that I mentioned. - One other one that is so great is, it's not much of a conversation, but when Cyril spots and/or during the Gorman uprising, and he's like, it's you and Andrew's like, who are you? - Yeah, it's just like a perfect stroke of, we know everything, but not everybody in this world knows every shuriken realization. And also you pointed out Cyril's death, which is so perfect, because it's basically like, a blaster shot from the side that we don't even see coming, that's just like old school western. - Yeah. - You know, it's like a John Ford movie. Will Star Wars ever do anything like this again? Can they afford to do anything like this ever again? - I think, I don't wanna say something as silly as in our lifetime, but I don't think for the next decade, at least. - Yeah, so we have the Mid-Norning Grogu film coming later this month, seen, I guess, roughly a fifth of it so far. Wasn't that impressed? I hope it's good, I hope I like it. But it's crazy how big this show feels and how small what I saw on a big screen felt. And that's kind of the inverse of what you want, not that and/or would have been achievable as a film, it wouldn't have been, but it could have been directionally like the kind of story you could have told over a period of time baked within the world. And that's one thing that I felt very missing from what I saw at least from Mandalorian Grogu. And even what I feel was missing from the show of the Mandalorian, which I did like the first two seasons of. - Yeah, the first season especially is quite good. But I never really felt like the bigger story, the sort of like the wrap around cover - I don't think there was supposed to be one. - I don't, is it Dinda Jarn's quest for clarity with kind of getting into, I think Favreau was making, I'm sure they were in collaboration. - An episodic quest, right? - But Favreau's like, you know what would be cool is if Werner Herzog was chasing this cowboy across space. - Yeah, yeah. - Which is cool. - Yeah, and he's got a baby and he's got a protecting and the samurai move, yeah. And then I think Falo and he's like, yes, and also the Mandalorian have a rich history of like this sword that they have, you know, like all this stuff that goes into it. The Dark Saber? - The Dark Saber, yeah. - Which I think, you know, like there are people who are like, that whole story is amazing and you gotta go and read about this character. - Oh, that stuff was cool. - Yeah. - Jean-Carlo Espazito and I enjoyed that. - I think we're a crucial movie to talk about as Starfighter, which I don't know anything about. But given Gosling's sort of pivot to optimism and sort of more lighthearted fare, I'm gonna safely assume is like a really heartwarming, comic, heroic film. - I mean, will it be Han Solo as a Jedi? That's a little concerned about that because of the genius of the first Star Wars film is there's Han Solo and then there's the Jedi. - Yes, and is it like a Glyb Jedi? I don't know, I don't know. I don't know if it's like Han Solo with a young Jedi, you know? But I don't think that augurs well for the idea of, let's have Chandler LeVax, you know? Like Star Wars high school movie. - Would love that. - You know, like, I would honestly love that. - Probably not, you know? It's funny, one of-- - But there was a moment in Star Wars, I was like, "Johnson and Benny "off and Wyser gonna get one." I would be, I don't think Mangolds high republic show is a movie is that gonna happen? - It still is on the long list, so maybe it could happen over time. Alice has a book out of the library right now called, it's like Jedi school or young Jedi adventures or something. And it's written as almost like, gosh. It's not an epistolary novel exactly, but it's like a series of documents, some diuristic, some of like homework assignments from a young kid who's gone to Jedi school. And so like I read this book to her and there are all of these kind of like, it's like found media inside of the thing that shows you, like well here's what Yoda told me today. And I thought to myself like the Goonies but Star Wars or something like that would be a lot of fun. You'd have to accept it. And this is some of what, gosh, what was the most recent Star Wars series called? - Acquely. - No, after that, about the young kids with Jude Law. - Oh, go- - Skeleton crew. - Skeleton crew. - Yeah, Skeleton crew has some of this quality whereas a little bit more childlike, a little bit more flight than navigator. Okay, let's just rank some stuff with that. Okay, let's do the exercise. - We're gonna do the exercise. And I think one thing that I don't know that I thought about much while watching Andor in real time but when we did the draft a couple of weeks ago and I revisited the prequels, I was like narrative-wise, it's closer, Andor is closer to the prequels than it is to the original films. - Well, what makes you think? - In terms of all of the like, taxation, senatorial process, parliamentary games. - Yes, yes. A lot of Andor is like, how are we going to explain a mining project? - Right, you know? - It's interested in the bureaucratic nature of the Empire. - And I thought, but there is a huge difference. - Okay, well, the key difference is the performance style in the prequels, which is obviously not very good, is classic melodrama. And the performance style in Andor is a very clean, pure, it's not naturalistic, it's tight, it's like every character is portrayed by Robert Ryan, it's very straight talking, they're clearly delivered. And it's not grand, the performance style either, it's not, there are speeches, but it's not Shakespearean. - Yeah, it's like, it's the Michael Clayton School of Act, exactly. - Yeah, it's obviously our favorite thing. But you're right that the subject matter is closer to that than the original trilogy or even the sequels. - It did make me laugh though. The, you know, I think Toe for Grace famously has done like recuts of some of the prequel movies. And I was like, could you do a Tony Gilroy cut of the prequels? That would actually kind of get closer to that. I don't know if you could do it with those performances per se, you know, but I would mind going back in time and saying, Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson and, and you and McGregor are in a Tony Gilroy trilogy, it would be pretty cool. - It would be very exciting, but even Sam Jackson. - It's like, he's a little off his game. - Oh, and there's no movies, you know? - Yeah, it's not. - Yeah, just not. - I mean, I, when we did the draft, so I did the more or less the rewatch project, you know, skipping through stuff that I basically singed in my memory. - I've seen rewatched everything this year. - And knowing that we were also gonna do this ranking, I found myself having this funny impulse to get some reclamation projects going. - Good. - I really, really, really tried, for instance, to revive Solo. And- - And work out. - It's not Aaron Reich's fault. It's the script's fault. Or whatever they, I think that that was like, wouldn't it be cool to do a young Han Solo movie and nobody stopped to be like, what's the story? And nobody stopped to be like, here's something that Tony has mentioned a ton of times when he's talked to me and Andy. And I've heard him talk about it in storytelling in general, is intention. The idea that what's the story's intention? What is your style's intention? What is this actor's intention? And I don't think Solo, I dare say, I don't even know if Rogue One and its original conception had like an intention, it's cool. - A cool idea. - Yeah, it's a cool idea to have the Death Star with modern special effects. But I don't know if they were like, yeah, we have a complete clear idea that we can get from A to B without somebody coming in and being like- - But that's hard and that's not something that I think most studio executives respond to because intention implies theme that there is an emotional and intellectual core to the work that you're doing. As opposed to, this is why this should be made. And this is why this should be made is because people wanna see it 'cause they're curious about how they got the plans of the Death Star. And that's actually at the absolute intersection of Star Wars' problem. - Yes, but the problem, one of the issues is that's a Wikipedia entry. That's not as- - I know. - But so is Andor if done wrong. - Yes. - Right? - Yeah. Where did the Rebellion come from? Who were chief architects? Who pushed the ball forward? Could have been really boring. Could have been really action-packed. - No, could have been House of the Dragon. It could have just been like, hey. - Precisely. - You know, like here's, I'm walking in and I'm gonna say what I want. So for you, there are 28 pieces of- - No, 14. So we're just doing movies here. - Movies and/or Mandalorian in Grogo. - Okay. - Or excuse me, movies and/or the Mandalorian. If you wanna talk about the book of Boefeat, if you wanna talk about- - They would be one Kenobi. - I've seen those shows. I don't think they're successful. I don't think it's so successful personally. Haven't seen the two animated series. Haven't seen the Clone Wars film. So we can only work with what- - That's fine. - How high would Andor go here? - Well, so I think we can dispense with like, is it Empire and a New Hope at the top of the rankings? - Yeah. - And what order would you say they're going? - Well, I am now in a New Hope phase. - Okay, tell us about it. I just think that there's some parts of New Hope that I find a bit dull. Like I find Dagobah a little bit dull. - You mean an Empire? - Sorry, an Empire. Yeah. So I have New Hope a little bit above Empire right now. - No kidding. - Yeah. - Is it just you trying to undermine my draft status? - No. It's just, I think I talked about this. I was just like, I just think New Hope kind of rocks from the first note to the last. And I think Empire maybe gets- - Well, there's a lot of time on Tatooine. - Yeah, I know who. - It's like a lot of Luke like wander around the desert. - You get the fucking binary sunset. You get like the origin of like, - Like, I was like, I was like, I was up with the chal- - I was like, I was up with the chal- - He was avoiding the Tuscan Raiders. - Tuscan Raiders is still cool. - No? - I mean, it's great when Obi Wan shows up. - Do you find, I'm nagging the most important movie of my life, but you know, would you put Andorabove either of them? - I wouldn't, but only because they, it cannot exist without them. And my, my picture's gonna be Empire One, New Hope Two, is Andor the third best thing. Now, I know what you said Andorabove is basically your favorite Star Wars thing. - Yeah. - At least because of the phase of life theory. - I mean, it's most intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant movie to me as an adult. But these are two of the most important movies of my lifetime as a child. And ones that I still watch once a year, you know, as it is an adult. - What do we do about the New Hope Empire situation? - Point to us, like, I don't know. - Like on Survivor. - Yeah. - Mr. Think of that. - I have Mr. Beast right here. (laughing) - Beast games on the Star Wars rankings. Holy shit. - Is Mr. Beast really one of the most famous people in the world? - I believe so. I don't really know who was in front of him or behind him. It's probably you're in there. - But like Mr. Beast is more famous than Bill. - Are you kidding me? - Yeah, I'm just asking. - Bill Simmons. - Yeah. - If Mr. Beast and Bill were both at a Lakers game, who gets more like, hey. - Well, that's kind of a limited proposition there. - It's a home game for Bill. - Yeah, yeah. I think Mr. Beast is more famous. - Okay. How many, how many, how many, doesn't Mr. Beast have 500 million YouTube subscribers? It's a lot. - I think Bill's probably had 500 million listeners over the course of his career. - Do not think that's the case. Do you have a coin in your pocket? - I don't have any change. I'm gonna give you Empire. - Okay. - 'Cause it's your podcast. - Thanks, appreciate it. - Empire one, New Hope II and or three. - You think that's crazy? - No. - That Andor is better than Return of the Jedi, which is kind of silly. - Just be nice. - What? - Just be nice to Return of the Jedi. It's underrated at this point in my life. - I like Return of the Jedi. I'm just saying like-- - Is it possible that anything could get above that? - Thank you Lucas. Keep filling those in. - Could get above Jedi? - At four. - Can any, can any prequel or sequel get above Jedi? - I'd have the Rogue One conversation. I'd have the highs of Rogue One. - No. - Okay. Seriously? - I'd have the conversation. I take the meeting. You don't like to take the meeting. You like to be definitive in your proclamations. I like to take the meeting. I like to say like, yeah, let's get coffee. Let's talk it out. I'm gonna go out and have a cigarette. I'm gonna come back in. We'll talk some more. - Rogue One over Return of the Jedi. - I think it's just a conversation to have. - I'm fascinated. I probably wouldn't put Rogue One over a Vengeance of the Sith. - Oh, I would. I wouldn't put it over Jedi. Last Jedi. Rogue One is really cool, but Rogue One to me actually commits an interesting sin that you could argue and/or does too, but Rogue One does it in more overt ways. Where with Rogue One, I can feel all the archetypes from other movies being plugged into that movie. The individual characters that represent the team that they'll work on. - Yes. - I'm like, oh, well, this is Dustin Hoffman from Poppy-owned. And oh, this is a character that Donnie Ann has played in five samurai movies. And you know, which is cool. - Yeah. - And it kind of scratched that part of my brain in a way I enjoyed, but I was like, this is barely a movie. Like they just kind of took all these archetypes and slung them together. - Okay, so you have Return, let's, you have Empire Strikes Back, a new hope and/or. Would you put Last Jedi for above Return of the Jedi? - I don't think I can. - Okay, so Return of the Jedi for, what do you, what do you like last time? You're not like an all, you're not a major a legend. I may be like the last man in the world who it doesn't feel very strongly about it one way or the other. You know, like I thought it features some incredible sequences. - What? - That's the funny way of putting it. - Well, you know how like it's either you're on one side of this warrior they are there, and I'm somehow, I'm Switzerland here. You know, like I think the discourse around it overtook the movie itself. And when I tried to rewatch it, I was like, there's lots of stuff that I like. I find the Luke and Ray stuff a bit tedious to watch. Like on the planet of like, and her sort of apprenticeship. - It is a bit tedious at this point. - And the casino planet stuff is awful. But then there's some really cool stuff in it. And this is the best driver. - You don't like Benicio? - It's key's good. He's good. I like it more in the way of the gun. I don't know about you, too. So what do we do here? This is really the pickle of this whole enterprise, is the original trilogy magic, and or falls in our lap some 50 years later, or like holy shit. - Yeah, this happened. - And then there's 17 other things or whatever. Yeah. - And I like all this stuff. I gotta say, I went and I saw the prequels in my daughter. We had a great time. - It was fun. - Good. - If I had a daughter, I'm sure I'd say the same thing. - I don't know, man. I like, attack of the clones. Yoda's fighting Count Dooku, like, this is pretty cool. I'm just a kid again. - Okay. - Nothing wrong with that. - Yeah. - I've told this story before about fighting with Chris X on the phone when I moved to New York, and he was like, "You keep talking about this fucking prequel shit, man." This is a garbage, and I was like, "I don't know. I kind of enjoyed it." I think it's okay to kind of enjoy those movies. Their flaws are huge. Their flaws are vast. It's just funny because at this point, we have like these more than a dozen things to choose from. And as hard as I tried, I just couldn't figure out like a crazy Zag pick. Or like I said with Solo. Like, this isn't like watching James Bond movies, and you're like, "I actually never say never." - I'll tell you what my gut would take me on this one. I would probably go five last Jedi, six Rogue One, seven Revenge of the Sith. - So you have Rogue One over Seth here, and this-- - Telling. - With you and mine. - Okay, thank you. - Navigating this with you. Probably Force Awakens after Avenger the Sith. - Yeah. - Which I think is a very fun movie. - Me too. - And certainly it absolutely mimics the arc of a new hope, but there are moments, Han on the ship. It's true, all of it. - Kylo killing his father. There's stuff in that movie that I'm like, these are movie chills. - It's actually a good way of summarizing how I feel about those sequels, which is like, there are a dozen across the three movies. Wonderful moments, and I don't think I can coherently tell you the story of those three movies. - I can, but only 'cause I've spent so much time with them recently. - I think for a few reasons, but like the story of Force Awakens. - You were over in my house with Alice, and she's brought out the book, The Little Golden Book Retelling of the Stories, and she was just narrating it to you word for word, 'cause she's committed it to memory. - Very fun reading to Alice moment, 'cause I've gotten to start pitching relief on reading to her at night. - Thank goodness, yeah. - And first of all, like very cute thing is that she eats apples before she goes to bed, and she eats them very close to your face while you're reading. - This is true. - And so she's like crunching down while I'm reading a Spider-Man book to her, and I'll like stop to kind of look up at the crunching, and she goes, "Keep reading." - I'll return that in time. Keep ranking. - Yeah. - Please keep ranking. - Keep ranking for Force Awakens. - Force Awakens. And then you can put clones here. - I think it's clones, and then I think it's a little messy. I don't really know where you go from here. - I think Solo goes here. - Well, okay, wait. It goes, I think it might be Mando. - I was gonna say Mando is a show. - Is Mando even better than clones? I think it might be. - What they did to Mando as a secondary act. - End of the first season though, it would have easily been in the top six. - Yeah, I mean, it's better than, I would probably put Mandalorian season one. Definitely above Revenge of the Seth for me. - Definitely about, yeah. I think it would have been right behind Rogue One. - But then when they turned it into, here's two seasons, then they're gonna do Boba Fett, but in the middle of Boba Fett, they're gonna lose their nerve and do a. - I hated that. - A backdoor Mandalorian season 3a. - Okay, let's make Mando 10. - Okay. - I think is it then Solo? Or is it then Phantom Menace? - I can't, I have to put Solo about Phantom Menace. I find Phantom Menace to be almost unwatchable. - Phantom Menace has dual the fates though. - I know. - You don't like it, you don't care about it? - It's fine. - Solo doesn't have a single moment that's as good as dual. I'm overruling your Phantom Menace is above Solo. - You go through the train robbery in Solo or the. - It's fine, it's a box each time. - It's a game when he walks in and dongle glimmers like everything about me is true. - That part is fun. - Yeah, but it's not as good as. - It's not magical. - Okay. - To me, dual the fates is magical. And then that would leave Rise of Skywalker 13th and the worst thing that Star Wars has done. - And they have to hold that. They have to take that. - What a consequential film. I mean, really a film that I think changed this entire franchise's past, present and future. - We've been talking about Star Wars as an industry and as like a business story and as a behind the scene story for almost as long as we've probably been talking about Star Wars as like a story that means something to us. Is there any sliding doors or. Moment in the sort of production history or the gossip history of Star Wars, they're like, "God damn it, I wish that had worked out." Whether it's Ryan finishing the trilogy. - I'll tell you. I don't think that was ever realistic that could get to happen. I don't know the details. But I remember, and maybe it's Andy who's brought it up a few times but wasn't the original idea of the first JJ movie, the Michael Arnt script, the lightsaber's falling from the sky. - It's falling out from space into a planet and it lands, yeah. - And there was something about the refresh concept there and not having too much fealty to what's come before that I think messed with that trilogy and that trilogy which I think is ultimately, one third very cool, one third very entertaining and one third disastrous. Could have been something completely different. And I never actually read that script, I don't think you might have read it. Did you read it? - I don't know that that script in its entirety. - It never got out, but I think people were like, here are sections from Michael Arnt script. And if you use some of it, and some of it is about like hunting for Skywalker and like looking for where Luke has gone, but it's funny, I mean that's like one of those things where it's like that broke van's brain that Luke abandoned his friends. - Yes. - And I'm like, who cares? - I never really crossed my mind. I know, it's so interesting that we have different relationships that we have with these things. Is there anything else for you, a sliding door that you think would have been interesting? - I think JJ is the sliding door. I think JJ's, you know, the guy who made super eight, the guy who kind of was originally just sort of like, I love Star Trek, I'm happy to be on Star Trek, getting this job and then being like, ultimately my job is to remake New Hope and remake, you know, Jena and try to use these people, these older actors as much as possible and keep them present in these movies. I thought they cast those sequels wonderfully well, but ran out of script to give them. And so like there was just basically not enough for Oskar Isaac to do, you know, and there's not enough for John Boy, I get to do. - I agree. And they didn't make that a tough choice. Like for every moment of Ben Solo killing his own father, like you get like 100 things that you're like, "Yeah, you really pulled out of the spin at the last second." - Totally agree, totally agree. The Star Wars rankings, according to us, number one, Empire Strikes Back, number two, a New Hope, number three, and or number four, Return of the Jedi, number five, the last Jedi, I sure will get some good feedback on that one. Number six, Rogue One, a Star Wars story, number seven, Revenge of the Sith, number eight, the Force Awakens, number nine, Attack of the Clones, number 10, The Mandalorian, number 11, The Phantom Menace, number 12, Solo, a Star Wars story, and number 13, The Rise of Skywalker. Where do you think Mandalorian and Grogu will go on that list? Got check. Can I get above Attack of the Clones? - Yeah. - I think I can. - It could. - It could. - It could. - I find it very strange how unclear what this movie is about, has the fact that we've gotten so close to its release date. - I know. - Having seen the beginning, but even what I know through the first 20 minutes, I'm like, this is the movie. - Or that they're like, we did tell you what the movie's about, and you're like, that's it. - Could be. - Yeah. Thanks for doing this, Chris. - Well, thanks for having me. And thanks for watching Andor. What's your next big TV project? - I'm watching. You four in real time. And did you watch episode three? - I'm not caught up yet. - Okay. - So I've seen the first two. And to show I like, I haven't finished the succession season four. Not succession. Industry season four. - Oh. - You did finish it. - I haven't. - Okay. - So that's on the plane that can. That's what I'll be doing. - That's the exact place that you want you watching. - It's being serious. - Well, it's exciting. Hey, thanks to Luke's cabin on and to Sarah Ready for powering through a series of recordings. This week, thank you guys. Appreciate you. Thanks for producing Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. Later this week, a very special treat. A very fun podcast. The physical media, high council will return. See you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)