Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind, where we produceue wisdom
Speaker 1: in the past between Primary and Second eight worlds. Andrew
Speaker 1: Snyder and I'm glad that you're here. Hello and welcome
Speaker 1: as we begin our Star Wars series. What I'm going
Speaker 1: to provide for you today was originally a live stream
Speaker 1: from May the fourth, as the Mythic Mind Fellowship kicked
Speaker 1: off this series. I provide a little bit more introduction
Speaker 1: at the very beginning of the video, so I won't
Speaker 1: do that right now, but I do think that this
Speaker 1: is going to be an engaging time. You know, some people,
Speaker 1: a lot of people seem to be really excited about
Speaker 1: the series that we're doing. Some people have kin cynically said,
Speaker 1: you know, what value to Star Wars really have? Philosophically,
Speaker 1: It's obviously popular entertainment. You know, Lucas is not a
Speaker 1: Shakespeare But at the same time, you know, we have
Speaker 1: to recognize that anything that garners the level of a
Speaker 1: ten that the Star Wars franchise has, it gets that
Speaker 1: attention for a reason. On some level. It speaks to
Speaker 1: human experience and reveals human desires. It works on our
Speaker 1: imagination in ways that are I don't know, real or
Speaker 1: authentic to what it means to be human. And so
Speaker 1: if we don't take some time to think about why
Speaker 1: certain stories are compelling, I think we're missing some important
Speaker 1: avenues of wisdom. And so is Star Wars Shakespeare. Well no,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it does engage with some
Speaker 1: significate topics, and I think that it would be a
Speaker 1: blinding effect of pride for us to overlook that simply
Speaker 1: because it's you know, fun and flashy and popular. The
Speaker 1: proverbs tell us that wisdom cries out in the marketplace,
Speaker 1: and well, the Star Wars are certainly in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: So I think this is going to be a profitable
Speaker 1: series for us. It's gonna be a fun series. I
Speaker 1: look forward to the various directions that this goes. But oh,
Speaker 1: before we get started, I do want to let you
Speaker 1: know about something. You know, as I've been talking for
Speaker 1: a while, our Mythic Mind courses are starting up here.
Speaker 1: Hannah's Latin course and Josh's Paradise Lost course are already
Speaker 1: underway by the time that this is posted. But it's
Speaker 1: not too late to join, And if you're a Mythic
Speaker 1: Mind patron, you can join at half price. And so
Speaker 1: go and do that if there's interest you Also, my
Speaker 1: course is beginning next week from the date that this
Speaker 1: is being posted. So beginning the week of the eighteenth,
Speaker 1: my course called a Brief Survey of Ideas will be
Speaker 1: starting up, And if you want to join that course,
Speaker 1: you can just head over to patreon dot com slash
Speaker 1: Mythic Mind and if you sign on as a Tier
Speaker 1: three annual patron you'll get access to that course as
Speaker 1: well as the next three that begin within this term.
Speaker 1: And so that's brief history of Ideas. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: plato Stoicism until we have faces, we have the Elder
Speaker 1: Scrolls in philosophy, and then we have the Wisdom of Tolkien,
Speaker 1: this Summarillion, which will begin at the beginning of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six. So over the next several months, we have
Speaker 1: a lot of things going on here, and I'm currently
Speaker 1: running a megasale. I said this would originally be twenty
Speaker 1: four hours, but I'm actually going to expand this a
Speaker 1: little bit so that way my podcast listeners can take
Speaker 1: advantage of this and tell the end of May fourteenth,
Speaker 1: I've increased the discount for annual patronage up to fifty
Speaker 1: percent and that means that it only costs something like
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty dollars now to get access to
Speaker 1: all four of these courses are coming up, as well
Speaker 1: as early and ad free episodes of the podcast, as
Speaker 1: well as insider information as some other things going up,
Speaker 1: as well as full rights to the discord, full ability
Speaker 1: to write for our substack, participate in the podcast conversations.
Speaker 1: There's just so much that goes into that this is
Speaker 1: the best deal that will probably ever be offered. And
Speaker 1: so if you're listening to this when it comes out again,
Speaker 1: you have until the end of May fourteen to take
Speaker 1: advantage of this. At that point, the annual discount's going
Speaker 1: to drop back down to probably about fifteen percent, and
Speaker 1: so just keep that in mind. I'll put a link
Speaker 1: to the Patreon in the show notes, and also if
Speaker 1: you want to watch this conversation that I'm going to
Speaker 1: be including here, then I'll include a link to the
Speaker 1: YouTube channel as well, and go ahead and subscribe to
Speaker 1: that channel as well to make sure that you don't
Speaker 1: miss anything that's going on. All right, and now let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and jump into our May the fourth conversation
Speaker 1: on Star Wars. All right, there we go. So welcome
Speaker 1: to our maybe fourth v with you Mythic Mind Star
Speaker 1: Wars chat. You know, I'm I'm Ajor Snyder. I'm Anyone
Speaker 1: who's watching this right now probably is familiar with who
Speaker 1: I am, But just to kind of frame a little
Speaker 1: bit of what's going on here, our Mythic Mind community,
Speaker 1: which is really an association, kind of network of Christians
Speaker 1: who are somehow involved in the humanities and understood very broadly.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've mostly been taking a literary focus.
Speaker 1: You know that the formation of this fellowship was really
Speaker 1: inspired by you know, the Inklings and you know, my
Speaker 1: my appreciation for Tolkien that sort of thing. So we've
Speaker 1: done a lot of Talkien and kind of Inkling adjacent
Speaker 1: sort of material. You know, we just finish up a
Speaker 1: series on the Poetic Eda, and we've done some Beowolf
Speaker 1: and this sort of very literary kind of focus. But
Speaker 1: I thought it'd be fun to expand our scope a
Speaker 1: little bit and start engaging in some other media. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's hard to get something less mainstream
Speaker 1: or than our more mainstream rather I mean than Star Wars,
Speaker 1: and so I thought this would be a good occasion
Speaker 1: to kick off our study of our analysis, our discussions
Speaker 1: of Star Wars with the live stream on May fourth.
Speaker 1: So this is just the general kind of conversation here.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously anybody participating in this conversation is somebody
Speaker 1: who appreciates Star Wars, although what that means well may
Speaker 1: have a broader or more narrow scope for each of us,
Speaker 1: and so definitely we'll have some different perspectives, different lenses
Speaker 1: to bring to the table here. Yes, Jordan says he
Speaker 1: feels attacked, we'll see what that means probably momentarily. But
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I don't really have a super
Speaker 1: clear agenda for this conversation. I think that the best
Speaker 1: way to go about this it's just for each of
Speaker 1: us to just very briefly introduce yourself, but then really
Speaker 1: focus in on you know, what is your experience of
Speaker 1: Star Wars? What is your history of Star Wars? You know,
Speaker 1: are you somebody who you know who only affirms the
Speaker 1: original series, or you know, are you somebody who's you know,
Speaker 1: watched everything and read all the books and played all
Speaker 1: the games, or somewhere in between. And so you know,
Speaker 1: for me, you know, I can't remember not being familiar
Speaker 1: with Star Wars. I think that that's you know, probably
Speaker 1: pretty common, especially you know, for for people who well
Speaker 1: were born after the original series came out. And so
Speaker 1: I don't know when I first saw the movies, you know,
Speaker 1: I very much. I can specifically recall the VHS box
Speaker 1: set that we had of the original series, and you know,
Speaker 1: I do remember seeing the original series with a re release.
Speaker 1: I think it was probably leading up to the the
Speaker 1: prequel series that the episode one, and so I remember
Speaker 1: that re release. I I, you know, watch the prequels
Speaker 1: as they came out in the theaters, and you know,
Speaker 1: at the time, like I enjoyed them well enough, but
Speaker 1: I very much took on the sort of general group
Speaker 1: think that they were not particularly good films. But you know,
Speaker 1: over time, I've been inclined and you know, Jordan's gonna
Speaker 1: argue with me on this, but I've been inclined to
Speaker 1: sort of reassess that a little bit. And you know,
Speaker 1: my most recent rewatch, I actually enjoyed them. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think they hold up to the originals, but
Speaker 1: I think that there's something of value there. Now. I
Speaker 1: can't be quite so diplomatic when it comes to the
Speaker 1: sequel series, but maybe we'll get there a little bit,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I'm very familiar with the movies.
Speaker 1: What really launched my recent reinvestment in Star Wars is
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about having a conversation on Knights
Speaker 1: of the Old Republic, which is I think one of
Speaker 1: the actually one of the best things to come out
Speaker 1: of Star Wars universe since the original series, and so
Speaker 1: in my revisiting of those games for that chat just
Speaker 1: sort of re spark my general interest. Since that's launched
Speaker 1: this just broad rewatch and engagement, and so that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of where I am. I'm a big fan generally speaking,
Speaker 1: even if maybe if it's lost its way a little
Speaker 1: bit in recent years. But I'll have to just hear
Speaker 1: from some of you again. Just briefly introduce yourself and
Speaker 1: tell me something about your history with Star Wars. I'll
Speaker 1: go clockwise as I have you on my screen here, Jordan,
Speaker 1: why don't you kick us off?
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, I know some of you from the CS
Speaker 2: Lewis group, So I think Ian might be the only
Speaker 2: one that I have not seen before and anybody else
Speaker 2: that's streaming us, So hi there. So, like Andrew, I
Speaker 2: don't remember a time without Star Wars. We grew up
Speaker 2: in a household where my dad did not save the
Speaker 2: sleeves of VHS tapes for I don't know what reason,
Speaker 2: and so we had these like black hard plastic VHS
Speaker 2: cases that I think you just buy in bulk, and
Speaker 2: all our Star Wars tapes were in those. For the
Speaker 2: kids VHS tapes for these big bulky things that you
Speaker 2: put into something called a VCR that also worked really
Speaker 2: good as a space doc. We had one of those
Speaker 2: ones that like lifted up and you put the tape
Speaker 2: in the top and pushed it down anyway. So as
Speaker 2: Andrew kind of eluded, I am a firm believer in
Speaker 2: the fact that there are only three Star Wars movies.
Speaker 2: I classify the Star Wars movies in this way. There
Speaker 2: are the three Star Wars movies. There are the apocryphal
Speaker 2: Star Wars movies, which are the prequel trilogy because George
Speaker 2: Lucas is involved. And then there's the Suit of Pigrifull
Speaker 2: Star Wars Universe, which is episode seven, eight nine, and
Speaker 2: then was so and uh, I forget the other one.
Speaker 2: And then I will say that of the fan fiction movies,
Speaker 2: Rogue one is probably the best.
Speaker 3: Of all of the fan fictions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that. Look, my kids are divided from
Speaker 2: me on this. They really love the prequel trilogy. I
Speaker 2: will say that in nineteen ninety nine, you know, that
Speaker 2: was I think my freshman year of high school. I
Speaker 2: went to the theater saw Star Wars episode one. I
Speaker 2: was really excited about it. I think I saw it
Speaker 2: in the theater like five times, I kid you not.
Speaker 2: And I think that year for Halloween, I even dressed
Speaker 2: up as Darth Maul, like had the had like at
Speaker 2: uh you know, remember the old cheap o lightsabers that
Speaker 2: like popped out when you swun the I had. I
Speaker 2: had a double sided one of that that I think
Speaker 2: only lit up. I don't think it made sound. And
Speaker 2: my mom did like the full face paint thing that
Speaker 2: has been my Twitter picture sometimes. But anyway, so you know,
Speaker 2: I did see those movies growing up. I've actually seen
Speaker 2: all of the all of the Star Wars movies, and
Speaker 2: I think just over time, I just grew to not
Speaker 2: like them very much. I'm not gonna, you know, begrudge
Speaker 2: anybody for for liking something that I don't.
Speaker 3: That's fine.
Speaker 2: I do constantly, you know, tell my kids how sad
Speaker 2: I am that I've not raised them right, but.
Speaker 3: It is what it is.
Speaker 2: We actually watched a New Hope today for Star Wars Day.
Speaker 2: I said, you know which movie we're gonna watch and
Speaker 2: two of them said a New Hope. One of them
Speaker 2: said that they wanted to watch Revenge of the Sith,
Speaker 2: and I said that was actually not an option. So
Speaker 2: we settled with a New Hope and it was. It
Speaker 2: was a good time. So I think I think that'll
Speaker 2: do it for me.
Speaker 1: So I do need to ask a follow up. So, so,
Speaker 1: what is it that you don't like about, say, the prequels?
Speaker 1: Is it the dialogue, the acting, the story? I mean,
Speaker 1: there's number of things to choose from, to be fair.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean so, okay, I love the pod racing thing.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie. I love pod Racing. I forgot
Speaker 2: to say that I played the pod Racing game on
Speaker 2: Nintendo sixty four way back in the day. My brother
Speaker 2: actually got me the pod Racer, and there's another another
Speaker 2: game on the on the Switch cartridge that comes with it,
Speaker 2: and I've played the heck out of that thing. I
Speaker 2: do like the pod racing. The the Lightsaber Duels are
Speaker 2: are really top notch in the prequel trilogy because they,
Speaker 2: you know, had more to work with. But the dialogue
Speaker 2: just is awful. I think they they totally wighed probably
Speaker 2: the second best Star Wars bad guy in Darth Maul,
Speaker 2: and that just kills me. And I know supposedly he
Speaker 2: comes back in the cartoons or whatever, but they, I mean,
Speaker 2: they just they just off to the guy and that's
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I thought, I thought that was kind of a waste.
Speaker 3: And I don't know. I'm a big as a.
Speaker 2: As a Star Trek fan, I'm a agent of of
Speaker 2: of chaos this evening. I'm a big stickler for consistency,
Speaker 2: and there's some some consistency issues between the original trilogy
Speaker 2: and the new or the the in the prequels. The
Speaker 2: Medichlorian thing was was a no go for me, like
Speaker 2: from the beginning.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: So I hope that answers your question, and I hope
Speaker 2: that no one throws any rotten fruit at me.
Speaker 1: It's one advantage of having these conversations digitally. Wait, so consistency,
Speaker 1: you're telling me that Lucas adding Hayden Christensen into the
Speaker 1: Return of the Jedi that didn't do it for you?
Speaker 3: Actually, So I have the DVD set.
Speaker 2: I just dumb luck found it at Goodwill that has
Speaker 2: the laser disc transfer of the of the theatrical cut,
Speaker 2: and so I do not have to see Hayden Christiansen
Speaker 2: in Return of the Jedi. It's great and I get
Speaker 2: to hear Yupnab. Who doesn't love Yupnab?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Apparently?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll get to that great pain if he
Speaker 1: turns here. Yeah. The the updates that he made to
Speaker 1: the original trilogy just none of them were necessary, in fact,
Speaker 1: very unnecessary. All right, fair enough, Well, I'm sure we'll
Speaker 1: turn back around some of these ideas here, Hannah return,
Speaker 1: tell us a little about your experience with Star Wars.
Speaker 4: Okay, so, like probably everyone here, I grew up watching
Speaker 4: Star Wars. Now sadly, I was not born when it
Speaker 4: originally came out in theaters, but I grew up. I
Speaker 4: think my first memory of like watching a movie was
Speaker 4: watching a New Hope with like my dad and my
Speaker 4: little brothers, and my dad kept pausing the movie to
Speaker 4: make sure we weren't too scared, and he told us
Speaker 4: what was going to happen, like he told us about
Speaker 4: like he's like this character is gonna die or like,
Speaker 4: don't worry, like this is what's gonna happen, and so
Speaker 4: I remember loving it and since then, Yeah, it's just
Speaker 4: it's definitely been a big part of my life, just
Speaker 4: growing up, even just yeah, it's definitely been something that
Speaker 4: has really brought me a lot of joy. And I
Speaker 4: do not hold to just the original three. However, I
Speaker 4: do acknowledge there's a lot of cringey things to the prequels,
Speaker 4: but I grew up watching Star Wars, the Clone Wars
Speaker 4: as a kid, to the animated show, and that really
Speaker 4: redeemed that time period for me. I think if there
Speaker 4: had just been the prequel movies, that would have been
Speaker 4: harder to to get behind that time period in Star
Speaker 4: Wars history. But the show does a lot to redeem
Speaker 4: the failings of the prequel trilogy, and so that was
Speaker 4: definitely part of my experience. Then I grew up with
Speaker 4: then like Star Wars Rebels coming out, and then with
Speaker 4: Disney with the movies which I all went to see
Speaker 4: all of them, and then The Mandalorian obviously and some
Speaker 4: of the more recent adventures he has made into Star Wars.
Speaker 4: I would say there's been some good things, some bad things.
Speaker 4: I do actually really like Rogue One, but I haven't
Speaker 4: been a fan really of anything else Disney has done
Speaker 4: movie wise. I think some of the animated The animated
Speaker 4: stuff is generally pretty good, but it's definitely been a
Speaker 4: big part of my life as a kid. I would
Speaker 4: just I have this Ultimate Star Wars Dictionary, and I
Speaker 4: would just flip through it so I could tell you,
Speaker 4: like really obscure character names and things still from that.
Speaker 4: But it's definitely been very enjoyable in a I sympathize
Speaker 4: with only acknowledging the original three. I think I'm biased
Speaker 4: because I grew up with other stuff as well. I
Speaker 4: grew apocryphal apocryphal works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I say it is something. It speaks something about
Speaker 1: the power of Star Wars that you know, there is
Speaker 1: this whole lored built up around it, right, even you know,
Speaker 1: dictionary of you know, Lord trivia type stuff. And I
Speaker 1: say that because it's kind of it's a bit unusual
Speaker 1: for something that's strictly cinematic. I mean, obviously it has books,
Speaker 1: but it's it's cinematic in its nature. Books spun out
Speaker 1: of that, I mean, And so it's one thing to
Speaker 1: have someone like Tolkien not and you know, don't. This
Speaker 1: is not at all undercutting Tolkien. Is Tolkien is far
Speaker 1: superior to anything Star Wars has to put out there, uh,
Speaker 1: make that clear. But at the same time, like it's
Speaker 1: I think it's far easier to have that kind of
Speaker 1: world in literature, that kind of gripping, deep world. It's
Speaker 1: something kind of unique about Star Wars that we get
Speaker 1: that in cinema or out of cinema, and so I
Speaker 1: think it just speaks to something about the power that
Speaker 1: lies underneath it. Or we'll come back to to some
Speaker 1: of that. Justin tell us about your bench and Star Wars.
Speaker 5: Okay, well, I've also loved Star Wars since I was
Speaker 5: a kid. I first saw it on TV actually, you know,
Speaker 5: cable television or whatever, so with commercials back in the day.
Speaker 5: And I don't know why I hadn't seen it before.
Speaker 5: I just didn't really know anyone who had seen. Of
Speaker 5: course i'd heard of it and everything, and I remember
Speaker 5: watching it just by myself. It might have just been
Speaker 5: all in one day, I can't remember. Maybe it was
Speaker 5: over the course of a couple of days, but I
Speaker 5: just remember just sitting there and being like this, this
Speaker 5: is incredible. This is like the best movies I've ever seen.
Speaker 5: And then I remember I went to like basketball practice
Speaker 5: or something and told one of the guys on my team,
Speaker 5: you know, I thought I was kind of this nerdy
Speaker 5: thing a little bit, and he was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: Star Wars. It's incredible. So I've been a fan ever
Speaker 5: since then. I'll say that when the Disney bought it,
Speaker 5: I was so excited for the first one they were,
Speaker 5: uh make it was that what was the name of
Speaker 5: that one, I can't I can't remember right now, The
Speaker 5: Force Awakens, Yeah, And I was so excited. I had
Speaker 5: my dog was named after a Star Wars character, Like,
Speaker 5: I was so excited, and I went to the theater
Speaker 5: and I watched it, and I don't know how long
Speaker 5: it took me, but it was not very long, like
Speaker 5: fifteen minutes maybe, and then half an hour and then
Speaker 5: an hour, and I was just I was so I
Speaker 5: was just like, this is I can't believe.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 5: I couldn't believe what they did, and I'd never I
Speaker 5: just swore to myself I wouldn't see another single movie
Speaker 5: that was I just it was heretical to me. Years later,
Speaker 5: this is probably maybe maybe two years back now, I
Speaker 5: was talking with a Christian elder brother sort of friend
Speaker 5: slash mentor, and he was like, and I was weak.
Speaker 5: The topic of Star Wars came up and he was like,
Speaker 5: he was like, yeah, I hear what you're saying, but
Speaker 5: you should check out the Mandalorian. Like it's it's actually good,
Speaker 5: Like really, He's like, yeah, it floes a little bit
Speaker 5: more under the radar because it's a show and you know,
Speaker 5: they don't have to kind of do some of the
Speaker 5: other stuff that gets in there for these bigger releases,
Speaker 5: and it's like, it's actually good, you know, you know,
Speaker 5: oh man, I'm blanking what you know, hovercraft racing through
Speaker 5: the desert and whatnot. So I watched Mandalorian and that
Speaker 5: brought me kind of back into the fold with some
Speaker 5: of the new stuff. I have very strong opinions about
Speaker 5: what is canon. My cannon is the original three. The
Speaker 5: prequels obviously not as good, but I count them the
Speaker 5: Mandalorian seasons one and two, but not beyond that. And
Speaker 5: if none of you have seen this, the Mandalorian seasons
Speaker 5: one and two is good. And the reveal at the
Speaker 5: end of season two is just so phenomenal that I mean,
Speaker 5: I gotta give them credit for that, and then Knights
Speaker 5: of the Old Republic the first game is probably the
Speaker 5: best Star Wars story certainly, you know, since the the
Speaker 5: original three, and i'd even like entertained the argument that
Speaker 5: it's maybe a better story than it's so good. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's amazing. So that's that's my that's my canon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good, Yeah, And I definitely echo a lot of that.
Speaker 1: You know, I already mentioned Nights of the Old Republic
Speaker 1: and I totally agree that it's it's debatably on par
Speaker 1: with the original series, although I feel very uncomfortable saying that,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely, you know, it's the best thing since
Speaker 1: then at least. And yeah, the Mandalorian is great. It's
Speaker 1: probably the best that's come out of the Disney era.
Speaker 1: I've only seen the first two seasons so far. That's
Speaker 1: a bad habit of watching a show, even a show
Speaker 1: that I enjoy, and then I just stop get distracted
Speaker 1: by other things. So I haven't willfully not watched the
Speaker 1: third season. Just has it happened so far. I'll get
Speaker 1: there at some point. Yeah, So so far, not a
Speaker 1: lot of love for for Disney and listent's hear what
Speaker 1: you have to say, and then we'll circle back around
Speaker 1: some of these ideas.
Speaker 6: So when I was ten years old, actually nine, in
Speaker 6: nineteen ninety five or ninety six, my godmother took me
Speaker 6: on a bike ride and told me the story of
Speaker 6: a New Hope, and I'd never heard of this before.
Speaker 6: I thought, that has sounded really cool. And at this
Speaker 6: time I was very much part of the culture of
Speaker 6: my family was we read the book before we saw
Speaker 6: the movie. So I actually read the novelizations of the
Speaker 6: original trilogy before I watched the movies themselves. And I
Speaker 6: blame this for the fact that for me, Star Wars
Speaker 6: is actually books, it's not movies. I love the movies.
Speaker 6: I share a lot of the criticisms of the prequels.
Speaker 6: I think they're extremely badly written. I think they're poorly
Speaker 6: acted and directed. I think they have very interesting concepts.
Speaker 6: That makes sense if you think of the characters as
Speaker 6: game pieces rather than people. It's a very neat way
Speaker 6: of moving them around the board. But the motivations for
Speaker 6: Anakin slaughtering not one, but two groups of children in
Speaker 6: Cold Blood are not strong enough to justify what happens
Speaker 6: in the movies. But I think that what authors like
Speaker 6: Timothy Zon and Aaron Alston and Michael Stackbull and Kathy
Speaker 6: Tires and James Lucino were able to take the concepts
Speaker 6: and the characters in the world that George Lucas created.
Speaker 6: I think really is where the pinnacle of Star Wars
Speaker 6: reached for me. I think that the ability to dig
Speaker 6: into concepts of the force and ethics and what it's
Speaker 6: like to be an x Wing pilots rather than just
Speaker 6: your Jedi, I are your top of the rug military leadership.
Speaker 6: But what it's like to be a normal person and
Speaker 6: face these hard moral choices in a desperate fight for freedom.
Speaker 6: That's what Star Wars really is for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I you know, like like Jordan mentioned in
Speaker 1: the chat here, you know, I really don't have any
Speaker 1: experience with the books, and so that's very interesting to
Speaker 1: hear and I would definitely like to pick up some
Speaker 1: of them, sucially the ones that have been most highly
Speaker 1: recommended pretty often to me. So Ian, I'm interested in
Speaker 1: this since you have a very literally focus on Star Wars.
Speaker 1: What is it to you that makes Star Wars great? Like,
Speaker 1: what is personally appealing to you about this world.
Speaker 6: Star Wars, to me, I think is the blend of
Speaker 6: so many different things in George Lucas's mind, and so
Speaker 6: many authors and creatives came in behind him and blended
Speaker 6: their own interests. So Lucas of course took the almost
Speaker 6: Manikeyan good versus evil of World War Two and blended
Speaker 6: in some Zen Buddhism and also some Methodist theology. And
Speaker 6: he also took in his fascination with creatures and aliens
Speaker 6: and the weird and bizarre and music videos. There's just
Speaker 6: such a blend of political, philosophical, entertainment and historical pieces
Speaker 6: into a story which has arctical characters that you can
Speaker 6: both understand and pour yourself into. So Luke Skywalker is
Speaker 6: both an archetype that you can see yourself in, as
Speaker 6: you know, you're someone from nowhere who gets plunged into
Speaker 6: something bigger than they are, but you can also see
Speaker 6: how he grows through trauma, the trauma of losing his
Speaker 6: hand and finding out the Darth Vader's his father, and
Speaker 6: really question whether he can join the light or the
Speaker 6: dark side. In Return of the Jedi, I think that
Speaker 6: the best Star Wars stories like that to the old public,
Speaker 6: like the Throng trilogy, take these archetypical characters and also
Speaker 6: give them their own journeys that you can learn from.
Speaker 6: There's always going to be an element of the dacticism
Speaker 6: and a good Star Wars story.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, that's interesting, and I think it's it's
Speaker 1: really insightful. And you know, I like think you mentioned
Speaker 1: that Lucas and laying the groundwork that others have picked
Speaker 1: up and can move in some different directions with that. He
Speaker 1: has a lot of different influences that are coming into
Speaker 1: putting this this world together, this galaxy together, I should
Speaker 1: say world understood in a broad sense. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've heard a number of people, a number of Christians
Speaker 1: honestly expressed some concern that, you know, this is all
Speaker 1: Eastern philosophy, that you know, there's something inherently antithetical to
Speaker 1: the Christian world view, to Christian thought in Star Wars.
Speaker 1: And I think that you can go that way if
Speaker 1: you if you follow certain elements of what's gone into
Speaker 1: creating Star Wars. But I think also you can get
Speaker 1: a very Christian reading of Star Wars as well if
Speaker 1: you're if you follow those bot you know, personally, for me,
Speaker 1: I think that what provides the most comprehensive take on
Speaker 1: what where do Star Wars come from. I think that
Speaker 1: you need to go to Campbell, Joseph Campbell, who you
Speaker 1: know Lucas recognizes what played an important role in shaping
Speaker 1: his thought, you know, The Hero with a Thousand Faces,
Speaker 1: which I haven't read yet, but it's coming tomorrow. So
Speaker 1: I've talked about that more another time, you know, and
Speaker 1: he was very influenced by Carl Jung, who focuses on
Speaker 1: these archetypes and these things that we know without knowing them.
Speaker 1: You know, this is where we really get this idea of,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to go rescue your father from
Speaker 1: the underworld. Like these ideas are a very archetypal, very Youngian,
Speaker 1: and very much that display in specifically the original series.
Speaker 1: And I find that and that even that young uining
Speaker 1: approach ultimately, I think it's very Platonic, which Plato is
Speaker 1: very adaptable to Christianity. At least that's what the early
Speaker 1: Church certainly thought. And so you know, we follow that
Speaker 1: that path, directing Star Wars ultimately to Plato. As you know.
Speaker 1: That's but I find personally the most compelling. I find
Speaker 1: that actually to be very amicable to a Christian worldview.
Speaker 1: And in fact, even this sort of maniche and light
Speaker 1: and dark I just recently discovered doesn't really come up
Speaker 1: in the original series. In fact, in the original movies,
Speaker 1: they don't really talk about the light side of the force.
Speaker 1: You have the force and you have the dark side.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily light and dark. It's like the reality
Speaker 1: and then the shadow. That's very different than where things
Speaker 1: developed later on in other media. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: when you really get down to the roots of it,
Speaker 1: I actually I think that that's very compelling as a
Speaker 1: Christian to do understand things that way. You have basically
Speaker 1: the real and the illusionary, the substance, the shadow, and
Speaker 1: so there's so much that goes into creating Star Wars
Speaker 1: that there are just a lot of different directions that
Speaker 1: we can go with this, some of which I think
Speaker 1: are can be more profitable than others. But that's to me,
Speaker 1: that's what Star Wars is. Yeah, says very august in In,
Speaker 1: which is really what I mean when I talk about
Speaker 1: Christian Platonism, I'm talking about Augustinianism, and I definitely agree.
Speaker 1: And so you know that's why, as you know, as
Speaker 1: a Christian someone in philosophy and theology, I find Star
Speaker 1: Wars to be very compelling at the root level. Now,
Speaker 1: I think that where things kind of went wrong is
Speaker 1: that when we get to the prequels, you know, still
Speaker 1: led by Lucas, there's still something of that there, but
Speaker 1: we're moving away from a sort of existential archetypal story
Speaker 1: to now we're getting more into the broad scale, the political,
Speaker 1: I would say, almost, which at that point we're sort
Speaker 1: of getting a little bit away from the individual human experience,
Speaker 1: which I think is what made the original series so great,
Speaker 1: and so there's still something of value there, you know,
Speaker 1: setting aside, Yeah, some of the bad dialogue, although even
Speaker 1: that I've kind of been convinced to forgive some of that.
Speaker 1: You know, the worst dialogue in the prequels definitely comes
Speaker 1: from hating Christiansen, you know, his dialogue with Padme. It's
Speaker 1: just it's the worst. At the same time, I've had
Speaker 1: people telling me that this is you know, this is
Speaker 1: actually part of the story in that you know, he's
Speaker 1: this kid who's been raised by these celibate monks, now
Speaker 1: thrown into this relationship. He doesn't really know how to
Speaker 1: talk to women, you know, he has all these emotions
Speaker 1: he doesn't know how to deal with. Maybe he is
Speaker 1: sort of maybe he should be this awkward figure who
Speaker 1: doesn't really know how to have conversations. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't know. But that aside, I think that we just
Speaker 1: start to go astray because we we lose that deep
Speaker 1: existential component we have in the original and by the
Speaker 1: time we get to the Disney movies, I don't think
Speaker 1: there's any rooted intentionality at all. It's just we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about some stuff that happened, check off some
Speaker 1: boxes to you know, to get at what marketing tells
Speaker 1: us people want. And now here's a mismash of story
Speaker 1: put together by different directors that don't agree with each
Speaker 1: other as to what's happening. It's just it's an absolute mess.
Speaker 1: And so I think that really is my explanation of this,
Speaker 1: the long defeat that we see in the progression of
Speaker 1: Star Wars. I've minologued a little bit too long here, Jordan,
Speaker 1: to you, what is Star Wars? What's compelling to you
Speaker 1: about it? Even if it's just the original series.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that it's.
Speaker 2: A combination of a lot of things. It's bound up
Speaker 2: in kind of my family's identity. I mean, my dad
Speaker 2: raised us to like sci fi and fantasy and so
Speaker 2: that you know, Star Wars was an obvious choice for that.
Speaker 2: But I think as far as the story itself goes,
Speaker 2: I really like the development of some of the the characters.
Speaker 2: In particular, I think Hans Art is amazing, you know,
Speaker 2: going from this guy who's just you know, is totally
Speaker 2: out for himself to the end of you know, a
Speaker 2: new hope when he's you know, coming back and Luke
Speaker 2: he was going to come back the whole time. The
Speaker 2: salvation arc for Vader is really wonderful. It's almost it's
Speaker 2: almost like he's he's he's us sending as Luke de
Speaker 2: sends and then I don't know, they almost like pull
Speaker 2: each other up at the end. And I think that
Speaker 2: being a dad has has affected the way I see that.
Speaker 2: I don't know, being a dad just totally it messes
Speaker 2: you up in all the good in all the best
Speaker 2: ways possible. But I think that mostly for me, it
Speaker 2: is the way that characters develop over the story. They're
Speaker 2: not they're not just one or two dimensional figures that
Speaker 2: are in this big budget at the time, you know,
Speaker 2: Light Show with with all these amazing effects for you know,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven through nineteen eighty three. I mean, you
Speaker 2: just didn't see stuff like that back then. I mean
Speaker 2: it even it even affected the way Star Trek you know,
Speaker 2: made its way onto onto the big screen, and there's
Speaker 2: you know, some interplay between the two series even. But
Speaker 2: I think it's just the way that the characters are told.
Speaker 2: I really you know, you mentioned that the interplay between
Speaker 2: the dark and the light. You know that that isn't
Speaker 2: really that. I think you're right, and that the light
Speaker 2: side is not really mentioned in the original trilogy, But
Speaker 2: that almost feels like John to me a little bit
Speaker 2: in that Uh You've got uh, You've got this this
Speaker 2: this darkness that that just seems to be extending over everything,
Speaker 2: but it cannot comprehend the light.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 2: I think I think that the character development in that
Speaker 2: story really brings all that out.
Speaker 1: So well, yeah, I think it's well said. Which at
Speaker 1: the same time, one of the worst things about the
Speaker 1: Disney movies is how they just utterly betray everything you
Speaker 1: just talked about. How you know it when when they
Speaker 1: do bring in the original characters, they just assassinate them.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you have this great arc of
Speaker 1: Han and then you know, finally getting together with Lea,
Speaker 1: you've got the you know, the rogue kind of finally
Speaker 1: made an honest man, and now he's just like this
Speaker 1: deadbeat dad who has no relationship with his wife, and
Speaker 1: you know, he just gets killed and I mean a
Speaker 1: pretty pitiful way. I get that. Harrison Ford, you know,
Speaker 1: he originally wanted to die of Martyr in the original series,
Speaker 1: and so he finally got his wish. But I just
Speaker 1: feel like if they were going to go that route,
Speaker 1: everything about him could have been more should have been
Speaker 1: more compelling by that point. And then I mean, Luke
Speaker 1: is just this again, this loser, exiled drinking weird milk
Speaker 1: from this weird space cow. It's it's they took these characters,
Speaker 1: have totally eradicated them. But yeah, I mean go to
Speaker 1: the original series and I think you do see some
Speaker 1: phenomenal progressions. And I mean, I don't know the last
Speaker 1: time before just recently that I watched through the original movies.
Speaker 1: I do it every once in a while, but this
Speaker 1: may have been my first time since becoming a father.
Speaker 1: You know, my oldest are three and a half now,
Speaker 1: and it is it is a different experience dealing with
Speaker 1: that relationship between Luke and Invader and that reconciliation at
Speaker 1: the end. I mean, it's you know, know exactly what's
Speaker 1: going to happen, Like it's hard to not experience that
Speaker 1: on a deep level seeing it again. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: there's just so much that's so compelling about that that again,
Speaker 1: just it's unfortunately lost in the later editions. Hannah to you,
Speaker 1: So you've you've seen the movies, you've read some of
Speaker 1: the books. I mean to you, what is Star Wars
Speaker 1: and what makes it compelling?
Speaker 4: That's like a hard question. I'm trying to think of it.
Speaker 4: Jordan is responding. I think I would definitely second to
Speaker 4: a lot of what he says. I would say, it's
Speaker 4: just it's really compelling. It really captured my imagination from
Speaker 4: an early age, and it captured my imagination in a
Speaker 4: way that I would say, how to generally a net
Speaker 4: positive effect, you know, obviously just the worlds and just
Speaker 4: the freedom that an entire galaxy offered and will keeping
Speaker 4: it very I would say for the most part, Star
Speaker 4: Wars is very much like kid friendly and not in
Speaker 4: a bad way and in a very good way.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: It's it's not a very dark, like gritty science fiction universe. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there are things that are unrealistic about it. I mean,
Speaker 4: there's that's why people can completely tear Star Wars apart
Speaker 4: if they want to. But I think there's something beautiful
Speaker 4: about that and something that really appeals to the mind
Speaker 4: of a child, in the imagination of a child, and
Speaker 4: I think that's why it's so compelling and multi generational
Speaker 4: that families can continue to watch it and the kids
Speaker 4: can see it in an early age and it just
Speaker 4: captures them, and then they want to show that to
Speaker 4: their kids, And I think that is really special about
Speaker 4: Star Wars. And I would say, obviously there are some
Speaker 4: concerning things, especially with later things, not just the originals,
Speaker 4: but later things in terms of some of the philosophical
Speaker 4: origins and some of the ideas there. But I would
Speaker 4: say in general, the major things that I got away
Speaker 4: from as a kid was just good versus evil and
Speaker 4: just having heroes Star Wars characters that I looked up
Speaker 4: to for various reasons. I mean, for example, like one
Speaker 4: of my favorite characters is Obi Wan, and like looking
Speaker 4: up to him his wisdom and courage as as a character.
Speaker 4: And I think that's something that's just very valuable with
Speaker 4: Star Wars and with any media. I think there's it's
Speaker 4: just so valuable to provide that source of imagination and joy.
Speaker 4: That's also you know, filling the imagination with things that
Speaker 4: are going to be true, good and beautiful. And so
Speaker 4: I think that's just what Star Wars is for me.
Speaker 4: And I also kind of judge the Star Wars content
Speaker 4: I consume based off of that, is that what I'm
Speaker 4: getting away from this, is this something that's you know,
Speaker 4: filling my imagination in a positive way. If it's not that,
Speaker 4: I won't watch it or I'll stop watching it, but
Speaker 4: or reading it. But I found that a lot of
Speaker 4: Star Wars stuff, sometimes imperfectly, still accomplishes that goal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's very well said. I think it's
Speaker 1: a good test of discernment for really any media we
Speaker 1: engage with, is it fueling our imagination in a positive
Speaker 1: direction or in a negative direction? And you know, at
Speaker 1: this point in our cultural milieu, sorry to use French there,
Speaker 1: I apologize or said of here, we I can really
Speaker 1: cheer on anything that has clear divisions between good and
Speaker 1: evil like that that's kind of my barrier. Like if
Speaker 1: we have that, I can be happy with it, I
Speaker 1: can cheer it on, and we definitely see that in
Speaker 1: Star Wars, but things get really blurty with the Disney
Speaker 1: movies where they really are engaging in just deconstruction, which
Speaker 1: is I guess, the the hot word of the day.
Speaker 1: But aside from that, and I think they even there,
Speaker 1: you still have something of the division of good and
Speaker 1: evil which can be redemptive. And again that that intergenerational
Speaker 1: component to it. I think that also speaks something to
Speaker 1: its power that you know, it can be enjoyed by
Speaker 1: a child who just thinks cool stuff is happening, or
Speaker 1: it can be enjoyed by somebody who is able to
Speaker 1: apply you know, a bit more of mental faculties to it.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes when I talk about that about approaching
Speaker 1: Star Wars from a philosophical angle, you know, if people
Speaker 1: will push back and say, look, obviously, this is not Shakespeare's,
Speaker 1: it's not Plato, you know, it's it's it's entertainment. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, like there are some significant ideas
Speaker 1: that are under the surface, and the reality is like
Speaker 1: everything is significant if you choose to recognize it as such,
Speaker 1: and you especially wouldn't get somebody something so phenomenally successful
Speaker 1: like the Star Wars franchise unless there was something there
Speaker 1: that actually spoke to the human experience, otherwise it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be so attractive. And so there's always something there and
Speaker 1: compelling story. And I think that taking some time to
Speaker 1: think about what is it that attracts me to this thing,
Speaker 1: to the story, that can provide important avenue of understanding
Speaker 1: yourself as well as what it means to be human.
Speaker 1: In fact, you know, I used to I've done a
Speaker 1: number of things. One benefit of majoring in philosophy is
Speaker 1: you know, until you get the job you want, you
Speaker 1: do a number of things along the way. And you know,
Speaker 1: for a time I was responsible for doing some hiring
Speaker 1: for for retail type stuff, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: had all the entry level kind of positions for a time,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was responsible for putting together with
Speaker 1: that those interviews looked like. And I found that consistently
Speaker 1: the most helpful question that would allow me to predict
Speaker 1: workplace success was tell me what your favorite book or
Speaker 1: movie is and why. Now, this sounds like a kind
Speaker 1: of hokey interviewee type question, but is actually really significant.
Speaker 1: If they can tell me here's what I like, but
Speaker 1: also most importantly why I like it. That shows me
Speaker 1: you understand something about yourself and the way that you're
Speaker 1: engaging with the world around you. It's intentional. You have
Speaker 1: that reflection. And so you know, if we can watch
Speaker 1: something like Star Wars, read something like Star Wars, play
Speaker 1: something like Star Wars, whatever that is, and you know,
Speaker 1: apply our minds to it, I actually think that there
Speaker 1: is a good bit we can get out of it,
Speaker 1: even if we're not necessarily engaging with you know, the
Speaker 1: the greats of classical philosophy, and so there's there's mind,
Speaker 1: there's entertainment that there's a lot of value to be
Speaker 1: had in that. I think there's are the that's the
Speaker 1: formula for enchantment. You have mind and you have the entertainment.
Speaker 1: You have that which muses you. Justin to you, what
Speaker 1: is Star Wars and what makes it compelling to you?
Speaker 5: Well, for me, I think Star Wars at its core
Speaker 5: is is medieval level stole wories of honorable and courageous nights,
Speaker 5: going on adventures and you know, fighting monsters or wickedness,
Speaker 5: fighting dragons. Uh in a in a more modern setting
Speaker 5: or a futuristic setting. I mean, but I see the
Speaker 5: Jedi Knights in the same way that I would look
Speaker 5: up to you know, to to bail Wolf or to
Speaker 5: any you know, to any older night in armor, to
Speaker 5: find that sort of inspiration, to find the heroes too,
Speaker 5: to emulate you know, goodness, the clear lines between good
Speaker 5: and evil. I also really enjoy the the world building
Speaker 5: side of it, I don't know, in the same for
Speaker 5: some of the same reasons that I love the Lord
Speaker 5: of the Rings and the Narnia books.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I'm not really concerned with any sort of realism in
Speaker 5: the technology side of it, or whether we can go
Speaker 5: to other planets. It's but it's just another avenue to
Speaker 5: be able to two use your imagination to think of
Speaker 5: different worlds and uh to to to practice that because
Speaker 5: I believe that God enjoys when when we do that.
Speaker 5: I think that Andrew, in one of the previous lessons
Speaker 5: you might have talked about how when we read books,
Speaker 5: we we participate in that world building process, or even
Speaker 5: if we play an RPG, we participate in that in
Speaker 5: a way that maybe we don't when we watch movies
Speaker 5: as much. But but this universe of Star Wars is
Speaker 5: something that you know, we can still kind of bring
Speaker 5: away from the movie experience and and use our imaginations
Speaker 5: for and so I enjoy that part of it. I
Speaker 5: like also the aesthetics of it. These are a couple
Speaker 5: set more secondary things for me, but like, I love
Speaker 5: some of the architecture, some of the you know, the clothes,
Speaker 5: or the you know, the scenery, the different kind of
Speaker 5: landscapes of different planets, or the buildings or the ships,
Speaker 5: and I think some of that's done so well that
Speaker 5: it's just it's so cool. And one other thing that
Speaker 5: I really enjoy is that I do feel that on
Speaker 5: the realistic side of things, that the whole kind of
Speaker 5: Jedi ethos and process does get a little bit into
Speaker 5: say the desert fatherish area, where uh, I'm not so
Speaker 5: sure that all of it is just fantasy, you know.
Speaker 5: And and I like thinking about some of our forefathers
Speaker 5: and ancestors that that might have lived in ways kind
Speaker 5: of maybe closer to some of the scenes that that
Speaker 5: we might see in in in you know, some of
Speaker 5: those movies, for example, you know, maybe a cave on
Speaker 5: Tato wine. And I'm not I'm not sure that uh
Speaker 5: that some of those abilities aren't aren't possible, you know,
Speaker 5: And that that some of our Christian forebears may have
Speaker 5: had some of those not that that is or should
Speaker 5: be our goal, but I find it interesting to think
Speaker 5: about it. So yeah, I think, like everyone, I have
Speaker 5: a lot of different aspects that make it up for me,
Speaker 5: and I agree with a lot of the points that
Speaker 5: that everyone has made, but I guess to just kind
Speaker 5: of distill it down to the simplest form for me,
Speaker 5: it's it's stories about nights, uh, having to decide to
Speaker 5: fight for what is right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I sometime a while back I posted
Speaker 1: an image of Qui Gon fighting Darth Mauln and titled it,
Speaker 1: you know, sat Anthony fights to the Devil. I find
Speaker 1: out humorous anyways, and more and more substantially responding to
Speaker 1: what you said that on on the secondary level of aesthetics,
Speaker 1: I definitely think there's something it's just so iconic about
Speaker 1: the feel of Star Wars. I mean, the the woshing
Speaker 1: and of a lightsaber like that. There's just something I
Speaker 1: don't know, special about that, uh, in a way that
Speaker 1: you know, I can't go off on some philosophical analysis
Speaker 1: other than it's just it's cool and chanting. There's just
Speaker 1: something about the field that is certainly enrapturing, and I
Speaker 1: appreciated where you set Star Wars related to Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings, related to Beowulf, even like fantasy but evilism,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. I've gotten into these debates before
Speaker 1: about what is the genre of Star Wars, and you know,
Speaker 1: on the surface level, it definitely looks like sci fi,
Speaker 1: but at the heart of it is fantasy. It just
Speaker 1: happens to be set in space and on different planets.
Speaker 1: But you know, like you mentioned, they don't really get
Speaker 1: into two like how do things work? Or why is
Speaker 1: it that you can breathe on any planet like that?
Speaker 1: These are just they're different worlds. They're not really different planets.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like you're going into different portals in
Speaker 1: the wood between the worlds. It's I think that's a
Speaker 1: better way of framing it. It is fantasy and all
Speaker 1: that that entails regarding just not only the setting, but
Speaker 1: at the heart of it what it is, and so
Speaker 1: I think there is that natural overlap there. Cool well, Ian,
Speaker 1: I already asked you what Star Wars is to you,
Speaker 1: So maybe we can go a little bit more negative here,
Speaker 1: where like you're obviously critical of the movie's probably even
Speaker 1: more so than I am of the ones that come
Speaker 1: after the originals, where do you think the movies kind
Speaker 1: of go wrong compared to your version of Star Wars
Speaker 1: with you know, the literature or whatever else.
Speaker 6: I think what worked with the original trilogy is that
Speaker 6: Lucas was able to because he was collaborating more on
Speaker 6: an equal level with other writers and directors, he was
Speaker 6: able to create characters that had more universal appeal, and
Speaker 6: so he was able to do things with the moral
Speaker 6: actions that those characters did that people were able to say,
Speaker 6: I understand this is good and evil. In the prequels,
Speaker 6: I don't think he was able to transcend the arc
Speaker 6: typical nature of the characters he was playing with. You know,
Speaker 6: the orphan, traumatized boy who grows up wanting to become
Speaker 6: powerful and is corrupted by the evil you know, sorry,
Speaker 6: what was the impeach President Richard Nixon? Yeah, the Nixon figure.
Speaker 6: Like all the characters in the prequels are as I said,
Speaker 6: I really think they work more if you think of
Speaker 6: them as game pieces being moved around a board to
Speaker 6: make a symbolic picture of evil overcoming good. And I
Speaker 6: think the problem with that is because you don't know
Speaker 6: exactly how to feel about characters like Anakin and for
Speaker 6: me personally obi Wan. I think there's a lot of
Speaker 6: potential in obi Wan, but he's so flawed. I actually
Speaker 6: think that Anakin is right to say that he's overly judgmental.
Speaker 6: He doesn't listen to Anakin. He's not a good mentor
Speaker 6: he was thrust into that role too soon. And so
Speaker 6: I don't say that he's a bad person or a
Speaker 6: bad character, but he's not a good teacher in that way,
Speaker 6: especially for Anakin. But because there's all this ambiguity, and
Speaker 6: because their dialogue is not well crafted, so that it's
Speaker 6: kind of like a bunch of philosophical propositions plopped down
Speaker 6: into conversation, and you don't really know should I agree
Speaker 6: with this person because I like them, or because they
Speaker 6: do good things or not. There's a lot of philosophical
Speaker 6: content in those movies, a lot of good and evil
Speaker 6: actions and good and evil thoughts. They're just kind of
Speaker 6: put there, and Lucas doesn't make it clear what actually
Speaker 6: is true. So he talks about things like balance to
Speaker 6: the force, and there is an Augustinian way to think
Speaker 6: about balance of the force, that the force is balanced
Speaker 6: and the dark side is imbalance, but some other people
Speaker 6: take it to mean that the force is the light
Speaker 6: side and the dark side and they have to be
Speaker 6: in balance with each other, and that, of course would
Speaker 6: be the more zen idea. Lucas doesn't clarify that he
Speaker 6: doesn't have a character really dive into that who we
Speaker 6: can trust, like we can trust Qui God, But he
Speaker 6: doesn't get into what balance of the force means. Similarly, Anakin,
Speaker 6: you know, he talks about things like I think there
Speaker 6: should be this dictatorship and Podme is like, no, there
Speaker 6: shouldn't be. But then Podme falls in love with Anakin
Speaker 6: right after he slaughters a bunch of children, and so
Speaker 6: you don't you don't get a sense that either Podme
Speaker 6: or Anakin have a moral perspective, a moral grounding that
Speaker 6: you can latch onto, like you can ground yourself in
Speaker 6: Lea's perspective or or Luke's perspective, And you can't ground
Speaker 6: yourself in Han's perspective, because you know, he is that
Speaker 6: morally unstable guy who shoots a guy under the table.
Speaker 6: Now I think that he justified in shooting that guind
Speaker 6: on the table, but it is a ruthless action. He
Speaker 6: doesn't have that same moral core that Luke and Lada
Speaker 6: do we don't have that moral core in Podmer, Anakin
Speaker 6: or even Obi Wan that we can say their perspective
Speaker 6: authorizes us to think this way about the force and
Speaker 6: about balance and about what the right path is. And
Speaker 6: I think that that failure in creating those more grounded
Speaker 6: characters that we can have a handle on is where
Speaker 6: the Prequels go off the rail. And then, of course
Speaker 6: the Disney movies are just too They're too mimic, they
Speaker 6: copy too much, so they don't really have anything to say.
Speaker 1: Now, what would you say to the argument that this
Speaker 1: is like Lucas playing forty chess here where you know,
Speaker 1: the the artistry of what he does in the prequels
Speaker 1: is in not giving us clear answers, thereby living leaving
Speaker 1: room for subcreation, leaving room for the viewer to figure
Speaker 1: out their own take on you know what's going on.
Speaker 1: I mean, could that not be a mark of artistry?
Speaker 1: You could?
Speaker 6: I think going back to C. S. Lewis's and experimenting criticism,
Speaker 6: and you look at how Star Wars is read. I
Speaker 6: don't see enough people reading it in a careful way.
Speaker 6: For example, if you talk to people about things like
Speaker 6: the Jedi taking children away from their parents and not
Speaker 6: letting them have attachments, not letting them get married and
Speaker 6: developed as mature emotional people. A lot of the people
Speaker 6: I talk to, and I'm not just talking about casual fans,
Speaker 6: I'm talking about people who spent a lot of time
Speaker 6: thinking about this, they don't they don't understand that this
Speaker 6: is actually supposed to be contradicted by Return of the Jedi.
Speaker 6: Darth Vader is redeemed by the love of his son,
Speaker 6: by the attachment of his son. But Lucas was not
Speaker 6: clear enough in how he portrayed the Jedi and their
Speaker 6: ethics and their actions in the prequels, and I think
Speaker 6: that is failing. That is reflected in how there isn't
Speaker 6: a clear reading by the audience of the text.
Speaker 1: And I think that Qui Gon does leave some groundwork
Speaker 1: that could be could have been picked up an interesting
Speaker 1: direction in that, you know, he is the good guy,
Speaker 1: you know, he's the lead good guy really of the
Speaker 1: first of episode one, but he isn't you know, on
Speaker 1: the council, because he doesn't embrace the full Jedi code.
Speaker 1: And so this really helps us to see that whatever
Speaker 1: the kind of right side of the forces, that doesn't
Speaker 1: it maybe it's something beyond simply what the Jedi have
Speaker 1: to offer. And I think that based off you know
Speaker 1: what you just said about the redemption of Anakin at
Speaker 1: the end of Return of the Jedi, that shows us that,
Speaker 1: you know, it is the attachment that he has redeemed.
Speaker 1: And so the Jedi, they don't have the full say
Speaker 1: on what the right actions is the right course of life,
Speaker 1: that there's room for criticizing them in a way that
Speaker 1: doesn't actually deconstruct good and evil, but actually puts the
Speaker 1: Jedi under judgment of what is truly good. I think
Speaker 1: that Qui Gon, his character, provides that there's that groundwork
Speaker 1: for doing that. I just agree with you that it's
Speaker 1: not really executed in a clear direction at all.
Speaker 6: Could I I apologize I am taking a lot of time,
Speaker 6: but I wanted to because we're talking about Qui Gon.
Speaker 6: I have two books and I wanted to read really
Speaker 6: two short excerpts from Qui Gon's perspective about this. The
Speaker 6: first one's Master an Apprentice by Claudia Gray and Qui
Speaker 6: Gon's fighting with an old apprentice of Count Duku. Because
Speaker 6: you know, in the movies, Qui Gon is an apprentice
Speaker 6: of Count Dooku. So this author, Claudia Gray, has him
Speaker 6: talking with another apprentice, and the apprentice says, do you
Speaker 6: even think about what balance of the force would mean?
Speaker 6: Qui Gon, It would mean darkness would be just as
Speaker 6: strong as the light. So it doesn't matter what we do,
Speaker 6: because in the end, hey, it's a tie. And then
Speaker 6: Qui Gon responds by saying, it matters. It matters which
Speaker 6: side we choose, even if there will be never be
Speaker 6: more light than darkness, even if there's no more joy
Speaker 6: in the galaxy than there is pain. For every action
Speaker 6: we undertake, for every word we speak, for every life
Speaker 6: we touch, it matters. I don't turn towards the light
Speaker 6: because it means someday I will win some sort of
Speaker 6: cosmic gain. I turn toward it because it is the light.
Speaker 6: And I think that indicates that there's something self evident
Speaker 6: in the light that is true, beautiful and good, so
Speaker 6: that it's not about winning a game or balancing the
Speaker 6: scales or fulfilling a prophecy. It's about there's something in us,
Speaker 6: as Romans one says, that recognizes the good, and we
Speaker 6: turn towards it if we're enabled to. And then the
Speaker 6: second is from John Jackson Miller's The Living Force, and
Speaker 6: at the very end of the book, Qui Gon says
Speaker 6: attachments are not the problem in different and says, save
Speaker 6: a friend, obi Wan, and the friend may save you.
Speaker 6: And I really think that that's why I love the
Speaker 6: literature of Star Wars, because it's able to take a
Speaker 6: character like Qui Gon and flesh out that philosophical understanding
Speaker 6: that gives us that ground to stand on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good. I appreciate you you bringing that in.
Speaker 1: It does provide a bit more to his historian what
Speaker 1: it is that he represents. Now, I will say one
Speaker 1: more thing as a side note, not quite as significant
Speaker 1: as what you were discussing, but you did mention the
Speaker 1: relationship between Obi Wan and and Anakin, and he said
Speaker 1: Anakin may may have some justification there and criticizing obi Wan.
Speaker 1: I did catch this time around, and I'm sure I'm not.
Speaker 1: I know I'm not the person to catch this, but
Speaker 1: that Anakin, you know, a few times, will refer to
Speaker 1: Obi Wan as being like his father, and then obi Wan,
Speaker 1: you know, at that final fight at the end of
Speaker 1: Revenge of the Sith, you know, obi Wan said, as
Speaker 1: we were brothers, and so they have a very different
Speaker 1: understanding of what their relationship is. And so Obi Wan
Speaker 1: really because he was thrust into it, you know, he
Speaker 1: failed this master apprentice relationship really seeing them as equals,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's the problem that parents have when
Speaker 1: they just want to be buddies with our kids, or
Speaker 1: like a teacher, when they just want to be accepted
Speaker 1: as cool to their students, that you lose something of
Speaker 1: your significance there and thereby something of your efficacy. And
Speaker 1: so it's just another element of I think something significant
Speaker 1: that you can find in the prequels, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're able to look past, you know, some of the
Speaker 1: dialogues and the writing that sort of stuff. And I'm
Speaker 1: somebody who wants to enjoy things, and so I can
Speaker 1: I can do that because I just I want to
Speaker 1: enjoy things. There's something good there, I want to see it.
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the one of the
Speaker 1: lessons you can see there one example of the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, the prequels, they aren't empty of significance, even
Speaker 1: if maybe they could be dressed up a little bit better. Well,
Speaker 1: I could go around the circle again, but I mean,
Speaker 1: does anyone else have anything that you you want to
Speaker 1: discuss anything else you want to bring up. Well, so
Speaker 1: Ian said Hahn was totally justified in shooting first or
Speaker 1: at the same time, Yeah, I mean, I mean to
Speaker 1: be sure, obviously he was under under threat there by
Speaker 1: this this uh, this scumbag. So that means fair enough. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In Han solo, I mean he is he he might
Speaker 1: be my favorite character. And so it's one of the
Speaker 1: things I'll never forgive Disney for what they did to him. Now.
Speaker 1: You know, we we've all kind of hated on the
Speaker 1: Disney sequels. Is can anybody say anything positive about them?
Speaker 6: This?
Speaker 1: This is gonna be your your test for today.
Speaker 4: The music is good. Sometimes I'll listen to some of
Speaker 4: the music. I'll say that's good. I think honestly the
Speaker 4: Four Weekends. Having seen it also as a kid like
Speaker 4: I wasn't necessarily like on the hate train at first
Speaker 4: with the Force Awakens. I think I got on the
Speaker 4: hate train with the next one after that, the last
Speaker 4: SHEDI is where things just completely went off the rails.
Speaker 4: But I would say, yeah, the music, I would say,
Speaker 4: I mean, there's there's some.
Speaker 3: I did not.
Speaker 6: There.
Speaker 4: I mean, there might be some some I'm having troubled
Speaker 4: thinking of it. See fair I haven't seen them in
Speaker 4: a while. I did the there's the most good to
Speaker 4: be found in The Force Awakens. There's so it's very
Speaker 4: basic plot like it's basically just I mean, you can
Speaker 4: see comparison of that movie with the plot of the
Speaker 4: original trilogy, and it's very much just a copy paste.
Speaker 4: But in that sense, it almost protects it from what
Speaker 4: happens later on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can largely agree with that. You know, I
Speaker 1: recently ased this that I watched all of the movies
Speaker 1: trying wanting to enjoy all of it. It just it
Speaker 1: became very difficult when you get to the sequels, you know,
Speaker 1: with starting with The Force Awakens. I actually I kind
Speaker 1: of like the character of Finn. I feel like there's
Speaker 1: potential that he could be working to something significant. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's kind of cool. You know, you have
Speaker 1: the stormtrooper who converts to the good guys and maybe
Speaker 1: his some kind of forced sensitivity like that, that's interesting
Speaker 1: stuff they could have done with him. He really has
Speaker 1: this nightly kind of role to Ray. And what drives
Speaker 1: me crazy is Ray, who obviously is the protagonist of
Speaker 1: that series, the heroin that we're supposed to appreciate, maybe
Speaker 1: even look up to. She just dismisses him, like it's
Speaker 1: not even that she scorns his chivalrous kind of behavior
Speaker 1: toward her. She puts it off as if it's like
Speaker 1: silly and juvenile. And that right there is Disney telling
Speaker 1: me that they're they're really trying to dismiss anything like traditionalism, right,
Speaker 1: anything like traditional relationships between men and women. And so
Speaker 1: they take what is I would say that the most
Speaker 1: wholesome character, and they just sideline him to the point where,
Speaker 1: you know, you go a movie or two later, and
Speaker 1: he's almost entirely insignificant and forgettable. And so I feel
Speaker 1: like they laid some groundwork for some interesting things that
Speaker 1: they just cut the line on too early. I mean,
Speaker 1: and even you know, I can appreciate something about Kylo
Speaker 1: Wren in that he really doesn't have any motivation other
Speaker 1: than just rebelling against his parents. So he's just this petulant,
Speaker 1: complaining rebel for no reason who just totally consumed by
Speaker 1: his emotion. And so I think that he does a
Speaker 1: good job of demonstrating just the well, the banal evil, right,
Speaker 1: the fact that it's so pitiful that there's really nothing
Speaker 1: commendable to be had there. It's all just emotional rebelling
Speaker 1: against the good for no reason at all. And you know,
Speaker 1: it makes me think of even Augustine to go back
Speaker 1: to Augustinianism in the City of God, when Augustine is
Speaker 1: talking about why we have the original sin? Why is
Speaker 1: there evil? And you know, he says, basically with Adam
Speaker 1: and Eve, Okay, well you've got the Satanic influence. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's back it up. How do we get the
Speaker 1: fall of Satan? And at that point he says, we
Speaker 1: see evil's irrational, and so we shouldn't expect to be
Speaker 1: able to come up with a rational answer. And it
Speaker 1: kind of sounds like a cop out, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, it makes a lot of sense that evil
Speaker 1: is irrational because the good is the real and the
Speaker 1: real is rational, and so evil being a rebellion against
Speaker 1: the logoss a rebellion against reason. I think it's it.
Speaker 1: I think it's good to have a character that is
Speaker 1: just irrational and emotional and flighty and doesn't really have
Speaker 1: any clear goals beyond just destroying stuff and mashching off
Speaker 1: his own ship when he gets temper tantrums like so
Speaker 1: there's something I can actually find appealing about that. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, and yeah, I think that out
Speaker 1: of Driver, I think he did I think he did
Speaker 1: well the role that he was given. I think it
Speaker 1: was good casting, and so I can appreciate something about that,
Speaker 1: and so that that's probably the most positive things that
Speaker 1: I can say about the series. But beyond that, I mean,
Speaker 1: so much of it would just focus on deconstruction, and
Speaker 1: I'm definitely not on not on board with that, all right,
Speaker 1: I mean we could go ahead, yeah.
Speaker 6: Ian, I don't know how much I can say in
Speaker 6: favor of the Disney movies themselves. But as I've said,
Speaker 6: I'm a book guy. Star Wars is a book universe,
Speaker 6: and so I did just quote from two Star Wars
Speaker 6: Disney books. So I'm not like cutting off Disney just
Speaker 6: because I think their movies are crap. There are still
Speaker 6: authors who are doing their best to create stories that
Speaker 6: push us towards the light. In Star Wars, I think.
Speaker 4: I'll also just real quickly say a good word for
Speaker 4: Rogue one. I really love Rogue one. I enjoy it
Speaker 4: a lot, So I think it's probably the best movie
Speaker 4: that Disney has done by a long way. And this
Speaker 4: could be controversial. I will say I think I like
Speaker 4: Rogue one better than the prequels. Like, if I was
Speaker 4: gonna pick a Star Wars movie to watch between the
Speaker 4: prequels and Rogue One, I'd probably pick Rogue One. It's controversial,
Speaker 4: I know, but it could also be that I was
Speaker 4: like growing up and I actually got to see Rogue
Speaker 4: one in theaters, which was very fun.
Speaker 1: You know. I think that's a pretty popular opinion that
Speaker 1: Rogue one is is definitely a top tier And you know,
Speaker 1: I had that impression based off my big awareness of
Speaker 1: you know, what I've seen years ago in my recent rewatch.
Speaker 1: I don't think I like it very much.
Speaker 4: But what are your reasons? I'm curious.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate that it has definitely a better put
Speaker 1: together narrative than the the main Disney movies. It's more coherent,
Speaker 1: obviously more thought out. At the same time, I feel
Speaker 1: like most of the characters, at least this entirely subjective.
Speaker 1: I felt like they were pretty forgettable. I can't name
Speaker 1: basically any of the characters, and I just saw the movie,
Speaker 1: and so I feel like it, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't really care about any of them, and so for
Speaker 1: that reason. It just it doesn't really stick with me,
Speaker 1: and so I can appreciate that maybe on paper it's good,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate the heroic deaths and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, it's very Northern Spirit kind of mentality, which
Speaker 1: I appreciate. At the same time, I just I don't know,
Speaker 1: it felt kind of cold and forgettable to me. But
Speaker 1: you know, I recently posted that over on Twitter, and
Speaker 1: people assumed I was just engagement baiting because it's so crazy,
Speaker 1: but I don't know that that's kind of how I
Speaker 1: approached it, Whereas I also watched Solo, and I don't
Speaker 1: think that's a good movie. At the same time, I
Speaker 1: thought it was kind of fun. I mean, it didn't
Speaker 1: need to be made, and yeah, I mean you kind
Speaker 1: of have to approach it in isolation and that it's
Speaker 1: not Han Solo, but at the same time just sort
Speaker 1: of a fun Star Wars heist movie. Like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I thought that was fun, not to say a good movie,
Speaker 1: but at least stood out to me a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But I know that's kind of heretical to say.
Speaker 4: That's okay. I think there's a lot of room for
Speaker 4: diversity of opinions when it comes to these things I
Speaker 4: need to finish. I'm like halfway through rewatching Rogue one,
Speaker 4: so I'll need to finish it and maybe see if
Speaker 4: my opinions have changed at all. But it definitely I
Speaker 4: do think there's room for a variety of opinions, and
Speaker 4: different people might be able to appreciate and redeem different
Speaker 4: things about Disney Star Wars because I think whereas I'd say, obviously,
Speaker 4: like the goal would be to dows something that everyone
Speaker 4: can agree is good, I think people can kind of
Speaker 4: pick and choose certain things that they like about Disney
Speaker 4: Star Wars, and so there's a lot of diversity of
Speaker 4: opinion over what's the best or worst Disney thing.
Speaker 1: That's very diplomatic. I want you to tell me I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: But that's totally fair. I mean, yeah, obviously that there's
Speaker 1: such a big range of what we appreciate that or
Speaker 1: what can be appreciated, that we can approach that from
Speaker 1: different angles.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say I will defend Rogue one. Then
Speaker 4: I will say it it tells a story that actually
Speaker 4: like contributes and adds something to be told rather than
Speaker 4: some of the other things they do just it's like
Speaker 4: throwing things out there. It's it's a lot more original
Speaker 4: and unique than anything that else they did movie wise,
Speaker 4: especially the sequels. We're just very much Yeah, it was
Speaker 4: just kind of recycled and worse off Star Wars. I
Speaker 4: would say Rogue One did some different things and it
Speaker 4: was a good a good movie. And I would say
Speaker 4: I do think some of the cutters are compelling. I
Speaker 4: would say difficult because they introduced a huge host of
Speaker 4: new characters and they don't really rely on a bunch
Speaker 4: of old characters that Ione's familiar with. And also that
Speaker 4: they just have like one movie versus like a trilogy
Speaker 4: to really flesh out the character. So I think they
Speaker 4: do a good job at the time they have And specifically,
Speaker 4: I mean I liked the character of characters of Gin
Speaker 4: and of Cassian. I thought they were both both had
Speaker 4: some interesting things, especially I think like Cassie's character, I
Speaker 4: demonstrated by that they wanted to make create a whole
Speaker 4: show off that which I'm interested to see people you
Speaker 4: guys think about and word. But I do think that
Speaker 4: character is interesting of just kind of showing a different
Speaker 4: side to the rebellion with the kind of spy character.
Speaker 4: There is kind of that Yeah, everyone dies in the end,
Speaker 4: which is not very Star Wars I suppose, But there's
Speaker 4: also that hopefulness because it really leads into you know,
Speaker 4: with the ending, you know what's going to happen. So
Speaker 4: I'd say it was a hopefulness but also kind of
Speaker 4: shows more like the sacrifice that people made. So I
Speaker 4: appreciate it for that. But I do understand what you're
Speaker 4: saying about the characters. I just think, like, I don't
Speaker 4: know how much they could have done better with that
Speaker 4: given what they're trying to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does end with hope. I mean some would
Speaker 1: say a new hope, I suppose, But yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that that's a fair defense that it's hard to think about,
Speaker 1: at least unless you've engaged with all the broader material.
Speaker 1: It's hard to think about Star Wars apart from the
Speaker 1: the you know, Skywalker saga essentially, which yeah, this is connected,
Speaker 1: but it's not, And so I don't know. Maybe it
Speaker 1: is because it's just a blip. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: singular movie with the host of characters that don't go
Speaker 1: beyond that movie. I mean, unless you've watched and Or,
Speaker 1: which I have not, but I've heard that and Or
Speaker 1: makes rogue one even better by just having that connection
Speaker 1: and that sort of broadening of the story. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I just haven't seen yet, so that's that's that's fair.
Speaker 5: I will say I do think and Or is worth watching.
Speaker 5: I didn't mention it in my opening, and it's sort
Speaker 5: of like right there on the fringe for me as
Speaker 5: to whether I I put it in my cannon, but
Speaker 5: I might. I do think it's worth watching, and at
Speaker 5: least I haven't. I haven't seen beyond the first season.
Speaker 5: But a friend of mine who we like to debate
Speaker 5: Star Wars stuff and he takes a less sort of
Speaker 5: metaphysical lens on things for a while he kept kind
Speaker 5: of encouraging me, you got to watch it. He really
Speaker 5: appreciates the kind of, uh just less magical aspects of it,
Speaker 5: where it's like telling a story of just kind of
Speaker 5: some some regular folks that happened to work in the
Speaker 5: Evil Empire. And I think the storytelling is well done.
Speaker 5: There's no like real here for me in this story.
Speaker 5: But I think the storytelling is good enough and doesn't
Speaker 5: get into too much deconstruction, and there's some interesting writing.
Speaker 5: Interesting parts of it, like the high tech jail Panopticon
Speaker 5: with like social credit score is a really interesting part
Speaker 5: of the story. So I haven't seen season two, but
Speaker 5: I did enjoy and or enough that I would I would,
Speaker 5: I would recommend it for viewing. I don't know if
Speaker 5: I count it as Star Wars or not, but anyway,
Speaker 5: that's my opinion on it so far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's one reason why I another
Speaker 1: reason why I wasn't super attached to Rogue one that
Speaker 1: to me, Star Wars is Lightsabers and Jedi and Sith
Speaker 1: and for stuff, and so I don't know, it's hard
Speaker 1: for me to get super involved when that's entirely lacking. Again,
Speaker 1: I get why people enjoy it, but to me, like
Speaker 1: that's so much at the heart of what Star Wars is,
Speaker 1: that that's what I want when I watch Star Wars.
Speaker 1: I will give Indoor a go, you know, as I'm
Speaker 1: doing this broad Star Wars thing. Seriities that are working
Speaker 1: on trying to engage in different media, and so I
Speaker 1: will give it a go, and you know, see what
Speaker 1: I think about it. If that redeemed some of my
Speaker 1: time spent with Rogue one. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I like the wishing of Lightsabers, well anything else that
Speaker 1: anyone wants to talk about that we haven't brought up here,
Speaker 1: I mean the Acolyte.
Speaker 4: Just so now I have to say a few things.
Speaker 4: So I did not immediately watch it or because I was,
Speaker 4: of course very skeptical. I wait to see what people
Speaker 4: say about things sometimes, and I was like, it can't
Speaker 4: be that bad. So I've watched me three episodes.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was. It was no.
Speaker 4: I just I had to see if it was really
Speaker 4: as bad because I didn't want to just make all
Speaker 4: my judgment about the show that having seen any of it,
Speaker 4: I want to people to speak about it with great opinion. Uh,
Speaker 4: but I couldn't do that on the side, at least
Speaker 4: seen a little bit of it. So I did watch
Speaker 4: a few episodes, but I couldn't even keep watching. I mean,
Speaker 4: it was just and there's so many plot holes that
Speaker 4: are now opened because of this show, just like, oh
Speaker 4: my goodness. I don't recommend if you want to laugh,
Speaker 4: if you want like comedy, just like pops and popcorn
Speaker 4: and just watch like this, especially the scene like the
Speaker 4: Power of One. I'm sure you might have seen that scene.
Speaker 4: It's like all of which is are chanting and they're
Speaker 4: like the Power One, the power to the power of Me.
Speaker 4: It's really it's also very it's very woke. Yeah it's yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Maybe maybe we'll need to watch it in uh
Speaker 1: miss your Science theater. It'll be way to go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've not seen it other than clips and what people
Speaker 1: have said about it. I can't say I'm excited about
Speaker 1: the idea of saying it. I'll probably check it out
Speaker 1: just so I can talk about it, like, you know,
Speaker 1: at least a few episodes. I'm not going to commit
Speaker 1: to the whole show, but that definitely, for what I've seen,
Speaker 1: seems to be one of the worst things to come
Speaker 1: out of Star Wars ever, and I've seen the holiday special.
Speaker 6: I was just babysitting my little six year old niece
Speaker 6: this evening and I was talking to her about various things,
Speaker 6: and Star Wars came up, and she said, I think
Speaker 6: that's a boy thing. And I appreciate that Hannah's here
Speaker 6: because I told her, mostly it's a boy thing, but
Speaker 6: there's certainly girls who like Star Wars. So I appreciate you,
Speaker 6: Hannah for being here and appreciating Stars with the rest
Speaker 6: of us as bors.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you. It is encouraging because I will say
Speaker 4: I was definitely a little on my own when it
Speaker 4: came to Star Wars growing up, except for my younger brothers,
Speaker 4: who I honestly I think I stuck with it the longest,
Speaker 4: but I babysit. Now for these three girls of my church,
Speaker 4: they're like maybe like ten, eight and six, and they
Speaker 4: are obsessed with Star Wars. And I come over there
Speaker 4: and we like, we play lightsabers, and we like dress
Speaker 4: up like Star Wars characters and we'll watch Star Wars
Speaker 4: and they just want to talk about Star Wars and
Speaker 4: we'll look through their Star Wars library books and so
Speaker 4: I was like, where were you guys when I was
Speaker 4: a kid, But I was very excited. So it's fun.
Speaker 4: It's just a family of all girls. But their dad
Speaker 4: loves Star Wars and he passed that on to them,
Speaker 4: so I will say, yeah, there's not as many, but
Speaker 4: it is still there's the next generation coming.
Speaker 6: Good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely appreciate that as well. You know, my
Speaker 1: kids are really too young for Star Wars, but they
Speaker 1: do think my Joba impression is hilarious. So that's our
Speaker 1: starting point. Is there any anything else that we feel
Speaker 1: like we should discuss? Any other major media or anything
Speaker 1: I know we talked about the Mandalorian a little bit.
Speaker 1: I will say, for something that's not light, taber and
Speaker 1: force heavy, I mean it's there, but it's not really
Speaker 1: the focus that I definitely did enjoy that. It's very
Speaker 1: very much a space Western, which is probably what I
Speaker 1: find appealing about it. And I think that that is
Speaker 1: this wonderful that that's probably my number one pick for
Speaker 1: the Disney era. Perfect. Yeah, next time we'll off to
Speaker 1: wear our Mandalorian masks. Cool. Yeah, yeah, So anything else
Speaker 1: anyone wants to mention? If not, that's okay. You know,
Speaker 1: we're doing a whole series on Star Wars and anyone's
Speaker 1: welcome to pop in wherever interest strikes you. But otherwise
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: We'll do we wanna do we want to give a
Speaker 2: like a ranking of the mainline story uh, mainline movies,
Speaker 2: Like I don't know. I think that's I think that's
Speaker 2: something that I see on the Twitter all the time,
Speaker 2: and I think that'd be a fun way to kind
Speaker 2: of conclude, just to see, just to lay all of
Speaker 2: our cards on the table.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, are you gonna go beyond three when you
Speaker 1: do this?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: All right? So so this is this is a good idea,
Speaker 1: all right, Jordan kick us off.
Speaker 2: Okay, So it's gonna go Empire, then New Hope, Return.
Speaker 3: Of the Jedi, and then.
Speaker 2: Based on Lightsaber Fights Alone, Revenge of the Sith Uh,
Speaker 2: then Attack of the Clones, Phantom Menace, and then I
Speaker 2: honestly cannot remember the names of the sequel movies, so
Speaker 2: it's gonna go seven, eight, and nine. I guess I
Speaker 2: didn't rank Solo or Rogue one, so I'll put Rogue
Speaker 2: one ahead of seven. Nope, I'm gonna put Rogue one
Speaker 2: ahead of any of the prequels. Sorry, I should have
Speaker 2: written this down, and then Solo is going to be
Speaker 2: like somewhere between eight and nine for me. I just
Speaker 2: I couldn't get behind that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It just get kind of confusing trying to list
Speaker 1: off with eleven movies here. Yeah, all right, And to
Speaker 1: be clear, I'm not necessarily even going to go off
Speaker 1: of like whatever this means objectively best to worse and
Speaker 1: go off favorite to least favorite, and so for that,
Speaker 1: let's see, I'm going to go with Return of the Jedi,
Speaker 1: Fire Strikes Back, New Hope, Revenge of the Sith, Phantom Menace,
Speaker 1: Attack of the Clones, hmmm, Solo, Rogue One, Force Awakens, uh,
Speaker 1: the Rise of Skywalker, and then lastly Last Jedi, which
Speaker 1: I just thought was terrible. All right, So there's my
Speaker 1: there's my list, Hannah. What do you have?
Speaker 4: Okay, this is difficult. I was typing it out while
Speaker 4: while you're talking. Okay, let's see a New Hope, Return
Speaker 4: of the Jedi, Rogue One, the Empire strikes Back, Revenge
Speaker 4: of the Sith, Attack of the Clones, Phantom Menace, the
Speaker 4: Force Awakens, Solo whatever the last Disney sequel one was,
Speaker 4: and the Last Jedi is in last place. However, yeah,
Speaker 4: this could change on the day to day basis.
Speaker 1: That's fair bold to you had Road One above, Empire
Speaker 1: Strikes Back?
Speaker 4: Yes, okay. If I was just doing this like trying
Speaker 4: to be objective, I wouldn't. But I really like Rogue One,
Speaker 4: and like, if I was just gonna pick a movie
Speaker 4: to watch, I guess I would do that. I don't
Speaker 4: know that's fair to have to defend your answer, but
Speaker 4: I do really like rog One.
Speaker 1: Cool, cool, all right, justin what do you have?
Speaker 5: Okay, So I'll go Empire strikes Back, Return of the Jedi,
Speaker 5: New Hope, and then Mandalorian seasons one and two, Revenge
Speaker 5: of the Sith, Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and
Speaker 5: I just I will never watch any of the other
Speaker 5: I might watch Rogue one, like I've seen enough people
Speaker 5: say it's decent, but the Ones. I don't want to
Speaker 5: insult anyone here, but I honestly just can't even understand
Speaker 5: why you all even bother watching them after the Force awakens,
Speaker 5: I you know, I cannot watch any of those other movies,
Speaker 5: but I might give Rogue on a chance at some point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rogue ONEID. Even though it's not my favorite movie,
Speaker 1: it's worth watching. It's a good movie. And when they're
Speaker 1: when there are certain franchises, I mean things like Star Wars,
Speaker 1: things that have strong foundations, I just feel compelled to
Speaker 1: see it through no matter how dark and terrible it gets.
Speaker 1: It's just like Tolkien stuff like Rings of Power is terrible,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna keep watching it so I can talk
Speaker 1: about how terrible it is. I don't know, it's just
Speaker 1: it's a problem.
Speaker 4: I watch the New Narnia show.
Speaker 1: I have to. It's going to it's going to be terrible.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm gonna your review, like I'm just gonna you
Speaker 4: review and be entertained by how awful it is, I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the Lewis and Tolkien space is
Speaker 1: kind of where I operate. I feel like it's like
Speaker 1: Fraser said one time that the only thing better than
Speaker 1: a perfect meal is a bad meal that you can
Speaker 1: complain about. He said it better than that. But that's
Speaker 1: the gist of it, and there's something of value in that.
Speaker 1: If for no other reason, then in engaging with the
Speaker 1: bad adaptations, the bad spin off media, it does provide
Speaker 1: opportunity to just demonstrate how good the original is. And
Speaker 1: I think there's some benefit in that, or even if
Speaker 1: you could find some traces of value that, then you
Speaker 1: can root back into something substantial. I think there's a
Speaker 1: I don't know, evangelistic opportunity there. So that's that's how
Speaker 1: I approach Star Wars Again. I'm not going to see
Speaker 1: everything that spins out of Star Wars universe as too much,
Speaker 1: but at least as far as the main stuff, I'm
Speaker 1: sure I'm going to keep seeing every numbered movie that
Speaker 1: comes out, no matter how terrible it gets. It's just
Speaker 1: is what it is. I know I'm funding bad actors here, right, whatever,
Speaker 1: I guess they got me. All right, Ian, give us
Speaker 1: your list.
Speaker 6: So obviously, the first one is Star Wars X Wing
Speaker 6: Starfighters of Adamar, followed by a Star Wars x Wing
Speaker 6: solo command, followed by a Vision of the Future. Okay, so,
Speaker 6: if I'm only talking about the movies, Ratard of the
Speaker 6: Jedi is my favorite, and it actually goes almost numerically
Speaker 6: from their Empire Strikes Back a New Hope. But I
Speaker 6: do put Attack of the Clones next, and then Phantom
Speaker 6: Menace and Revenge of the Sith at the bottom of
Speaker 6: the original six. Disney's really hard for me to rank
Speaker 6: a solo I definitely enjoy the most. After that, I
Speaker 6: think it's all just trash. So that's kind of where
Speaker 6: I end.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, that all falls down that the shoot into
Speaker 1: the trash compactor with the weird.
Speaker 6: Monster die Ghana Andrew die Ghana.
Speaker 1: There you go. I would never be able to come
Speaker 1: up with that. Appreciate the insight, so all right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a good way to wrap our general
Speaker 1: conversation about Star Wars. We're gonna be moving forward with
Speaker 1: I like the garbage octopus, like Jordan's nomenclature there, So yeah,
Speaker 1: and so we'll be doing series talking about you know,
Speaker 1: all the main movies, some other spin off stuff as
Speaker 1: interests allows, and so you know, anyone hears invite it
Speaker 1: back as well as you know, we have a much
Speaker 1: broader community that's interested in Star Wars. I know number
Speaker 1: of people wanted to be here but just couldn't. And
Speaker 1: so you know, feel free to jump in wherever can.
Speaker 1: Interest and schedule allows as we go forward with well
Speaker 1: throughout this grand galaxy, even if it's we're moving further
Speaker 1: and further towards the outer Rim as we go. All right, well,
Speaker 1: we'll go go ahead and wrap it there and I
Speaker 1: will cut off the Oh actually, before we cut off
Speaker 1: the video here, did anyone have anything to plug? I know, Ian,
Speaker 1: you have something to plug here star Wars related. I
Speaker 1: want to give you that chance.
Speaker 6: Yes, I do a Star Wars podcast about the x
Speaker 6: Wing books, which I just promoted is called Reader to
Speaker 6: Standing By, and my friend and I go through all
Speaker 6: of the x Wing books and try and give both
Speaker 6: historical and thematic analysis.
Speaker 1: Good fittac its. Yeah, everybody, go listen to his podcast,
Speaker 1: Go subscribe. I'll put a link here in the recording
Speaker 1: and on the podcast right and I guess on that
Speaker 1: unless anyone else wan's time in, we'll go ahead and
Speaker 1: cut the live stream now.
Speaker 4: With you all.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to that. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: it as much as I did, and I really look
Speaker 1: forward to where we're going from here. As I mentioned
Speaker 1: in the video, we'll be doing some nights of the
Speaker 1: Old Republic next, and then we'll be going through the
Speaker 1: movies and some other things along the way. I want
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to all of my patrons
Speaker 1: who make things like this possible. I could not do
Speaker 1: this without you, and that's that's literally true. I could
Speaker 1: not afford the time to do this without you. And
Speaker 1: the more that people support mythic mind, the more that
Speaker 1: I'm able to do things like this on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: In fact, we may be getting some bonus shows coming up,
Speaker 1: and so you know, potentially might start getting two episodes
Speaker 1: a week at least every once in a while. And
Speaker 1: I would love to just keep doing more and more
Speaker 1: things for you, but I can't do that without the funding,
Speaker 1: and so please continue to support me. Please consider supporting
Speaker 1: me if you don't already, and take advantage of all
Speaker 1: the things that Mythic Mind has to offer, and as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, with that fifty percent annual patronage discount, there's
Speaker 1: never been a better time to do that. But I
Speaker 1: want to give a shout out to all my patrons,
Speaker 1: so thank you to all of you. But also by name,
Speaker 1: I want to thank my Tier three patrons and higher.
Speaker 1: So many thank you to Mark, Amanda Chase, Chaz Clinton,
Speaker 1: David who just signed up with that discount, Aaron Avy,
Speaker 1: Jamie Justin, Justini, Paul, Roger Tyler, and William. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you, as well as all men your one and
Speaker 1: two patrons. Keep up the good work, continue to make
Speaker 1: Mythic Mind this robust community that it is, and I
Speaker 1: look forward to where we're moving on the path ahead.
Speaker 1: But until next time, godspeed. The rights to the music
Speaker 1: for this episode are owned by the Walt Disney Company.
Speaker 1: Please don't see me. When you go to the roots
Speaker 1: of the word philosophy, you find the love of wisdom,
Speaker 1: which unfortunately is not what you find at the roots
Speaker 1: of all who call themselves philosophers. Now, how do we
Speaker 1: get here? What are the ideas that shape our world?
Speaker 1: And what can the old world tell us? Response to
Speaker 1: the perennial questions of what it means to be human,
Speaker 1: what is our purpose, and what, if anything, ought we
Speaker 1: aspire to. In a brief history of ideas, we will
Speaker 1: navigate major epics of thought and survey some of the
Speaker 1: most important figures in the Western canon, including Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Nietzsche,
Speaker 1: Sart and Carecguard and of course we will consider even
Speaker 1: more names. But these are the thinkers that will supply
Speaker 1: our primary readings. Each week will include primary sources that
Speaker 1: will be provided as PDFs. Although these are all texts
Speaker 1: that do belong in your personal library. You will be
Speaker 1: recommended some secondary texts. You will be provided with some
Speaker 1: recorded presentations for you to watch at your leisure, ongoing
Speaker 1: discord chats, and weekly live meetings to discuss their readings.
Speaker 1: I've been teaching philosophy for many years, and I can
Speaker 1: say with confidence that you will leave this six week
Speaker 1: course with a better understanding of the foundation to Western
Speaker 1: thought than most contemporary philosophy majors. Enroll today by going
Speaker 1: to patreon dot com slash Mythic mind in checking out
Speaker 1: the shop, or you can gain access to all courses
Speaker 1: past present in any course that begins during the term
Speaker 1: of your subscription by purchasing a Tier three annual subscription.
Speaker 1: So again, purchase a Tier three annual subscription, and I
Speaker 1: will give you a special code that gives you access
Speaker 1: to all courses that either have taken place or do
Speaker 1: start in this term. And I sincerely hope to see
Speaker 1: you there