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Film Frenzy: Episode 7 - Can The Acolyte save Star Wars?

We discuss the upcoming series and whether it has what it takes to rejuvenate our love of Star Wars, all while a very special and unexpected guest makes an appearance.

Audio transcription

"Hello everyone and welcome back to... is this the 8th? Might be the 8th, I'm not sure. Another episode of Film Frenzy. I thought it was 7. Is it 7? I don't know. Might be. I've lost track.
Today, as you can tell, we're lower on numbers this week, it's just me and Alex. We're magless. We're magless, yeah. I was trying to come up with some cool Call of Duty extended mag sort of pun there but nothing was coming to my mind so I'm just going to skip past that."

"Yeah, today we're going to be talking Star Wars mainly, I think, because we'll record this on Wednesday, March 20th, which is like the day after the Acolyte trailer dropped.
And everyone's kind of in a Star Wars mood, aren't they? So, it's exciting. Are you excited? What do you think of the trailer?
I have a friend, I'm going to go get him. Because we're magless. I'm going to go get a friend who might be able to tell us a bit more about Star Wars. He's pretty qualified."

"If this is anything less than Grogu, I'm going to be thoroughly disappointed. Thoroughly disappointed.
But we'll find out. Yeah, the Acolyte's coming out in June. Oh, here we go. He's putting something on.
Oh no. There he is. Oh no. Is that supposed to be Yoda? Excited for Acolyte, I am. Oh god, are you proud of yourself right now?
See, that's Master Yoda, who, I guess, you know, he was in the Acolyte. Well, I guess we're going to see him in the Acolyte because it's separate."

"I was? Well, I guess we're going to see him in the Acolyte because it was, what, a hundred years before the prequel?
Yoda has not been paid for this.
What is going on right now?
I'll be honest, right?
That is one of the worst-looking Yoda things I've ever seen. Like, I'm going to say it right now. He looks like he's been crushed by an 18-wheel lorry or something right now."

"It's because he's over, well, he's over headphones, I am. Yeah, that's, yeah.
So, Yoda, anyway, yeah. Acolyte. Are we excited for it or not?
Trailer, I have not seen.
Is that Alex saying that or is that Yoda? I'm confused."

"Both?
Both.
Mm-hmm.
But, yeah, no, the trailer for this show came out yesterday. It's coming in June in the middle of, like, a crazy hectic period."

"Like, what have we got? Like, House of the Dragon.
Boys.
The boys. The Acolyte.
So much, like, excellent TV and then we've got the Acolyte in the middle of it all as well."

"Yeah, it's kind of an interesting one to me because it's...
It's not like the sort of Star Wars we've become used to as of late, right? You know, these sort of more gritty tales, less about Force users and whatnot.
This is, this is like Star Wars goodness through and through, sort of akin to what we had with Obi-Wan in a way.
Lots of lightsabers, Force wielders, Jedi, Sith, all that good stuff."

"Like the Mandalorian, they say it will be.
Yeah, except the Mandalorian is like a bounty hunter one, I guess. So, you know, it's kind of a different sort of frame of mind.
Kind of a different sort of frame of thought, I guess.
But no, it's coming and I think it looks quite good."

"I'm a little bit sceptical about Star Wars stuff every time I see new ones because even the best Star Wars stuff always disappoints me in a way.
Right?
Like, I was watching it and thinking, yeah, this is really quite interesting but it's not really like blowing me away.
I think that's been the case ever since the Mandalorian."

"There were even parts of the Obi-Wan Kenobi show where I was like, this is really entertaining.
And then there's parts where you're just like, crap.
Christ.
It just..."

"But...
It feels like it's going on.
Everything with Yoda.
You like everything with Yoda, Ben.
Yes."

"When was the last time we had something with Yoda?
Was it Revenge of the Sith?
Mm-mm.
Has there not been anything else with Yoda since then?
The Last Jedi?
I guess he was in..."

"The Last Jedi.
Cameo appearance.
No, the animated show that came out.
Not the Bad Batch, the other animated show.
Clone Wars."

"No, no, not Clone Wars.
The other one they did.
The more recent one.
Rebels.
Rebels."

"Tales of the Jedi.
He was in Tales of the Jedi.
Him and his good...
And his wife?
Compatriot?
I don't know."

"What's her name?
Yaddle.
Yaddle.
Him and Yaddle were featured.
Don't see Yaddle very often."

"But, right.
Anyway, let's crack on.
I think it's time to let Yoda go home.
Yeah.
And to get into the real meat of this sauce."

"So...
Sorry.
He's a...
He's a real...
He's a camera hog."

"He's an attention hog.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Let's talk Star Wars properly.
After that."

"So, you've not seen the trailer for this show?
No, not yet.
I was watching it.
I watched the Mad Max trailer.
I would like..."

"I'm sort of in the same boat as you with Star Wars, where I'm like, you know...
I'm saying this quietly because Yoda's sort of in the background.
But, you know, I'm not really that big on it anymore.
Like, I watched Andor."

"I like to watch it while I paint.
I paint a bit, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah."

"Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah."

"Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah."

"Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, a bit from from the beginning."

"A bit from how I started.
It's not very good.
I think both of you are already...
Yeah.
You know, do you know..."

"And because it's not...
It's nice for a light background show.
It is quite it is quite good to watch, but apart from that, I've not really been drawn to any of it."

"I see like a clip of the Ahsoka, like, bit where they're like, fighting the zombie stormtroopers and, like, Ahsoka just refusing to, like, cut them into pieces.
And it's just like...
They're just fighting at the stairway, this slow and..."

"slow-mo like stuff and it's the same with obi-wan and even like i've watched the first bit of the book of boba fett i liked the first two seasons of the mandalorian but since then i've really struggled to get into any of it because it just doesn't feel like it's proper good tv to watch it just feels like it's middling television that if it didn't have the star wars brand would have been like cancelled yeah the book of boba fett is tragic as well like it's really not very good and i think there's been a few different shows like that since like i think the mandalorian third season's made it best it's just so like tacky it just it's something with streamers nowadays we're like streaming shows i said the same about like avatar when i reviewed it it's just all streamers sort of feel like they're just looking the same like i remember i was talking to mag and he was not here today unfortunately and he said that the cinematography in avatar was really good and i couldn't remember a single shot that i thought that stood out to me because to me streamers are just now they're just um the same sort of there's no personality that really oozes yeah i would agree i think i well i think it's a bit cruel to say streamers in general because i think there are some shows that streamers do that are really good yeah i think it's more these big franchised efforts that they do yes where they come across really safe and predictable don't they and yeah star wars is like the well probably the biggest offender because because you know we i don't necessarily think star wars has been great for a long time i don't think that it's going in a good direction either like there's this there's this plan for this uh bunch of new star wars stuff right so we've got the the mandalorian and yoda as like the big theatrical film that's coming out in the future they're supposed to like cap off this sort of mandalorian saga that we've had going yeah it's just weird because it sits again it sits in this weird time period like between return of the jedi the force awakens right it sits in that sort of weird time period where you know what happened before you know what happened afterwards you were supposed to care what happens in the middle like i just i just don't like i know what happens before and after like just let's go somewhere else we were set in a galaxy far far away a long time ago like why does everything have to happen at the same time well i've said to you on like a previous pod that i think that like what used to really annoy me it doesn't as much anymore but it felt it felt like everything was set in between revenge of the sith and new hope everything was set then because it was a because it was the only time where they could have all these characters that everyone knew but also try and write their own stories but those stories just didn't matter no and you had the rare winners like the force unleashed i think was really good uh because it just like was like well what if there was this guy that could just like kill darth vader but he was just around ended up dead by the end and it's like yeah sure whatever the laws of star wars really well that's why i sort of like i don't like the last jedi but i respect it because at least it tried to do something different and now it's sort of getting that point between like the return of the jedi and what the high republic era where i don't believe any of it was high republic because the sequels are a mess because basically how are we in an era where we've just defeated the empire and yet the remnants of the empire is stronger than any of the republic what the hell have you been doing for the last 30 years when you're making a new government and you just let like the rebel forces come back it would be like if like the ira just took over england tomorrow do you know it would be and so and yet you know that's plausible in the star wars sequels not to you know not to sort of not to diminish the ira you know they do a lot of uh you know bad stuff yeah no it is it is a fair point and i think that's the thing though is that the acolyte has this thing going for itself where it it's set in this similar sort of era we all know where like the sort of time it's set and the way that you know where it's going right it's leading up to the the events of the prequels effectively the rise of the sith again but it's still i think it's still far enough away that it can be quite exciting and fresh right self-contained i think it can get away with that so that that's the bit that intrigues me about the acolyte i like i think that that star wars knows it can't just have lightsaber all the time so we don't have like these constant jedi productions right they usually save those for the big pitch big flicks but obviously they're not going to be a star wars movie well they've got the daisy ridley thing coming up at some point right yeah but like i don't know like what it doesn't feel like they've had like an actual star wars movie idea like a proper like go to the films it's worth seeing this like the mandalorian grogu is to me as bad of a sinner as like captain mart or the marvels where you have to have watched the movie and you have to have watched three seasons of a tv show one of which isn't even called the mandalorian or four seasons because you've got mandalorian season three to be able to watch this movie they all connect right so there's it's not it's not just buckabubba fat there's ahsoka that all ties into it there's so many of these shows at this point that you have to it's the feloni verse that's the guy's name isn't it dave feloni and like people are like cheering that he's like making star wars great again or whatever and it's like i don't like i he did do like i love the clone wars and i really like that and i think the clone wars was was really excellent i didn't end up watching much of the bad batch i watched like the first season but it's fine it's a bit yeah it's a bit but i think after the mandalorian and the mandalorian as well succeeded i think after the return of the jedi era because it felt very self-contained it didn't feel like it was galaxy spanning but the problem is is that the more you go with it the bigger it has to get the scale has to get bigger and then you go well why didn't the mandalorian just say it's a bad batch it's a bad batch it's a bad batch it's a bad batch the galaxy you know why didn't you i don't i don't get that either like you have this sort of idea where it's just like we're just going to do bounty hunting stuff and it's just just a western basically yeah exactly every episode he's just going to go off and he's going to fight a new outlaw monster or something like it's like yeah like it just he's got a baby yeah exactly and then like within within like 10 episodes or whatnot it's like luke skywalker's there you're like wait hang on a minute i will why can't it just be like easy why does it have to be so important to the grand scheme of the of the universe and i think that's the bit that gets me with star wars i'm not necessarily sold on the feloniverse myself like i'll watch um um i'll watch all the stuff that comes up and leaves this mandalorian grogu thing because i like star wars but i'm not massively excited about it neither am i massively excited about the future of star wars with the daisy ridley stuff i i think she was fine as right yeah but i like why does it need to skywalker why does it need to continue it why can't we have nine films at this point that did this and why can't we just go a thousand years into the future and just explore completely unheard and territory so go the other way go back to the high republic hearing like a thousand years ago why do you have to do like a like a live action reven story like people love that stuff like you could just do that like game adaptations are huge you could do knights of the old republic as a movie and and probably do incredible work you could even go like even further back to like the story of the sith because the sith were once like i played a lot of star wars the republic so i know like a fair bit about that like law it's like the sith were like this old race of like red people that were actually just the people that first discovered the dark side and not like you know your darth mauls and your darth plagues and whatever and so you could do that and they like they were just chilling they were just being evil on their own little planet and chilling and then the jedi came in and they were like you can't be evil here and just started like bombing them so you could do that as like a you know like really twist stars on his head and be like okay the jedi are actually we're the bad we're the baddies you know it's sort of like no it's true there's so much untapped potential with this universe they don't seem to want to explore well because it has to be that guy it has to be was it the famous tweet of like it's globe shitto come back from you know movie five oh my god i'm so like oh my god globe shitto he's back yeah and it's like yeah but who's the actual one the little babu frick babu frick the little guy yes the little mechanic dude yeah he's saved he's saved what was it was it last jedi rise of skywalker was it he was added yeah because for some reason in the last movie they're going to do they're like we need a side quest to go figure out what's going on with this dagger let's go see my man babu frick go over to babu frick's planet great no i i don't know i i'm like don't get me wrong right there have been points of the sort of feloniverse that they've created that has been good i think there's been some peaks yeah i think like rosario dawson's excellent is is so good i think she really suits the role and i think there's certain other elements that they've done really well i think they've i think that they've incorporated some of the elements from the clone wars and some of the elements from like rebels really well into the universe like you know bringing on um bo katan and i can never remember the names of the rebels characters because i never watched the show because i thought it was too i thought it was just for kids i could never get into it so much but like what's his name sabine wren i think one of them is i think they did well to incorporate them all into a live action universe but i just don't i'm just sick of this part of the universe like i'm sick of this timeline i want us to go somewhere new explore something different there's so much star wars and again i think a lot of people think of star wars the source material being the movies because again that's where it started right you know yeah i said episode four but at the time it was star wars a new hope right like the when it first came out in the 70s late 70s yeah but like since then there's been so many books and additional ways that have expanded the law but there's so many things that they could do and yet we're stuck in the same time period i'm sick of it i'm just yeah i'm so bored of it it's because they keep they rely too much on what they know they don't know how to do anything because going up in fairness going up to like the suits the board of suits and saying i want to make a new style so i want to make a new thing which is exactly what sort of ryan johnson kind of did for the last jedi right he went i want to make a new thing and everyone went we hate you i wish you were dead and then he went okay i'm gonna make some detective stuff or whatever right i i don't want to be involved in this anymore and although i don't agree that the last jedi i disagree that the last jedi was a good star wars movie i don't think it was but the the abhorrent response to it caused everyone at disney to sort of go we can't do that again like we can't go and we can't take a new step forward again the people want this and they want it done this way so the proof to them is always going to be well the fans that stick around they want things a certain way and do we want to risk those fans on trying something new to maybe generate a new audience and the answer is no so star wars is going to remain this stagnant pool of occasionally you'll get an andor but most of the time you're just going to get like a book of overfare that's the weird thing is that the best thing they've created in years is an andor's like standalone to the feloniverse because it's it's a prequel to rogue one which is also a fantastic film as well yeah but again like they work really well because they don't try to be anything more like andor's job is to serve as a prequel for rogue one rogue one's job is to serve as a prequel talking about a very specific moment of a new hope like they don't try to be these grand things that constantly tie the universes together in like marvel-esque ways it's just it doesn't need to be that and i think star wars has failed and i think it's just a failed at being anything other than that for so long although granted what i will say right about star wars and it probably will anger a lot of people but i don't think star wars has necessarily ever been great i think star wars is entertaining and fun but i don't think anyone's come out of a star wars movie thinking themselves like wow i think to get blown away by star wars you have to go deeper than like the movies because there are some like incredible works that people have done in the books and the comics and like even like the other games as i say like nazi republic well the star wars jedi series is fantastic right yeah and respawn so and and that's where you get a lot of and like the clone wars as well like that's a genuinely amazing tv show and apart from the fact that they made the chip excuse in the back of the brain but i guess like because i really like the star wars battlefront 2's version of order 66 where everyone's just really quiet because they're like yeah we're gonna go kill everyone like they're gonna go to the jedi and they're just gonna like walk up with anakin and go kill loads of kids and they're like yeah we all knew we all were okay with it you know but uh yeah no it's coming anyway the acolyte and i think i'm i'm excited for the acolyte i should have watched the trailer before this but um i think like i don't really like watching trailers that much now because i find loads of them just give away yeah they just spoil everything they're like this is what's gonna happen and in this order the only trailer i watched recently was like the the kung fu panda one so i think we were talking about it on something didn't really sell you in the movie doesn't it like it now i haven't even seen well no one's seen kung fu panda 4 over here yet because it's not out over here yet but comes out tomorrow i think kung fu panda was like such a it's such a like are you kung fu panda or shrek i can't remember i've always been a shrek person personally i've always been kung fu panda i i don't know i think they're both great but i think shrek was like really it really elevated what animated films could be that's my thing i think kung fu panda does that i think kung fu panda gives you like the because you're like fat funny panda let's go laugh at him and then you like hear like the tai lung baxter and you're like oh my god what the hell and then you get like the lord shen stuff and it's like that guy just committed a whole genocide on pandas and like guy like the fact that like ian mcshane and like gary oldman and jk simmons in the third one third one's not as good but like ian mcshane and gary oldman especially in those two movies bring their like a game to an anthropomorphic snow leopard and a peacock yeah and it's like what the hell is going on here but shrek is good shrek is good as well like shrek 2 is incredibly good and people don't give shrek 1 enough credit as well it's quite ugly these days i will say it came at that period where animation was like yeah still trying to find its feet but they had to they had to like redo a lot of it didn't they originally it was chris farley and the model was entirely different and then they went with mike myers and they redid the model so thankfully as well that original model was just it was terrifying i would have been terrified of that as a child yeah but i've seen that as shrek i would have wanted to kill him i would have been one of the little villagers with the torches coming out stabbing him in the gut i would say that i'm more excited for shrek 5 whatever the hell they're doing i think it is you watch pussyboots you know what they're going back to yeah i saw but i think they were just desperately trying to like poke dream works i don't think anyone's i don't think shrek 5 is coming because what do you even do with the story like what's even the story of shrek 5 has he got like his kids are teenagers or something he's like oh we all got teenagers but uh yeah shrek multiverse somehow we've got to shrek i don't know how it just it just happens it's a logical conclusion but um yeah the acolyte is coming in june yeah we're gonna have a very busy june so stay tuned for some big film frenzies for that i think we want to be talking about it you know the boys acolyte bear and we'll be still recovering from may's kingdom of the planet the ape oh ape out of course yeah yeah yeah that's gonna be uh part two yeah of course but yeah this has been episode as we say seven i think full frenzy we'll be back next week for the next one magnus will be with us hopefully so stay tuned for that that's a promise yeah it'll be otherwise i'll get him it'll be the the final film frenzy before we know before we begin the ape out ones yeah because godzilla versus car or godzilla x cong is um well easter weekend right and next week is the week before easter so yeah stay tuned for that um but yeah this has been full frenzy episode seven alex always a pleasure and we'll see you all on the next one take care"

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