‘Rogue One’ Revisited Through the Lens of ‘Andor’
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And welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. She's Joanna Robinson, and she finds that answer vague and unconvincing. But that's not all today, folks. He's here to make 10 men feel like 100.

It's Chris fucking Ryan, the Crank Daddy himself. Hell yes. Here I am in my Kalkite mind, looking for Kalkite alternatives, Kalkite substitutes. What's up, guys? Thank you so much for having me. Oh my God. Thrilled to have you. Our man and Gorman himself, Chris Ryan. I just want to say before we get started, a reason why we're having Chris on this podcast, just we love his...

like presence anytime, but your coverage of Andor on the watch has been so incredible. And it's been so fun to like be on the same page with you and Andy and everyone else about like, you know, this crossover of like,

The watch highbrow skeptics in the house of our... Highbrow skeptics. Lowbrow lover of content. I just love that Andor appeals across a lot of different audiences. The predator meme kicked in. We really truly reached across the aisle. No, I don't ever feel that far away from you guys in my heart. And it's great to be here. Yeah, the Andor... Every year about...

I think if I'm lucky, there's two shows, three shows that I'm like, I am so locked in on this. I feel so a part of what is going on. And the fun thing with Andor, I'm sure you guys have had this experience where maybe you like the piece of content you're talking about. You like the show. You like the movie. The discourse. Yeah.

you know, I really enjoyed the Andor discourse. I thought the Andor discourse was largely pretty thoughtful and helpful. And, and, uh, the research, like looking into like different things that Tony both grudgingly touched on in the canon was, it was really informative. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe, maybe I'm, I'm looking at the wrong Reddit pages. I can't tell. Uh,

If anybody has not yet consumed the multiple outstanding Tony Gilroy interviews that Chris and Andy did on The Watch, treat yourself. I booted that up on the 75-inch living room TV. That was a cinematic experience for me. The moment where you wiped a tear away from your eye. I wasn't doing that. It was dusty in there. Yes, it was.

in the heart, man. In Studio 6. Get some old news. This is wonderful. We teased at the end of our Last of Us pod that we had moved the Rogue One rewatch. We should say we are doing Rogue One revisited through the lens of Andor. That is what we are here to do today, to revisit this film now that we have completed our two-season Andor journey and we are doing it with one of our dear friends, the Talk the Thrones crew reconvening. Yeah. Chris is not going to be with us for all 87 hours of today's podcast.

True. I expire after 55 minutes. They have to plug me back in. Yeah, you're like B. You're like sweet B. You need to go back into your charging dock. Into a charging station. Long before the House of R runtime has concluded. But we're going to hit some big picture. Where are we with this film after completing this wonderful story beats with you? We can't wait. We can't wait for any excuse to have you here in the House of R. I'm so thrilled to be here. Should I do your programming reminders?

Please. Are you going to sneak some of your own in there? No. I don't come here to self-promote. I come here to promote you guys. This is about House of R. I just want to let everybody know that House of R has already dropped an episode this week. They have their Last of Us finale pod that went up immediately after Last of Us concluded its second season. And

And I think that if you were looking for a spectrum of thought about that series, you'll find it in the House of Horror and The Watch. I think me and Andy were pretty skeptical, but I started firing up the Last of Us pod, and I'm going to continue to listen to it on my drive home after I get out of here. But that's not all. A spring mailbag is coming later this week. That's right. So, I mean, the fountain, it's constantly replenishing with the waters of discourse from you guys. And I think that that's what people come to expect.

Here's the question. Are you prepared to tell people where they can email us? Is it hobbitsanddragons? Look at you. Crush it. And you can find them on the Ringerverse on YouTube. You can watch them on Spotify where you're hopefully listening to their podcast. And there's a ton of other stuff coming from Ringerverse this week, including Midnight Boys. They're doing an Mission Impossible reaction pod.

Button Mash on Thursday is doing a Last of Us finale gamers guide, of which I have to admit, I indulged in a lot of gamer, you know, sort of spoilers in the game or in the show. You love a spoiler. You love to boot up a wiki. I do. And as May comes to an end, Ringer vs. Doing Ringer recommends for May, that's coming this weekend on the Ringer vs. Feed.

Chris, are you ready to join us full time all the time to do this? There's only one CR. We're all just living in your shadow, man. It's true. Anything that you'll be contributing to Ring of Earths recommends this month? Quiet time with family. That's really what it's all about. What would I recommend for Ring of Earths recommends? Are you murder botting at all? No, I'm not. I mean, can I pick something that's not

Yeah. Yet out. It's coming out this week, I believe. And also not quite like genre fantasy, but genre watchy, like mystery crimey, which is Department Q on Netflix with your boy Matthew Goode and every Scottish person that's ever been on Game of Thrones.

I have no notes after that quick snapshot. I love this for me. Is Matthew Goode doing a Scottish accent? No, he's defiantly English and talks about the English national soccer squad with a bunch of Scottish people who are like, you're being Billy Big Balls about this. Okay. All right. Great. Wow. I can't wait. Scott Frank made it. Shot in Edinburgh. It's great. Love Edinburgh.

Great stuff. Great work. You nailed it. Thanks. Everybody has all of the programming reminders that they need. They have a bonus recommendation from CR himself. Spoiler warning. Why don't we take care of that too while we're here? Everything that happened in Rogue One could come up today. If it ever happened in the television series Andor could come up today. And listen, if it's ever happened in Star Wars. That's a lot. It is possible. Yeah.

It's at least possible that it could come up today. That's the spoiler warning. Definitely the first 10 minutes of A New Hope may come up today. I think so. Possibly. That's likely. Possibly. Chris, anything you intend to spoil about like the 2025 Philadelphia Eagles roster? Any other spoiler warnings you want to toss out? No, I don't think I'm going to try and be good. I'll try not to just casually mention who dies on various other TV shows. I think I'll behave myself. Let's get to the opening snapshot. Oh.

All right, guys, let's talk about Rogue One. This film came out, and let me tell you something. This was a harrowing date to confront on ye olde interwebs. December 16th, 2016. This movie is almost a decade old. I would like to start there. What did it do to you to stare that truth in the face? I felt so old. I felt so old. I feel like ever since COVID...

Not to bring the party down by mentioning COVID at the top of the spot, but ever since COVID, time doesn't really make any kind of sense to me. I've lost all perspective on passage of time. I do think it speaks to a certain timeless quality of Rogue One and its efforts to connect things that have been documented or shot in the 1970s with things that are shot in the 21st century that I had no idea it was 2016. I seriously thought it was 2018 or 2019. Yeah.

And I remember where I was watching this movie. Same. But I have no recollection of like this being mere weeks after the election or something like that, you know? Yeah. And this was also an era post-election pre-COVID in addition to those. Thanks for those cheerful markers, guys. This was also just a moment in time where

Star Wars movies were coming out pretty regularly. The Force Awakens came out the year prior. We were in the colon space, a Star Wars story era. Solo, a Star Wars story. Joanna's canonically established on this podcast and others' favorite film ever made. And any chance she gets, she says, hashtag make Solo 2 happen. Slander. Slander. We were supposed to get that Boba Fett movie. That's right. In this grouping. Yeah. That's right. And...

That is not where we are, obviously, currently, as we wait for Mandalorian and Grogu to become the next Star Wars movie after Rise of Skywalker, which also feels like it was 100 years ago because it was. This film was directed by Gareth Edwards, Tony Gilroy, patron saint of The Watch, House of R, The Ringer Podcast Network, and increasingly the internet. Has the co-story by credit with Chris Weitz, but it's one of you industry...

The Scallers want to give a quick refresher to folks on Gilroy coming in to basically fix the film and what his role in the project was. I think it's worth noting that this is a film with many authors and maybe ended with one. And I can't tell, we're going to talk a lot about how Andor has informed our view of Rogue One. Joe, do you feel like Rogue One...

is taken on more Tony Gilroy authorship in the post-Andorra era than you did when you first saw it. Yes. Yeah. But I can't tell how much of that is like...

Do you know what I mean? Exactly. Yes. I mean, he's... Yeah. Sorry, no, go ahead. Well, I will say this was sort of a state secret, how much they brought Tony Gilroy into this. When I was at VF Vanity Fair when this came out, and when I was talking to Lucasfilm about who I should interview, they wanted me to interview Gareth Edwards. I talked to John Knoll, who was the longtime Lucasfilm employee who had the idea for Rogue One, where he said, hey, what if we...

did a movie about the people who stole the Death Star plans, not Skywalker-focused. His idea was like there would be no force, no...

Vader, no Jedi, no anything like that. And Lucasfilm's like, well, we won't go that far. But it originates with John Knoll, longtime Lucasfilm employee, goes through all these phases. Tony Gilroy comes in as a longtime Kathleen Kennedy associate as a fixer for a production that had gone

a bit off the rails, but they were pretending when this movie came out because they're just sort of like Han Solo-esque, we're fine, everything's fine here, how are you on the comms, are like...

asked me to, to, to interview Gareth Edwards. He had to pretend like, like he had never lost control of his own movie, which he had. And they sent a babysitter into that interview, like a Disney employee to just sit there and glare at him while he talked to me to make sure that he didn't say anything, which is unusual for this kind of conversation. And so, um,

More and more, we understand how much Tony Gilroy had to do with Andor. But there is also, I think, Chris, that sense that when you go through Rogue One with a fine-tooth comb, which Mallory and I did, Mallory, I think, much more diligently than I did, and sort of connect the dots between lines in Rogue One and lines that happen in Andor, again, you don't know how much is like...

Tony Gilroy's son saying like, hey, are you going to explain rebellions are built on hope to the TV audiences at home where that came from? And how much of that is actually like Gilroy DNA existing in both shows? Do you know what I mean, Chris? Yeah. When I rewatched Rogue One before we talked to Tony for the finale, I went into it

Looking for classic Gilroy-isms, you know, whether it was these amazingly poetic renditions of very bureaucratic negotiations between two parties, whether it was these amazingly articulate descriptions of...

uh, character that come from within, you know, like, I think obviously there's a line in Michael Clayton, which you could easily apply to Tony, which is I'm, I'm not a miracle worker. I'm a janitor. And that was to some extent, Tony's reputation in Hollywood, right? Like he gets a lot of credit for the Bourne movies. The Bourne movies had very many cooks in that kitchen. You know, he directed the Bourne legacy. It,

failed to take off and launch that franchise into a new era of Jeremy Renner or these other spies being in the Bourne universe. He obviously has a lot of, uh, Hosanna's thrown in him for Michael Clayton. Didn't exactly set the world on fire in a box office sense, nor set Tony Gilroy up as like a blank check director to borrow the blank check. The idea, uh,

So Tony Gilroy is like kind of a gunslinger and he roves from production to production and does screen doctoring, script doctoring and fixes stuff and is obviously revered both within Hollywood and by nerds like us. But when he gets to Rogue One and you watch Rogue One, you're kind of like looking for a signature that almost isn't there. Yeah, I agree. I think that that's...

how it always felt, but I feel that much more keenly now in the wake of, of Andor where you can sense his influence and his imprint, but not that it was the thing he shaped from start to finish and would have done exactly that way. Very clearly. Right. And that's like, I think always been apparent, but is undeniable in the wake of Andor. You mentioned the box office, Chris, this movie made a billion dollars. This puppy cleared a billion dollars. Um,

We had no idea how good we had it. We had it fucking great. We had it fucking great, man. I remember opening night, going, just being so excited to see it. I remember, though, I have such vivid memories of the posters, the marketing for this movie, the way that they were incorporating the teals and blues of Scarif and the looming specter of the Death Star and the Death Troopers, all of it. I was just like, I cannot wait to see this movie. And going, but then having to get back to edit a 4,000-word limber cut.

like 2 a.m. that had come out of the movie. We had no idea how bad we had it. I remember being so energized by it, too, because it was just so fun. I remember I was at D23 when they announced the cast, and this was such, like, a huge...

Oh, that's what they're doing with this, you know, like this international cast that they announced here. I'm like, Diego Luna's in a Star War? Okay, let's go. And the sense that Gareth Edwards coming off of, you know, his like arty take on Godzilla, that this was like sort of this, again, Gareth Edwards lost control of this movie, but like that this was like a thinking man's genre, this thinking man's take on

Star Wars to a certain degree. Emphasizing the war in Star Wars, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then the trailer came out and we were like, oh, this is a war movie. That's what this is. I thought that was... It was just like a really fascinating... Especially in this...

and or conversation we're having right now where we're like, we want more of and or, and by that we mean a number of things. But one of the things we mean is Star Wars meaning a number of different things. Star Wars can stretch and include a number of things under the tent. And as much as we at House of R are excited for Mandalorian and Grogu, like it can't just be Mandalorian and Grogu and it can't just be Skywalkers or maybe

Maybe it can, but we would prefer it if it weren't. And like that's when Rogue One comes out sort of in conjunction with Solo A Star Wars Story. And I think of Solo A Star Wars Story as like the most, like we're just going to tread back over a well-trodden path. Yeah.

it was like this nice counter to that, this promise of we're going to do so many different things, which did not ultimately pay out at least cinematically for them. And your mileage may vary sort of on the TV front for them as well. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead, Chris. No, I was just going to say, you know, often when I talk about this movie or when I've talked about it in the intervening years, even outside of Andor, I think the first thing that comes up is the last 10 minutes of it.

And everybody has their descriptions of like their soul living their body when this happened, like when the end of this movie takes place leading right directly into A New Hope. And, you know, ethical concerns aside about the CGI ghost people that occupy it, it's still so thrilling to see this thing that was probably maybe like half-baked in your childhood imagination get, you know, depicted on screen. Yeah.

But going back and rewatching it, I was struck by how much it feels like structurally, like

the Abrams, broadly the Abrams and Rian Johnson sequels, where it's a lot of planet hopping and it's a lot of like, we must go here to find this thing that will unlock this thing that will get us the thing that we want. And that kind of very, almost gamified storytelling that I don't really remember being a factor in like,

Certainly the original trilogy, but, you know, is a very, to me, Abrams-y and MCU-y kind of storytelling where there's a lot of MacGuffins. And kind of watching the movie at that time and feeling a little bit frustrated, I think, you know, by the speed with which it was moving through all this world that it had built. And then immediately, we got to get to another planet. I'm like, well, what about Eadu? What about...

Scarif, what about these other places? I want to know what's up with them. And I think for all of us, it's like Tony Gilroy was like, I know you want to know about them. What if we did 22 hours or 24 hours in the in-betweens of these jumps? Finding the nooks and crannies, finding the other people, finding the background characters, pushing them to the foreground. And that's the genius of the show is

That really then embellishes the film. Because just like the original films taught you how to be creative in some way, depending on when you saw them in your life, Andor almost lets you fill in what's happening in Rogue One. You're like, oh yeah, I kind of have a vibe of what happened in between these two missions that they go on. Now that we've been to Yavin, or now that I know a little bit about the factions that informed this rebellion, I have all this...

you know, imagination cooking about Saw or whatever. And I just found it to be such an invigorating rewatch. I think, and that's a lot of, you know, what we're going to do today is to like sort of go through and parse all the sort of echo back that you get from like a single line in Rogue One. And you're like, oh, that makes me think of this character and that character and this step along Cassian's path. I think the downside of it is I think it then highlights some of the shallow, shallowness of the,

Rogue One. Rogue One, I was not as high on Rogue One as a lot of other people when it came out. I've actually grown to like it more. The Tarkin thing really bothered me. The Leia thing really bothered me. And then to your point about the planet hopping, like when we go to Eid, like, I don't know, there's just some planet hopping that happens and I'm like, did we need to go here? Or is this, could I have, could we have done more here? Yeah.

Yeah. And so it's like, you know, Chris texted me, I think midway through the season of Andor and he was like, thinking about Rogue One now, can't you see it as like a season of Andor? And if we spent like three episodes on Shedda and three episodes on Adium and stuff like that. But I think the character that suffers- Kathy and Tony, are you listening? Yeah, exactly. Big ring of Kifreen heads here. Yeah.

But I think the part of Rogue One that suffers the most because of that is Jyn. And we got a lot of emails about this from either people who had never seen Rogue One and watched it after Andor because they knew we were going to do this podcast. So they watched Rogue One for the first time after Andor and they're like, what do you mean? Cassian isn't the main character? To people who really latched on to Jyn and care a lot about Jyn or so and now feel like she's not the main character in her own movie anymore because there's no profound depth

to her arc the way there is we can now infuse Cassians with. And I thought that was really an interesting, not an intentional thing that Andor does, but just by nature of giving Andor so much rich backstory and so many other characters connected to him that we care about. And then Jyn, we get this like much, much, much more accelerated, shallower version of. And so then she feels like a thinner character. It feels like a thinner character, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

The Jyn Erso piece, to quote Bill Simmons. I mean, it's right there. It's probably the biggest element of this conversation because I could see arguments that her story is very self-contained by Rogue One, but there's obviously a huge apprenticeship on her part and an experience that she had as a soldier, right?

And as the kind of miscreant that really mirrors Cassian's, you know? Absolutely. And I wonder whether or not, putting aside whether or not Felicity Jones was interested in or up for returning and whether or not that would have worked at all.

I think it's hard to see the benefit in telling the same two stories because I think that they have, whatever you learn about Jen winds up somewhat being true for Cassian, you know, uh, in some ways in terms of their long roundabout trip to get to this point where they're part of this alliance and they're doing this incredible act of sacrifice for it. Yeah.

Not note for note, obviously, but like there is the like... No, the parallels. It was the criminal who became the soldier who became the rebel leader and it was, you know... Yeah, absolutely. Right down to the missing parents, right? And the labor camp stints. I mean, I wouldn't ever take a single second away from the Luthan and Clea episode, which I love. But if there was like a Saw younger Jyn story to tell that could tell us as much about Saw...

as it does about gin saw your favorite character. I know Chris, like that could maybe could have been interesting. And like, even if you don't cast Leslie Jones, if you get a younger actress to play dinner, so we could have some gin time, but like, you know, I don't need it, but I understand why some people who feel so strongly about gin or so in the first place might want it. What do you think, Mel? Yeah. I, so I, I've always really loved Rogue One. Um,

And or has, I would say, pretty radically altered my relationship to the film, like not subtly. And in some ways it has heightened my connection to the film. And in other ways it has, I think, undeniably made Rogue One like a less impactful movie for me. And I agree with what I agree with what you guys are saying. Like certainly everything with Cass.

I think if we take the kind of like, Chris, you've used the word discourse and narrative a few times today already. I have a tendency to do that. If we think about, you know, there was just a lot out in the ether about, you know, including coming from people who are involved with Andor, like, yeah, you're going to be able to boot up Rogue One and it's going to feel like the actual finale, right, to the story. And in some ways, I think that's certainly true. And I think that the, given what the actual story

and just like mechanics of the task were to reverse engineer from a movie that had already been made to reverse engineer against another film. It's astonishing that it works as well as it does. Like absolutely astonishing. I watch Rogue One now and I long for more Cassian. I just do. And I think that what we get from him, we have through our 24 hours of Andor, I agree with you guys, more than enough to apply to make everything feel real.

full and right but like when we get to the end I'm just like I need to know

is he thinking about Bix? You know, and we can fill in the blanks there. And I think we can actually do that quite effectively, but I don't think there's really, I wouldn't believe anybody who told me. It's like, well, let's just mention it. Any, any Brunette will do any Brunette in a storm, you know? Yeah, exactly. Well, I was going to say that's Will, but that would be any blonde. Um,

I just, I think undeniably if the order in which these things were made had been changed, that's a silly thing to say because we got Andor because Rogue One existed. So what a gift. And again, Rogue One is a movie I've always really liked, but Rogue One would be a different movie now if it were made after Andor without question. And I think like even characters like Saw, Krennic, we just have a lot from Andor that we can...

put into our read of what happens with those characters in Rogue One that I think is really interesting and rewarding. Jyn is...

I am now, I feel kind of almost guilty saying this. I would say I've always liked Jyn. Jyn's never been like, oh my God, Jyn is one of my top three favorite Star Wars characters ever. I won't claim that that's how I've ever felt about Jyn, but I've liked Jyn and I like the Jyn-Cassian dynamic. I found myself almost reflexively, it wasn't even something I was consciously in control of, watching the movie and watching everything that happened with Jyn and Cassian through the lens of

You're thinking like a thief. I'm thinking like a soldier. Think like a leader. The Cassian evolution and the Cassian arc and the impact that Cassian has on other people. And in some ways, I found that actually incredibly satisfying to see how everything that we watch with Cassian's arc and this place that he got to, the impact that it had on other people.

What an amazing thing to get to watch. And I think Rogue One also stitches together quite well with just this larger mission and task that Andor had of like all the people, all the people who Cassian and Vel in a small forest hut might toast that the rest of the galaxy never knew about who are just as consequential in the saving and restoring the fate of the galaxy as Luke when he fired that bolt into the reactor. Yeah.

So that's all kind of like amazing to experience now going back to the film. But there are other parts of it where whether it's would Gilroy have written this differently and do we know it? Would we have spent more time in this space instead of this space? Would Jyn have been deployed a little bit differently or would we have understood more about her? That I think do feel...

altered by 24 episodes of one of the best TV shows we've ever seen. I want to shout out one thing, you know, because I think he gets kind of dismissed now because of Tony's accomplishments with Andor. And I just want to say that I do think Gareth Edwards is a really accomplished filmmaker and especially...

One who's really talented at scope and scale, depicting large objects against human beings, depicting the fucking Death Star appearing in the clouds. The best. You know, at the end over Scarif, like, Scarif or... Yeah, Scarif.

And just the absolute magnitude of the construction of this thing and feeling like the might of something truly evil is out there hunting these people is really impressive. The action sequences to the extent that he directed them, I assume, are especially the Scarif battle is just unreal and really cool. Electric.

There's also, fair to say, you know, one of the great teaser trailers of all time is the Rogue One teaser, which famously has like other stuff in it that's not in the movie, including some stuff Saw says with a different haircut, if I remember correctly, like in the teaser. And Joe, maybe you know a little bit about like what got cut and what got kept. But all that like, what will you become stuff? Yeah.

And her in the kind of stormtrooper outfit, which she does wear in Rogue One, but like there's other stuff in there. Yeah. So just thought I'd shout out that there's cool stuff that I doubt is Tony that's in the movie. 100%. And yeah, I didn't mean to say that Gareth is not on this movie at all. But yeah, I mean, I actually think there are some things in this movie that always felt a little herky-jerky to me in terms of like planet hopping or I would say crucially Jyn's...

arc like Jin's change of mind just feels a little like her epiphany is like abrupt and so like that and so I think those are hallmarks of a movie that's been kind of

pasted together a bit from something else. And so it's a miracle that Rogue One is as great as it is, given that we've seen a number of other projects that are just pasted together from something else, and it's gibberish. And this is definitely not that. This has extreme beauty, extreme poetry inside of it, and it's just an impressive feat. From the franchise that brought you Anakin going to try to stop Palpatine to slaying younglings in 11 minutes, if memory serves.

Well, Val, you bring up a good point that I really wanted to bounce off you to, which was one of the great achievements, I think, of Andor is the way it plays with epic scope, but with thriller compression. So jumping across years and years, but within those years are the three days that matter. And the three thriller days or the three heist days or the three Gorman masker days are

you have to be there for but you get this sense that all this time is unfolding and that there are things happening in between the arcs and that Bix is falling apart or that the Yavin has become together and now it's got all these rules and all this stuff and it doesn't have to be on screen for you to intuit what's going on and it's such a stark contrast to watch that and then jump into Rogue One and

and be like, no, this movie's like two plus hours, but it's over? Like what? You guys went to like eight planets and accomplished five different tasks and blew something up and now, you know, like here we are? Like this is wild. Like it really did speak to the ingenious construction of how Andor was like,

originally thought of as a five season show that was going to lead up to Rogue One I think ultimately rightly chose to be two perfect seasons of TV that had a lot of blank spaces that people could figure it out for themselves about what had been going on

But within those arcs was a perfect 90-minute thing, you know, or a perfect 100-minute thing that we can go back and revisit as pieces or as part of a whole. It was interesting to me this—I love that. It was really interesting to me talking to a couple friends this last weekend who had just finished Andor. And they are Star Wars fans, but not, you know, fanatics. But they are lifelong Star Wars fans. Yeah.

And one of them was binging and she was like, she got confused and disoriented by the time jumps because she didn't understand the BBY at all and stuff like that. And so, you know, I was like, I think it's a little clearer if you're watching it three episodes a week sort of chunk and stuff like that on a binge. And if you're not pre-warned that we're jumping through time in this way, I can understand why it might be slightly disorienting. I thought that was interesting.

it hadn't occurred to me that people like wouldn't know that, you know, I'm like, you don't listen to five hour podcasts every week about this show you're watching. I mean, this literally just happened to me with Last of Us where I was like, what? Oh yeah. Am I supposed to be reading those things? My favorite new bit on the watch is, how many episodes is this show? There's no way.

There's no way to know. Our soft boycott of Google has not gone well. How can we possibly know how many episodes are in this season? Who can say? Yeah, it's so interesting that you had somebody mention that to you, Joe, because I had been wondering about that. Like, if you're not watching in real time when it's very clear that these three are being put up at once and kind of ideally meant to be consumed either together or at least in quick succession, like, what is it going to feel like? Now, I think those three episodes would all still be, like,

like riveting, mesmerizing television, but then are you going to have those like, wait, what moments? And how long then would it take across the flow of the season to orient to like what that pace is? So yeah, I don't know, Chris. I mean, in some ways this is like, I think your question is a really interesting one in general, like the pace of a movie, the pace of a television show. We have all talked, you know, many times together and on other episodes of our pods about like

the detriment of the expansion of IP in the streaming wars era, right? Like it's obviously, it can go quite wrong and often does. Andor, I really like agree with what you said earlier, Joe. I think I'm always worried that the wrong lesson and bad lesson of Andor is try to make Andor exactly as Andor was. Like that's just how you lead to, that's just how you get,

cosplay, pale imitations, nothing that's going to be as good. The thing about Andor was that it was distinct and it had a clear sense of self and intent, mission, purpose, like identity, voice, point of view, perspective, all of it, right? And so I think what's then like really, really interesting about your question, Chris, is that element inside of it of like, and you and Andy talked about this a lot across the season and it was so interesting to listen, like,

When you guys felt pulled back into like, no, actually it's not. They can tell us it's four movies, but it's TV. It's TV. And like, I love, I do. I love a movie. Let me tell you what was fucking fun. Rewatching all seven Mission Impossible movies and then going to the theater to watch a very confusing eighth film that I have a lot of questions about. But I will always, always pick...

12 hours that we can spend with these characters. Depth of character. Really getting to know them and understanding why they do the things they do. And that I think is ultimately going to be the key distinction between a season of Andor, whether it's structured the way season one was or season two was, and Rogue One, we understand Cassian in a way that is distinct from how we understand characters we have only met in a movie. And like, how could we not? My favorite thing though is like, we understand Cassian...

There are elements of the ideas that Tony has that I can infuse into other characters that were not in Rogue One. We talked about this when we were covering Andor. We were thinking about Chirrut or Blaze. We were thinking about these various people, Bodhi, et cetera. I want to hit you, Ciara, with a question we got from one of our listeners, Brian. Sure.

Who asks,

There are many instances in which knowing where the story ends up adds weight to the decisions characters make and also to other little moments along the way. I don't know if the depth of thinking is the bad baby in me or if a casual Star Wars fan would even care. Just curious to hear your thoughts on the matter separate from your power rankings. So, like, you know, to follow up for what Brian's saying, like, one of our favorite things to think about is, like, yeah, where is Bix? Right?

You know, in Rogue One, where is Will? Where is Vel? Where is Clea? Where is Luthen? Like, the time is running out on these characters and their role in the rebellion. And we know that because they're not at the center of the story going forward. What's an espionage version of a Force ghost?

Yeah, this Force ghost energy would be incredible. Spy ghost? I feel like it would be purple instead of blue or something like that. What if he was just super psyched because he's like, it turns out I did get to see a sunrise. It's awesome. Guys, hold on. If Luthen came back as a Force ghost, which wig would he have? Which he can't do. But in our thought experiment, which haircut would he have, Joanna? Which wig? Which wig does Ghost Luthen have? Do you think he would give himself the really bad...

a buzz cut, brush cut from his first life. I think he does like possible war criminal Luthan from like his early days. His most useful self, I think is what we found some of these Force ghosts want to do. But what do you think, Chris, in terms of like rewatching, what order would you? I'm going to break the rule that I have been sort of trumpeting a lot on the watch, which is I hate TV series that start with the most exciting thing and then go two weeks earlier and then the rest of the series goes. Yeah. But I am going to say that

New Hope, end with a parade, blink five years earlier, and it's beginning of Andor. Whoa. And then watch Andor through and then watch Rogue One. Wow. So it's basically a circle. It's a circle rather than a line.

And then would you watch A New Hope again? If you wanted to, sure. You're a visionary. And just keep circling back. No, then I go rise of Skywalker to find out how Palpatine has returned. Somehow. Somehow. Somehow.

What do you think, Mike? I like the idea that Andor the logo is this almost completed circle. So you start on one end of it and you go all the way around, but not quite. You know what I mean? You kind of know where you're going. And it's really interesting, I think, to get to the end with the parade in New Hope or the sort of ceremony of medals, which have been much discussed online. Like, how the fuck did these guys look themselves in the mirror? Yeah.

Yeah. Enjoyed Bill discovering his stakes on that for the first time. Yeah. It seems weird that these guys got dapped up like this. But getting to that and being like, oh, that's the story. And it's like, no, it starts here. You know? Damn.

Inspiring. It gives me heart palpitations. Five years earlier, these fuckers didn't get any medals. I've been getting really into the fan edit piece. Like, I've been watching, like, you know, the trailers for fan edits. You've been texting us. Yeah. And what if you did pure chronological? So would that be Luth in discovering Clea?

Oh. Yeah. And more of a discovering Cassian. Yeah, exactly. Cassian. Canary, right. Yeah. Yeah. And then also like Saw pulling Jyn out of the bunker. And then you can have my AI-made animation of Partagas and Kretic at the Naval Academy together. Check out my new cape. Okay, wow. I can't really ever object to starting with A New Hope.

It's a solid, solid place to start really any cinematic journey in your life. You start a solo Star Wars story. Exactly. Start with like every tweet behind the hashtag make Solo 2 happen campaign. So it's just you and Lindbergh? Got it. Correct. Okay. Here's what I would do. I don't know what I would do. Here's what I think I would do. Yeah. I would watch Rogue One first because I do feel that Andor is a more rewarding experience knowing that

where Cassian's story concludes. Watch Rogue One, watch Andor in order, watch Rogue One again, and then watch A New Hope. This is the way. There she is! It's Rogue One, Andor, Rogue One, A New Hope. That's the way. My soulmate. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. I was going to say that the thing that hits different after Andor is Cassian...

taking out Tivik. Is that Tivik? Yeah. Who's on? Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, oh my God. Yeah. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This dude's still putting bullets in people, you know, and it's kind of tragic to get out of Andor and the surging music and his baby on a weak planet. And he's on his way to, you know, he's still murking guys for information. Yeah.

Like thinking about, we were thinking about Tivic a lot when my guy Lonnie died on a bench. I like how you said died, like he had a heart attack. Yeah, my guy Lonnie. That could have been anything. Wait, Mallory, did I tell you that one of our listeners went to Lonnie's bench?

Unbelievable. Because we said this on the podcast. I was like, we should lay flowers at Lonnie's bench, which is in Valencia, Spain. And one of our listeners went there. And left flowers? Didn't leave anything yet. But he was like, if you want to tell me what to put here, I will put something here for Lonnie. Printouts of sensitive imperial documents taken using Deirdre Miro's code cert. Letters, fake letters from Lonnie's wife about their daughter. Oh, man. Great stuff.

Okay. Christopher, any other thoughts? However big or however small on Rogue One and or anything at all? What's the Rogue One character, non-Jinn department, non-K2 obviously, who you feel like could have been hanging out on Yavin, could have been in the larger Luthen clique, could have been in some meetings, could have been in some situations? I guess Bodhi is doing Imperial piloting. Yeah.

I mean, it would only be more Melchie than we got, though I think we already got a lot of Melchie. But is there someone else on the Scarif crew? Blue Leader. I was going to say, we're big Ben Daniels Blue Leader fans. Yeah, I mean, I guess at the end of the day, it's really... They got to the end of that movie, and I think he probably, for whatever reasons, he just was like, it's Diego. It's his story. I have an idea. And...

you know, the gin, gin then gets kind of like left to the movie. I, I don't think it would have worked if in season two, there was like a gin bottle episode, you know, of like what she's doing now.

But it is an interesting thought experiment. I think that I still long for Dan Gilroy's scrapped K2SO. Oh, fuck. It's not too late. God damn it. It is not too late. That's the thing. Give it to us as a holiday special. You know what I deserve at the holidays? K2SO killing a bunch of people. I have things like this in my head because now anything that we get in the holidays is going to be a letdown because it's not that. That sounds incredible. I hope they make that one day. I really do. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I really do wonder. I know that he's like, I'm done. I need to go make a real movie. Not a real movie. I need to go make a movie. I need to go learn how to do stuff without blasters and special effects and Luke Cole building worlds for me. But I do wonder whether...

Tony has been very open about, like, this has been the most rewarding, affirming experience of his creative life. And, you know, has the economic model changed so much since pre-COVID that they can't do something like this again? Is there another story to tell? And would you want it? Or do you want to leave Perfect alone? I think we used up all the Perfect. I just, like...

I don't trust anyone else's hands on this story is how I feel. So if like the family Gilroy wants to, you know, we've talked about this. We've talked about like a spinoff with like Belle and Clea hunting down like hidden Nazis, hidden Imperials. Like I would watch that in a second, but I really only want... What about Belle and Clea getting completely radicalized by the medal ceremony in A New Hope? Yeah.

Wow. So we start with footage of the medal ceremony and we like edit in Vel and Clea in the back. They're in the window like, don't let them kill Cassian! I mean, it's canon. Vel said to Cassian that she would kill anyone she heard saying they were there for Aldani. Yeah. Like,

Vel has some takes on the medal ceremony. No question about it. What are Vel and Clea doing is my number one question. My number one is what's Bea up to and is he still happy? My number two is that. No, I guess my number two would be like, how's Cassian's kid? Maybe my number three is that. Do you guys consider, of all the characters who do appear in both tubes, the most important connective tissue character?

Who's Tubes? That's one of Saw's henchmen. Oh, yeah. That's right. That guy's cool. I think what I'm... What I was really stunned by rewatching Rogue One for this was...

just how much more I enjoy Krennic, even though I already enjoyed him so much. But what they did with Krennic in season two is really, really flavored my Rogue One watch in a really fun way. Yeah, I strongly agree. Watching him go from like finger on the top of Dedra's, uh,

head to speck of dust under Tarkin's boot is just like really delightful. Yeah, there was I saw a meme is like imagine spending your entire life building a thing just to have Tarkin blow you up with it.

Uh, yeah, I guess, I think, oh man, I guess credit really is the, the, the answer. Like when it comes to like the genius of the two, like to take credit from the movie and be like, Ben, you got any other ideas? And Ben's like, I got some ideas. I'm going to say Calcutta alternatives in the most absolutely fabulous way possible. Yeah.

Incredible. It is really. That is an area where I had a lot of fun thinking about what Krennic did with other members of the Empire and how the shape has come up in stakes in Rogue One. Very satisfying. And then just, of course, the thrill of getting to see him not only in a cape but in outerwear cape. Yeah.

It's special and we're fortunate. It is very special. Like a cape windbreaker. It's wonderful. Chris, do you want to come clear with our listeners and tell them the Andor spin-off you really want, which is Let's Jailbreak Dedra? Oh my God, yeah. Well, why can't Velenclaia do it? Velenclaia, Breakout Dedra, and Dedra helps them find all of the escaped Imperials. Sisters of the Rebellion. Come on. Rebellion Sisterhood. I was going to say, the last time we had something with Sisterhood in the name, it was great.

Quality. Well, thanks for having me on, you two. That's not what it was called. It was called Dude Prophecy at the end. Hey, thanks for joining us, ma'am. Yeah, thanks. Hey, thanks, Chris. I can't wait to listen to this and hear the additional two and a half hours of insight. I'm serious. I am going to do it. And it's one of my favorite pots, so thanks for having me on.

We love you, buddy. We love you, Chris. Thanks. Bye, guys. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Earning daily cash back is simple. Use Apple Card right away with Apple Pay and earn up to 3% daily cash back on everyday purchases. Pretty straightforward, right?

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on cars.com. Where to next? Okay, Joanna, Chris is gone. He passed the rebellion baton to us. Our turn to carry it. We must save the rebellion. We must save the dream. It is time for The Deep Dive. All right, Jo, we're going to go through this movie start to finish. Molly's like, should we do it just in buckets? And I said, no, let's do the whole thing. This is my fault. So here we are. Oh man. But I'm excited.

People have been clamoring for this episode. Let's do it. Let's do what? I'm glad we get to start with the critic in the rain. It's appropriate. It's appropriate. Let's begin with our guy. This is where we say we do not like fascists, our guy, Orson Krennic. Every episode, you got to make it clear.

I saw there was a fan. Speaking of what Chris is talking about in terms of fan it, I saw fan it like do a sitcom of Cyril and Deirdre and like co-starring 80 and they did like sitcom credits. And I'm like, this is funny, but I need you to have a disclaimer at the beginning that says you don't like fascism. I just need it now before we do a wacky little comedy starring the fascist Cyril and Deirdre. That caveat is ingrained into the experience for us at this point.

15 years ago. 15 years before the primary events of this film, Rogue One. Jyn and her parents, Galen and Lyra, are hiding out and they are preparing as Orson Krennic arrives to deal with this. The time frame

On the heels of Andor, like everything else on the heels of Andor stood out anew because it's like 15 years ago. Oh man, Luthen, I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there's only one conclusion. Like this is that moment for Galen, this decision and the decision he made before to leave and to put his family into hiding, to try to position himself to say, yeah, no, you know, it's a peaceful farmer's life. No, my wife, dead, gone, not here. My child, what child? Right?

Didn't work out that way, but it was the equation that he wrote and then an equation that he will continue to amend while back in the Empire's charge. I think it's really interesting. Something that will hit a couple different times is this idea of like, you know, as typified by Jyn,

how much can you look away? Like this idea that Galen was involved in the creation of this, tried to walk away to have a farmer's life with his family, which is, you know, I guess the, the, the Bix Killeen move. Right. But it's like,

Can you sit out a war that's already in progress? You know, this question of like, when is it war? You know, our, our, our, and our characters have told us it's already war, you know? And when can you look away and when can you not? And Galen like tried to look away. That's not an option anymore. So how can he rebel inside of the situation he finds himself in? I love that. Now I'm hearing saw in my head. Call it.

But Chris left, so he can't do the impression. That's in my notes. Also, I mentioned my friends that I had dinner with this weekend. One of them does a really good Saw impression, and he kept just going, You're here with me now, boy! Yeah.

I'll never look at Saw putting the mask on the same way as Finn Rughwan ever again. Right? He's Huffing Rhino, right? Has to be. Either that or like we discussed on that, Andor Pod possibly tried to repair his shattered lungs from all the Rhino he had previously huffed, but I believe he's Huffing Rhino. I think it's like Dentist from Little Shop of Horrors. He's just got his nitrous on his back and it's healing him. Wonderful stuff. Saw is called in.

Because he is connected to the Erso family. And Galen, in this opening sequence, he drops the first stardust. So we're acclimated. This is his name, his nickname for his child, for his daughter, this term of endearment and affection. And asks him to tell Galen.

asks her to tell him that she understands what is happening, what is required, what is unfolding, why, all of it. There is a lot captured in this, tell me that you understand, which makes us think back to this season one moment between Marva and Cassian. And there are going to be a lot of comps as we break down the film today, as we've already teased between Cassian and Marva, Jyn and Galen, a lot. Tell me you understand. And Cassian's response to that in season one was, I don't.

And that is one of the great joys of the Cassian Andor experience, genuinely. This is also the stretch where Lyra gives Jyn a kyber crystal pendant and tells her to trust the Force. So, I mean, the Force is just obviously, like, way more present throughout this movie than it is in Andor.

We have a great email later that I'll get to that just like talks about when you watch Andor into Rogue One into A New Hope, it's like... The building, the cresting. It's like magic coming back into Westeros. Totally. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just like blooming. Yes, absolutely. Across these properties. I love the idea that like this was a family where some tether to that awareness lingered.

in the form of that pendant that Jyn is holding 15 years, a decade and a half later, and holding almost in reverence and prayer. Of course, how can we not think of the kyber crystal pendant that Luthen gave Cassian, right? That initial wage to secure not only the work, but a promise beyond it. Very cool to feel like that little tie there. Loved that. I'd like your comments on Krennic's outerwear here. The way it flaps...

is very special to me. We talked about this when he shows up with his various capes in Andor that they were like, well, his initial cape was this sort of more utilitarian rain poncho cape. And we gave him sort of finer cape wear. But I just love...

And I remember this from the trailer. Like, I remember watching them in, you know, and you talked about this. You love this shot in Scarif with the troopers in the water, but watching them on this, like, verdant green planet, and here are these Imperial figures here. Krennic's cape looks amazing. I remember seeing it on display at Lucasfilm, like, years and years ago, and it's just, like, still one of my favorite Star Wars figures.

I love this connection between like the sort of the ship shape ISB to the dramatic Vader cape. Right. This is sort of like this interstitial moment. I also love, I mean, we get Galen's lie about his wife and his kid, as you already mentioned. When Lyra shows up.

And he just has this weary, like, troublesome as ever Lyra. Oh, Lyra. Yeah. Oh, Lyra. The fact that he, like, doesn't believe Galen for a second in, like, any of the lies that he's telling here. Not a one. Ben Mendelsohn is just so fun in this role. This is the most assured he will be because...

Because soon we will see him in the context of Tarkin, in the context of Vader and all that. But this is like his most, the most swagger we will see from him is, is in this particular circumstance. And we know, um,

You know, because this is him in the past, and when we see him in Rogue One in the present, he's fresh off the anxieties at the end of Andor. Yeah. You know? His longtime friend Partagas just killed himself because the fist is closing in, you know? But troublesome as ever, can I just say, and this is my own headcanon, but I'm sure it exists on the internet, is...

It would not take a second to find it. Every time I watch Rogue One, I feel more increasingly sure of this, that Krennic has a, like, romantic fixation on Galen Erso. Oh! There's just, like, some... Like, it's not just that he wants Galen Erso to design his death machine. That's all true. But there's just something so, like...

He hates his wife. Watching them sort of carouse in the flashback. I'm not saying they ever had something, but I just feel like Krennic wants something with Galen or so. This is my own. Wow. This has nothing to do with Andor. It's just how I feel. Okay. I've never thought about this. I had some other shipping-centric questions for you today. I don't ship it because I don't ship fascism, but... Hold on. We just did dozens of hours of Andor podcasts.

shipping cereal and dentures. I'll say it this way. I don't ship it because I don't think it goes both ways. I think it's a one-way street. But I think there's something about when he shows up in Eiru as well on the platform. There's just some vibe there that's...

That, I don't know. Again, it's not necessary to enjoy Rogue One, but it's how I enjoy Rogue One. One more reason to lament the lack of expanded canon. And instead of just glimpsing in Jyn's dreams, these little flashes of the past, what if we had been there for some of those parties? I mean, we got to go to some Imperial bashes in Andor. And boy, when someone's throwing back a Kali cooler or two.

It's memorable television. But we don't like fascism. Okay, next. Moving on. I think what you're identifying about Krennic in the past and then this crumbling descent that we see, what Andor gives us to understand everything there. And Krennic is elsewhere in the expanded canon. He's a key figure in the Thrawn treason novel. If anyone has not read that and is interested in more Krennic, it will be quite a familiar place to find him, which is feuding with his films.

officers and trying to be the one who wins and gets Pelty's approval. Classic. This is like really, yeah, I found the chronic aspects of Robo and really, really satisfying to revisit. He's like, Galen, we need you back. Joe has...

Some other reasons for that in the, you know, who am I to argue? You've given me something new to think about. One more reason. Again, we never run out of new reasons to revisit the tale. Nothing's ending, as Cassian said. We're on the verge of greatness, he says. We were this close to providing peace and security for the galaxy. To which Galen replies, you're confusing peace with terror. And Krennic says, well...

You have to start somewhere. Great villain stuff from Krennic here and very reminiscent of, obviously, just a lot of the kind of core essence of what Andor explores about how the Empire conducts itself, the kind of casual cruelty at play, you know, the way that Partagas talks about what has to happen on Gormen, right? It's just like, this is like an update in a meeting and then I move on to the next thing. It made me think of

Luthan and Dedra. Yeah. Dedra, their confrontation when Dedra's talking about like, here you're hiding in, you know, in the peace and security of the empire. And he's like, you're crazy, lady. Nuts. Nuts. I was thinking, that's a great one. I was thinking of the great moment at Davos between Mon and Krennic. The like,

They had their own code of conduct, Mon just every word and stare and breath drenched in disdain for this monster who she is forced to share a cocktail with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Krennic's calm, cheery...

My rebel is your terrorist, something like that. Like this is a guy who is part of a machine that loves to warp and twist perspective and point of view to try to justify the things that it does. So to get that here was a nice bit of connective tissue. He's like, you know, from a certain point of view. From a certain point of view. I can't wait to get back to old Ben Kenobi. Yeah.

Later today. Wonderful part of, we're mostly talking about Rogue One and Andor, but every now and then something else from the wider Star Wars universe will come up. And he served me well in the Clone Wars. It's definitely one of those things. Oh man. Jyn, hiding in the grass, sees her mother killed.

Lyra emerges, blaster in hand, tells Krennic he'll never win. This is a refrain that Galen will repeat. It is a refrain that Jyn will repeat. It is something that Krennic will just openly mock until the final moment. I wonder where I've heard that before. Again, classic villain shit. When I killed your wife. Mocking the thing that will ultimately be true and undo you. And Jyn hiding in the grass and seeing, witnessing the death of her mother, Cassian and Clem.

in the square on Ferex. Will and Salmon, his father, taken in by Dedra and by Dr. Gorse, tormented, killed, discarded on Ferex. Thela, our beloved bellhop from Gorman, and his father, the Tarkin Massacre in the Gorman Plaza. The way that consistently, inside of this slice of the universe of Star Wars and more broadly, we see how the Empire...

This is like the other side of the... We usually talk about we create our own demons, like Iron Man 3, Tony Stark opening as like the hero who does something that leads to the villain they have to take down. The other side of it is really palpable here. The way that the Empire, through its atrocities, creates, fosters, and foments the people who will then destroy it? Yeah. Just an incredible thing to witness and horrifying, of course. I think that's really interesting because...

two things makes me think of two things one the

The tree forgets, but the axe remembers, right? Like that is what is true of all of these kids as they watch these parental figures be taken from them. And then also if you extrapolate that further into like Luke and Leia, like Luke and Leia, though they did not see what happened to their mother and their father, like they are the seeds of one of the most twisted things that the emperor does, which is, you know, turn Anakin against himself and against

uh the jedi and you know it takes the children of that and that you know so that is what star wars as much as i say we need to get away from the skywalker saga which i think we do star wars is so much about this like generational cycles of of uh rebellion resistance conformity etc so yeah cassian tivic kofreen

As Chris said, this is the moment that you're most like... Because I love this. I always loved this as an intro to Cassian. Yeah. This is our male lead of this movie. And we meet him shooting an informant who's injured and scared. Yeah. And then to think of that, to think of Luthan and Lani, to think of what got Cassian here. Right. How is this...

same as he's ever been, and how is this a new shade of same as he's ever been, you know? Yeah, it's, like, so interesting that both Rogue One and Andor start with, from the Cassian slice of it, Cassian killing somebody else. Like, Andor, obviously, it's incredibly different in terms of the particulars. What happens on Morlana...

When he is searching for his sister, everything that will bring Cyril into his and more importantly, our lives, custom piping and all, that's self-defense. He is trying to make it out of a perilous situation alive. The fact that things unfold so chaotically and unpredictably is part of the combustible brew that then leads to everything that unfolds after.

What happens here? Yeah, Lon, I mean, it's much more Luthen, Lonnie, like when does the person who has served you and helped you and advanced the cause in some way, when does the scale tip and the risk that they pose to you in the cause in a given moment suddenly outweighs the thing that they can or have provided? And it goes back to that idea, like, you know, the relay race, the message. Yeah. Like Tivic is, you know, we've been talking about this baton passing of information. Tivic is passing a baton of information on,

to Cassian, which really just underlines information they already have, but that's okay. We're triangulating information. But Cassian can't keep going on the race, nor can Luthan keep going on the race to pass the baton on further if he doesn't remove this dead weight around his neck here. And that's tough stuff for Tivic.

Yeah, it's like, I feel like this is a moment that has always worked really well inside of just the Rogue One arc for Cassian as we build. We'll obviously talk about this in more detail later, but when Cassian is talking so passionately about the terrible things, the horrible things that they have all done on behalf of the Rebellion, it's like we got to witness it directly already. But now we just have so much more to pour into, like,

The way that Cassian talks about his own history with Luthen and the terrible things that Luthen did. The way that Cassian has felt when he's been on the other side of that kind of math and determination. Really, really, really heightened on the heels of Andor. In terms of the kind of just like plot particulars of what they had to do at the end of Andor in order to stitch together the course to Rogue One. I think the most fun part of that is, and we talked about this in our Andor finale pod, someone named Urso sent him...

Some old friend of Saw's, Gaelin herself?

Was it? You know, because we had the, like, Galen Erso, he's an engineer, there's a research center, Galen Erso, say it, repeat what I've told you sequence between Clea and Cassian. And, like, to feel Clea's presence there and to feel then Luthen for Clea and Lani for Luthen and the relay race that we talked about going forward, like, to feel how – what that was in reverse, like, before we got to this point then, really satisfying and cool. Can I say something that I thought about when I was watching –

the frankly improbable events that happen in ADU when both Jyn and Cassian are able to like cross a massive ravine and go up like and the you know the climb motif which we talked about throughout Andor and into Rogue One the climb of course up you know a separate tower but like

What is a relay race, if not a ladder of some kind? You know what I mean? Like these various rungs on the ladder as we go up and up and up to send our message out. I just... We're gonna... I mean, we think we're watching Rogue One differently after Andor. Wait till we watch the Summer Olympics. Wait till we actually have a relay race in our lives again after our coverage of these properties. We'll never think of it the same way. I've never said relay race so much in my life as I have the last couple weeks. Yeah.

What about, I don't know if this like, in the grand scheme of things, Cassian is killing Tivic, a Sorcia is cultivated, somebody who is taking a great risk, somebody who is, as you noted, scared. I can't climb out of here with my arm.

How does the particular, like, shoots him in the back, soothes him, tells him it's okay, and then shoots him in the back part? Sit with you after Andor? Like, do you watch that any differently now? And, like, specifically, the thing that I was really thinking on, and this was just, like, it's part of the Andor is, this is a heroic tale, and there's a lot of triumph, but it also is deeply tragic, and ultimately, at the end of the day, complex. Yeah. I was thinking of that exchange between Draven and Cassian when...

We have some questions about some of the stuff he does in Rogue One later, based on what he does at the end of Andor. Not sure that's the most successful these things connect perfectly. But that exchange they had about Tivix specifically, do you trust him? And the way that Cassian said, I try. It's like, we see so much of that with Cassian and Jyn. It's not easy. Like, this has been one of the things that we've loved watching, but...

The rebellion has the same fissures and fractures inside of it that the Empire does. What are the distinctions? It's like, you're not my competition. You're not the one I have to beat. You're not the one that's stealing glory from me or I have to steal glory from. I try. Like, I'm going to try. And so to see that plastered bolt to the back, it's like, Luthien talks so much about the idea of sacrifice, and this is one of the moments where you feel that Cassian has to sacrifice. I mean, Tivik's the one.

paying a little bit of a toll here but cassie and soul exactly soul yeah that made me think of lost as things often do of the classic loss exchange it's never been easy yeah it's never been easy none of this is easy i've been craving a loss rewatch is it time let's do it when you said earlier that covet is like the covet time is i because i'm like didn't i just rewatch lost it feels like i did but also feels like 500 years ago beginning of covet that's

Have a decade. I can rewatch Lost again. You can. You sure can. Joanna, prison break, gin or so. This is like radically different to me post-Andor because we just did not have the comp.

For what K2 can do. Well, two things. Yeah. Yes. Frankly, like with the PTSD of watching K slam somebody into the ground after watching him pre-reprogramming on Gorman. But I was just like, okay, frankly, I like used to find this scene. Congratulations, you are being rescued. Please do not resist. Very amusing. And I still do because K2SO is the best. Now I'm just like, it's amazing that Jin made it out of this without a shattered spine and skull. Yeah. Um,

But with Cassian and Jyn, like, you know, we have the Lani Luthen season two finale, the need for kyber crystals, the crackdowns, the public order, the labor camps, Scarif, this idea of the labor camps and the role that they played in this machine. But our glimpse of Cassian's history with prison in Rogue One, just Rogue One, is him saying, we'll talk about this more later. It's new for me. We know his history in prison.

in Imperial confinement when he was young, after everything that happened with Clem on Ferex. And of course, we watched the Narkeena V arc. Right. So I just think of this now as like another rich layer of an experience that they both shared that we never really got to see them discuss, but that enriches something about like the parallels across their experiences and their lives. Yeah, absolutely. And I think also...

Yeah, this idea that they might have both helped build the Death Star to a certain degree, right? What was Jyn making in her labor camp? What was Jyn making? And I choose to think it was like those super big navy helmets that they wear on the Death Star. But Melchie being here. Melchie being the one to first encounter Jyn. And I don't know, just thinking of him as like...

The guy that Cassian takes on his missions right around this time. Like we talked about this last, last week when we covered the end of Andor, but like this idea that Cassian taking Melshi to get Clea and then Cassian, Cassian taking Melshi to get Jen. Yeah. And the fact that they were all,

on Narkina, you know, is just like, I love the use of Melshi. I could use more Melshi, but I thought that was a really smart character to sort of like build out. I agree. Thinking of especially like the parting back in Neimos after Melshi and Cassian escaped Narkina and the handing over of the Morlana thing.

Serial blaster from Cassian to Melchie. Vel will pick it up. It's there on Yavin. We're going to chat more about which blaster Cassian is carrying on Scarif later and the connections across these things that you inherit and share. But Melchie being like, especially through this like...

umbrella, this unifying umbrella of the idea of the messenger and the message. Melchie being like the one after Narcina who's like, people gotta know, man. We have to tell them. Melchie's like the conductor. You know? Yes! Yes! So him being a part of this year...

And the Wobani Imperial Labor Camp rescue for Jyn, all of that connecting together wonderfully. The only thing I felt like I was missing with Melchie in Rogue One after Andor was seeing him constantly, constantly, constantly guzzling booze. Yeah, should have had some booze on Scarif. I was, when Cassian's giving his big speech, which is

Post and or my favorite part of Rogue One, you know, like when with the like group shot behind him and Melchizedek's just like right over his shoulder. So I was like really watching Melchizedek's face during it. And then I was like, and I imagine that Will is in the back of the crowd, like someone who's in soft focus in the background is Will. He's right there.

When Chris talks about a fan edit, that's what I need is just like Will specifically. I mean, I'd love obviously like Val and Glam. Let's get them all. But I need Will inserted by someone into Rogue One. Like I need it. The moments where Cassian's back on Yavin, I'm just like, but certainly he went to have a chat with Will? Yeah.

And gently cradle his head and the neck in his hands. And say, Stone and Sky. Stone and Sky. Like, please, someone put that into the movie. Let's take Jin to Yavin. Let's do it. Cassian's kind of observing. Later, he will just be kind of puzzlingly absent from a very key scene that after Andrew, he would 100% be in. Bizarre. I know he had to go rally the troops. But Cassian was in.

Maybe he was like, I have to go see Will. That would be the only acceptable explanation. He was with Will, yeah. We have a lot to get to today and a lot of important stuff to focus on, but obviously the most important thing we've covered so far today is Krennic's cape, and now it's time for the second most important thing we'll be talking about today, and it's how it felt. We talked a lot about the progress on the Mon Mothma outfit front, sitting down at the end of Antwerp next to Val at breakfast, wearing just, like, clothes, and now we're back in the drapery.

How are you feeling? How are you coping? What do you need in this trying time? It's tough. They did a really good job in Andor trying to bridge the gap between Glammon and Dravmon, but now we're back in Dravmon. And let's just say it's been a tough 24 hours and Mon is stressed about this Death Star news and she's just like, you know, went to the meeting in her, you know, momo essentially. It's fine. Yeah.

Oh, man. Montel's gin. Listen, you can help. You can help. Also, you can make a fresh start. It can be good for you. It can be good for us. Draven's here. Merrick's here. Formal introduction time. Captain Cassian Andor of Rebel Intelligence. And Cass just launches in. No pleasantries at all. He's like, when did you last see your father? When did you last see Saw Guerrero? And...

Jyn is firmly in the Cassian at the beginning of Andor position here, right? Mm-hmm. I've never had the luxury of political opinions. That's what Jyn says here. She will share similar sentiments in her conversation with Saw on Jedha. Don't look up. Don't look up. Don't look up. Which we'll talk about. This is what Luthen's recruitment of Cassian had to work through. So that's another...

interesting parallel as you noted earlier when Chris was with us we just have much more time to work through that transition with Cassian than we do with Jyn but we have these key markers of where she is and then where she moves to they need Jyn to use her childhood connection to Saw thinking of Saw as like a thinking of Saw as someone who will say to Jyn people are going to use you as a hostage and use you against me so I had to like

Move on and leave you behind that all tracked. Saw as the like caregiver of this small child is pretty wild to contemplate. I know that Chris was like, it would be so bizarre to have a bottle episode, but I'm still, I'm enamored of a Saw and Jen bottle. Like what was that like for Jen or so? Sign me up. Sign me up. Did he teach her how to like take care of her hair and apply eyeliner? I don't know. Who did that? Depending on like the, you know,

We don't know. When did Plutie the Cutie make his way into the Partisans? Yeah. How many of these people interacted? Like, how present was Tubes for Jyn? Young Jyn? All of these things are things that we deserve answers to. We have seen, across our tales, Luthen in Season 1 of Andor, Mon with Saw in Star Wars Rebels, or as Gilroy would say, quote, the cartoon. Yeah. The Andor finale.

Or Saw appears in hollow form and has a very memorable exchange with our Yavin council, our Rebel Alliance council. If only you could fight as well as you lie. They're not on good terms and we know that. So Mon is like, Saw's an extremist. He's been fighting on his own since he broke with the Rebellion. We've got no choice but to try to mend that broken trust. Did this all track for you, given that...

basically a few hours before in the canon, they were just like in touch. Does it feel like fine? Because he's like, peace out, we're done. And now they're like, well, we got to find a way back. How about this person? I feel like we need a more productive way. We need a, we need an inside person. He's not responding to text. He's leaving us on read. We need to try something else. Our Lister Rodrigo said, why not use will to get to saw instead of gin? Holy shit. Rodrigo just officially ruined Rogue One for me. Oh no. Oh no.

Will's right there. And he and Saw have a tight, tight Rhydo-Huffing bond. Go on the ride! Where are you going with me? Do you think that Saw ever taught Jyn to Huff Rhydo? Is that a thing? It's totally possible. Our listener Michael also asks this. The Endor source for Galen's name is Dedra Talani Taluthin. And Rogue One's confirming source is from Saw to Tivic.

Given how central Saw is to Jyn's survival, that he is the critical link to the plans Galen leaks, and the significance of his role in Andor, Saw himself or someone in his faction would be the obvious choice to source the intel of Jyn's existence. When the Alliance extractors from the Imperial Confinement on Wabani under the alias Lyanna Halleck, this intel is already known. We never learn how Draven comes to know of her. So how did they figure out that Galen or so had a daughter and where to find her? Right.

Great question. Tony, give us that three-episode arc. We'd love to see it. Okay. Great question. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting example of the kind of thing that certainly a season of Andor would have explored or led to one of those really satisfying Andor viewing moments where, like, we get to piece together through crumbs of five Lani conversations what the exact tapestry of intelligence was. This is...

A good email. Rodrigo and Michael, we have no answers for you, but we appreciate your questions. Thanks for asking them. Why not use Will to get to Saw instead of Jin? Oh my god. Jeez. Well, is this like... Is this like, what is it? Which... Oh yeah. Raiders of the Lost Ark. That it all would have ended up anyway. How it happened if Indy had not been involved. Anyway.

It wouldn't have been as fun for Cassian to hop around from planet to planet with Will as it would Jin, who's a plutty cutie herself, you know? Yeah.

Obviously, Jyn and Saw have a rich history, but yeah, the Will note is a great one. Okay. Jyn's like, what does this have to do with my dad? And they tell her about the weapon, Bodhi's claim that Galen sent him, that they're hoping Saw will then help them find Galen, the whole thing. They want Galen to then go testify in front of the Senate that they've all left? But is not yet disbanded. But is not yet disbanded. Well, isn't Bail still in the Senate?

Incredible moment in Bale's life. I'm so excited to talk about our limited Bale later when he's like, just got to go fill in some folks on Alderaan. BRB.

Bail! Let's talk about some Imperial infighting, one of our favorite things to watch. If only, wasn't it, it was on Gorman that the shuttles to Alderaan, like, kept, like, breaking down or whatever. Yeah. And, like, if only, if only Bail shuttled to Alderaan and not, uh, and not worked, you know? Yeah, the person next to Thea is like, Alderaan again? He's like, again? Yeah. Again! Again!

So stitched between, we're going to get to, we're going to kind of, we're mostly going in chronology throughout the film, but we should say there are going to be a couple stretches where we kind of cluster things that belong in one place. So stitched between, interspersed with our early Jedis sequences, we get some of these great little Imperial sequences. We're going to hit those together. Not great inside of the Imperial. The bickering, great. Not great. CGI Tarkin. Woof. Yikes. Hate it. As bad as ever. As terrible as ever.

And especially, and we talked about this before, but especially when they were just like, just so easily put Benjamin Bratt in for Jimmy Smits and it wasn't a big deal. So find someone with cheekbones and make him, you know, Tarkin. I mean, as you already noted during the Andor run, here, here's got the cheekbones. He does.

Also, like, Guy Henry, who, like, performs, you know, did the motion capture and the voice performance for Tarkin. Like, that would have been fine, honestly. Okay, anyway. Yeah, this would be a great one to have a redo on. Really would be.

Tarkin just roasts Krennic. Two passes on Rogue One. The Will edit and now the Tarkin edit. That's it. I would also just love a B update. Personally. A check-in on B. I just love it. I don't know why we can't get a check-in on B at the end of everything. That'd just be the end of all stories.

Have the actress who plays Clea play Leia and just like fuel conspiracy theories forever that that was actually Leia disguised the whole time. Why not? You've solved it. We have some notes in Soda Stark and he's got some notes for Krennic. Lays into him for losing a rather talkative pilot. All of the delays, all of the setbacks. I really love this as a Thrawn treason enthusiast because the cost of...

Project Stardust, the cost of the Death Star is so central to Thrawn's, like, what if we did it this way instead with my TIE program campaign, which is the source of, one of the sources of the tension between him and Krennic. Everybody who's in a position of power in the Empire is trying to do their own thing and dunk on the other person and make sure that Palpatine knows that the other guy fucked up. All of them. Um,

In the words of Partica, it's humbling, isn't it? Both of us reminded of our place in the chain of command. Coming home to roost for Tarkin. Also, when you think about Tarkin being way over budget, let's talk about the resources that he had to get from Gorman. And he's like, I'm going to get these resources from Gorman, but first I need a multi-year infiltration plan.

rot them from the inside espionage plan, and then I'll strip mine their planet. Like, that's... Think about the budget of spent on berets alone, you know? The beret budget was out of control. Two things that determined the time gap between the prequels and the original trilogy, Luke's age and Krennic's ability to project manage. Yeah, exactly. Not actually. Tarkin says that if word spreads...

They're at the goal line. If people start to find out about this, countless systems will flock to the rebellion. I loved this, confronting this idea after Andor, the idea that the Death Star, which is the biggest threat

To the planets it's going to annihilate. To the rebellion. To the people it will hurt, eliminate, control. Could also be the biggest spark for the rebellion, the biggest catalyst for the rebellion. It's just this very tangible manifestation of that core Luthan idea and belief and tactic that we've been watching dating back to Aldani. Yeah.

When he and Mon talked about what was happening, what was unfolding, the shifted circumstance, and he was kind of like, you always knew it was going to be this. Palpatine won't hesitate now, Mon said. Exactly, Luthan said. We need it. We need the fear. We need them to overreact. And then said later, the Empire has been choking us so slowly, we're starting not to notice. The time has come to force their hand. People will suffer. That's the plan. We get like a...

what now feels like an echo, even though A New Hope came first. When Leia is talking to Tarkin in A New Hope and says, the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. So this idea is really stitched throughout all of these properties then. I'm going to need you to do that line again in the Carrie Fisher bizarre English accent that she only does for a part of Star Wars.

Which she used to talk about in her one-woman show that she just came out of drama school and she was like, I decided to try it and we did it for like one scene. Do you have an impression? The more you tighten your grip talking, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. Pretty good.

Not really, but neither is Carrie Fisher in that moment. A perfect individual with an imperfect British accent that they abandon right away. Okay. Great stuff. I always love going to Wigwatch TM with Joanna Robinson TM and Accent Corner with Joanna Robinson. It's always special. Listen, if Carrie can make fun of it, so could we. It's a good rule. I think that's a good rule. I like that. It leaves a wide open field. It does. Absolutely. Tarkin tells Krennic, Palpatine's like...

Somehow he's going to return, but still, he's busy now. He's out of patience, right? We're on a schedule. We're on the clock. No further delays are going to be acceptable. Tells him, you have made time an ally of the rebellion, which is honestly pretty sick. That's a good burn. I like that. Coming off of Andor, going from, I can't protect you, Leo, that moment that we loved, that moment Chris loved between Krennic and Pardigast, to...

Krennic having to really confront what Partick has kind of winked at. Save the sermon for Palpatine. You're in trouble too. Basically, Krennic saved the sermon for Palpatine. I am trying to tread water for one final second until I drown, until I'm just sucked under. I love that specific connection with Krennic and just more broadly this pattern, Krennic and Dedra.

Dedra and Hirt, Dedra and Blevin, all of the cogs in the Imperial machine who are threatened by the person next to them or across from them who align and work together only to tear each other down.

scrambling and scrabbling on top of each other to try to get daddy's notice. And daddy is the emperor. Scrabbling on top of each other to try to get mommy's notice was part of the serial dead row. Yes. Turn out the lights, right? That was, yeah. Okay. Just making sure I'm keeping the cannons straight in my, in my head. The heel of one shoe in a thigh. That's all Mallory was hoping for. Okay. Yeah. Our listener, Sean sent this email actually yesterday.

a couple weeks ago, right? And said, watching credits seen in Andor versus a scene in Rogue One, I realized that in the former, he's the most feared and powerful person in every room he enters. And in the latter, he's basically Tedra, which is tough. Brutal. Beef. And then our listener, Mac, on comparing Far Guy Party to CGI Tarkin,

Max said, having just finished Rogue One after never seeing a single ounce of Star Wars before Andor, I have only one thing to say. When it comes to posh, elderly Imperials with receding hairlines and a tremendous amount of power in highly secretive organizations, Tarkin isn't fit to wipe Partigas' boots. Wow. Give me a kindly yet firm professor who coaches and supports his students slash subordinates instead of trying to steal their glory over whatever Tarkin's deal is any day.

Even if the professorial discipline is, quote, imperial fascistic order and the glory is, quote, constructed successful Death Star. P.S. While I still don't love the aggression with which Krennic booped the top of Dedra's head or smooshed her skull, I get it now. Tarkin seems like a real dick. And from what I gather, neither Palpatine nor this Vader guy are much better. This Vader guy!

Mac, welcome to Star Wars. Holy shit. Incredible email. Yeah. This Vader guy is an all-timer. Reminds me of way back in the day in Ringer Star Wars Slack when a Ringer colleague who shall remain nameless...

got spoiled in Slack. If I had responded with, Anakin becomes Darth Vader, you never know when someone is going to watch Star Wars for the first time. You're going to have to tell me later who that was. I will. You didn't cross paths, but I still will tell you. Andor being... Now I can't stop thinking about what it would be like if Andor was the first exposure to Star Wars. Yeah.

That's like starting with the best sex of your life and then like...

I think if you go from Anor to Rogue One to A New Hope to Empire, you're cooking with gas. You're having a good time. You get to Return of the Jedi. I was talking to a friend this weekend about my Star Wars friends this weekend about my friend was like, how old were you when you were first told that you were supposed to hate the Ewoks? Because the whole generational thing of the people who thought Ewoks were dumb but those of us who grew up who were kids were like Ewoks are the best, what do you mean? Yeah.

Wicked rules? What are you talking about? And that's how kids younger than the generation below us talk about Jar Jar Binks and stuff like that. They're like, Jar Jar rules. I'm like, okay, if you say so. Anyway. Witcher of the Jedi, also a great film. I love Star Wars. These are my hot takes. I love Star Wars. You are never going to hate the Ewoks. I mean, we get a musical number. Come on.

And they're cat-coded. They're pretty cat-coded, you know? Oh, yeah. This is the thing I'm most looking forward to with Mandalorian and Grogu is getting to revive our Grogu as a cat, not a dog discussion. I mean, obviously we're right. We know we're right. I know we know we're right. But it's been a little while since we've gotten to tell people that. For a second, there was a little skip on my heart because I thought you were going to say you think there's going to be a musical number in Mandalorian and Grogu, and I got very excited. Why not? Yeah.

Grogu could definitely perform a musical number. Future Days, a little song from Din to Grogu. I never would lose you. All right, back to Rogue One. Tarkin says it's time to test the weapon. And he'd like to make sure Krennic knows that Palpatine Invader will not be present to spare Krennic any potential embarrassment. Great stuff, Savage. Brutal. Tarkin says to only hit the Holy City.

Jedha City. We need a statement. We're not doing a planet. Right. Not a manifesto. Yeah. Save the manifestos for Nemec. Yeah, don't you dare. Let's converge on Jedha. Holy site. Pilgrim moon being strip mined of its kyber. Saw is here. The Empire is here. Tubes is here. Jen and Cassian and Tubes is here. Everyone's about to be here. Jerold is here. Let's cluster first just these Saw Bodhi scenes.

Saw's men, including the icon tubes, take Bodhi into custody and Bodhi is imploring them. He'll later implore Sai, he's like, they didn't, I defected, I came here, they didn't bring me to you. And to everyone, he's imploring them, we are all on the same side if you just see past the uniform. Now this obviously connects to like a kind of core focus inside of Andor. Can the people fighting for the same side, either side, yeah,

Find a way to get along. Find a way to coexist. Find a way to believe in each other. And you have that, will we all be able to make ourselves stronger if we unite side of it? But then it was hard to not think about the warnings that are also issued throughout Andor, like Cassian warning Rylance and Gorman in season two, right?

Feeding false information is what they do. Saw is one of the most paranoid characters we ever spent time with in Star Wars. Seeing the way that that seeps into the rest of his crew feels like a very partisan-specific thing, a Saw Gerrera-specific thing. But this idea of, can we trust the guy who came from the Empire and told us to trust him?

You kind of get it. But also, if they can't find a way, then how are they going to move forward? It's this fascinating tension. Once you've been betrayed by Plutie the Cutie, how do you ever come back from that? It fucking lingers. The sting lingers. Are you still sure that Plutie was red? Are you sure?

about this comparing this to like the way they're treating Bodhi here versus the way we see Cassian and like Naya talk at the beginning of season two it's like how do you use someone who's turned how do you greet what's not exactly the hero's welcome right that Bodhi was hoping for like you know how do you how do you welcome someone into the resistance or how do you torture them with the Borgullet you know there's like a couple ways you could go deceptions Borgullet

Oh, Gallant will know the truth. Yeah, no, that's – Naya was on my mind in another sequence actually also involving Bodhi when he and Jyn have a little bonding moment over Galen and Bodhi shares what Galen told him.

That was a real, like, you're coming home to yourself moment of Galen imparting that belief in Bodhi that it wasn't too late to try to be better. I loved that. Loved. Our listener Ben had an email about this. We get that moment, but Ben is like,

Ben was saying, I rewatched Rogue One prior to the premiere of season two. And as I watched it with the eye of knowing there would be a prequel, there seemed to be a backstory with Gale and Erso and Bodhi the pilot. Gale and Erso, for reasons we don't get, trusts Bodhi enough to give the message to him. And Bodhi, for reasons we don't get, chooses his risky mission and defects from the Empire. I think there was a lot there that could have been explored in the final arc. And it's something that's seemingly clearly set up in the movie. Obviously, I'm glad we spent the time with the characters we love from season one of Andor. But I'm a little disappointed we didn't give our...

or guy Bodhi some screen time. So like what I've loved to have seen, this is me, Joanna talking. What I have loved to see, see Riz Ahmed in Andor.

Yes. We don't even have time for anything, everything. But yeah, like what... We've been great. Why do we rebel? Yeah. You know? What is the thing that tips us over? Which is the whole question of Andor. Right. And the question here for Jyn. Right. Why are you stepping into the circle? Right. When is the moment where it becomes undeniable for you? Yeah. Yeah. It's a really, really great...

Really great note from Ben, and obviously something even the first time you watch Rogue One, you're like, oh, I wonder what exactly the history is between Bodhi and Galen and how they got to this point. But it had never – I won't lie – it had never actually been top of mind for me in the way that, like, after Andor, when you have all of these insights about other people, you crave it. You long for that kind of insight into somebody's circumstances. Awesome.

Also the risk. Like, we see Bodhi die at the end of this, you know, movie along with everyone else. But like you think... Wild. But you think about like, you know, Gorman, you know, like the moments that people stand up knowing that they're going to die. And like, what does it take to, you know, the slow roll of Gorman watching people get slowly radicalized over years into something. So, you know, what were the little...

moments for Bodhi along the way that got him here. It's just fascinating to think about. And you had to have so many of those people. Right. And this is Nemec's whole proposition, right? It's happening all across the galaxy. Everywhere. Something else that has happened everywhere is that Saw has just lost chunks of his body. They're gone. All over. They're everywhere. Pieces falling off. Missing appendages. Boy, it's a harrowing place to find our guy. Yeah.

I love Saw. I don't think anyone can claim to be as big of a Saw enthusiast as Chris Ryan, who... Chris has been radicalized to the Guerrero way. With a rhino! With a fuel. But it is great. It's just great to be back with Saw. I really love it. He kind of instantly becomes a classic 2016 lingering now into 2025 meme in this stretch with the Lies Deceptions. This was just instantly like...

I remember people quoting this to each other all the time. We used to say this on Visual and Star Wars all the time. It's just fun. Saw is just an absolute fucking icon. Truly. Elsewhere on Chata, different vibes.

Cassian, Jyn, and K2SO are packing up to leave Yavin and head to Jedha. And this is one of the places where I was like, I just, I don't know. I guess we just assume that Cassian goes and says goodbye to his friends once more, but I kind of wish we had seen it. Alas, Draven gives Cassian a little bit of a, come here, got something just for us. Kill Galen or so. Kill him. Kill him dead. This is where our listener, William...

uh points out that general draven spent most of andor season two lecturing cassian about protocol and obeying orders only a few days later he countermans the orders given by his civilian bosses and straight up tells cass to assassinate urso who is the privateer now draven but i heard it wasn't a base for privateers great stuff um yeah this is this is

I think, as mentioned earlier, the Draven stuff is, like, a little... It mostly holds. It's, like, a little naughty from Andor to Rogue. I mean, I will say there's, like, a number of little, like, side conversations between Draven and Cassian. Yes. Around, you know, the base. Like, that... So that, like...

Draven and Cassie have a side conversation is something we saw right at the end of the second. For sure, it was about Tivic and everything, yeah. Yeah, but like... It was more for me... It's more for me later, like his position in the council, actually because of what he does here, because of this, like the privateers joke in the email, sort of like...

Why isn't he, like, saying it with his chest? To quote my beloved former colleague, Jay Serrano, when everyone, all the senators are fucking embarrassing themselves at the council. Like, I feel like Draven at that point should be like,

This is probably the thing we should do. That's the part where I, like, bump a little bit. Yeah. Him pulling Cassian on the side to be like, we're the spies. Like, let's do some spy shit. That, I think, works okay. And I think, like, the other thing that works more broadly is just that this is yet another glimpse into this really central focus across Andor of, like, let's get our hands dirty, too. Right? The rebellion is not just the heroes. I guess that...

We're the spies, let's do some spy shit. Because hasn't Draven been like, you're a leader, you're a captain, you're a part... We're an army. Yes. We're like, you know, we're an organized army. We're not cloaking, daggering around for Luthan anymore. Sure, and there's that tension there of like, why do you guys run when Luthan calls? But at the end of the day, his unit is alliance intelligence. And so this idea of like working inside of intelligence and off of intelligence instead of being...

uh confined by politics i feel like there's like a slight driven um distinction to some of the other council members who do come from like that senatorial background but yes you're absolutely right that he's still like why do you guys like just the rail the rail riders still after all this time always but yeah i did like the like you know and or so focused on

There's a reason that we have to joke 20 times on every pod about how we don't like fascists, and it's because these characters become indelible and we become so invested even as we condemn what we watch them do. And then on the other side of it, the heroes, you've got the Maya Pay Brigade, you've got the dipshits, you've got the fuck-ups, you've got the... How dare you? This is not the last time they're going to come up today. Yeah.

You have the character. Like, Luthen is a guy who... You don't know what they did. You don't know, A, who survived, and B, what key thing they did on Scara for otherwise. Where was this earlier when Chris was like, who from Rogue One do you wish had been an Andor? You could have turned it around and said, who from Andor do we wish had been

Why are we not talking more about the Maya paper gate? Okay. So we just have like a few notes and it's the will edit the target edit the Maya paper gate edit. I love it. I love it. I love it. I also love watching K2 and Jen get to know each other. Great stuff. High comedy, always signature whip on display and a great little explanation here from Cassie about his reprogramming and how everything he said just says whatever comes to his mind.

I did find it odd after the safe house rescue on Coruscant that Cassian is not allowing K2SO to carry a blaster. Is it strange? The Gorman memories run deep. You know what I mean? I suppose. I suppose. Jyn's the one who says here because she wants a blaster. Trust works both ways. And I feel like Kay would agree.

Now we understand. Kay's like, do you trust me now? And the answer is apparently no. What am I, chump with it? Kind of fucked up. But this is true for Cassian, like broadly. He's got to work up to trusting you. It doesn't come naturally. Yeah, we had some really interesting emails about this that I'm excited to get to. This is where we get the little stretches they travel of Jyn dreaming. These glimpses, drinks with Krennic.

All of these little maggots from the past. Very quick would have been cool to get more of that, but we get kind of just an aura, a sense of the passage of time across Jyn's life. And then when they arrive on Jedha, Cassian and Jyn tell Kay to stay behind. Yeah. I think he makes a great point here, which is like, I'm going to be able to blend in a lot better than you two. We have a number of, like, A New Hope cameos and connections and the level of kind of Star Wars, like, Easter egg and wink that just does not really happen in Andor. We get your favorite. Yeah.

Right? Ponda Baba? Nope. Dr. Cornelius? These are your favorite characters from A New Hope? You've always said it. There they are. Ninjetta City with their scrotal facial features. I'm a known cantina Easter egg searcher. That's what I love to do. How can we connect this back to the cantina? Your favorite thing. What did you make here of the way that Cassian, when he's kind of priming Jyn for infiltrating Saw's lair here, this like kind of

casual lie he's like yeah I had a contact he's just gone missing he's gone missing but we'll find his sister that'll get us a meeting with Saw I mean I guess he's not gonna be like I killed him but it's very cold what is he gonna say I don't know horrifying and then Joe this is where we get the on our little relay race theme we talked about this a lot when we covered Andor and

The continued passing of the torch of rebellions are built on hope. Hope that gets us a meeting with Saw and Jyn stops. Hope? And Cassian turns. Yeah. Rebellions are built on hope. Over the shoulder. This like wrecked us when we saw the origin of this in Andor, saw Thela on Gorman at the hotel impart this wisdom to Cassian and to think then of how Cassian shared it with Jyn and Jyn will share it on Yavin and then Leia will invoke the word hope on and on and on.

really really beautiful and it was so moving to understand where this came from in andor and very satisfying then to get to rogue one and see it here really just i love this it's great yeah it's interesting because rebellions are built on hope um

A trailer line, like a very iconic Rogue One line, obviously. But now it feels just like an iconic Star Wars line. Yeah. You know? Yeah, it has moved beyond the franchise. Something that people, more people, even more people get tattooed on them somewhere. Yeah. I kind of can't believe I don't have a Star Wars tattoo. Seems shocking. Yet. Exactly. What would you get? I don't know. I've thought about it a lot over the years. A quote is, a quote seems like likely, but...

Not a little Grogu? No, because if you can't capture the glint in his eye, you know? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I'd have to think about it. There's a lot of things from Star Wars that I would like. Would you get The Greatest Teacher? The Greatest Teacher Failures, which is up on the wall behind me in this video. Would that be your Star Wars tattoo? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great one. Great one. Joanna, speaking of Grogu and Yoda and the Force...

Take us through our initial meeting here of our beloved Chirrut. This is an incredible character introduction to an incredible character who is only with us for a very, very short period of time, but is nonetheless very, very impactful. And I'd also like to, before we get to all of this...

It's very important to me to shout out the time at Star Wars Celebration when Donnie Yen was just like, and then my character dies before this movie came out. Yeah. And it was just like, really?

They're like, tell us about your character. He's like, well, blah, blah, blah. And when he dies and everyone on stage goes like, white as a sheet. It's so... Find the video. It's one of my favorite things that's ever happened. Remarkable. Little did anyone know at the time that that was kind of not a spoiler because everyone in Rogue One dies. It's just a drop in the death bucket, honestly. Saying someone dies in Rogue One is like saying someone lives in another movie. It's just like the baseline. There's... I love this...

Here we have the Force introduction in this moment. What we know now about Cassian and his feelings about the Force. Cassian will do many times in this movie, and some to higher stakes than others, is literally hauled gin bodily out of a scene. He does it multiple times. And this is a lower stakes version, but he does it here. And I don't know, we just like this...

Chirrut is this like force sensitive, but not a Jedi figure is such a compelling addition to this universe. And the way in which later he'll talk about, you know, the force moving darkly around someone who has plans to kill. So this idea of like the force swirling with intention around someone. And so this idea that like the force healer and Yavin is,

you know, feels the threads gathering around Cassian. Yeah. And the way that like, you know, the threads of destiny might be gathering around Jyn and Cassian here and Jedha in a way that would, you know, get Chirt's notice is so satisfying. I love that. Like it's always been great and chill inducing, I think, when he first calls out to Jyn from across the square and can like sense the kyber and in general, just like,

The guardians of the wills are like just a really interesting and precious to George Lucas, you know, aspect of the canon. Like it's just fun to have that featured here. I love the Chirrut and Baze relationship for so many reasons. I love like their dynamic with each other. I love the tenderness. Talk about and I ship it. Totally. Yeah. Nice. I think this is a counterexample to this question of like,

is Rogue One shallow? Does it not have enough time to be deep? I feel like I don't need... I'm clamoring for so many backstories. You understand what you need to about them here. I mean, I would love a Trinbays origin story backstory, but also I just feel like I know everything I need to know. Yeah. I don't need luck, I have you. You know what I mean? It's just like... Yeah. It's there. I love it. And I love the...

pairing of this devotion, the history that they have, the devotion to each other with the divide. Like you shared a thing with somebody and then one of you kept believing and one of you stopped. Yeah. But you're still together. Like I really, really, it's such a rich thing. And I love to like the, the, you know, cause we hear like the force litany repeated often across the film.

I love that the first version of it that we get here is may the force of others be with you. Just in a story about like alliance building. That's just such a great little touch. I really, really, really love that every time. Cassian's like, dude, I'm,

I've got my feelings on the Force Healer and all that still, but also I was on Ferenc. I was on Gorman. I've seen this before. This place is about to blow. Like, he can sense the fever pitch. Yeah. And Saw's forces and the Imperial forces attack at the same time. Cassian tries to stop Jyn from saving a small child, which is arguably the single most shocking thing that happens in the movie. Not a great look, but at the same time, like...

Thinking about Cassian on Gorman and how Cassian is laser-focused on his mission, which is Dedra, while shit is happening all around him. And he's like, that's not my mission. You're my mission! K is really the Winter Soldier of Star Wars. Oh my god, totally. He's killing troopers. He kills the partisan. Saw's team is going to have some notes. My note is that guy had a...

grenade in his hand cassian uh did everyone a favor there k is like i just went to level 27 you can tell me to stay behind all you want i'm not doing it and i know that deep down you don't want me to do it and you probably need me and guess what they do he's right once again cassia needs k2so who arrives just in time did you know that wasn't me always gets me it's really good

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. We've definitely been together long enough for me to know exactly which like dents and dings you have in your armor. Sure. And Tarut immediately comes to their aid. Like just generosity and the compassion and desire to help and unite. Wonderful. Tells the troopers, let them pass in peace. They're not going to do that. And so here our guy goes, I fear nothing for all is as the force wills it. Hey,

Stop right there. He's blind. Is he also deaf? What does he say about like, watch your foot or whatever as he like jams his staff into his foot? Oh my God.

It just does the full Matt Murdock here, Jo. I mean, it's just... Annihilates them. This is one of my favorite pieces of Star Wars choreography, full stop. So good. It's very good. I love later when he's using, you know, he's attuned, as you noted, but also he's like, let me check the weather and check the wind and then uses the crossbow to take down a TIE fighter. That's fucking sick. But yeah, this is gorgeous. It's like balletic. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. This is why you hired Don Yen. So good. Absolutely beautiful. Yeah. Cassian Aspies. Is he a Jedi? Yeah.

No Jedi here anymore. Only dreamers like this fool. The Force did protect me. I protected you. I don't need luck, I have you. Like, that's what it is, right? There's no difference necessarily. Like, the Force protected me because the Force brought you here to be with me, to protect me. Would you say it's the energy between all things? I think it connects us all, you know? Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter, something like that.

Back in the day watching Rogue One, I always used to think about this as, you know, Jyn is somebody whose mother said, may the Force be with you, and who received a kyber crystal pendant. But now, of course, we think of Cassian and the Force hero, like you said, and it just takes on, it does, it takes on extra weight. I really, I like, I like this now through a new lens. But like, that's, that's the thing is like through the lens, I care more about Cassian. I'm focused more on Cassian than I am on Jyn. And that's, that's, I think it's just a true thing. It's just a fact. Yeah. Just a true thing. Okay.

Saw doesn't give a shit about Cassian, though. Nope. Saw did not watch Andor. Saw did not watch Andor. Neither did Admiral Raddus, despite being in it. I've got some notes for him later. He's like, she did it. Disney+, Hulu, Netflix. We are the streamers. Oh, my God. We are the content. You know? Dude.

Hell yeah. Which streamer is Saw's favorite? What do you think? Paramount+. Oh, yeah. Oh, dude. Saw's a big Yellowstone guy. Big Sheridanverse guy. He is. I hate to tell you. He is. Oh, my God. Incredible. Cassie and Shrewd Bays all wind up in a cell.

This is where our guy Trude is like repeating his refrain and Baze is just befuddled, like tells Cassian he's praying that the door is going to open. Trude says it bothers him because he knows it's possible. This made me think specifically inside of the Force healer sequence of Bix going back to their home and sees Cassian is like, mm-hmm.

It's better, isn't it? The shoulder, the blasted rug. Must be confusing. Like when a doubter, a skeptic is confronted. It's like when you put, you use red light therapy and you're like, oh, it does work. Does it work? Yeah. Never tried it. I see a lot of stuff online though. You should get like a full, you should deck out a full room in your house with red light panels. Just stand in there.

for everything here's what ails you should i to pass no free ads this is not sponsored by any specific red light panel list how should i pass the time while i'm in there just quoting saga rare to myself uh you can this is where you can you can listen to the watch in the bath or you can listen to the watch while standing in your red room not to be confused with i like it's great yeah it's true great drake i'm not welcome um

I'm beginning to think the Force and I have different priorities, Joe, Cassian says here. We talked about this in Andor. The next thing he says makes no sense at all when he says, when they're talking about we've been in worse cages than this one, and Cass says, this is a first for me. It's just simply... It just makes... It just... Doesn't make sense. Cannon breaking. That's fine. Let's move on. Shattering. I'm logic pretzeling this to myself as like, it's not the time for him to go into this

backstory and life's history with these, uh, in essence, strangers. But I do the disconnect with an Arkena and, and, and everything before that aside, I do like when truth says to him, there's more than one sort of prison, uh, captain. I sense that you carry yours wherever you go. Just this idea of what Cassian carries with him and how it shapes him. Um,

This idea of wherever you go there, you are. And also this idea of like Marva talking about this place inside of her head that she's created that no one can find her. And this idea that like at this point Cassian has created a prison, which is the opposite of what Marva has created inside of her own head and is carrying it with him always. Marva. Miss Marva. Maybe that's the tattoo I'll get.

The little photo of Marva that they had on Mina Rao. That's absolutely not what you're going to get. No? No. You could get a text from Marva's speech, but you're not. You could get a tattoo of Bea saying, Ma-ma-ma Marva is, I think, as close as you would get to getting a portrait of Marva. I love it. I love it. Okay. It's time for Saw and Jin to reconnect. Yeah.

He can't believe she's here. She's pretty angry that he left her behind. Again, as we discussed, he's like, yeah, I had a lot of heat on you. It was bad for me. Got to put the cause before anyone else, whether it's you or Blooty the cutie. And he kind of channels a little bit of the Luth and Lonnie energy here. I think of you daily. You know, I told you I think of you all the time, and I do. Yeah.

But he's also channeling his inner Admiral Ackbar because he is pretty sure that this is a trap, that Jyn is there to kill him because of the timing of all of the other things unfolding around him. Very tough stuff here to see our guy saw in this state. And yet he manages, as he always does, to have a very focused political conversation despite the subsuming nature of his swirling paranoia. He asks, like, do you...

Care not about the cause? All it's ever brought me is pain, Jin says. You can stand to see the Imperial flag ring across the galaxy. It's not a problem if you don't look up. Is where I was thinking of our guy Perrin.

I love this. Tell me. Tell me. Who says in his speech, trouble and disagreement will arrive without summons. There's no choice in this. There's no effort required. You simply stand still and the galaxy will deliver a basket of fresh anxieties to your door without fail. But Perrin's counsel is don't look up. Right. Chase joy.

Also, I love this. Your favorite character, Skeen, as played by Emma Musbacher in the Aldani arc. I am genuinely a huge fan of both Skeen and Perrin, as you know. When Skeen, and the fact that like Jyn is reminding me of Skeen and Perrin lets you know she's a character on an arc, and we love a character on an arc. Skeen and Perrin never got to arc further than their lowest selves. Skeen...

when trying to convince Cassian to split the money with him and take off, right? Yeah.

Says, oh, I'm a rebel. It's just me against everybody else. Where would that put me? 40 million credits is enough for me to forget all about you. Don't play the high mind with me. You're not here to save anybody but yourself. I saw it the first minute you came into camp. You're like me. We were born in the hole. All we know is climbing over somebody else to get out. And you think about like, Jin literally down in that hole at the beginning of the movie. Like the way in which...

Yeah, Cassian and Jyn and a number of other characters have had, as Cassian will later tell her, like, you're not the only one who lost everything. Some of us did something about it. I would just say Cassian...

It took you a minute to get there. You're pretty fresh to this doing something about it. Yeah. You know, he says, I've been in this fight since I was six. And to a certain degree, that's true. And he does stand up and go. But, like, he has this whole stretch where he's just, like, a gentleman thief, a gun for hire sort of thing. You know what I mean? And he's not a rebel until we see him go on that arc inside of Andor. And Jyn does it in a shorter little span of a movie. Back to.

I, I, I love, love the Skeen and Perrin call outs. I was, yeah, Cassian, that aspect of Cassian's arc was on my mind. And specifically that conversation between Cassian and Marva and that great scene between them in season seven of episode one, when she says people are standing up after Aldani, after Aldani. And he says, yeah, I'm getting killed for it.

But there's work that we'll need doing. Yeah, what is that? Whatever it takes. I've been lying down waiting to die long enough. You can't beat them, Marva. Like, this was only a handful of years ago. Yeah. Love a character on an arc. Has it come up before? I don't know. I just keep hearing it from...

whether it's about like, I don't know, climate change or AI or the current administration or whatever it is, people just being like, it's inevitable. What are you going to do? And it's like, that's the mentality that like, just lets this whole thing wash over you, you know? What would Nemec say? You gotta try. Try. Do. Try. Nemec's manifesto, Luthan's speech, Marva's speeches, those are Hall of Fame. Yeah.

Rogue One has some memorable speeches and stretches. Nothing quite like that, I will say. Nothing quite like that. But there's a lot to break down, at least, in the Galen message to Jyn and Saw.

Can I just say, I'm so... I do like Rogue One. I'm so annoyed. I understand that Jyn's world is rocked by this holo. Yeah. She had so much time... No, this is absurd. ...to grab this. This is terrible. This is genuinely terrible. I hate that she did not take the holo with her. It drives me crazy, too. Thank you for saying this. I'm with you completely. This is like...

This is why they said, well, I don't want to say like you had one job because there's a lot going on, but like, obviously this is the crucial thing. Grab it. She had so much time. Nothing. A lot of people have embarrassing and tough moments across Star Wars, including an Andoran Rogue one, but nothing tougher than that moment where we cut to Jen and she's just like, nope, nope.

No, I didn't. Brutal. All right, let's hit a couple of the key strands of what Galen says here. So I did the one thing nobody expected. I lied. I made myself indispensable, he adds, and all the while I laid the groundwork of my revenge. We call it the Death Star. There is no better name.

How can we not be thinking of Lonnie here, Joe? And all the other people who hid and waited and fought in some sort of hidden way, but also specifically who had to be a part of the thing that they hated for longer than they would have wanted to in order to

The Lonnie comp is so good. Because there's other people, like, you know, we love calling out the two techs who locked the booth so that Mon could give her speech. There's people all over the place. But Galen, having his wife killed in front of him and his daughter, he does not know where. And then for the next, you know, however long is working, 15 years, is working...

with his team who he then gets killed unfortunately on Edu. Like, you know, like, this is the long con of Galen Erso, of him just sort of like doing his Lonnie best. It's incredible. 15 years is such a long time. So long. Such a long time. Imagine all the like, imagine all the fucking cocktail hours he had to have with Krennic. All the Cali coolers. Yeah. You think if you're those other guys who were on Edu on Project Stardust, you could just be like, I'd rather not go out to the planet.

I'm good. Let me know what Krennic had to say. It's raining. We'll be inside. Oh, man. I'm good. I actually don't need any FaceTime. I'm getting dead. I'm just going to stay here, get a little more work done. Galen shares the weakness, the weakness that he planted. A flaw so small and powerful, he says, they will never find it. He explains the blast to the reactor, the plants in Scarif, all of that.

Over our many years and decades of consuming Star Wars, I think it is fair and true to say that a thing that is iconic, hallowed, sacred, prized, the Death Star, the destruction of the Death Star, Luke destroying the Death Star, is also the source of much mockery, right? The one shot took down the Death Star. Okay, this is like still just a genius bit of...

Let's show how this was actually one man's... I love you describing it as a long con. Determined...

quest to specifically weaponize the Empire's hubris. The fact that they don't pay attention and they don't care and they don't look, and specifically that they don't believe they could be beaten. That most of all. And so I was thinking a lot about, we talked about this at the end of the Andor season, going back to these formative initial conversations between Cassian and Luthen, and where was the hook really

put in to Cass, and it was this idea, right? Like in episode three, they're so fat and satisfied, they can't imagine it, Cassian said. Can't imagine what? That someone like me would ever get inside their house, walk their floors, spit in their food, take their gear. Luthan replied, the arrogance is remarkable, isn't it? Like that's what we're watching here, the arrogance to never believe.

That this great thing could be undone until it's too late. This is a thing I will say about Dedra. Not that she wasn't arrogant in a million ways. She was, of course. But that she never underestimated. She was always on the lookout for these patterns, stuff like that. It's funny. I had part of that quote elsewhere, but I had it when Cass and Jyn put on the Imperial uniforms. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And Kat says, to steal from the Empire, what do you need? A uniform, some dirty hands, and an Imperial toolkit? They're so proud of themselves, they don't even care. Like, it doesn't even occur to them that I would walk into their house and steal their shit. That's a great spot for it. And especially because, like, K2SO is, you know, one of the men who never tell me the odd sequences. He's like, this is how many people are going to be in our way. We're never going to make it. It's like, we put on the uniforms and also we're going to have Melchior

Detonate some charges. Yeah. They're all going to go run to deal with that. Scramble. And it'll be okay. Another thing that I loved about this, when we hear the single reactor ignition order for Jedha, later for Scarif, hear the description, we've all seen A New Hope a million times. We know that they're hitting the reactor. It's causing the chain reaction. But coming out of Andor, what was the Kalkite for? To coat the lenses in the reactor? Yeah.

This is such an enriched aspect of Star Wars to me now that Gorman, the place that was destroyed in order to take this thing to build this heinous machine, that the gore were there inside of it helping to take it down. Like, I just love that. Love, love, love, love, love that. Just all of the people. All of the people. I love Luke, but all of the people love Luke more.

And again, that's, that's, it's a different relay race. There's the Lonnie information relay race. There's the like hope rebellion is built on hope relay race, you know, and this is like the scientific plans relay race, you know, the, like the, the, the, the chink in the armor relay race. Yeah. There's a lot of personal stuff in here too. A lot of words from Galen for Jen, his pride, his longing, his,

how hard it's been, this deep sorrow that he has that, as he says, so much of my life has been wasted.

And I was really struck by, again, this parallel for Cassian and Jyn, both of whom, first of all, I mean, Galen is still alive here. Jyn will get to see him. Marva is dead. But who got to, like, hear these things from their parents who had been absent from their lives in this hollow form, like, to get to hear this voice from beyond the grave or the grave you assumed was a grave, like, just what an amazing thing it would be a boon to hear their wisdom and get to learn from them and feel that encouragement, like, one more time. I love that. Yeah.

But just also like the substance of it, I was thinking back to that moment like that I love and that we both love from the end of season one when Brazo, no stone for Brazo, no stone for Brazo. God damn it, Joanna for Brazo! We got an email from a listener who was like, don't you think that Bix put a stone for Brazo on Mina Rao? I hope so. It wouldn't be a Ferex brick, but that's okay. Ferex stone and sky. I bet she found a suitable stone for Brazo.

It's not a place, it's a people. I love it. Asgard. What did Brazo tell Cassian from Marva? Tell him he knows everything he needs to know and feels everything he needs to feel. And when the day comes and those two pull together, he will be an unstoppable force for good. Tell him I love him more than anything he could ever do wrong. Gets me every fucking time. Jesus. This is Jyn's version of hearing this from Galen.

This message could have gone anywhere. It could have been intended to anyone. But he is saying to Jyn, who just said to Cassian, to Saw, this isn't really for me. You're the one who can do this. And like... You're the message. And I think what's so interesting, you know, we had listeners talk, email us about this idea of like,

Again, it's about backfilling. And this idea that, like, Jyn is the message and Cassie and the messenger. And they're, like... Love that. That union is so interesting to me. But, like, also, from, like, a storytelling point of view, we're going to get to Eadu shortly. And how Andor has radically changed my feelings about that sequence, which is actually a sequence I've always kind of been frustrated by. Yeah. Yeah.

Because when, you know, Galen dies and it matters to me that he gets to see Jyn and it matters to me that Jyn gets to see him. Like, that matters emotionally. For sure. But he doesn't give her any information because we got a hologram download and that's better. You know, I have so much to tell you then is not about, like, an information download. It's about, like...

your mother liked her tea this way or like whatever it is, you know, like there are things that are shared in a family that I want to talk to you about. It's not like I have so much to tell you about the Calcutta coated lenses. But I think that, I think that,

It's so smart to put this here rather than make Mads sort of choke it out on a rain-soaked platform, you know? Yeah. Just to have it come out in polygram form. I agree. While Jedha is exploding around them. Okay. Intercut. With this holo download, we get these shots of the Death Star firing up, blotting out the sun, striking Jedha City.

The mountain hideout begins to shake. The ground begins to rise. The rock crests like an ocean wave. I love this. No matter how many times I see this, I'm like, this looks fucking sick. This is so good. There's a problem on the horizon. There is no horizon. No horizon. This is just a really, really great, thrilling, visually stunning sequence.

Our friends flee. Jyn, infamously not taking the hollow as previously discussed on this very podcast. Saur refuses to go. He says, save the rebellion, save the dream. He unplugs and unhooks, unfastens the ride-o, spreads his arm wide and is claimed by the blast and the rock around him.

It's interesting, given that Cassian was part of Luthen's crew and Luthen and Saw were always butting heads, that even for Saw, Cassian was the messenger at the end of the day. That's a fun little tie there. I also just like this moment for Saw, which always kind of frustrated me. Because you're like, why is he staying, not leaving? Yeah. Yeah.

Which is actually now I'm like, it's sort of similar to Luthan. He kind of knows that his time in the rebellion is over. Right. Like a time for extremism is over and we moved into a different phase of the rebellion. And so he's like, okay, this is it. For me. Yeah. Yeah. I really like that. I think that's spot on. I like thinking back. I always like thinking back to the Will Saw Rido scene, but I did like thinking too, because there is...

Even still, there is this just element of like, what is this guy doing and why? You know, to anything that we see Saw do. And so I like then thinking back to revolution is not for the sane. Look at us, unloved, hunted cannon fodder. We'll all be dead before the Republic is back. And yet here we are. Which is so similar to what Luthan said, right? Exactly. They're laying us both. Yeah. Yeah. Sunrise I'll never see, right? You know, they know. They know they're not going to be there for the world they hopefully helped save. Right.

Krennic and Tarkin are watching this up above, and they're just like, this is great. Yo. Beautiful. Wild stuff. And Tarkin's like, I'm going to take over. I'm going to take over. Thanks for your work over this past decade and a half. It's mine now. And that goes over really well with Krennic, I would say. He just has a great time with it and does not at all throw a hissy fit. Very measured. Very measured and calm in his response. We see an achievement! Thought y'all!

Incredible scene. There's a few things that are weaponized so well in this movie. One is Mads Mikkelsen's inability to say ours with his accent. So like Stardust just sounds special coming out of his mouth every time. And then Ben Mendelsohn's spitting habit is just used really well in this movie. The man loves to expectorate. It's great. This is a great spitting sequence right here. It really is. Just some unbelievable dead draw.

energy here. Oh, yeah. Just truly, like... And Cyril, right? Yes! It's just... Yeah! Like, Cyril wanting to be praised and told he's great. Yeah. Would it ruin... After Kretic says it's beautiful, like, yeah, you wouldn't be shocked to ever say, like, would it ruin everything if I said this was the best day of my life? Yeah. You could totally see it. And, like... Or even in, like, season one, Cyril, who's just, like, sort of, like, I'm useful. I did this. I solved this. Yeah. I'm smart. I'm a shiny special boy. Right.

Put your heel on my thigh. Step on me. Who are you? Oh, Cyril. Miss him. Truly. I find Krennic being repeatedly, as that beautiful email noted, in the Deirdre position throughout this movie so delicious after...

The Dedra. I mean, all of Andor, but the Dedra chronic scenes in Andor in particular. Just that idea of glory and the way he's like, you were so fucking proud you went in on your own. You know? Right. They're all just making the same mistake. When he says...

When he initially talks about the Gorman project to Partagas and Dedra inside of that chilling luncheon, and he's like, Y'lar and Tarkin, all senior commanders will be notified by the Empire at the time of his choosing. Now the group in this room

This moment, the tightest of closed circles, right? He's tossed a lot of his closest circle away, right? But like this idea that like what we're doing, Tarkin doesn't get a piece of it. Yolaren doesn't get a piece of it. This is just me. I'm the number one boy. And alas, no, that's not how it works. Listen, I've got great news for Orson Krennic. Here it is.

Uh, Grand Moff Tarkin about to be the latest character to make the same mistake that the people he's trying to dunk on have just made. And, uh, not sure how happy he's going to be about being like, I'm going to be the one in the Death Star. We'll see. We'll see how that works out for you. Stay tuned for a new hope. All right, Joe, let's head to Edo.

Cassian on the way sends a coded message to Yavin and Draven reiterates the plan. Kill Galen. It's still on. This is where Bodhi realizes who Jyn is. They have this great little bonding moment. Your father, he said, I could get right by myself. You're coming home to myself. Lovely. But Bodhi is like, is it too late? A lot of people on the U-Wing here before it crashes realize

They're having a little bit of a crisis of faith. And how could they not? They just saw the Death Star strike and annihilate Jedha City. Baze is quite deflated by what he just witnessed. He thinks it is too late, but not yet. Because she has seen what the Death Star can do. This is her, this is undeniable moment. But also she has heard from her father. She has heard this message and she has seen the shape of his sacrifice.

seen how hard he tried and what he worked to do. So how could she not to channel Nemec? Try as well. Like, how could she not? Nemec, so top of mind here in this scene. And she defends her father to Cassian. She says, you're wrong about him, right? And Cass is like, he did build it, which I was really fascinated by on the heel, on the heel, like on the tail of, of Andor because one of the moments that I loved so much at the end of Andor was Cassian defending all of Luthen.

to the council like not just the good shit but like that whole fucked up mix right i know the good and the bad but none of that can take away from what he did and how hard it was and he says it's insulting to hear him run down by people who have given a fraction of his sacrifice to this rebellion galen gave quite a sacrifice to the rebellion too i think i think it makes sense though that you are able to offer that grace to someone you know really well and maybe not to someone else but also um definitely say that technically cassian also helped build the death star

On our keynote pod? Technically. Oh, man. Jin tells Bodhi that's why Galen sent him there to share this. Cassian, our messenger, asks where the message is from. He's like, I'm not sure you're going to be able to convince the council. And

I think that his skepticism here, to me, felt a little bit more like Cassian in the Gorman arc of season two, where he's like appraising and unsure and is this right and is this the way? And a little less, this is right on the heels of standing with the council members on Yavin telling them, this is happening, let's go. This doesn't align like perfectly to me, but... I agree with you. So it goes. All right, Joe, take me through the crash scene.

The rapid rock climbing. Everything that happens. I mean, they just didn't need to make the ravine as massive as they made it if two of our characters have to scrabble across it and then up a cliff face. It's a completely fair note. It's bizarre, right?

So yeah, Cas goes up with Bodhi. He's like, show me the way, blah, blah, blah. We're just going to look. No worries. Don't worry about the fact that I've got the sniper configuration going on. Don't worry about it, right? K2SO fucking snitching on Cas. Narcs.

wild. But that is, that was a real, like, I'm underpilled forever moment for me because as soon as he said sniper configuration, I just flashed to Cassian opening his case. Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm like, this is just, I can't help it. Exactly. It's like Pavlovian for me now. But we talked about this, this idea of like, you know, I was thinking about

I have friends everywhere. He's the face of a friend. Like this idea of, again, are we all on the same page together inside of this rebellion group? Or do we have counter missions, cross purposes? So Andor is on a mission from Draven to kill Galen Erso, which is not, of course, what Jyn Erso would prefer to have happen. So she runs out. Correct.

And then Chirrut goes after her. And this is when he says, you know, Baze is like, good luck. And he's like, I don't need the luck. I have you, which is just maybe my favorite, one of my favorite lines of this movie. And yeah, it's raining. It's dark. Genuinely, I think it's hard to see the sequence. I genuinely think it's hard to see what's happening. Yeah. And to like understand the geography. And everything that's happening here. But Krennic is shown up.

to check on his boyfriend, and he's like, there's been a leak, and I have some suspicions. And it's more theater from Krennic. Theater when he got Galen in the first place, and theater here, because he knows what has happened here. Galen leaps out to sort of try to save his men. Krennic, of course, shoots them anyway. And this is the moment. This is what makes Aedum matter. I think...

I never really felt why it happened. And now I feel like, and again, I'm going to read a couple emails from our listeners, but now I feel like I do. Cassian has the scope on getting up first. He's behind a pillar. There's people in the way. There's a lot going on. Rain in his eyes. When he gets the clear shot, he doesn't take it. We get the finger on the trigger and he does not take the shot after we saw him kill Tivic.

After, to Mal's point in our notes, he killed some of the MyPay brigade. Yeah, yeah. They were in his way. But Galen, that's the line. He stops himself here. And we got two really interesting emails about Cassian on an arc of his own inside of this movie. And so the first one comes from John.

Who is identified, Cassian, as the antagonist of this movie, which is not to mean the villain of this movie, but in terms of like counter to the actions of the protagonist. And this is what John says. The A story of this movie is mostly a debate about the credibility of unvetted intelligence based on faith in one man deep in the imperial machine.

It's a movie now about the push, like that, that that was like the original, what Rogue One was about. He's like, now it's about the push pull of a justifiably weary, fragile rebellion. And what comes from taking something important on faith. The main antagonist is Cassian Andor. Rogue One invites us to step out of Cassian's point of view and see him through the eyes of a woman who has not been in the fight, not for lack of caring, but for depth of wounds. And the man she sees is,

pretty broken. Cassian has basically become the Luthan inside the quote, mainstream rebellion of a stigial limb of the insurgency. He's defensive, distrusting, and willing to do anything, including kill allies and defectors to protect the cause.

Jyn comes in and her faith in her father, her faith in General, are desperately needed at this stage. It's a new story and a new frame. We see the blue a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away message for the first time in the Andor viewing sequence, meaning something is different, a larger, more global view. We're watching the events of history now. The Cassian Andor we know hesitating to pull the trigger against Galen Erso feels seismic, even therapy breakthrough-like. Heartbreakers

Hardening was easy. Softening is work. But the rebellion desperately needs it. And I just really love that from John. And then Jenny has this great email about Cassian and agency and what he does inside of this moment, right? Because as you mentioned, like, I think on this pod and sort of certainly elsewhere in our notes, Cassian defying orders is something we've seen before. This isn't the first time he's defied a direct order. This is what Jenny says.

Underneath all this action hero main character energy, the real character arc for Cassian in the show might actually be one of striving for agency. We see major moments in his life be decided for him by other. Marva taking him from Canary, Luthan dictating his actions.

Bic's leaving him. And we also see that in every moment Cassian seems to be taking matters into his own hands, he's actually just reacting. Killing the corpos, retaliating against the troopers for Clem, orchestrating a prison revolt, wanting to walk away from the struggle. These decisions are ultimately driven from the top down by the Empire's suffocating grip.

So to reconcile this Cassian with the one we see in Rogue One, his big decisions to spare Galen Erso and take a leap of faith with Jyn on a suicide mission represent him finally exercising his agency. Nothing else is driving him to trust Jyn like this besides his own instincts and what she reflects back to him. The lines from season two, episode nine, that encapsulates all of this neatly, Cassian...

to that, uh, to Clea, I need to start making my own decisions. And Clea says, I thought that's what we were fighting for. Yeah. Right. So this idea that like, you know, we have seen Cassian defy things, but defy things that at various orders or operating as, you know, Luthan's instrument, an instrument for something. And here is Cassian, uh,

as Cassian and Jin is Jin meeting each other in this moment. I love this idea that John has about this idea of soft, like we watched Cassian calcify unnecessary ways for certain times in the rebellion and, and learn certain lessons from Luthan. Right. And then what, what is needed from Cassian here now is that, is that defrosting that softening and,

And that idea of like opening himself up to concepts like the force that, that he was so resistant to and stuff like that. And, and so opening himself up to the force, taking agency. I like really like Jenny's point about that, but also again, inside of that leap of faith, that, that force like leap of faith, giving yourself up to the cosmic forces. Yeah.

I'm an atheist, so I don't always believe in this sort of stuff, but same, you know, inside of this world, this idea of like letting the force, use the force, Luke, let the, you know, put your, put your viewfinder away and use the force. Let the force guide you is this, you know, key element of this Death Star arc that we're watching across two seasons of television and two movies, you know? Yeah. Oof, man. That's, I love all of that.

It feels like the difference between I don't want this. I asked you not to do this. I'm going home. You can stay if you want with the force healer and a little nod. Yeah. It was only ever a little nod. Yeah. But like, that's all the difference in the world. Yeah. Yeah. I really love that. That's fascinating. So why did we come? What better thing then for like, than,

It's apparent, right? Yeah. Why did we come here to this planet inside the plot of this movie? Right. We don't get anything plot-wise that helps us. We get a... We literally had to take, crash the U-Wing to steal the Imperial cargo shuttle. Like, so like... But there could have been a shuttle depot elsewhere. I mean, so like, I just... Yeah. Yeah.

The fact that it is such a key character moment that already existed inside the movie, but is just now laden with all of this history and other characters. What's, you know, I think the greatest gift for Rogue One after Andor is the final moment of Cassian's life. No question. What is Cassian thinking about at the final moment of this movie for him? Yeah.

Bix, the Force healer, Marva, you know, Nemec. Like, what is he thinking about? All of those things. The whole thing. Maybe all of Andor flashes before his eyes, right? Yeah.

What is he thinking about when he pulls his finger off the trigger here? Right. That's another just like really, really important key Cassian moment that is so enriched by the hours and hours and hours we spent with him. Yeah. Boy, great emails. Give our listeners. The bad babies, they fucking rule. Jesus. Our little rebel alliance, the bad babies, they're the best. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, Luthan is so present here for me with Cassian. Like, yeah.

Cassian can simultaneously be in a place at the end of Andor and this movie, which is the same moment in time, saying, I saw it all. I saw the good and the bad. But also deciding that there's a limit he has that maybe Luthan wouldn't have.

Luthen pulls that trigger. There is no question. No question at all. No question. And so for Cassian... Not only that, Luthen would have killed all the people who were standing in the way of Galen or so just to get to Galen or so, you know? Luthen knocks Bodhi over the edge. Yeah. Luthen uses those little bombs that he had and just blows up the platform entirely. Also, why isn't Cassian trying to kill Krennic?

You know what? That is a fucking great question. And I'm going to now think that the line in Andor where they leave is kind of a little wink to this. Krennic is right there and he never is like, well, I'll get this guy while I'm at it. It's a really good point. This guy sucks. Oh, man. I really love that this is where Cas finds his limit and that this is how and with whom.

What is it about? I was always like, watching Rogue One, I was always like, what is it about Jyn? Yeah. I felt, I feel, I felt like there were holes in the story of like, what is it about Jyn that turns, other than like, she's awfully hot, which she is, like, what is it about Jyn that turns things around for Cassian? And now, now I feel like it works for me. Yeah. He didn't get to hear Luthen say like,

The sunless space. I've made my mind a sunless baseline, but I feel like he knows he shares his dreams with ghosts. He's like, I gotta have a limit. It's there. It's this. It's that. Yeah, I'm with you. This is a much richer sequence now after Andar. Much. K2, the U-Wings toast, but he fixed the comms. He radios in and he's like, uh, Alliance Squadron on the way. Yeah, bad news. Cassian has spotted him. He's like, call him off. It's too late.

It's too late. They're engaged. I guess. I don't understand. I know. Can't they just not fire? Can't they turn the shifts? Very odd. Yeah. Because, like, Draven's, like, called them back, and the guy on the comms is like, they're engaged. And I'm like, but they're not firing yet. Call them on the radio.

Is reception bad on 80? Maybe. Yeah. Like in an imperial frequency zone. Could be that. Could be like, well, you know what? Cassie can reach them, but don't worry about it. It's fine. We're here. They've spotted us, so we might as well try to kill them. Could be that. Yeah. Yeah.

I could have done it. It's a great, it's a series of great notes from you today. Sorry. I mean, I do like this movie and I don't mean to nitpick it to death because there's a lot of great in it, but we love to pick nits. Proudly watchables tradition here. True. Um, I think that Cassian refusing to, uh, imperil gin here is like some real, like, I won't leave you Cassian, Clea, Coruscant energy, right? It's like, typically I'll shoot in the back, but yeah, Clay, I'm not leaving you, Jen. I'm not going to let them shoot you. I'm not going to leave you. No. Um,

after the platform takes all of these hits and Krennic kind of skulks away. I'm really sorry for anyone who isn't watching this on video, didn't enjoy that performance from you. Krennic's on the clock. He's got to go on Interruptivator's back-to-back.

Jyn and Galen have the moment. They have this moment. And I was so interested in this now through the lens of Cassian not having his family reunion. With his sister. Not finding his sister. Yeah. Not ever getting that. It's just like, yeah, not everybody has this moment. Not everybody has the chance to... He doesn't get to see Bea. He doesn't get to say goodbye to Bix. He doesn't get to say goodbye to Marva in a more meaningful way than he did before.

His dad, his sister, like, who does Cass get to say goodbye to? No one. Jin, holding Jin tight on the beach, right? I guess he and K got to share a quick radio message, but it ended with Cassian being like, K, K, K! So I don't know that there was, like, total closure there. Oh, man. Joanna, this is one of the stretches where he pulls Jin away, as you know, and it's time for a fairly tense flight back home.

I just want to say, Kay saying to Bodhi, you're a rebel now is like... Yeah, that's good shit. A great Andor moment. I like how proud Bodhi looks there. Yeah. Bodhi's great. Sad that everybody had to die. Yeah. Jyn confronts Cassian about clearly going there to kill Galen. And he says like...

had every chance to pull the trigger, but I didn't do it. I had orders. Orders that I disobeyed. But you wouldn't understand that. Orders? When you know they're wrong, you might as well be a stormtrooper. Great stuff. We've talked about this idea a lot already, but obviously Cassian, like, he's gonna go. We got an explicit just following orders in Andor, which we talked about at the time from the Ice. This is like kind of his whole thing. Yeah.

But he is not only not cowed by her judgment here, he is very assured. He says to her, suddenly the rebellion is real for you. Some of us live it. I've been in this fight since I was six years old. I assume that maybe is the time frame when his parents were killed on Canary. You're not the only one who lost everything. Some of us just decided to do something about it. You mentioned this line earlier. So,

We just know now so much more about everything fueling this, right? Like, do something about it that it wasn't always true for Cassian, as we've already talked about, that it had to become true, that he had to find people who helped him make it true. The journey that Jyn is on now. Seeing Cassian in the Luthen role here, he could easily be speaking to himself in the gallery in season two. Like, and that's what's most important, right? How it goes for you.

What's most important is the cause. Kill me or take me in. You're in. Oh, but Gorman looks too painful. Big sis too.

I give you everything. This is everything? Is everything? It's just amazing to see Cassian kind of on the other side of that conversation. And when he says he's lost everything, I mean, what have I sacrificed? Everything. We know what he means. It's all of the people that he and Vel toasted in the finale. And it's all of the people that they didn't, but that we know he has lost and carries with him. So it's a very rich thing to watch after Andor. Yeah.

Anything else on that stretch, Jo? And Jyn is also here. I know! In her own movie. Stop. It's tough. Jo, we're back on Yavin in a second, but first we have to go to Mustafar. Is there anything you'd like to say about this Krennic sequence that we haven't already kind of hit? I've just never liked it, but people love it, so that's fine. Yeah, I do like it. I'm a basic bitch, and the Force joke is...

None of this feels like Gilroy at all.

all to me. Choke on your aspirations? Choke on your aspirations gets me every time. It does. It does. I do like on the visual front when Vader comes out in his shadow dwarfs krennic and we're building to a new hope and we're going to get the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force. Like that kind of visual scaling for both of them there is great. I will say we got some emails that for the first time in my life I'm considering changing

changing my view on the Vader appearance at the end of this movie. To me, that is an uncomplicated, that fucking slaps. Everyone thinks that except for me, but they haven't moved me on most of our, no. Okay, fair. Totally fair. Take me to Yavin where I just think that everybody here should go to coward's jail. The council is wilting in the face of Jyn's update. And it's just tough for like,

As you pointed out, when we got some of these characters in Andor... Yes. Pomlo and Jebel, that makes it all feel like a part of a whole. I still think Bael and Mon could be showing up a bit better in all of this. But this line, what I really bumped on this time, not bumped on, that sounds like I have a problem with it. What really caught my attention this time is...

If it's war you want, you'll fight alone. This idea that they're warmongering is coming from the people who are like, let's not do this. Right. You'll incite a war. And the lines we get again and again in Andor, you already cited the Saw one, of like, war is already happening, right? Like, the... No. Saw and Luthen in season one...

30 men plus Krieger. Saw says, for the greater good. Luthien says, call it what you will. Saw says, let's call it what's called. War. Fucking great scene. Season two, episode four, Cassian says, look at this place. We're in a war. Not everybody knows it yet, but it's happening. And Bix says, quite memorably, a little bit later on, if it's a war and you keep saying it is, I know that you're right, but if it's a war, it's not up to us what we save, what we lose. Right. So,

Cassian saying, we're in a war not everybody knows yet, but it's happening is years ago that Cassian said that. So for these chicken shit members of the Haman Council to be like, stop trying to incite a war. Like, how do you think what is what are we going to do? How did you think you were going to stop the Empire? Palpy was just going to be like, I made some mistakes. Yeah. Thanks for pointing it out. Yeah. What? I heard you have a cool jungle planet. Yeah.

Oh, man. Yeah, like, again, I've always really bumped... I have really bumped on this scene in Rogue One, and it's a little more palatable to me after Andor because it is like, okay, this is the disposition, the core disposition of these few people. And I think the...

interest Andor has in exploring like who is ready, what is required, who sees that, et cetera. That's all interesting to me, but it is just perplexing. Like these people left and came here to do this thing. So what do they think? What did you leave for? Yeah. Baffling. Tough. Some great lines though. High comedy. Stretch like these, these people are, oh boy. Tough. Yeah. Bail him on. They're like, well, you know, we can't, we don't really have consensus. It's like, guys,

They're going to do some whispering in the hallway soon. It's fine. It's fine. Hallway whispers. Sounds good. Jin, though. Jin is ready. She's gone from skeptic to evangelizer. She's here to preach. Like, when Pamela asks what chance do they have, she says, the

The question is, what choice? One of the highly quotable moments and lines from the movie. And this is the moment here where Jyn then imparts the lesson that Cassian shared, that Dela had shared with him. Rebellions are built on hope. You're asking us, Pamela says, to invade on nothing but hope. Rebellions are built on hope. The thing that I like most about this now, revisiting it, is that it doesn't work.

It doesn't convince them. Yeah. Like, she doesn't, she says rebellions are built on hope, and they're like, sorry, no. Rebellions are built on hope. Yeah, rebellions are built on hope. She's like, no, actually. Not, if everybody is convinced in real time, I actually think it's, like, less in keeping with what Andor is assessing. But also, like, sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, go ahead. Well, hope is so interconnected with faith, right? Yes.

And faith is, you know, based on no evidence, right? Believing what you can't see, yeah. Hope is shreds of evidence, right? And some people need more than others. And once you've got the Death Star plans, then hope grows because now people have some tangible—they couldn't go on faith alone, but now they've got something tangible, you know, that was stolen and transmitted—

And we can go, okay, now we have enough to go. Relay race. Relay race. Relay race. I like it too because this is the thing that we hear so much about in Andor with the closing of the fist. What are they choking out? Hope, belief, the belief that you could try to challenge it. So even though these are the people who decided to go and fight, the idea that there are still some people who are like, but how could we possibly? What can we do?

It's so big. Yeah. How could we combat this thing at this scale, this level of depravity and evil? I like that they have to work a little harder. Relatable. To get people to buy it. Truly, truly relatable. We got a little Hera, Syndulla, PA moment here. Great stuff for the Rebels heads, or as some might call it, the cartoon. Not the Ahsoka heads. The Ahsoka heads as well, certainly. You're also welcome. Jyn finds...

The gang. Trudeau, Baze, Bodhi, they're in the hangar bay. They want to fight, but they don't have the numbers, but someone does. Joanna, who has the numbers? It's Cassie and Andor. It's Cassie and Andor. He's like, I missed a very important meeting because I was doing this.

I don't know I don't know the timeline of this right because like Bodhi slips out of the meeting in a way that makes it seem like he's off to report that it's not going well and so then Cassian has to get people together I don't know why Cassian wasn't in that meeting but anyway he gives a great speech he does and this is the best speech of the movie agreed take me through it

And as he makes it, I will. And as he makes it, when he says we've all done, and we talked about this speech a lot when we covered season one of Andor. It's just been so top of mind for us. Because when casting says stuff like we've all done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion,

You're watching Rogue One and you're like, yeah, you shot that guy in the back. But like now we've got so much more. What sweet summer children we were. Information, spies, saboteurs, assassins, everything I did, I did for the rebellion kind of.

And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget, I told myself it was for a cause that I believed in, a cause that was worth it. Without that, we're lost. Everything we've done would have been for nothing. I couldn't say, face myself, if I gave up now, none of us could. Right? So like all of, you've highlighted here in our notes, like all the times that Cassie and

quite quit the Ravelle, like tried to quit, tried to get out in season one and in season two. Yeah. But also this idea of walked away from something I wish I could forget. Like I want to forget Gorman, just the look we've gotten on Cassian's face in season two, a couple of times when he's just like left a horror scene.

And we watched him process that and snuff out a little bit more of his innocence as part of this. And so it was like, what, what was that for? What was me doing that again and again and again, and just sort of like calcifying myself into this person that I've become. It was for this. And like, if, if we're going to do this, as Bix would say, like, we have to win. Right. Right.

I love it. Like, to make it worth it, we have to win. Yeah. We have to. Nemec saying try, Marva saying fight. Hell yeah. Like, all of this is inside of what Cassian says here. It's amazing how many people from the two seasons of Vandor and from his past we can feel in this speech. Like, all of those lessons and the pain and the sorrow and the loss. Yeah.

I'm not coming back into the we have to wins. It's just... It is his arc defined and... I mean, the end, obviously, too, but this is really... This is where you feel like...

Like, oh, we know who Cassian is and we know how he got here. We know what led to this moment. This is, I think, the single most rewarding moment in the movie. I really agree. And I had this marked for later for Scarif, but I'll just say it now. I was also thinking of Kino Loy. So Kino says, I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want. You need to run, climb, kill. You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost. You get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. Like, oh.

All of these speeches that we've chewed over and savored in Andor are all rattling around in Cassian's head. And that other thing that Cassian, in the Kino moment, Cassian being, knowing who needs to be

like the voice of this thing right right it's Kino who has to get on the radio and Narkina and it's Jin who's like the person for this moment here and Cassian's there with them you know yeah I love that ah this is great really really Star Wars is great and Melshi's right there go Melshi love him I assume he's got a hip flask um

I bet his hip flask is stored inside of his big hat that he wears sometimes. I would believe it. Yeah. It's like one of those beer helmets, but it's, you know, just booze. Man, Cassian getting his I burn my decency for someone else's fuel moment. Very satisfying. Truly. Truly. Leader Cass. That's the other thing that was really on my mind, too. Yeah. You know? Think like a leader. Man. Luthan's fingerprints are all over Rogue One. They really are now. It's amazing. Yeah.

Is this where we talk for a minute about the Jyn-Cassian vibes? Because they do almost mating rituals of each other here as they look deep into each other's eyes with this sultry, sexy expression. I don't mind any interpretation of this. Because there's some people who have decided that Jyn is firmly in the Cassian's long-lost sister spot.

Are they Targaryens? I don't know. I was looking at my sister. I don't think that's how siblings look at each other. You do you. But I think even... Are they the Ratliffs? The White Lotus? Like, what in the Ratliff is this? Okay. So, like, yeah, the Locky energy aside, I think that, like, there's this moment, but there's, like, there's the elevator. Oh, yeah.

They all but kiss in the elevator. The elevator's like, do we have time for like a quick handy before we die? Yeah, like can we fuck in this elevator on the way down or not? And I think it's okay to, I don't think it, this is a question I was asking all season, but I don't think it betrays Bick's

to find connection with someone. Like, I think if they survived this, he would be like, I gotta go check it out. We were here for each other in this moment, but my wife is somewhere and I have to go find her. I hope so. Yeah, I think so. But I think it's okay to take solace in someone else inside of this moment that like, Agreed. Feels like the end of their lives and it is, you know? I agree. I think to paraphrase Gilroy,

when he was on the watch for the finale pod and he was talking about how they were each other's... Cass and Bix were like each other's first kiss. You know, that relationship that is like your whole life. And again, I'm paraphrasing, but basically it was like, you know, it was strong enough to survive all the Tims along the way. Now, Jyn is not a Tim, but like Bix left and told Cassian that this was his purpose and she was choosing for both and doing it for the Rebellion. If Cassian...

attends to some needs after that. That's fine. I know you just said that Jin is not a Tim, but you kind of just put Jin in the Tim bucket and it's very funny. Let me state for the record that Jin is not Tim. For so many reasons, Jin was not Tim. But who else did... I mean, were there other people in Cassian's life, like sexually, romantically? I think that... Onemos, you know? Yeah.

That was pre-handmaiding ritual with Bix, but still. I mean, that's the thing is like the way that Cassian and Bix were together, it does. I think it, I agree. I think it is fine if Cassian and Jyn have a spark and feel a pull to each other and explore that genuinely. I wish he had told her about Bix. It is a little weird, especially on the heels of the Vel thing.

the Vel casting conversation where she's like, you know, you should go check it. Like, this is... I don't think Cassian ever stops thinking about Bix, but it's very top of mind. I would like, in my ideal world, in our re-edit of Rogue One, they can still elevator eye fuck, they can still clutch each other on the beach, they can still do all these things, but maybe at a certain point when they're on a shuttle to somewhere, Cassian just takes out a photo of Bix and looks at it and is just like, I'm thinking about my wife. Yeah.

Yeah. He just pulls Steve Rogers. He's got his Peggy photo with him. Absolutely. A little photo. A little World War II flyboy photo. I love that. I'm just viewing their... I'm viewing it a little differently now, I think, and that's okay. They have a very meaningful relationship and impact on each other, whether or not it is romantic, even though they clearly are... Eye-fucking each other. They're in the fucking eyes here, no doubt. But I think we have the Jin saying...

amid the eye fucking and the circling i'm not used to people sticking around when things go bad and casting welcome home i really love that and thinking about their relationship and their impact on each other in that way like the idea for cassian of home being where the people are that you can count on and trying to share that gift you know ferric stone and sky that gift with jinn who can then find that in him and they can find it in each other that's lovely

Did they fuck in the elevator? Maybe. I mean, Cassie was pretty hurt. It's a long way down. It's a long way down. It's a long way down, if you know what I'm saying. Okay, listen. Oh, boy. Boy, do I. This is something we didn't talk about in our Andor coverage, but there's a Tony Gilroy voice cameo in Andor that's also here in Rogue One. So in Andor, when we hear you've not been authorized to leave the space, you need to stand down, um,

Um, you know, and, uh, this is when Kay is like, I've been counting the orders we've dissipated so far. Would you like to know how many? No. 17. Right. So that same, that's Tony Gilroy, right? Who's like, you stand down and it's when he says, what's your call sign pilot? Bodhi says Rogue One. And Tony Gilroy's voice says, there is no Rogue One.

Great shit. Incredible. Bodhi, incredible brand creator. Unbelievable. Rogue One. Bodhi. What a move. Genuine no-notes stuff. Yeah. I love it. Great stuff. This is where Mon and Bael have a little moment. They're like, war probably is inevitable. Bael's like, I'm going to go back to Alderaan. Got to read. Got to warn some people. He's about to be dead. Very sad. Mon suggests enlisting as Jedi pal.

Served him well during the Clone Wars and a very recent Disney Plus spinoff. He calls for Antilles. He's alluding to Leia. This is a real just like this conversation is here to bridge us to new hope. Period. You guys, that Obi-Wan show.

The more I think about it, the more frustrated I am by it. Okay. I'll be curious to rewatch that one day and see how it, yeah, see how it sits with a little distance. Remember the slicing of the space fish, though? Under the... Oh, I do. Under the Dandeween suns. I promise I do. Rogue One arrives above Scarif. Beautiful Scarif. God, I love the way Scarif looks. It's gorgeous. The beaches, the jungles, the Citadel Tower, the gorgeous water, the way that the troopers and the at-ats look...

through this tropical paradise. Just visually stunning. Really gorgeous. Love it. Our rogues make their way down to landing pad nine. Some classic clearance code, shuttle code business here. It's an old code. Chips out. Yeah.

Jyn has an address of her own to make to the squad as they are landing. And I would say it is much better than Cyril's address to the Molotov Corps. I was thinking about Cyril's address. Can it measure up to Mosk's address? I don't know. It's not for me to say. Joanna, what do we hear from Jyn here?

Saul Guerrero used to say, what? No, one fighter with a sharp stick and nothing left to lose can take the day. They have no idea we're coming. They have no reason to expect us. If we can make it to the ground, we'll take the next chance and the next and on and on until we win or the chances are spent. So again, I love that. This is the ladder. This is the relay race. This is just sort of like one thing on top of another. One leg at a time. Yeah, one leg at a time. Um,

and this is great this is good it's just jinn just definitely does not get this best speech of her own movie but uh it's it's good it's you know it's good casas is like a fucking banger even here he's got a bar make 10 men feel like 100 rules that's like the real aldani spirit you know yeah how are we gonna do it with just this group of people like they found a fucking way i love it i love it they assign jobs but he's like what do i do

Cassian tells them to stay and keep the engine running so that they have a way out, but no way out. No way out. Die, no way out. No way out, baby. Oh, man, pain. Painful. Remember at the time how just absolutely revelatory it was that everybody died in a Star Wars movie? What do you mean everyone dies at the end of Rogue One? Yeah, exactly. Unbelievable. Yeah. They punk the inspection team. They take all the unis. Krennic is arriving at the same time. You know, we heard he was due on Scarif, and here he is. Battle of Scarif time.

We don't need to go through the beats of this, beat by beat, but any highlights that you want to hit. We've got the space battle. Yeah. Raddus, our beloved blue leader, Merrick. Blue squadron, not everybody, but blue leader, some make it down. So we have the beach battle with aid from the air. And then, of course, we have our...

Tower Ascent with Cass, Jyn, and Kay. We have these kinds of like three fronts of the battle, very classic Star Wars fare there. We got an email from our listener, Andrew, just sort of, again, talking about like

Rogue One feeling a little flatter than Andor, given the time constraints and stuff like that. And so this idea that we're heavily invested in the ground battle, because I personally, and hopefully everyone else, is heavily invested in Bodhi and Baze and Shrut and how they do. We are heavily invested in Cassian and Jyn and Kay, what they're doing.

You and I are very invested in Blue Leader, but is, you know, does anyone else, like, we don't have a character in this guy that we're, like, deeply invested in, so. Yeah, no, that's true. Like, the...

I think the use of the hammerhead corvette to push the destroyer into the other destroyer that appears to be a great fit of battle choreography, but yeah. Andrew was citing our critique of, or my critique, I guess, of the Battle of Jackson. Jackson, yeah. To sort of like...

Give us someone to, you know, give us a holdo. If you're going to do a holdo maneuver, give us a holdo to care about, you know? Right. Our listener, John, this is a war movie. This is what we get here. And this is like sort of, again, as we talked about at the top with Chris, like this big promise and revelation of Rogue One. Yes. And our listener, John, was talking about the amount of like romance that is injected here, which acts as a bridge between

the gritty reality of Andor into sort of the fantasy of a new hope. So like John says, Rogue One, the Rogue One's...

They don't die like the insurgents on Andor. They die as romantic heroes eulogized by Raddus, engulfed in a deathly beautiful bloom of a sunrise. Rogue One is already a genre shift from the realistic spy thriller of Andor to the classical war picture slash tragedy. Romance creeps back in, and he doesn't mean romance like as necessarily. Romance... He doesn't mean fucking in the elevator. That's what we're here for, folks. Yeah.

Romance creeps back in with the emotional component Jim brings with her, and this gives the space for guys like Luke and Han to become leaders and heroes to it. And from there, it only gets more romantic as the plans. The tiny thread that's been in one hand at a time from Lonnie Young onward are chased by some menacing operatic horror we could not even have imagined in the Andor days. The hot potato ends up reuniting Anakin with his daughter, and...

His droids find Obi-Wan? The children reunite on the secret weapon? The coincidences feel electrified. Fateful. The simple dialogue-hardened romance for a hard-fought war, now a clear struggle of good and evil. Lonnie's hot potato never drops until the moment Luke, actively participating in the Force...

really releases his breath and flies away and or his power was giving realism to a history behind an epic and the byproduct is the epic becomes even more so because it feels like now we're participants we live the history and are a part of telling the story love it great stuff

Beautiful. Almost as beautiful as Blue Leader's mustache. Captain Handsome Mustache. Great looking. Ben Daniels. Remember when Ben Daniels shaved on this season of Rings of Power? Boy, do I. Boy, do I.

What's better, getting the mustache or the carabass for the Zeb heads from the cartoon? It's all memorable. I'm always thinking about the Zeb heads. You know me. Anything about the grounds, the crew on the beach that we want to say that we haven't hit? We lose so many of our pals here. This is a real relay race sequence with the comms and the master switch and getting the word up that you need to open the gate so that we can transmit. This is just like...

the idea of an alliance in miniature. Like, they literally cannot do it without each other. It's so cool to see that come to fruition here and the bravery and courage. And just from, like, a visual... How can a man be brave? That is the only time it made me very, like, the way that they have to, like, muster their strength to go do all of these things. I have to say, be it...

Jurassic Park or anything else, I love when a chord doesn't reach and you need to figure out what to do. I think this is excellent. It's emotional. It's upsetting. They just did a really good job with Baze and Shirt and Bodhi as characters I'm invested in and feel the loss of. And Melchie, you too now. You too, Melchie. On the Melchie front, on the...

to the idea of a cord not reaching is like, I love when she's like, master switch, please describe. I just love that there's room for me to be like, what am I looking for? What are you talking about? Please describe. Please describe. Great stuff. The tower.

Let's head to the tower with Cassian, Jyn, and Kay too. Let's head for another climb here, Jo. Kay has to get the map info from another KX unit's data brain. I've seen more on Catabolistic. We're off. I like the mix of emotions when Cassian and Jyn learn that the fleet did show. Raddus came. Merrick came. They're here. That smile from Mon. The joy in their hearts that they're

they have friends everywhere like they came they're here but also that moment where they're like we're not getting out of here and all of those things happening in tandem really good really potent uh jinn realizing finding the right file because it is her it is stardust gets me every time she is the message absolutely beautiful what a wonderful little thing even after the hollow and after that moment with her father

Here it is, the ultimate proof that he never stopped thinking about her for a second, that he did this for her, that she was the fuel. We're the rock. She was that. Stardust, incredible. I just love that. Luminous beings are we. We are stardust. So good. K2SO's

Death gets me every time. This is like an incredible final stand for him. Just really unbelievable. And that message, climb, climb. Joe, you have done a beautiful job throughout our Andor pods of connecting this thread. The climb. Kino. Climb. Just hits so hard now after Andor. It really, really, really does. Even like going up to level 27 to get Kleia. Like all of it. Oh my God. Yeah.

Krennic goes to the data vault. Now, I don't want to accuse him of a full Dedra because he takes two people with him, too. Ben does after their eliminated follow on his own instead of calling for reinforcements, so I do think there is some Dedra stuff happening with Krennic. You never go full Dedra. You never go full Dedra. Krennic lands a shot on Cassian and Cass falls.

Takes a real hit here at Jim. Jen climbs on on her own. She reaches the transmitter. She needs to go adjust the antenna. The bridge is hit. She has to hang on. Yeah. It's boy. And then there he is, Krennic. And he hits her with the old Cassian Cyril. Who are you?

But she's the victor in this moment. It's like the exact inversion of how that line functions with Cassian and Cyril. This was really fun on the heels of having seen the Gorman sequence. For Cyril, when he hears that, it's like every single thing that he thought mattered, the way he lived his life unravels, right? It's like, I meant nothing to the person who was the center of my universe. For Jin, it's like an edge, right? Yeah.

What my parents told you, they were right. You can't win, but I fucking can. You don't even know who I am. You don't know how I'm about to beat you. I'm going to tell you in short order, but you didn't know. And that's what counts. And the fact that like no one is there with Krennic when Jin says all these things,

Because of this hubris that he had to be there to try to like hang on that last little effort to grab his reputation and hold on to his life's work before it annihilates him. I think it's great. I think also this idea that like you thought you had my father. You didn't. You thought you were important to him. I was the one who was important to him the whole time.

Incredible. Hate to bust your ship. Tough way to go for Krennic. Some painful stuff to hear and then see at the end. Cassian emerges, wounded but full of conviction still, and fires a shot into Krennic. Joanna, anything you'd like to note about the blaster? Bix is blaster. Bix is here. He doesn't have a portrait, but he's got her gun. So, you know.

Absolutely wonderful. I love it. And we've already, yeah, we've already talked about how Melchie has Cass's blaster, which made a whole journey from zero. Yeah. Okay. Another relay race. The destroyer pierces the shield. Jyn transmits the plans. She wants to run back and finish off Krennic, but Cassian stops her. Nice little soul preserving moment there from Cass for Jyn. Beautiful stuff. And Raddus is like, she did it. Yeah.

Raddus did not watch Andor, so he is not doing this podcast just talking about Cassian instead of Jyn. He's here and he's like, she did it, damn it! They did it. They all did it. It's all about all the little heroes. Nope, it's just about you, Jyn, or so. Okay. I really love the moment that we get next.

They're injured. They're propping each other up. They're walking. And Cassian says, do you think anybody's listening? And Jyn replies, I do. Someone's out there. And Cass was the guy on Narkina who said, nobody's listening. And then when they got to Gorm and Will was like, we're always here. And what was the refrain that they repeated? The code, the shorthand inside of their spy unit that ultimately contained this substance and heart

It's what Vel will say to Clea to make her feel like she's at home. I have friends everywhere. I have friends everywhere. This idea that at the end, in the moment where he needed it to be true, like they could trust in the fact that someone would be there to receive the message from our message and our messenger. What a perfect little bow on this Andor experience. Absolutely. This is the kind of thing where I'm just like, man, this actually...

there's a way for this stuff to really not fit together, but this is just so rich after Andor. What a fun puzzle for Tony Gilroy and his team of writers, Dan and Bo and all of them, to get to parse every single line in Rogue One and they're like, how can we make it hit? And so you can sort of backfill then and say, let's give Cassian a nobody's listening moment so that later when he says, yeah, it's a character on an arc. So good. Yeah.

I love it. And I really love thinking about Bix talking about his purpose and his moment with the Force healer and that moment with Luthen where he's like, just sort of always there. That Cassian is the messenger who is always at the center of the consequential thing. And to be here then in this crucial moment and to express these things. Perfect. Really hits. Really, really, really hits. Tarkin is receiving the reports that the rebels are attacking Scarif and he's like, where's Krennic? Oh, he's there. Okay, I know where we're going.

Orders to jump to hyperspace, calls for Vader, and just like when they sent those green boys out to the plaza on Gorman, not a moment of hesitation for the Empire when it comes to sacrificing their own. Not a moment. They need to blast the Citadel Tower? Yeah. Krennic's there? Who cares? When can we leave? Yeah. When can we leave and when do we arrive? Convenient for me, actually. Efficient. Wow. Loving when a plan comes together. Mm-hmm.

That visual of the Death Star emerging above Scarif is just, you always give me a chill. It's so fucking good. So good. Single reactor shot, leaving the fleet to Vader. We get that really wonderful moment of Krennic looking up, injured, wounded, left alone, abandoned at the top of the tower to look up and see his opus. Hoisted by his own batard. Really was. Really, really was. What do you think was the last thing he thought?

Leo? Leo? It's always you. Oh, man. It's like, maybe I saved this sermon for Pout Beef like a little too long. Oh, man. Jen and Cassie and Fuck in the Elevator is canonically established on this podcast. And they head Joe to the water's edge. This has always been beautiful and devastating. It continues to be beautiful and devastating. It is more anguish-inducing than ever as we watch this plume. And they know. They know their fate. They're not leaving.

This is the, what do I sacrifice everything consummation here? And Cassian gives this gift to Jin of telling her,

That her father would be proud. And I had a moment watching it where I was like, man, I wish Cassian had gotten to hear the same thing, like from somebody who knew him. But then I was able to like find the piece of like, I really believe that he knows that. Yeah. I believe that he knows that everyone he cares about would be proud of him here. And like that felt so good. That he got that from Brasso about Marva earlier. That Bix's message to him is essentially that like, you know, he is doing exactly that.

what she said he should do. Yeah. He's going to win. They're going to win. They're going to win. He gathered as he went. And here he is. This is great. Um, the, uh, the tight embrace on the beach. Yes. Her eyes are open the whole time. His eyes are closed until they're open right at the end. We got an interesting email from our listener, Deborah, which made me go back and look, um, at the way in which Cassian's eyes open right at the very end. Um,

She says they're about to be consumed by the blast when the Death Star Cassian opens his eyes and then opens them more very wide. Then there's a flash and they're gone. The expression he makes when he does this is like nothing I've seen before. And I don't have words for it. It's childlike and maybe fearful, but there's this other thing. It's almost like wonder or taking a deep breath as his eyes widen in that final moment. And at the time it felt like such a deliberate and unexpected choice by the filmmaker. And I've always wondered why they decided on it.

And now, you know, again, we get to replay all of Andor and all of the things that matter to Cassian as he goes. And then on this sort of like reason to celebrate the unsung heroes of the rebellion, which is the whole project of what we're talking about here. Our listener Daniel sent this interesting Noam Chomsky quote from Understanding Power, The Indispensable Chomsky, in which Noam Chomsky said,

Look, part of the whole technique of disempowering people is to make sure that the real agents of change fall out of history and are never recognized in the culture for what they are. So it's necessary to distort history and make it look as if capital G great capital M men did everything. That's part of how you teach people that they can't do anything. They're helpless. They just have to wait for some capital G capital M great man to come along and do it for them.

I love that because we've been talking about this a lot about like sort of what can I do in the face of something so big and that great email we got from a listener about the baton pass of rebellions are built on hope that like just saying something to someone can do something. This has really been like, I got absolutely roasted on Twitter for saying this and that's okay. We all need to get roasted on Twitter sometimes, but like I genuinely have like changed the way in which I have like

been interacting with my community in terms of like community service and joining programs and like, you know, being engaged on a very, very local level because of thinking about what can, what is this one little rung on the ladder? What is this one baton pass and how can it grow and grow and grow from here? Because I have been feeling incapacitated. And so what are the small things we can do? And they might not write

space operas about us uh but they might make a disney plus show about us uh you know they won't do that either but that's okay you know like it's all we might show up for one line in a disney plus show or not at all but it's all part of it so um oh i love you you're the best it's just stories matter man they really do i i really agree i i love those emails and

We talk a lot about the sunrise. I'll never see Luthan idea, but the show is about making sure we saw those people. And that's a cool and important and worthwhile thing. They didn't get to see the sunrise, but we saw them and we understood the power of their work and the import of their work. And like...

We've talked a lot about the Luthen-Cassian moments, the sense of the inevitable place they were marching toward and giving themselves over to that in order to then give everything to sacrifice everything. But I really liked thinking, I'm not surprised that Narkeena has come up today as much as it has because it's such a crucial thing for Cassian and a shaping and defining experience. And I was thinking a lot of the moment where he said to Taga,

Don't die until you put up a fight. Like, it's not about the fact that Cassian dies. That is not what the story is about. It's about the fact that he chose to put up a fight. Same for Jyn. Same for Luthen. Same for all of them. And like, what a cool and important thing to show us and for us to get to see. Is it devastating? He and Kett to find each other again? Yes. After when it's over and we've won? We'll do all the things we ever wanted? Yes, it is heart-wrenching and I will cry about it forever. But...

This is the choice that both of them would have made if they knew the outcome. It is. We got a great email about sort of Bix's baby because we talked about in the finale pod about how a lot of people had some issues with it. Oh, I lost the listener's name somewhere in my copying and pasting. But this idea that Cassian's kid...

And hopefully, and again, this is exactly, we've been talking about this with like Luthan and like what we're fighting for the next generation. We're fighting so the next generation doesn't have to. So this idea that Kaskin's kid grows up

for the most part, in, like, Star Peace and gets to be a kid and doesn't have... happen to him the same thing that happens to Cassian and to Jyn and to all the other... Like, to Clea, to Laeda, to all the other kids who have, like, grown up and had their childhood and their innocence taken from them by this imperial, you know, event. I don't know what word I want there. But, like, that...

That's the dream for Bix and for Cassian's kid that they, that they, and I, I really understand. And I do feel this idea of like Bix was so in the fight to watch her step away from the fight is tough, but also just like, you know, if this is an image, even though Cassian didn't get to see it, we got to see it and we, and it has to, um,

flash like this is what he's fighting for no question what are we we're fighting for the shire we might not for us the shire we say the shire but not for us right you know so yeah sad great movie that baby gets to grow up now and live in a galaxy where we get force awakens and the gift that is the last jedi and then you know nothing lasts so skywalker and then you gotta fight again

I know. I was like, relative up. Peace for a bit. And then here comes the first order. But, you know. Vader. For our purposes today, ends with Cassian and Jyn on the beach. But anything you want to say about the final? Because this is really connected to our relay race theme that we've been tracking since the beautiful email and the handing of the passing of the plans. This is a literal relay race. And again, to the various emails we got about...

The genre difference, this like, yeah, this like monster, supernatural monster chasing down these very ordinary people. This is not something you would see inside of Andor, but it is something because this epic is growing into a new sort of sphere and a new sort of genre. And also like the, what is it they've sent us hope? I hate this moment for a bunch of reasons. The fucking CGI Leia hates. And I think what is it they've sent us hope for?

is quite hokey when like the movie after it is called A New Hope. All of it is very hokey.

Like, you know, when you think about Cassian and all the people that we've already mentioned that try, fight, you know, all these things, these things that he's been gathering along the way, as you've been reiterating that the Force healer talked about, like, this is the message is hope that Cassian has been just sort of piecemeal picking up from all these people that he has encountered along the way. And so...

I still don't love it, but I don't hate it as much as I used to, thanks to Andor. But I hate CGI Leia a lot. Yeah, the CGI talking to the CGI Leia. We'd love a do-over there. We would. We really would. We truly would. Oh, Jo, this was great. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. As Nemec would say, what a great 24 episodes and...

Two hour and 16 minute movie to remember that. I know. Truly a great part of Star Wars. I love it. I really love it. I can't wait to see if I follow through on my pledge to rewatch Andor next May. We should. I would like to. And I believe actually now we're committed to watching Rogue One and then Andor and then Rogue One and then A New Hope. That's right. We've established the order. Anything else?

No. I don't really want to be done talking about Andor, so maybe we get like one mailbag question. Yeah, I've got a couple. I've got a couple. Totally. We'll smuggle some more in the spring mailbag. Beautiful. All right. It's time for our thank yous. Thank you, CR. Chris Ryan swinging by for 50 minutes. Fucking treat. A prince. Oh my God. A prince among men, truly. And thank you.

to our Rebel Alliance today, Carlos Chiriboga. Carlos. For producing this episode. Jonathan Freas here with us today, helping with the production. Thank you, Jonathan. Arjuna Ramgopal, production supervision as always, and Jomia Deneron for his work on the social. Joanna? There's a great many things to attend to. Goodbye. Bye.