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S6 EP8 | Not so long ago in a studio very, very close, the guys are tasked with revisiting The Acolyte and reshaping the existing season.
Two screenwriters attempt to recreate, reimagine, or flat out fix, existing film franchises when 'the studio' demands...MORE FILMS! It's an exercise in creative thinking where they will challenge themselves to conceptualize, pitch, and craft a film based on the stipulations of a hypothetical Hollywood overlord. | Sixfive Media
Hello and welcome to the Studio Demands It, an exercise in creative thinking where we will conceptualize, pitch and craft a film or series based on the demands from one of you listeners acting as a hypothetical Hollywood overlord. Overlord. As professional screenwriters ourselves and massive cinephiles, we talk movies all the time.
JIM:All the time.
T.C.:And we'd like to believe that we could meet any demand thrown at us. We will be your screenwriters for this episode. I am T. C. DeWitt.
T.C.:Joining me, as always, is Jim Tantalus Berzelik. Oh, Tantalus. Tantalus. We were talking Greek mythology, I I got ahold of your birth certificate. Mhmm.
T.C.:And I saw that
JIM:When you you saw it.
T.C.:That you have a Greek middle name.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:You don't strike me as Greek, but Tantalus is is your middle name.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Do you know the do you know the myth of Tantalus?
JIM:I don't. Oh, okay. I'm thinking about the there's a sentence you say every time
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:That only now just occurred to me. Yeah. It's a yeah. It's actually the first half of a sentence. Mhmm.
T.C.:Good.
JIM:Because but it's it's it's your introduction. You say I m t c to it. Yeah. You you say a bunch of letters and then wit.
T.C.:I m t c d wit. Yeah. I do. I I my my name's a bunch of letters. Your name's a bunch
JIM:of letters too. You just don't see
T.C.:I know, but they're they're they're not. It's not pronounced that way. Right. I Do I need to put more of an I m t c?
JIM:No. No. I just it occurred to me. Like, you could write it out as
T.C.:I could just lose the e in my in my last name.
JIM:You you you could write it out as Imtikd.
T.C.:Well, I'll I'll tell you trying to explain. My whole life is is because I have initials as a name, the amount of times people have called me the wrong name.
JIM:They write they write your name as t e e
T.C.:c e
JIM:s y.
T.C.:Ts. Yeah. A lot of t j's, r j's, j t's, c j's. RJ? Yeah.
T.C.:Yeah. Not even close. Right? No.
JIM:So tell me about Tantalus.
T.C.:Well well, it certain it's like so
JIM:We're gonna jump back and forth.
T.C.:We'll it all time. We'll do we'll do that. We'll do that. So so tantalus is so when someone describes a scenario in which they they keep nearly getting something and then having it snatched away from them. Tantalizing.
T.C.:Right. Right. That's the that's the root of the word tantalizing. Yeah. But when people describe that scenario of, oh, I'm so close to getting something that's taken away.
T.C.:I'm so close to getting something taken away. People call that a Sisyphean task, and that's incorrect. No. That I'm just I'm just saying when people use it incorrectly, it gets under I'm like I'm pushing my glasses on. I know.
T.C.:Because you wouldn't make the mistake of of misinterpreting a Sisyphean task. You wouldn't do
JIM:that. Okay.
T.C.:Trying to explain people that my name is TC feels like a Sisyphean task. Yes.
JIM:That that is.
T.C.:That is true.
JIM:That is a Sisyphean task.
T.C.:But having having something close to getting something to have it sash away is not Sisyphean, that's that's Tantalus. Because Tantalus was a king who was, for his hubris, was punished in the underworld to be on an island surrounded by water and fruit and food and wine, and every time he reaches for it, it dries up and goes away. Mhmm. So his his, it's without it's he's never able to to have what he wants. It's being offered something glorious, like a reward, and it vanishes every time as soon as you reach for it.
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:So like a Sisyphean tusk is different because that's like an endless
JIM:That's doing something and having the the fruits of that labor. It the the using fruits that mix mixes up too much. It's doing something, acomp actually accomplishing a thing Mhmm. Mhmm. And having it entirely undone so you have to do it again Right.
JIM:Over and over and over again. Over and over again. You know, working. I was hoping you were gonna say he was a king who went to the underworld and Charon, the boat Mhmm. Boatman.
T.C.:Like, the king was running late and so he tried to
JIM:get on the boat and the boatman, like, pushed the boat and he stopped. Oh, okay. Come on. Come on.
T.C.:Yeah. And
JIM:then he right before the king gets on
T.C.:the boat, Karen pushes pushes a little further away. Like, oh,
JIM:I'm I'm sorry. Go ahead. Okay. Now Yeah. Yeah.
JIM:Yeah. Yeah. This time for real.
T.C.:I'm serious. This is it. He that that's the dude who's like, alright. Alright. I promise.
T.C.:We'll shake on it. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh, I don't even have hair.
T.C.:I'm bald, but I keep I keep slicking it back every time.
JIM:Right. Little tantalizing. Tantalizing.
T.C.:Yeah. They they want a jerk. No. I love a good it's amazing how many Greek and Latin phrases are part of our day to day that we don't realize. Or I don't know.
T.C.:I just I like, like, flags have, like like, what what Colors. Colors. Shapes. Greek and Latin phrases. E e plural Oh, yeah.
T.C.:Unum of many one is on is on our money, stuff like that. Right? But my favorite Latin phrase
JIM:It's not on our money. Is it still on my I thought it was taken off and replaced because because that was actually it was it either is or was supposed to be our national motto.
T.C.:Mhmm. Mhmm.
JIM:And if or one of the founding fathers recommended that to be it. Yeah. Was put on our money. And it was in the thirties that there was a whole bunch of
T.C.:Even God we trust.
JIM:Church people Yeah. Yeah. Petitioned and negotiated to have it changed to In God we trust.
T.C.:Ah, church people. The cause of And the things all our problems.
JIM:Yes. And the thing about that is, like, that feels hypocritical to me because they also like, money is the root of all evil. Like, I I that is in the bible. Right? Like, I'm not don't
T.C.:I would I would put more money on it being Shakespearean.
JIM:Oh, no. Yes. I think you're right. Yeah. It it is Shakespearean.
JIM:I get those two mixed up.
T.C.:Yeah. You know, it's a it's a You know what? I'm wrong. It is biblical. Money is the root of all evil.
T.C.:Originates in the Bible. Timothy chapter six verse 10.
JIM:And by putting that we trust God on our money Mhmm. Kind of mixes those in in such a way that it is sacrilegious. Yeah. So we should go back to the communist sounding, foreign Latin sounding
T.C.:E pluribus. My my favorite Latin phrase is I hear, I see, I learn. Do you know what that translates to?
JIM:What?
T.C.:Audio video disco. Oh, nice. Yeah.
JIM:Tense. Oh, crap. I'd I'd I'd saw a similar one.
T.C.:I'm I'm forgetting I'm forgetting what it was. It was but it was it basically translated translated to disco inferno. So well, discovery would be learning
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:And inferno would be fire. So would that be learning through suffering? Oh, I I think it was actually, I think
JIM:it had to do with the root of science.
T.C.:Disco inferno would be discovery through fire, discovering through suffering.
JIM:Disco inferno. Oh, there you go. Yeah.
T.C.:Yes. Greek and
JIM:Latin phrase. It the Internet told it to me, and here I am butchering it.
T.C.:Good job. That's what the Internet is for. Read a headline and say you read the article. And shitification. And shitification.
T.C.:Okay. Let's get to our demand for the day, Jim. Our listeners have given us demands from studios literally all over the world. And you listening right now, seriously, you can send us any demand you'd like and we will have to meet it right here on the spot and
JIM:No choice.
T.C.:No choice. We will we will pull it from a hat, a a virtual digital hat.
JIM:Yep. No matter how many times we say we have looked at these ahead of time. Yeah. We did not.
T.C.:We I mean, okay. I've been clear about this. We look I've been keywording our demands. So actually today, let's well, let me just say you sending in your demands. If we do our job right, when we finish this, we'll have a script that meets or exceeds the demands, and that might be the movie that is greenlit by our listeners at the end of the season for full production.
T.C.:Thank you everyone who keeps submitting. I keyworded acolytes.
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:So Andor is about to come out. It'll it will have or is about to drop when this episode drops. And very excited because Andor is peak Star Wars in so many senses of the word.
JIM:P e e k and p e a k.
T.C.:I cannot stop looking away. I'm so interested, curious, fascinated.
JIM:N p I c q u e.
T.C.:So today's demand, knowing that we wanted to do a Star Wars, we made a little conversation about this because we've had a lot of fun doing Star Wars already. We've done three. We did Book of Boba Fett volume two. Mhmm. We did our episode 10, which we are still very proud of.
T.C.:Acolyte obviously borrowed some ideas from us. Yeah. And we did the droids story last year. So a little nervous about coming to this, and I pitched Acolyte. I was like, I'm sure we have an Acolyte demand.
T.C.:Boy, did we, Jim.
JIM:Oh, boy.
T.C.:Today's demand demands come from I wanna make sure everyone gets credit here. Holly at woodja studios, could you fix acolyte? Oliver at belts off productions. My studio demands you take all the potential Star Wars acolyte and make it better. Akash at Kapoor studios.
T.C.:Take Star Wars acolyte and make it actually good. Matt's at Taco Tuesday's studio, easy demand, redo Acolyte. Okay. But the demand we're actually gonna do here is from a familiar name. I don't know if you you're probably not gonna remember this, Jim.
T.C.:This is from Ro at West of Westeros Studios. Welcome back to my office, gentlemen. I want to again thank you for using our company's time machine to go back to 2018 and fix all of the issues of Game of Thrones before they occurred. History now only remembers the final season as the perfect conclusion to the incredible series it was always meant to have. The pop cultural world thanks you.
T.C.:With that in mind, the studio has a demand has a new demand for you too. Andor and Mando are top tier Star Wars. Faloni cartoons are too. E r in a e r in a go we oh, there's typo. We are in a golden age of Star Wars.
T.C.:And then there's sigh, acolyte. This show had all the potential and squandered it fast. It's unfortunate.
JIM:Wait. Wait. You just read out an onomatopoeia.
T.C.:Well, it says sigh. I've
JIM:read it. I could've just do the sigh. That that's that's all I wanted. Do do do the proper length.
T.C.:I I apologize to Edgar Allan Poe. It's unfortunate. Accolade, squandered if that is anyway. But it's not impossible to correct courtesy of your skills in our time machine. We are fighting we are fighting up the probably mean firing.
T.C.:We're fighting up the way back machine, firing up. No. We're fighting it. We're fighting up the way back machine. And we demand you have to fight a minotaur to get to the time machine.
T.C.:Never mind. We demand you go back to 2023 and fix acolyte. And like Game of Thrones, keep as much as possible of what does exist while expanding and subtracting. So keep what's there, but I've expanded I think I understand what she what what Roe's saying here. Okay.
T.C.:Jim, the demand as expected, courtesy of many of our listeners, is to fix. Acolytes. Okay. This was this was a toss-up. I assumed we were gonna get one of two things.
T.C.:Do a second season or fix it.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:We gotta fix it.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Okay. So Jim Acolyte. In preparation for this, we we did do some homework.
JIM:Yes.
T.C.:We rewatched. We rewatched the whole show.
JIM:We did rewatch it.
T.C.:We rewatched it in one shitting. That's a virgin into a bad voice.
JIM:Shouldn't do. Was just doing a a list by what yeah.
T.C.:Okay. Let's let's talk briefly about Star Wars for a moment here. I wanna say, I love Star Wars. You that know about me.
JIM:Every conversation that starts with that, you know
T.C.:it's going to a good place. I just wanna say I I love you, Star Wars. I love Star Wars. I I I it would have to go a long way for me to hate it. I think Act Light got close in a few spots for me to actually be upset that I was watching something.
T.C.:But much to the chagrin of a lot of people, I do not hate Last Jedi. I think Rise of Skywalker is the worst one. I came around on the prequels. You go through phases. You go through through peaks and troughs as the Brits say.
T.C.:Accolade had a lot of what'd you say? You weren't mad? You're disappointed?
JIM:Yeah. Yeah. There's a point where I
T.C.:was watching it and it
JIM:just felt like, yeah. I'm I'm right like a like a like a parent. Yeah. I'm not even mad. I'm just just disappointed.
T.C.:Yeah. So we're if you're I don't think people who listen to this show would expect us to just sit here and just rip this thing a new one. We're not gonna do that. We when we come in and even something like what we did with Statham last episode, we were dissecting what we thought we felt was incorrect for a Jason Statham movie. We were poking at a work a looking man.
T.C.:And but I don't know. I I'm sort of
JIM:Yeah. Yeah.
T.C.:Reiterating things we've said before. We're not here to just, like
JIM:We're not we're not gonna and and we're not gonna throw out even even not just because the demand says it. We're not gonna throw out everything they did and and and start and and just do a whole different thing.
T.C.:No. Like, this should have been about Mara Jade. Yeah. No. Right.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:So with that said, let's let's let's discuss accolade. Now I know we've done this before when we first watched it, some of our grievances. Rewatching it again, I I think the stuff that works still works. The fight sequences in the show, they clearly put the most effort into those.
JIM:The biggest problems is that they spent so much time getting to each one. Right. If if it was, like, just a lame duck story that was just chock full of fighting Mhmm. I think it would have been at least a whole letter grade better.
T.C.:Well, yes. So let's let's start there before we dive into this and start rip like, you know, rearranging things. Tonally, what do you think is appropriate for this show and the material it's presenting? I personally think dark. I think that we don't I'm not we don't need something as whimsical and as fun as skeleton crew.
JIM:I'm laughing because in in our Rewatch. In our rewatch. Yeah.
T.C.:Basil. The little little rat tracking character.
JIM:Yeah. You hated him so much. And it was, like, he was very clearly the whimsical part of the show.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. It was My I Honestly, her
JIM:her droid was also Pip. Yeah. Yeah.
T.C.:Yeah. What the fuck? Merchandising. Merchandising. Merchandising.
JIM:Sort of, except he didn't do much. It was it was basically a Walkman slash screwdriver that made noise.
T.C.:What if Peter Quill's Walkman was also a sonic screwdriver?
JIM:Yeah. Basically.
T.C.:That that someone walked into a whiteboard and wrote alien and then wrote, what if Peter Quill's Walkman was also a sonic screwdriver?
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Yeah. And they were like and then made a dollar symbol out of the one of those s s s.
JIM:The question mark.
T.C.:Every s. Every Yeah. No. I think totally okay. The strongest thing of acolyte is Manny Jacinto's cipher.
T.C.:Cyber Chimyr. Chimyr. The the dark Sith Jedi.
JIM:I'm realizing something. I kept referring to him by what I thought was his good place name. Mhmm. Jason?
T.C.:Jason Mendoza.
JIM:Yeah. Mendoza. Did I say Mendoza?
T.C.:Yeah. I think so.
JIM:Okay. Because I'm I'm thinking back and what I'm remembering saying is Jason Mansoukis? And that's a totally different person.
T.C.:That's a very different Star Wars. But now I want that. Oh my Jason is it's kinda like
JIM:Imagine him as Chim Chimera. Chimera. You can't you can't think you can't think my brain through the helmet. Yeah. I got my helmet on.
T.C.:You can't you can't think through my helmet. I like Kumail Nanjiani in Obi Wan. Like, that was a, like, a surprise to see. Jason Mendoza.
JIM:Wasn't big enough. Yeah. None none no. It wasn't a big enough role.
T.C.:Right. Right. He's swole as hell. Yeah. He was an eternal for Christ's Jason Mendoza, Manny Manny Manny Jacinto's character, Chaimir, is the best part of the show.
T.C.:The saddest thing is we'll never get to see him play this part again
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Because the show didn't do well. Yeah. Well enough that they were like, yeah. Let's keep committing to this. Honestly, I I this goes to a a different conversation we had about, like, no.
T.C.:Commit to it. Commit to three seasons. Even if that first season was not what you
JIM:wanted Mhmm.
T.C.:Go the distance on this. You had a plan, but that's not how networks and studios make it. Don't be Fox. Don't be Fox.
JIM:Don't be Fox.
T.C.:So do you agree go going more towards the darker nature of this?
JIM:Yeah. Because think thinking about the themes they were trying to do, it it needs
T.C.:to be at the very least, it needs to be more serious. Right. Okay. Because
JIM:I I'm gonna bring those up now. A lot of the themes that they were exploring was so my first time watching what I walked away with is, oh, they're wanting to show that the Jedi's aren't always good. Mhmm. And I was like, no, I don't care for that. Right.
JIM:This time watching through, I saw it was it was a more subtle thing And that sort of that sort of the problem is a lot of the things I started pulling from this second viewing Mhmm. Was they were actually saying and following a lot of themes that were really subtle. And they planted things with, like, one little line that was couched in in a larger conversation or they were throwaways that just because they weren't cap because they weren't caught by by a a a watcher watching the first time Mhmm. Things would happen later that just weren't that felt unmotivated Mhmm. When they were planted properly.
JIM:But they weren't the kinds of things that like, oh, I wanna rewatch it. Oh, it's all clear. Falls into place. Instead, it's just this this just feels it just falls flat.
T.C.:Yeah. A lot of what they're going for is is
JIM:Oh, sorry. The the theme. Sorry. I did the the I I just wanted to get to that point. Yeah.
JIM:The theme that I noticed that is kinda central to the reason they wanted to show the Jedi aren't always good Mhmm. Is because I believe the central theme to it is you put you put the finger on it as I was trying to figure it out. It it's power. Right. Right.
JIM:And and power even in the it it so almost like Game of Thrones is is about power as well, but they just didn't wanna do gigantic monsters of people that is. So so it would it it's about power and and how these groups are kind of exerting it over each other.
T.C.:Right. The Jedi over the galaxy, the coven of witches over their children
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:The the master apprentice relationship between the Jedi and the Padawan. Mhmm.
JIM:And and how that then passes down from the Padawan taking a new Padawan.
T.C.:Right. And then a Sith master trying to take an apprentice. Mhmm. It is power dynamics. Mhmm.
T.C.:And that's a great theme. That's a great theme to explore. It's a great theme to explore in Star Wars specifically, setting this at the furthest end of the canonical timeline, a hundred years before Phantom Menace. It's laying a lot of the mythology within its own universe
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:That we see come into play. The virgins of the force, they're they are just twisting themselves in pretzels to make rise of skywalker work. Like Yeah. And and, you know, good on them for for making these attempts. The notion of power dynamics, I like that theme.
T.C.:I like the the idea of the police force, the sanctimonious police force as the Jedi. They've They drank their own Kool Aid. They think they are the the the the one true law in the galaxy and exerting that upon people and being confused that their people aren't responding to them.
JIM:Right? Like, you know we have the right to take kids.
T.C.:Yeah. Right. What's that's Like, take that
JIM:take that sentence out of out of context there. Put it in, like, the the mouth of a real world
T.C.:Right.
JIM:Person, and that's horrifying.
T.C.:Right. Yeah. That that concept within the Jedi's school of thought, it's something that is consistent through the prequels into the fall of the of the of the rise of the empire.
JIM:And it's always couched in a, oh, no. This is good. This is you're you're getting to go to Hogwarts. This is this is great.
T.C.:Charles Xavier's school for the Gifted. Come on.
JIM:Yeah. It's only good. You're too old.
T.C.:Eight eight years old. You're too old. Shame. Leave that kid alone.
JIM:But it it right. And and this is showing, no. It's not always the whimsical dream of being a magic person. Right. Like like, it's being stripped it's being ripped from your your family.
T.C.:Mhmm. The the stylistic tonally, the the police investigation of a serial killer of Jedi. Mhmm. Someone is killing off Jedi. That was a good pitch for what the show was initially going to be, which is
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:There's a murder of a Jedi. That hasn't happened before. Mhmm. And now we must do it. We must investigate.
T.C.:Oh, we have a suspect. This suspect is rooted in a cover up. Oh, crap. Well,
JIM:because if if if we were to build this show just from that, from the title and that pitch that there's a serial killer killing Jedi Right. Holy crap. Could we make an amazing investigation show?
T.C.:Yeah. Maybe.
JIM:But throws away everything that this is, and a part of the demand is we going with what the show actually is has and is about.
T.C.:Yeah. You even mentioned the title. I didn't even think of that. Like, an acolyte is someone who, like, assists in a religious a religion.
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:That's an acolyte. Someone who is so devoted that they push forth the agenda of their masters. That's what the Jedi are doing. That is what our dark Jedi Sith is trying to do. He doesn't call himself a Sith.
T.C.:He says that might as well be what you call me, but even he doesn't believe in the the ways of that, Chimera, I mean. Yes. The police investigation show doing a procedural set in the Star Wars universe would be really cool, especially if they they moved more towards I'm not I I don't even want us to sit here right now and move this towards Andor. I wanted to get closer to Andor, but we're not even gonna try.
JIM:Like, that
T.C.:that that is that is a level that we got we don't need to try to reach here.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Really, I think the mission here is to just kinda turn the dials on this to make everything that's here work as well as we can. Mhmm. So there's a there's a here's a here's a main thing that I noticed in this rewatch.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Who's the main character?
JIM:This is this is Well, it's an ensemble.
T.C.:Yeah. But still see, this is like a Phantom Menace issue. I I remember once having a whole thing about, like, oh, like, the red letter media guys, like Mhmm. You know, taking that, like, who's the main character? It's not Anakin.
T.C.:He doesn't show up till, like, the thirty five minute mark. It's not it's not yeah. Yeah. Right.
JIM:Right. Right. Yeah.
T.C.:Yeah. I I I'm being yeah. I see you making faces.
JIM:I would I it it was a reflex. It was a reflex at the notion that a main character can't show up
T.C.:Until later. Yeah. And and and in the grand scheme of things, Anakin is the story that's being told, so on and so forth. Right? I heard one someone answered without hesitation that Qui Gon was the main character of Phantom Menace, I was like, I guess I never really thought of it before.
T.C.:He is kinda mostly there through the whole movie as the but to Acolyte's point, we have Soul who is Mhmm. Is this Jedi with the secrets, and you I'm sorry. He he could be the main character, but it seems more that Osha is supposed to be the main character. Mei is this like, you know what I mean? Like, who
JIM:who's who? Think I think Osha is the main character. Yes. But Soul spends most of the time giving us what's actually happening.
T.C.:Right. So then, I think our one of our first decisions is do we want Osha slash Mei to be our main PO point of view character for the whole series. Soul, played wonderfully by Lee Jeong je, who's from Squid Games and learned English for this phonetically.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:I I think it's between those three, and we had discussed, I think, Chaimir being the fourth character. Those are the four characters of this series that are the most important.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Do we hand off POV episode by episode, which is a great way to do ensemble, point to Lost, point to Battlestar Galactica, you can hand off POV per episode.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:That, I think, is probably the smartest way to go in constructing this. That's the way I would I would go about it. And and the show attempted to do that, but they never would ever commit to a perspective of a character, and that is why this thing would fall down sometimes. So honing in on these are our four main characters. We're gonna tell the story through their through their eyes.
T.C.:Mhmm. Now we can start solving the issues I
JIM:can see so many cool ways to tell this story though because you know what actually would also and I that is the way we're gonna go. I'm just gonna throw out these ways we're not gonna do. It really really just is so thinking about it, looking at right? Because it's eight episodes? Yes.
JIM:Yep. So so our season knowing our season is eight episodes, knowing there are four Jedi that were involved in this cover up Mhmm. And knowing it spoiler for anyone who hasn't watched Shaklite. Knowing all four of them die in that first season
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:You make each of those your main character. You do an episode follow from their perspective, and then you do a flashback, a Rashomon flashback. I don't know if you do the flashback first. Mhmm. Or or
T.C.:Or just do Lost Style. Have them hand in hand. Go back and forth.
JIM:Oh, In the same episode.
T.C.:Oh, that's even better. Contextually
JIM:Oh, then we we then we can get way more perspective. We could do more than four then. Anyway, but doing it just from those four and they all end up dead. Mhmm. So then at the very end, we have to we we have to find new characters.
JIM:Who are our new characters? The the characters that that we've the supporting characters we've seen in these perspectives, now it's gonna fall to Osha and May.
T.C.:Mhmm.
JIM:And we've encountered this new character, Chim Chimer. Chimer. Chimer. Chimer. Chimer.
T.C.:Yep.
JIM:Chimer.
T.C.:Yeah. A chimera. Like chimera?
JIM:Yeah. But cut off the
T.C.:But with a q. But Chimer. Where's the q? Q m I r is his name. Qumer?
T.C.:Keimer. Okay. Anyway Jason Mendoza. Yes. Jason Manzukas.
T.C.:Blake Bordeaux.
JIM:Right. So then we have at least oh, no. Actually, by the end, the the the green woman would would basically enter and become our fourth
T.C.:Mhmm.
JIM:For the four main characters of the next season.
T.C.:Yeah. Sorry. Ven Venet Diagram. Venetstra. No.
JIM:Venetstra. Okay. But that's not what we're doing here.
T.C.:No. Well, that's not that's not necessarily true. We we could. So okay. Let's look at the the first episode.
T.C.:We we are introduced to okay. So the whole plot of this if you break down the plot to this show, it's a hundred years before the Galactic Empire Yep. Before Phantom Menace. The Jedi Order investigates the murder of a Jedi master. Can We we still hope Carrie Ann Moss is murdered.
T.C.:There's an investigation going on. Sorry. It was Adira or an Indira. Indira. Indira.
T.C.:The Osha is arrested for the crime Mhmm. But then insists she's innocent and then learns that her twin sister, May, long presumed dead, is alive and the murderer.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:It's all in the first episode. Yep. The so we start with Indira being confronted by this woman, this this young woman who we learn is May, who's there to kill her. I am
JIM:here to kill you. Do we learn that, or do you wanna keep it more mysterious? Or like, do you think they showed us her face enough that when we then go to Osha, were were we supposed to be like, oh, it's her. Yes. Yeah.
JIM:She's the murderer?
T.C.:Yeah. For for at least a moment until the second scene when you go Jorn standing there going like, where were you last night? I was here on the ship. Like, she's immediately she is the suspect because she was identified.
JIM:Okay. Because even even the first time watching, I didn't I'd I'd maybe I'd seen ads that that I don't remember, but I I was not like, oh, she's the murderer.
T.C.:Mhmm. Was That's what they want us to think. Yeah. Yeah. That that she's she's arrested for it.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. They so Indira being assassinated by a Jedi killer is like she even says in that opening scene, she's like, for, sixteen years ago, which I wanna get back to that. Sixteen years ago, you were on Brendock. Remembering all these names.
T.C.:Good job. And you and your three partners are responsible for, I'm gonna kill you.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:You're bad. I don't like you. Yeah. And then they face off and and Deere is like Wait.
JIM:Because she didn't even say actually, she was just like, you know what you did.
T.C.:Mhmm. And as soon as she sees her face, and Deer is like, you.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Yeah. And then they fight and she kills her.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Great fight scene. Actually, I'm gonna jump to this now. I think sixteen years ago is too long ago.
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:I wanna shrink that time, and I think, Amanda Steinberg, who plays, Ocean May
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:Should play younger version of herself as well. She's a competent enough actor. If we set this five, six, maybe seven years, she can play her younger self. No offense to the little girls who acted in this, but I don't think they need to little baby children. She could be 16 years old and now she's 20.
T.C.:And
JIM:Right. Because they didn't they didn't really I don't think they ever utilized who are you? Like, every time someone every time a character who knew her saw her face, they're like, it's you.
T.C.:It's you. Yeah. There wasn't any confusion. I I think you shrink the time between the events on Brandak where the witch's coven was killed, these these exiled witches of Dathomir are boy, if you're not into Star Wars and you're listening to this episode, we're getting all this, like, Star Wars jargon.
JIM:But because of the Star Wars lore
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:They can't be they can't be older. Well, sort of.
T.C.:They already no. They already said
JIM:They already start too old?
T.C.:Yeah. They already said at eight years old, they're too old. How young like, freaking Saul was taken at four. That was young he was young enough. But eight and nine, Anakin Skywalker, is too old to start training to be a Jedi.
T.C.:So if they're already too old at eight Well they can be too old at 16.
JIM:And this is also a 100 ago, so we could say a lot of this show there are a lot of little things that seemed to suggest this was the origin of a lot of things. Right.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:This very well could be the origin of Yoda making the rule that no, they gotta be young.
T.C.:It can be because bringing in a teenager who then becomes a 20 and leads to all this nonsense
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Works just as well as an eight year old training to come back for revenge sixteen years later. I the the main reason I wanna do this is to give Amanda Steinberg more time on screen showing how good of an actress she is and having and it's it's it it solves a problem that I that exists in Phantom Menace. The initial concept that George Lucas had was that Anakin was a teenager, not nine.
JIM:Oh.
T.C.:He pivoted to a nine year old to appeal to the four quadrants.
JIM:Gross. So It make it makes sense. He also decided on ewoks being teddy bears. Right.
T.C.:So I think having made OSHA be
JIM:Middle schoolers?
T.C.:16 years old. That's that's that's high school. Having them be 15 16.
JIM:And having it be ten years later?
T.C.:Yeah. Then then a lot of a lot of what we wanna fix about their motives and what activates them as individuals makes so much more sense when they're 16 as opposed to eight, I think. Hey. I want I want to acknowledge something.
JIM:And I haven't seen her act in anything else. Yeah. And you keep saying that she is a wonderful, great actress.
T.C.:Did I say wonderful and great?
JIM:You did. You said those exact words.
T.C.:Exact words.
JIM:I have to acknowledge there were there was a lot of places where it was pretty flat.
T.C.:Yeah. That's I I think everyone in this show did the best with the material they have. I know her from The Hate U Give and Bodies Bodies Bodies. I still have to see that. I want her to see that.
T.C.:So she she's got it in her and and ultimately Okay. She's better than those kids. Sorry. I'm not trying to be mean to these children. It's not their fault.
T.C.:She's at least better than them. Yeah. Okay? So let's just put it in the hands of an adult to play this character through and through.
JIM:I think look, I I I wanna pivot to that for a second. Okay. I think there's a way to have the children's point of view without having to give them so much dialogue. And it honestly plays into the power dynamic Mhmm. Portion.
JIM:We can get little bits of how they feel and get them bickering. We can we can get them also fighting to be a little more realistic rather than, okay, hit her with the ball and then you'd be like, don't hit me with the ball.
T.C.:Punching. We're fighting.
JIM:What are you doing? You can get you can we can get some better child fighting, child bickering than that. But we we get more of their perspective through their mothers Mhmm. Through the and and through the basically, we also I think it would also be interesting to just well, maybe it's not interesting. What I would do, it's boring, is we get a lot more of it from the adults perspective and the kids are just sort of pulled back and forth Mhmm.
JIM:Because ultimately, what what they want doesn't matter. This is a power dynamic between the adults.
T.C.:Mhmm. I I like that that the the mother the witches, the mothers are are arguing about the fate of these these children that they created with the force. Mhmm. I I think you're right on that having more of their disagreement clearer on screen and in the performances. But I don't wanna take away from Ocean and May's decision making making and why they like, why does Osha not wanna be a witch?
T.C.:Why does May wanna be a witch? Like, that goes to Well them as characters want what do they want? They want a family. They want to blaze their own ship.
JIM:But then that that goes to the other that that still goes to my point. We can have those those kids because I wanted to show that. I'd like I hate how much they talk.
T.C.:They tell us everything.
JIM:They they and and the thing is they don't even tell us well. Osha's wanderlust comes out of nowhere. I was I was coming up with with far fetched reasons as to how and where she got knowledge, even knowledge of the Jedi. She has the this triangle book Mhmm. That she just imagined up.
T.C.:She just has. The force told her the force told
JIM:her to write this stuff down, and and now she, oh, I wanna I if that's the case, that's terrible.
T.C.:Yes. I have a pitch for that as well.
JIM:And so I think by moving away from having these two little girls constantly have all of this private dialogue Mhmm. And instead seeing them thrust into situations where the witches are very good, Mei, for being a little psychopath. Osha, you need to you need to toe the line. You need to be a better witch.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:And and so and and then suddenly this Jedi shows up, up, this mysterious stranger who's not like any of these people. And, of course, Mei is not gonna like him because this has been going great. I'm gonna be a witch and all the witches here don't like you, so I don't like you. Mhmm. And Osha, who's been who hasn't been as good of a witch and has been kind of punished for it and feels abused, suddenly this this person shows up and isn't telling her what to do, is asking her What to how she feels.
T.C.:And that's why I think a teenager is a better option here as opposed to a little kid.
JIM:I think a little kid can
T.C.:I don't think an eight year old should be allowed to make a decision like this? But I got it.
JIM:You're no. You're right. They shouldn't. And that's why you show so much of the adults manipulating
T.C.:them. Mhmm.
JIM:But that's the reason why Osha would be more drawn to saying, I wanna go with the Jedi.
T.C.:To that point.
JIM:Or run away with the circus.
T.C.:To that point. The way we are shown this through the flashbacks is that Soul and the three other Jedi are are just, I don't know, mapping field on planet Yep. Far, far away. He comes across
JIM:They're on soil and plants.
T.C.:They they find it up. The planet's populated. They discover the covenant witches. He sees the girl, and by the next day, the temple's burned to the ground, like, maybe two days later at the most.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:I think Soul's, appearance to these witches should be he should introduce himself. I think that he should be a presence within their community. I think, like, I'm the old hermit that Ben Kenobi is to uncle Owen, to Luke. It's poetry. Having him instead of sneaking around, seeing these two little girls going back to his friends and going, we need to kidnap some little girls.
T.C.:Like, I think he should go to the the mothers and be like, hello. My name is Master Soul. I'm a Jedi. We know what you are. Oh, we didn't know this planet was occupied.
T.C.:Aren't you we are exiles of Dathomir. I'm familiar with Dathomir. Like, let me talk to you. Let me show you. I noticed your daughter's using the we don't call it that.
T.C.:We don't call it the force. We call it the the way or whatever. No. No. They called it the the thread or the string.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:But, like, allowing him instead of he he bulldozes his way into this, this all falls apart because he's so damn eager to have I don't know. Like, it's it's it's nonsense. It falls it falls apart. I think being a little more tactful of of him as a person to go, hello. I am a Jedi.
T.C.:I want to talk to you about your children. I see that they have abilities. And then the mothers can discuss the good the pros and cons. Let's see what our daughters think. I am a Jedi.
T.C.:You have powers. Then you get to what you're saying where she sees a different option. And now she has more information to make this choice as opposed to, I met a guy who says a Jedi. I wanna be a Jedi. That's like an eight year old seeing a fireman put out a fire and go, I'm a fireman now.
T.C.:I'm gonna be a fireman.
JIM:TC Yes. I think you are not giving second graders nearly enough credit.
T.C.:Hey. If second grade me got what he wanted, I'd be Doc Brown. I'd be in a time machine traveling to 2023 stopping Star Wars Acolyte from being a bad show.
JIM:I'd be, as as we discussed, either a paleontologist Or per or or a semi truck driver.
T.C.:You wouldn't be a paleontologist. You'd be a what?
JIM:Oh, oh, the the the way I pronounced it as a kid was a paleontologist. Paleontologist. Paleontologist.
T.C.:Okay. Within the flashbacks, within the existence of the show, I with within, so Soul introduced himself. I'm not my my big big swing would be make this a active community planet that has multiple races and people and markets and and a whole ecosystem of of society that he is a Jedi presence on all the populated planets, and that that's changing a lot of what's there.
JIM:That I yeah. I I don't wanna do that. I don't
T.C.:wanna do that. I'm saying that's that's if I could just go from square one.
JIM:Sure. I I like I I like the idea that these are these are witches trying to hide.
T.C.:Mhmm.
JIM:Now that I think about it, that's pretty oh, no. It was an abandoned facility. That's right. What if the reason the Jedi are here is because right. Because at one point, they talk about the because they wanna do tests.
JIM:They talk about the girl's m count.
T.C.:Yeah. Don't say it. Don't say the word.
JIM:Can't can't say the word.
T.C.:People like it.
JIM:It's it's too big and cumbersome. We just say m.
T.C.:M m count. M count.
JIM:But, like, the Jedi can sense the force Mhmm. The m count from, like Distance. And and by distance, mean like like space space distance. Right?
T.C.:Like Mhmm.
JIM:Not not necessarily saying that someone detected them from Coruscant, but if there was maybe like, oh, we noticed, here I go, midichlorian You
T.C.:said it, guys.
JIM:Spike Yeah. Over in this sector. The the planets around this star or something like that. We wanna send a team to investigate. And so the reason they're testing the soil and the plants is they're looking for midichlorians.
JIM:And that so that's the whole reason they're Yeah. That's the whole reason they're sniffing around.
T.C.:They sense the force on this planet that is been, deed it's not occupied. Like, it's an unpopulated plant, so they test the soil, test the trees, test the creatures.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Where is this coming from? And then, oh, lo and behold, there's a covenant of witches here, death merrians who are using the force.
JIM:And I saw and I saw they had kids.
T.C.:And and and those kids are what I'm drawn to. I feel the force within them. Yeah.
JIM:There Something something and I I know that that's not super specific about how the episode would go, but that that would be my pitch for how or why they're there rather than just, you know, we're we're just looking at dirt.
T.C.:Oh. Oh. Well, behold. Because it's there. It's there already.
T.C.:They were drawn to this planet for a reason. Let's just explain it. I know we talk about too much talking.
JIM:Well, my guess is that the right. The the the attempt at at subtle storytelling also was it might even have been meant to be like, the force is what drew them together.
T.C.:Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. There's But
JIM:but I that that that's not that's super passive. Right? That that's not it's not that it's bad storytelling. It's it's not active storytelling. Like like, having having characters motivate themselves to go to a thing or or if it's gonna be an accident when they they meet, it has to be way bigger and way more of a problem.
JIM:Well, I mean, it's gonna be that big of a problem anyway.
T.C.:If if he is out there training, like, if he's if if Soul has gone off to do some testing with an animal and he, like, does some force thing and then from the bushes, the little girls are like, we saw someone we saw a man using the same powers our mother uses. Now we have all these questions.
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:Because Soul was drawn to these girls. He's he believes that they are meant at least Osha is meant to be his Padawan. He's like, the force is calling me that we need to take we need to we need to take this child Mhmm. To train her. There's gotta be a nicer way to say all this.
T.C.:Mhmm. The force is calling me.
JIM:I think of it actually, if you think of it like a cop show, it it's really clear what's happening there. Some police are investigating an area just for whatever reason. Mhmm. Like and Soul is the he's the go getter cop.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:Indara is the the veteran.
T.C.:Mhmm.
JIM:The the the the the the wookie, can't remember his name, Kleindathu, is It's like He's he's he's the the big guy. The big guy. There there's there's always a big guy who carries either the battery ram or shotgun.
T.C.:Kilnaca. Kilnaca.
JIM:I'm gonna stick with Clandathu.
T.C.:Clandathu's the same.
JIM:It's a bug planet.
T.C.:And then Torben's the rookie.
JIM:And Torben. Okay. And And Torben's the rookie. Yeah. And they find this group of of suspicious people Mhmm.
JIM:Who have kids. Mhmm. And in the cop procedural, right, the the go getter cop is in like, no. Something's off here. They kidnapped.
JIM:Like, this is weird. I'm getting, Sarge, we gotta get those kids out of there. I'm gonna do anything it takes. And Sarge is put upon like,
T.C.:no. We gotta do it by the rules. Gotta do it by the book.
JIM:And but but the the gung ho cop goes in goes in and does it any like, that's what's happening here. Yeah. But couched as Jedi, which muddies it because then instead there was another thing we discussed is because it's supposed to be about power dynamics, what they're trying to do is they're trying to not vilify anyone here
T.C.:Right.
JIM:But still have it be about politic or so have the politic be about power.
T.C.:Right.
JIM:And instead, it should just be whoever has the power in the scene is righteous. They're righteous about it, and they are the bad guy in Yes. That
T.C.:And in fact, when we seen the the way it went down from our first version and then seeing the second version of how it actually went down, wasn't that much different. Mhmm. Let's keep talking chronologically here. We're gonna do this event.
JIM:We're gonna
T.C.:unfold this show chronologically. His desire to train them to save them, these little girls are in trouble. What gets us to two things? That Osha is like, I want to leave. I don't wanna be
JIM:here. Mhmm.
T.C.:That's in the text we have, but we need to motivate it better. Yeah. Again, why I think a teenager is better than an eight year old for this. To be like, no. I've been here.
T.C.:I've done everything. I've gone through the training. It doesn't feel right. It Mae is so good at it. She's clearly better at me than all of this stuff.
T.C.:Look at the way she can fight, and I can't. I don't wanna be here, mom. I wanna go. I wanna leave. If this is an opportunity for me to see another place, another planet, another way of life, please let me have it.
T.C.:And then her the one mother is like, okay. I'll talk to your mom. Maybe we let you do this. Like, trusting her kid to see that, like, yeah, you can go. And the other mom is like, no.
T.C.:She has to stay.
JIM:You're right.
T.C.:You can fight me.
JIM:That no. No. That's that's delivered better by by an older child.
T.C.:Because at eight, it sounds petulant. At 16, it's like you are getting
JIM:older. 12.
T.C.:Yeah. Just a little bit older allows it to have a little you have a little more experience. You've been through much more. It's I can trust I can trust a teenager. In this case, I can trust a teenager.
T.C.:But
JIM:but then so the the character turns that we don't get to see in this show, which I don't know if we would have time to fit them in in our rewrite here Mhmm. Is those middle years. We just talk about them. We see anything.
T.C.:We skip ahead. Yeah.
JIM:And I feel like Osha's arc is important. Like, she wants to get it's it's not even that she wants to see the Yeah. Galaxy or be a Jedi. Mhmm. She wants to get away from these witches who keep picking at her and pushing her and and telling her what to do.
JIM:Mhmm. And they're mean to her. They're nice to her sister. And her sister is sadistic about it.
T.C.:Cooking. She's like, well, she not always. Sometimes she's nice. Sometimes she's like, oh,
JIM:when we're when we're alone, it it's it it's calm and it's nice. But then the moment that they're there, it's constantly poking and prodding and preening. Like, honestly, it goes that you you had pointed out the scene where their hair is getting done. Yeah. Like these two women doing their hair is entirely pointless.
JIM:And I said, well, it keeps them still for the the style to But even that could have been motivated better if this were to be the direction that they were like, were you to try to build it? May's maze maid is doing her hair nice things if you show that Osha is unhappy. You can do that without without necessarily doing that.
T.C.:Right. I yeah. I won't keep pushing the teenager point, but I I
JIM:I I because well, from a practical practical standpoint, I'm now imagining so I'm imagining that actress now playing young. Like, I don't think we can get her to middle school age. We can't get her to to, like, 13. Right. So 16 but the thing is so now then if we even if we fast forward to age she's isn't in the show, 24, eight years Mhmm.
JIM:We even push it to 26, ten years Mhmm. She's not gonna look different enough.
T.C.:The the do you I point to I can point to a bunch of examples of older people playing younger.
JIM:Well?
T.C.:Well. Yeah. Catch me if you can. Leonardo DiCaprio played 14 year old Frank very well, and it's all about hair, makeup, posture, and performance. And I I believe someone like even even you know, I'm saying not she's the most amazing actress in the world because I have very little support that with let's move on.
T.C.:I don't wanna I don't wanna harp on the age limit too
JIM:much Yeah.
T.C.:Other than the fact that it just makes more sense for someone who's a teenager to be trusted to make this decision as opposed to a literal child who has no leg to stand on. The
JIM:I I got so much more to say.
T.C.:Go ahead. Can keep going.
JIM:It it's because it it shows the power dynamic as well because it's not about what the children want. It it's it's about who's gonna win this battle of wills or even literal battle. Mhmm. That that is that that to me is is the more interesting tell the more interesting tale here rather than and that these two girls are thrust into their scenario rather than it being chosen by either of them.
T.C.:Well, they they're still being thrust into this. No. You're a witch. You can't leave. Like, that all the all that is here already can still happen.
T.C.:It just is supported more by a couple extra years of experience that validates their their choices. No. I I
JIM:Well, no. It it just you went you went right back to it. Their choices. And I'm saying, no. They have no choice.
JIM:That's that's the difference. Difference. They can be older. They're 16. Cool.
T.C.:Make make make I'm not trying to win this.
JIM:Makeup artists do an amazing job. They can make her look older. Let's Jim is satisfied.
T.C.:That's fine. The fallout of this attack. The two girls fight, whatever age they are, and a one of them locks them in a room and the other one starts a fire, then the whole place burns down. Based on what we actually see happen, the she starts a fire. The Jedi show up to take these girls away.
T.C.:Now we have to take them right now. Tonight. Tonight's the night. Oh, and all the witches team up to attack them, all go inside of a Wookiee, and then Indira kills them all with mind powers.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:And then the the the coal built, clearly, the flammable rock
JIM:The whole mountain was made of coal.
T.C.:Burns down, and Mei and Osha are on a bridge that collapses, and Sol can only save one. So he chooses Osha. Mei falls to her death down a pit. Classic Star Wars. She will survive.
T.C.:And then they say, you're going you're gonna train as a Jedi. We're taking a course on. Mhmm. And Indira, much to her chagrin, has to just say, alright. We'll cover this up.
T.C.:Yeah. That is stupid.
JIM:Yep.
T.C.:How do we make this work? How how do we have those girls have a fight? Start. The witches die. This cover up needs to be better.
JIM:Mhmm. Let's start with the fire. So the fire starts. What do you think about our Jedi? I don't know why they maybe it it it is just soul pushing and pushing and pushing like, no.
JIM:We gotta we gotta go. We should go there. We should do something. I just feel that, like like Mhmm. And his feelings whether they're real, whether the the force is actually guiding him or whether he's just taking circumstances and validating it Right.
JIM:Kinda keep happening. So, dear's like, okay, we'll go the next step. Like, and they get outside outside the the the mine.
T.C.:The temple.
JIM:The temple. And they see the fire Mhmm. In the room. The room is is torched. Right.
JIM:And they're like, oh, crap. It's on fire.
T.C.:I know we're normal police, but let's be firemen.
JIM:We need to go in there and help and save and save those girls.
T.C.:Yes. Yes.
JIM:You mean all of the people? Yes. That's what I mean.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah.
JIM:Yeah. And so that's why they go in. The witches are notified that, hey, these Jedi have just busted into our place. They don't know there's a fire.
T.C.:Right. So they're all like
JIM:Get out. Okay. Fight time. Mhmm. And the Jedi Jedi are like, no.
JIM:You're where are the girls? There's a fire. Like like just chaos.
T.C.:Chaos. Too Too much too fast. Yeah.
JIM:Like that ends up justifying a lot of the craziness all the way down to the the girls running out and the mothers being like, oh, no. I'm gonna do a smoke thing. Mhmm. And then Soul being like, no. Stab.
JIM:Like like, we could even keep all of that. I don't know that I necessarily want to.
T.C.:I know. Yeah.
JIM:That already justifies the a lot of that's just just making it more chaotic and motivating their entry other than just we wanna.
T.C.:Right. Yes. I agree. Getting them in under circumstances like this makes it better. Having the women say, we you you were gonna give us days to make this decision.
T.C.:What the hell are you doing here? Get out. Like, they they are mad that the Jedi are even encroaching on like, crossing the threshold of their temple. So having them attack them, having Torben, our young rookie Jedi Mhmm. Kinda fly off the handle.
T.C.:Like like, ah, like, if he gets the first mistake, he pulls his blade first. They're like, kid, no. And it's already escalates. They're already mad. And his his, I just wanna go home.
T.C.:I don't like this. Like, he's the trigger happy not trigger happy, but he he's a little too quick to pull the weapon. That sets them off. And then it's just a matter of offense, defense happening, like and and each of them killing something of someone of importance in this.
JIM:Absolutely. I I still think it should start with Soul killing the mother.
T.C.:I I think Soul killing the mother has to happen. At least one of them.
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:But I think Torbjorn getting a kill and Kaike what do you call him? Kaike Sauris.
JIM:I called him Klandathu.
T.C.:Klandathu. If Klandathu does get possessed and they have to fight him and he's wrecked and Endear is just, like, trying to keep this shit together and everything is falling apart while all this fighting is occurring. I think they all are at Yeah. Fault here. They've all screwed up.
JIM:I I agree. I I I still want it to be soul that kicks it off, though.
T.C.:Okay. Yeah.
JIM:That that that's it. Otherwise, yes. Torben Yeah. Torben freaks out. Right?
JIM:Get out of this. Like, because the moment he sees they they killed one of the leaders. Yeah. Oh, we're doing this.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go.
JIM:Yeah. And so he starts laying into them. And then we get to have a real fight, not just a Wookiee versus three Jedi.
T.C.:We have a real oopsie daisy.
JIM:We we get we get 50 Force Witches Mhmm. Fighting Four Jedi. Jedi.
T.C.:And they're just panicking and there's no room for communicating with them because they're just pissed. Yeah. We have a a kid who went crazy. The Wookiee's possessed, and Deera's like, I'm too old for this shit. And you know what?
T.C.:The I don't know if the
JIM:from there, that can actually be what starts destroying the whole place. They're they're battling. It's a it's it's a battle.
T.C.:That can be the fire happening, but, like, them them destroying the place is is great. Yeah. Yeah. And having a having a soul kill mother the the one mother. Mama.
T.C.:Mama. And and the one little girl witnessing it. Did she witness it? Did May witness it?
JIM:May witnessed it.
T.C.:So then when everything is really going south like, May sees it. Seoul has done it. Wait. He chases after her. May tries to get to Osha.
T.C.:The bridge collapsed just as Seoul shows up. There's the two girls. He tries save them both, and he chooses Osha, and May falls.
JIM:I have a dumb idea.
T.C.:Go for it.
JIM:And and again, this might be moving too far from the show. What if what if Soul only ever sees one girl? And it's not until he has to make the choice that he realizes there's two.
T.C.:How's that does that play out? Does that work? I don't think about, like, unfolding that. Knows this little girl exists, talking to the women. We don't test them, or do we test them?
JIM:Well, we we in this case, we wouldn't.
T.C.:We wouldn't. Okay. Good. We we just bought ourselves some time by not having that whole sequence.
JIM:Mhmm. Never mind. It was it was
T.C.:just a thing
JIM:a thought occurred to me.
T.C.:I'll that I'll keep that planted, but I think even even if he doesn't know up until the point of choosing one of them to save and the other one dying, then when there's a murder running loose, then yeah. It could work. Yes and no. I don't know. But he he rescues them.
T.C.:The temple's crumbling down. Indara, not Indara, gets everybody out, gets them on the ship. They have the little girl. The the temple crumbles. All the witches are dead.
T.C.:And not from a A singular
JIM:get out of the brain. Yeah. Like like they they just flopped over and and like for as cool as all the fights are in this show, that one was off that that one was not great.
T.C.:Having the building crumble around them, some of them die under the the building crumbling as well as fighting the Jedi, and they are just flying their ship back to Coruscant with this little kid. And they're like, what are we what just happened? And and Dara's like, this is what happened. This is the cover up. This is what we're going to tell people.
T.C.:Yeah. And you have your new padawan. Good luck. Fast forward to Indar no. Chronologically, fast forward to Indar meeting Yeah.
T.C.:May at the bar and be like, you. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight.
T.C.:Fight. Indara is killed. May runs away. Investigation begins.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Okay. First, we Yord is introduced into it. This sort of plays out as it already is. Now here's a whole new conversation we had. It's Jord and oh oh, sorry.
T.C.:To your point of missing out on those middle years
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Take a moment here with me. A season two, we have Osha training with Chimera, and Mei is with the Jedi. Mhmm. And now we can progress their timeline in present while getting flashbacks to their time before. Osha's learning of the dark side while flashing back to all her experiences out there in the universe.
JIM:With Yord.
T.C.:Yes. Yes. With Yord. So season two, we actually get the whole cast back courtesy of witnessing everything that they went through and the in between.
JIM:I like that. I like that on paper. Thank you. And Yeah. Yeah.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Also happy
JIM:We we just don't get Jesse.
T.C.:We don't get yeah. Jexy Jexy. Jexy? Yeah. That's right.
T.C.:Daphne Keene's out there wolverining it up. But, yeah, that's that's season two conversation. So in in this case, Jord shows up having they have a history. Jord and Osha trained together. They were Padawans together.
JIM:Mhmm. Jord It's highly suggested in, like, what, two or three lines right there in the first episode?
T.C.:Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Like and then we see nothing from them. Mhmm.
T.C.:You made a great suggestion that I I had suggested that they should have some sort of romance that butted between them. That is that is forbidden by the Jedi.
JIM:And and my first reaction as always but I I thought about it for a second moment. Yeah. And it actually really it works really well. It it it works so well. God.
JIM:Because of what they set up for Osha. Mhmm. Sorry to to
T.C.:steal it for you. Go.
JIM:Go. Go. Because she left. She left the the Jedi order
T.C.:Mhmm.
JIM:At at at that age when they were training together. And so if there was a budding forbidden romance and then she left, Yord can feel gets to feel lots of different ways about this. Like you left me. Also, you left. Also
T.C.:Did I make you leave? Yeah. Yeah.
JIM:Yeah. And and like that's that's all some fun stuff to to watch these two characters then have to navigate now that they're thrust back
T.C.:And and not to go back to our second season pitch here Oh, yeah. Because we don't wanna do that. But seeing
JIM:right. Yeah.
T.C.:Seeing them in what we have, what exists in the current show
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:With that layer underneath it, knowing that that we will be able to explore all the subtleties of that and answer, like, lingering looks. Like, I think they had a thing. Like, we can suggest it more so in their in their performances.
JIM:And by putting this in the flashbacks while Osha is training with Chaimer Yep. I want it to be the thing that keeps her from fully going dark.
T.C.:Yep. I love that. Yeah. Get and give yeah.
JIM:Like like like so as we're watching, it's like seeing her go through two trainings and, like, which way are you gonna go Mhmm. Even though the one had taken place years ago. Mhmm. She could
T.C.:there's still good in her.
JIM:I feel it. And and because right. A Darth thirst trap. Mhmm. Chimera.
JIM:It it they they very much built this dark fantasy romance in there when when we when we finally meet him with Osha.
T.C.:It's one of the sexiest things in Star Wars.
JIM:It is. And but, like, kind of pushing more toward that, pushing that button more in season two Mhmm. Of, like, no. He's training her, and he's also kind of sedu like, literally Yeah. Seducing But then all like, then cutting to these flashbacks of her with Jord and having this this this budding romance there Mhmm.
JIM:Be this counterbalance. So she's not falling entirely into to the dark side because she has these memories of this more innocent Yeah. Love as well. Gosh. I think How it could be really cool.
T.C.:And how tragic to watch that romance knowing its destiny. Right? Yeah. Which is is something that's really hard to balance in prequels. Thank you, Star Wars.
T.C.:Is knowing the the end results of something and still being, connected to it and still finding
JIM:To that end, I would then change Jord's death scene just slightly. Mhmm. Because Osha does witness it. Yeah. Have her react.
JIM:Yeah. Have her scream. No. They they instead they instead went for the stunned silence. Yeah.
JIM:Have her scream. But also, right before Chimaera reaches down and snaps his neck Mhmm. He looks to Osha.
T.C.:Mhmm. Mhmm. Oof. God. They that's episode five.
T.C.:Right?
JIM:I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
T.C.:Episode five. Yeah. Where they we finally see the the
JIM:It
T.C.:it fight scene of
JIM:the the episode. Best episode of the show as it currently exists.
T.C.:Yeah. So going okay. The investigation begins. So we may OSHA is you know what? Actually, let's take a break here.
T.C.:Okay. This is a good spot. We're gonna let's let's take a break here and get some messages from six five media. When we come back, let's move into the investigation and take us through the beats of each Jedi's murder. Sure.
T.C.:So we still have, you know, Torben and then
JIM:Yeah. Sorry sorry I spent so long on the on on the age.
T.C.:That's what it is. Yeah. This is we are whiteboarding the hell out of this right now. I'm actually, I very rarely do this, but I'm taking notes for, like Oh. Yeah.
T.C.:Because I wanna track all this. But, yeah, we'll come back. We'll talk about each of their assassinations and then ultimately work up to the finale of this. Also, the reveal of Chimer as our villain. So let's take a break here.
T.C.:Lots still to juggle. It's gonna be a doozy of an episode, but we'll be right back after these messages from six five Media. And I'm just saying, like, we we could get more shirtless
JIM:scenes. Absolutely.
T.C.:I you know, he's a he's a good looking man, and Darth Thirststrap is the correct Darth name for him.
JIM:Yes. Anyway That's that's not mine, by the way. That's
T.C.:Melina is the Yeah. Actually the the the creator of Darth Thirststrap.
JIM:So Great name.
T.C.:Great name. We forgot something.
JIM:But we didn't actually establish
T.C.:because we we the the or the characters we were going to
JIM:do their the perspective from. Mhmm. Mhmm. I I had proposed the the the Jedi who are killed, but that's not what we're doing. Mhmm.
JIM:Right? So we're starting with Osha's perspective.
T.C.:For the for the first If if we if we go from the episode as it exists. Right? So episode one is the murder of master Andara and and Osha being grabbed by the Jedi and said, you know, you murder. You murdered. Mhmm.
T.C.:And then they find out that Mei is alive at the end while she's getting instructions from her shadowy master
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Seeking revenge on the Jedi for the destruction of her witch's coven. So, like, we're introduced to Osha. I think she's she's our main character for at least the first episode.
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:We we aside from her cold open, is where N'Dara gets murdered, we are then with Osha through this
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:First episode up until her discovering Mei's alive. There's obviously b b plot in this where we get away from Osha because does she
JIM:Well, okay. Ahead. So so we're not actually gonna do a narrative very different from what the show is then?
T.C.:No. We won't. But there needs to be I I think there needs to be a tighter focus on okay. For example, in the master Torben episode where they go into the temple and he's meditating
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:We see Mei trying to kill him. Osha goes in with the Jedi. She goes off by herself. She comes in, finds him sleeping in the room. Mhmm.
T.C.:And then Yord comes around the corner. He's like, I followed her whole time. That's a good series of events presented very poorly.
JIM:Yeah. I We could've we could've watched Jorg follow her.
T.C.:Yeah. We could've allowed the audience to have information visually as opposed to being told.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Right? And that that doesn't mean that that sequence needs to be strictly from Osha's POV. Mhmm. But as, an omniscient narrator focused in on singular storyline or two, Mae and Osha are balancing in this. Mhmm.
T.C.:Mae trying to kill Torben, Osha trying to just is my sister alive? Mhmm. It's just a matter of camera choices and editing choices that hone in. You know, it's it's I'm I'm trying to find a way to articulate this the simplest way possible. I'm gonna point to Lost season two episodes one, two, and three.
T.C.:The hatch is opened at the end of season one. The first episode of the season is Jack. Second episode is Kate. The third episode is Locke retreading the same moments of
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:But their flashbacks are all individually away from the island. They are the central character of the episode. And even in the scenes they're not privy to, it still reinforces the context of what they're going through.
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:That's what this show need to do a better job at. If Soul was gonna be the the the driving force of the context of the narrative of single episode. Mhmm. Focus more on him in the moving of the camera, in the blocking and staging of scenes, and who is speaking to him and how they speak to him.
JIM:Yeah. Instead, we're it's
T.C.:It's everyone. Yeah. It's it is shotgun across the room. Who the focus of a scene by scene? It's like, oh, Jorg's he's got the binoculars.
T.C.:Oh, now, Chaimir is a a kooky funny guy, and he's Mhmm. It's all this is all, like, craft that I'm talking as opposed to structure, screenplay structure.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Anyway sorry. Where where do you wanna jump on here?
JIM:No. I'd right back where we so so I I I I was under the impression we were gonna say, okay. So episode one is Osha's perspective and this is what we're gonna these are the the parts of the story we're gonna see or tell. And then two, it was gonna shift.
T.C.:Well, we can we it's pretty much what happens there. She is under arrest. They put her on a robot transport instead of taking her themselves. Silly choice. The rope the the ship crashes.
T.C.:She then, Soul grabs her at the end. Like, she has her jailbreak, lands on a planet. Like, we we are with her the majority of the episode anyway. It's just, like, small choices will solidify her as the POV for the episode. Episode two is going to master Torben's temple.
T.C.:He's meditating, and instead of killing him directly, she has to guilt him into taking poison. Mei, because she's got this edict that she has to kill a Jedi without a weapon
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Which she does, but it's not good enough apparently for
JIM:Poison is a weapon.
T.C.:They need to they need to literally drop dead. Well, she does figure it out. Mhmm. She chokes them. That's the first time anyone's force choked anyone.
T.C.:She did it. Yay. Anyway.
JIM:Right. So that that order speaks to whatever the show had in mind for going going forward. Mhmm. Well, no. I guess not.
JIM:Right? Because it was it would have been Keimer that gave her that order, but he never explains why he gave that order.
T.C.:Yeah. It's it's a lot of stupid like, why? Why? Why? Why?
T.C.:Why? I know we're like, stop telling us everything. Show us more. But we do need to know some things. Like, what is the test of her loyalty, embracing of the dark side, why?
T.C.:If it's just kill them by any means necessary, you're gonna find it difficult to do so.
JIM:That's what it should be because they're Jedi, so they're gonna be hard to kill. Yeah. Like, oh, you managed to kill them with knives? That's weird. Mhmm.
JIM:This one won't be as easy because you can't get near him. Yeah. And then she because she tries. She tries punching him. She tries throwing daggers.
JIM:Mhmm. Yeah. She even tries kicking. And none of that Bubble bubble bubble. And
T.C.:then she finally does get through to him and she's he's like, I've been waiting for you. I deserve this. I'll just
JIM:Which is a little weird because she was there earlier. Why didn't he wake up the mom the like, oh, here you are.
T.C.:It's a really heavy sleeper.
JIM:Gotcha. Yeah. That's what it is.
T.C.:She gets the kill on him. May and Osha see each other. Episode three is the flashback to sixteen years ago where we see the little kids.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:So before we get there, I wanna talk about Chimera and his plan, his hiding his identity, and the revelation of his identity. It's wasn't a long stretch to figure out it was gonna be him.
JIM:I remember it was, like, two, three weeks in the making.
T.C.:Yeah. Like, who could this be? Who could this be?
JIM:Like, there there was a short there was a short list of people.
T.C.:What's his plan? Like, why is he living like a dope apothecary? And he's not, actually. No. He he killed the guy and
JIM:took his He he's he's living as a hermit in a cave.
T.C.:And why and why is he With a hot pot. Yeah. An uncovered Uncovered. Soup. Pot of soup with So unsanitary.
T.C.:What's his he wants to seduce this Jedi this force user into murdering Jedi. That's his plan.
JIM:He, someone call him Sith. Mhmm. He he's he's very clearly Sith. He he his his philosophy is is selfish Mhmm. Selfishness, and he's trying to instill that in someone else because what he tells us at some point is all he wants is a pupil to pass on his teachings to.
JIM:Mhmm. And he immediately tries to kill his I don't I don't fully get it either, but that's what he that's what we are told.
T.C.:Right. Let's go to your your theme of power. Yeah. Power dynamic. He believes that the Jedi are utilizing all the power and not sharing it with people.
T.C.:Like, they like, they they have decided how the force should be used and no one can use it any other way. He doesn't he does not like, as a Sith would not like a Jedi, the Jedi's control over the power. He wants that power to be set free and and check them. And what better way to do that than to pit their own people against them, seduce Jedi to the dark side. And this is his first attempt at this.
T.C.:He has found a student to seduce and train and turn to the dark side and having
JIM:Well, it's it's it's perfect because it's your own sins come back to haunt you. Like this Yes. Because the one he finds, this girl is someone you whose life you torched.
T.C.:Mhmm. Mhmm.
JIM:And now she's going to end you.
T.C.:Yeah. He he found a great subject, and we don't know how he found her.
JIM:We don't.
T.C.:But he's And and he's been training her for some time.
JIM:As far as his backstory, we we we have hints. My theory we don't know for sure. My theory is he is Vanessa's Yep. Original padawan.
T.C.:Because he has the whip marks on his back. And when she senses them, she goes,
JIM:you're alive. Didn't even catch that.
T.C.:Yeah. He has the scars on
JIM:his back. I knew he had scars. It didn't even occur to me that they were the they were they were her whip.
T.C.:That's what it seems to me.
JIM:That that's an excellent connection.
T.C.:So he's a he's a fallen or former Jedi.
JIM:Yeah. And so he's looking to to undo the Jedi Mhmm. Because whatever she did to him, he blames her for. Mhmm. And so what what did she do?
JIM:The first thing that comes to mind is she whipped him because she was an overbearing teacher. Sorry. This goes back to how I want to it to be portrayed. Osha is treated by the witches. Witches.
T.C.:Yes. Yeah. Here's the there's there's our there's perfect information visually for us to to draw from here. She has a purple lightsaber. It's a light whip.
T.C.:Yeah. But purple, is is a very rare lightsaber. Mace Windu has one. The cannon behind that is red and blue combined equals purple. It is a Jedi who dips their force power into the Sith dark side Mhmm.
T.C.:And uses it correctly. So the fact that she has a purple weapon and whipped a kid means she was a pretty overbearing teacher.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Yes. And there and and to your point of, like, what the witches did to the kids, that's something that he can connect with. He's like, I too am the product of poor teachers.
JIM:Yeah. That that would come out more when he's teaching Osha.
T.C.:Right. And that's that is a down the road Yeah. Scenario. So I don't think that's something that needs to be answered here. But having the is known helps us write the character's motivation just a little better.
T.C.:I don't particularly mind how Chaimur's story unfolds in this show. There's there's Sure. There's a there's a little bit of, like, we need to understand clearly why you're doing this when you could have just done it yourself. Right? Like, he he kills the freaking Wookiee.
JIM:It's it's tasty revenge. Well, I don't like I don't like that at all. I don't like it. It it should be
T.C.:May. May. Yeah. So he he gets May to Torben Torben is killed. We get a a little more of that.
T.C.:Well, now we know for sure May is doing this. We've now verified it.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:And then she hits we've skipping over the episode that does the flashback because we already discussed it.
JIM:Unless we do a thing where where he maybe with I I don't know how we would explain it. What if he's making up his own Jedi or, like, he thinks he's making up his own Jedi order. Mhmm. And so, Mei is going to be his first un Jedi knight. Yeah.
JIM:And so, to become a knight, you have to fulfill your revenge. You have to kill all four of the Jedi. Mhmm. The reason he and we I would want to see him I would want to see Mae see him kill the the Wookiee because he that that would basically because by that point because I asked why why did he do that? You you because she betrayed him.
T.C.:Right.
JIM:The betrayals in this, they're very shallow
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:And and and And sudden. Yeah. And very almost not motivated. But like if that's like if he goes and does this, he's doing it specifically so that she knows and sees, hey, I'm preventing you from reaching the thing that you said. I'm stealing your revenge.
T.C.:So he he kills the Wookiee is what
JIM:you're Pug, do you like that? Yeah. Do like that being
T.C.:Getting her there and having her confront him so we get a Wookiee versus versus her fight. And and in the midst of this, this is tough.
JIM:It it ruins his reveal. It It was a pretty cool reveal.
T.C.:Yeah. When he steps out of the, here's my suggestion. Okay. Having a having a her versus the Wookie fight, and he this is a problem because he speaks Wookiee, so I don't know exactly how to do this, but bear with me, that that she's confronts him, like, I must have my revenge. You're responsible.
T.C.:And he's just fighting her to defend himself and apologizing profusely. He's literally gone into exile in shame. He doesn't want he left the Jedi Order. He's like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
T.C.:I didn't want it was a mistake. I'm sorry. And she's like, stop saying you're sorry. You deserve to die. Like, she's trying to believe what she's there to do until he finally just lays down.
T.C.:He's like, do it. I deserve it. And then she can't do it, and she walks away. And then when we see that the soul and the and Yord have shown up, she runs back into hiding to find him, go, hey. Listen.
T.C.:I wanna turn myself in. Please explain to you're dead. What happened? Oh my god. Oh my god.
T.C.:Oh my god. So then we still get the reveal of Chimer. Now it we have to figure a way to, like, if she what's the little foot thing? She snares him, and he's left hanging there.
JIM:Yeah. Because that happens before
T.C.:When did he kill the Wookie? I don't know. It's it's a
JIM:He he he pulled a Michael Myers where he got out of that and got ahead of her Yeah. And kill
T.C.:Having Chimyr like, having him go with her to a point, like, at at this point, you have to walk in those woods and you can only take what you take with you. You can only have what you take with your account there. And he stays behind as the little clown that he's been portraying up to this point Mhmm. And just stays by behind so that when the ship shows up, like, the Jedi show up, they could find their ship and, like, they're not here. I don't know.
T.C.:Just instead of snaring him and her, like, I'm not gonna do it now. I'm gonna go turn myself in. I'm just shifting a little bit. We get another cool fight. She she realizes this isn't what she wants.
T.C.:She goes back to him. She leaves and then comes back and he's dead. And then, Kanye reveals himself to the Jedi just like at the end of episode four.
JIM:Would it be too much if the Wookiee kills himself?
T.C.:A little bit of Harikira.
JIM:Yeah. Sepakuz himself?
T.C.:Sepakuz. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. That's right.
T.C.:I think that
JIM:Not established as a Jedi thing.
T.C.:Where what what? Where is this coming from? I know he borrowed a lot from Hidden Fortress and Akira Kurosawa, but not that. Yeah. My my pitch is my pitch stands that she faces off of Gim and ultimately can't do it.
JIM:But that means that means Kaimur was there. And and I guess it makes sense. He was there watching the whole time, sees her say
T.C.:Mhmm.
JIM:She can't do it. Yes. Lee walks out of the hut. Yeah. He goes in, kills the Wookie, leaves Mhmm.
JIM:And almost immediately she comes back in.
T.C.:Yeah. Like it it could be established through establishing shots that some time has passed. But if she leaves the hut and works her
JIM:But way that also means we we as the showmakers need to convey to the audience that she has given up her vow of evil in in at the end of this fight Mhmm. And to by by letting him live Mhmm. And also that her master has seen this betrayal Mhmm. And is punishing her for it.
T.C.:We we don't I don't think we need to show that he saw it. I don't think we need any hint of Chimyr in the woods at all. That she goes, she makes the decision, she throws down her weapon and says, I am just I'm
JIM:gonna I renounce my ways.
T.C.:Yeah. And she walks away. And as she's working her way through the forest, that's when she sees Sol and Yord and even Osha coming. So she runs back to the Wookiee to say, plea I I just
JIM:and I know I know asking for motivation here is so much smaller than all the the the times this show didn't have bigger motivations.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:Why does she run back to him when she could just right there surrender to Osha and Soul
T.C.:and Okay. That that's a fair question. Why why not turn herself in? Okay. Let's let's let's try she throws down her weapon, says I'm I'm not gonna do this, and she leaves.
T.C.:And she ventures back through the forest to get to her ship. Does not cross paths with them at all. They show up at the hut, and he's dead. Okay. And so we don't see May any May leaves, and she's I I'm just gonna go back to my ship and and tell Chaimera I couldn't do it.
T.C.:She disappears into the forest. Then the heroes come up, and they've, some time has passed. The heroes show up. We get a scene of, like
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Osha talking to Yord. We get a little more of
JIM:Investigating what happened here. Yeah.
T.C.:Yeah. Sure. And then getting to the huts, they show up to the hut. The Wookiee is dead. So then then they're like, he's dead.
T.C.:And then they step outside as the night is falling, and out of the woods comes the red lightsaber. Okay. So then the next episode is the fight has begun, and we get fight scene in the episode. And when May gets back to Her ship? Ship,
JIM:it's Chimer's not there.
T.C.:Chimer's not there. And I don't know. I his reveal is in the fight scene episode, episode. So it's fine. We don't have to bury it.
T.C.:I don't think we need to spend so much time. If anything, we're doing more than Osaka did with the masked guy who's a smoke monster. They didn't give us anything for that. When she gets back to the ship and sees, like, he's not there and, like, you know, you know, hey. Come here.
T.C.:Where are you? Come here. And then seeing I don't know.
JIM:Hearing So it's not so far away that she doesn't hear the lightsaber back?
T.C.:Or there's an explosion that draws her back into it so that she runs back. And meanwhile, Jason Mendoza is just making making mincemeat of these Jedi. Just there was a massacre.
JIM:So I guess that actually what works is if she leaves, she doesn't see the Jedi. She gets back to wherever all the ships landed. Yeah. And she sees the Jedi ship. Yes.
JIM:She'd be like, oh, no. Osha.
T.C.:Osha. Yeah. And then runs back to see the
JIM:back in in it. Yeah. Okay. The If you I honestly, right now, I feel like I'm I feel lost in our own show. Mhmm.
JIM:And I feel like we're just repeating the things that happened in the episodes.
T.C.:Well, we are.
JIM:But better.
T.C.:Well, we are motivating the characters. We're moving them across the board differently.
JIM:That is true.
T.C.:We we've we're sort of moving into broad strokes here about getting from a to b to get to the key moments.
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Her deciding I'm not gonna kill this Wookie is a very pivotal moment and it motivates
JIM:And we get a good we get a good fight scene.
T.C.:We get a good fight scene. Yes. But it also motivates her in her character arc to say she she has gone as far as she can.
JIM:I see. Yeah.
T.C.:And now she's she is literally walking back.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:She has gone as far as she can. She's walking back. And meanwhile, Osha, without realizing it, is walking into the darkness and she's got a lot further to go. The the next big moment is Jord getting killed and and if in the episode that leads up to his episode four that leads up to the fight scene is Jord and Osha speaking to each other and getting to know to Jackie, getting to know her. Like, that's this like they did, but, you know, motivated differently.
T.C.:They have a history of romance that they couldn't have. Jackie is
JIM:That way it's it's more than just two lines of, you shouldn't have that weapon. Well, I'm gonna hold on
T.C.:to gonna hold on to it. Yeah. That's that's not fun. That's not cute and clever. That is lazy.
JIM:Yeah. Yeah.
T.C.:Establishing Jackie as this young Padawan who fully believes and has true devout faith in the Jedi Order Mhmm. And and the rules.
JIM:And learning that Osha left, why did you leave? Why? How could you Why would you
T.C.:Why leave? Yeah. Getting to the next big thing is the like, Chimera's reveal is huge, but it's it's more about the switcheroo. That's the after episode five is when Osha when May takes Osha's clothes and they swap places. We need to this is a complete change in motivation here.
T.C.:If it still comes down to remember, we're covering up this massive event Mhmm. That that Mae has been out for revenge against the people who killed her family. Soul in particular is her number one target.
JIM:And now she's back on. That that's so that's the problem with taking her off the path of wanting this revenge. So maybe she does kill the Wookiee?
T.C.:Well, let's
JIM:That's that's as far as as far as story arcs go, that's pretty flat. But
T.C.:Well, let's let's
JIM:It doesn't it doesn't mean it's not it wouldn't be cool to watch.
T.C.:Let's walk that path for a second. Let's say she shows up. She does confront the Wookiee. She does kill him. In fact, he lets her kill
JIM:him. Mhmm.
T.C.:And then she's standing there, and the Jedi show up. Mae, come out of there, which is what we get. Mhmm. And, you know, whoever's in that hut, come out here right now. And she comes out, and she has eyes on Soul.
T.C.:It's like, you're the last one. You're the last you
JIM:know? Mhmm.
T.C.:Erasing everything I've set up from Sure. Sure. Yeah. You're the last one I need, Soul. And he's like, I'm not gonna fight you, May.
T.C.:Osha, your sister's here. May, I didn't know you were alive. What are you doing? Shut up, Osha. I'm doing what you could never do.
T.C.:You know? I've been my eyes are turning red. I am I am I am embracing this. And then she can't beat these people. They've got her dead to rights, and that's when master shows up very proud of her.
T.C.:Good job killing that wookie. I'll handle this. Let me show you how it's done. That's if we if yeah. What do think of shifting it to she's she did she does get the kill on the Wookiee?
T.C.:She killed the other two. Why not kill this one?
JIM:Oh, I I keep saying we can we can have this super cool fight with a a Wookiee. What if what if we do something different? And, unfortunately, this might be too much like death.
T.C.:Mhmm.
JIM:What if he invites her in? Mhmm. Like, oh, you finally come.
T.C.:Mhmm. Yes.
JIM:He invites her in. Like, they do a whole they do a whole tea thing. Like, they exchange
T.C.:I love this.
JIM:And they and they talk it out. Yeah. And and and and and and at the end, that's when he says, you you can you
T.C.:can kill me now. Yeah. I like that. That's great.
JIM:Something like that. I'm I'm afraid that's a little too much like Torben. I I the the reason I'm saying that, it keeps in line. I don't think she should necessarily come out and confront all of these Jedi. I like that she's she's hiding in there and that it is her master who essentially rescues her by revealing himself.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Oh, I just
JIM:love to fix
T.C.:here too.
JIM:Is is that cool having having the but then the wookie would need to talk and if he's just
T.C.:We can subtitle it.
JIM:Oh, that's true.
T.C.:Yeah. There's no reason we can't subtitle it. She can speak Kashyyyk. Like, she can speak Wookiee and and he could like, she doesn't have to
JIM:do Star Wars, she she would just talk.
T.C.:Right. Right. That's what
JIM:I'm saying.
T.C.:She comprehends it. She's not gonna pull a Han Solo and
JIM:be like, which
T.C.:is cool. This is cool that she just can speak directly to him, and he speaks directly to her subtitled. I mean, really crafty is to not subtitle it and have her responses fill fill in the gaps context. Well, let's subtitle for this. And then he says, we can fight now.
T.C.:And then or you may kill me now. Mhmm. Whatever the case may be. She's now trapped in that hut.
JIM:Oh, and what if it is, we we'll we'll fight now. And they they they stand off, and he just puts the the lightsaber to the side to let her Yeah. Kill him.
T.C.:Yeah. Sort of Obi Wan Kenobi esque to be like, strike me down. I deserve this. Yeah. Yeah.
T.C.:Yeah. And then she's stuck in the hut, and now we get fight scene in the episode. I have a I have a fix I think I have a fix for the switcheroo.
JIM:Okay. Good.
T.C.:Because this is the biggest this is this is this is the next big hurdle to get over is getting them to switch spots believably. Uh-huh.
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:I'm gonna I'm gonna I'll just pitch I'll just cut right to it and pitch it this way. As it is, May goes, I'm gonna take Osha's identity so I can get on that ship with soul and kill him. That's what she does. Right? That's the the way the show does it.
JIM:That's from my understanding Yeah. Of watching, that is what they were doing.
T.C.:What they were doing. Okay. I'm I'm gonna do it the other way. It's Osha's idea to take Mei's persona to get on the ship with Chimer.
JIM:Why?
T.C.:I don't know. I'm just starting there as a as a as a change, to to try to get the same result through different means if it's if if Osha is the one who switches spots willing ly to to save her sister, maybe this is part of her plan. I don't know. I'm just putting it on the table and see if there's anything we can do with it.
JIM:There what's what's nice about it is that it becomes rhyming poetry in that at the end, May is the one who chooses to switch. Because because that that is an interesting notion right now. May is the one who motivates both switches. Right. I'm gonna switch to kill soul and also, no.
JIM:We need to switch and have my memory erased.
T.C.:Right. So if if it if it goes this way, can we can we motivate this with strongly enough that it's like, good call, Osha. I don't know why you think this is good. This is a this is a this is a big gamble. But if okay.
T.C.:Let's try this. The mystery of this murderer is is being unraveled here. Woah. There's what this is a dark Jedi. The word Sith hasn't even been used in centuries, and and we need to know more information about this murderer.
T.C.:He's gonna get away. Maybe Osha thinks, okay. If I go with him, I can get more information to help stop him. Maybe. I don't know.
T.C.:I think
JIM:I think in our rewrite here, Mae didn't have her turn of heart here in the woods to make the master to make Kymer turn on her Mhmm. To then also then not turn on her. Right? Right. We're we're better we're coming out of this motivation better?
T.C.:Yes. We're we're saying he's so proud of her for doing what she's done. You Which did
JIM:means that to some degree she does trust him, which which she would because thinking about the way the show was, if she betrayed Kaimer Mhmm. And then Kaimer, like, tried killing her for it, Mae wanted revenge, but did she want revenge so much that she would abandon her newfound sister? Clearly, yes. But to leave her sister to be found by her old master who now wants her dead. Like, it's
T.C.:it's so it's why? Why? Why? Why? Right?
JIM:Whereas now, he doesn't want her dead, so she would trust him with her theoretically, but you can never trust a Sith.
T.C.:Right. So Mei knows that Osha will be okay in her master's hands because she still trusts him? That's what you're saying?
JIM:That's what I'm saying.
T.C.:Okay. So so I took the long
JIM:I took the long way to get there.
T.C.:That's okay. No. You needed to beat it out. It's fine. So so May, in a sense, instead of getting Jason whisked away by bugs, is like, here's the plan.
T.C.:I'm gonna switch with my sister. You take care of her. I'm gonna kill Saul. And when I come back, my sister and I and you will will head off into the galaxy together. Yeah.
T.C.:I think that's a great idea, May. Do that. Cause now he has a new apprentice that he can seduce. If if they're in on this together and May, he's like, I'm gonna let me switch with Osha so that I can get my final kill on Soul, which she could get pretty quickly but doesn't. Does this work?
T.C.:Is this
JIM:I I'm not sure.
T.C.:Does it really
JIM:The the the problem with the switcheroo is like, I I get on one hand, I totally see how when they were pitching that, oh, and she just does like a cool lightsaber cuts her braids and now she's the same. Like, I I kinda get how that sounds like it it's cool sitting sitting at a table with other writers.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:But seeing it happen was just eye rolling.
T.C.:Yeah. Alright. Can we can we motivate the switcher differently? What if what if Chimer switches them? What if they're both
JIM:They're both unconscious.
T.C.:Unconscious. He swaps them out, takes Osha because he's got now he'll have a new student to seduce and leaves her. And May's like, oh, man.
JIM:So then when May wakes up on the ship, she
T.C.:goes, oh. And it's like, Osha, you
JIM:okay? Yeah. So immediately he says, Osha, you're awake.
T.C.:What what happened? What how am I here? What am I doing here? Where Yeah. How did Yeah.
T.C.:Where's the where's the where's where's where's
JIM:the they both get knocked out.
T.C.:He could even, like, freaking force grab them and, like, knock their asses if he's just,
JIM:like, and,
T.C.:like, actually just knocks them both out. Yeah. Then we don't see
JIM:the switch. Just, like, throws Osha or
T.C.:Picks up Osha,
JIM:throws them
T.C.:over Shiloh.
JIM:Does a force switch clothes. Yeah.
T.C.:And switch clothes.
JIM:Yeah. That that would be the only other difficult part is why would
T.C.:This man is very comfortable with nudity.
JIM:No. I
T.C.:know. It's not. No. Getting getting the switcher on their clothes is a little hand wavy even as it is and often in in movies like this, like, or in stories like this. It's like, well, we need them to be in the guards uniform.
JIM:My god. Yeah. Do you know they they planted it. They planted it in, like, at at the beginning of that fourth episode when they said they were gonna go and Osha said, you're not gonna make me wear those civilian robes.
T.C.:Yeah. There you
JIM:And then they didn't.
T.C.:Yeah. Put her in the civilian robes. Yes. So it's an easy little, like poncho that you can just Yes. There you go.
JIM:Oh my god.
T.C.:You're make me go to civilian robes, are you? Put the robes on. Yeah. So then it's easy to just put her in the tunic or the the Yeah. Poncho and then Yeah.
JIM:Poncho is an easy switcheroo.
T.C.:She she wakes up on the ship and soul is just like, I'm so glad you're okay. I'm sorry. I tried to get to your sister but he took her.
JIM:We're the only two that survived.
T.C.:We're the only two survived.
JIM:And Basil.
T.C.:And Basil's not in the show anymore.
JIM:You cut Basil.
T.C.:So now okay. Yeah. Now the switcheroo has happened, and we can basically play out the Osha's Osha and Chimr pretty much as is. Like, he Mhmm. He's like, go ahead.
T.C.:Pick up that weapon. Kill me. Mhmm. You don't wanna do that. You have questions too.
T.C.:You didn't like the Jedi. You left. Why did you leave? Like, he's he's, like, already under her in her mind. Like, he's already playing his mind games with her, like, immediately.
T.C.:I don't
JIM:I don't know if our our five studios all agree, but I'd like, I I'm I like every scene he's in. That entire exchange, I I don't think I would change anything.
T.C.:Once you though yeah. I I think, again, he's the strongest part of this entire series.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Getting to the May and soul stuff though, she's a little, like, caught off guard that she's on the ship and he thinks, like, she's, like, she's gotta put it together. Mhmm. Like, we don't have to say ever vocalize it. She just needs to, like even if it's just an emoting and the acting of a moment of just, like, I'm here. That means that means my sister is with him.
T.C.:But we don't know that. We don't know what hap yeah. She's May is probably still with him. Why would he take her? Like, she's asking the questions she wants to know in just enough, with enough reading between the lines that we know what she's really asking.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:I don't know. But, master Wookie is dead. I I think we need to go back to Coruscant. There's there's so much more information here that this is all my fault. This is all my fault.
T.C.:You were you were too young to remember. No. I remember. No. How could you you know, like, this is where the unraveling of the cover up like, soul is coming to the point of, like, this I did this.
T.C.:I did all this. My friends are dead. Your sister's in trouble. I couldn't save May. Like, he he's at his wit's end.
T.C.:He's he's he's riddled with guilt at this point. And then she has the opportunity to kill him. Why doesn't she? He's right there. She could end she could have her final revenge right here.
T.C.:Could it be that she does not have the full scope of the story yet? So here, actually, I'll I'll put the hurdle in place. The the next the other side of this hurdle is the final battle on Brandak. They go back to the the the temple, everyone reconvenes there, and fight to the death happens. So how do we get from this point to that point?
T.C.:The way the show did it is Mae just decides not to kill Sol, probably because she wants to go back to get her sister, then why did she switch in the first place?
JIM:Well, because by that oh, I I actually, I don't remember. That's another thing that they kept doing with these characters was they kept changing their motivations. Right. Like like the switcheroo wasn't just this once in episode five. It was, oh, I've changed my mind.
JIM:I wanna be evil, but not right now. Yeah. It it cuts out it cuts out a spaceship chase and and stuff like that. But, what if through those questions, soul soul realizes? And Oh,
T.C.:I I I would much rather he knew all along. Like he instead of making him such a dope that he didn't know that I well, okay. No. You know what? You're right.
T.C.:Maybe through the questions, he puts two and two together.
JIM:Between the questions or a a thing happens where she reveals her arm
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:Because that never pays off.
T.C.:She has a tattoo. Right?
JIM:It never pays off. Yeah. She doesn't have the tattoo. Yeah. Because May doesn't have the tattoo.
JIM:Yeah. And that's what ultimately tips him off.
T.C.:Mhmm. But then but then he lets her lie exist. Like, he doesn't call her out on it. He he, like,
JIM:starts asking her questions. So through her questions of trying to interrogate him about things, he's kind of I don't wanna say necessarily confessing. Mhmm. But, actually, maybe she is. Maybe she's interrogating the truth out of,
T.C.:like Yeah.
JIM:Even to himself Mhmm. He's finally admitting out loud, I did this. This is my fault. I but then why why doesn't she oh, because he's he's a Jedi and so he just, like, clunk Bonk. And cuffs her.
T.C.:When she finally goes for it, we still need to motivate everyone back to the planet. But here's the thing. The episode that exists on the currently after this is the is the the the redo of the flashback where see the history again through Soul. Having a cat and mouse conversation of her interrogating him, getting the questions out, him slowly realizing she's May, we could have a brief scuffle of her, like, going for it and be like, I'm not gonna fight you. I need to tell you the truth.
T.C.:Let me tell you. It's time it's time I confessed, and you knew everything that happened.
JIM:And it never comes out?
T.C.:No. Because the next episode is the flashback where he's he's the like, the end of that episode goes, it's time you learn the truth.
JIM:Oh, okay.
T.C.:And then the next episode starts. It's them landing on Brandak, the four Jedi, however many years ago, however old we wanna make them, and now we replay. We already discussed what we would do with the with the the setup to this, and now it's unfolding it, with all the missing pieces. Sure. And also the the power dynamic changing in such a way where now anyone we might have had sympathy for the first time or thought were enemies this time has switched because now we're hearing it from Soul's POV.
T.C.:So now the witches like, the lines of dialogue are delivered differently at this point. But, like, initially, it was like, you have no right to be here. And then in the other version, it's, you have no right to be here. Like Sure. So that we like, whose whose version of the truth is the right one?
T.C.:Saul's saying it's this.
JIM:My okay. Here's my only problem with that. Mhmm. The way it it's the way it will be interpreted is the last telling is the most
T.C.:Yeah. And I think that that can still be the case where Sol is taking he already said through the q and a that was happening in the previous episode, he's like, it's my fault, and it's time I admit that. So then when we see this play out, we get to see, oh, those weird choices he was making that seemed a little Mhmm. Like, now we're getting it's like Luke admitting what happened with him and Kylo in Last Jedi. Mhmm.
T.C.:This is what really happened. Soula is telling the truth. So we can see him more as not a villain, but he was wrong. He was wrong this whole time.
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:And so he's taking full responsibility for what he's done.
JIM:Okay. So so so the earlier the earlier telling the witches are softer and and more defensive and
T.C.:Escalate everything on this version of it. Like, this is the truth.
JIM:Okay.
T.C.:But still need to get them back to that planet. May does May still escape and get out like, fly away in the escape pod? He can't catch her. Why does she do that? Why does she go back to Brandak?
T.C.:Why do Osha why does Osha go back to Brandak? Right? That's that's the last motivating motivating thing. Thing.
JIM:Something something in the last interaction between Sol and Kymr, Kymr says something about going to Brandoq. Mhmm. I'm I'm going I'm going back to where where you started all of this.
T.C.:Yes.
JIM:Yeah. And so then in the in the discussion, where's where's my sister? Mhmm. The that guy that guy took her. She's go ahead.
JIM:Or where where are we going? We're going back to Coruscant. We need backup. Everyone died. This is all my fault.
JIM:Yes. Yes. What's your fault? All of it. Yeah.
JIM:Right. So then and you're oh, no. You're me. We have a fight.
T.C.:And I'm not gonna I'm not gonna kill you. I'm
JIM:I wanna help you. I I just wanna help you. That's all I've ever wanted. Mhmm. Mhmm.
JIM:And and she realizes she can't get through, and they're they're, like, they're headed in the wrong way. So she drops a smoke bomb. I I don't know.
T.C.:Gets in the
JIM:escape pod. Yeah. Gets in escape pod, shoots off the other direction. That's why he now has to chase her to Brennadoc.
T.C.:Yeah. And Chaimir using the force.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Because she put oh, oh, we we know how she got to, Brendock. Osha put the helmet on and tapped into the unfiltered force. I see my sister. She's holding a lights aber. She's in the ruins of our home.
T.C.:I know where she's oh. And then and then Chimere says, you just saw the future. These events have yet to happen. Yeah. Let's go to Brandak.
T.C.:Like, that that exists in the episode already. So that motivates her to I need to get to my sister. Okay. So that gets her there.
JIM:And now and now May and Soul. Soul are going there. He's because that that scene starts with him sending the signal to Coruscant, they're all gonna know. They're all gonna come here. Yep.
JIM:Yep. And that's that's everyone.
T.C.:Yep. And that ticking clock exists as is where they they are trying to just get the sisters in the same place
JIM:at
T.C.:the same time. Soul is ready to turn to explain everything. He he wants to save these girls. That's all he's ever wanted to do. And
JIM:And and and he's he's he's messed it up this whole time. Yeah. Every step of the way, he's like, I I messed it up and I got all of my friends killed. I got everyone I've cared about Yeah. Killed by by my actions.
T.C.:By and that confession, because May makes him confess it and Osha hears it, that's what finally tips her over the edge to turning a blue lightsaber red. Mhmm. Can we motivate that a little stronger, please? I I still I don't fully buy into Osha just turning like that.
JIM:These fights are happening. Osha get or no. Soul gets hurt.
T.C.:Mhmm.
JIM:He's backed into the corner. Off the top of my head, I'd I'd I'm now I'm not remembering the the details of it even though that's the most recent thing I've seen. Yeah. Gets kind of backed into a corner by Kymor and May. Mhmm.
JIM:And May is like Consent. Because because the the way they did it, and I understand why they did it, is he confessed what like he confessed he didn't know she was there. So then she's like, say that again. Mhmm. And he turns and says it was me and confesses, and that's what makes her mad.
JIM:What if instead, right, he's fighting these two. I just wanna do the right thing. I just no. You don't understand. None of you understand.
JIM:You're twisting it. You're getting it wrong. It was all Killing her
T.C.:was an accident.
JIM:Yeah. Maybe even saying she her death was accident. Mhmm. All the way down to like, so he gets injured. He's backed in a corner.
JIM:Osha jumps in, takes his lightsaber It's back on. And is now defending him Mhmm. From them. Yeah. But they keep needling soul behind her Yeah.
JIM:Until he's like, it's true. It's or
T.C.:or they start they start
JIM:telling Osha, like, he's done all of these things. He did this. And she's like, no. No. It can't be true.
T.C.:Mhmm. That's impossible.
JIM:Yeah. But but but yes. Going all the way to the it's impossible bit. Mhmm. And then that's what breaks soul.
JIM:He's like, no. No. It's true.
T.C.:Stop, Osha. Like, Osha could even have made dead to rights. Like, you're a you've you've been dead this whole time. I don't care. Like, I'm like, she she's so conflicted, so confused.
T.C.:She she even blames May for pushing her and bullying her as a kid. Like, this is all this repressed childhood trauma coming out. Mhmm. And Soul's like, you know, Osha, stop. Stop.
T.C.:Don't do this. They're not wrong. They're not lying to you. I did. I did.
T.C.:I'm I'm sorry. I it was not my intention. Your mom's death is my fault. I I did it. I the whole it's my fault.
T.C.:They're not lying to you. No. She was just like, what? How could you? How and then and then then the needling is switched like, yeah.
T.C.:He's lied to you this whole time. You my whole life is a lie. You kidnapped me like and then that anger
JIM:Give give sort of a monologue right Yeah. There rather than just see it silently.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. If it's just like you took me from my and you took me to court you I left I became a Jedi and then left, like, just she's, like, unraveling everything she's been through. We can even hear, since we're getting to season two here, little seeds of what she's done in the time she's left Brandak until coming back. Not that she did anything, like, heinous, but just, like, the life she's led is a result of him.
T.C.:Mhmm. She never even had a choice in that matter. She wanted to leave the planet. She wanted to see the galaxy, but this is not how it should have happened and it's his fault.
JIM:Yeah. And yes. I don't I don't know if this is actually motivated better because it's happening honestly in the same amount of time. Mhmm. Having the having the monologue helps.
T.C.:Yeah. This is the the having more time hearing about her relationship with Yord, why she doesn't wanna even talk to Saul. Saul. Like, they they he keeps trying to talk to her through the course of this show, and she's like, I'm not your Padawan anymore. I've I've been out in the world, and it's been hard, but it's been the choice of my like, I made my choice.
T.C.:Like, getting through interactions with everyone, Jackie even of, like, hey. It seems all fun and games now as a young padawan, but responsibilities shift. Life is hard. The galaxy is big. Building up her character, her motivations, her feelings about everything, getting hints of the trauma she's repressing based on lies anyway, we can Mhmm.
T.C.:And Chaimir pulling out of her the same thing that he did to May saying like by
JIM:Okay. Then that means we gotta go back through all of those episodes and plant all of this way more.
T.C.:Yeah. Like, to Osha is the character that should be the most realized and strongest in this entire series.
JIM:At least or at least season.
T.C.:In in this season. Yes. In this season of this show, the she needs to be the most developed and that can't just be telling us like, her telling people what she's did what she's done and people like ex you know, like, we had a past relationship.
JIM:But Mhmm.
T.C.:It's it's her relationships with people from her past and how she interacts with them now. Like, just let that build up and build up so that we can shatter it once the lie is over, once Soul finally admits everything and says, it's true. They're not lying to you. Then she has that. And I I would be even willing to go so fast as a, like, visions of her mom, everything replaying, like, zipping through her mind of, like, the context of everything that we've seen about her up to this point now put through a new lens of the truth breaks her.
T.C.:And then and then she just goes after him. And they and May and and Kyrie just step back as as she loses her mind. Mhmm. And kind of just smiling through the whole
JIM:So all that needs to be planned. And then so so she's she needs to defend soul through the through the the the season.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah.
JIM:I I think that actually more than anything
T.C.:He's my father practically.
JIM:He raised me. They kind of did it in the show. Yeah. But like we need to hammer it home that she's all like, no. Soul is a good pure
T.C.:He's he's he's the only one who saved me. No one who believed in me. Even when I walked
JIM:I feel guilty for walking away from him. I feel I let him down.
T.C.:Yeah. So then it's that much more devastating Yeah. When he admits what he
JIM:When the whole time he's Yeah.
T.C.:Oh. That hits hard.
JIM:I think that yeah. That that's a better way to motivate that betrayal.
T.C.:And once she just unleashes on him.
JIM:Oh, especially if the whole time, like, Yord is all like, I wonder I wonder what soul is hiding. Soul's not hiding anything. Yeah. Jackie is like, he's he's
T.C.:He's a great master, but he holds so much in. Yeah. He's he's he saves so much.
JIM:Yeah. For himself. Constantly stuff stuff like that. And and so she has to defend him.
T.C.:And and even seeing the results of the the three masters who are killed, for example, Torben has been meditating for years, existing in his guilt, there could be some dialogue in that, in in the way master soul like, if Jackie's like, why would a master go through all that training and then just meditate for so long? And so then, like, sometimes we all we have is the weight of our thoughts keeping us still in in the place we are, and and other peep people choose different ways of working through that. I understand what Torben is doing. I understand probably better than anyone. Like, something like that where he why would a why would a wookie go into exile?
JIM:Okay. I wanna change I wanna change a couple things. It it needs to be I I think we did make it, she does fight the wookie.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:But the wookie insists on a fight because that is the honorable way.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:Yeah. And there just reaches a point where he's like, yeah. You win. Mhmm. And and, like, so he accepts his death.
JIM:Yeah. Torben, he never lets that shield down. Mhmm. The way May finally gets to him is not with poison. I'd it it was kinda cool, but what do you think of this instead?
T.C.:Go ahead.
JIM:She finally sits down and meditates. Yeah. And she goes into that possess the that possession zone. Mhmm. And he's there.
JIM:And he's like
T.C.:I've been waiting for
JIM:you. Yes. That's where he says, I've been waiting for you. Mhmm. So we we never see him actually wake up.
JIM:He is there. He's even there he's even there in his young form.
T.C.:Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And we're actually calling forward to Rey and Kylo speaking to each other through the force in visual space that we see in last Jedi.
T.C.:So I was
JIM:I was just calling back to the the the witches messing with his head.
T.C.:That's also good. Yes.
JIM:Over these years, he's been meditating and perfecting
T.C.:That.
JIM:Being able to do it himself.
T.C.:Yes. Yeah. And and getting in there and he just chooses to die within his meditation. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
T.C.:I like that. And and so, like, why would
JIM:And may maybe he like, he puts his hands out, like, go ahead. Cut me down with your mind knives and I'll mind die.
T.C.:So she's like she just says like a shot. And then it cuts to him. He just flaps to the ground and she comes out of the meditation. Killed him without a weapon.
JIM:Yep.
T.C.:The going to find master Cracker Barrel. What's his name? The
JIM:Clandathu. Clandathu. It's a bug planet. An ugly planet.
T.C.:Again, much like Jackie asking why would a master meditate for years. Why would a master go into hiding an exile like this? Why would a why would you know?
JIM:She she she's the one who keeps asking Kinda. Pertinent questions?
T.C.:Yeah. It it more or less. Yeah. I think that she's the curious student who would ask these questions Okay. In one way or another.
T.C.:It doesn't have to be so pointedly the exact same question, but I'm trying you know, this is also calling forward as well. Like, why would a Jedi Master go into exile? Well, sometimes it's a it's an opportunity for Sol to impart knowledge, which he is good at. It's like we can see him or maybe Yord's the one who does it. But whatever the case, going forward here and having Soul hiding, like, keeping things this way he describes these other masters and his understanding of them Mhmm.
T.C.:It's because he's carrying the guilt too. And and and in the end, Osha defending him all this time and realizing I mean, that's a huge her whole life is a lie based on him. Mhmm. She could snap, and then Chaimur's standing like, essentially palpitating it going like, yes. Strike them down.
T.C.:Do it. And May is finally going, no. Stop. Osha, this is no. Don't do this.
T.C.:Don't do this. And Chaimur's holding May back. And that way when when the the end of this results in Osha choosing to go with Chimere and May staying behind Yeah. It could be yeah. May is like, I'm I can't do this anymore.
T.C.:Let's motivate her staying behind. Do we wanna wipe her memory?
JIM:Well, because right now, the motivation is they're gonna expect one of us in the wreckage. Yeah. Right? Like, that I can't I can't think of another reason why she stays like that.
T.C.:I'm gonna I'm gonna throw out an idea. Chimir and Osha leave together after she she strikes down Sol.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:Sol's left there dying, May May stays behind. Hold hold. Don't lose your thought. Yep. And Sol says, I'm sorry.
T.C.:I'm sorry. I I wish I could have saved you both. I'm so sorry. And May's like, I don't I don't know what to do. And Sol just reaches up and wipes her mind.
T.C.:I know that sounds very blunt, but, like, he's like, this is the only gift I can give you now. And with his last amount of energy, he wipes her mind. You had an oh moment too. So you
JIM:please if you have
T.C.:something to pitch
JIM:So so I like the idea that that that whole time the way the way Kaimer is holding Mae back is actually with the force. He's like the force pushing her against the wall.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah.
JIM:So then once Soule is killed, he finally lets her go. Yeah. And and because she didn't want her sister to become this Mhmm. She's like, what have you done? Well, you no.
JIM:You've you Corrupted her. And oh, she's like, no. I I the truth now.
T.C.:I finally chose my own path, May.
JIM:May, I finally understand. Yeah. We can finally be together. No. No.
JIM:Not like this. This isn't you. This isn't right. This is him. The I don't know if her her turn be like, oh, turns out revenge was wrong.
JIM:Like, I I don't know if it should be that much. Oh, duh. The whole kill a Jedi without a weapon, that's what that last one is. I killed the Jedi with my sister. Derp.
JIM:That's that's what that was.
T.C.:That's great.
JIM:They need to tell us that. They didn't tell us that. We are idiots as an audience.
T.C.:Thank you for telling me because that that I didn't even put two and two together. That's great. Now we well, we've motivated these characters a little more clearly Yes. So that Chaimir says, like, your mission is complete. You killed the last one without a weapon, your sister.
T.C.:And, like, Mae's like she has that revelation moment as well. It's like, this is so
JIM:Yeah. And and may maybe she's like, I'll kill you. Yeah. And now Osha's Osha's like, no. I don't think so.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:May, you don't you don't understand this. And right. So so this this little exchange where now May is kind of melting down Mhmm. As in, like, it wasn't supposed to be like this.
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:And then that's that's when, like, like, she gets, like, thrown back or something. And Osha's like, I don't wanna fight you. Yeah. And she's like, you you I will always kill him.
T.C.:Yeah. I will always fight for you, Osha.
JIM:That that kind of thing. And, Kaimer said Kaimer says something like, well, we can't take her with us in we can't take her with us. Mhmm. And, convinces Osha through real good dialogue.
T.C.:Yeah. This is the moment when the Jedi had landed, and he has his helmet off. And the Venestra is, like, senses him, he's like, shit. Helmet back on. Yeah.
T.C.:Okay. My my old master knows I'm alive.
JIM:But why don't they take her with?
T.C.:That that she she she could even say, you'll never see I refuse. I I see you for what you are now. I see
JIM:the truth. And I know I know where I I I know I know who you are. I know everything about you. I will hunt I will hunt you down. Yeah.
JIM:And that's like, that's too bad. You won't. Yeah. And that's the mind wipe. Yeah.
JIM:And she's like, what have you done to her? I just took away the the memories of of me. Mhmm. Or or or some some Whatever the guy needs to be. Yeah.
T.C.:She'll be okay.
JIM:The Jedi. Yeah. The the the Jedi the yeah.
T.C.:I will never stop fighting. I will not let you do it. Like, if she's just like, no. No. No.
T.C.:No. And then, yeah, he's like Mhmm. Are you ready to go, Osha? And she just looks back one last time at her sister and is like, let's get out of here. They leave together.
JIM:Well, she'd look back sad. Yeah. I mean, you gotta you gotta you gotta because she's she's sad to lose her sister. Yeah. Just found her sister again.
JIM:Yeah. I gotta I gotta let her go.
T.C.:Yeah. Because I have some training to do. Yeah. And then Vanessa shows up and decides putting two together. I'm sorry, soul.
T.C.:I have to do this. I need to cover up once and for all. We can't we cannot she has very clear motivation. My old student is a Sith. Yep.
T.C.:No one can find that out. Yep. And so yet another cover up by the the wondrous Jedi, she decides the simplest way to do this is Saul screwed up however many years ago and killed his friends and killed himself. The same excuse she gives the counsel. Mhmm.
T.C.:There's no need for investigation.
JIM:Because it's all done.
T.C.:Everything's fine here. How are you?
JIM:Yep. We were supposed to do a season two.
T.C.:Well, we no. That wasn't in the demand.
JIM:Oh, it wasn't? That wasn't in No.
T.C.:I thought it was. No. The demand was to fix season one. Oh, okay. Looking at looking at the okay.
T.C.:So much like we did with Game of Thrones, we took what is, and we just sort of connected the dots a little more solidly, I think.
JIM:I I would like to think so as well.
T.C.:Is
JIM:there Also, no. You said it was warp manipulation? Make make the set look better.
T.C.:The the warp stabilization in the camera work was a little wonky. Like
JIM:it looked it looked like a TV show and Andor and Skeleton Crew showed us that they don't have have to look like TV shows.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. The the cinematography of this show. For how good the production design is, cinematography could have been a lot better. And since we're back in 2023, we can help make that happen.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. So let's let's just run down the characters real quick. We gave Osha this her motivation as a as a person is she just wants to find her own way. She wants she doesn't wanna be a witch.
T.C.:She maybe wants to be
JIM:Jedi. She
T.C.:just wants to be out there in the galaxy and discover herself.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:And she thinks she's got that figured out because of everything that came before. Her sister died. Her family died. Her her Jedi master slash father figure let her go out and explore. All that was a lie.
T.C.:Everything that she is is built on a lie and that broke her. Mhmm. Mae fully believed in the the her family's lineage of witch like witchcraft and she she drank the Kool Aid. She believed in in the power of the source, the what is the force, right, the thread that binds everything, and that was taken from her. And that's that that anger for having the life she chose taken with her led her down a dark path that allowed her to be recruited by a Sith and pointed at his enemies, go get them.
T.C.:And she found that the path of revenge is not as fulfilling as she had hoped, especially finding out her sister's alive and the truth of the matter. When soul confesses everything
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:She's she's a more complex adult now, and she's willing to accept she could be wrong as well. And the the goodness that was in her existence was her sister. Her sister's alive and now being corrupted. She won't let that happen. That's the only thing that matters now.
T.C.:Not her revenge, not not not not being this powerful being. It's protecting her little sister.
JIM:Sure.
T.C.:And that's that's how her arc goes. She in the end, she can protect her sister by not like, yeah. Soul's arc of guilt, he thought he was doing the right thing through and through. He always thought he was doing the right thing. And in the end, his guilt, he has to come to turn to the fact that he may have thought he was doing the right thing, but he did it the wrong way, and people paid the consequences for that.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:And he accepts what he has done and and dies for it. Is this this all tracking it?
JIM:Yeah.
T.C.:Yeah. And and then Chimyr is this, like, vengeful dark Jedi. We can get more of his history in in further explorations of the character. But
JIM:And I I I personally don't care about the Plagueis.
T.C.:No. No. Screw that. We didn't need that. Sorry.
T.C.:Sorry.
JIM:Cameo drop.
T.C.:Yeah. We didn't need Plagueis poking his head because that was a no one knew who that was. You had to Google that the next day. That's out. Vanessa has a history to explore as well.
T.C.:She was very much of, like, hey. I'm the police captain. Close this case. Mhmm. This is this case needs to be closed because the the people above me, the commissioner's breathing down my neck.
T.C.:Mhmm. You're I'm handing this to you because it's your old partner that just died. Keep this internal and close this case. Okay. Because if if it finds out that that Jedi are killing Jedi, that's that's a problem for the entire existence of Jedi.
T.C.:So she's she wants this case closed and is gonna pull some shenanigans to do so.
JIM:Yeah. So there's a character. I I don't know how much time we have left.
T.C.:We're good. Keep on moving.
JIM:Yeah. There's a character that you're like, what a dopey what a dopey inclusion. And I
T.C.:actually think that they're like secretary.
JIM:Yeah. Basically, her her, yeah, her secretary, her her padawan. Mhmm. I actually think he could be and it I'm gonna pitch he becomes important
T.C.:Mogg. Mogg.
JIM:In in the the second season. Yeah. And I want right? Because this is supposed to be about parallels, we've and switcherooed them, and we we've mentioned what Osha goes through in the second season. Mhmm.
JIM:Training with Kymur, and we get parallel flashbacks with her and Jord
T.C.:Yeah.
JIM:And and and sort of how they're they're symmetrical, but that's what keeps her from fully
T.C.:Fully.
JIM:Going to the dark side. Excuse me. Burps. Great idea burps.
T.C.:Idea burps. The ideas are flowing out of you.
JIM:It's true.
T.C.:Yes. Let it flow through, you know.
JIM:Contrasted, Mei is now with the Jedi Mhmm. Mostly under Vanessa's watch.
T.C.:Oh, man. Even having her live in Sol's quarters. Sure. We need a place to put her. Well, Sol's place is empty.
T.C.:Let her live there.
JIM:Sure. Go ahead. Because you said how's Vanessa? Her treatment with Vanessa and the way the way Vanessa treats her ends up being paralleled with flashbacks of her being trained by Kaimer. We can have Kaimer find her young.
JIM:Right? Because it's not like he taught her over the course of six weekends. Right. Like he's been teaching her for a Jedi seminar. Yeah.
JIM:So he's been teaching her for a while. Mhmm. And we get so we can have the same way we flash back the the same distance we flash back with Osha, we can flash back though that distance with May.
T.C.:With May.
JIM:Yeah. And May training with Kaimer. Mhmm. That that whole time, but also paralleling that with her experiences. Not that it would be training, but seeing the parallels of of seeing a parallel experience with Vanessa her Yeah.
JIM:May with Vanessa because Vanessa is now dragging May basically everywhere they go as they hunt down Chimera because you were with him for years. I
T.C.:don't remember. We're gonna unlock it. Mhmm. You're not gonna be I'm not training you. You are my you are just you're coming with me.
T.C.:Plus she wants to keep her close in case she does remember everything.
JIM:Yeah. And I think ultimately ultimately
T.C.:what you just said. I just realized that it was a repetitive thing.
JIM:Vanessa is not really a good person.
T.C.:No. No. She's
JIM:I think Mogg is. And in the end, I think Mogg is the one who defends her from Venestra because he ultimately does the right thing.
T.C.:And arrests her.
JIM:Yeah. And and it almost exonerates, if you will, Mae. Mhmm. But what but what the parallel does is Osha is on this path of freedom. Right?
JIM:She wants to find herself on her own way. Mhmm. And and yes, she's she's learning how to do it from other people. Yeah. But ultimately, she she's trying to apply her own path and she has the individual streak of I I want to go do it myself.
JIM:Yeah. Whereas, May has had like like, when she's a child, she very much has this streak of wanting to belong. Mhmm. Belonging. I I will I will be a witch.
JIM:I will be the lead witch. Yeah. I'll be all these things. And then we can show the in the flashbacks with Kaimer, she is just eager to please. Right?
JIM:Like, just I want yes. I wanna be your knight. I I want to belong. Mhmm. She is an acolyte.
JIM:Yeah. But, like, that notion of belonging and but but show that what she's looking for is acceptance. Mhmm. So then ultimately in the second season, by the end, Vanessa keeps her on this, like, short choke chain leash the whole time and it's Mogg who's like, this is wrong.
T.C.:This is wrong.
JIM:Yeah. Whether he's like and and so that's kind of through small actions throughout he's like being nicer and showing. No. Okay. I'm a pretty clinical guy.
T.C.:A by the book. Yeah. I'm a
JIM:I'm a by the book guy. But this is this is not how the Jedi treat people. Right. And and I will I will treat you right how I can because she's my superior, but and ultimately, defying his superior to protect her.
T.C.:And that goes to the constant theme of power. Who has the power? Who uses it correctly? Who abuses it? How do you lord power over someone?
T.C.:How do you take power away from someone.
JIM:You have to cancel it. Ultimately, Mogg is the hero
T.C.:of this show. That's all I'm trying to get at here. What what I wanna do here, I I I think we could wrap it up, but I I wanna keep talking about season two.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:I wanna I wanna take that somewhere even if we only get two seasons of the show. But we'll we'll discuss that with after the episode ended here. We have achieved our our demand here.
JIM:Okay. Season season one. Yeah.
T.C.:Season one. We'll we'll keep talking about season two. I'll just move that into bonus time.
JIM:Did we did we fix season one?
T.C.:Well, I mean, ultimately
JIM:You be the judge.
T.C.:You be the judge. You are the studio. Yeah. So, Ro, thank you for for hiring us again to do this and and the use of your time machine. But, also, we're get everybody here.
T.C.:Holly, Oliver, Akash, and Matt, how did we do? I I go back to what I said to start this out with. What is good in this show is good. Great lightsaber fights, some solid performances from a few of these actors. Hopefully, what we have done is allowed those those pieces to be enhanced by motivated storytelling, asking questions with actual answers, connecting the dots more solidly.
T.C.:Mhmm. So how did we do everyone? Ro, you have to let us know. You can all let us know. You agree with what we've done.
T.C.:Disagree with what we've done. Hit us up. Let us know. You can message us directly at studio demands it dot com or on Instagram. Look for the post for this episode if you wanna comment there at studio demands it.
T.C.:If you're not already, subscribe. Real easy. Click. Boom. Follow.
T.C.:Ignore us if you want. That's fine. And if you like giving us a little review, that would be really great as well. You can find material on YouTube and TikTok where we post video content including material not heard on the show. Jim?
JIM:You can join the conversation on Reddit at r slash studio demands it.
T.C.:Which seems to be where the majority of people like to talk. I get a lot of direct messages, but I think
JIM:Oh, no. I I I I've been I've been pretty bad at at moderating the the the subreddit. I should go check that out.
T.C.:Where else can people
JIM:gone crazy. Is it the Discord? It's the Discord. You can join our Discord server by going to studiodemandsit.com, and there is a link at the top for the invite to our server where you can come talk about all sorts of stuff happening. Things happen in in movie news and and general geekdom.
JIM:Mhmm. And what we and talking about reactions to episodes.
T.C.:Yeah. And if you aren't aware, we have a Patreon for a couple bucks a month. You can get episodes early, commercial free. We do extended episodes as well that we had a whole half hour conversation before this episode about the state of independent film and original IPs in cinema.
JIM:Mhmm.
T.C.:And we're gonna keep talking about acolytes season two in the second half of this double double length episode. You can get commentary tracks, which also include extended conversations episodes within the commentary tracks, time stamps on Patreon. And you can also show us some love by subscribing for free. A massive thank you to Six Five Media for everything they do for us. Check out some of their other shows, another Zelda podcast, if you will.
T.C.:Jim?
JIM:Do you wanna mention the fan art?
T.C.:Oh, yeah. We had a we had a fan art come through. Oh my god. I I I don't have the name. Thank you for reminding me.
T.C.:I'm just gonna
JIM:Vamp Vampin. So Star Wars, this was fun.
T.C.:Oh. Our fourth our fourth Star Star Wars thing. It's a
JIM:that's a surely a thing worth noting. The fourth one.
T.C.:We got fan art from a listener for our Rapunzel or not in our Rumpelstiltskin episode. It's it came from Jim Ass. You know, Rumpelstiltskin, is that our first fan art? Yes. It came from YoYo Lin.
T.C.:Yo I hope I'm saying that correctly. YoYo Lin sent it through I'm a little bit active on x. Please move over to a different channel, please. But thank you for sending that. It's this fun drawing of our a very elfish kind of sinister looking Rumpelstiltskin, very handsome.
JIM:Yep.
T.C.:And I'll throw it up on the Instagram so you guys can all see it as well. Very Rapunzel inspired Miller's daughter with gold pouring down. Thank you for that.
JIM:We'll we'll share that where we can.
T.C.:Yeah. YoYoLynn gave even said if you want if we wanted to make it into our Rapunzel poster, for Rumpelstiltskin poster to go for it. So thank you for that. Thank you for reminding me of that.
JIM:Just you can you can be on x if you want. We don't check it very often. Yes. I'm sorry. That's that's really that's it.
T.C.:But, yes, thank you everyone. Jim, thank you for that. That's the end of this episode. We're gonna continue our chat about accolade into our season two ideas moving on forward here. But for you all, we will be back again soon with one of your demands to challenge ourselves to improve the world of cinema and geekdom and television and whatnot.
T.C.:And I'm TC.
JIM:And I'm Jim.
T.C.:And and this was a long time ago and it was in a galaxy far far away.
JIM:We did Basil dirty.
T.C.:Maybe if he didn't suck as a character. Well, that's what this is about. This is about fixing the writing. There is no fit.