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Upgrade

172: My Brain Was Slowly Expanding

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 172. Today's show is brought to you by

00:00:13   FreshBooks, BalanceOpen, and Encapsular. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by

00:00:18   Jason Snell, and Jason Snell, our #SnellTalk question this week comes from Richard,

00:00:23   and Richard wants to know, Jason, Oasis or Blur?

00:00:27   Is there a Kindle blur?

00:00:29   [laughs]

00:00:31   Yay! Thanks for listening, everybody!

00:00:33   We're done! And it can't get any better than that.

00:00:35   That's very good. Very good.

00:00:37   Come on in. Oasis or Blur, which is yours.

00:00:39   Um...

00:00:41   I... I could not tell you

00:00:43   a...

00:00:45   Blur song. And...

00:00:47   I have sung

00:00:49   numerous Oasis songs

00:00:51   during Dungeons & Dragons

00:00:53   sessions every time

00:00:55   uh that somebody casts a spell with like wind wall you you know you can figure out what happens then

00:01:01   one member of my party did that and then the wind the wonderwall uh covers come out uh oasis

00:01:07   yeah not even a question because blur like i don't even did what what is a song from blur but

00:01:14   os oasis i could tell you 15 songs so you would know some blur songs i i'm very confident uh

00:01:21   probably some some blur songs but i think that's telling right like literally i had to look at this

00:01:25   and and think oh they probably mean a band that i don't know and a band i do know i love blur

00:01:33   um but i love oasis even more the one of my favorite bands of all time um i would actually

00:01:38   at this point like to do some super out of date follow out there is an episode of inquisitive

00:01:46   where Federico Viticci came on and we did his favorite album which was What's the Story

00:01:52   Morning Glory by Oasis and it's a great episode because we both adore the album and grew up

00:02:00   with it so I think the conversation is really good and I guess while we're doing this, me

00:02:06   and Jason also did one too and it was a crowded house right?

00:02:09   JE: Yep that's right and when I met Federico for the first time when he came out for that

00:02:13   Apple event sort of at the spur of the moment that we went out to lunch and we walked into

00:02:18   the restaurant him and I and sat down at a table and Oasis began playing in the background

00:02:27   and we both looked at each other like no really it was meant to be it was it was meant to

00:02:32   be blur blur was had an album picked on the incomparable album draft I think Steve Lutz

00:02:37   picked modern life is rubbish but I don't know anything about blur so there you go Oasis

00:02:42   it is then by default.

00:02:49   would like to send in a question to open the show, just send a tweet with the hashtag #SnellTalk.

00:02:54   It goes into a document and we'll pick it out for later use.

00:02:59   But we should start, we have quite a lot to get through today, Jason Snell. I think maybe

00:03:03   actually in case people read the description, I'm just going to say this right now. Okay,

00:03:07   at the very end of the show today, we're going to be doing a special mic at the movies where

00:03:12   we will be talking about Star Wars The Last Jedi. Spoilers will happen immediately from

00:03:17   when you hear the spoiler horn. It's going to be the last thing we talk about today,

00:03:20   but I just want to let you know up front, you can still listen to the rest of this episode.

00:03:24   We won't talk about it at all, but we will get there. At the end of the episode, we're

00:03:28   going to talk about Star Wars The Last Jedi. So you can look out for that today.

00:03:32   So whilst we're talking about some media stuff, we heard from a few people about, we were

00:03:36   talking last time about 4K and if we'd ever see like over the air 4K and stuff like that.

00:03:42   There were a bunch of people that wrote in to say that they are, that they do get 4K

00:03:46   service from cable or satellite providers in various countries, some in Canada, some

00:03:50   in the UK.

00:03:51   Yeah, I think like Rogers or something has a 4K channel and it sounds like it actually

00:03:56   reminds me of the early days of HD. I had DirecTV, the satellite service here in the

00:04:00   US when HD was starting and I got an HD TV and an HD receiver. In the early days of HD,

00:04:06   there would be like the HD channel.

00:04:08   Yeah, yeah, I remember having that.

00:04:11   Right and like there was in the US we ended up with like HD net and there was like some other HD channel

00:04:16   like that was the one that HD net was the one that literally they had a show every morning that was

00:04:21   HD picture of a sunrise from a pretty location for half an hour. Yep

00:04:26   actual show and the

00:04:28   Olympics I want to say the 2004 Olympics

00:04:32   I remember they had a channel for that where everything was delayed a day, but it was an HD and I thought oh my god

00:04:38   HD is going to change sports forever, which it totally did because watching sports is way better now and watching swimmers in the Olympics and

00:04:44   HD where you can see the swimmers in the pool. You used to not be able to see the swimmers in the pool

00:04:48   They'd just be like you're watching a bunch of blobs

00:04:50   Going down the pool and now you can actually like see the swimmers in the water and all of that and that was so those

00:04:56   Were great this reminds me of that where it's sort of like there are some places that are attentive

00:05:00   Tively like we have a 4k channel somewhere

00:05:04   Which is cool, but I think our larger point stands which is, is this going to be embraced,

00:05:10   or are you going to see regular mainstream kind of broadcast and cable channels just

00:05:15   make no effort to go to 4K anywhere but on an internet stream?

00:05:20   And I mentioned Game of Thrones last week, which I think is not available on 4K in any

00:05:27   format, but a better example would have been Westworld on HBO, which was just released

00:05:32   in a 4K Blu-ray version.

00:05:34   So they have a 4K version of that show, but HBO Go, I believe, does not support 4K, so

00:05:42   you have to buy the 4K Blu-ray to get the 4K, which is not a particularly big format.

00:05:48   And I just wonder, at some point, does HBO say, "Oh no, you can watch 4K Westworld when

00:05:53   it comes out, but only on our app. Like, it's not available on your channel, because your

00:05:58   channel is just 1080, but the app will be 4K." And I think it's going to happen. I think

00:06:02   inevitable that it'll happen probably soon. I'm actually surprised they didn't do it already,

00:06:06   but one of these major show launches, somebody like HBO is gonna say, "Yep, now it's in 4K,

00:06:11   so enjoy."

00:06:12   Yeah, so there's also in the UK, it's called SkyQ, it allows you to watch, they call it

00:06:19   Ultra HD, it's 4K. My belief, I could be wrong, fine if I am, I think you have to have an

00:06:26   internet connection to watch that, and Sky is a satellite provider, so I think there's

00:06:30   some stuff being provided over the internet as well. But I think the point that we were

00:06:34   trying to make still stands, that it is incredibly unlikely there will ever be a transition to

00:06:40   4K over the air, because Rogers is cable, Sky is satellite, like, I just don't think

00:06:47   it's gonna happen, honestly. Yeah, over the air I don't think it's gonna happen, but even

00:06:51   on cable and satellite, I think it's gonna be hard. It might happen eventually, but you're

00:06:55   talking about like a huge hauling of channels up to a new format and the 720, 1080, the

00:07:03   HD transition was a big deal. It sold a lot of TVs. It is a dramatic picture improvement.

00:07:08   4K HDR is really nice, but is it enough to drive the entire infrastructure, and that

00:07:15   includes people with their TVs and their cable boxes and things, to upgrade? You know, and

00:07:22   like I said last week, my cable company still has all the SD channels and then

00:07:26   the HD channels. So they're still not through the HD transition. At some

00:07:30   point, surely, those channels just need to go away and they need to say, "Look, if

00:07:35   you want to watch an SD channel, get our box that converts it into

00:07:41   an SD picture for your SD TV. Do you have an SD?" Who even has that? But still,

00:07:46   those channels remain, right? So they aren't even done with that, let alone a

00:07:50   4K transition. And right, as the internet video streaming technology is advancing, it

00:07:56   is a hard thing to imagine that any traditional broadcast infrastructure could withstand an

00:08:02   upgrade at this point, because it feels like it's more likely to go away than it be upgraded

00:08:07   to 4K.

00:08:10   We were also talking last week about Face ID attention detection and people who only

00:08:16   we have the use of one eye, we've heard from both Andre and Eric to confirm that even if

00:08:22   you only have the use of one eye, Face ID works as normal.

00:08:37   In our media follow up segment, which I think is going to continue for quite a while, Apple

00:08:41   have ordered another TV series. It is a sci-fi drama from Ronald D Moore who is the current

00:08:47   showrunner of Outlander. He's also worked on a host of Star Trek series as well and

00:08:52   I think he has an Amazon series. He's doing Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams. I think

00:08:57   he was the showrunner or writer on that as well. You can correct me if I'm wrong Jason.

00:09:02   This new show that is being ordered for Apple is set to take place in a world in which the

00:09:08   Space Race Never Ended.

00:09:19   This is the first series order from Van Amburg and Ehrlich, two Sony executives that joined

00:09:27   Apple.

00:09:33   three, Moore, Van Amburg and Ehrlich have worked together in the past other Sony projects.

00:09:39   So this is an interesting pairing and I think a very interesting conceit for a series. In

00:09:44   my research in this, I couldn't find out if it was how many seasons Apple had ordered,

00:09:50   which makes me assume it's one.

00:09:51   - Yeah, it sounds like it's a no pilot, so it's direct to series, which is still a big

00:09:57   jump, but the idea there is that it takes a lot less time than if you have to shoot

00:10:00   pilot and edit a pilot, and then everybody watches it and says, "Oh, this is pretty good.

00:10:04   Let's go to series," and then you order the series. And they're trying to cut some corners

00:10:08   here to get this thing out, and so they go to Ron Moore and they say, "We'll make you

00:10:11   a deal where you don't have to make us a pilot." And probably that idea was being shopped around

00:10:15   by his agents, right? And people were bidding on it, and Apple came in and said, "We'll

00:10:19   just give you an order for it. We're not going to even make you..." And maybe somebody else

00:10:24   also did that and didn't say, "We want a pilot. We'll pay for a pilot."

00:10:28   probably Amazon I would expect considering they're already working with him.

00:10:31   I mean who knows it's possible but for whatever reason perhaps money

00:10:35   Apple won the day on this. Or just to work with people he's worked with before

00:10:39   right like there's probably quite a lot of incentive there. Sure and I

00:10:43   think this is Apple

00:10:44   doing what we said they would do which is find creators

00:10:49   who have a track record and I mean the show that I think you didn't mention is

00:10:53   Outlander did you mention Outlander?

00:10:56   That's actually that's the show that he's currently running.

00:10:59   And, and, and, oh yeah, you did, you did mention it.

00:11:02   It's like Battlestar Galactica, Outlander.

00:11:04   And of course he worked on Star Trek Next Generation

00:11:06   and Deep Space Nine for years.

00:11:08   He's got a good track record.

00:11:09   Battlestar Galactica, a real high level, you know,

00:11:13   critically acclaimed.

00:11:14   Well, everybody was impressed with his work on that show.

00:11:18   And Outlander has actually done pretty well for stars here

00:11:20   in the US.

00:11:21   So yeah, so he's doing a, obviously a space show

00:11:25   of some sort or other alt history kind of thing.

00:11:30   Really interesting idea.

00:11:31   And again, what Apple gets from that is

00:11:34   right out of the gate, they've got a high concept

00:11:36   with a well-known creator.

00:11:38   That's the kind of stuff that they want

00:11:39   in order to make it clear that they're serious

00:11:42   about whatever it is they're doing.

00:11:44   - I see this one, you could get some,

00:11:45   I would expect actually some really interesting names

00:11:48   to be eventually attached to this.

00:11:49   Like a modern history piece playing a world leader.

00:11:53   I think you could probably entice quite a lot of interesting actors and actresses into

00:11:57   these roles. So I reckon this is going to be a pretty interesting one for them, especially

00:12:02   with it only being a one-season commitment initially, right? It makes it easier, I guess,

00:12:05   for people to jump on.

00:12:06   Well, I mean, it depends because if you're committing to a series, unless they're planning

00:12:11   on killing off your character, they're probably going to make you sign a deal with Options

00:12:14   for many years. And we don't know the details. It's possible that... My guess is that unless

00:12:20   any of these things bombs that Apple's gonna be like Amazon was in the early days where

00:12:24   it literally didn't cancel anything because they just want to keep the ball rolling and

00:12:29   keep building their catalog rather than replacing. Netflix is canceling shows now, but for years

00:12:35   they didn't do that. So yeah, it's another really interesting wrinkle in this Apple video

00:12:40   service thing. It's gonna continue. There will be more creators. And as you pointed

00:12:44   out, more actors. That's the next part is they'll start casting. We know Reese Witherspoon

00:12:49   Jennifer Aniston are in that other show because they're producing it and they're going to

00:12:52   be in it. But like this show will have presumably, you know, we would not be surprised if they

00:12:58   had some fairly recognizable names as performers in it too and that gives them another little

00:13:03   publicity burst.

00:13:04   Yeah, I think with the with the frequency at which we are talking about this, I am expecting

00:13:11   whether it's next year, 18 months or whenever it is the service launches, that Apple is

00:13:16   planning to launch it with multiple brand new shows would be my expectation, because

00:13:21   they are signing a lot in a close period of time. So I mean, I don't know what their production

00:13:26   schedules are, but I would expect that they're not looking to like launch this service with

00:13:30   just one original show. It'd probably be a small handful would be my expectation.

00:13:35   Oh yeah. It's got to be a collection of them, because they want to have... Well, plus one

00:13:40   of the theories is that perhaps it will launch for everyone, that they'll do like they did

00:13:43   with Apple Music where they're going to launch it and make it available for anyone to watch

00:13:48   for a free period and then you'll pay. And if that's true, then they're going to want

00:13:54   stuff that's impressive in the free period. They're going to want stuff that rolls into

00:13:58   the not free period. None of these shows is going to do even 22 episodes, right? They're

00:14:04   all going to do short seasons, which means you're going to need multiple shows at any

00:14:09   given time and then they're going to have to come in waves throughout the year. They

00:14:13   just like show all the shows for three months and then say, "Well, no more shows for another

00:14:17   six months. Come back later," right? It's going to be rolling thunder throughout the

00:14:20   year, which means you need a lot like HBO has, like whatever 20 original series that

00:14:25   HBO is rolling out over time. There may only be two or three at a time, but they're rolling

00:14:29   out the whole year. Apple's going to have to do that if this service is going to be

00:14:33   valuable.

00:14:34   Hey, Apple, if you're looking for a TV adaptation of a great podcast, just give us a call.

00:14:40   I hear that everybody wants to adapt podcasts into TV shows.

00:14:45   - You could be at the head of the line here.

00:14:48   You know, we're ready.

00:14:49   Just give us a call. - Summer of fun.

00:14:50   Summer of fun, starring Jason and Myke.

00:14:53   - We could go on a road trip.

00:14:55   That could be it.

00:14:56   It could be a road trip podcast called the Summer of Fun.

00:14:58   There we go.

00:14:59   That's the pitch.

00:15:00   Just give us a call.

00:15:01   - Okay.

00:15:02   - Amazon is selling the Chromecast and the Apple TV again.

00:15:05   Listings of both products have appeared.

00:15:07   The Apple TV was expected.

00:15:09   This came with the news that the Prime app would be arriving, that Amazon would begin

00:15:15   to sell the Apple TV again.

00:15:17   But we've been talking about the last couple of weeks the very tumultuous situation between

00:15:21   Google and Amazon.

00:15:23   One of the things that Google was looking for was Amazon to be selling the Chromecast

00:15:27   as a way to try and patch over the bad blood that has risen between them.

00:15:33   And it looks like something's happening because Google is going to be selling the Chromecast

00:15:36   again.

00:15:37   maybe this could be the start of some kind of reconciliation to stop Prime being, YouTube

00:15:43   I should say, being ripped off the Fire TVs? Who knows?

00:15:46   Yeah, we'll see. I know when I go there to those links, Verge reported this, when I go

00:15:51   to those links now it says currently unavailable. Yeah, they said that, okay, so this is the

00:15:55   thing, they are currently unavailable but they never were available, but these listings

00:15:58   weren't there before. Right. So like, these currently unavailable listings have been put

00:16:03   us know when it becomes available. So yeah, it is suspicious, right? And the Apple TV

00:16:09   the same way. Apple TV currently unavailable and we know those are going to be available.

00:16:14   So maybe this is the start of putting that stuff together. I hope so. I was having some

00:16:19   good conversations with this. My uncle is very interested in technology, a big family

00:16:23   thing over the weekend. We were talking about it. He noted to me that the Echo Show was

00:16:28   a heavy discount. And I was like, well, no surprise, right? Like, they don't have any

00:16:33   video services on it in a few weeks. But it was just interesting, like, to... Because

00:16:38   he gets it, right? He understands this stuff. But we're just talking about, like, if you

00:16:42   own these products, it's just so frustrating to wake up one day and one of the biggest

00:16:49   reasons you own it just doesn't exist anymore. I really hope that they find a way to sort

00:16:53   this out rather than making the users suffer.

00:16:57   Just before we finish follow up today, thank you so much if you voted in the upgradees.

00:17:04   We are very confident that this is going to be one of the best upgradees yet and we had

00:17:09   way more submissions than I expected.

00:17:12   It was a significant amount of people of the upgradeians, Jason, that voted.

00:17:17   I'm actually going to bring up the list now to give you the final count of submissions

00:17:20   that we had.

00:17:22   The Google Sheet is loading incredibly slowly.

00:17:24   Oh no.

00:17:25   We had 745 Upgradians submitted votes in the Upgradies, which is about three times more

00:17:35   than I expected.

00:17:36   So thank you so much.

00:17:37   If you were one of those people, your voice has been heard, the results have been tallied,

00:17:43   and the Upgradies, the fourth annual Upgradies, will be coming to you on January 1st.

00:17:48   So thank you for that.

00:17:49   Isn't that an incredible number?

00:17:51   745 people.

00:17:52   That's great.

00:17:53   So thank you.

00:17:54   Thank you for taking the time, yes.

00:17:56   All right, today's show is brought to you by FreshBooks.

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00:19:34   decisions we made for our business. Trust me on this. FreshBooks.com/upgrade. We thank

00:19:38   FreshBooks for their support of this show. Disney have bought 21st Century Fox. Wow.

00:19:47   I heard about this and thought about it and over the space of a day, I felt like my brain

00:19:56   was slowly expanding, trying to understand the ramifications of this.

00:20:02   So let's just assume for the sake of this conversation that this deal will go through.

00:20:07   Because there are many stumbling blocks for something like this, including legal ones.

00:20:12   Let's just assume that it's going through.

00:20:14   I think it makes the conversation more interesting that way.

00:20:17   sure and I want to try and clarify and you can probably help me exactly what it is that they've

00:20:21   bought so it seems like Disney is just buying most of the entertainment stuff right that like

00:20:27   Fox News and the sports stuff is not going to be theirs and that's not entirely that's not entirely

00:20:33   quite right it's Fox broadcast so all the channels the tv channels that they own and the network that

00:20:41   that they own in the US is going to remain with the Murdoch family, as is their national

00:20:47   sports and news channels. So FS1, FS2, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Channel, those

00:20:55   all are going to remain. And there are some competitive reasons for that, like this would

00:21:01   not ever be approved if the owner of ESPN also owned Fox Sports 1. Like that's not gonna,

00:21:08   the owner of ABC owned the Fox television network, right? Like, those are lined up too

00:21:15   perfectly and would get knocked down in an antitrust ruling, so they're not going to

00:21:21   even try. Plus, I think the Murdochs want that. They view that as being kind of more

00:21:25   in line with their traditional kind of newspaper background of like, and they've got these,

00:21:29   you know, the news channels and the broadcast channels, although there's real open questions.

00:21:33   of the ramifications of this is what that means for a Fox TV network that no

00:21:39   longer has a studio attached to it because the whole way modern TV networks

00:21:43   are built is that they're all owned by the same companies that own TV studios

00:21:48   that make programming and so that you know they one hand pays the other hand

00:21:53   right it's all integrated and this Fox network is not going to have that at

00:21:57   least at the start and that's that's weird

00:22:01   So yeah, so anyway, those are,

00:22:03   we can get into more of the details in a little bit,

00:22:05   but those are the pieces that are staying,

00:22:07   but the Fox Studio and a bunch of other stuff,

00:22:12   including their regional sports networks,

00:22:16   which is why we have to make a distinction between that.

00:22:21   There are a bunch of channels in local markets in the US

00:22:23   that show baseball or basketball or something

00:22:25   that are owned by Fox that Disney wants.

00:22:27   - So I guess, but like most of the stuff that you see on TV,

00:22:31   if it's news and sports is going to become its own entity that's not owned by Disney,

00:22:36   right? It's going to become Fox broadcasting.

00:22:38   Yeah, and still be controlled by the Murdochs, yeah. And the TV network.

00:22:42   There's an interesting tidbit that I saw in the variety article on this. 21st Century

00:22:47   Fox is currently trying to – they own a large stake in Sky TV. It was previously Murdoch's

00:22:54   thing. It spun out and now they're trying to get it back again.

00:22:58   If 21st Century Fox succeed in taking over Sky, Disney would then take it. Which is wild.

00:23:07   Because in this country, you have terrestrial television which is free, which is paid for

00:23:13   by the TV license. That includes a bunch of over the air channels, which you don't need

00:23:17   the TV license for but everybody can get those. It's the way that our digital works. We used

00:23:21   to have five channels, then it got expanded when we went from analog to digital. Outside

00:23:25   of that we have like two and a half providers of television one of those is

00:23:29   Sky I say half because one of our telephone networks BT has some channels

00:23:34   but it's not it's nothing really they just have some sports stuff that people

00:23:37   like to watch and a couple of original shows but they're not they're not a

00:23:40   player we have Sky and we have Virgin and even then when it comes to

00:23:45   television pretty much the only one that anybody goes for is Sky TV because they

00:23:49   have everything. Disney would own a huge portion of television in this country.

00:23:57   That's right. That is wild to me that they would own that. Again it's like I

00:24:03   don't know if the European Union have to okay this but like for as long as the

00:24:08   European Union are in control which would still be at the point that this is

00:24:11   happening most likely, I would be very interested to see what they have to say

00:24:15   about this because it's like it's weird but anyway let's get into some of the

00:24:20   more interesting parts I want to talk about some of the properties that Disney

00:24:25   will now own right they get a huge stake in Hulu their stake in Hulu goes up to

00:24:32   60% at the same time that they are also launching their own streaming service so

00:24:37   I guess all the streaming services for Disney National Geographic and FX and

00:24:43   all the programming that they produce and then from just an idea of properties

00:24:48   Fantastic Four, Deadpool and X-Men all come back to Marvel. Avatar, yep, and all

00:24:56   of the upcoming Avatar movies. The Simpsons which is the one that blows my

00:25:01   mind the most. Mickey Mouse and the Simpsons that's right. I saw somebody

00:25:05   joking about us online like but it's I guess it's kind of true that Marge

00:25:09   becomes a Disney princess I guess like how is that gonna work?

00:25:13   Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Futurama, The X-Files too, the X-Files, Family Guy, Disney own all

00:25:22   this.

00:25:23   Right, if they buy Fox that's exactly what happens, it's a huge library of content including

00:25:30   pieces of the Marvel thing, I mean again the comic book nerd part of me is excited by the

00:25:35   idea that the Fantastic Four could appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but let's

00:25:39   be honest, because I've seen people are like "oh you should never talk about that, this

00:25:43   is more serious than that" it's like it is a super serious story with huge ramifications

00:25:46   for how entertainment is consumed in the 21st century. But I will reserve a small amount

00:25:52   of my brain for thinking "what would it be like if the fantastic four, if Galactus showed

00:26:00   up in Avengers 4?" like that's, anyway I just I put it out there.

00:26:05   - So consumer of content, you can be excited

00:26:09   about some of the ramifications of this, I think, right?

00:26:11   Where like X-Men and the Avengers can come together, right?

00:26:15   Like there is something exciting about that,

00:26:17   is something that we wanted to happen.

00:26:18   But yes, at the same time, you can also fear the fact

00:26:22   that one company owns everything you care about, right?

00:26:25   - A huge amount of stuff.

00:26:27   Now, yeah, and there's a question,

00:26:30   this is something that we actually talked about with Apple

00:26:32   when we had that conversation about Apple supposedly wanting, you know, family-friendly

00:26:39   material should be able to be played, Apple TV shows should be able to be played on the

00:26:42   big wall at the Apple store. So, you know, no nudity, no grotesque violence, things like

00:26:47   that. And there's a question of like, what's Apple's media brand? Well, Disney is a good

00:26:51   example of this too, that Disney is going to need, Disney, we think of Disney and we

00:26:56   think of Mickey Mouse, right? We think of Disneyland and Mickey Mouse and family-friendly

00:26:59   and squeaky clean. The fact is Disney is an enormous entertainment conglomerate that is

00:27:07   not just Walt Disney and animation and Pixar, but it's Marvel and it's ESPN.

00:27:15   And ABC, right? Like there's more there.

00:27:18   And ABC and all of these things. And if they buy this, they're going to be, you know, basically

00:27:24   20th Century Fox as well and there's a question of the branding there, but I

00:27:31   would imagine that to a certain extent they'll probably keep it because they're

00:27:34   going to want to create brands or use existing brands for different purposes

00:27:41   and this is the important thing is that I don't think FX and FXX, the

00:27:47   cable channels in the US that have much more adult fare on them, are going to

00:27:53   suddenly be held to the standard of a Disney brand for family-friendly entertainment. Because

00:28:01   that would be a colossal waste of their money to buy these things if they can't use them

00:28:04   because they don't want them, you know, "Let's make It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia squeaky

00:28:09   clean." It's like, it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. You're the worst.

00:28:12   - Oh my god, Disney owns Always Sunny. - Yes, owns You're the Worst, one of my favorite

00:28:17   shows which is not family friendly at all. Also it's like 20th Century Fox like that

00:28:23   brand is what it is like I don't even attach it to Fox in my brain like it's not in my

00:28:29   brain they are like a wholly separate things. Yeah so this is the beauty of the branding

00:28:34   right is that Fox content will be Fox content and Disney content will be Disney content

00:28:39   they'll be owned by the same company but that gives them the freedom to say and this is

00:28:44   where it comes into streaming too.

00:28:45   So you mentioned Hulu, they're gonna own 60% of Hulu.

00:28:47   There's a real question about whether Comcast,

00:28:50   which owns 30% of Hulu, is the way Hulu is structured,

00:28:55   all the principals on the board have to agree

00:28:58   before there are major decisions made.

00:29:00   So if they wanted to just turn Hulu

00:29:02   into a completely their own thing,

00:29:05   Comcast would either have to go along for the ride

00:29:08   or would have to sell out.

00:29:10   Because if they put their foot down and say,

00:29:12   no, no, no, we don't want Hulu to become another Disney streaming service. Comcast can stop them.

00:29:17   And then 10% is owned by Time Warner Cable, which is, or by Time Warner, which is AT&T now,

00:29:23   or something like that. It's, it's, yeah, anyway, it's, they don't get to vote. They just have 10%.

00:29:28   So, there's Hulu. They also bought BamTech, which is Major League Baseball's advanced media

00:29:35   streaming tech, which is the most advanced, like, video streaming platform around, and streams HBO

00:29:40   Go and streams all the sports in the US and just all this stuff. And Disney owns a majority

00:29:47   of that now. They bought that out from Major League Baseball. So they have huge streaming

00:29:53   infrastructure investments, both Hulu and BamTech. They've already announced that they're

00:29:57   doing two streaming services. They're going to do an ESPN-branded sports streaming service,

00:30:04   and they're going to do another streaming service. I'm not sure if they've said what

00:30:09   exactly it'll be branded, but the implication there is that like Marvel and Disney and Pixar

00:30:13   might end up there. I think you look at this and think, well, they will probably do another

00:30:18   streaming service or they'll, they'll for, for, for FX or for Fox content or something

00:30:25   that's more adult oriented and less sort of family entertainment, action adventure kind

00:30:31   of stuff. And, and why you, and you say to yourself for streaming services sounds ridiculous.

00:30:36   like yeah but four TV channels doesn't and this is where television is going right television

00:30:42   is going to break down all the old broadcast channels are going to be for an increasingly

00:30:46   older audience who's who's using traditional means of accessing of accessing TV and everybody

00:30:52   else is going to you know cut the cord and just subscribe to video services over the

00:30:57   top at which point you're just going to pick and choose what three video services or four

00:31:01   video services do you want to subscribe to and Disney's going to be out there and say

00:31:05   we got a sports thing for you, we got this family thing for you, we got the Fox package

00:31:10   for you, take your pick or bundle them together and save money. And like, I really believe

00:31:15   that that is what they're doing here, is they are planning, this is a huge move that is

00:31:20   planning for the future of streaming video because they want not only all the channels,

00:31:27   they want all the content. And they have this huge library of content that we've talked

00:31:31   about that they're going to own. And they're going to be able to not only put it on their

00:31:35   own services but pull it off of everyone else's services which is why when I look at this

00:31:40   deal I start to feel for Netflix and Amazon to a certain extent although it's hard to

00:31:47   feel too much for Amazon because they've got so much money but I start to feel for Netflix

00:31:53   but Netflix knew this was coming this is why Netflix spends some billions and billions

00:31:56   of dollars on original content every year.

00:31:58   Yeah they knew they were eventually gonna lose this stuff.

00:32:00   Netflix knows they need to build up a library of stuff that they own because they're gonna

00:32:04   to lose everything else. And Netflix is going to stop being, it already is starting down

00:32:09   this path. It used to be that everything on Netflix was made by somebody else and then

00:32:13   it was sort of rerun on Netflix. And some of that will still happen. But in large part,

00:32:17   Netflix is planning for the day where they're like HBO. They've got their own content that

00:32:22   they make and you subscribe to Netflix for that. They just raise their price, like that's

00:32:27   where they're going. They're going to be a premium content channel basically like HBO,

00:32:32   you buy Netflix for Netflix originals, not because there's old episodes of The Flash

00:32:37   on it, right? And that's The Flash not owned by, that's the Warner Brothers, that's the

00:32:42   other entertainment conglomerate giant out there that is not owned by Disney. So yeah,

00:32:48   that's the interesting thing here, is you get to the situation where Disney's saying,

00:32:52   we don't want Netflix or Amazon between us and the customer. Bob Iger, the chairman and

00:32:57   CEO of Disney said this in the press release and in the conversations afterward when they

00:33:02   announced this deal.

00:33:03   - Who is sticking around now, like he's gonna be, what,

00:33:05   2020, 2021, something like that?

00:33:07   - Yeah, my understanding is that one of the conditions

00:33:09   of the deal, it sounds like from Rupert Murdoch,

00:33:11   was that he wanted Bob Iger to not retire

00:33:14   and see this deal through, and Bob Iger had been saying

00:33:16   he was going to retire, and everybody was skeptical of that,

00:33:19   but now he's just, he's agreed he's not gonna retire

00:33:21   for a while.

00:33:23   But anyway, one of his statements was, you know,

00:33:25   our goal is to reach the customer directly.

00:33:27   Like, that's it, period.

00:33:29   So they're gonna have a huge entertainment library,

00:33:31   They're going to find ways to connect people to it

00:33:33   where you will give Disney money for their content directly.

00:33:36   They will, no more middlemen, basically.

00:33:40   They want the whole relationship.

00:33:42   And I gotta say, that's gonna happen everywhere.

00:33:46   I'm actually a little surprised that nobody has bought,

00:33:50   just bought Netflix yet,

00:33:52   because, or that Netflix hasn't bought anyone yet,

00:33:56   because I feel like this is,

00:33:57   and I'm not saying that this is good,

00:33:59   but this is where it's going.

00:34:00   Like Disney is now going to be potentially a huge,

00:34:04   huge player in this market.

00:34:06   It's gonna be very hard for some of these other channels

00:34:11   to compete.

00:34:12   And then who knows about Hulu.

00:34:14   Hulu may remain this weird kind of a neutral zone

00:34:18   where stuff gets dumped,

00:34:19   or it might just get repurposed into being that,

00:34:22   you know, that brand that they use

00:34:24   for a bunch of the Fox content.

00:34:25   I don't know.

00:34:26   But like the world of streaming

00:34:28   is about to completely change.

00:34:30   Like these little things with like CBS All Access is CBS trying to do the same thing,

00:34:34   right?

00:34:35   We want to go direct to our customers.

00:34:36   Like that is just the first little hint of what's about to happen, which is all these

00:34:41   studios are just going to build their own services and go direct and leave Netflix out

00:34:44   in the cold.

00:34:45   What else?

00:34:46   What else is left?

00:34:47   And do you think they're going to buy anything else?

00:34:49   Uh, I'm not sure after, if they make this deal, I'm not sure what else they can buy

00:34:53   in terms of, uh, in terms of big things because they will be so...

00:34:57   Who owns DC?

00:34:58   That's Warner.

00:34:59   the other one. Actually, they straight up own DC? Yes. DC Comics, DC Entertainment is

00:35:04   a wholly owned and has been for years, for decades, like 40 years owned by Time Warner,

00:35:10   Warner Communication back when it was just Warner. So they were owned by AT&T? No, not

00:35:16   yet. Okay. Not yet. So the other thing I wanted to mention here is sports stuff, which is,

00:35:25   Like I mentioned, ABC is out there, the broadcast channel, but Disney owns ESPN.

00:35:30   By buying ABC, they also buy the ESPN.

00:35:33   ESPN, huge sports brand in the US.

00:35:36   They also now are going to have Fox's regional sports network.

00:35:38   So you put that in the package.

00:35:40   You start to see sports streaming service, which they've already announced kind of shape

00:35:45   up where they acquire rights to various sporting events and leagues and things, and they package

00:35:50   them together.

00:35:51   And the idea here is you may be able to buy

00:35:54   your favorite teams games over the top

00:35:58   via some way or other.

00:35:59   But in theory, if you like sports,

00:36:01   you probably like more sports than just the one.

00:36:04   And a package of sports is gonna be valuable to you.

00:36:07   And they're building that too.

00:36:09   And one of the funny things about sports

00:36:13   is sports isn't for everyone,

00:36:14   especially when we talk like we do now

00:36:16   to a very tech audience,

00:36:17   there's definitely a big portion of the audience

00:36:19   who's like, "Ugh, sports.

00:36:20   I hate sports. There's a lot of tech people who don't like sports, but there's some of

00:36:24   us like me who do. But sports, live sports, is a big deal because it is super exclusive

00:36:32   and you want to watch it live. You don't want to wait and watch it later. You want to watch

00:36:39   it right then. It's got a lot of power and value, and the people who want to see it will

00:36:45   pay for it. And so sports is going to go in an interesting direction where a lot of stuff

00:36:50   is going to go into a package like this and they're making a play there. They figure they've

00:36:54   got this ESPN brand that's really powerful and so what if they use that to build like

00:36:59   the default. If you want to watch sports in America you buy ESPN streaming and that's

00:37:07   it period. That seems to be another thing that they're after here. So I don't know whether

00:37:12   it'll all work and it's complicated and they've got competitors but this is a deal.

00:37:19   that happens because I think more than anything else because the future of

00:37:24   streaming and for the content library I'm actually a little surprised that

00:37:28   they're buying the

00:37:29   studio I mean I guess they have to buy the studio but I think

00:37:33   Disney is less interested in the studio because they have their own studios

00:37:38   although it gives them the capacity to

00:37:39   to make more stuff. I mean Star Wars has done very well for them

00:37:42   right like Marvel has done very well for them. Right. The more

00:37:46   properties Disney owns, and if they handle them correctly, the better it seems to be.

00:37:52   Yeah, and one of the criticisms of this deal is similar, which is Disney is very focused

00:37:56   on a smaller number of releases and they're all big franchise releases, whereas Fox actually

00:38:01   has Fox Searchlight, they do some things that are lower budget and that are not huge franchises.

00:38:07   Disney may stop doing that, or they may continue and say that is also a market we want to serve.

00:38:13   But I do wonder about reorganizing the rest of it, if they roll all of the superhero stuff

00:38:19   into Marvel Studios and they take Avatar or some of their other franchise stuff and set

00:38:25   up a part of Fox that is just like this franchise incorporated, or do they go to Lucasfilm and

00:38:33   say "We want you to expand and also start making Avatar movies" or something.

00:38:38   I don't know, I mean probably not, but those are the options on the table for them.

00:38:42   Do they structure this business, when they take it over, as being more siloed like Disney

00:38:48   and Pixar and Marvel and Lucasfilm and create like other little story centers which focus

00:38:55   on a particular set of brands and that's all they do?

00:38:59   Or do they say, "And we'll have this big bucket that's Fox that'll do some Foxy stuff," right?

00:39:04   I don't know.

00:39:05   It's a huge problem.

00:39:06   It's, it will be a very complicated thing.

00:39:08   A lot of people are going to lose their jobs because one of the things that they said is

00:39:12   that they will, you know, reduce inefficiency, which means they're gonna lay a lot of people

00:39:16   off. But I do wonder if there's an opportunity for, as Disney maybe brings down the amount

00:39:22   of content they want to generate out of the Fox side of the business, for other studios

00:39:28   to step up and create more content. I'm also, as I said earlier, kind of baffled about what's

00:39:35   going to happen to the Fox network because the whole game now if you is if

00:39:40   your NBC you buy your shows from from Universal because that's own that's the

00:39:46   same company. Universal produces most of the shows on NBC not all but most and

00:39:51   you're double dipping there like it's profits because you're paying yourself

00:39:54   you get you know you have interest in the long-term success of the show plus

00:39:58   the short term on the network

00:40:00   it's like this vertical integration it is the way everybody does it and that's

00:40:05   That's why your favorite show, if your favorite show on your favorite TV network is owned

00:40:09   by the network and produced by the network, it is far more likely to survive.

00:40:16   But if you've got like a Fox show on ABC and they're looking at canceling shows, they're

00:40:20   going to be more likely to cancel the Fox show because what do they care?

00:40:23   They don't own it.

00:40:24   They only broadcast it.

00:40:26   So Fox network now has no studio if this goes through.

00:40:31   Are they going to set up a studio?

00:40:32   are they just gonna buy- - What channel do they have left?

00:40:35   - Well, Fox broadcast.

00:40:37   I mean, this is the thing is they are a prime time network

00:40:40   in the United States.

00:40:40   They have ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and CW.

00:40:45   So they've got a network to program.

00:40:49   And a lot of the shows on their network are existing shows

00:40:52   that will go to Disney like the Simpsons and Family Guy

00:40:55   and the X-Files and you know,

00:40:58   the list goes on and on and on, right?

00:41:00   Over time, are they gonna keep paying Disney

00:41:02   to make those shows for them.

00:41:03   - Will Disney even let them?

00:41:06   - Well, I mean, they're gonna be really attached

00:41:09   with a Fox brand and Disney's still gonna own them

00:41:12   and, you know, probably to a certain extent

00:41:15   because they're gonna want the Fox to pay them money

00:41:18   for these shows that they used to own.

00:41:19   That's pretty good.

00:41:20   - Well, but I mean, until the point that Disney

00:41:23   is selling them to you directly, right?

00:41:25   Like through their app.

00:41:27   - Well, yeah, it's possible.

00:41:28   Although my guess is that there are contracts

00:41:30   that say like they have the right to keep renewing

00:41:34   The Simpsons forever.

00:41:36   And if they keep picking up that option,

00:41:39   The Simpsons will go on forever

00:41:40   and Disney will just have to keep making it for Fox.

00:41:42   But for a lot of money that Fox will be writing checks

00:41:45   like back to Disney to pay them back

00:41:50   for having bought their stuff from them.

00:41:52   It's weird. - Oh god, yeah.

00:41:53   That's so unfortunate.

00:41:55   - So I've seen some speculation

00:41:56   that says the Fox network in the US could end up being

00:41:58   like sports and reality shows and new specials

00:42:01   and just like no entertainment anymore,

00:42:03   which seems extreme,

00:42:05   but it's not extreme to think that it might be way reduced

00:42:08   from what it is now.

00:42:09   - Stuff that's cheap to make.

00:42:10   - Because they won't have a network.

00:42:11   Yeah, well, and that doesn't require a studio development.

00:42:15   And like doing more reality TV shows

00:42:17   is something you can just contract out for

00:42:21   and put it on your network.

00:42:22   And I don't know, it's a big thing.

00:42:25   This is gonna change a lot of things in a lot of ways

00:42:27   it's approved because it is such a wide-ranging deal and it's gonna have impact on all of

00:42:32   us especially in the US but I think as you pointed out this is also a way for Disney

00:42:38   to expand its tendrils overseas and Disney is it fancies itself a worldwide brand and

00:42:43   it's gonna have all this content and so you know they're going to be crafting packages

00:42:49   of content that they're gonna want to sell directly to us and that's all gonna be you

00:42:54   You know, they'll still make things available on cable and satellite and stuff for traditional

00:42:58   TV, but this is about building new products for this next century for us to pay them for

00:43:04   instead of or in addition to Amazon or Netflix.

00:43:08   There are like, in my mind, just huge implications if Disney are able to buy Sky here, right?

00:43:15   Like, imagine Disney owning your television provider.

00:43:19   That is massive.

00:43:20   - I don't have to, Myke, because NBC owns my television provider.

00:43:25   - Well, there you go. - It's Comcast.

00:43:26   - What that's like then. Yeah.

00:43:28   - (laughs)

00:43:29   - I guess so. It's wild. It's really wild.

00:43:31   Yeah. So this whole thing, I mean, it's why I knew I needed to talk to someone about it

00:43:36   and you were the person. And I think that, like, this stuff becomes so much more applicable

00:43:42   to technology as it goes in-- as it goes along because it's all about technology now. Right?

00:43:47   Like, these companies are doing this because they want to be on the internet and they want

00:43:50   that own it themselves and it's, this one was just,

00:43:55   it's absolutely wild.

00:43:57   Is this big, this is bigger than when they bought Marvel

00:44:00   and the Star Wars, right?

00:44:00   Like this is bigger than that.

00:44:02   - Yes, oh yeah, oh yeah, by far.

00:44:03   - Because if they said like, we're buying The Simpsons,

00:44:06   that probably would have been on a similar level

00:44:08   to we're buying Marvel or we're buying Star Wars,

00:44:10   like just The Simpsons, right?

00:44:12   'Cause like that is huge.

00:44:13   It's probably the most successful television show

00:44:16   of all time.

00:44:17   - That's a few billion dollars, but this is 52 billion,

00:44:19   So Lucasfilm was like, yeah, yeah, a few billion.

00:44:23   Pixar, a few billion.

00:44:25   This is all the money.

00:44:26   How much money you got?

00:44:26   - All the money.

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00:45:22   So the iMac Pro huh?

00:45:24   Yeah it's here I guess.

00:45:27   In between last episode and now it was announced for pre-order and then went on sale and there's

00:45:34   been some review like stuff come out.

00:45:40   Basically, it's been very similar to the iPhone X in that it's abnormal, it's an abnormal

00:45:49   PR strategy. So what's happened so far is Apple has sent some units to YouTubers like

00:45:54   MKBHD who put a great video together, to some developers like Cable Sensor, and it's been

00:46:02   very different, right? Like very different again. They also had an event in New York

00:46:07   which a bunch of people went to and were able to talk about their hands-on experiences.

00:46:12   So kind of like the iPhone, right?

00:46:15   Like it's different.

00:46:17   Yeah, it's YouTube and developers and other pro-level people, video editors.

00:46:29   And so what they wanted to do is they wanted to go with some testimonials.

00:46:32   I would say why YouTubers this time is different.

00:46:35   Why YouTubers this time is because YouTubers care about video.

00:46:40   And I think not only are they capable of making good videos about the iMac Pro, but they also

00:46:44   care because they are the customers for the iMac Pro in large part because they have to

00:46:48   deal with video, but also developers and other professional level people.

00:46:52   And they got seated with units with an embargo and then were encouraged to talk about it.

00:46:56   But like literally like Cable Sasser just did a Twitter thread.

00:47:00   That was it.

00:47:01   He did like seven tweets.

00:47:02   That was the whole thing and it was great.

00:47:05   And they also had this PR event.

00:47:07   My understanding is they had PR events in New York

00:47:09   and in Cupertino,

00:47:10   although nobody talked about the one in Cupertino,

00:47:12   but I believe they had one there.

00:47:13   I didn't go, I didn't get invited to this one.

00:47:15   And it's again, they had like had people talk

00:47:19   about the product and you could look at the product,

00:47:22   but I don't believe most of those people,

00:47:23   if any of those people got it, right?

00:47:25   They just, they got to see it and talk to people

00:47:28   who had used it and then they left.

00:47:30   Like Renee Ritchie didn't check an iMac Pro

00:47:33   into his flight back to Montreal.

00:47:35   And Roman Loyola at Macworld got to go see

00:47:38   the dog and pony show,

00:47:40   but like he doesn't have an iMac Pro either.

00:47:43   So, and some of that is I think severe product constraints,

00:47:48   it's still coming out.

00:47:50   And yeah, it's just different.

00:47:52   So we end up at, we're in this weird situation

00:47:55   where kind of all we have even now

00:47:57   is a very select group of people who were in that seed.

00:48:01   And even the press coverage that followed

00:48:02   weren't really reviews, right?

00:48:05   They were like hands-on.

00:48:06   - Yep.

00:48:07   - Not much different than,

00:48:09   I mean, we didn't get to do hands-on at WWDC

00:48:11   'cause the product wasn't really real.

00:48:14   It was kind of running a loop and we could walk around it,

00:48:17   but that's about all we could do.

00:48:18   And this was like the equivalent of,

00:48:20   okay, well now you've got your hands-on area.

00:48:21   You can look at it and poke it

00:48:22   and add it and ask it questions and stuff like that.

00:48:25   Hello, computer.

00:48:26   but that's it, that's all.

00:48:29   - I mean, I maybe argue that this one doesn't need a lot,

00:48:31   right, like people that want this machine are gonna get it,

00:48:34   they just wanna know the specs

00:48:35   and the Geekbench scores now, right?

00:48:37   - I think the challenge here though,

00:48:39   is that one thing that Apple didn't do as far as I can tell,

00:48:43   is seed this to a bunch of people

00:48:47   who are going to give it the,

00:48:49   well, let me rephrase this,

00:48:52   I think Apple struggles sometimes with how to reach a pro audience, which is funny because

00:48:58   Apple used to be all about that, but Apple is totally not about that now.

00:49:02   And the pro audience is not the consumer audience.

00:49:05   And I think that there is sometimes a struggle within Apple about how do you, they've gotten

00:49:08   so good at reaching a consumer audience and then you get a pro product and they sometimes

00:49:13   they want to market it as a consumer product.

00:49:18   Like even though they know it's a pro product, they use their tools of marketing consumer

00:49:23   products to market a pro product.

00:49:26   And so how do you reach the people who want to use this product?

00:49:32   Getting people who are like them to try it out and talk about it is one way.

00:49:36   And they did that, which I think is really interesting.

00:49:38   I am, I guess, a little surprised that they didn't make an effort to find a handful of

00:49:44   of people, like shouldn't,

00:49:48   I'm gonna use Gruber as an example.

00:49:50   Like if there's anybody who's got like the hardest core

00:49:54   people who use Apple products and the hardest core,

00:49:57   like not the consumer market,

00:50:00   but people who really, really, really care,

00:50:01   somebody like John Gruber is a good example of that.

00:50:03   Like wouldn't you want him to write about the experience

00:50:06   and show some Geekbench scores and other stuff?

00:50:10   The counter argument would be that there's nothing

00:50:12   in his workflow that requires an iMac Pro.

00:50:14   And so he's qualified to talk about it

00:50:17   from an audience perspective,

00:50:18   but not necessarily the kind of person

00:50:20   who would actually use the features of the product

00:50:24   and be able to talk about them.

00:50:25   And this is the challenge in general.

00:50:26   Like, who do you find who has an audience

00:50:29   that is the right audience and also has the experience?

00:50:34   And that's why I think they go to

00:50:36   like some of these video editors and scientists

00:50:38   who were able to write these amazing things about this.

00:50:41   So I get it.

00:50:43   I get the strategy, but it's a hard one.

00:50:46   Like it's actually a hard one.

00:50:48   There used to be whole media organizations

00:50:51   that specialized in covering high-end creative hardware.

00:50:56   But they don't exist anymore.

00:50:57   The fact is they don't really exist anymore.

00:51:00   Not that many of them, if any.

00:51:02   And mostly it's just like a person somewhere.

00:51:05   So this was, yeah, I get why they did it this way.

00:51:10   It's a little bit different and a little bit weird,

00:51:11   but I get it.

00:51:12   I'm, you know, I'm intrigued by it myself because I am now,

00:51:17   and Steven Hackett and I talked about this last week,

00:51:19   just not on a podcast, just personally.

00:51:22   - Wait, what?

00:51:23   - I know, right?

00:51:24   How do you talk and not record it and release it as a podcast?

00:51:27   'Cause he does a lot of video for his YouTube channel

00:51:29   and, you know, he and I and you, you know,

00:51:31   a lot of people we know do a lot of audio stuff.

00:51:33   And so we actually do have the opportunity

00:51:35   to use this stuff.

00:51:36   And so I'm intrigued by what kind of a difference

00:51:40   this new hardware would make versus like,

00:51:42   I've got a three-year-old 5K iMac and it's great,

00:51:45   but this thing is gonna be, you know, not,

00:51:48   these are not the usual like next year's model

00:51:51   is 5% faster, next year's model is 4% faster,

00:51:55   next year's model after that is 3%, 5%, 6% faster.

00:51:59   This is like 40% to 60% faster on some stuff.

00:52:03   Like it's a big jump, like it's not cheap,

00:52:07   but it's a big jump too from like a high-end iMac.

00:52:10   - Let's talk about the product a bit.

00:52:13   What can you buy right now?

00:52:15   Right, 'cause it's not all available right now.

00:52:18   You can't buy every configuration, can you?

00:52:20   - I don't know the details of it.

00:52:23   I can tell you that it sounds like

00:52:25   there are some that are shipping now

00:52:26   and there's some that are not shipping now.

00:52:28   - 'Cause you can't get the 18.

00:52:30   - Right.

00:52:31   - Yeah, the 10s and the 8s, you can't get the 18 right now.

00:52:33   So there's, for whatever reason, that's coming next year.

00:52:36   Yeah, I mean, and some of them you order them and it's for four to six weeks out.

00:52:40   It's fine.

00:52:41   Yeah.

00:52:41   So, you know, and then there's a bunch of different options, right?

00:52:44   You got like, so what is the upgrade ability like in your opinion?

00:52:46   Like if you've looked at this stuff, they have a vast array of things.

00:52:51   I mean, you can get one up to like 13 grand, you know, you can play that fun

00:52:54   game.

00:52:54   I love to play that game, right?

00:52:55   Where you just like tick every box, right?

00:52:58   Include every accessory and get it up to like 13,000, but in there are a bunch of

00:53:03   different configurations. Kind of what has been your take on what's available and the

00:53:10   pricing for all of these?

00:53:11   Well, the pricing seems, you know, it's all about perspective. It's a computer that starts

00:53:17   at $5,000. So like, right there, 95% of people are out. Because you don't need a computer

00:53:25   that – my father-in-law asked me last week, he said, "I need to buy a new iMac. Should

00:53:28   I buy the iMac Pro?" I was like, "Oh, God, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no."

00:53:33   Right, I mean, nobody needs this thing.

00:53:37   There's a very small group of people who need this.

00:53:39   And that's where it starts.

00:53:40   And then it goes up rapidly from there.

00:53:41   I've heard, like Marc Arment was saying

00:53:44   that he's really enamored of the 10 core model

00:53:47   'cause it sounds like the 10 core model

00:53:48   has a really good single core performance.

00:53:51   It seems like, and of course, 10 cores,

00:53:54   that it's a good balance, but of course,

00:53:56   that's a, you gotta pay that much more

00:53:59   in order to get there.

00:54:01   So it sounds like, you know,

00:54:04   this is an expensive computer that uses expensive parts

00:54:07   and it is every single one of these steps

00:54:11   is going to ascend you further and further

00:54:13   into the stratosphere of price from, you know,

00:54:16   it's like climbing Mount Everest,

00:54:17   you're already starting at a pretty high altitude at $5,000

00:54:20   and then it goes up from there.

00:54:21   So I don't know, I mean, for me personally,

00:54:25   like if I was gonna get one of these, which I probably am,

00:54:29   I did order one, it's the base model.

00:54:32   I can't justify, I think,

00:54:33   any more than just give me the base model,

00:54:37   'cause the base model is probably a little too much for me,

00:54:39   but it's so much more than just buying a new iMac

00:54:43   that I think it might be worth doing

00:54:44   to pay the extra and get that much more power.

00:54:49   - So in regards to upgradability, it's basically none, right?

00:54:53   Like, it's after the fact,

00:54:55   once this thing has arrived in your home,

00:54:57   the most you can do, I believe, is get RAM changed

00:55:00   at an authorized service center, right?

00:55:02   Either an Apple store or a service provider,

00:55:05   but that's it, right?

00:55:07   - Yeah, who knows, right?

00:55:11   I mean, a lot of Apple products come out

00:55:12   and then it turns out, well, that's a custom SSD module,

00:55:17   but we can reverse engineer it and build new SSDs

00:55:20   and pop it out and put a new one in.

00:55:22   Like, some of that happens,

00:55:23   but it sounds like right out of the box,

00:55:24   there's no RAM slot and everybody's like,

00:55:26   "Oh no, the RAM's not upgradable."

00:55:27   And Apple said, "Well, it actually is.

00:55:29   It's not user replaceable.

00:55:30   We didn't bother to build in a door,

00:55:32   but anybody who does service can basically,

00:55:34   it sounds like take off the back and put in new RAM."

00:55:38   Like it's not, there's a slot.

00:55:41   It's not, it's not soldered on or anything.

00:55:43   There's a slot and it's allowed and you can do it.

00:55:46   And they said, "It's not even like Apple only,

00:55:49   it's Apple authorized service basically,

00:55:51   or it voids, I guess it voids your warranty

00:55:53   or something like that."

00:55:54   basically yes, any tech who is authorized can pop it open and put in new RAM, it's just

00:56:00   not meant to be user-upgradable where you get out your screwdriver and pop open the

00:56:03   door and stick in RAM modules yourself.

00:56:06   Once people got these things, the people that did, it was discovered that there was a processor

00:56:14   inside of these called the T2. What is that?

00:56:18   We don't know, but the T1 was on the touch bar and that was the ARM processor that everybody

00:56:23   said was basically an Apple Watch processor and it sounds like the T2 is

00:56:26   basically an A10, although because the rumors were there was an A10 in it and

00:56:31   that's not quite right. So I guess, you know, this is the hybrid Mac,

00:56:39   like phase two, and there's a real question about where they're going from

00:56:42   here, but this is a Mac with an ARM processor and the ARM processor is

00:56:46   doing a lot of stuff. It's doing security stuff, it's controlling the webcam, it is

00:56:50   replacing a lot of like the the startup hardware firmware all of that stuff is

00:56:58   being rolled into this so when you start up it's verifying you can you can set

00:57:02   encryption on a system level at startup you know it's a lot of stuff that they

00:57:09   are building into this processor to do a lot of the load that used to be done by

00:57:14   custom components or by the system itself as it boots. And that's really

00:57:22   interesting, right? Because now you've got a Mac that has this... the Mac

00:57:26   architecture is now starting to deviate from the norm a little bit further of a

00:57:30   of like a PC, an Intel PC, by having this custom Apple silicon that's doing all

00:57:34   these things. And for me the question is, is this going to end up being an outlier

00:57:40   or is this the future of the Mac? And my gut feeling is this is the future of the

00:57:43   Mac. My gut feeling is that Apple would like to start using its ability to

00:57:49   custom design processors, ARM processors that it's very good at, to start changing

00:57:54   the Mac experience in order to use the features of the ARM processors that are

00:57:59   superior to what's in the existing Mac hardware, like security and having a

00:58:04   secure enclave and running the webcam through there. One of the ideas

00:58:08   there is that that provides more security because you've actually got to

00:58:11   be unauthenticated something or other in order to turn the camera on and see the pictures

00:58:18   and that that's better like that's more secure if you're running it through an authenticated

00:58:22   something or other. In your article, it's technical, technical term, something or other,

00:58:28   thingamabobba jigger. In your article, what you wrote about the iMac Pro on 6 colors,

00:58:35   you made reference to the fact that the iMac that both me and you use, the 5k iMac, iMac,

00:58:41   has received lots of updates for its life, right?

00:58:44   Multiple revisions, multiple speed bumps.

00:58:47   Do you think that the iMac Pro will follow this life cycle?

00:58:52   - Well, this is the, so just as we have this question

00:58:55   of like, does the T2 augur a future

00:58:58   where most Macs become these hybrid machines

00:59:01   that have a lot of their subsystems and security

00:59:03   and all that offloaded to one of these

00:59:05   custom Apple processors?

00:59:07   we have to ask our question, will this get updated?

00:59:11   Like that's the other big question here.

00:59:14   Like we can't tell right now

00:59:15   whether this is the start of a glorious future

00:59:18   or whether this is gonna be another one-off

00:59:20   like the Trashcan Mac Pro.

00:59:21   Now Apple didn't want the Trashcan Mac Pro to be a one-off.

00:59:25   It sounds like they made some mistakes

00:59:28   and realized they painted themselves in a corner.

00:59:31   But we won't know it until we see it.

00:59:33   Like this is one of the big questions

00:59:35   about the Mac in general is,

00:59:36   okay, they did speed bumps to the MacBook Pros

00:59:40   in less than a year after they were released.

00:59:42   Great.

00:59:44   Step one, like what's next?

00:59:46   Like keep showing us that in 2018,

00:59:49   well, I mean, iMac Pro is sort of shipping

00:59:51   at the very beginning of 2018.

00:59:52   So like in 2018 or early 2019,

00:59:56   iMac Pro needs to get updated.

00:59:57   That Mac Pro, whenever they release it, a year out-ish,

01:00:01   it needs to get updated with the latest and greatest

01:00:03   that is coming from Intel and from the maker of the GPU.

01:00:08   Like the MacBook Pro needs to keep being updated.

01:00:12   The Mac Mini needs to come back to life.

01:00:15   All of the Macs need to be on a refresher cycle,

01:00:19   especially the Pro Max,

01:00:20   that there isn't like way superior parts out there

01:00:25   from Intel and other companies

01:00:26   that we all know are out there.

01:00:28   And that Apple's like,

01:00:30   "We're still selling this for full price,

01:00:32   even though it's last year's part.

01:00:34   That is the big question mark.

01:00:36   I think Apple has made moves in the direction

01:00:39   of recognizing that that's a problem and addressing it,

01:00:43   but until they actually do it, it doesn't, you know,

01:00:45   words are one thing, deeds are the other.

01:00:49   So we need to see them actually walk the walk and do that.

01:00:53   So it will be a crushing disappointment

01:00:55   if the iMac Pro lingers for two years un-updated.

01:00:58   It just, you know,

01:00:59   because its audience is paying to be on the cutting edge.

01:01:03   And once the cutting edge moves,

01:01:05   the product needs to move to match it.

01:01:09   And, you know, I hope they do that.

01:01:12   I don't see why you would put, I mean,

01:01:13   why are you putting all the effort into something like this

01:01:15   and then letting it sit?

01:01:16   You gotta keep it updated.

01:01:18   - So it's been about four years,

01:01:20   four years since the Trash Can Mac Pro,

01:01:22   the last new Pro desktop.

01:01:25   - Yeah, it's four years to the week.

01:01:26   - Four years to the week,

01:01:27   But the iMac is just the first of the two, right?

01:01:31   The Mac Pro is still coming.

01:01:34   - Yeah, this is what I wrote about on Six Colors

01:01:35   was that this is the first shoe dropping, right?

01:01:38   Somebody asked me, like, what's the deal

01:01:39   with the metaphor of shoes dropping?

01:01:40   It's like, well, there's always two.

01:01:42   - Yeah.

01:01:43   - So if a shoe drops and you hear it,

01:01:45   you can hear that there will be a second shoe to drop.

01:01:47   You just have to wait for it.

01:01:48   And that's the Mac Pro.

01:01:49   Like, the way we read the iMac Pro is totally different,

01:01:52   I think, than we would have read it

01:01:53   if we had known that it was the replacement for the Mac Pro

01:01:56   and there was never gonna be a Mac Pro.

01:01:58   Then all the burden of professional Mac line

01:02:01   falls on the iMac Pro.

01:02:03   And I think the criticism of the iMac Pro

01:02:05   for being not expandable and all these things,

01:02:07   which it's an iMac, it's a Pro iMac.

01:02:10   It is, iMac's in the name.

01:02:11   It's not gonna be super expandable

01:02:13   with graphics cards you can pull out and stuff.

01:02:15   It was never gonna be the case.

01:02:16   But if it was the only Pro Mac, Pro desktop Mac,

01:02:20   you'd be a little more justified in saying,

01:02:22   well, why does Apple not have anything more modular

01:02:25   in its product lineup, but they shifted gears

01:02:29   and announced they were gonna do a Mac Pro

01:02:31   and it was gonna be modular.

01:02:33   And so that's coming, presumably in 2018.

01:02:38   And that's interesting because how does the market break,

01:02:43   the pro high-end market breakdown for Mac products?

01:02:47   And I saw somebody somewhere, I can't even remember where,

01:02:51   it was on Twitter and Slack or something.

01:02:53   I actually saw one person ask,

01:02:55   if the Mac Pro is coming out,

01:02:57   how are they gonna sell any iMac Pros?

01:02:58   What's the market for this?

01:02:59   And somebody else said, with the iMac Pro,

01:03:01   how can they sell any Mac Pros?

01:03:04   Because what's the market for that?

01:03:06   I think that's the answer is that

01:03:09   there's a market for both, they're different.

01:03:11   For every person who says,

01:03:13   I would never buy an iMac if I could buy a Mac Pro,

01:03:15   there's somebody else who says,

01:03:16   I would never buy a Mac Pro if I can buy a Pro iMac.

01:03:19   Right?

01:03:19   I think that they're both legitimate.

01:03:21   The question is, how well are they gonna sell?

01:03:24   Apple needs to remain committed, it's a small market.

01:03:27   Although it's profitable, but it's a small market.

01:03:30   Can Apple remain committed to them?

01:03:31   Because it's good for the platform if they are.

01:03:33   - So you're getting one, right?

01:03:35   You have ordered one?

01:03:36   - I ordered one.

01:03:37   My credit card actually kicked back and said,

01:03:41   "A $5,000 charge, that seems large."

01:03:44   And I had to call them and say, "No, that's right.

01:03:46   "Please authorize that and then go back to Apple."

01:03:49   and Apple actually has obviously has experience with this

01:03:52   because they have a form,

01:03:54   I've never experienced this before.

01:03:56   They have a little form that basically says

01:03:57   you can put in a new credit card number

01:03:58   or there's a radio button for like, just reauthorize this.

01:04:02   This is the, you've called your credit card company.

01:04:04   It says, if you've already called your credit card company

01:04:06   and told them to authorize this,

01:04:08   just select this and we'll reauthorize it

01:04:10   and your transaction will continue.

01:04:12   - 'Cause this must happen with a huge percentage

01:04:14   of their customers, right?

01:04:16   - Yeah, all of a sudden there's a $4,000 purchase

01:04:19   or $8,000 purchase for Apple stuff.

01:04:20   - Even a $1,000, right?

01:04:22   Like $1,000 is, you know, that's for most,

01:04:25   pretty much most people,

01:04:26   that is an incredible amount of money, right?

01:04:28   Like when I bought my iPhone,

01:04:30   it kicked off a fraud charge.

01:04:32   - Yeah, all of these credit card have to have

01:04:34   these little bots that are in there going,

01:04:36   oh no, fraud alert, fraud alert, let's flag this,

01:04:38   this is too much.

01:04:39   So anyway, yes, I did, I bought the baseline configuration.

01:04:42   I have heard rumors that they are in,

01:04:45   they might be in stores this week.

01:04:46   So I may call or drift on over to my local Apple store

01:04:51   and see if they've got one in stock

01:04:52   and because that would be better than having,

01:04:57   I'd like to just get it and bring it home.

01:04:59   Of course, can I charge it?

01:05:01   Will any of my credit cards work?

01:05:03   It's an open question.

01:05:04   No, no more Apple charges, no.

01:05:07   But yeah, that's the plan.

01:05:09   And I've gone back and forth on it and I'm still,

01:05:12   You know, I could save a lot of money

01:05:14   and buy a high-end iMac of the 2017 variety,

01:05:18   a three years newer than mine iMac,

01:05:21   and I would get a better screen, I would get faster SSD,

01:05:24   I would get a faster processor if I did that

01:05:27   for a couple thousand dollars less than the iMac Pro.

01:05:30   And so I thought about that.

01:05:33   But to me, the reason I'm really interested in the iMac Pro

01:05:37   is that I will get all of those benefits

01:05:40   and I'll get more cores, more processor cores

01:05:43   and a faster graphics card, which is not as important to me,

01:05:46   but the processor cores and fast storage

01:05:49   are important to me.

01:05:50   And it's because of video and especially audio work

01:05:54   that I do, like I do so much,

01:05:56   you know, especially with incomparable stuff

01:05:59   where you've got a lot of people

01:06:01   who are not professional podcasters like you and me.

01:06:05   And the audio quality of their setups varies widely.

01:06:09   I mean, there are a lot of ones with like,

01:06:10   there's loud hums in the background and buzzing

01:06:12   and background noise.

01:06:13   And I have some crazy expensive and really great plugins

01:06:17   that remove all that stuff, but they're so slow.

01:06:21   They use all the cores that you can throw with them.

01:06:23   And I had that moment where I thought,

01:06:25   imagine taking an hour of denoising four hour long audio

01:06:30   files for seven people and turning it into 30 minutes

01:06:35   or 20 minutes.

01:06:37   like every time I do it,

01:06:38   just shaving all of those sessions in half.

01:06:41   That's pretty good.

01:06:42   That's, I'm kind of up for that because, you know,

01:06:46   I'm essentially spending money to save myself a lot of time

01:06:50   in those situations.

01:06:51   Plus, you know, video encoding

01:06:53   is another good example of that.

01:06:55   And so right now, that combined with the fact

01:06:58   that I do write about Apple stuff for a living

01:07:00   and nobody is getting iMac Pros right now,

01:07:05   except for that small group.

01:07:07   That also makes me, kind of tips me over the edge

01:07:09   in wanting to get one

01:07:10   so that I can actually dig in and write about it.

01:07:12   - I'm not getting one.

01:07:13   - No.

01:07:14   - I don't want one, I don't need one.

01:07:16   - It's extreme and most of the stuff you do,

01:07:20   you're not doing those three, four hour,

01:07:24   seven people on a panel with lots of buzzing

01:07:28   in the background sessions like I am.

01:07:29   Most of the people you talk to--

01:07:31   - If I have to open iZotope,

01:07:32   which is the noise processor that we use.

01:07:36   If I have to open iZotope, something bad has happened.

01:07:39   - Something, yeah, yeah, something is really, really wrong.

01:07:41   - Right, because I work with people

01:07:43   that have mostly controlled environments.

01:07:46   So needing to open iZotope RX6, which is what we use,

01:07:51   I'm in for a bad time, typically, when I've opened that.

01:07:56   So like, I'm fine. - Yeah, that means something

01:07:58   has gone wrong.

01:07:59   - And you know, like, I get that it would be faster

01:08:02   for bouncing and stuff like that, but honestly,

01:08:04   my workflow is set up in such a way

01:08:08   that I'm never sitting and waiting.

01:08:11   Like, if I'm bouncing, I'm doing something else

01:08:13   in another window that's part of the podcast

01:08:16   like publishing process, which has to occur.

01:08:19   So like, I don't feel-- - Doing the show notes.

01:08:22   - Exactly, the iMac 5K is way more computed

01:08:25   than I need already.

01:08:27   I can't see myself upgrading this one

01:08:31   for a couple of years, honestly.

01:08:33   So I get why a lot of people want it.

01:08:36   If you're dealing with 4K video,

01:08:38   if you're doing really heavy processor intensive stuff

01:08:41   like you are, like developers are,

01:08:43   this machine seems amazing for you.

01:08:45   I have no interest in it.

01:08:46   I'm honestly casting my eye towards

01:08:48   what the Mac Pro might be.

01:08:49   It could be a more interesting thing for me

01:08:51   if I can like custom build it to the way that I want it

01:08:54   and it not cost five grand, who knows?

01:08:56   It could be cheaper, could start cheaper.

01:08:57   We don't know anything about it, right?

01:08:59   So I'm kind of more interested in that

01:09:02   as a potential future computer for me,

01:09:03   but we have no way of knowing right now

01:09:05   what it's even gonna be.

01:09:06   So the iMac Pro, I'm not gonna jump into this

01:09:10   if I can't see what else is coming, right?

01:09:14   Like I'm not gonna jump into this one

01:09:15   if I don't know what else is gonna happen, so yeah.

01:09:19   Okay, so we are gonna talk about Star Wars The Last Jedi

01:09:22   in a moment, but I just, before we do,

01:09:24   let's just talk about scheduling for the rest of the year

01:09:27   for a quick-- - Oh yes.

01:09:29   #AskUpgrade is going to be taking a break for a few weeks because we have special segments

01:09:34   and shows replacing regular scheduled programming. So keep sending in please your #AskUpgrade

01:09:41   questions over the next few weeks. We'd love to hear about them, all of your questions.

01:09:45   We love them. Please continue to send those in. I'll say this now because today we're

01:09:49   not doing it. We're not doing it next week or the week after. So I'll say it now so you

01:09:52   remember to keep sending them in because we're going to need them in January, right? So #AskUpgrade

01:09:57   for

01:10:13   and potentially possibly who knows a mic at the movies we'll see you'll see the week after that's

01:10:18   going to be coming out on Christmas day on the 25th of December so you got the first ever upgrade

01:10:23   holiday special the week after that on January 1st as we mentioned earlier is going to be the

01:10:28   upgrade ease so you can look out for that one just the the most glitzy night of the year oh yeah

01:10:34   week after that back to regularly scheduled programming which will be on January 8th well

01:10:41   We're actually going to be releasing on January 9th, but that week things are back to normal

01:10:46   again. We're going to be releasing on Tuesday for the first couple of weeks of January,

01:10:51   but that shouldn't affect you except for the fact that the day is going to change.

01:10:54   But the shows will be normal. We've got that at least.

01:10:57   Yes. Yeah. Oh man. But if you're looking for a normal show released on a normal day,

01:11:01   it will not be until January 29th. You've got a month. Yeah, you've got a month for

01:11:04   that. But the show will be returning to regular content programming in the middle of January,

01:11:10   we have some excellent shows for you over the next couple of weeks which we've both

01:11:14   been working very hard on and we think that you're going to love them.

01:11:16   But without further ado, let's take our final break of the episode and talk about Encapsula.

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01:12:34   So Jason, what is the sound we play at this time?

01:12:39   It's the spoiler horn, which is also the sound of John Siracusa humming while he holds his

01:12:44   fingers in his ears in order to prevent spoilers from playing during movie trailers that he's

01:12:50   watching.

01:12:51   Turns out.

01:12:52   Turns out.

01:12:53   So here we are then, another Star Wars movie.

01:12:58   It is, it is episode eight.

01:13:01   The ninth Star Wars movie.

01:13:04   Who knows?

01:13:05   Uh, Last Jedi.

01:13:07   So I will say, um, I only saw the first trailer for this movie and then stayed away from the

01:13:15   rest.

01:13:16   Um, so I didn't know what a Porg was, but I knew people were talking about it beforehand,

01:13:23   but I didn't know what it was.

01:13:24   I hadn't seen them because I'd never seen any trailers.

01:13:25   And it's just mostly accidental.

01:13:27   Uh, I saw the first one because it came out and I wanted to watch it.

01:13:32   And somehow for some reason I missed the debut of the second trailer and then multiple weeks

01:13:38   later when I realised this had occurred I just figured I'll avoid it. And I didn't go

01:13:43   to great lengths, I just didn't watch it. And all of the movies that I went to see didn't

01:13:47   show it, they just showed the original one. So I stayed away.

01:13:50   So I think I went into this movie mostly free of practically any spoilers. There were obviously

01:13:58   a couple of scenes that I saw but I didn't think that they told much of the movie. The

01:14:01   The original trailer to my eyes made it seem like Luke was a bad guy.

01:14:17   I liked this movie a lot.

01:14:22   For me personally, I felt more during the Force Awakens.

01:14:27   And this was how I expected to feel.

01:14:31   So Force Awakens showed to me and to many others that a good Star Wars movie could still

01:14:37   be made and that in and of itself was an incredibly emotional experience that this movie was never

01:14:45   going to be able to provide me because I went into this expecting nothing less than a great

01:14:51   movie right and that was what I got so I'm happy about it but I'm not going crazy for

01:14:59   it.

01:15:00   Now, "The Force Awakens" job was to reassure everybody,

01:15:04   was to re-establish the franchise.

01:15:05   I mean, I think the criticism I see of it

01:15:08   is mostly that it plays so many of the original trilogy notes,

01:15:13   but that was the whole reason--

01:15:14   I mean, this is my argument from two years ago,

01:15:17   so you can go back and listen to it then, too.

01:15:20   Of course it plays the original trilogy notes.

01:15:22   That's why it exists.

01:15:23   It exists to reassure people and re-establish, like,

01:15:27   that "Star Wars" is back and all those things

01:15:29   you love from the original trilogy, those kind of concepts, we get it. You know, the

01:15:33   prequels were very different, but this is like, no, no, we're going back to kind of

01:15:37   the original recipe in Force Awakens. We're going to make you feel happy and warm and

01:15:43   you know, it's just going to be a good feeling about the Star Wars that you remember. The

01:15:47   Last Jedi's job is to, and I really wondered going in, it's like, are they going to take

01:15:55   steps away from what what they've done before because I would have been really

01:16:01   disappointed if The Last Jedi was just a riff on Empire Strikes Back like

01:16:06   literally we're just gonna keep riffing on those first three movies forever yeah

01:16:09   and The Last Jedi is absolutely not that it's aware that it's the second movie

01:16:15   and it's aware of Empire Strikes Back at several points references it kind of

01:16:22   backward, which I think is really interesting, but it does things that you don't expect.

01:16:28   It does things that don't happen in the original trilogy until much later, or not at all. It's

01:16:34   got nice references to the original trilogy and to The Empire Strikes Back in particular,

01:16:40   but it's doing different stuff. And it is trying to, as much as Force Awakens was about

01:16:47   reassuring you that it was Star Wars, this is a movie saying, "And it's going to change."

01:16:52   And Star Wars is more than you thought it was, and you need to question some of the fundamental

01:16:57   assumptions of Star Wars while you're watching this movie. And for me, that's the richest thing

01:17:01   in it. I think that this movie has a lot of flaws, and there are parts of it that I wouldn't say I

01:17:08   don't like, but feel inessential, and in a two-and-a-half-hour movie, they probably should

01:17:14   have not done them, but overall I liked it and the thing I liked about it most

01:17:20   was the attempt to kind of like steer your thoughts about like and your

01:17:27   assumptions about what Star Wars is into some new places and question some of

01:17:31   those assumptions and if if I had a one line, I don't know if this is one line, but if I

01:17:36   had one takeaway from The Last Jedi it would probably be what Luke says which

01:17:41   is this is not going to go the way you think and that's on purpose like on purpose that's what this

01:17:48   movie does and i really like that because um i like being challenged a little bit i i think

01:17:54   they're i think more thought went into the philosophy and the themes of this movie yeah

01:18:00   then we probably deserve from a big budget um a big budget action uh blockbuster right i mean in

01:18:09   in a way that like, um, the Winter Soldier, I felt the same way about.

01:18:13   That the Winter Soldier was actually about something while there were explosions and superheroes.

01:18:18   And The Last Jedi is kind of like that, where I really like the intelligence behind it, even though,

01:18:23   you know, yeah, so I'm gonna grade it up on that even though there are parts of it that I thought were kind of, um,

01:18:29   you know, extraneous or there were some bad decisions that were made.

01:18:32   There was an awful lot of world building, right? Like, a lot of the logic for the future of this

01:18:38   franchise was put together in this movie. I could do a whole--I may actually at some point

01:18:45   do a whole podcast about the Jedi, because one of the things that happens in this movie

01:18:51   is that Luke says--and it's also the first direct reference to the prequels in these new movies--Luke

01:18:56   basically says, "Don't talk about how great the Jedi were. At the height of their power,

01:19:01   they allowed essentially the emperor, Darth Sidious Palpatine, to take over and create the empire.

01:19:09   So the Jedi blew it and they ruined it for everyone. And keeping in mind that Luke never

01:19:15   met any Jedi like at their height, he only met the last vestiges of them who were, you know, Ben

01:19:20   and Yoda. Luke is like a has lost his faith in the force, he's closed himself off from the force,

01:19:26   but he's especially lost his belief in the Jedi and that scene with Yoda, which is my favorite scene

01:19:32   in the movie, I think, non-action scene, my favorite thinking scene, not only is it incredibly nostalgic

01:19:38   and references Empire Strikes Back, but that's Luke and Yoda saying, "Burn it to the ground."

01:19:43   Like, the Jedi is not as, the Jedi order was kind of past its time and it failed, and you've been

01:19:50   thinking, and what this movie says is, "Hey, all of you people who love Star Wars, you've been thinking

01:19:55   about the force wrong the whole time. That's amazing that a movie, a Star Wars movie would

01:20:01   just essentially come out and say, "Yeah, all of that light and dark split and how great

01:20:07   the Jedi are and how the light is going to save us from the dark." That's probably wrong.

01:20:12   Good luck, Rey. That's amazing. But that's what this movie does. It's amazing.

01:20:19   One of my favourite parts was, I honestly feel like was a nod towards the heavy fans,

01:20:27   the people that really think about this a lot, you know, like we do. When Kylo Ren was

01:20:32   like, "Your parents are nobody. Why do you think that they would have to be somebody?"

01:20:37   And it's like, to all of the theories about who Rey's parents were, and he's just like,

01:20:43   "Why do they have to be anyone? They're nobody. They don't matter."

01:20:46   - Isn't that great?

01:20:47   This is a saga about the Skywalker family

01:20:52   and who is going to save the day.

01:20:53   In the end, who's gonna save the universe,

01:20:55   assuming that that's what happens in episode nine.

01:20:57   It's gonna be a girl from nowhere who is no one.

01:21:00   And a stormtrooper who was just, you know, again,

01:21:04   taken away from his family and trained as a stormtrooper.

01:21:06   He's a nobody.

01:21:08   I mean, these are nobodies.

01:21:10   And the fate of the Jedi is in the hands of this girl

01:21:13   from nowhere who is nobody.

01:21:15   And I think that's great.

01:21:16   That's like that the Skywalker clan has a lot going against it,

01:21:21   right between between Ben Solo and Anakin Skywalker.

01:21:25   They have done a lot of bad and and Luke couldn't really kind

01:21:29   of count all of the effort that they put in the rebellion.

01:21:32   And here they are with the first order still kind of reigning

01:21:34   supreme. It's it's the themes in this are are so strong like

01:21:39   where where the movie falls down is in is in some of the plot

01:21:42   mechanics and the set pieces. Actually the set pieces are

01:21:46   all strong too it's just some of the plot mechanics are wonky but the themes

01:21:50   are really strong like I love this movie as much for the themes of you know

01:21:56   questioning the Jedi and the fact that she's not from anywhere and the you know

01:22:03   all of that is just that's the richness of it that I thought that I really liked

01:22:06   I cried a lot basically anytime Leia was on screen I just like it's hard and it

01:22:15   - It totally changes the way-- - When she's in space,

01:22:18   and I'm like, this is it.

01:22:19   - Yeah. - This is when they kill her.

01:22:20   And it's just, that was it, man.

01:22:23   I was basically bawling in the cinema.

01:22:25   Then every time she appears, I'm like,

01:22:29   this is it, this is when I'm gonna kill her.

01:22:30   'Cause I didn't know, turns out,

01:22:32   that they've already filmed all of her stuff

01:22:34   for episode nine, right?

01:22:36   I had no idea about any of that.

01:22:37   - No, no, no, that's not true.

01:22:38   - Is that not true?

01:22:39   - No, that's not true.

01:22:40   No, they filmed her to survive,

01:22:42   and then she was gonna be in episode nine,

01:22:43   and now she's died, Carrie Fisher died,

01:22:46   so they will have to write her out off screen.

01:22:48   - Oh, okay.

01:22:49   - But what they didn't do,

01:22:51   what they could have done is re-shot the movie

01:22:53   to have her just die there, right?

01:22:55   Now that we know that she gets blown out of the ship

01:22:58   with Admiral Ackbar, RIP Admiral Ackbar, it was a trap.

01:23:01   - Yeah, okay.

01:23:02   - The, he was right, in the end it was a trap.

01:23:05   So the fact that they didn't,

01:23:10   they wanted to save her performance, right?

01:23:13   this is her last performance to be seen.

01:23:16   And they could have reshot to have her just be dead

01:23:19   and have the rest of that happen,

01:23:21   have somebody else stay behind

01:23:23   or have Laura Dern still stay behind,

01:23:25   but have one of the other characters lead them off

01:23:27   and talk to Poe.

01:23:28   They could have reshot that stuff and just had her be dead.

01:23:30   And they didn't because they wanted

01:23:33   to keep Carrie Fisher's performance and they should have,

01:23:36   and that's the right thing to do.

01:23:37   They should keep her performance.

01:23:39   It's great to see her.

01:23:40   She gets that scene with Luke,

01:23:41   Couldn't have had that scene

01:23:43   if they had killed her off earlier.

01:23:44   It is too bad that she doesn't get like a bigger send-off,

01:23:49   but to your point, the movie cannot be seen as a...

01:23:54   It wasn't written for this to be the last time

01:23:58   we saw Carrie Fisher, but that's what it is.

01:24:01   So it changes all of those scenes in seeing Carrie Fisher,

01:24:04   knowing that this is the last we'll see of her.

01:24:07   Every one of those scenes is heightened because of that.

01:24:10   it makes it hard to watch in places, but it was great.

01:24:15   Like everything that she did in the movie was great.

01:24:21   - Yeah, apparently she did a lot of the dialogue

01:24:25   with Rian Johnson.

01:24:26   She did a lot of the script doctoring

01:24:27   and worked on a lot of her dialogue.

01:24:29   So that was what she did is she was a script doctor.

01:24:31   So yeah, so apparently a lot of her,

01:24:34   a lot of her, the Leia lines and some of the dialogue

01:24:37   with other characters was Carrie Fisher working

01:24:40   that with ryan johnson so that's kind of fun too i was confused a lot by the end of this movie

01:24:47   i it really took me a while to understand what had happened i didn't i mean i i got the idea that

01:24:55   luke could somehow teleport himself even though like well project himself project himself i guess

01:25:03   but that that still frustrated me to a point because it was like this is a type of this you've

01:25:10   You've never seen this before, right? The way he was doing it. Because you sort of saw

01:25:17   it with... I think the movie is using the conversations between Rey and Kylo Ren to

01:25:25   establish that the Force can project people across distances to a certain degree. And

01:25:33   then I think Yoda whacking him with his stick is meant to imply that you can have, you can

01:25:42   interact with objects potentially even if you're a ghost or a phantom or whatever. But

01:25:47   yeah it's not it's not heavily set up I think they didn't want to lean into it too much

01:25:50   because they wanted it to be a reveal and like half the people I talked to didn't realize

01:25:55   that that was the solution and half the people did. I didn't. I was surprised. Even then

01:26:00   and it's like, there have been so many Star Wars movies

01:26:04   and like this is, no one had ever done this before.

01:26:07   And then like, so it turns out everyone can do this

01:26:09   and has been doing it, but just no,

01:26:10   they just never thought to show us it.

01:26:12   Like that, that kind of-- - Well, I don't know, right?

01:26:14   Like Snoke was powerful enough

01:26:16   that he could bridge their two minds,

01:26:18   but it was obviously like it took that amount of power.

01:26:21   And the implication at the end of the movie, right,

01:26:23   is that it took everything that Luke had to do that.

01:26:26   - Yeah, well that was the next part.

01:26:28   - And that basically killed him.

01:26:29   So let's just assume that that's the case.

01:26:31   It was kind of strange to me that it was just like,

01:26:34   he used his force so hard he died.

01:26:37   That was like, I don't fully, I mean, okay,

01:26:40   like I can see that it's happened,

01:26:41   but that just seems kind of weird to me in a way.

01:26:45   - Well, I, yeah, it didn't bother me.

01:26:50   At the same time when I was watching it,

01:26:52   I was like, oh, okay, all right, I could buy that.

01:26:54   But I did have that moment of,

01:26:58   Does he, I mean, Obi-Wan in the original Star Wars

01:27:03   basically reaches that moment where he lets Darth Vader

01:27:07   hit him, but at that point he's already gone, right?

01:27:09   So I think Luke intended this to be his last act,

01:27:13   to set the generation off and to sacrifice himself,

01:27:19   but like, did it kill him or was the plan

01:27:23   that he would become a ghost when this was done?

01:27:25   I don't know.

01:27:27   Well, did he, you know, either way.

01:27:29   I liked it.

01:27:30   Again, not set up great.

01:27:32   I like the twist because it was not set up great.

01:27:34   There was a nice twist that surprised me.

01:27:37   And I like it kind of thematically

01:27:40   that this is his last act.

01:27:42   - Yeah.

01:27:42   - But I see your point where it could be confusing.

01:27:45   I wasn't confused by it, but I can see it.

01:27:47   - My only problem with all of this

01:27:48   was the fact that I watched the movie ended

01:27:50   and I didn't fully understand what had happened.

01:27:53   - That's not great, not a great outcome.

01:27:55   like after going through it all, like talking about it,

01:27:58   and I was like, yeah, I get all of that, it makes sense,

01:28:01   that he would sacrifice himself,

01:28:02   he knows he's not needed anymore,

01:28:03   he knows there's other people,

01:28:04   he knows they're powerful, et cetera, et cetera,

01:28:06   believes that maybe he is not, he's like a harm to it,

01:28:10   because he knows he's not perfect,

01:28:12   because he had a moment where he wanted to kill his nephew,

01:28:17   all that stuff, so he knows he's not great,

01:28:19   and he knows that Ray is good, and that she's strong,

01:28:21   and she's powerful, et cetera, et cetera,

01:28:22   so he can see that his place isn't there anymore.

01:28:25   And also that everything like, you know,

01:28:26   Yoda burns down the tree.

01:28:28   Like also the theme here is burn it all down.

01:28:30   Like he needs to,

01:28:32   I think he feels he needs to be out of the picture

01:28:35   and let, and one of the other themes of this movie is

01:28:39   the movie you're expecting to see is that the rebels,

01:28:43   what you saw in the first trilogy,

01:28:44   which is the rebels, okay, they had a setback,

01:28:46   but they're going to be on their way

01:28:47   and they're going to finally win in the end.

01:28:49   And what this movie says is, no, this is the low point.

01:28:53   They're gone.

01:28:54   All that they can hope—they can't hope to win right now.

01:28:57   All that they can hope to do is spark a new rebellion.

01:29:02   As Luke says, the new rebellion starts today.

01:29:05   And I'm not the last Jedi. That's Rey.

01:29:10   And this is the handoff.

01:29:11   This is saying the old generation has taken you to this point.

01:29:14   We can't take you any further, as Yoda says.

01:29:17   You know, the thing we have in common is that, you know,

01:29:21   they outgrow us, basically. They don't need us anymore.

01:29:24   They need to be their own people.

01:29:25   And that's what this is all about,

01:29:27   is there's gonna be a new rebellion now.

01:29:28   And they're the ones who are gonna have to take it

01:29:30   the rest of the way.

01:29:31   And so thematically, it all works in there.

01:29:32   Like Luke is part of the old system

01:29:37   that even Kylo Ren says,

01:29:39   like it all needs to get wiped away.

01:29:40   The Jedi, the light side, the dark side, all that stuff.

01:29:43   We just need to burn it all down and start again.

01:29:45   Of course, his next step is as the First Order.

01:29:48   And it's like, what if we burn down

01:29:49   the First Order, Kylo Ren?

01:29:51   What about then?

01:29:51   But he doesn't, no, no, no, no,

01:29:53   I'm gonna keep my stormtroopers, right?

01:29:54   And that's his problem.

01:29:55   - It's like I have all this infrastructure, come on.

01:29:57   - Yeah, I'm in charge.

01:29:59   I've got Hux doing what I want 'cause I force choked him.

01:30:02   So we could just do this.

01:30:03   And I think that's his flaw, right?

01:30:06   Is that I think he's right that the right thing to do

01:30:08   is sort of like stop repeating the old things

01:30:11   and do something new, but he isn't willing to do that.

01:30:15   So anyway, Luke, thematically,

01:30:17   it makes a lot of sense for me that Luke is saying,

01:30:20   I'll pop in as a ghost with Yoda from time to time,

01:30:22   but you need to do this yourself. I'm done."

01:30:25   And obviously Luke said at the top of the movie, he says,

01:30:29   "I came here to die. I don't want to go anywhere else.

01:30:32   I don't want to do anything else. I came here to die."

01:30:35   And he does, but he does it in a constructive way

01:30:38   and not just, you know, wallowing with his,

01:30:42   'cause you get the sense that he's been closed

01:30:44   to the forest for years, right?

01:30:46   Like ever since he failed with Ben,

01:30:48   he just went to an island, became a smelly hermit

01:30:51   with a beard and a robe and stopped using the Force at all.

01:30:55   And of course he reopens his mind to the Force

01:30:57   and he does this incredible, powerful thing with it

01:30:59   as his last act.

01:31:01   I like all of that, but I also get how it's confusing.

01:31:03   I'm not saying it wasn't confusing.

01:31:05   I think your feelings are valid about it.

01:31:07   This is my theme with this movie.

01:31:09   I also have a theme, which is I like thinking about it

01:31:14   and I like the themes.

01:31:16   I like being able to critically read it.

01:31:19   it's rich enough to let you do all of that even though some of the execution is wanting.

01:31:23   So my favorite part of this movie is the whole scene with Rey and Ren in Snoke's chamber.

01:31:32   Yes, the red chamber, oh my god, it's so good.

01:31:34   Everything that happens in that room is incredible, like the altercation, the way that

01:31:40   Ren tricks Snoke, right, like he's turning a lightsaber in his hand because he's thinking

01:31:45   the forts so they're pure, but what he's actually doing is turning it on him.

01:31:50   Also it's exactly how he killed Han Solo, right? Which is, you know, "I don't know what

01:31:54   to do." He says the same stuff, and it's the "I think you think I'm doing one thing, but

01:31:59   I'm actually doing another, and boom, I ran you through with a lightsaber." He kills his

01:32:03   dad, and now he kills his force dad the same way.

01:32:08   But one of my favorite things.

01:32:10   And what a shocker, right? This is literally what Darth Vader wanted Luke to do, right?

01:32:15   right? We'll kill the Emperor and then we'll rule together. And that's what Kylo Ren is.

01:32:19   He does it. He does it. He kills the Emperor and takes his throne, basically. He killed

01:32:25   by killing Snoke. It's a great twist. I think Rian Johnson didn't like Snoke very much,

01:32:29   which is fine because I thought he was a pointless character anyway. I like him in this movie.

01:32:32   In the first movie he was just like a hologram. I like him in this movie. He's well done as

01:32:37   this kind of creepy evil dude, evil Jedi dude or Sith dude or whatever he is. But I love

01:32:44   the act that they've both seen the future and that they fight together. And this is

01:32:50   when it happens and they, you know, he kills Snoke and then they save each other. It's

01:32:56   amazing. Like the whole, that whole, I like the fights. I like the varied weapons of those

01:33:00   Red Guards. I always liked the Red Guards when they were the Emperor's Guards in Return

01:33:04   of the Jedi. They looked really cool and I wonder what they did because they're like

01:33:07   stormtroopers but not in the red and they've got the, they got the axes and the, our swords

01:33:13   or whips and they die in very interesting ways. As the whole thing is on fire too in

01:33:21   the background. The second time I watched it, because I watched it twice, the second

01:33:24   time I watched it I watched the march of like it catches on fire, the red drape catches

01:33:28   on fire and it's burning down in the background revealing the ship and space behind as it

01:33:33   goes. It's amazing, yeah. When Kylo Ren just blasts the guy in the head. Oh yeah. My theater

01:33:43   was full and basically everyone went "oh yeah!"

01:33:46   Yeah, yeah, yeah that also when when when Rey is stuck and she just drops her lightsaber

01:33:55   and then picks it up again, like lets it fall through the air and then just picks it up

01:33:59   and knocks the guy out of the way. It's great, it's, it's, and nobody going into this movie,

01:34:05   nobody would have predicted that one of the most, if not the most rousing fight scene

01:34:10   is Kylo Ren and Rey fighting together. Yeah. But like, yeah. I love the direction and the

01:34:19   fight direction of both of these characters because neither of them are traditional but

01:34:24   in different ways. Like, Rey has found this new Jedi elegance that nobody has had before.

01:34:29   Like the way that she wields the lightsaber is different but beautiful but my favorite

01:34:34   is the way that Kylo Ren does because he is sloppy.

01:34:37   - He's a mess.

01:34:39   - He always holds his sword down, which nobody does, right?

01:34:43   Like in fighting stance, he holds it down.

01:34:46   And my favorite thing is he lets the laser drag

01:34:49   along the ground a lot.

01:34:51   And I just love the way it looks

01:34:54   because it also mimics the fact

01:34:56   that his lightsaber is sloppy, right?

01:34:59   Like all of it works together.

01:35:01   - Spitting up the sides and all that.

01:35:03   Nobody trained him is what it looks like in anything and he kind of just worked it all out himself

01:35:09   And I also like that he had one another moment in this movie

01:35:13   Which is some of my favorite stuff from the force awakens where he smashes something to pieces and people find him

01:35:18   Which he does with a helmet right like he smashes it up on the elevator doors open

01:35:22   He's like get my ship ready and then he off he goes

01:35:24   But yeah, that whole scene is just fantastic. I love the way that it ends all of its great

01:35:29   I like all their scenes together

01:35:31   Honestly, I think the quiet scenes where they're kind of telepathically bridged and they're talking to each other and he's saying did you ask Luke?

01:35:37   About this and you know, you're a monster. He says yeah

01:35:40   I am a monster and all that

01:35:41   I think Adam driver is really good in this movie all the way through and I think those scenes that they have together are

01:35:45   Unexpected and great. Yeah, I

01:35:48   I did not expect that this movie was going to be kind of this

01:35:53   connection between

01:35:56   Kylo Ren and and Rey and

01:35:59   to this extent and I think it's all I think it's all really good and really interesting and that they they had them over they

01:36:04   Touch and Luke obviously sees him there. And of course, you know, they have their history and it's

01:36:10   Yeah, I think that's all it's all really good all there all the Kylo Ren and Rey stuff is great

01:36:17   Ben Solo, I just want to call him Ben Solo. Yeah, Ben Ben. I want to lightning round a few things with you Jason. Okay

01:36:23   All right

01:36:25   The boy that feels the force at the end who has the force at the end which is incredible direction by the way such a subtle

01:36:31   Thing grabbing the broomstick, but everybody knows is it genius? Yep. Well that boy up here or is it just to show there is more Jedi

01:36:39   Part of me wants to believe that episode 9 is set like 10 years or 15 years later

01:36:46   Yeah, me too

01:36:47   and they've built up a new rebellion and Rey has a has a little group of young Jedi that she's training and

01:36:55   Kylo Ren has is basically the Emperor and has made all sorts of horrible decisions and

01:37:01   Yeah, I doubt that will happen. I

01:37:05   But I don't know. I mean this movie is saying regardless of what happens in episode 9 this movie is saying

01:37:10   The rebellion is born again because all these children are

01:37:14   You know the children believe and the downtrodden and the Empire believe and this is from this a rebellion begins

01:37:22   and that there are other kids who are nobodies

01:37:26   who are out there who have the force

01:37:27   and they will be found and they will be part

01:37:29   of the rebellion and they will rebuild, you know,

01:37:32   a new resistance to the first order.

01:37:35   Like that's what the movie says.

01:37:38   Now, what happens in the next installment in the franchise,

01:37:41   you know, who knows what decisions they will make,

01:37:43   but that's the implication here strongly, right?

01:37:46   That is like this continues and this is the low point

01:37:49   and we build from here and they're all throughout

01:37:51   the galaxy are the people who will be joining in this fight in the years to come. I doubt

01:37:58   we will see like, "Oh, it's that boy again," although it wouldn't shock me if there's like

01:38:01   a boy, whether it's this boy or a different boy, where it's like, "Oh yeah, and there

01:38:05   are junior younglings or whatever." I'm not sure what they're going to do with Episode

01:38:11   9, but part of me wants them to give it some time so we can see everybody settling in.

01:38:15   I'm also expecting that Episode 9 will resolve itself very differently than the original

01:38:19   trilogy, I'm still not entirely convinced that there isn't going to be, like, an important

01:38:24   moment for Ben Solo realizing, sort of like his grandfather, you know, right? That what

01:38:32   he's done is wrong, and I don't think he can be redeemed, but I also don't think he's going

01:38:38   to be killed and that's going to be the end. I kind of feel like, like with Darth Vader,

01:38:43   there's going to be that kind of, that mixed moment where he realizes he can either do

01:38:48   something horribly evil, or he can stop and let it be, you know, let it not happen, and

01:38:54   that he will make that decision to sort of like sacrifice himself or whatever in order

01:38:58   to resolve things, like in that last moment. But who knows? Who knows? But I hope there's

01:39:04   a little bit of a time jump. I think that would be kind of fun, because these movies

01:39:06   essentially take place back to back, and I'm not quite sure how you get from where they

01:39:13   are at the end of this movie to resolving episode 9 with presumably the end of the story

01:39:19   without a time jump.

01:39:20   And we're also just not the same movie.

01:39:22   Right, like, scrappy.

01:39:24   Like I don't really want to see scrappy rebellion of 10 people again.

01:39:29   I would prefer it to be a bit more bigger rebellion, right?

01:39:34   Like a bit more original trilogy, larger rebellion, because we're left with an even smaller one

01:39:38   than before.

01:39:40   a very different kind of rebellion potentially that's not at all like the one in the original

01:39:44   trilogy which is using different methods to win people over and you know overthrow the

01:39:50   first order I don't know but I'm I'm interested to see where they go from here but back to

01:39:55   your original question like I still love the way this ends I love the way this ends with

01:39:59   kids pretending to be Luke Skywalker standing in front of all of those all of those at ats

01:40:06   Yeah, they're telling the stories, right? They're telling the stories of what happens.

01:40:09   It's nice. And the kid goes outside, you know, and he's

01:40:13   this kid in the stables or whatever and he uses the force to grab the broom and hold

01:40:16   it up like a lightsaber. It's like, what a great ending that is. It's great.

01:40:19   Love it. Not doing a very good job of the lightning

01:40:21   round but so be it. This next movie goes back to JJ, right? JJ's next?

01:40:26   JJ Abrams is going to direct it and he's writing it with a collaborator, I think, but he's

01:40:32   He's the director, so he's taken it back to where it was in episode seven.

01:40:36   Rian Johnson is working on developing a trilogy of new Star Wars movies to be released later.

01:40:42   What do you think about that, about Rian Johnson?

01:40:45   I think it could be really good, because I'm impressed with a lot of his work here.

01:40:51   Again, I feel like some of the plot stuff, especially the whole thin rose heist to go

01:41:01   go somewhere in hyperspace and go to a casino and then go somewhere and find a random guy

01:41:07   and bring him back and all that was kind of like a misstep in terms of the plotting. So,

01:41:13   he's not perfect, but I think he's shown, obviously they've got a great confidence in

01:41:18   him and I think he's shown a great capability to have a young creative director, writer-director

01:41:24   as a force to make new Star Wars movies. I get why they would want to do that, just like

01:41:29   Marvel is done with the Russo brothers, right? Where they're like, these guys are great.

01:41:33   They did Winter Soldier and they're like, you get to do Civil War, you get to do Infinity

01:41:36   War, you get to do Avengers 4, like you find some people who really work well in your system

01:41:41   and you say, yes, let's get into business with them. And that's basically what they're

01:41:45   doing with Rian Johnson.

01:41:46   - Yeah, 'cause especially if it's gonna be a long-running thing, it does help to have

01:41:48   one person like always there. I mean, and they've had that a little bit with JJ, right?

01:41:52   Like JJ's kind of been always there for these ones and like Rian Johnson will take that

01:41:58   on from him. Alright, last two things very quickly. Yoda, happy to have him back?

01:42:04   Oh so happy. Yeah I squealed when he was on his- I was just- I didn't expect it honestly

01:42:09   um and I was really happy. I didn't expect it at all. I knew it was possible right but

01:42:13   I didn't think they would do it. Yeah of course, neither did I. Porgs?

01:42:15   I was so- so I did watch the trailer once and then all the memes about Porgs and I was really

01:42:23   worried that they were going to be- and I talked to a lot of people who felt this way like like

01:42:26   like Ewoks where they'd be like little warriors

01:42:29   that we have to befriend and all of that stuff.

01:42:31   And they're not, they're just birds who live in that island

01:42:33   that are cute and funny.

01:42:34   - They're comic relief, right?

01:42:35   It's comic relief.

01:42:37   - And they nest in the Millennium Falcon

01:42:38   and Chewie roasts a couple of them.

01:42:40   And then they're like floating around in the Falcon.

01:42:43   And yeah, it's silly, but I thought it was funny

01:42:46   'cause that's all they are, is they're like tribbles.

01:42:48   They're cute and silly and that's all they are.

01:42:54   And that's the, we have the trio of fantastic animals too,

01:42:57   'cause they're the crystal foxes,

01:42:59   which were also pretty cool, and those horse things.

01:43:02   - Where the blue milk comes from.

01:43:03   - That were also pretty cool.

01:43:04   - Where the blue milk comes from those big things.

01:43:06   - Well, no, the blue milk come from those sea lion things.

01:43:10   - Yeah, yeah, I thought you were saying

01:43:12   about something else, but that's another one though, right?

01:43:13   We haven't seen those before, right?

01:43:14   - No, the race horses.

01:43:15   - Yeah, the race horses,

01:43:16   and then the blue milk cow thing, sea lions.

01:43:20   - Sea cow, yeah.

01:43:21   - That was, most of that stuff was comic relief,

01:43:23   I enjoyed it. I liked the porgs, I thought it was funny. I thought they were funny. And

01:43:28   I liked every part that they were in. I laughed every time.

01:43:31   They made me laugh. I like the frogfish people who are the caretakers who are really mad

01:43:36   at Rey and Luke says "I can't imagine why" as she destroys things on the island. I thought

01:43:40   those guys were great too. Again, very kind of muppet-y feel, but that's a Star Wars thing,

01:43:46   right? The aliens that feel kind of like muppets is actually, that's consistent. That's a Star

01:43:50   Wars thing. The good ones, anyway.

01:43:53   - All right, so overall, I would say we're pretty similar

01:43:56   on this, of course you can go listen to The Incomparable

01:43:58   as well, where there's more and there's gonna be more

01:43:59   and more and more incomparable stuff.

01:44:01   - Well, yeah, we've got the one with me and John Syracuse

01:44:05   and Dan Warren and three other people, it's a big panel.

01:44:09   And then there are at least two other incomparable episodes

01:44:11   coming this week, plus Defocused and Phil and Lisa Ruh

01:44:16   in the movies is already up actually, Defocused is coming.

01:44:19   So we'll have like five, on the network on The Incomparable,

01:44:21   have like five or six episodes about the The Last Jedi so yeah there's a lot out there.

01:44:25   And my expectation knowing about how great you are at this stuff is all of that will

01:44:30   be collected on the The Last Jedi page on the incomparable right?

01:44:34   Indeed you can and you can also subscribe if you want to the Star Wars feed which is

01:44:39   also up at the incomparable if you click on the Star Wars link on any episode that's about Star

01:44:44   Wars there's a there's a feed you can subscribe to with all the Star Wars episodes in it if you want

01:44:49   want to do that. So that's all there so I'll put that I'll put the Last Jedi

01:44:53   page in, you can grab the feed from there too. Nice. But I think we're pretty similar on

01:44:58   that we both really like this movie and it was a good, we consider it a good

01:45:02   Star Wars movie but we both maybe felt more strongly about about Force Awakens.

01:45:10   Yeah I think this is a more complex movie and I like I like that it's

01:45:14   complex and it has lots of interesting themes and is playing with the universe

01:45:18   in a way that Force Awakens couldn't do, I would argue, and shouldn't have done. But

01:45:25   I think that Force Awakens is a very straightforward, clearly plotted movie. And this, for all of

01:45:32   its beauty and a whole bunch of really great scenes, I feel like there's a chunk in the

01:45:38   middle that is just a ramshackle mess with the spaceship chase and the casino planet

01:45:44   and all of that. And it's only sort of right at the beginning and then in the last 45 minutes

01:45:49   where it really kind of takes flight in the middle, I think it's a little bit messy. So

01:45:52   I don't think, you know, as a cohesive film, The Force Awakens, I think is a better movie.

01:45:58   But in terms of richness and also like commenting on and opening up new directions for the franchise,

01:46:06   this is, this is so rich and deep, and I love it for that. And so I would say actually,

01:46:13   is exactly the kind of movie that needed to be the second one of these movies out of the gate.

01:46:17   The first one is for comfort and the second one really puts a spin on things.

01:46:21   I think fundamentally it's a good movie. Flawed, but really good.

01:46:25   If you want to find our show notes for this week, relay.fm/upgrades/172. Thanks again

01:46:32   to our fine sponsors, the folk at Encapsular, Freshbooks and Balance Open. If you want to

01:46:37   find Jason online, he's at SixColors.com and TheIncomparable.com and he's @JSnell on Twitter

01:46:42   and Jason is the host of many shows at RelayFM. As am I, you can go to relay.fm/shows to

01:46:47   find out about all of our shows and if you're going to listen to this or maybe one other

01:46:52   Relay FM show go take a look there I'm sure there'll be something else that you would enjoy as well.

01:46:56   I am @imike on Twitter. We'll be back next time with the very first upgrade holiday special.

01:47:04   Until then, take a bye just now. See you on Christmas Myke.