Upgrade

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00:01:38 ◼   ► at this point like to do some super out of date follow out there is an episode of inquisitive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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00:19:38 ◼   ► 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.