The Way to Eden vs. Innocents of Ryloth

0:26 Welcome to the Track Wars Podcast, the one podcast that dares to answer the most important question in fandom, which is better Star Wars are Star Trek, by going through both franchises in chronological release order. I am Kenny Madison, one of your hosts, the Star Trek contingent, and with me Esper always is. Me Aspen Webster Star Wars Contingent, super super chill. Super chill chick. You're super chill. I was. That kind of language making you sound like a real Herbert Aspen? Oh no, no, he Herber Herbert. I hear you. No, I connect with you. What are they saying? Time for me to launch into a musical number. I pass through the storm. It's like a dove.

1:13 Aspen, you truly are my narra this week, as I reach across the aisle and go yay brother, as we as we review both The Way to Eat and from Star Trek the original series Season three versus Star Wars The Clone Worst Season one. Innocent over innocence, over innocence of. Because before it was a storm over. Boy? Yeah man, me acting like I haven't done the research haha. We all know who the research guy is and it's not this guy. Oh, pitch Posh Aspen. I do the textual research and you do the contextual I also do some contextual research too, but also your your life experience and the things that you care about are so much more vast than my natural inclinations bring and you just bring in different perspectives and I really enjoy that, and I think those are probably going to be critical for these two episodes today.

2:15 You want to dive into some well, no, before we dive into some synopsis. Yeah, yeah, those are really nice thing you just said to me. By the way, Oh, it's extremely true. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to do the podcast with you. Specifically, before we get into the synopsis, for people that are playing the home game, we have a little bit of corresponds to catch up with from our friends over at the Whole Low Maneuver Podcast. They have sent us some questions and we are going to do our best to answer these. Yeah, four questions that are well four three questions and one statement. Okay, from a Hold On Maneuver co host Michael Saharan. But what Chuck could Chuck would wouldn't they?

3:02 Yes, I'll say. We excellent From the Hold On maneuver co host Mark Ibbert otherwise known as Arizona Mark statement. More Ahsoka series connections to this arc discussed in regards to Storm over Rylot and Innocence of Ryloth aspen as the resident of Ahsoka fan both the character and the TV show. What are your notes on that one or will we dig into it later in the analysis. It's less a Soka, it's not. It's it's Rebels. So but I mean it's like Ahsoka and that's Harris and Doula.

3:43 But Harah is I mean, we'll get I don't want to, like, I don't want to spoil anything. I mean, I think you know because you've seen Rebels. I've seen Rebels, so you know that Harrah. We'll get into this in the third episode of the arc. We're in the second episode. Is Ryloth arc that her father is, uh, it's not a commander, but like he's like the leader of We're going. To meet mister Sindula. Yeah, yeah, so that is the connection there. So at this point she would have been a child. Well, I have watched all of Rebels a lot that was a while ago, Yeah, and a lot of it has left my mind, except for you know, bits that were covered in the Ahsoka TV show, and the fact that Darth Maul fights Obi Wan Kenobi in one episode.

4:31 Mhm, that's such a good episode. Yeah, and also the fact that Darth Maul talks and talks and talks and rebels and it's so boring it Hank Shoo not but we're not here to discuss We're here to talk about this correspondence. Yeah, because yes, she she is effectively royalty. There's some pretty wild episodes that happened in rebels around this. We're coming back to it with her father and this, yeah, where you can kind of see this is the beginning. You kind of see his perspective on it, and that the next episode. Of course, we didn't meet him in this episode. We're just now freeing the Twilights and they're about to go and they need to retake the capital city and that's where he'll be.

5:15 So we reach Aspen from co host might of the whole of maneuver Michael Saarn, Why is the Outer Rim such a hotbed of destruction? I mean, I think we could we could destruction. I think I think Outer Rim planets tend to be whether and whatever in literally any type of science fiction, like whether it's Firefly or Star Trek or Star Wars. I think the implication is that they're a little more wild West. And because they're outer rim it's as I mean, they're literally outer If the central part of the government is farther away from them, they are harder to govern. So like in Star Wars, whether it's the Republic or whether it's the empire in charge, that's where you get crime syndicates, is where you get the huts. That's where you get a lot more spice running things like that, because I think, yeah, yeah, the implication is they're they're farther a way, they're more spread out. It's a little bit more lawless in that way.

6:18 I wish I knew more about history because that sounds that that's an outstanding explanation, and now I want to go into actual history and see how that is played out, I mean more the likely through colonization efforts from you know everyone. Yeah, because you know there's two things there, which is the idea of like literal distance, because if let's use a let's use a kind of example of like you have a colony and you are in imperial power, you put your people in charge in those spaces, because if you're England and you have India as a colony, right, then you put your English generals and commanders and they become like mayoral I don't I don't know that history super well, but they would be they would be in charge in those spaces because you have to have some type of exertion of power. You can't just be like, sure they're over there, right, so if you don't so, but then presumably like there must just yeah, there's a distance thing. There is two Maybe there's like cultural differences, like that's talking about colonization when you're talking about like the republic, which we could argue maybe has its own type of like colonization aspects to it. Though I think is kind of more on the idea of like we are trying to seek republic democracy. This is truly you are.

7:45 You can represent yourself. We're not deciding who you are. Ostensibly. I think it just maybe has more to do with like, yeah, you're farther away, and I think in that way, the other side of that maybe is like the uh, the sort of concept of the American the United States wild West, which is our favorite word aesthetic is its own kind of interesting aesthetic of like we are. I guess that actually had to do a distance too. It's right, you're the other side of the western part of the country and the seat of power is like the east side of the country. So you can't even get us right over here we get we get referentumble boys and girls. So anyway, what an.

8:29 Outstanding explanation, also from Michael Sahuran. If Kirk helped on rile Off, how many Twilights would he seduce? Answered? Either all of them or the ones that were most like robots. No, I think one. I think if he were part of it, there would be one. He they would make eyes. Kirk is strictly monogamous whenever it comes to having having dalliances. It's never like he is cheating on one with another, but he does get around. He had remember he had sex this season, which is pretty exciting.

9:11 Oh my god, it do you want to talk about our episode? Indeed, let's go ahead and get to the synopsis for folks that are playing the home game. Let's go ahead and start with The Way to Eden director David Alexander, writer's story by Michael Richards and Arthur Hineman. It was already spoiled that Michael Richards is a pseudonym for Dorothy Fontana. Teleplay by Arthur Heineman from the Joan Crosby syndicated column TV Scout from February twenty first, nineteen sixty nine. Here we Go. One of the top picks tonight is Star Trek's Way to Eden. Guest guest stars Skip Homer does a light take off on doctor Timothy Leary, LSD, scientist and a scientist in quotes, he plays doctor Severn, a robed and bead leader of a group of six and sick hippies looking for Eden. And they are literally sick, carrying a disease which threatened the lives of any society they may reach, including the lives of the men of the enterprise, not the women. After they come aboard and tried to persuade the chemen to join them, even mister Spock joins one of these special hippies tonight for a moment of song as they seek their planetary paradise. Thank you, Joan.

10:26 Thanks Joan to Joan, right sick and sick? OR'd you just add that she wrote six and sick hippies? Incredible? That was not editorializing that's beautiful. I like that. I liked thanks, I liked Joan so my side. We got Star Wars Clone Wars. Innocence of Ryla Really March six, two thousand and nine. The writer on this one is well director is Justin Ridge. Writer is Henry Gilroy. So which are fab our friend? We should be doing an impression of him as well. Ah.

11:09 And here's a description during the Battle for Ryloth. This is by TV Archaeologist. I feel like when TV Archaeologist comes in and as a description, IMDb is pretty good. Sometimes they leave things out and I'm like, who are you? Miss Troupers. During the Battle for Ryloth, obi Wan Commander Cody and his two hundred and twelfth Attack Battalion set out to free the occupied Twilight village of Nabat. Two troopers Waxer and Boil, find a young girl named Numa, who becomes instrumental in obi Wan's plant. She really does she really does? Anny? Can I just tell you? I might have cried multiple times watching both of these episodes outstanding.

11:49 I don't know why I'm feeling weird today, but I'm thinking crying thing about Numa. In a sense of Ryloth. I can understand there's a small child in a war torn area. Yeah, that is teaching soldiers the value of kindness and how not to be racist. She picks up her a little when he gives her a little stuff stuff dull and oh like they did her. Sorry, they like animated her super well. She even like walks like a tiny little girl, like she kind of holds her back really really tight and almost like arcs backward. And it made me really march. Yes, yes, and so you understand why I might cry about her taking them to her. Crying out crying during the way to Eden at the very end. Regardless, Uh, there is a large swath of Star Trek fans that would be like.

12:41 I know, I know, I know. I saw what everybody said about this episode, and I'm like, you Space Hippies ridiculous and people being like, oh, just wait to give it that shitty Space Hippies episode, and I'm like totally for sure, for sure. And then I was watching it and I was like, do I like this? I don't really like this. I think the journey is was extremely well illustrated in These Are the Voyages season three by Mark Cushman and Susan Osborne, where the author talks about their personal experience of watching this episode for the first time when they were fourteen years old and being like, what what is this? This is the word they're singing and dancing. This is the worst episode of Star Trek ever. And they held.

13:32 That they held that cringe muscle in themselves, and every time that they watched The Way to Eden, the cringe was still induced. But as they got older, it got lessened and lessened and listened to the point where they were like, actually, this episode genuinely had some interesting things to say. Thank god. I was like, yeah, okay, I'm glad that freshman's us An Osburner with me. There are undoubtedly so much worse episodes, so much worse episodes. This scene, this episode seems to have some interesting things to say. They might be a little bit malintentioned, yes, that's for sure, but they still have a clear they still have a point of view. They are interrogating that that point of view too. They're interrogating the limits of empathy.

14:35 They're interrogating their own empathy. They're interrogating the premise of Star Trek a little bit. Yes, And on top of that, I freaking enjoy the camp man. I yeah, I guess I have no cringebone, you know what I mean, Like, I just don't particularly find it to be fun to look at something and be like cringe. I'm like, whenever, it's just fucking whatever it is, you know, unless it is truly so off base. I imagine if you're young in the if you are a young person in the sixties watching this, you're like, oh, yeah, it's probably gonna hit that really hard because it's such a strange, uh depiction of sixties seventies hippies. Yeah, it is. It does have because there's me watching it now, and there's the me watching it now crying. I'll tell you what made me cry, by the way, was the spoiler to the end of the like the end of the episode when they do get to their Eden, which is a beautiful planet, there's nothing else on it, and then it turns out everything is poisoned.

15:50 It's not just poison poison aspen. It's boiling ass. It's literally full of acid. It's regular acid. It's just but it makes it's just it's horrifying. And one of the characters, Adam, they find him dead after he ate fruit, and there's something about Spock so seriously looking and they're at Eden being like his name was Adam, which would seem like it's awful. It's kind of like a glib thing to say, but it truly wasn't, because what it was hitting me at was this feeling of doesn't there's so much inside of this of like the desire for the desire for something that doesn't exist, you know, like the like because the whole concept of a garden of Eden is not being a place you get to belong in or be in.

16:43 I will say no, no, finish your thought. No that I mean that is because because then by the end of the episode Spock does say to the others, he's like, I truly hope you find this thing that you are looking for, and like whether or not I agree with that journey, there's something like so so desperate, so deeply sad about it, and his like belief in them for wanting it was like very emotional for me though actually the Spock, the Spock characterization throughout the entire episode is so emotional for me. Spock's dynamite in this episode. I've found his like interest in them to be so compassionate. The rest of the crew is pretty much fuddy duddies.

17:24 Except check Off. Oh yeah, he's a real fuddy duddy he but he also is clearly like in love with one of them with a background that is not just immediate love. It's like or he feels guilty and he's he's being but he's being fuddy duddy in the sense that he's like, well, I have a duty and yeah, sorry, but you're right pocket. I made interrupt your no. This because I would not begrudge anyone thinking that that that notion is hokey of Adam eating fruit and dying. Yeah, and Spock literally hitting the nail on the head by going his name was Adam him. Uh yeah, I really liked this episode. This episode.

18:04 Okay, okay, I don't feel crazy. It's it's an episode that has a lot to say. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed. I enjoyed Kirk being fuddy duddy with an I mean Kirk. Kirk vacillates from easygoing liberal military guy to, as we saw in the first season, a strict by the book disciplinarian who is just he's really annoyed by them. Everyone's annoyed by them. I mean they're really annoying, but you. Know, uh, there's also an exercise and empathy and then that that is interesting where everyone is attempting to try and see their point of view. They've got the great Doc severn Doctor Severn. I almost said, Doc Severnson, what's that about that?

18:57 Dos? Ears? There? They're big? Am I right? They're big? All right? Look at that? That was years. I was like, is the human it's just weird ears? Uh? What race is he? Is it established? What race? I don't know? Man, Am I just being a do with big ears? Sure they look like like creature from the Black Lagoon gills, but as ears, that's it was just like his ears, Like like if you had if you were a boxer with like massive cauliflower ears. What a man? What a shitty man? Question for you?

19:45 Please? I love answering questions. What did the space hippies want? This sounds like the setup to a joke. They wanted I think one of the same thing that doctor Severne wanted, which was to be left alone on well a version of what doctor Savin wanted, which is they wanted to be left alone on a paradise planet to live organically and live and have some good commune living. Okay, Yeah, because it's I think organically is the piece there. It's like they they're effectively ledite, ask they're ledites, though they are ledites obviously on stealing spaceships and you know, having those tools. There's this is where so one uh, and that of course in the sixties and seventies has its equivalency of like, yeah, you know, like earth children and wanting to live off the land. I do think it's interesting as a piece of texture that they're rich kids.

20:54 One of them is this, yes, as one of them is what the son of an ambassador something, And so they can't touch them, They can't throw them in the brig even though they've literally stolen a ship and then drove it to the point that it exploded. They just they stole and destroyed property. Yeah, and then they're brought onto the ship where they then cause havoc, but they can't do anything about it because they're rich, powerful kids. So I just think that that's an interesting sort of peace to it. It makes them look real bad. One of them is former Starfleet at least one of them is Warmer star Fleeting dropped. Out doctor Severn is a renowned scientist who has renounced his ways of sciencing, Like yeah, and then there's Adam who looks like he just likes to party. And there's two other people that are women that don't want things in the other one one is just there yep.

22:02 And then there's Lilia, Lily Leally, Leila, Leela's dream Leilah. What's her name? I don't know, Elenaia, Elena, Elena, She's yes, Irena galu Arena Arena. Golul go, Golulian, gol Arena go, yes, goll. You go you ln. So there is It's just very like, I here's the thing, okay, because there's then and then there's there's like how we can find their counterparts now, right, because I do think that there are similar counterparts of what you can see in twenty twenty four.

22:51 Yeah, yeah, no, please continue. I have a lot of compassion for this, right, Like, I feel very strongly about not discounting young people's disc Like I'm taking the doctor out of this, right, I'm just taking these young people who are kind of following this populist dude. It's a bit cult esque, right, people who have like who clearly see maybe this is what you were talking about, which is like we're rebelling against the idea of this utopia that like this is not actually a true utopia in their eyes, there's a mechanization element. I am assuming there's dominance of computers and technology that makes them feel like they're disconnected from a real earth.

23:40 So I'm going to have compassion for that for sure, because this starts to bring in my me current stuff, which is I'm by no means a letite or want to be. But you know, we've had conversations where I start like, I think a lot of what in an ideal world technology is a eving the star Trek ideal of technological advancement gets to result in utopia and in making your life easier. You could work if you want to or not, you could do art and instead if it is privatized, particularly specifically if it is privatized. Because by the way, I was talking to my friend who works for JPL about the idea of what we're sorry, this is like a tangent that is related of like what we're talking about with like diverting resources toward things like space travel versus towards say, like resources that are needed.

24:31 Based on last week's discussion. Yeah, and she was like, well, here's the thing. Public funded space research creates technologies that help people in other ways. It has resulted in so many more life saving types of technologies than just this one thing. When you privatize space travel, wheny of these pieces that are privatized, it is only benefiting fucking rich people all the time. And I think, what, there's also a good here, eauc. I just need to amend how I was kind of talking about it last week, which is also to say that it is not funding for space programs that is keeping us from having healthcare. It is you know, funneling billions into genicides anyway and other things. So I think that there is still conversation to be had around that. I don't think it's like a black or white thing. I'm not just like it's always good, but I do think just to kind of talk about public funding for things like this. So anyway, in our ideal world technology is toward actually making our lives better and would be that Star Trek ideal. In the world that we have, it is dominated by shareholder interests in the fact that things like are we were just talking about this off Mike are push and investment. As someone who works at a tech company, our obsession with AI is being fueled by perception of a tool as opposed to actual usefulness of a tool. It is being pushed literally because that's who the funders and shareholders, that's what they want to push, not because of actual perceived need for a thing.

26:00 It is there is a prospect of the amount of money that a company can stay by letting go of workers and instead being able to automate those things, because that could mean more cash to the stockhallners. I don't even know if it's that much. I think they're just like, AI will make us money, So this is all we care about. AI makes money, AI sells and makes money. We're done. The older I get, the more that I see that. Yeah, rich people, Oh, they just want to be richer. They don't, at least the public facing ones seem to be bereaft of a certain type of intelligence. Yeah. Actually, there is no ability to see past short term gains because you and I both know that AI is also economically damaging. It is that economically sorry, environmentally damaging.

26:46 So I guess what I'm getting at is unfettered technological advancement when privatized specifically, And I don't think this is a stary. I think Star Trek does have it. It's a public component. But I think that like in our twenty twenty four world, a lot of compassion for like what the fuck like, I want actual technology to be making my life better, not just making billionaires richer. Right, It is wild how this episode anthropologically is so fascinating from a nineteen sixty nine point of view. And not only that, but I just looked at the date of the person that wrote the teleplay. They were born in nineteen ten, which would extensively make them fifty nine years old whenever they wrote this, or at fifty eight or fifty nine one of those things. So you got a person of an older generation that's looking on the generation and being like, these weird kids, get off my lawn, while also challenging their own notions of empathy, but ultimately coming down on the side that the space hippies are weird and creepy, and they're able to weaponize our own inherent empathy as law abiding rule following citizens don't like that to break the law and land on acid planets, and who wants that? And Ultimately, whatever they're chasing is impossible.

28:03 I think. I think that's where the episode is landing in terms of, yeah, passing it while also exercising empathy. And then you watch it through twenty twenty four lens as well, and you're freaking doctor Severn is an anti vax typhoid, and Mary is. That anti vax typhoid, and Mary I Dare wants to force women to be tradwise. Yeah, and in certain ways that aspect plays a whole lot better. Now, yes, then it must have been in nineteen sixty nine where you just kind of say that he's a typhoid. Mary, Now, oh COVID and shit like, yeah, we've. Had the extermination of how many millions of people because someone said that they were trapped right?

28:46 Oh yeah, yeah, it's actually to me. I actually watch it, and I see him as the most I see him and the hippies as two totally different actors. Adam is kind of following him. I see the most people who. I and just know how many how many people were co opted by rhetoric that sounded reasonable right by a passionate and charismatic leader exactly. That's very populist, It's very like it feels very dangerous because people do. Like that's the thing that I think. I'm like, I think the freaking sorry, the mic drop because Bock has so much empathy for these people. And then after talking with doctor Severn, who is like, I'm trapped here. I need to go commune with nature and Spock going, you realize the place that we are going. Uh, if you commune with the natives there, you could kill them yep. And doctor Severn is like, if that is what it takes, I must be there. We have to reach a greater goal, all of these things to be able to create life, life to which the hard cut of Spock going doctor Severn is insane.

30:00 Insane and he's fucking right. I hate that man with every bit of my soul. Like that is. Like, that's the thing is that Like he's the villain. Oh I wrote down that he is speaking of last week. He's the Shaline Woodley of the Gallaxy. Yeah, Like he is someone that is so crunchy. He is Robert F. Kennedy. He is like, I would like to put people in charge that we're going to take all the floride out of the water. And like he's like, we're gonna do all these things and like you're gonna fucking kill the world because of your insane ideas that are purely selfish, purely selfish. They have nothing to do with anybody else as well being I hate that man, I hate our Robert F.

30:46 Kennedy with all And there's a huge swath of the population who is like, good, I want someone selfish, which is bananas. So I think that that is like, that is why this episode is interesting, because yeah, it does feel like it's both. It feels like we are coming You're right, we're coming out on the side of like these are dumb kids, dumb rich kids who had to see what happened, like had to like find you know, like fuck around and find out right, And I don't I don't want it to be that way though, Like, no, I. I don't want that. I want. Like, I think.

31:26 Ultimately there is something to be said about pushing back on a structure. Yeah, you say that you don't want it to be that. Yeah, well I think it's time to dig into the. Research actress in library computer data. So yeah, notoriously, Yeah, this is the final episode of Star Trek, the original series that Dorothy Fontana works on Yes. Kramer, The The Kramer. The original episode they land on the planet, they discovered that the former inhabitants of this world were indeed a beautiful, peace loving people. However, in time they allowed their primitive emotions to take over, leading to a planet wide war of expermination. That sounds different, yeah, but yeah. This episode was originally a doctor McCoy episode, okay, and it is one of the great unmade episodes of Star Trek. And that ending was a reflection of doctor McCoy and his estranged daughter Joanna.

32:43 So this sounds very different than what DC originally wrote. Extremely different. And so this was talking about a generational clash between her absentee father and his estranged daughter, Okay, And that was after a notes pass aspen. Here is the original idea for Joanna by Dorothy Fontana, the Great Dorothy Fontana. Dorothy Fontana came up and reading from these the Voyages season three by Mark Cushmaniss and Osborne. Dorothy Fontana came up with the premise for Joanna in nineteen sixty seven after talking with the Forest Kelly. She had suggested it might be interesting to do a story in which we discover McCoy has a son from the failed marriage he never talks about. Kelly suggested it not be a son, but a daughter. Here's the original premise. The USS Enterprise stops at a star base to pick up new medical personnel being transferred to duty aboard. As the group of doctors and nurses being a board, McCoy and Kirk greet them in the transporter room. One of the women, a lovely, dark haired girl of a twenty, takes one look at McCoy and flings herself into his arms, much to Kaptain Kirk's surprise. Nim McCoy turns to Kirk grimaces and introduces his nurse, Joanna McCoy, his daughter. The heart of this story concerns Captain Kirk McCoy and Joanna. We learned that McCoy had been married a long time ago, but it turns sour and ended in divorce. McCoy soon after joined the Space Service. In the course of the story, Kirk will find himself drawn to Joanna, and she is

34:15 naturally attracted to him. This situation will turn our usually competent and amiable doctor into a fiercely protective father, a situation meant to create a note of humor as well as conflict. After never seeing much of her father, Joanna might begin to resent McCoy's sudden fatherliness, especially if it threatens a deepening relationship with Kirk. So that's the original episode concept. Yes, this episode is so far from that concept. The only thing remaining is generational differences. Gene Roddenberry was like, there's not enough drama in here. Meanwhile, I'm reading that and I'm like, this is purely a character piece that takes place on the starship Enterprise, right, that gives us depths into challenges, his challenges, his relationship with Kirk, challenges, the notion of Kirk betting a woman at every port? What does that mean to McCoy In an interesting wrinkle while also kind of being a little bit of a romp.

35:20 It sounds like, I will say, the only piece ide I'm actually feeling a little bit like squiky about his twenty year old daughter and Kirk. And I think that's the point. Well, I don't. Yeah, I wouldn't have trusted anyone to make that, Okay, Yeah, Like maybe if it were in the actual form as she intended it to be and all the commentary were actually there, because otherwise you just get the feeling of like, what is it Mary, where it's just like I'm talking to a thirteen year old and being like, well you're a woman now, like she's fucking thirteen, stopping weird. In a subsequent draft, whenever Gene Roddenberry ordered this to draft proper or no, there is another story outline that is whenever I think the space hippie element was turned up a little bit more and it was less of a romp and more just a straight drama. And I think the stuff with a relationship with Kirk was dropped and instead it was just a direct generational thing between McCoy and Joanna. And then the folks at the network were like, we don't want McCoy to have a daughter because that he seems old.

36:39 He is. They weren't even talking necessarily about that he literally had a twenty year old daughter, more just the emotional timber he's being a father to a twenty year old. And then, also, according to Dorothy Fontana, our show run or Fred Freiberger apparently never read the Star Trek Manual, the Star Trek Bible writer's Bible because he just assumed that McCoy Kirken's back were all the same age, and so was like, no, let's just make it check off. And apparently I actually really liked check off getting used because I know, using the ancillary cast, I know even.

37:25 Sue Lou gets some brief moment. Yeah, I think, O, whoa, I saw Michelle Nichols wasn't in this episode because she was doing a singing engagement. So I would not be a surprised you get a girl, So they used the same communication officer from the Doomsday Machine. YEP, I did. Like that's so interesting. I did like checkof getting it was more than just a like, oh, check off with pretty girl thing. It was like challenging his expectations and his duty, because it was more than it was like I like someone he missed, someone that he like felt guilty for leaving and then she was gone, when like it was like he felt like he did something wrong, which I think is interesting and emotionally compelling, and then to sort of be used by her feels so feels so like such a betrayal, Like it truly does, because I actually think that like he's playing it so committed and so authentically like sweet baby boy. It just like he looks so sad.

38:28 So I do wish that we had gotten the version of this episode, which we would have seen the lovable doctor McCoy be an outright bad father, right, would that would have been so interesting. In a subsequent draft, he calls his ex wife a witch and then compares his daughter to his ex wife, saying she's a witch. She'll do nothing but take from you. And I'm like, whoa Jesus Christ? Just a little bit. I don't know, Yike Serny, And I think that's kind of the point. Well, and to me, I'll tell you I need. To write that kind of an episode. But Dorothy Fontana, well, I'll tell you that that sounds like a different episode than this one.

39:08 It does. I wish it were a different episode. I wish it also. I wish that episode had been made, and it would it would have been a pure, a pure character study episode, because we used to get those, and it would have been and it would have been good. It's so funny that for you to say that. I genuinely thought that, like more of the the DNA of her original story would be in this and I swear that is nothing like what this episode is not in anyway. And she was very disappointed in the episode that resulted, and quite rightly so, yeah, because it's nothing like the thing that she wanted to write, and it's sincerely just got noted into a completely different episode, to the point where Dorothy Fontana walked away from her contract and because of it, according to these of the voyages, gave up ten thousand dollars. Wow, that's a lot of money to meet right now. Ten thousand dollars in nineteen sixties money.

40:04 Good lord, But she was like that, I don't ever want to do a bad story. She thought that it was a bad story, and so she walked. I thought I thought that there was another episode that I thought that she walked. I was surprised to see her name because I thought she had already quit. She did too, she had quit from season three. I guess she had a longer contract and instead violated the terms of those contracts, that contract and walked away from ten thousand dollars. I mean, good for her, but I fear not aspen. This is not the last that we will hear from Dorothy Fontana, isn't. Doesn't she come back in the animated ones.

40:46 And not just animated? Yeap, it TG not just tg. We'll get to it in a couple of years. A couple of years uses Christ. Well, okay, so coming back to this episode, a good episode, I do think I do think it's a good episode. I can't be sure. Yeah, if you don't like it based on because you can't get with the singing, it's not going to fall. Yeah you're not gonna like it. Then yeah, I actually there was a oh, there was actually, oh, there was a moment I actually where I forgave all the singing because they break him out of his space and break the doctor out of the little cell he was in and just because Irena has tricked Chekhov effectively googa let googa gin, She's she's tricked to like basically into revealing to her how the auxiliary the auxiliary power control system works.

41:54 And so they've taken over the ship and batty doctor turns to where like there's like a high frequency sound that will knock them out, and they are under like one of the Marina's understandably like, but that could like that could really seriously kill them, I could hurt them. They're just like, oh my god, to go. And as like we reach brother, we reach. And there's this piece where there's just a just a scene of people slumped over on the bridge and people just knocked out and he's just singing and it's just his voice and just this like stillness of people that could possibly be dead, and I feel like and what it was, I just thought it was this wild sort of setting these different objectives against each other of like this, there is like a selfishness to that. There's such a distinct selfishness to a thing that they are doing, and yet they think that they are that it is for a greater good and instead a greater good, the greater good and so, but they are doing it at the expense of here they're he lives, and so it had this really wild atmosphere to me that was I thought, a really beautiful shot, which is not often a thing I think of when I'm watching Star Trek. I'm not thinking about often the photography of the thing. But it was just like, oh, it was very chilling, because again, ultimately, while I feel like a bunch of compassion for them, the same way Spock does, where it's like I think that you are misguided, but ultimately you are actually heading

43:27 toward the right, Like I think I understand what you're trying to get to right now, you it is the wrong way to get there. Uh, speaking of chilling, how chilling was it at the end of Innocence of Ryelock whenever Boil and wax or went don't be afraid, will be back. It's a good segue. Thank you, thank you. I did realize we're talking about this, like, but I was as I was watching this episode, I was like the Star Trek episode. I was like, oh my god, we're I can get need to talk about so. Much with this it is It's just steal a phrase from Star Wars prequel producer Rick McCallum. It's so dense.

44:09 Every single image has so much going on, and there's a lot to talk about with Way to Eat, both in terms of what it's saying about nineteen sixty nine, how it plays now, what it means politically freaking that context of it being generated by a fifty eight to fifty nine year old or the final teleplaye being generated by a fifty eight to fifty nine year old writer along with like old white dudes who are definitely the establishment and not part of the youth culture. That perspective is interesting. How they are extending that empathy. How it is testing our natures of what the concepts of Star Trek are. How the characters that we love seem so out of touch being Herberts themselves at separate spot. It is a very to coin a phrase fascinating episode.

44:55 And can I just say last thing about it? That is what's frust That is what frustrates me, is I think that that perception. I get the extension of compassion, but the perception of a youth movement of the sixties and the seventies, which wasn't foolish like, which was trying to achieve justice and equality, which was subsequently sacrificed for class status. I do think like to look at that was such like with kind of like, well, you're just children who will figure out the truth later. Stinks of me, of stinks to me of like, well, when you're older, you'll be a conservative, you know, like my dad used to say, the same man who was part of those movements, right, but then he never was, but other people as age were, you know.

45:45 Yeah, And so. I feel angry about it. But then also I think that's why I like the complexity of it. There's a different kind of there's so many conversations to come from it. This is an interesting episode in terms of in terms of the oh gosh, the establishment, how it is reacting to in a sense, we're in way to eat and we have more possibly coda within the episode as naive in a sense that is ideologically driven. Here we are dealing with ostensibly the embodiment of innocence in this little child, and how and how this current establishment is dealing with it, and then not only that but its prequel status playing with those notions, dimensionalizing it even more, dimensionalizing our clones even more, because I think also up to this point, sure we've had a rebellious clone, which that rebelliousness was embodied in an ideological difference. Here we got straight up racist clone. I do not want to be here, and then is able to learn his lesson that racism is bad.

47:14 Over the course of the episode, he just he. Just had to meet someone, to meet someone from a different culture. I didn't know that there could be other people that are good in another culture. I didn't think I could find a sweet little girl. To be fair, he's like three years old though. Yeah, watching Joel my partner was like, they're the same age, you're too late. It's a very it's a one. It's a beautiful episode. It is artistically gorgeous. It is interesting in that it starts. It's got a lot of really powerful action that balances so well with these quiet or moments of like of characters getting to interact with one another and discover and explore and extend compassion, be better.

48:12 So it yeah, humanizes clones, which we love, and gives things, not just in a good way, but right, well that's what it is to be a human right is to be many things, not just good all the time, not just like fighting for this thing. Yeah he is. He's clearly I don't remember to what it is, but if it's boiled or whatever it is, he uh yeah, he's got his own opinions on things. It has had a very strong sort of like racist US troops in Middle Eastern countries kind of vibeing like well, just doing it for the country man, and then being like, oh wait, they're human beings.

48:53 One boil is the racist onelah, that's what I figure. Idea Two, he's got a porn stash, straight up porn. Oh. I guess it's like he's got the fatal hair that all racists have h the handlebar the dbar uh and uh so boiler is that? And then two uh listening to a more civilized age podcast for wonderful research and context giving. Uh. It was one of the hosts that pointed out that tailhead is only a couple letters away from an actual slur that was being used frequently. Uh, not just at the time, but I'm sure this is being used even now, as I'm sure our all of our right wing family members are still rallying against all of those Muslims.

49:50 Yep, you're absolutely, yeah, absolutely right. Like there's a very clear parallel which brings up again, but Kenny brings it up again of the idea of this is a very patriotic, nationalistic kind of episode, like there are like I am not saying that the Republic is not fucking saving lives, like very clearly tilk's are being kept hostage and this is horrifying. They're being used as human shields. And also, you know, except like that nationalism, Uh, I don't think is oh boy, this is going to make me seem like a dumb, dumbing dumb I don't think that nationalism is obvious enough. Sure, I think you have watched the entirety of Clone Wars, and I have also heard extra tactually that Dave Filoni, all of these episodes are presented through the lens of propaganda for the Republic.

50:47 Great you've heard this, yes, yeah. Sorry, I was just thinking about how halfway through when the bugs showed up the bug kind of creatures, I went, oh, it's Starship Troopers. And now I'm thinking about now that's Starship Troops, which impropaganda type, like it's supposed to be like a property cannon type film. Yes, and also a movie that was watched with dead seriousness in my household. Yes, I know that's because that's the point of the film is that it could then be watched by people who would then be like, ah, yes, right. Right, But then what is the what what is the function of a piece of art where certain people get suckered in to propagate that thing, which just causes other folks that are in the know to then be able to just point and laugh. How how much of rubes those people are?

51:39 I mean, we've talked about I think we did a picture on an episode where we talked about Starship Trippers because I really wanted to talk about it. With you and trying to remember what we talked about. That. Like, the reason I watched it was because it started coming up on Twitter a lot recently at the time, and I was like, I've never seen this post was like a video game that had was had something to do with it, right, and that's why I started coming up and I was like, I've never seen this film, so I don't. So people started posting about the posts where they're like it would be like, I think people don't understand Starship Troopers because the people posting are like taking it face for face value. I don't think we know how people are going to take our art. We can have an intention for our art, but we don't know how it is going to be perceived. I don't know if the creator of Starship Troopers was like I want to fool the dummies or if they're if it was like I want to maybe he did he did, Well, then there you go. But I mean, like I and so I think it is a valid question to be like, so if it is just fueling it becomes a source of propaganda for people who would take it the wrong way, is that ultimately damaging because all it does is it gives us are the good smart people being like, well, they're dumb dumbs. It's a good valid for.

52:57 People that are only listening to the audio only fece Right now, I'm pointing my finger at AskMen, because this gets back to our question that our good listener Austin Aaron got talked about last week, which we talked about at length, which is context. What is the value of context? But within with a piece of art and for something link Starship Troopers, it is possible that there is a large piece of the audience who needs that context of this is satire, possibly because so much of American cina. Oh am, I the problem. American cinema has adopted these aesthetics of fascism in order to indicate power. So maybe it is the ultimate piece of satire because it can be read as a traditional action movie. Oh no, did I argue myself out of my own point? The whole system corrupted? Am I? People?

53:46 It's you? Oh no, No, I mean I don't think so. I think you're bringing up a really valid kind of like to what end, Well, not just me, Austin Aaron. Oh well, I don't think Yeah, I mean I I don't I think It's one of those where it's like we can't we can't say what someone is going to do with what we put out there into the world, like I think, which is a different it's different for like media and are different than art that I would say for like journalism. By the way, you know, I think you know art what you're I think someone here's the thing. I think someone who wants Starship Troopers to be straightforward and not satire, when even when given the context of it being satire, would still be like, it's not and I believe in everything that just was sent down, you.

54:40 Know what I mean? You know what this is reminding me of dumb fan theory is that Star Wars fans will do where they be like Vader is not actually dead, Palpatine's not actually dead. Uh, Hans Solo survived in those eye catching thumbnails which present a deliberate misreading of what the film is telling you in order to look for the answers that you want, but in that process is limiting your own way to process art because you want a certain thing to be true, right. Right? I mean? And sorry, as we're as you were saying that, as we were talking about it, it was like Oh, what is the responsibility medium might.

55:23 Have depends on It depends on the size of the audience that you are aiming for, right, right. Because we do have a I do think that production companies with this much power do have a responsibility to actually tell stories about people of color and to not kill the black person first anymore. And like you know, like I do think they do have responsibilities, but like does a film. Yeah, but beyond that, like are certain pieces, like what are the responsibilities? Because we know how people are if they like if someone is is like studies about if people or told a lie or something and it takes it's like almost impossible even if you tell them the truth and the truth and truth afterward, they're like not going to change their mind. So if something is pushed at.

56:10 Them, just like people cannot change my mind. That the matrix tise reactions is not a masterpiece. It is a master piece. Yeah, it is just like that, just like that, so I you know, and I don't mean to like be like and as snry laugh, am I right, because like and that's true, Like it's true nationalism. Like here's the other thing. They're fucking saving their actual lives, like they are literally being starved to death, and they are bombed and their entire world is being destroyed by the separatists. They are literally saving them, and they're launching a military campaign on Rye loath to do.

56:51 So. Now what's going to happen is We're going to get into the next episode where I think it's going to actually dive into the complexity of it a little bit more of like what then is there? Like how we want to approach this, And I do think that that's worth keeping. In mind, which is also the argument possibly again going back to another thing that Austin Aaron asked us about about covering these things not as individual episodes. But it's art, sure, sure, and the arc is one thing, but these things are presented completely as their own story, one each individual piece, and you can put them together and it is a richer experience. And also this piece alone is nationalistic. It is simplistic about racism. Yeah, how you can get over racism whenever And I'm stealing, totally stealing this thought from a more civilized age, but your racism can be solved whenever you just meet one good one.

57:48 Right, and she's tiny and literally. Innocent, Yes, she is perfect she is the embodiment as a protection, yeah, as opposed to again a more civilized age where they're talking about literal poster children and how these notions of racists getting to have their journey affected by folks of color, and when when it is completely offensive like in Green Book or Crash in the problematic aspects in retrospective, guess who's coming to dinner? Where these characters of color that are they are absolute scions of what the cars? What are they are? That's right, they are embodiments of cars, great cars, wonderful cars that love to be driven.

58:43 Reminds me a bit of you know, like Rosa Parks being sort of established as the face of the movement when it was actually a different like a black girl that kind of would never been seen as uh like as attractive to a movement obviously do whatever we need to do kind of thing. But I was just like, it's the good ones, right, because you know, if it were an angry young man or something or whatever, it would be in this this case, in this episode, or you know, someone who like was frustrated with them being there, not doing more or something right, But in this case, yeah, she is just like it's like that, Like she is a good one and so she gets to aid them on their journey. She is real cute though.

59:42 She's cute by it. She has that little toy sheep going near nearah. I mean, I think also and like a twenty twenty four cents And this was true in two thousand and nine as well with fucking Wars at Never End. There is something extremely horrifying about watching a child enter her home that has been literally bombed and destroyed, and she has not eaten in days, and you don't know if her parents are alive or dead, and she is helping you. This tiny child should not be helping soldiers, should not be running out to help Obi Wan stand up, Like I shouldn't have to watch a tiny child be a hero.

1:00:25 A tiny child should just get to be a fucking kid. And then to go back to my seguay about the beginning of this yeah, where the soldiers say don't be afraid, we'll be back and has another one of those lines that works because of the prequel nature, and it's suddenly becomes it sounds pretty innocuous in the moment. Oh my god, I didn't even realize that's what you're getting at because yeah, right, it's actually oh my god, right yeah, because yeah, I'll be back, but it will be back in the form of a different type of military force. Yeah, it'll be a clone trooper with round eyes this time, not the bulb, not the bulb of that tea.

1:01:07 Yeah, well all looks will look similar, but not the same. We won't also be clones. Uh well, we'll be stored. We'll just be shitty kids. But yeah, we'll come back looking similar and oh no, oh no, Kenny liberalism to fascism cycle. Yeah, and that yeah, kind of leads into these once again, Like I mean to view this kind of through the the eyes of like a rock Afghanistan war like kind of and then to kind of see it too and what I'm clearly relating it to, which is the destruction of Gaza kind of like it's just a deeply horrific thing. Also, it's a beautiful ass episode that's absolutely gorgeous and maybe crying. I think it's Obi Wan gets to do the coolest ship he does some like story. There was like at one point he's got all the like the creatures that are coming at them that are been by the way starved so that they want to like eat people, which is I.

1:02:14 Believe they're known as Hungry Boys. Hungry Boys, that's their official name in the art book. George, I want some Hungry Boys. And so we consulted some Route McQuary original sketches from Empire that's been do the killing punket part do the Killing punkt part us. We were looking as we were looking at thee they can keep the accent today, That's what we were looking at. The designs for the Hungry Boys. We we looked actually realized that every single Hungry Boy is actually the same same design, just just duplicated over and over again. But but really it's all the same hungry Boy, but it looks like different hungry.

1:03:09 One boy. Everyone everyone pulls it pulls like I kept being like, oh my god, he's been an actual Jedi. Now we're doing the thing where he likes sort of like mine in controls all over. Oh man, that was pretty cool, and. Leads them all into this little kind of tunnel space and then has the clones shoot down like. The It was great because we're talking about we're talking about nationalism in regards to this specific episode of Innocence Ofmbrella and what best example of talking about the insidious nature of propaganda, then whenever you are watching a piece of propaganda that is very well done, it's like, this is so cool about Jedi Top Gun, Maverick Aspen Top your favorite movie, a total piece of propaganda. I'm pretty sure that I've had discussions with Heidi, my partner, and she's going, I don't think it's propaganda.

1:04:05 What dud At one point it zooms and on the joystick and it says Lockheed Martin. Yeah, but it's that, it's that notion where the the idea of propaganda that's been pushed on us is freaking Triumph of the Will, and it's it it so we can see. So we watched Star Wars and we see all these shots of all the the throngs and throngs of people that are standing at attention for Darth Vader, and our brain goes fascists because we have recognized those images from newsreels and from Triumph Will and all these pieces of propaganda. Meanwhile, uh, freaking look at any MCU movie, any freaking anything that involves the military has to have a sign from the military, and more than likely that depiction of the military. It's probably gonna be cool, right, Captain Marble.

1:05:01 Captain Marble air Force straight up. A total piece of Air Force propaganda. Yeah, they're I mean, they're all like it's it's very much all all military propaganda. Iron Man. A contradiction that extremely wealthy industrialists will be able to save us from the military by privatizing the military. Jesus Christ totally works because Melow vibes dude, because it's a good movie. You got He's got a house Malibu. He's a regular dude. He eats burger King whenever he gets back from being a kit kitten. No, it's burger King, it is. Yes, How does McDonald's look it up asmen?

1:05:48 Look, I believe you, I believe you. I just I don't know. That just goes to show how strongly McDonald's is implanted. Itself in my brain propaganda. Yeah, this is why I think I am, while ultimately I think, yeah, the means and perhaps the goals are misguided. In you know that the Star Trek episode Path waited, and I'm like, I just forget, Yes, I did, just forget the title of Our. To be fair, as you did forget the title of Revenge of the Sith earlier, I did said Return of the I did, which I know that the titles of Return of the Jedi are Invenged of the Sith are supposed to rhyme, because again it's like poetry, so if they rhyme, I did, asked the Star Wars contingent. I don't know.

1:06:36 You can't expect me to remember so many titles. I've only got one reaction to that. I loved that, dude, I was gonna I was going to say, while the specific goals of the hippies and the way to Eden and the means of getting something is kind of like, yeah, this were a little frustrating for me, like to to look at talking about you know, we're talking about a militaristic like a military industrial complex in which we are like highlighting and uplifting these actions that we don't approve of and do not want to be funding. So I can understand a counter culture movement that does not want to be in support of things that are being funded, you know what I mean? Like, again, the specifics of the way to eat and are simplistic and like see is it as naive, But that does not mean that like what they're sort of representing of the time, those counterculture movements were not actually truly like valid, do you know what I mean? So I don't like, I don't like undermining it.

1:07:46 Just because you are naive is not necessarily a bad thing. It can it can be something to be aspired to, something to be valued. I mean, children are naive and who was held up in higher re cards and American society the children. I miss the children. I mean I miss the feeling sometimes of how politically motivated I was in college, Like, I miss it so much. I'm sorry, what why? What are you? What do you mean you're so politically motivated? I am I know, I'm sorry. I think I just I think I just. Had more hope. I think that there was, but I think it was also like the era. It was also like the era of it because it was literally the whole Obama thing of like, oh, like fucking that was all hope.

1:08:37 So I'm not. Who didn't? Am I right? He said that the robot laugh is the Terminator song. What the robot laugh from the episode is the Terminator Cadence? It is? Is that how he laughs and oh like a terminator. He doesn't laugh like that. That's literally the Terminator theme song. What I don't know what you mean in the terminator Determinator when they're. Like, no, I'm sorry, that's that's Phil Collins in the air tonight. You're welcome. Doo doo doo doo doo A long time ago.

1:09:26 Start dating. This week, I quoted a boat. I dated a geek, but none of them could warp my drive into high birth space. The best of both worlds kept me in the second place. Captain slog on a halla kron. I wanted a song. I penn a song. Seventeen more minutes advise in super high depth aboard the USS Enterprise DT. Don't you take my walk lighter and clip it? Don't you take my red schord, buddy and nip it? If you spill the tea, I'm gonna zip it.

1:10:18 A starship it, Hi, asken, what are we doing? We are naming our favorite chips that go ship ship boo boop to this guy and our favorite ships a good to each other in either property excellent. I think we've got a plethora of options this week. Man, we do we finally? Do we even get we get multiple ones in Star Trek We do not usually, which is why I think you should let me name mine chip first, which is the Aurora from Star Trek wait I saw. I mean I watched it on paramounts, so I didn't watch the originals. I don't know what the original ship looks like, but the ship in the you know, the newer version is beautiful, Like the shape of it is very cool. It's kind of Star Wars esque, like almost like why wing ask? I don't know, I just I found it to be very compelling and then it went boom.

1:11:17 Can you do your best to describe the design of the Aurora and TS remastered? Oh? Yeah, well, what does it look like in the original m what does it look like in the original the non remastered one. We'll get to it. Okay, okay, that's fun. Let me just take a look at it just so I can make sure, because I watched it and I was like, ah right, it was uh like, it looks like oh that's what it was. It was like a little kind of frog. I like that. It looked like a little like in front of a frog. And I was like, and then it had like little little I guess this makes sense. It's consistent with design around like keeping your power away from your main compotent just in case there's things. So it's like there's two little guys and a y shape down below. But I think what I really liked about it is it looks like a loll frog.

1:12:06 I like. I like that. Even whenever they dare to redesign something, they're like, what would Matt Jeffries do? Oh yeah, I mean it's still consistent. It makes sense. Matt Jeffrey is all along. But yeah, it's like it's like a you know, when a frog is swimming and then it like throws its little legs out behind it. Yeah, I watched Fox swim every day. Yes, that's what the ship looks like. I like that. It's great fun. And then it excluded those dumb dumbs. That's the thing. It was like watching a bunch of rich kids like take a car out for joy Ripe. Thank you. There's something very valid in that interpretation if the episode had decided to lean into that a little bit more, but it didn't really, and that's fine too. I really liked the episode that we got. For me, it was already revealed. But my ship is going to be the Aurora from Star Trek, the original series, but not the remastered version that is in on Paramount Plus, but the original version, which if you check on Memory Alpha it is the Tholian ship, but in reverse and with NA cells put on the sides. Anytime that I believe that's the reason that they changed it for the remastered is everyone just being like, that's just the Tholian ship in the cells. We can do better. So I understand that, but I wish that it had kind of been preserved, because there is something there. There is something very appealing

1:13:38 to me about like seeing the dollar getting stretched to an unreasonable amount by them literally flipping the ship around and putting the cells on it. And also literally no one was anticipating this thing being launched more than sixty years later. Very fair, like it's stay sixty I don't know, sixty nine, what years it? Oh gosh, in two years, it's going to be sixty years kill me, no, okay, yeah, So it's just a flipped around Plolion ship with the cells. I think that's very cool. And also just the novelty that both of us could choose the Aurora.

1:14:20 I think that's fun. I do think that's fun. Oh, I think you're fun. Moving on. My romantic ship is also it's also from Star Trek and it is Adam and Spock. You love to see it. So I loved it. I loved it deeply, Hey, brother, brother, Am I right? Yeah? He was. He was giving the new term, giving a new meaning to the term we reach. We reach each other through our dicks.

1:15:05 Every time that we make in a double entendo, you don't have to finish it by making it explicit. We're going to play these instruments together, like we would play your dick. Can I blow your flute? Your flu dick? You don't play a flute, as. If he did, it'd be his dick. And and yeah, I know that he was like trying to like get in with him and like soften him up. But they had jam sessions together. He like Spock was showing genuine interest in him. He comes into his office and he's like, wow, Red dude speaks in sixties seventies slang of like sort.

1:16:01 Of he basically does. Yeah, he grabs like his the vulcan like kind of harp, his vulcan harp, and he wants to hear him play, and he does play it, and then later they jam together. He James with that girl. He's playing a. Wheel sounds man. Yeah, she's playing a wheel. It's playing a wheel. It's great. It was really cool. That was It was really funny to me. I texted you this. I was like, everybody was being enchanted by them, but they weren't being enchanted. They were just like clearly in need of music. They just needed to vibe a little bit. There is the dude on the bridge, who is He's like, who's. Just like bongoing bongoing? Is is like knees He's just. Like, yeah, I absolutely adore I really.

1:16:46 I was just like, it sounds like they all just needed some amusing in their lives. So yeah, that's mine, that's my pairing. Excellent. I'm gonna go with boil and waxer cool for sure. We all know aspen it gets lonely on the front line. Right and we are skipping out of the fact that it's technically incest, but like, who cares? What does that even mean? When there's like millions of you? Is it incest if it's all from the same DNA? Like, oh fucking weird? Did you know that? That's what you know? That's what identical twins are because identical twins come from the same egg. So are the same fertilized egg, right, So that's literally the same exact DNA.

1:17:34 So you have your OVA, you have your like two haploid cells that, like you have the egg, you have a sperm, come together and make a full cell and then with an identical twin. That cell itself is what's splits. So identical twins, say the exact same DNA, whereas eternal twins are two fertilized eggs. Anyway, so you know that is that fun. I don't really want to keep doubling down on the question. Is that incest? I know I shouldn't even said. It because listeners will start asking me more questions about certain consumption habits that I have. Meanwhile, I'm over here standing being like, boiling wax is so fucking hot, asspen Oh oh jeez.

1:18:15 Listen, Forget I said it. Forget I said it. This is a dumb little game. We're playing. Boiling waxer hot, go for it. But you know that it gets lonely on the front line. Yep. And Boyle is definitely a racist, yep. For sure. He's definitely being coded as a dude that joined the military because he's excited to fight yep. But he hates everything, but he was ready to show power. Yea. I just want to get in there shoot up some shit. Even though he seems pretty disillusioned by every whatever. Because the mustache, he's coded as a right wing twerp. So you know that when he needs a lease, it is it's a lot, you know with this dick again, ask you if you don't have to, you don't have to finish the double on camera. So you know that whenever they're having relations out on the field, it is rough.

1:19:21 Stop going into such a detail with things. Waxer is very tender. You gotta stop. I think that they just have an agreement. Yeah, I think they do. I think you're right, and so too, do. We have an agreement about the about the concept of this episode and about the concept of this podcast. In general, art exists in a binary. It is either good or bad, and so too. Are we going to answer this question of which is good and which is bad? Star Trek or Star Wars by going through of these episodes and ranking them on a scale of zero to ten. Of course, the episodes that we're talking about are The Way to Eaten and Innocence of ryloth Uh asked, Uh, you go ahead and go first with the Way to Eaten.

1:20:17 So I did like this episode. I thought it was it was good. I like, you know what at this point too, any type of episode that makes me I want to talk about it a lot. I feel like merits, uh you know, merits like thoughtfulness when it comes to scoring. So I'm going to give it just a solid old seven. Seven. Fascinating. Yeah, Uh, I am going to give this one a seven point five. Okay. I really gied with this episode. I really enjoyed it. Last week gave Recoon from Ethus seven, and I thought that this episode was sincerely good. I thought it had a lot to say, even if it was kind of dopey, but it still had a point of view that I was interested interrogating, and again it interrogated itself. Yeah. I think it's a smart episode. I think it's insightful. I think it's interesting at worst, it's very interesting. Uh yeah, that brings it to a collective total to seven point two five. But it's still anyone's game. As we go over to Innocence of Ryla Aspen, what's your rank this one?

1:21:30 What did I give? What did I give? Storm Over Ryls, you gave it an eight point three. Wow, goodness gracious, I'm gonna give this one an eight point one. Eight point one why and eight point one? I don't despite all the thematic stuff that we brought up, I think that this is and the faults inherent in it about like certain and like what they might say, and our current setting, the setting of two thousand and nine, despite those things, I think as an episode, we're like in one of the coolest, most fascinating arcs. I think visually that we're just like it is like hitting a stride that is extraordinary. I think it's got a balance.

1:22:22 This episode is a beautiful balance of these like quiet moments, these characterization moments, fabulous action and planning like the kind of we didn't even get into, like the Droid commander with the ha ha, and just these different like they're starting to build in these new different big bi like kind of like not final bosses, they're like these bosses along the way that are their own characters, have their own strategies. I think they're very compelling and interesting. I think he's very interesting. Yeah, I think the color scheme of it they talk about and we're kind of behind the scenes a bit about how they've desaturated the background.

1:23:13 So that shot of the cruisers coming down coming was so incredible. It was so beautiful, Like it was genuinely so beautiful. And then I just think it's really good storytelling. I just think it's a beautiful episode. I think I felt fel that. Of course, the Asoka story to me is like extremely important, kind of a little bit more compelling to me. But I still love this episode, so hence the eight point one excellent. I'm going to give this episode of five sure for two reasons. One, Ultimately, I found the episode pretty sleepy. Okay, I can't even though we had an excellent conversation about it, I just found the execution of the episode just a little bit sleepy. Uh. And then I was listening to the More Civilized Age podcast about it, and really they were the ones who grabbed my shoulders and were like, there's some problematic racial stuff that's going on, which I'm mad at myself for that completely going over my head. Uh, and for that being pointed out to me. I'm I'm going to dock it. Uh, I'm going to dock it a point or two a little bit. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, for sure.

1:24:32 Yeah, Yeah, that's that's totally Yeah, that makes not a severe. Spite ranking right but still but still because no black face truly because it's it's it's boneheaded about his execution. Yeah, which with that it is very interesting. I'll just always say I am surprised because like when Filonia was talking about it, he was saying that he always wanted to have a story that would be like this with a young child. And I don't know if maybe the writers or he is kind of supervising director quite realized maybe the perception of the thing. And I think it has to do probably more probably just more witches being a bunch of white guys who are going more for what we've talked about, like aesthetics, Like they were very interested in the idea of the visual of this little girl who is she is green, She's a bright color against desaturated background, almost like the girl in the red coat in Schindler's List, this like shock of red kind of concept of innocence. Yeah, but like but they've sort of dissociated it from like the the re sort of like the like the true meaning of the thing.

1:25:55 I guarantee you that Felony was seeing the forest and not necessarily the individual trees, because we know that it's a huge Star Wars fan. Yeah, and he's talking with George and they're talking about the Twilight Race already, and so they already have this huge swath to draw from, and so they're probably making this episode and they're in they're paying attention to the aesthetics of the darn thing, Like this is a good, clean story about innocence lost, right, literally in terms of the innocence lost as well as the loss of innocence. Meanwhile, this is our introduction to the personification of a twilec that in a speaking role. Yeah, twiles and speaking roles.

1:26:47 No, No, the uh, the Jedi, the Jedi. What's her name? The beloved, the one everybody adoors? Gosh, why can't I remember her name? Alsa Kuro? Yes, she never has she never has a line in any of this. Wait. No, oh, yeah, yeah, we've had an episode. We have episodes with her, right, yeah, we've covered those. Right. I'm like, that's not just something I've watched separately. Right yeah. And then maybe that is a deliberate misreading of this episode, considering that we have had other depictions of twilex hmm. Huh, I'm going to good faith intention it.

1:27:29 I'm going to upgrade it to a six. Okay, got that? Oh my god? It's like at what I just did with the power of my words. Discussion is fun, especially whenever we are uh depicting the values that are put forth in both of these episodes, the big commonality and the challenges within the Star Trek episode and the gifts within the Star Wars episode. Empathy, yeah, for sure, for sure, but unfortunately the cold, hard fist of facts rained supreme on this podcast. All right, and even with my more charitable ranking of six. Uh that brings Innocence of Rye Loath to a seven point oh five versus the Way to Eden's robust seven point twenty five, which means Wild Aspen. I would like for you to hand the trophy over for this week because Star Trek.

1:28:22 When's the Wii? Did you just do that for Shape as show? No. I feel like Star Wars can't keep winning. Oh it can. I'll keep up for Star Wars, although I couldn't help but think about Shape A show six six is my honest ranking, boy boy. This is the first time that Star Trek has won the trophy in a whole while sure feels like it. Yeah, it's true, that's okay. I will, I will give it to you. But you have to thank God. I do. I thank God You've been wisdom. Uh. And I also think our patrons at patreon dot com slash trek Wars pod, where for five dollars a month you can sign up for early versions of these episodes and extended versions of these episodes, and for one measly dollar a month, we will just read your name on airs. There a better deal in the Patreon world, I bet not.

1:29:22 I's gonna say maybe in like the world world, Like a McDonald's dollar menu would be really nice. But the dollar menu is temporary. Oh this is dollar Patreon. Your your name's gonna be out there as long as this podcast stays a lot a dollar hamburger. It's a five minute experience at the most. At the most, you're probably just stopping the thing down. And speaking of things with the most. Our patrons have the most, and you could too, could join the fine hospices of fine folks such as Tempo de Sosa, Heidi Rogers, Kevin Miller, Arizona, Mark Austin, Aaron Boo Bab Cactus and our newest patron. And lastly, but certain not leastly Jolty partner, who composed our I starship at theme song. Our main and ending theme song was composed by this chosen Aufesso.

1:30:07 Please visit the show notes for more of his musical handiwork. If you want to get in touch with us, please visit our socials on Instagram or blue Sky just search at track wars Pod. And if you don't want to do social please send us an email track wars Pod at gmail dot com. And uh finally, if you haven't done so, please leave us a review. We survive on word of mouth along with money, so please spread the word, share this podcast, and you know, just have a good day. You know what I mean, like along with money, Like money's pretty cool. Money is pretty good, and it helps us keep the lights on by keep you the lines on, I mean, pays for the basic infrastructure. So me and Aspen and get to do one of our favorite things. We just gap it with each other for two plus hours. Yay, Aspen, I love you dearly.

1:30:56 I love you. Yeah, this that's nice. Sorry, thank you. Listeners. We love you. Live long and prosper and may the force be with you,