Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Mike. And I'm Nate. What are we smoking today, Nate? We are continuing our CAO, I guess it's the country series. And this is the Brasilia. So we're kind of going in alphabetical order because we smoked the American last time. And this time it's the Brasilia. The wrapper is again loose on the top, but it was lower down. But I pulled it off anyway because it's one less thing to worry about later. See my wrapper is not tight, but it's firm. You know what I mean?
I can move it if I wanted to. Yes. And first initial impressions with cutting it and moistening the tip. It's not spicy. It's not as dark. And there is no Connecticut highlight throughout. But I will be lighting up now. We probably should have said that the last one was a Robusto size. Oh yeah, this is the same size. And this is also a Robusto size. Yeah. We do a lot of Robustos on the channel. This one is not as tightly packed. It makes for a good length of episodes.
Oh, go ahead, Nate. Yeah, this one's not as tightly packed as the last one, the American. Got a little bit more airflow through the stick. But yeah, Mike is right. We do a lot of Robustos. It's a good length. I like Robustos sizes. I think that it's a good length for a cigar. It's a personal preference. Everybody has them. I also like the Presidente size, which is massive, of course. But it all depends on your usage. I think the Robusto is the standard size for a smoke. In my mind.
Not that it is. Just in my mind. If you get to a Toro or like a Gordo or something, or not Gordo, Toro, those are sizes. But you get to like six inches. Now you're pushing the length of a cigar. I don't have that much time. But we've had some good long ones and big ones and whatnot. This one's sweeter than the American. But it's not a Connecticut though. It's just a lot sweeter and lighter. I don't have that alcohol cigar flavor that we get on a lot of them. This is smooth. This is very smooth.
For this episode, we decided, well, this will be a couple of weeks past, but the first episode of Mandalorian Season 3 came out and my wife and I watched that and it was only 37 minutes long so we decided to binge watch Obi-Wan Kenobi. I have not watched the Mandalorian Season 3 and I've only watched up to Episode 3 or 4 of Kenobi. Kenobi. Okay. And so Kenobi is a mini series and there's, I think it's six episodes. And I had wanted to watch it. I know it didn't get very good reviews.
I know Mike has no interest in watching the rest of it, but I thought it would be good to talk about our thoughts for the episodes that we've watched, that we both have watched and then I can talk about kind of my remaining thoughts on the whole series. Do you want me to start with my kind of initial thought of the show as a whole and then we can kind of dive into it? I think so. I think so. Okay. We're going to delve into Kenobi. I'm going to make a little aside for our listeners.
We are trialing a new software to collect our audio and if there's any hiccups, we apologize, but hopefully not. So Kenobi takes place in between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy and it is set 10 years after the end of Revenge of the Sith, right? Whatever the last prequel one was. And Obi-Wan Kenobi is living out his life on Tatooine guarding Luke Skywalker.
And I guess my initial thought is that this series falls in the same realm as Solo, a Star Wars story movie did for me, where I don't really care. I didn't need to know how Han and Chewie met. I didn't need to know that he actually did the Kessel Run. He's supposed to be kind of a bravado, braggadocious, rascally character Han Solo that is. So I don't really need to know if he's being truthful or not.
And likewise with what happened between the end of the prequels and the start of the original trilogy, I don't need to see Obi-Wan Kenobi whittling away his time in the sand dunes of Tatooine. So it's another one of those Disney Star Wars storylines that never needed to be made. I did not watch the film you just mentioned. What did you say? The Han Solo origin movie. I did not watch the Han Solo origin movie. Han Solo is supposed to be a unknown variable. The fact that he turns up to be...
The whole point of his character is that he ends up being a badass, but he's an unknown variable. He's the mystery dice. That's kind of the point of Han Solo. Yeah, and the Han Solo movie was bad because it kind of did a character assassination on Han Solo by showing that he was telling the truth the whole time when he's supposed to be a rogue. He's supposed to be a brigand.
Yes, so in that sense, Obi-Wan Kenobi is better than Solo, a Star Wars story, because it doesn't actually assassinate Obi-Wan Kenobi's character. It doesn't undo his character. He's very much Obi-Wan Kenobi in this. I disagree, but I only watched the third or fourth episode. Yeah, I mean, it still didn't need to happen. Is the point. They could have had a much better storyline.
It starts out with him watching Luke, and then Leia gets kidnapped because the Inquisitors are trying to, surprise, surprise, track down Obi-Wan Kenobi, who's vanished off of the maps for 10 years. They found out that he was friends with Bail Organa, who now has a child, and so they steal her, kidnap her. Can we take a pause here? In the original series, Darth Vader did not know about Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia.
So if these minions of the dark side were on the radar of these two kids, how is it that Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker weren't aware, at least, of Darth Vader? He's supposed to be the fucking biggest, most darkest guy ever. The most badassest person ever. And then, magically, he forgot about the fact that his minions were watching this girl. It's not in his tertiary experience at all. Well, so, let's just... Leia was very much aware of Darth Vader in the first movie, A New Hope.
Leia was aware of Darth Vader, but Darth Vader was not aware of Leia as a Force user. Well, no, because she wasn't in the first one, and she wasn't until the sequel failed in the first movie. Ah, not according to Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Not according to Kenobi series, my friend. Well, how... There was one scene when they were interrogating the... Reva was trying to use the Vulcan mind meld, I'm sorry, the Force mind meld on Leia, and she was fighting her.
And so that one should have been an instant trigger, but otherwise there was no acknowledgement that she even had the Force. Instant trigger means instant trigger, does it not? Well, yeah, but other than that, there wasn't. Other than that, instant trigger is instant trigger. I mean, come on, man. I know, I'm not trying to... I'm not... Okay, so I want to get into that, but not like right now. I want to get the overview. I'm sorry, I'm slamming your... I should be silent. I am so negative.
Listen, I listened to all the Madsen stuff. I'm so negative in the context. I listened to all the Madsen stuff and I let you talk. Now let me have my moment in the spotlight. I'm so sorry. Everybody, everybody. I am so sorry. I have a very negative outlook and I will be silent. No, no, no. So yes, that was one of my big problems.
I had a lot of big problems with it actually, but let's just say that by the writers setting this mini series in between two trilogies and after Clone Wars and Rebels, so you've already got stuff that's still in canon with the Disney Star Wars storyline and deciding to have Obi-Wan interact with Luke and with Leia and have both of those characters interact with Inquisitors that have armed lightsabers visible.
And then you go to A New Hope and Luke is like, oh, T'at'u'wi'n's so boring, except for that time 10 years ago where I ran away from an Inquisitor across the Sand Dunes. But you know how they fixed that? And you wouldn't know until you see the last episode. They fixed Luke Skywalker not knowing anything about the Inquisitor chasing down, she actually showed up at Owen's farm and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru went toe to toe with this Inquisitor. So not believable for one.
And two, Luke saw kind of the whole thing and then he ran off into the Sand Dunes. And you know how they got around it? How? Okay, they had Luke trip and hit his head on a rock and he was then unconscious. So he forgot everything. That's my son. Yes. So that was me and it and you. Yes. My favorite character in all of Star Wars is Ahsoka. You know that. I know. We've talked about that before. I don't like any story that delegitimizes Ahsoka. I think Ahsoka should be propped up.
I think she's wonderful. Great character in the franchise. And with this new modern bullshit they want to do, they could have focused on Ahsoka and had a positive outgrowth. But instead they did this. Yeah, they did this. And so here's, okay, I want to say how I would fix it, how I would have done it. This is, and so like, I'm going to tell you two different ways. Well, I'm going to tell you one way and then there's another way that could have been even better.
But if they really wanted to focus on this era in Kenobi, in Kenobi's storyline and his life and whatever, that's fine. They should have given Ewan McGregor some more gray hair so that he would, you know, more in between his prequel trilogy and his original trilogy appearance. I know it wasn't Ewan McGregor in the original trilogy, but you know, do a little something with the gray hair, right? Right. And they did something with Clone Wars. You know what I mean? They made them believable.
Yeah. And he was even in, well, whatever. And that's beside the point. But they end up, Leia and Obi-Wan, who never really needed to ever have met before, and they didn't meet in A New Hope. So it doesn't even matter because Leia could still have heard the war stories of how awesome Obi-Wan Kenobi was and still sent the message to him that he was their only hope. Based solely on stories, there'd be no reason for her to need to have personal experience with him to then reach out to him.
Absolutely. So it's unnecessary. But because they chose to do this, they went through actually kind of like, and they made it kind of like the Underground Railroad for Jedi. Like they called it The Path. And Obi-Wan, there's a scene where Obi-Wan looks at like all the names carved on the wall because that's what super smart Jedi would do is carve their names on the wall of the hideout deep in Imperial compound that they were there, like proof that they were there.
But he's like, oh yeah, Vos, Jedi Vos or whatever. Oh, he came through here. That was cool. And then they continued on with this bullshit with Leia. Well, if you want to focus on this time in Kenobi's life, have him go save Vos. They had this super lame Jedi show up on Tatooine of all places and then got himself hanged by the Inquisitors because he was a lame ass Jedi. Like why would he even go to Tatooine? Like he was a younger Jedi.
He would have no reason to go there or anywhere for that matter. Like he would have been killed a long time ago because he's fucking stupid. He's got Inquisitors in the bar and he stops a knife with the Force. Like the fuck is his problem? You know what I mean? Well, this reads to me like somebody who read about train jumping and train jumpers, they put their mark on things and they jump trains, obviously.
But outside of the individuals who are doing the train jumping, there's a network of people and those network of people are never known. They're just people that host them because they're nice and they're outside of it. These people heard about train jumping. They heard about train jumping and they want to make Obi-Wan Kenobi a train jumper instead of considering the fact that the person who hosts the train jumper never gets their name put on the side of a fucking rail car. You know what I mean?
He is the man who's not there. They're trying to set up that there's other Jedi out there that might still be alive. So why not have Vos, who's in the prequels and I think in Clone Wars, briefly, he's like a minor character, right? He's not super important, but that's what made Clone Wars so good is they took all of these people that are background characters and added to their story. They're already there.
You don't have to do mental gymnastics to try and- That's where Mandalorian gets its rope is that they add in the characters from Clone Wars or from whatever story, it's side stories. Yes, because it's done by- And Sarah doesn't understand, but I understand. But Mandalorian is done by Dave Filoni, who's responsible for Clone Wars and Rebels, and Jon Favreau, who I think produced some of that stuff. And they are Star Wars scholars.
They will watch the footage and the background details and find the names and they will add to these characters' background stories. And for Clone Wars, Filoni had to do all of this gymnastics. He pulled it off with a perfect landing to keep Anakin and Grievous from seeing each other for like five seasons of Clone Wars, because the first time they ever met was in the movies. Great, and it worked out well. So they knew that they could never have- And Clone Wars is a masterpiece.
And they stuck the landing. They stuck the landing, right? But you have somebody who just decides, hey, it'd be fun to see Obi-Wan Kenobi and Leia do something together. Well, one, I didn't like the actress who played Leia. She was fine, but she kind of was like the star of the show. And Reva was fine. The star of the show who's like a fucking 10-year-old. Yeah. And Reva, I thought I was going to have a bigger problem with Reva, but I actually didn't have a problem with Reva.
I was out of just generalness, but I thought it was going to be kind of like the whole message thing being rammed down our throats, but it didn't feel that way. She definitely failed a lot and got whooped up on a lot. So I didn't really feel like that. And you were never really rooting for her. They did make her sympathetic at the end, kind of. But I never understood why Reva was even there, to be honest with you. I know, but I'm not going to sit here and tell you.
I cut out at episode three or four. Yeah. And I'm not going to tell you that Reva is my favorite Star Wars character. She's not. She's not an overly interesting character. I expected to hate her more, and I actually found her tolerable, decent. Like a decent character in a modern storytelling kind of way. Not a great character, not any of that stuff. But they could have had Obi-Wan Kenobi get a distress signal from Jedi Vos, right? Or even Ahsoka, and they could have gone and done their thing.
They still could have had the Darth Vader battles, right? But that was the thing that I liked about the Kenobi series is so it's six episodes and they're anywhere from like 40 minutes to an hour long each. I would have cut it down to maybe three episodes and I would have solely focused on Obi-Wan and his guilt for what happened with Anakin. And so when he found out Vader was alive, that was a cool moment. And when they had their final fight, that was a cool moment.
And Obi-Wan Kenobi kind of got the closure that he should have had earlier, but he had guilt about it. And that was fine. I enjoy kind of those mental examination pieces if they're done well. But this one, I guess they felt like we also had to have Leia and Luke in there for whatever reason, even though these people shouldn't really be knowing about each other. So that's what I would have done. I would have done something different. Go and find another Jedi that's still out there.
Go talk to Filoni and Favreau and say, hey, are you going to bring this Jedi into your Mandalorian because it'd be a great tie in or hey, you already have Ahsoka. We have an Ahsoka cast. We have an Ahsoka show coming up. Why not have her make an appearance here? Because that's way less problematic than having any of the Skywalker kids involved. My arms are wide open right now. My arms are wide open. They have a ton of lore between Kohn Wars and Rebels and even the Bad Batch.
We have all this stuff. Use existing characters, create new ones when you have to. There's no reason to shit on anybody or make anybody look bad. I thought that they made Obi-Wan Kenobi look bad. They made him look bad in the first three or four episodes because he was so guilt-stricken he couldn't access the Force, I guess. Which I only made it three or four episodes. I know. Full disclosure. And that's fine, but it should have been a one-episode thing, right?
Like, oh, I feel guilty, blah, blah, blah. Vader's here. Oh yeah, he's a huge dick. And yeah, I guess it wasn't all me. Obi-Wan Kenobi is supposed to be the rape monster. You know what I mean? He's supposed to be the most baddest man you've ever met in your entire life, but he's good. Yeah. I mean, I guess he's kind of like... I mean, I get it. He's in kind of a self-imposed but self-chosen exile watching a kid grow up in a fucking desert planet, right?
Well, in the context of Star Wars lore, we have Anakin and Obi-Wan training Ahsoka, which I'm going to focus on Ahsoka because she's my favorite character. She becomes Fulcrum. They do all that shit with the rebels, you know, behind the scenes. Obi-Wan should not be weak at any point. He should be sharp as a tack the whole time. The whole point of Obi-Wan is he's sharp as a tack.
He's just so cautious because it's been so long and he's been reading so long independently that it's too late for Luke. You know what I mean? He was too late for Luke. If he would have been a little more aggressive with Luke, he could have got ahead of the Empire. He was too late. So he was sharp. He was sharp coming in. Oh yeah. He wasn't a sloppy loser coming in. They make him look like a sloppy loser and Luke is there.
So now he's dealing with this Luke guy that's interacting with the Empire. And then we get to the first movie and he's a sloppy or he's late to the game. If he dealt with all this shit with Luke, he should have been sharp from the start and not have been late. You know what I mean? He should have been ahead. Yeah, but I know. I know. And I'm saying this series has little to do with Luke and the whole Luke thing where their out was, well, he fell and he bumped his head.
And so now he still thinks Setuin is boring and nothing happens here, even though he was running for his life from one of the spinny red lightsaber things. Obi-Wan did it and Obi-Wan was fucking late to the game. Obi-Wan was late to the game in the original movie. Yeah, Luke had to go find him. Right. If Obi-Wan was already aware, like this show said, he should have been grooming him for the role.
Yeah. And that's why they shouldn't have had the Inquisitor show up on Tatooine and they shouldn't have fucked with that. They should have had Obi-Wan Kenobi take a distress call from Ahsoka or from the Jedi Vos and then he should have left Tatooine to go help them. Had nothing to do with Leia or Luke and he still could have battled Vader. Right? Because they still could have had Leia, but no Luke. Luke should not have been involved at all. No, exactly. The whole idea of Luke is that he's fresh.
He's clean. He has no... Well, yeah. And they shouldn't have done anything with Leia either in my opinion, because it's not needed your shoehorning things in that don't even need to be there. And it could have been a completely separate side story. So you wouldn't have any conflict with anything. Obi-Wan's there. He's watching Luke. He gets a little beep, beep, beep on his thing. Oh my God. One of my old Jedi friends are in trouble.
And if you really want to go with the Obi-Wan Kenobi has all this guilt over Anakin turning to the dark side, then why doesn't he have all this guilt over Ahsoka being excommunicated from the Jedi Order because of how they treated her in the Clone Wars? So if you want to double down on the guilt, have it be Ahsoka for fuck's sake and have them mend their bridges. And then he can feel okay about the Vader thing because Ahsoka has already faced Vader as Vader.
And the scene where Obi-Wan Kenobi in the final fight with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Vader was really good. And I liked it and I liked their interactions. But Obi-Wan Kenobi cuts off half of Vader's mask, just like Ahsoka did. And they had an interaction and it was great in both, I thought. But why not have it be Ahsoka? And Ahsoka could be there or Ahsoka could have saved Ahsoka and then Vader shows up and Ahsoka just escapes.
And then you can have the final fight with Vader and Obi-Wan and he can get his final closure. He goes back to Tatooine and says, fuck, I don't want Luke to end up like that guy. I'm going to play this cautious and then leave it at that. Right? But they didn't do a good job at this series of bridging the gap between I'm watching Luke every day to I'm just an aloof, eccentric old man out in a rock hut. You know what I mean? Like they didn't bridge that gap at all.
And they should have at least laid the groundwork for that. They had some banter between Uncle Owen and Obi-Wan where Owen was like, you got to leave him alone. And at the end, Obi-Wan is like, yeah, all he needs is you. But that's super bullshit because obviously all he needs is not them as the rest of the movies prove. But that's a super lame cop out way.
And that's what I felt is they had the potential for some great moments and they had some good scenes, but they chose the cop out every time. Dude, I felt that they had a set up. You mentioned Ahsoka several times. They have a set up. I had to to keep your interest. You told me at the beginning, you only care about Ahsoka. So I'm just going to name her. I really do only care about Ahsoka.
I think she is the best Star Wars character, but a lot of these bullshit tie ins they did are because they wrote Ahsoka out of the story, which is a lie. Right?
Like a lot of the Star Wars lore involves Ahsoka and it's not a part of the movie series, but this is a good example for them to tie her in to get them to get into Clone Wars and to get into the backstory because a lot of- Especially when you have a fucking hit show, the only good Star Wars in the last, I don't know, whenever the last prequel movie came out or after Rebels was done has been The Mandalorian. That's like the only- Right. And Rogue One. Rogue One is good.
And I hear Andor is good, but I haven't said it yet. I haven't watched it. I'm not sure if I've watched Rogue One. I'm not sure. But Rogue One is good. I'm not sure. But they take the side characters and focus on that. Right? Okay. Vader's there at the very end, but it ties right into the very start of A New Hope.
So- Okay. But Rogue One, just for anyone who doesn't know, because we're kind of like nerding out hardcore on the Star Wars stuff this episode, Rogue One is the story of the team that got the Death Star plans for the Rebels in A New Hope. So at the end- Sure. That doesn't need to have Ahsoka. That does not need to have Ahsoka. No, no. I know, man. But they did a good job because they invented these characters for the sole purpose.
And spoiler alert, everybody dies at the end of Rogue One because in A New Hope, remember Mothma or whatever her name is, Mon Grand whatever the fuck? Sorry about- Yeah. I don't know what her name is. Grandma Terken or whatever. No, no. The woman. She's in the white robes and she's like, hey, a lot of people died to get this. Well, you know they all fucking died, right? Like it was such a somber, like a lot of people died for this. Like you just knew whoever got the data died.
So you just knew going into Rogue One that all the characters are going to be dead. So there was no, there was never ever going to be any kind of weird crossover bullshit that they had to like write around, you know, because this is a side story that takes place before the first movie with people that all die. So they had leeway and that was good. You don't have to shoehorn everything in, but you have a hit show. Everybody loves Mandalorian. Even if they're not Star Wars fans, they love Grogu.
They love baby Yoda. Why not? And Ahsoka makes an appearance in Mandalorian and it was great. Rightly so. Rightly so. Best character in Star Wars. And why wouldn't you and Ahsoka and Obi-Wan Kenobi have a huge history together and Leia and Obi-Wan Kenobi have no history together. So why wouldn't you take Ahsoka so you could tie this in more closely to the Mandalorian, which everybody loves, and Obi-Wan, which everybody loves, and put those two together. And Clone Wars, which everybody loves.
Yeah. And put those two together in real life, live action. Put those two together. And why you chose to go with a bratty 10 year old Leia instead of Ahsoka is mind boggling.
And why you chose to go with Luke, whose character doesn't even say, I think he has one sentence on screen, but to have him be such a huge part of the series just by the fact that he's fucking there, but you keep showing him, but you know you can't actually interact with him because otherwise the rest of the movies don't make sense. So that's again, Ahsoka is my favorite character. She's also the most disrespect character of all time. I don't understand why they don't lean on her more.
Yeah. And I'm pathetic. I watched the first four episodes and I could not understand why they went the way they did. There's no reason for a Leia to be there at all. A Leia could literally not be there and the story would be the same story. Luke could be there. Well, that's what I mean. You could remove Luke and remove Leia, the same fucking story could happen. It's irrelevant to either character. It's pointless. Here's the other thing I thought was weird.
Now, doesn't Bale Organa and his wife have a previous child? I thought they had their own child and they always talked about it. The first child was Leia, they had a second child. The story from my understanding is that the first child was Leia, the second child was Nashelborn. I wasn't sure about that, but I thought for sure. But at age 10, she would have had another sibling, but they didn't in the movie. I think at age 10, she would have another sibling.
They're just kind of blatantly disregarding some of the lore. Well, I mean, but that's the kind of stuff that like, what I'm saying is like Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau would not have overlooked that detail. We're getting spicy as far as that. I just... I need to be spicy. They cut Ahsoka out of the fucking story again. You know what I mean? They cut her out again. They cut her out again. All right. So let's say this, and you made a great point. You could cut out either Skywalker child.
The only reason Leia was there, this is the only sole reason, is everybody knows Obi-Wan Kenobi is on Tatooine until Luke comes to him in A New Hope and then they leave. That's his mission. No, the point of the story, the original story was that nobody knew that Obi-Wan was there. That's the whole point of the original fucking story. No, no, man. I know, I know. I'm just explaining the audience, like everybody in the audience knows Obi-Wan is there.
He told them at the end of Revenge of the Sith or whatever. The whole point of Fulcrum is to prevent Tatooine becoming discovered by the fucking Empire. Dude, man. The whole point of the story is that we all need to save Luke. You're getting fucking salty on me and I want to finish my train of thought here. I'm sorry, bro. I have to get salty. I have to get salty. They disrespected my Ahsoka. They disrespected my Ahsoka. Give me three minutes. Give me three minutes. Give me three minutes, man.
Let me just get this thought out and then we'll go back to Ahsoka. We're fighting. We're fighting very hard right now. Also I'm halfway through. Very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me too. Very sweet. I'm getting sweet vibes. Yeah, very sweet. Not overly sweet, but... It's sweet and dark and sweet. I mean, it's a lot sweeter than the rapper would lead you to believe, but it is, I wouldn't say it's a light cigar by any stretch. No, it's a dark cigar, but it's sweet and good.
All right, let me finish my thought here, my friend, and then we'll go back and cry all the war crimes they've committed against us. One is I agree with you 100%. Neither of the Skywalker children had to be involved in this six episode mini-series.
The audiences know that Obi-Wan has self-exiled to Tatooine to protect Luke, and we know this even just watching the original trilogy, even though it's not explicitly stated he was there to watch over Luke, but why else would a Jedi Master be where Luke is? You know what I mean? He was there to train Luke. I know. Everybody knows, the audience knows. I am reinforcing my brother. I am reinforcing my brother.
I'm just saying I just want to get this thought out, and then we can go into everything else. Sorry, I'm sorry. Go ahead, go ahead. I will stop. I will stop. I'm so mad. I know, I know. The only time this riled up is when his snow blower broke. Anyway, the only reason Leia is involved at all is because the writers, in order to make all of this Vader stuff happen, needed a way to get Obi-Wan Kenobi off of Tatooine.
And even though at the end of the prequel trilogy, he says he's going to sit there and watch Luke on backwater Tatooine, and he's there in a new hope, doesn't mean he was there every day. You know what I mean? And even this series wants us to believe that whatever reason that got him off Tatooine is good enough to get him off of Tatooine and not keep a watchful eye over Luke.
But Luke is like the son of a moisture farmer that nobody really gives a fuck about because it's Tatooine and Vader doesn't like it because I don't like sand. So Leia was just, what's a way to get Obi-Wan off of Tatooine? Oh, hey, you know what? Leia, Leia's still out there. And we could get her involved and then Ben and Leia could have some screen time together, which they never got. And that would be cool, except it sucks dick.
It's a bad reason to get Obi-Wan off of Tatooine and a better reason is Ahsoka or literally any other Jedi that was in the original trilogy, I mean, the prequel trilogy that needed help. Like they've already established other Jedi have gotten out through this path thing. So that's a better story angle than Leia, other than Leia as a main character. And then they did all that Mary Poppins bullshit in the sequel trilogy stuff with her and whatever.
But like it's a bad, it's a lazy writer way to get Obi-Wan off of Tatooine. And you can see it. You can see it's lazy because it makes no sense. Like it's dumb. Like Bail Organa is a powerful senator who managed to hide his alliance to the Jedi because Vader certainly knows about Bail Organa. The Empire knows about Bail Organa. He's on the fucking Senate. Like if they thought he was a rebel sympathizer, they would have just killed him. But he's powerful.
So you know, he's got his other means like Obi-Wan doesn't have to be the one to fly all the fucking way across the galaxy to save Leia. You would have certainly known about the monitoring before that event. It's so obviously a trap, which he even said. You would not allow a child to fall into that. It's so stupid. All right, let's talk a minute for how dumb her running through the forest and the red hot chili peppers chasing her was.
Like she leapt through like a fork in a tree that was surrounded by zero shrubs. And then this grown ass man is trying to go through the same like fork in the tree when he could have just gone around the fucking tree. Like it was bad. It was not good. It was like. Every adult knows it's stupid. I mean, it just looks dumb. It looks fucking dumb. It's offensive when you consider the original and the ladybug droid she had was dumb. Oh, the floating.
I like the floating droid, but you have to use it better than that. You know what I mean? Like, well, it's a little lady. It looks like a little kid's toy thing. Like they wanted to sell that like, hey, let's market this. And then you get back into Ewok territory and it's like, well, okay. I'm okay with the floating droid. Just you can't be so stupid. Yeah. So stupid.
And I think, and I guess what I get so upset about outside of the Ahsoka thing, obviously, is they brought Hayden Christensen out of retirement. They got Ewan McGregor back. Even the composer came out of retirement to do the Obi-Wan theme because he never did the theme for Obi-Wan ever. And you could have, you had this golden opportunity where they're all here and they're all ready to do this.
And you've got the, you've got Rosair Dawson who plays Ahsoka in the Mandalorian and in her own show coming up soon. And you have all these people here and they're alive and they're committed and willing to do this. And you go with a Luke and Leia subplot that makes no sense. And you have to do all this weird writing gymnastics to make anything make sense beyond it. And it's like, why did you, are you that dumb that you wanted to make everything so hard on yourself?
You could have just picked, you could have literally picked anything. Obi-Wan himself was kidnapped by people who didn't even know he was a Jedi and he has to fight his way out. Like, that's a better storyline than he has to go rescue Leia. Dude, it's a lowest common denominator. It's a lowest common denominator. They had every single buzzword involved with no thought. It was the dumbest shit I've ever fucking seen. It was terrible. Terrible. Well, it's not the dumbest shit that I've ever seen.
Like I said, there were some moments that I enjoyed, but by and large it was very tedious. And the only reason we kind of kept watching is I wanted to see how they were going to kind of do their, their gymnastic writing to keep Luke from having any excitement on Tatooine. And it was a head injury. So that was kind of, that was super dumb. Really dumb. Dude, that's so dumb. How was that even a thing? That's so dumb. I know. Really?
And it's the same thing with the sequels because you had Carrie Fisher alive and you could have done literally anything but what you did. And now it's dumb and now it's done and that's it. It's dumb and done. And there you go. Well, we had to have, you know, Jurassic Park lady be very aggressive and we can't take that back. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, and you know what's weird to me is a lot of these franchises, right?
Marvel and Terminator and even James Bond all want to have a strong female character and you have one in Ahsoka. Like you fucking have one who has a brilliant backstory. You're talking to my soul, Nate. You're talking to my soul. I know, man. I know. We talk about this outside of the podcast many times. I know. I know. But you have one. You have that character. She's there. She's an open book beyond the end of Clone Wars.
And the brief appearance of- She's an established character who is respected by everybody who is a fan. You can do anything you want. She is- Well, that's what I mean. Like she's an open book after- She's fucking Volker. You can do anything you want. I know. But after Clone Wars, like there's no story in canon written for her. So it's an open book. Like you have carte blanche.
She could go and go to a Tatooine and grab Obi-Wan Kenobi and go on an adventure and fight Vader and come back and drop him off and say, hey, thanks. It was fun. We should do this again sometime. And then that's your miniseries. Like, hey, fucking awesome. Everybody's fucking happy. They're doing a new series on Ahsoka. Maybe that'll be the new- I know they are. It has Rosario Dawson. She is a wonderful actress. She's got a lot of talent. So- I know, but here's the deal.
We're going to get it all. We're going to get it all, bro. No. No. I don't know, man. We're going to get it all right now. We're going to get it all right now. Yes. The Obi-Wan Kenobi series has given me very little hope for the Ahsoka series, but I need to see who's behind the Ahsoka series. Because if it's Filoni, then it will be Golden. And if it's anybody else, it is a 100% roll of the dice. The Ahsoka series should not be dependent on anybody other than Ahsoka.
And Ahsoka is a wonderful character who has her own life. And it's the best character that Star Wars ever created. And I agree with that 100%. Well, I mean, that's fine. Because the best character they ever created. That's a circle-ological thing. And I know that's circle-logic, but I don't give a fuck. Yeah. I know, but check this out. Ahsoka is a great character with a great backstory. Somebody could take that and fuck everything up like they did with Obi-Wan.
That's perversion against humanity. Any dumb fuck that Kathleen Kennedy wants to hire to do Ahsoka can do whatever the fuck they want. So that's why I'm saying, if it's not Dave Filoni, who's involved in some aspect of Ahsoka, it is a 100% roll of the dice. Are we going to get a good Ahsoka? Are we going to get an Ahsoka that we hate? Are we going to get something that tarnishes her legend and then somebody else takes her place?
I've already established on this episode and between you and I, that Ahsoka is my favorite Star Wars character and she will have a good series. Okay. Speak the dream and it will come true. Speak it and it will become true. So final thoughts on Kenobi. Was it trash? I mean, obviously, but it was not as trash as Solo and... Never watched Solo either. Is that something to watch? No. I had two inches on my cigar left, so we have tons of time. I know. We got tons of time.
I'm trying to look up who's responsible for Ahsoka and it just says in development. It doesn't tell me. I don't want you to put Ahsoka in a negative light, man. I am so... Ahsoka is the best Star Wars character for sure. Oh my God. I am running interference. Look man, I agree with you. I'm saying I want her in capable hands. I don't want her in some fucktwit's hands. What is your favorite Star Wars character? Ahsoka. I already told you that. Really? You too? God, how is it we're both Ahsoka?
How are we both Ahsoka fans? Because she's the best. I like a lot of the characters in Star Wars. I think the handling of her and her story arc was brilliantly done. And it's the same kind of thing. They gave Anakin a Padawan in the Clone Wars, but he couldn't have the Padawan in the movies because she doesn't make an appearance in the movies. And so they had to do something and they chose not the easy road. They didn't choose the easy road. They chose the hard road and it paid off for them.
And now she's back in Mandalorian. Ah, Anakin and Obi-Wan. To bring it back, it was Anakin and Obi-Wan. They both had the same Padawan. But Anakin take most of the work. Yeah, and Anakin and Ahsoka spent the most time together. In the Clone Wars. They did. They did. So, you know, and I'm just saying, but they did it brilliantly and it was great writing and the character was great and her story arc was great and the fucked up shit that happened to her.
I mean, it's a dick, but it was great writing. Yeah, it was great writing. You know what I mean? And so you've got this character that's tormented and on neither the dark nor light side. And so something you can explore because it's a middle ground character kind of, right? And you could do so much with it. And she's the fulcrum. She is the fulcrum. And they chose, I know, and they chose Leia and Luke over Ahsoka for the mini-series. So stupid. Fucking dumb. And it's dumb.
And you know, like I said, there's some good moments, but overall it's dumb. It's a dumb mini-series. I liked the Hayden Christensen and Obi-Wan scenes more so when Hayden was Darth. They did some digitally age reduced kind of bullshit that was supposedly taking place during the prequel trilogy, like some trainings they did and some dialogue that never actually happened in the movies.
And I wish they would have used deleted scenes or something, but those probably didn't exist because why would they? And so some of that stuff was really good and I enjoyed, I hated the first Darth Vader and Obi-Wan fight because it was dumb and lame. And Obi-Wan was like a very weak infantile man in that and just getting force fucked by Vader. And they also had Vader do some really crazy force things. And they had the Inquisitor and Inquisitors are only supposed to be force sensitive.
They're not supposed to be full on force users. But they had the Reva do a force mind meld where you can read people's minds with the force. And that was dumb because that would have fucking come in handy in A New Hope when Vader was right there and had Leia and no, let's send her down to the torture droid when I could just force read her mind. So they had to make her be able to repel the force mind probe.
But then Vader never tried to force mind probe her in A New Hope because obviously that's a bullshit thing. Reva had to be much more important than she should have been. Yeah. And then Vader stopped a whole freighter from taking off. It was fully powered engines and he just force fucked it down to the ground. And he's supposed to have a fair fight with Obi-Wan ever. Why would he ever have a fair fight with anybody? He would just force fuck everybody, wouldn't he? Right.
Vader is supposed to be the strongest guy ever. Well, and that's fine, but like... Other than Luke, right? Other than Luke? Yeah, but if he's able to force fuck everybody, why doesn't he just force fuck everybody? Why does he spend so much time like dicking around with his lightsaber? Right. He should be able to slam bam, thank you man.
Yeah, if he applied the same amount of force that he did to that freighter taking off out of the hangar bay that actually drove it back to the ground and like smushed it into the ground a little bit. Like if you do that to a human, they're dead. That's it. Game over. Why are you fucking around with your lightsaber? There's no reason. Like why doesn't Emperor Palpatine carry a lightsaber? Because he fucking forced lightnings everybody. Jesus Christ. You know what I mean? Right.
Like he doesn't need the lightsaber to fight anybody, he lightenings them. That's his whole thing. But Vader has to fuck around with the lightsaber and now you're giving him these crazy powers in this mini-series that he doesn't exhibit anywhere else ever? Like, come on. I know Ahsoka. Where is Ahsoka? Well, that's the biggest point. The biggest point of contention. It is, really. Anyway, I'm hoping that the Ahsoka series is good and written by people who actually know how to write.
I just hope that it's somebody who actually knows how to write a decent story. Oh, you know, the modern Star Wars is just trash. It's trash. If they fuck over Ahsoka, Mike will march with a sign to wherever- I'm not a fan. Yeah, and you know what, and we've talked about this on the show, is most modern writing absolutely sucks. It's the dumbest shit anybody's ever seen. Modern is relative too, you know. I mean, Clone Wars is just not that old. Ten years. Yeah, yeah. Ten years ago.
I mean, you know, the last... Yeah, 2000 what? Did it end in 15? 2015? 13? Something like that. Something like that. But like most modern writing within the past, I don't know, eight, five years, is absolute trash. Like overall, the writing has gotten so bad in a lot of things. I mean, there's still standouts, things that have good writing, but they're the exception. They're not the rule anymore. There's always been bad stuff out there, but not your classics.
I mean, sure, there's been some James Bond movies that have been absolute dogs, but you're not really going to James Bond for really good writing, you know? Yeah, it's fast action. The negative reaction to the last James Bond movie was disturbing because it was a way overreaction. I thought it was fine. I thought it was well within the lexicon of James Bond. It was fine. Yeah, I mean, I guess I thought it was fine.
And I know Daniel Craig was kind of done doing them, but they could have pulled a On Her Majesty's Secret Service at the end of that one. You know, because I don't know if you've seen On Her Majesty's Secret Service where he gets married, Bond gets married, and then his wife gets shot on their wedding day by Spectre of all people. I've seen it, yeah. I've watched Spectre, and I watched the second one. Well, no, I mean, Spectre is the organization. But she was killed by Spectre.
I watched Spectre the movie, and I watched... I know. I was trying to clarify for our listeners. But I didn't love the fact that Bond died at the end because he's never died at the end of any movie. But then you sit and think, well, they did kind of like with Daniel Craig's first Bond movie, they did kind of like a reboot, which I don't like reboots either. And so is the Daniel Craig thing kind of his own mini movie series?
And then they're going to go back to just, here's a new actor playing Bond, here's a new actor playing Bond, but it's the same Bond, and they don't die, and whatever. And so, I mean, it just kind of felt kind of weird. I don't know that... They made it weird on purpose in a lot of ways. They wanted it to be mysterious, you know? I respect that. I know, I mean, I wasn't outraged by it, but it was definitely a way different vibe. And I liked some of the Daniel Craig stuff.
And by and large, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I like the grittier Bond and less like jokey round Bond, but there was some good stuff in the original movie run of Bond where they had some more touching moments and more stuff like that. And a lot of it was kind of hokey, but a different era, too. I want the Bond movies to be more close to the books. And the books were very negative, dark, human-side. People are pieces of shit. And that's how people really are.
I mean, I'm dark and unpleasant. I don't want to tell you all that, but I'm not the nicest person. And Nate, I'm sure, is just sun and, you know, bright. But the James Bond books were like hard drinking, gambling, fucking, and destruction. Yeah, they're quite a bit different in tone. Oh, the tone is like dirty, dark, destruction. Bad. You know what I mean? It's bad. Yeah. It's not all fun and sunshine. And I'd be cool with that, you know, if they want to take it to that direction.
But they're not. They're hopefully they do, but they're probably not. I mean, who knows what they're going to do. I don't know. I'm kind of burned out on all these franchises nowadays. We talked about this a little bit with the Marvel Universe because we watched all the Spider-Man movies and we talked about those and stuff on the podcast here. But it's kind of, I mean, it's almost getting to be exhausting, all these franchises. And that's nonsense.
Well, I'd imagine as a writer, like it's got to be very confining and laborious because if you have good movies leading up to the movie and the franchise you're doing, there's a lot of pressure. And if you fuck it up, you kind of ruin the whole franchise. And if you go like the full on route of Obi-Wan Kenobi or the sequel trilogy and you absolutely fuck all the characters and make them unlikable to the point where you're like, I don't even know if I like the original trilogy anymore.
I didn't say that. But, you know, you could definitely do wreck some damage on these characters and kind of tank the whole series and tank the whole franchise. They did though. They did though, because like I say, I'm an Ahsoka fan. The fact that she wasn't a part of it, I was out. I was out. I was totally out. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so I'm kind of like franchised out, you know, so whatever they do with James Bond.
And we talked about Doctor Who and I quit watching Doctor Who and I used to watch Doctor Who all the time. And I just lost interest because I don't fear anymore. And my house, we're watching Doctor Who again. Yeah. Did we talk about Lord of the Rings? Yeah. I mean, I haven't seen Rings of Power. I'm kind of franchised out, but. I haven't watched Rings of Power, but I got my Sarah to listen to the original Lord of the Rings and she was offended by how they treated the hobbits.
She was really pissed off. In the books. In the movies. Like, so you listen to the original books and she was so pissed off about how they treated the hobbits in the movies. Because in the books, the hobbits are critical actors. These guys are smart. They're wise people in the realm. And then they enter the larger world where all these wise people exist. But in the movies, the hobbits are fools. But they're not fools in the books. You know what I mean? Like, there are no fools.
There are no fools in the books. Every individual actor is a smart character. There is no fool. And she was so pissed off because the hobbits were all smart and she was like, God damn it. Every single hobbit and every single person was a smart person. They were just not necessarily correct. And now the Rings of Power, I don't know what they're doing, but I mean, it's not treating everybody with respect. Well, that's the thing, right? In most literature, like Dune, you're reading Dune.
I'm reading Dune. I'm almost done. And then we'll talk about Dune on a future episode. Yeah, we'll talk about Dune on a future episode. Every person is respectful. There's no fool. Everybody is a smart actor. I mean, there's some fools, but they don't usually last too long, if you know what I mean. I think most series and most, whether it's books or film or whatever, you have your fool characters and they're there to kind of accentuate how smart everyone else is.
And so- Well, Lord of the Rings does not have a fool character. That's the point. There are no fools. There are no fools. Everybody's smart. Some are more intelligent than others. Well, I said most. I mean, most series have little bit characters that aren't a main character. And if they have them and they have these fool characters, they don't last very long and they're really only there to kind of prove a point about how smart everybody else is.
Not in like a beat it over your head kind of way, but you know what I mean? In movies, that's true. In novels, I don't think so. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know modern novels, but I'm doing a lot of old school, like in a Victorian novel, there is no fool. Everybody's intelligent actors, but some are less intelligent than others. You know what I mean? I mean, I would say that in Slaughterhouse Five, which we talked about, Billy Pilgrim is kind of a fool. I don't think he is.
I don't think he's a fool. I think he is just living his life in a weird world, man. Well, yeah. He's not a fool. He's just experiencing shit. He doesn't really like make dumb, dumb decisions, but he's not shown to be smarter than anyone else. He's not brilliant. He's not dumb though. You know what I mean? No, he's not dumb. I mean, I guess it kind of depends on your definition of fool, but I don't know.
I mean, there's definitely novels out there and some novels, the protagonist is the fool that you cheer for. You know what I mean? I really enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies despite some of the liberties they took. Like I say, my Sarah was so mad. So mad. But I mean, that's the thing too is you don't necessarily always have to, but going from one medium to the other, you have to do certain things to make it work with the other medium. Oh, for sure. You have to make allowances.
Yeah. And all the choices that everybody makes aren't always the best or what they should have done, but a lot of times it works out just fine. Like I think it did in Lord of the Rings. I think they did a great job with that. I agree. I agree. Not a huge fan of the Hobbit stuff, but there was other extenuating circumstances as well, but that they took a lot more liberties with and it kind of bit them in the butt.
Oh, Lord of the Rings movies are probably the greatest franchise we know in our time. In the modern era. Yeah, in the modern era, that's gold standard, right? So you can be as critical as you want. Yeah. Yeah, it's not the books. It's not the best. It's not the book and it's the best we've ever had. I mean, it's fucking phenomenal. So that my criticism is in context of the greatest movie that's ever been made. You know what I mean?
I'm still sucking on my cigar and I have an inch and a half left and I'm still going. I think it's wonderful. Same with me. I think it's good. I picked up the pace a little bit, so I got to kind of slow down because I had done a little more talking because I was getting a little combative with your constant Ahsoka is awesome. Dude, Ahsoka is awesome though. That's the thing. I was just trying to make a point. What the fuck? I know you're trying to make a point, bro. I know.
And I'm with you because any other storyline than the one they chose would have made a lot more sense and been a better story. So I don't know why they did what they did other than they're lazy and they wanted to shoehorn everything in. They had other options. That's what I'm trying to say. It's so lazy. I know they did. I know, man. So lazy. They had real good characters to bring everything into context. They had a whole wealth of characters. They had a plethora of everything. It was nonsense.
You and I know Ahsoka was the right choice. However, they also had any number of characters they wanted to invent. They could have invented anybody and it would have been better than Leia and Luke. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Ahsoka should have been there, but if not Ahsoka, then not Leia and Luke. You know what I mean? The last, the absolute last choice should have been Leia and Luke. That should have been the absolute last choice.
They should have gone to the writing room and said, look, if you fuckers can't think of anything better than Leia and Luke, that is our absolute last option. Last option. We have to get this thing made. That's our last option. So please come up with anything other than that. Yeah. It was dead last. That would have been my pitch to the writers. It's like, listen, last option, absolute last option. I do not want to go with this. I don't want to see this. Luke and Leia, do not do it.
There are thousands of books in the Star Wars universe. They could have picked any one of those stories. Instead, they picked Leia and Luke. Yeah, or any combination of those stories. They could have put anything out there and they put the worst possible thing. He could have, you know what? Obi-Wan could have gone to save the Rancor beast that then came into play in Return of the Jedi. And that would have been better than Luke and Leia. My dudes, for that one person who's still listening.
My local bookstore has a whole shelf eight feet tall just on Star Wars books. Any one of those stories could have sufficed. My local bookstore, my local bookstore that is a shitty bookstore in the middle of nowhere in the north has an eight foot tall section of Star Wars books. They could have put any one of those stories. And you know what? That AI chat bot thing could have written a better story than Luke and Leia. Oh, for sure. For sure. The part, like I say, it makes me so fucking mad.
There's an eight foot tall bookshelf in my local shitty town with stories on it. Pick one of them. Not the one you did. It's so stupid. Pick one of those books, pay the royalty rights and go to town. Like have fun. So literally anything would have been better. Is that our end conclusion? Anything would have been better than what they did. Anything would have been better than what they did, but it was still somehow better than Solo, a Star Wars story. Never watched either one of them. I know.
I'm not saying it's better by much. I'm just saying it's slightly better than the Han Solo standalone film. Did they cut Ahsoka out of everything that they're doing other than the new Ahsoka story? That's what the writers say. When somebody brings up Ahsoka, they're like, who? Really? Is that what they're doing? No, I don't know. Well, I don't know if they're purposely doing it.
I think, and I don't know, I heard somewhere that Ahsoka was Dave Filoni's creation, so he has creative control over her character, which I hope is true. So he's probably not allowing a lot of people to use her, which is fucking smart on his part because if they can tear down Han Solo and Luke Skywalker and Leia and all these other people that we've loved, if the writers can tear down all of these people, keep Ahsoka close to your vest, Dave, and give us good Ahsoka stories. That's interesting.
Ahsoka was not popular right away. She became popular over the course of her storyline. Yeah. Where like during Clone Wars, she was not a popular character. They hated her. People hated her. And then she grew into being a popular character, which is how you create characters. Yes. Right? You make a character that has a lot of salt and then you develop and develop and develop. Yeah. And I would say Luke Skywalker is not a very likable character in the first movie because he's a whiny little brat.
Yeah. Luke Skywalker sucks. Han Solo is a great character in the original trilogy, but he definitely makes some choices that you're like, I would like him more if he would have just agreed to go with them at the get go to assault the Death Star, but he comes in at the end and saves it. So Luke Skywalker is supposed to be a scumbag, right? In the original cut, he kills the guy, right? Yeah. Han Solo, you mean? Yeah. Han Solo is a murderer for sure. Yeah. And a gambler and all that stuff.
Smuggler, cheat, all those things. Right. I don't know anything about gambling and cheating. Me either. So anyway, I think that's the end is Ahsoka's great, you know, if there ever comes out a fan edit of the Obi-Wan series where they cut out all the Luke and Leia stuff, then it's probably worth a watch. Otherwise you can safely skip it along with the Han Solo standalone. I would recommend Rogue One if you haven't seen that. I have not. Most everything else is rubbish.
So Ahsoka is the best character that exists. Yes, but we are not an Ahsoka podcast or a cigar podcast. So I like the cigar, but I think I like the American better. Really? I think so. I don't know. I'm not going to miss one. I think it's pretty good. I don't think the American was bad, but the American got a bit sour at the tip. Okay. This one's getting a little like, but I did smoke it kind of fast to catch up because you must've been like hate puffing when you were doing all these other stuff.
Yeah. I had what I had left. And I was not, so I kind of smoked a little faster, so mine's a little bit on the sour side. So, I don't know. I mean, they're both, they were both good. I wouldn't say no to either one of them. I think I would say that if you're in a cigar shop and you saw it, the Basilia and the Americano is definitely the way to go. I mean, these are good cigars. Buy them.
I would say these are both winners, which is a surprise for me to say, even though I know CAO is a reputable brand, but after the flavors, I was a little apprehensive and leery. So, these are both great cigars and I'd recommend both of them. Be safe. Have fun. Have a great week.