Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Nate.
And I'm Mike.
And fresh off the heels of the absolute worst cigar Mike and I have ever had, the misfortune
of smoking, which is saying something.
It was worse than a gas station cigar.
It was horrible.
We are smoking instead, or hopefully one that is better, the Punch Classico.
It's a similar shape as the Blood Red Doom, but a little girthier, I think.
Oh yes, much girthier.
Much girthier.
This is almost as big a round as my thumb.
And I was able to get this one lit without gagging and wishing I were dead.
So that's a plus.
I'm going to assume that this is going to be a decent cigar.
You know what?
I'm five puffs in and I think it's great.
It could be because of how bad the last one was.
But I think the flavor is really nice.
It's a very pleasant, I wouldn't say sweet, really, but kind of a semi-sweet maybe.
There's sort of a little bit sweeter tones to it.
Very smooth, very nice draw.
And this is just initial thoughts.
Yeah, the first couple puffs are good.
I straight cut this one as well because of how narrow the end was.
Yes, not as narrow as the blood red moon, but it was still narrow so it would have been
a tough cross cut.
Right.
But I will say the airflow through it is great.
So you probably could have gotten away with it.
I think so.
I want to try out my new cutter.
I have new toys and I have to play with them.
And what brand and everything is your new cutter?
Oh, I got this as part of a kit from Pipes and Cigars.
Not a sponsor.
It is a...
Not a sponsor.
Ha ha ha.
That's right, Tubes.
It's a Paleo cutter that's very similar in design to the Calibri S-cut, which is ultimately
the one that if I were to buy one alone, that's what I would have gotten for sure.
But it's cut.
The last two cigars just fine.
Last few.
So I can't complain.
Everyone can get one for a reasonable price.
We'll see how long it lasts.
Have you gone through cutters?
The cheap ones.
Oh, the cheap ones, yeah.
Yeah, the cheap ones.
I was going to say, I've had mine for years and I don't...
There's not really...
I don't think it's going to slow down any.
Right.
Yeah, the cheap ones.
The cheap ones, you even know what brand this is, let me look.
To Stain the Steel Cuban Crafters.
It's the only thing it says on it.
But I like it.
It was big enough to cut the Asylum 13 that we smoked.
And it's got the little torpedo hole, which I quite like.
Yeah, well, you got to remember too that I wore out a lighter with my Calibri.
So my Calibri has lasted me one full lighter and it's still going strong.
Well, and my jet line lighter I've had also probably since college and never replaced
anything on it, just refill it and it's going.
Right.
That's why I got that jet line insert for my zip line.
For those who don't know, you probably do, I'm going to talk about it.
I have a torch insert for a Zippo lighter that I use as a cigar lighter.
And my original torch was a Zippo branded torch, which lasted me not very long, half
a year maybe.
And then it kind of fizzled out.
But the jet line's been good so far, had it for a year, year and a half, something like
that.
Yeah, I like that insert.
Yeah, I do too.
How does that one refill?
Does it have the little hole in the bottom?
You got to pull it out and.
Yep, you just pull the case out.
It's got the hole and fill it right up.
Perfect.
So it works pretty good.
And it burns the fuel pretty good too, until the end.
You don't have to bleed out half the bottle of fuel or anything weird like that.
Oh yeah.
Zippo had that problem from the get go.
It only would burn half the fuel and then you'd have to drain it and refill it, just
a pain in the butt.
Yeah.
There's so many other nicer lighters I think on the market.
Or inserts for Zippos if you like the size and the feel and the flicking of the Zippo.
Right.
I wonder, I used to have just a stainless steel Zippo case.
I'll have to see if I still have it, because maybe I'll get a jet line insert and then
I can have two lighters for cigars.
Yeah, I like the Zippo.
You can shove it in your pocket and not have to worry about it.
Yeah.
Which is nice.
My jet line's not too bad, but it is a little bulkier.
You've seen it.
Yes.
It's kind of a square case.
But then the lighting mechanism or the button to ignite it.
Rather large rectangle off to the side.
But it does have the mirror in the flip top, so you can look and see for an even light.
Yeah.
I like it.
I do a lot of cigar smoking outside.
So it's nice to be able to shove some crap in your pocket and go.
Yours is very futuristic.
Which is nice.
Not as futuristic as some other ones I've seen.
No, no.
Your Inlaw lighter is pretty cool too.
Yeah.
You dial, it almost looks like a lightsaber, but you dial up the intensity you want.
And then that's pretty cool.
Yeah, like a flint and then it lights.
It is like a lightsaber.
It's pretty cool.
I think it's nifty.
I think it's cool, yeah.
I'd want mine to look just like Luke Skywalker's lightsaber.
I'd want it to actually be modeled after that.
I think that would be cool.
Oh, I'd want mine to be modeled after Teva.
Whoever the new black lady inquisitor is on Kenobi.
That fan favorite.
Her lightsaber, whatever that looks like.
Yeah.
I was going to say maybe like Ahsoka, but I think hers are a little curved, so it wouldn't
really stand.
Right.
And she's got two of them.
I'd be okay with two.
Well, yeah.
Would you have to cross them to be able to light it?
Otherwise it wouldn't work.
I thought you didn't cross the streams, but I'm not sure.
Too much multiverse stuff, I think, going on these days.
Yeah.
The only thing more ridiculous than, this is my opinion, the only thing more ridiculous
than Disney Star Wars is the people who get very upset over Disney Star Wars.
Yeah.
Just don't watch it.
If it's shit, just don't watch it.
You know what?
I was very upset after the first sequel movie and then got progressively more upset with
the second one because I was still hoping that they'd make something good.
And then I was over it, because there's like the stages of grief.
Like you're upset, acceptance.
And so I moved to the acceptance in between the second movie and the last I'm Rey Skywalker
movie.
And it was just acceptance.
And I went with a buddy because he really wanted to see it.
And I knew going in, it was just going to be absolute and utter trash.
And then they were writing Camels on the Outside of a Star Destroyer somehow.
And I was like, you do you, Disney.
Like whatever.
It doesn't matter to me.
I know when I'm stopping the movies series, Furby, it's Return of the Jedi is the last
Star Wars movie in my mind.
But I will say Rogue One was great.
I don't think I've seen that one.
I stopped watching the movies after the third trilogy.
I sat down and forced myself to watch it over a weekend.
Yeah.
I had to watch the last one twice because Sarah didn't believe me on how bad it was.
And she goes, well, I kind of want to watch it.
And I said, well, you get me a shit ton of booze and I will watch it with you.
And even she, when they revealed decrepit Palpatine at the end, and it's like that fucker
is still alive and they brought him back and they couldn't think of one original thing
in this entire trilogy.
And she's not a huge Star Wars fan.
I mean, other than she watched, she watches it with me.
She's watched Rebels and Clone Wars, but those are good stories.
She missed, Star Wars missed a huge opportunity to bring out Darth Jar Jar.
If they would have brought out Darth Jar Jar, I would have forgiven everything.
Yeah.
I mean, you know what?
They had a lot of opportunities to do a lot of good things.
And now all it's been is since that trilogy has now ended is there's all of these fan
theories that are now defending Disney, right?
The one that I saw was, well, Palpatine's back because he can actually transfer his
consciousness to another being.
And that's how Darth Plagueis and Darth, you know, like all of those other ones, like,
so they're like, was it really like Palpatine in the prequels or was it really like Darth
Plagueis who transferred his and it's like, okay, now you guys are really coming up with
just some absolute bullshit to defend this billion trillion dollar company that's just
pumping out crap.
You know, like it's one, it's one thing to have a fan theory to say, you know, Jar Jar
is a Sith Lord.
But it's another thing to then try and overwrite other movies that are, have been established,
well established to say it wasn't really Palpatine in the prequel trilogy.
That was, you know, Darth Plagueis and it wasn't really Palpatine in Return of the Jedi.
That was also Darth Plagueis somehow from eons and eons ago.
And you know, and the new trilogy or the sequel trilogy did this kind of like force meditation
long distance calling with 10 10 to 20 or something, you know, like, do you remember
that commercial from like the nineties?
Like, Hey, tell 10 10 to 20 and every, every minute is like a dollar or something.
Yes.
Similar to 1-800 collect.
Yeah.
You know, and it's like, okay, but you're inventing that and then you're inventing force
healing.
So you're telling me Luke could have force healed Vader when he was dragging him out
of the thing or that like Palpatine could have force healed Vader and had him regrow
limbs and he wouldn't need the suit.
And then maybe he wouldn't be such a bitter person or, you know, like what you could have
force healed Padme.
So I don't know.
It's interesting when people take an established franchise and introduce completely new and
bullshit things that don't make sense.
I mean, at one point in that last movie you saw they were forced passing lightsabers through
the void or something.
Oh, it's well, like, and people get upset about the Eagles and Lord of the Rings, but
my God, they're just pulling lightsabers out of thin air from across the galaxy.
I don't understand the Eagles and Lord of the Rings.
That's a separate issue, but I don't understand why people get so upset.
The Eagles are not fucking pets, right?
The Eagles and Lord of the Rings are like their own little kingdom, right?
So they're their own rules and laws and their internal politics would affect.
They saw Ukraine going against Russia and they thought, my God, I can't we can't fly
in now.
And then they got to the breaking point and said, now, now we fly.
Right.
Yeah.
And they're like the US in every major world war.
Yeah.
Right.
And they're like the US in every major world wars, as they call them.
Yeah.
The US just was like a fucking arms dealer.
Yeah.
Our internal politics at that time meant that we were arms dealers until the war was coming
to the tipping point.
And then, yeah, it's not that difficult to figure out, guys.
I just don't get it.
Yeah.
Like, let's just calm down.
You're supposed to enjoy it.
Yeah.
They could have taken, you know what?
They could have, you know what?
They could have called on his wizard phone and said, yo, Eagles, my homie Frodo needs
to drop this thing into the lava.
Eagle would be like, cool.
I owe you one, Gandhi, because you saved my life from falling out of my nest or something.
Pick them up.
Go.
You've got a 20 minute movie.
Like you're complaining about something that took three movies away from you that were
amazing and excellent.
And you know, it's like.
Plus the books, which are incredible.
Yes.
Of course.
So, you know, let's calm down on the Eagles and go back to dissing on Disney.
Well, I'm sure that, you know, Amazon will be green lighting the internal politics of
the Eagle Empire in Little Rings of Power.
Yeah.
Which I'm not going to watch.
The sequel.
I am preemptively not watching it.
Yeah.
I've, you know what?
I've got to watch, got to watch Obi-Wan and then I guess I have to watch Book of Boba
Fett before the new Mandalorian season drops.
Yes.
I've been, you know, and I've heard some things about Obi-Wan and you and I have talked about
Obi-Wan and it could be the bait and switch thing.
I mean, you've watched Obi-Wan so you would know, but.
I will not spoil it for you, but I will say that we are in episode three or four.
I can't remember.
We're all connoisseurs together.
And I started booing at the screen.
Okay.
You know, in the living room or whatever, you know, boo Disney Star Wars, boo, boo Disney
Star Wars, boo.
Every time something happened I didn't like.
So this is, this is my thought.
The stink eye.
Yeah.
I'm not, I, you know, I wasn't really super excited about Book of Boba Fett.
Like they teased it at the end of the last season of Mandalorian.
And I was like, okay, I'm not really interested.
I don't, I don't care.
You know, it's more tattooing stuff.
And then Obi-Wan was announced and I know Ahsoka is coming, but I got to say I'm most
excited just to see Ian and Christopher, Christopher Hayden.
And I feel if I can see any more of them, it's probably okay.
You know, it's probably a win.
All right.
But you need to lower your expectations because.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't have.
Let's say that we're on episode four.
I think we're on episode four.
Yeah.
Sarah has no desire to see episode five at all.
What about you?
And I had no desire to see episode three.
Oh, okay.
That's what I mean.
I started like, I started just booing the screen.
But I think it's just a, I think it's just a mini series.
So there's only eight.
There's not going to be a second season.
I think there's six episodes or something like that.
Okay.
I thought, I thought like I am.
Maybe there's eight.
I don't know.
But I'm not sure, but it's a limited run.
You know, it's only so many episodes.
They're not coming back for a second season.
They're not going to pay Ian McGregor and Christopher Hayden more to come back.
I think what they're going to use it for is to be a, you know, use it as a launching pad
for the first spinoff.
So you can get more of that female Inquisitor just from what I've seen.
It was a terrible character.
So awful.
I mean, the actress is fine, but the character is a petulant child.
Definitely not somebody you'd want on your team.
You know what I mean?
You mean it's Kylo Ren?
Yeah.
It is like that.
Yeah.
Like a petulant child.
Not a very impressive villain, I can tell you that.
Yep.
So Disney came out and you need to watch this one.
But the first one that came out with was Rogue One and that was phenomenal.
I really enjoyed it.
Really good.
So it kind of set really high expectations for what I hoped and thought Disney was going
to do with the franchise and the rights to the franchise.
And then I don't remember if Solo was the next one they came out with, but that one
was pretty terrible.
I mean, it was watchable for sure.
But Mike, did you see Solo?
The Star Wars story one?
No.
Okay.
So it's like young Han Solo and young Chewbacca.
Or younger Chewbacca.
I don't remember how old he is.
But that's the whole point is like you can watch the movie and they show them doing the
Kessel Run and they show him doing all the stuff that he kind of bragged about in the
original trilogy.
But that was Han's character.
That was the whole beauty of his character was he never knew if he was actually telling
the truth or if it was some like long con or swindle he was running.
Right.
I mean, Han Solo showed first, right?
Yep.
But that was the whole point of the character, is you weren't supposed to know if he was
telling the truth all the time.
You weren't supposed to know if he was going to change his mind, come in and make the saving
shot at the last minute for Luke to be able to blow up the Death Star.
You weren't supposed to know that.
That was his whole character.
So to do a whole movie explaining that, oh no, actually he is the hero and he did do
all these things he said he did.
Like that undermines the character in my mind.
I agree.
And that's a lot of, and it's not just Disney.
It's other companies, they do that with Terminator, Terminator Dark Fate.
They come in and they undermine these characters because they don't understand the character.
They don't take the time to watch the character in other movies that are established and then
carry that character on in a logical progression.
It's all money driven and how can we spend more movies off of this?
How can we, you know, not have to hire old actors that could die at any moment and put
a new actor in there that's younger that we have to pay less money to?
Right.
Well, that's, I don't know.
They need to come up with new stories.
And that's it too because there's so much of the Star Wars universe or any universe.
I mean if you want to carry on the franchise.
And Rebels did that.
It was a completely new cast of characters.
Leia showed up once or twice.
But it was young Leia.
Soca showed up a handful of times.
Yeah.
And Vader was there and then there was one episode with Obi-Wan and Darth Maul.
And Darth Maul was kind of there.
But the main protagonists, they were all people that nobody had ever heard of because they
invented them for the show.
And it was their story and their planets and their livelihoods and families.
And it wasn't, hey, did you hear about the Skywalker dude?
You know, like it wasn't that.
So you know, I mean come up with original things.
There's a whole entire galaxy, universe, whatever.
I mean it's everything.
You have unlimited potential.
That would create original thought, right?
It's kind of like Star Trek.
Which Hollywood is against.
Yes.
It's exactly like Star Trek.
All they're doing is rehashing old shows.
Yeah.
Old characters.
Like we do not need a show about fucking Captain Pike.
Okay.
We don't need it.
We've been there.
We've done that.
Let's do obviously the actor that played Nog is dead.
But let's do Captain Nog.
You know, let's do Jake Sisco in the future.
Let's move forward in the storyline, right?
Let's get out of the past and get into the future.
You know, maybe bring in a couple of legacy characters as side characters.
Yeah, but they ran into that because it wasn't, and so I've never seen it, but the Star Trek
Discovery.
I've never watched it.
I heard there's a whole slew of stuff, but wasn't that in the future or was that in the
past?
I don't remember.
That is alternative universe.
Oh, see?
Okay, so.
TOS timeline.
I hated when they did the reboots movies with Kirk.
Oh yeah, Jar Jar Abrams.
Yeah.
Because one, we already have all those shows and movies with those characters and I don't
need a re-imagining of those characters.
By and large, the first movie was fine, okay?
You know, as a one-off, but they made like two more.
And what really kind of drove me away from that was when the second one came out or the
trailer for the second one came out and everybody goes, well, that's Wrath of Khan.
And then J.J. Abrams came out and they issued like this huge press release and it's like,
it's not Wrath of Khan.
And then he watched it in the theater because he suckered you into going because he promised
you it wasn't Wrath of Khan.
And he went there and it was Wrath of Khan.
Yeah, and it was White Khan.
It wasn't even like Brahman Khan.
Like he's supposed to be from that like subcontinent, Indian subcontinent somewhere.
Yeah.
But seriously, you can't find a single actor who would at least represent physically what
Khan would look like.
Even I don't want to get too, like I say, I don't want to like, it's like ridiculous
to get upset about it, but at the same time it's like, come on, man, Ricardo Montevante
is a legend.
You're shitting on this like legacy character by having some effeminate British guy play
like this badass character.
He's supposed to be a Superman, literally.
Yeah, because he was genetically altered.
He's genetically enhanced.
Physically and mentally, you know, and don't get me wrong, I think Benedict Humbert-Batch
is a great actor and there's a lot of things that I like him in, but I don't think it
was a right casting call for Khan.
No, well, they should, like I say, move forward.
Star Trek Discovery is the main character is a Red Khan alternative universe Spock's
adopted sister who's a black woman.
Right?
So it is like TOS timeline better than all the other ones.
And Voyager had a black Vulcan.
And they were-
I'm not against black Vulcan.
She's not a Vulcan, she's a human.
Oh, okay, human.
Well, whatever.
I mean, but I'm just, I'm trying to say like Voyager, they went forward in time or they
were running kind of concurrent or just towards the tail end of Next Generation.
It was a similar timeline.
But they did something new, a new crew and they sent him out and there were certainly
some episodes that were absolute horse crap in Voyager, but there were some really great
episodes as well.
And you know, kind of gave us the first featured in a series, female captain.
You had a black Vulcan.
You had a, I don't remember if he was actually like a Native American, but he was like a
stand in kind of-
Chocolate Day was a Native American.
Yep.
And so you really had a diverse cast and you had, you know, new storylines that kind of
really though piggybacked hard on the Borg thing.
You know, I wish because they sent him way out into deep space and it was like, you can
have any alien you want.
You don't need to piggyback off the Borg.
Well, they had the Kazon for the first two seasons and they were incredibly unpopular.
The Kazons were just not popular with the fan base because they were ridiculous, unfeasible
alien species to focus on for multiple episodes, you know?
And then they had some good ones though.
I mean, they had good aliens and stuff and it was better than anything that they're producing
now for sure.
Oh yeah.
And then they came out with Enterprise and they went way back before they even had Warp
Drive basically.
I like that concept too, by the way.
I thought it was a good show.
Yeah.
It was, you know what?
I didn't dislike it.
I'll tell you watching it, it was very frustrating sometimes because they had what?
Armor plating instead of shields.
And so it was kind of frustrating to go back in time and be like, we're just watching these
people struggle for no reason.
I thought it was an interesting thought experiment as far as...
Yeah.
You know what?
I think it's an interesting thought experiment.
I think if it would have been like a standalone movie or a few seasons shorter, it would have
been better, you know, just tightening up.
And how they did the series finale was an absolute slap in the face to every single
actor on that show because they made the series finale an episode of Next Generation.
Sure.
Because they had Riker and Troy going through the holodeck explaining this last thing.
And I don't remember, maybe they got canceled and they were like, we got to do something.
But like, let the actors have their own finale.
Like we understand they're part of a bigger Star Trek universe, but let those actors have
their own finale and not be overshadowed by Riker and Troy.
Right.
That's my thought.
My thought.
No, I agree.
You know, like you say, I am a big Star Trek fan.
I'm so disappointed they didn't just continue the story.
Like I said, I know Nagas...
I got so mad.
I got so mad at Picard.
I watched the first episode of the first season and I was like, man, I just don't think this
is going to be for me.
I just don't think this is going to be for me.
Yeah.
My buddy, he goes, you got to watch it.
I'm watching it with my dad.
You got to watch it so we can talk about it.
And after every episode, I'm like, man, I can't, I can't.
He goes, oh, come on, finish the season at least.
And I'm like, dude, I don't know if I can, but I forced myself and I watched everything
that's out unless they have a new one out now, but a new season.
But I was like, dude, I can't do it.
And he goes, I'm probably going to watch the new season when it comes out.
And I said, I will not.
I don't care.
I can't, I can't do it anymore.
How do you like the cigar, by the way?
I'm over halfway done.
Maybe halfway point.
All right.
I like it.
It's good.
I like it.
It's good.
It's, I don't know.
It's, it's good.
I don't know that there's anything standoutish about it, but it's good.
No, it's not like crazy, but it's very pleasant.
It's very, very pleasant.
Nothing, nothing offensive, nothing too crazy good about it either.
It's not like blowing my socks off here, but I think it's perfectly acceptable.
Yeah, I like it.
It's a nice, you know.
I kind of wish they would have put a spicy wrapper on it, but otherwise it's, it's good.
It's
That has a lot to do with our personal preferences.
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
Yeah.
I like, I like the spicy wrappers as well, but no, this one's good.
I like it.
I wouldn't hesitate to smoke another one.
Definitely better than the last one.
Yeah.
Yep.
I know, and it's going to go down in the books.
It's got to be, oof.
It's rough.
But yeah, I, Boba Fett, you're going to like it.
It's like I say, it's not really about Boba Fett so much as it is Mandalorian 2.5, which
is fine.
It shouldn't have been called Boba Fett and they shouldn't have presented it as being
like about Boba Fett.
But, it was fine, you know, a lot of characters from, from Rebels.
So Sarah was lost when she watched it because she's never watched Clone Wars or Rebels.
So they got a lot of Clone Wars characters that show up and that's fine.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I'm going to give it a watch.
We'll watch it before.
We'll watch the newest Mandalorian that comes out and I'll watch Obi-Wan just because I
want to see Obi-Wan and Vader.
Right.
Well, I mean, the problem that I have with Obi-Wan and you'll find out is they crap on
certain characters in the episodes shows and it's like, crapping on your own characters
is just not a good plan when you're trying to create entertainment, right?
Yeah.
It's just not the way that things should be done in my opinion.
Not that I'm an expert.
What franchise have you not created but purchased and then decided to carry on?
What do you know about what Disney's doing?
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know nothing.
I know that I'm not excited for Lord of the Rings, which my nephew, I was shooting the
breeze with him last Wednesday and he's never read nor has he watched the Lord of the Rings
movies and it's like, really, dude?
You've never, never?
He's like, no, they looked like they were going to be like, you know, dweeby or whatever.
I'm like, what?
He was reading a sword and board type novel, you know?
Oh, yeah.
I'm like, dude, this is right up your alley.
In fact, this is the OG.
Yeah, this is like, this is where it's all at.
This is what kind of catapulted fantasy novels, you know, into the mainstream.
Yeah, I don't know.
I'll probably watch a little of the Rings of Power.
I know my brother is going to watch it because he's a huge Tolkien fan.
But I got to say the little teaser trailer thing they dropped didn't make me overly excited.
No, I'm not.
Yes.
To me, it looks like they're going to write out Celeborn, which I am not a huge fan of
writing out Celeborn.
I wanted to see Celeborn's story, which is probably why it pisses me off, you know, or
not pisses me off, but why I'm like super not excited about it because I don't want
to see Celeborn.
It's tough to say from a teaser, you know, I mean, who knows?
It is, but Warrior Galadriel tells me that they're just going to like take all of Celeborn's
roles and give it to her and not put Celeborn in the story at all.
Potentially, you know, who knows?
And I know they had Hobbits, racially diverse Hobbits.
And that's like a big red flag to me as well.
Yeah, especially when the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, you know, he kind of wrote that
as an alternative take on, you know, English history.
Well, it just doesn't make sense.
I mean, that's like factual reality.
I'm staying within like the confines of lore.
Hobbits were confined to a very small area.
Homogenous, confined community.
Yes.
They are analogous to like the peasantry of England, like a genetically homogenous, small
minded group of fools.
That never travel except for Bilbo and Frodo, but they never travel.
They never leave the Shire.
And who knows if they're even...
They're just narrow minded, simple folk.
That's the whole point.
Yes.
That's like the charm of Hobbits.
And you know what?
And a lot of them didn't like Gandalf.
They gave Gandalf, you know, sideways glances and things when he showed up with his fireworks.
Right.
So even allowing an outsider in wasn't something every Hobbit was on board with.
Right.
After the end of Lord of the Rings, Aragorn even further isolated them by law in Decree.
Yes.
Purposefully protected them from outside influences.
So yeah, it's what it is.
It's what it is.
I'm just not confused about that.
I think it's hard to go way, way, way, way, way back in history and go, yes, we had black
Hobbits, but they left and went to the Black Shire and all of the white Hobbits stayed
here in Whiteshire.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know what kind of crazy shit they're going to have.
They're going to have like Burning Alabama, Burgeoning Hobbiton.
It seems like an odd thing that you have to do like crazy storytelling, writing.
You have to have cartwheels and backflips and contortionism to somehow make a diverse
version of Lord of the Rings.
At that point, it's like if you're going to do all of these crazy writing tricks to try
and say, yeah, we had black Hobbits back then, but now we don't have any.
Just make your own fantasy story with a diverse cast and do your own thing and be 100% creative
instead of stealing somebody else's franchise and then writing your own stuff that you want
into it.
Right.
Just be somewhat lazy and just have the Easterlings come in and now they're black.
Yeah.
Whatever.
Why not?
Right?
That's fine.
Yeah.
Just because Easterlings are technically on the side of Sauron and they were kind of Middle
Eastern in appearance, whatever.
Well, there are other regions that weren't explored in the books.
That's right.
There were other regions where they said that people there were of darker skin.
You could literally take any other region that was never touched in any of the Tolkien
books and venture your own backstory for them and create your own culture for them and have
them come in and it would make sense with everything else.
But even some of the Star Trek stuff, they made these new movies and then they were like,
oh yeah, it doesn't really fit with anything, does it?
We had old Spock from the original stuff and then we have new Spock, alternate timeline.
That's our solution, alternate timeline.
We don't have to worry then.
We can write anything we want.
We can rehash all the old movies that were classics and then just say that they're a
little different.
So, it's not Wrath of Khan because this time Spock yells Khan and it wasn't Kirk that yelled
Khan.
So, it's different, see?
And it's alternate timeline.
Oh, the first time I watched the new Star Trek movie, I did not quite catch on to the
fact that it was alternative timeline right away.
Yeah.
I was watching it and I'm like, what the fuck is this?
It's the laziest writing ever.
A lot of this stuff, you watch this stuff where they're reviving things and they're
bringing things back and they're even with the original cast members and they're bringing
things back like X-Files and other things and it's like, this is the laziest writing
of all time.
You can't possibly be making enough money off of this to justify it, but I guess they
are.
I guess somebody somewhere is like, hey, I love all this rehashed stuff.
I don't want anything new.
I want to, you know, but I don't honestly how.
I'm super excited for Dune.
I like, I mean, I, this break with all this negative talk, I was very pleased with Dune.
I did not like that they gender swapped a few characters, but at the same time, I know
that they're not going to do all of the Dune books.
So the long-term political consequences of that decision will never be seen on the screen
and I'm okay with that.
Yeah, I mean, like I understand.
I'm almost done with children of Dune, the book.
I've got all the books in the original series plus the two that Frank's son and other guy
wrote to finish out Frank's series.
I'm excited to read them all and I'm trying to think like the only, the biggest one I
saw that they gender swapped was Keen's.
Yes.
The planetologist and so far even they still mentioned Keen's every once in a while in
children of Dune, but more in passing.
And I can't possibly see how it would matter if Keen's was a man or a woman.
Like I don't, it doesn't.
Later on it matters, but not, it's not a huge consequence.
Okay.
But it does eventually matter because of the development of political change that happens
over the span of the series, which is over thousands of years, as I'm sure you could
already tell.
Well, yeah.
If you're on children of Dune.
Yeah.
Children of Dune.
So it's Paul's twin kids, spoiler alert, from Dune Messiah.
And then I have a feeling that we're going to kind of like, I mean, what, there's like
eight books or something.
If you count the sand worms of Dune and hunters of Dune that Frank's kid.
Well, there's more than that, but because there's like the expanded Dune universe.
Yeah, but he did.
But yeah.
So his son did like, they did one for each each of the houses and they did one on the
Butlerian.
Well, there's three for the Butlerian Jihad.
There's three books for that.
And then there's three house books that covers like a prequel.
Yeah.
So, you know, if I, I've decided that if I, if I read and finish this kind of like main
storyline arc and like it, then I'll pick up that other stuff that Frank's son and the
other guy did.
I'm on House Harkonnen right now.
Okay.
So I've read a few more than just the original series.
And so the gender stuff does matter in the larger Dune universe, right?
Like the gender politics plays an important role.
And that's like I say, they're not going to make the extended Dune universe on screen.
So I'm okay with that.
And then they kind of reswapped a couple characters too, which is fine.
It's not like the end of the world by any means.
So big deal.
Yeah.
And I guess I would say, I would say from my reading of the first three or almost the
full first three now, some of the gender stuff matters.
I guess in Fremen culture, the women typically aren't the ones that are roaming around the
desert and doing things, right?
They're taking care of the Seaches and offspring and things like that.
Their political power is centered around the CHs and the maintenance of those, which is
the most important part because they're the ones generating all of the wealth.
I'm not trying to minimize that.
And I think in Fremen culture, they really revere their women.
Well, in Fremen culture, the women are the ones who hold all the money because money
is water and they have all the water rings.
Yes.
So it depends on how you want to look at it.
Well, yeah.
But I'm just saying like, even with understanding like that Fremen culture and stuff, like for
Keynes to be a woman in the movie, I don't think that matters.
They're not going to get into all of that stuff.
No, it's not.
They might.
Like I said, I was very happy with the movies.
Yes.
And then, you know what?
They might do a little bit of water rings in this second part with Paul and Zendaya.
I'm sorry.
I can't remember the actual character name.
Shani.
Yes.
So they might do some watering stuff with that because that was kind of like Paul's
only hiccup with Fremen culture in the book, you know, because he got his still suit on,
you know, the right appropriate Fremen way and he knew pretty much everything.
And the water ring thing was kind of like his only hiccup.
So they probably show that in some form in the second part of the movie.
But, you know, I guess for Keynes being a female and then they didn't in the first part
of the movie, they didn't really find out that Keynes was a Fremen until close to the
end of Keynes' life cycle.
But right.
Well, let's be clear.
It's not that Paul knew all of the ways of the Fremen.
It's that he fell into many of their ways naturally because many of the ways of the
of the, oh, come on, now I'm drawing a blank, his house name.
They're not the Harkonnens.
The other ones.
No, Atreides.
Atreides.
Many of the ways of the Atreides were similar to the ways of the Fremen.
So unlike the Harkonnens.
Yes.
So I wasn't overly concerned with any of that stuff.
I, you know, and I had, I watched them.
Well, I watched the mini series first, the Frank Herbert's Dune mini series.
And then I tried to watch the Sting Dune, but I just couldn't do it.
I had to stop it.
Kind of like that last cigar, the Blood Red Moon.
I couldn't get behind the Sting version of Dune.
I've never watched it.
I haven't met the host, but I haven't watched it.
I need to.
But the mini series is great.
And I want to watch, they did a Children of Dune mini series, which is actually Dune Messiah
and Children of Dune combined into one mini series.
And so I want to watch that as well.
But you know, I watched the first part of Denis Vinvue's, you know, Dune part one.
And I said, man, I got to read Dune.
So then I made that a priority and I read Dune.
And it was very interesting because there was a lot more political backstory in the
book than they showed in the movie.
Oh, yes.
Plans within plans within plans.
Right.
Yes.
And that's where the gender politics comes into play.
I realized that's not going to be in the movies.
So yeah, there's only so much you can put in a movie.
And a lot of the stuff that was the plans within plans within plans and a lot of that
political like negotiating was the book can show you inside people's minds, but the movie
is not going to sit there and well, hopefully not if you're a good filmmaker, you're not
going to like here's Lady Jessica and then just have an internal monologue running.
Okay.
Well, I'm looking over at this person and I think they might be doing this because my
Bennett Jesuit training says they might be doing this.
Like we don't want that.
Like that's bad filmmaking to have an internal monologue for not comedy purposes.
Right.
So unless you're, you know, Deadpool, great.
Yeah.
What's that guy's name?
Guy Ritchie.
You know, unless you're Guy Ritchie doing that.
Yes.
Probably not going to work out in your favor.
You know, not if you're trying to make a serious sci fi flick.
So no, like I say, like it was as good as it.
I was very excited for it.
Yeah.
I'm reading the Dune books and currently reading the Extended Universe.
Okay.
I think, I think in contrast to what Star Trek and Star Wars and some other franchises
are doing, if you want to add diversity and you want to be more inclusive, the way they
did it in the Dune part one movie is the right way to do it.
Right.
Okay, it doesn't detract from anything.
It's not a big deal.
These characters aren't always described in the book by skin tone.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Well, there's no spoiler alert.
The Fremen are a spoiler alert for everybody else.
The Fremen are kind of a proxy for Arabs.
So yeah, it makes sense to have black Fremen in a certain way.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And there's millions and millions of them.
So yes.
And there's nothing to say that they've learned.
Yeah.
Well, you've got, and you have space travel.
Not that the Fremen were doing that in the first book, but you have space travel.
You have Arrakis and people go there to get spice.
So to say that nobody ever took a Fremen spouse or child bearer partner, that would be kind
of dumb.
So you could have multiple skin tones of Fremen just because you have all the entirety of
space that would come there because that's the only planet with that commodity that everybody
needs.
And that's why this little backwater desert planet is important.
And that's why we meet the Fremen.
And that's why we, you know, so I think that everything in that, and what they did with
this version, it all makes sense and it's fine.
It doesn't break any of the hard and fast dune rules or, you know, hey, we've got a
black comet suddenly.
It doesn't break any of the lore.
You can have black Fremen.
You can have white Fremen.
You can have tan Fremen.
You know, you can have all of this stuff.
And I think the other spoiler spoiler alert is, which my buddy got really upset.
He's like, I just wish they wouldn't have called that one guy Idaho because that's like,
it just popped me way out of it.
I'm like, well, dude, they're all from earth.
Like all of these people are all from earth.
Like, so, you know, his family probably originated in Idaho and that's what their name they took
on.
You know, I mean, like you got last name like Cooper.
What did they do?
They made barrels and they were Coopers.
They, you know, most British people have names that describe their job and location.
Yeah.
What did Smith do?
I don't know.
Take a wild guess.
Yes.
Most of the, like I say, every British name because it's English, it's just the descriptor
of what they did or what they did and their location, which is a lot of it too.
So I think, but yeah, I think just to kind of like bring it back, Dune, the newest Dune
did that the right way.
You want to have, be a little more inclusive.
You've got all of space, all of humanity.
Basically, you've got people that, you know, modified themselves certain ways they can
only live in, you know, tanks of water or something like that, but they're still started
out as human kind of, and you know, we're generations and generations beyond leaving
earth.
Well, people criticize Frank Herbert for not having computers because they considered a
cop out because of course you make a universe with no computers and now you're no longer
beholden to current technologies.
So it's an aid in many ways.
But that was the whole point of the Butlerian Jihad, was that the AI became sentient or
something and stuff.
And so they only kind of hint at it, you know, in the first three books.
I think in the second book, they talk a little bit more about it because they, well, spoiler
alert again, I guess they bring back Duncan, Idaho from the dead.
But it's this crazy kind of like group of people and they reanimate dead flesh and they
give them their own, their own crazy like robotic eyes.
But it's like just, just enough to not fall prey to the universal rule that we don't have
computers.
But that's why they have Mentats.
They're the human computers.
So they've trained humans to behave like computers.
And I think it's very, very interesting.
And I don't think it's a cop out at all.
I think it's, it's, you know, and then actually, you know, that's why I think his son wrote
those three books about that Jihad because it probably, you know, gives a lot more meat
to that storyline.
So I think it's fascinating.
And I would say kudos to Frank.
Right.
And that's where the only reason why Salia Kynes gender swap makes a problem is that
in the Dune universe, the Benedjesserts are like the breeders of the superhuman program.
Yes.
And women hold the keys to that.
So women have certain power that the men don't have.
And the men, the women are largely not involved with the politics of planetary bullshit because
all of the upper class women are involved with the breeding program.
Yeah.
Well, they don't need to be because they have the true power.
Basically, they have the power that like the real power.
Yeah.
Because all these men have to have to take Benedjessert wives.
Yes.
So, yeah, they're the ones that are controlling who is in charge.
They're not in charge, but they're controlling who is in charge.
So when they can use the voice so they can kind of control, they can manipulate.
Yes.
So I'm near the end of this cigar, by the way.
Yeah, me too.
I like it.
It's very, it's good.
Yeah.
Very pleasant smoke.
I don't think that it's gonna knock anybody's socks off necessarily, but it's very pleasant.
No, yeah, it's not.
It's not going on my short list of, you know, favorite smokes, but it's a solid cigar.
You know, it tastes like more.
I can tell you that.
Yeah, that it does.
So there we go.
Yeah, I like the way they did the voice in the new Dune movie.
I agree.
Yeah, it wasn't too cheesy.
No, and, you know, I don't, it's very, and the way they do the voice in the book, the
way Frank writes it, I think is very, very subtle.
You know, more subtle than they did it in the movie, but if they did it more subtle
in the movie, you wouldn't, you as the viewer wouldn't know when they were doing it because
in the book it's kind of like, you know, Lady Jessica, she, you know, she's like, I, you
know, I pitched my voice to highlight this feeling and that feeling, and then she speaks,
you know.
So you as the reader know because he gave you that clue, but he never really kind of
explained how it sounds.
So I like the way they did it in the movie because it gives you that this is something
that the person can't fight against or can't rebel against.
Right.
So I thought that was well done.
I think I'm sure that they'll explore the witches of the Bene Gesserit more.
Oh, they have to in part two.
And that's like one of the things they, did they call them witches at any point in time?
Oh yeah.
They've been calling them witches, I think even in the first book.
No, I'm talking about in the, oh in the movie.
I'm not sure if they did in the movie.
I know in the book, like whenever somebody gets mad at a Bene Gesserit, they're like,
you're a Bene Gesserit witch.
Oh yeah.
And in the Dewan universe, everybody is consciously aware that these women are like, see, they're
running the show.
Yeah, they're running the show and there's nothing they can do about it because of the
way that their political system works.
They have to.
Yeah.
And you know what?
They're almost like classified, I think, I think they're classified as like a religion
in the Dewan universe.
And they have kind of those special protections where nobody can really go in and kind of
tell them what to do.
They just get to do what they want to do.
Right.
Cause they're the ones, I think they're the ones that have the truth sayers too, right?
Like they're the Bene Gesserit truth sayers.
They kind of control the courts because if you're in power and you want the truth out
of somebody, you bring in a truth sayer and guess what?
That's a Bene Gesserit.
So yeah.
Well, like I say, every major political organization is ran by a man, but that man's wife and that
all that man's daughters are part of the Bene Gesserit order.
Yeah.
And you know, we didn't see, well in the movie anyway, and I don't think in the book, well
actually, you know, in the book, Baron Arkanin, he was like banging little boys and stuff.
Like he brought in like a little boy that looked like Paul in the book.
And that was like, gave me the huge.
So I don't know that he was ever married to a Bene Gesserit.
He didn't have any, he didn't have any offspring, but he's got like a nephew or something.
He did in fact have offspring.
Okay.
Yes.
I guess I didn't spoil your alert to you, I guess.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it's fine.
Like there's so many Dune books that by the time I get to the Arkanin family book, I will
have forgotten.
So yes, yeah.
He did in fact have offspring, but the Bene Gesserit women can also decide whether they
have boys or girls.
Okay.
Internally, they have control over their bodies to the point in the books where they get boys
or girls or not get pregnant or get pregnant.
And they even said that, well, they hinted at it in the Dune movie and in the first Dune
book they did too, where because Lady Jessica went against the Bene Gesserit edict to not
have a boy.
Yes.
Well, she was a heretic.
So yes.
Yes.
So I think that's interesting.
And I think that's what I'm most excited about because I think, you know, after the first
Dune book and maybe even after, you know, Dune Messiah, it gets really into, I think,
from what I've kind of heard, and I haven't tried to read too much about like the Dune
series other than should I get these last two that Frank's son and partner wrote to
finish up his storyline, but that they kind of get into kind of church, church for state,
a lot of politics and religion.
And I think that'll be really interesting.
Like I'm really liking Children of Dune and I've got, I don't know, I don't know how much
left I've got to be 75% done, you know, or more with the books.
So I've been liking it so far.
Yeah, it's like you said, I enjoy it, but it's not for everybody.
Just like anything else.
Not for everybody.
Yeah.
But that's what it comes down to.
And you even said it, like if you don't, if Star Wars makes you angry, don't watch any
new Star Wars.
Watch the Star Wars you like.
You don't have to watch everything ever created about Star Wars.
And the same with Star Trek and same with Terminator.
You know, I'll watch Terminator and Terminator 2 and then that's where I stop.
That's all the Terminators I need to see.
Right.
It does make me disappointed that I'm not watching Star Trek anymore because it's just
not, it's just not the same anymore.
But life moves on, right?
Life moves on.
I was watching Star Trek and now I'm reading Dune and I'm enjoying the extended Dune universe
and that's good.
There's more books than I can ever read in a lifetime and there's definitely more TV
than anybody can ever watch.
It's just the way things are.
Well, and you know, franchises that you enjoy.
Like you loaned me that Ahsoka book and that was great.
You know, franchises you enjoy, there's still a ton of Star Wars books out there, even though
Disney made them not canon, despite what George Lucas said.
But you know what?
You don't need Disney to tell you that you can or can't enjoy a Star Wars book that somebody
else wrote.
Right.
It's only a nonsense anyway.
So yeah.
And I really enjoy Alien and Aliens.
Alien 3 is not good and Alien 4 is absolute trash and whatever Ridley Scott's doing with
Prometheus and Alien Covenant is absolute trash.
But my buddy said, hey, you got to read this Alien series written by this dude and his
daughter and I read it and you know what?
They continued on Newt and Hicks, but they had to call them something different because
they didn't have the copyright to use those names.
And all you had to do in your brain was say, hey, this is Hicks, this is Newt.
And it's a phenomenal three, you know, trilogy continuing their story and it has almost nothing
to do with Ripley.
But it's great.
And there's a whole bunch of stuff like that out there for any franchise you could ever
possibly want.
And you don't have to like the stuff that's officially recognized.
You don't have to say, well, I can't read that because Ridley Scott said that that's
not really how it goes.
Right.
Well, like the latest Fantastic Beasts movie.
I haven't watched it and I'm not going to.
And we are of the age to where I loved Harry Potter growing up.
I read all the books.
I was one of those people that bought them early and all that crap.
And you know, I didn't like all the movies.
I didn't like all the movies, but
So my first exposure to Harry Potter was in college.
And my girlfriend at the time was huge into it.
And she made me watch like the first two Harry Potter movies.
And I said, these are absolute trash.
And I refuse.
And then somebody said, well, have you read the books?
And I said, no, because the movies are so bad.
And they're like, well, read the books.
And then in college, I read all the books and I loved it except for the last chapter,
the last book, because I don't want Harry Potter to be like an accountant or whatever
he was.
Right.
Like the greatest wizard who ever lived of all time is an accountant or something like,
no, that's dumb.
And then Sarah and I, we just watched the movies because they did that reunion special.
We watched that and they were telling all these funny stories.
And so we were like, hey, we should just watch the movies again.
And I was like, yeah, I've only seen like the first two and we watched them.
And actually I liked all of them.
I liked all of them.
They're all, they're all pretty good.
And the way they did the end ending of the last movie was so much better than how J.K.
Rowling ended her last book because it was just the, it was just Ron, Harry and no, not
Ron and Harry.
Oh yeah.
Harry, Ron and Hermione bringing their kids to the station.
And you never knew what they actually did for a profession.
And you didn't know that they all like started to lead sad and depressing lives like the
rest of us.
But well, I think Harry was basically a mid-level bureaucrat at the horror's office.
Yeah, whatever.
But I mean, it's like, he's the greatest wizard ever of all time is what the books made him
out to be until the last chapter.
And then it's like, now he's just a paper pusher.
So I liked how the movie did it because they didn't go into what they were doing with their
lives.
It was just, they're dropping their kids off.
Great.
They're continuing the thing.
Harry could still be off doing crazy adventures.
We don't know.
The mystery.
You liked the mystery.
Yes.
I don't need to know sometimes like the solo Han Solo movie.
I don't need to know what he did.
I like not knowing.
Absolutely.
That's part of the character too.
He's supposed to be like the man with no name when he shows up.
Yes.
And very much the rogue and kind of anti-hero.
And Han Solo did shoot first, just so everybody knows.
Yes.
So everyone's clear.
And there was no CGI comically smaller version of Jabba the Hutt wiggling around the hangar
bay.
No, no, there was not.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
So I think an interesting episode, hopefully you, the listener also thinks so.
I like that we talked about dirty bullshit.
Yeah.
Well, you know what?
Some of the topics and some of the things we've talked about have been pretty heavy
hitting and divisive.
So I think it's good to talk about something that has absolutely no controversy around
it like Star Wars and Star Trek and fan favorite franchises.
That's all stuff we can all agree on, I think.
Right.
I've heard, what the hell was it?
Star Wars fan base is the most toxic fan base on the internet or some bullshit like that.
Yeah.
That's just something Disney says when people don't like that they're lazy about their stories.
Yeah.
It's like, obviously these people are not old enough to have been to the original storm
front.
For those who don't know, you don't want to know, but yeah, we will not be saying the
words that are related to the original storm front, but you can Google it.
You can Google it.
It is, I'm sure they have it on the way back machine.
Yes.
So anyways, this car was good.
I liked the cigar.
Yeah.
I liked this one as well.
Nothing overly pro or con about it.
It was tasty.
Not tasty in a super distinct way where I would associate with anything, but very, very
good.
And I would definitely smoke another one.
Yeah.
I would, if somebody hands you one, I would definitely smoke it.
And if you're looking for something to, you know, sit down and shoot the breeze and enjoy
your smoke, it's a good choice.
Yes indeed.
Well, as always, thanks for listening.
Have a happy 4th of July in the past.
Yes.
Think back to two weeks ago.
Hopefully your heartbreak and whatever nasty shit you did, you'll get over.
Yes.
And hopefully you drank some Natterdays.
Yes.
Something like that.
All right.
We'll catch you next episode.
Have a good day.