Dr. Gwynette: Hello and welcome to the Autism News Network podcast, episode six. This is a bonus episode, featuring Clay Seim and Josh Miller together. We are going to cover a couple of hopefully fun topics, because we are realizing in the moment that these young men have some interests in common and we want to take advantage of that and get some expertise about a couple topics. Josh, Clay, welcome.

Josh Miller: Welcome. Thank you.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. Thanks for being here. Yeah, when we sat down we just kind of put together that you guys are both huge Star Wars buffs.

Clay Seim: Yeah.

Josh Miller: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. And do you have any particular film that’s your favorite?

Clay Seim: Not particularly. I don’t have a favorite. I don’t like to have favorites in anything, really.

Josh Miller: I don’t know. I mean, I was always a fan. My favorite ones were Rogue One and then Revenge of the Sith.

Dr. Gwynette: Okay.

Josh Miller: I really loved seeing how Anakin was seduced and became Darth Vader. And then Rogue One was just really, really awesome. It was like seeing how the non force people fought without Jedi assistance.

Clay Seim: You ever watch the Clone War series that came out?

Josh Miller: I did. Both of them. That and the Genndy Tartakovsky series that came out in what, ’03?

Clay Seim: Oh yeah, that was forever ago.

Josh Miller: Yeah.

Dr. Gwynette: That’s awesome. Do you have any favorite scene from all the series?

Clay Seim: Well if we’re talking Rogue One, I think that the Vader hallway scene’s got to take the …

Josh Miller: Yeah.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: I think for me, it had to have to be the Clone War series that you were talking about. I love the Mortis arc, because you got to see the spiritual side of it was the father, son and daughter. The father representing balance, son representing darkness and the daughter representing light. And the General Krell saga … Bear with me.

Clay Seim: Oh, Krell. The Umbara. Umbara.

Josh Miller: Yeah. The Umbara saga, because that was almost like Apocalypse Now in Star Wars.

Dr. Gwynette: Wow. Yeah.

Josh Miller: You know so-

Clay Seim: Quite dark. I really liked … Because I feel like I do like the story of Anakin falling to the dark side and what does it take to turn a person. But I feel like, crazily enough, that the Clone Wars series did a much better job of showing Anakin’s … Well, they had more time.

Josh Miller: Yeah. I mean-

Clay Seim: They had a lot more time to do it, so I found that that was a lot more intriguing for me in that than it was even in Revenge of the Sith and Attack of the Clones, because you were explore to explore that a lot more. You were able to see him. And it’s not some horrible monster aspect of his personality, it’s him caring for everybody and caring too much.

Josh Miller: He was seduced.

Clay Seim: And being willing to sacrifice everything just to help the people that he really cares about.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: And Palpatine unfortunately played on that and seduced him.

Clay Seim: Palpatine will play on anything.

Josh Miller: And then in the lost episodes that Netflix did-

Clay Seim: Yeah.

Josh Miller: My favorite one out of that one would’ve been the Order 66, when-

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Clay Seim: Oh, poor Fives.

Josh Miller: Yeah. Fives and Tups, his inhibitor chip accidentally malfunctioned and he wanted to trigger Order 66 too soon. So Palpatine had to go and try and stop him because it was too soon. He couldn’t have the Jedi know about it until it was the perfect time.

Clay Seim: Yeah.

Josh Miller: So that was kind of sad.

Clay Seim: I was mixed on that a little bit, just because the Jedi get so tantalizingly close to discovering the plot-

Josh Miller: I know. They were.

Clay Seim: They’re just oblivious sometimes. It’s just like “Ah, this is some weird geonotion tech. How’d that get in there? Oh well. I guess it was just some random Sith lord.” Don’t look into that too much. We’ll be fine.

Josh Miller: Or another one. The perfect, right when the Clone War started, they have the army.

Clay Seim: Oh, yeah. This army popped out of nowhere. Let’s just use it.

Josh Miller: Just out of nowhere. And let’s just use it. I mean, and clones no less. I’m sure there’s some honest explanation for how these three million something clone troopers here right when we needed them.

Clay Seim: [inaudible 00:03:57] didn’t he?

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. Do you guys have your Disney plus subscription also?

Clay Seim: I do not.

Josh Miller: No.

Clay Seim: I’m waiting until probably the Clone Wars come out in February.

Dr. Gwynette: So you haven’t watched the … You don’t have yours, Josh?

Josh Miller: No because I’m going to be honest with you, I’m cheap.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: So I mean, and I’m not going to get it right now. And to be honest with you, I just got CBS All Access last night.

Dr. Gwynette: Okay.

Josh Miller: And I’d rather see the Picard show from Star Trek that’s coming out January 23.

Dr. Gwynette: Gotcha.

Josh Miller: I’d rather see that first than the Mandalorian.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. What are you guys hearing about the Mandalorian?

Clay Seim: I heard it’s good. It’s a good balance between classic Star Wars and more gritty Western feel. That’s what I’ve heard.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. I watched the first episode and a half and man, the first half of the first episode, to be honest, was just boring because it was a lot of set up.

Josh Miller: See, that’s what I’m afraid of.

Dr. Gwynette: And nothing happened. And then finally at the end, the plot gets twisted. Have you heard about the end of the first episode?

Clay Seim: No.

Josh Miller: I know it’s got baby Yoda like species in it.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Clay Seim: That’s the only thing I know about it too.

Dr. Gwynette: Exactly. That’s what I saw. And at that point-

Clay Seim: Oh, spoiler warning, by the way.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. That’s a spoiler alert. But at that point, I was hooked. So you guys are young and you haven’t aged into your own wisdom yet. Because you have no love for episodes four, five and six.

Clay Seim: I like the original trilogy.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah?

Josh Miller: No, I do. I mean, because you got to keep in mind, when I first got hooked on Star Wars-

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah?

Josh Miller: Is when they were redoing the original trilogy.

Clay Seim: That’s all there was when we were younger.

Josh Miller: In the 90’s. So I think in 1997, I think-

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. The Phantom Menace?

Josh Miller: No. It’s ’99. In 1996 … It was ’96 to ’97 or something. I don’t know. It was the mid-90’s and George Lucas decided to air episodes four, five and six, A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but he remastered them.

Dr. Gwynette: Oh, that’s right.

Josh Miller: With technology that was state of the art for the 90’s.

Clay Seim: Mine wasn’t even that. We just had some old VHS tapes.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: But that’s how I watched it. Yeah, with VHS tapes.

Clay Seim: I found some old VHS tapes that we had in the 90’s and just watched the heck out of those.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. Do you guys remember … You were talking about driving earlier, Clay, in an earlier episode. Do you remember those bikers in Return of the Jedi, in the forest?

Clay Seim: Yeah, no.

Dr. Gwynette: And when you talk about reaction time.

Clay Seim: Let’s just go 200, 300 miles per hour around the forest. That’ll work. I mean, it worked out really well for them, honestly. 10 out of 10, would do again.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah, just like “Splat.” But the sound-

Clay Seim: It went like “Kaboom” man.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. The sound of those machines were awesome. So yeah, that was-

Josh Miller: And that was my favorite episode, to be honest with you, out of the original trilogy, was Return of the Jedi.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: The Ewoks-

Clay Seim: Empire Strikes Back for me.

Josh Miller: The Ewoks, I didn’t really care for the Ewoks. I thought that was obviously a cash grab for the kids.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: To make toys.

Dr. Gwynette: Because I remember, yeah The Return of the Jedi came out when I was like 10 years old and it was just about the biggest thing that had ever happened to my world at that point. I mean, it was massive. I saw Star Wars in the theater when I was four or something but I hardly remembered it. And then Empire Strikes Back, I don’t even remember seeing that one. It’s more serious. But yeah, so you guys are really here and aware during a wonderful Star Wars renaissance. It’s really great.

Clay Seim: It’s okay. It’s hit or miss sometimes.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Clay Seim: But on the whole, it’s a good thing.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. Now did you guys-

Clay Seim: You just worry about how far they’re going to take it.

Dr. Gwynette: Right.

Clay Seim: Like I worry that we get another five years down the line and they’ve just been pumping stuff out. And you got to worry about quality over quantity at some point.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. That’s right. Did you guys like Solo or?

Clay Seim: Solo was good. It was overshadowed by-

Dr. Gwynette: The Last Jedi?

Clay Seim: Yes.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Clay Seim: Which was not very … Which was very divisive, I should say. It was actually popular with some people.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Clay Seim: So it was just very divisive. I didn’t think The Last Jedi was that bad.

Josh Miller: I didn’t either.

Clay Seim: Like you have people who love it. You have people who hate it. I feel like it has it’s weaker parts and it’s definitely one of the weaker installments, but it wasn’t-

Josh Miller: Personally, I thought Phantom Menace was worse than Last Jedi.

Dr. Gwynette: Jar Jar Binks was just brutal.

Clay Seim: Yeah, they both have their moments.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. And Josh, what-

Clay Seim: It’s a Leia quote, you know is, you look at some of the weaker installments and it’s like “You do have your moments. Not many of them.”

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: Well, when you got a franchise that big-

Clay Seim: Yeah. You’re going to have some weaker ones.

Josh Miller: Yeah. It’s going to be impossible not to have a weak one.

Clay Seim: For sure. But about Solo is, yeah I felt like it had that against it to where everybody was still freaking out over The Last Jedi and it’s not a Star Wars saga film.

Dr. Gwynette: Right.

Clay Seim: So people when in expecting a saga film and Solo’s not a saga. It’s an action movie set in the Star Wars universe.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah, it’s kind of like a backstory.

Clay Seim: It’s a heist movie in the Star Wars universe.

Dr. Gwynette: Gotcha.

Clay Seim: It’s not a saga film.

Dr. Gwynette: I see.

Clay Seim: So if you go in expecting these grandiose space battles and light saber duels-

Dr. Gwynette: Right. It’s different.

Clay Seim: You get a heist movie and it’s just like “Well, what’s this?” That’s Solo. That’s what it’s there for. It’s not there to be a huge saga film.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Clay Seim: It’s there to give some backstory for one of the main characters of the original trilogy.

Josh Miller: And my opinion on Solo is, you could tell that they’re on their third director. I mean, you could tell that it just quality wise … It wasn’t that it was a bad movie. My only big complaint with Solo is that it suffered … Especially the first 25 percent of the movie or so … It suffered from the same side effect of the Game of Thrones scene in the last season where the zombies were fighting in Winterfell, where it was just, the background was so dark.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: And I don’t mean graphic wise. I just mean it was literally dark. Like you had to turn the brightness up on your TV to be able to see. And I felt like that was annoying. Because Solo suffered from that, especially in the beginning, after Solo joined the Imperial Forces and he’s fighting on what, Mimban or whatever it’s called?

Clay Seim: Yup. Mimban.

Josh Miller: It’s really dark. He can’t really see.

Dr. Gwynette: You’re just starving for light. Yeah.

Josh Miller: You can’t really see. And then right before that when he’s on [inaudible 00:09:54] and that slug like creature that runs the … Wherever she ran. I can’t think of it at the moment. But it was also dark in that scene too. So that’s just annoying to me.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: I want to be able to see. I don’t want to have to turn up the brightness on the TV.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: That’s more work than I want to do.

Dr. Gwynette: Absolutely. And we’re up against the time but I have just a couple more questions. So, a Mandalorian, is that Boba Fett or not?

Clay Seim: No.

Dr. Gwynette: It’s not?

Clay Seim: Is it?

Josh Miller: It depends on what book series. I mean, it depends on-

Clay Seim: The Mandalorian is not Boba Fett though.

Josh Miller: No, no.

Dr. Gwynette: Is it his race or something or?

Clay Seim: Okay so, we got a couple different things. We have legends and more canon material.

Josh Miller: If you go by Disney canon, then the Mandalorian in the show Mandalorian, I believe is actually a Mandalorian, which is a group of humans from-

Clay Seim: Planet Mandalor.

Josh Miller: From Planet Mandalor.

Clay Seim: Warrior culture.

Josh Miller: Yeah.

Clay Seim: It’s more of a culture than it is anything else.

Josh Miller: Essentially they’re like vikings in space.

Clay Seim: More or less.

Dr. Gwynette: Because they look like Boba Fett but he didn’t have the jet-

Clay Seim: He has Mandalorian armor.

Dr. Gwynette: Okay. Armor.

Clay Seim: So he and his father … I’m not sure what the current canon is, but I know in legends-

Josh Miller: He’s not Mandalorian in the Disney canon.

Clay Seim: Disney canon he’s not Mandalorian.

Dr. Gwynette: Okay.

Clay Seim: He just had the armor.

Dr. Gwynette: Okay.

Clay Seim: So it’s some of the best armor in the galaxy.

Dr. Gwynette: It really is. And actually, one of the mains scenes is, he gets a-

Clay Seim: [inaudible 00:11:17]

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah. He gets a payment of [inaudible 00:11:20], I guess.

Clay Seim: Yeah.

Dr. Gwynette: And the person melts it down and it’s this five minute scene where they melt it down and it cools and they put it onto his shoulder and then he rolls with that. And it’s like “Wow.” Yeah. It’s really intense. All right, cool. So I have one more Star Wars question. I’ve been trying to think of what that would be, but I guess it’s like-

Josh Miller: Also, the one thing I liked about Solo is that it had a Back to the Future reference in it.

Dr. Gwynette: Are you serious?

Josh Miller: Yeah. When Solo is flying in the mall, in the scene towards the end where he’s flying in the mall after he left Kessel and he mentioned Needles.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: You know, he’s saying he was crazy or something. That is a reference to Back to the Future. Part two and three, because Needles was the guy that always called McFly chicken.

Dr. Gwynette: Oh, that’s hilarious.

Josh Miller: And that raced him in part three, towards the end.

Dr. Gwynette: So the writers, they’re fans and they’re being playful and-

Josh Miller: Apparently.

Dr. Gwynette: That’s a great pick up on your part. Yeah, so my question is, let’s say that you have a choice of one of two Star Wars characters that you have to go on a mission with. This is like a military mission to rescue Princess Leia, and you’re only allowed to have one. Are you going with Obi Wan Kenobi or Yoda and why?

Clay Seim: What time period are we talking here?

Dr. Gwynette: No idea.

Josh Miller: I don’t know. For me, I don’t know. I mean, I was always fond of Yoda.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Josh Miller: I don’t know. I mean, he wasn’t perfect either. He had his flaws. But I just really like Yoda. He tried. His heart was always in the right place. And he’s wise because at 900 years old, you would hope that he’s gained intelligence.

Clay Seim: If we’re talking about rescuing Princess Leia, I’m assuming that we’re either in between three and four-

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Clay Seim: Or after, right around the Galactic Civil War era.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Clay Seim: So Yoda’s pretty decrepit at this point.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Clay Seim: I mean to be fair, he is 900 years old. He has all the rights in the galaxy to be decrepit, but he’s pretty decrepit at this point. I think I’m going to go with Kenobi just because A. He’s a little more alive at this point.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Clay Seim: And he’s a little more spry, even in his old age. Like you got to remember that most of that aging there is just [inaudible 00:13:42] two suns.

Dr. Gwynette: Right.

Clay Seim: Just the double-

Dr. Gwynette: Okay.

Josh Miller: Yeah, because he’s not as old as he looks. That’s the funny thing.

Clay Seim: He’s not. That’s the crazy thing. I’m going to go with Kenobi because A. He’s a lot younger. He’s still a Jedi master. He’s still a Jedi council member. And I think honestly, because he’s a bit younger, he’s going to have more to give to the fight than Yoda would at that point.

Dr. Gwynette: Yeah.

Clay Seim: And number two, if we get into trouble, I always know that he’s just going to sacrifice himself so that I can get away. Because there’s precedent for that.

Dr. Gwynette: Is that right? Yeah.

Clay Seim: That’s definitely my choice.

Dr. Gwynette: Excellent. So at the peak of their powers, taking time away-

Clay Seim: Yoda. Every time.

Dr. Gwynette: Yoda’s more powerful?

Clay Seim: Yoda every time.

Dr. Gwynette: Okay.

Clay Seim: That’s like, Yoda and Palpatine, both of them, whole nother level.

Dr. Gwynette: Okay.

Clay Seim: To everybody else.

Dr. Gwynette: Okay. Gotcha. Well that was educational for me. I mean, as you can tell, I’m a huge Star Wars fan, but you guys have an extensive depth of knowledge. And we need to do this again.

Josh Miller: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Gwynette: And I know you guys both also like World War II, so maybe we can have you guys come back and we can talk about some of that history.

Clay Seim: Sure.

Dr. Gwynette: But this has really been a pleasure. So Josh, thanks for being here. And Clay, thanks for being here for episode six of the Autism News Network. And we thank you as the audience for joining us and we look forward to talking again with you soon. Thank you.