A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast

With this pair of episodes, it seems accurate to say we've truly entered Rebels proper. Not because some production technique has finally hit its stride, or because we've reached some grand revelation, or seen a major swing in character development. Instead, it's because these are just two totally familiar, stock procedural episode formats: "Kid goes undercover" and "two people argue and bond in t...

Dedicated television watchers know that you can only learn so much from a show's pilot episode. Performances might not be dialed all the way in yet. The show's style of composition, blocking, editing, and other cinematic elements is still under construction. Hell, even the tone and attitude might be up in the air. But by episode 5, all that wet cement has started to set into a more final shape. An...

We did it! We made it through the Clone Wars Legacy materials, past Solo (for some reason), and into the heart of the show that is going to take over our lives for the next year plus—or at least until Andor season 2 starts. Today we kick off Star Wars: Rebels, meeting the crew in a series of four, hijinks-laden shorts and then moving on to the two part intro that sets Ezra Bridger on a journey to....

Here we are. Our final diversion before we finally arrive at Rebels . And what a diversion it is. A couple of really good heists. A couple of great performances. Solid props and sets. An incredibly paced, 60 minute film. I'm sorry. Huh? You're telling me... you're saying that's not even half the movie? It what? It botches a droid liberation arc? They do what  with the droid freedom fighter's still...

60 episodes. Minus like, a dozen Andor eps. Plus a bunch of Patreon bonus Q&As. That's how long it's taken us to get through the original run of Clone Wars, plus the Legacy materials released soon after the end of its 6th season—culminating with today's episode on the Asajj Ventress/Quinlan Vos romantic adventure  Dark Disciple . It's truly all come down to this... Which means, of course, that we...

Before we complete our journey out of the Clone Wars and into Rebels, we have a few final stops to make. First, we find out what ever happened to Darth Maul after the events of the Shadow Collective Arc. Then we get an absolute banger in the unfinished story reel version of The Crystal Crisis of Utapau, an arc too good to have been left in this state indefinitely.  Just one more stop to go before...

Come to the end of Clone Wars' original run, we have.   No. No I won't do it. You can't make me write in Yoda. Yoda doesn't even write in Yoda, I bet.  Lie, Yoda does n- No. No I'm not going to have a big, Gollum-like argument with myself either. This arc already did that and it wasn't good then, so why would it be now?  In any case. This is it: The end of Season 6. For millions of fans, it served...

After a brief hiatus due to health, travel, and a half dozen other delays, we are back to the Clone Wars. And what a return it is. We begin on the world of Bardotta, where a culture of force sensitives (and Jedi haters) are led by a queen with the best taste in men we've seen so far in this series. Then, finally (well...), we (sort of) learn the (tentative) truth about a mystery we've long been dr...

Today on AMCA, we're teeing up something special for those of you who love it when we go wild creating our own AUs and OCs!  About six months ago, Ali and Austin of AMCA joined the rest of the cast of our sister podcast, Friends at the Table, to do a two day charity marathon raising money for the National Network of Abortion Funds. As part of that effort, we set a bunch of stretch goals, including...

Have there been better arcs of Clone Wars? Absolutely. Have there been arcs that more cleverly dissect the hypocrisy of the Jedi or Anakin's fall to the dark side? Undoubtedly. Are there better duels, dogfights, and tests of will? Of course. But has there ever been a Clone Wars arc as  toxic  as this one? Oh, no my friends, in that regard we have absolutely peaked. NEXT TIME: Episodes 116 - 118 ("...

Happy New Year! As everyone moves into the new year, we're moving both backwards and forwards at the same time. With the Autumn of Andor (mostly) behind us, we return to our ongoing Clone Wars rewatch. But we also move forward into a new season, picking up with Anakin Skywalker feeling a little more dour than usual as he leads a tired clone force in a circular battle against a foe he thought was l...

In our final episode of the year, we're joined by Kirk Hamilton of Strong Songs , Triple Click, and the Kotaku review of Destiny 2  fame . (No, really, it's one of my all time favorite reviews. Go read it!) Over on Strong Songs, Kirk recently dove headfirst into Nicholas Britell's excellent  Andor  score . Today, he's joining us to talk through music's place in the show and in Star Wars in general...

As promised, the Autumn of Andor continues! Today, we've got the first of three guest-filled episodes coming to you this December. We are joined by Adam Serwer, author of The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump's America , staff writer at The Atlantic , and life long Star Wars fan. We share and contextualize our final feelings on Andor, explore the tensions and consonances...

Surprise! Thanks to a very kind mystery contact with their own very kind mystery contacts inside of Lucasfilm (and/or Disney Plus), we were given last minute screener access to the Andor finale. And you better believe we hustled to watch it, prep our notes, and deliver the longest episode of our Andor season and  one of the longest episodes we've ever recorded. Come for our emotional reactions to...

As Cassian and Melshi put distance between themselves and Narkina 5, the rest of the galaxy spins just  thus,  aligning such that many of our principal players will wind up together on Ferrix. And those that won't, well, they're busy uh... talking about Trad Chandrillan customs, so, you know, equally as exciting.  Like many of you, we have spent the last ten episodes on the edge of our seats, eage...

If you rewind the clock by two years, it was today, November 14th, that Ali, Rob, Natalie, and I got in the same group DM and made a decision: Let's do a Clone Wars podcast. Today, our 50th episode releases, and let me tell you: On that day, we could not BEGIN to imagine how much we would be feasting. Today's episode of Andor is a tight, focused 43 minute exploration of revolutionary sacrifice in...

There are many things about Andor that, push come to shove, I think we could have predicted. Self-sufficient (if selfish) rogue slowly warms to a rebellion? Sure. Imperial bureaucracy tightens its snare around the revolutionary and the uninvolved alike? Definitely. Coruscanti political drama? Probably, hell, they had that in Clone Wars. But there are scenes in this week's Andor that never in one h...

If you made fun of us for going long on a previous Andor episode, well the joke is on you, because you should've waited for this week. In what can only be described as (minute-for-minute and pound-for-pound) our MOST five star runtime episode yet, we delve into all manner of bleak material. There's prison labor. There's a bitter-yet-functional marriage. There's a snare slowly tightening around a r...

After a nail-biting heist, what could follow for Andor ? Unsurprisingly, a talky episode all about the Empire's response to the fledgling rebellion, filled with juicy details about galactic policy decisions, intelligence agency maneuvering, and a bunch of difficult emotional conversations. And, of course... Space Miami. NEXT TIME: Andor Episode 08 Show Notes Hosted by Rob Zacny ( @RobZacny ) Featu...

Wow, what a season. From the opening at the rainy PreMor leisure district to the climactic conclusion in highlands of Aldh- What's that?  You're saying this is only the halfway point of the series? The halfway point of the  first season of the series?  No, that can't be right. You're saying that after this—perhaps the best pound-for-pound filmmaking we've covered on the podcast—we get... more?  Wo...

We finished last episode with two desires: To sit in on an absolutely terrible dinner evening and to watch the beginning of a high intensity heist. We got neither, and instead have received a feast unlike any we could've hoped for. From Coruscant to Aldhani, we trace four stories about families bickering. A mother dressing up insults in the language of care. A father leaning back and watching in g...

Three episodes can trick you. It's enough that you think: Okay, I have the gist of the show. I understand what's going on here. I get the moves the filmmakers like to make, I understand tone and theme. I get what the actors have at their disposal. But three episodes is nothing. Sometimes a showrunner handles the introductory arc themself, only to step back afterwards. Budgets dip. The relationship...

A More Civilized Age has never been a show with a plan so much as a set of interests. We've never even really known what is coming in the primary topic for our show, The Clone Wars , and that's allowed us to have some incredible experiences and, we hope, some fun surprises to share with you that compensates for the fact that we can't analyze this with a complete knowledge of the text. That also me...

Do you remember when, in one of last arc's Filoni Zones, Dave said something like "...it's the best fight that we've ever done... until next episode's." Well, that might be true for in a broader sense for this arc, too. Somehow, after the low lows of the middle of this season, we've hit an absolute golden pair of arcs to close it out. This week's material isn't  perfect— the mystery has an unfortu...

We've had some hard times here, haven't we gang? Aspirin defending bounty hunters. Bogan fruit. Juggling Jar-Jar. Lux Bonteri, heartthrob and super soldier. Younglings. Droids in voids.  Well. You know what? For the string of episodes we're kicking off today, it was worth it. All of it.  If you haven't watched the last few arcs, take our recommendation and go watch this one before listening. You o...