A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast

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 its many forms. And while I could not call this nearly three hour long episode of our show anything close to "tight," I do think it's one of our best yet. So please, tell a friend, review the show on your podcast platform of choice, and (if you're in a place where you can) go ahead and give us some support on our Patreon.

Here's to 50 more episodes of yelling about Jedi hypocrisy, theorizing about crybaby fascists, sometimes, complaining about mid-tier fandom, coming up with our own outlandish AUs, and (every once in a while) offering deep analysis.

NEXT TIME: Andor Episode 11

Show Notes

Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny)

Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson)

Produced by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal)

Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)

You can support the show and gain access to a monthly Q&A cast by going to patreon.com/civilized

With today's episode, we bring The Clone Wars Season 4 to an end and kick Season 5 off with, if not a bang, then at least the death of a somewhat major Jedi. Our Favorite Zabrak, Savage Opress (ugh) is back! And this time, he's got a brother turned partner in crime turned abusive boss.

While these eps do have some low lows, they also have a few extremely high highs: A diner, a warehouse worker who steals our heart, an Obi-Wan/Ventress flirt-a-thon, and... finally... at least some of our hearts melting for a fan favorite character we have really hated up until now.

NEXT TIME: Episodes 91- 94 ("A War on Two Fronts," "Front Runners," "The Soft War," and "Tipping Points")

You can support the show and gain access to a monthly Q&A cast by going to patreon.com/civilized

Show Notes

Deaths: Morley the Disney Snake, Too-Loyal Pirate Sabo, Jedi Master Adi Gallia

Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny)

Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson)

Produced by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal)

Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)

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 the return of voices we'd thought we'd heard the last of. Stay for our dive into 2000s-era anarchist philosophy. And then rate us five stars for all the time we dedicate to talking about our very favorite absolutely rotten relationships.

ALSO: As a special bonus for our Patrons, we recorded our own live reactions when we group watched this episode together. Go to patreon.com/civilized, support us at the $5 level, and you can hear each of our exuberant pop offs, our surprised gasps, our wavering voices, and our howls for the most rancid of love stories.

NEXT TIME: No episode on the 30th (this is that episode), and potentially no episode on the 7th. But we have a bunch of great stuff queued up for December, so look forward to it!

Show Notes

The Coming Insurrection by the Invisible Committee

We are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism

Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny)

Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson)

Produced by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal)

Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)

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 as a finale for The Clone Wars for six years. A deep dive about some basics of the force. A return of a voice long thought lost. A bunch of new force lore that we did not need. And, of course, an attempt to make everything just a little too tidy. Could it really end any other way?

Next Time: Star Wars: Darth Maul - Son of Dathomir Issues 1-4 and Crystal Crisis on Utapau

Show Notes

Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny)

Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson)

Produced by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal)

Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)

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 meant that we never really had a plan for “what happens after we watch The Clone Wars?” That was a conversation for the future. We’d wrap up our project and then think about whether or not there were any other shows that we felt so passionately about that we’d want to widen the scope of AMCA.

But it turns out that if you spend two years working on a Star Wars podcast the future might just become the present and force the issue before you are ready.

As you might have gleaned when we watched the trailer, Andor had all the hallmarks of a show that would speak to the things we were most interested in when it came to Star Wars. And indeed, from the minute the first episodes came out, it was clear we needed to drop everything and let our own excitement be our guide.

So: For the next couple months, we’re going to leave Ahsoka on the steps of the Jedi Temple at the end of Season 5 and spend some time with Andor.

Now, we have a plan for the rest of the Clone Wars and we’d already started work on Season 6 when we made this turn, so we’re not scrapping the heart of what AMCA has been about. But for the next couple months, we’re going to be hitting the latest episode of Andor every week and continuing with our monthly Q and As.

We hope you're as excited about these next few months of AMCA as we are. It’s fair to say that the post-Disney, post-Abrams era of Star Wars has been very hit or miss, but if nothing else it feels like Andor already feels like a show that has paid attention to and is ready to spark more of the most interesting conversations you can have about Star Wars and its fictional history. Will it stick the landing? Your guess is as good as ours, but we’re excited to take the ride with you.

-Rob Zacny

NEXT TIME: Andor Episode 04

Show Notes

Huge shout outs to @XEECEEVEVO for the new art! Go check out their visual novel about murder and mystery in a 15th century convent, Misericorde!

Tony Gilroy on the Screenwriting of 'Andor'

‘What’s the Bodega Look Like on Coruscant?’: Tony Gilroy on Making ‘Andor’ – and Fighting Off a ‘Michael Clayton’ TV Series

Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny)

Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson)

Produced by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal)

Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)