In their darkest hour as Star Wars fans, Chuck and his #1 Phan find hope in watching the recent LEGO special that came out on Life Day. Would they have enjoyed it if they didn't watch either the prequel or the sequel trilogy? Even though the dark side can be seductive in its ways of luring wide-eyed people into a false sense of righteousness, there's so much out there to love that there's really no place for hate. Listen to these nerds go at it. 

In a loaded effort to explain the LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special, Chuck and his #1 Phan continue their explore their respective fandoms. The Sequel Trilogy offered some hope after their shared disdain for the Prequel Trilogy, but new fissures emerge . They confront an argument they had in 2015 about The Force Awakens and re-visit their divergent thoughts on The Last Jedi. After some re-calibration, Chuck and his #1 Phan find they have much more in common than they thought. One they can easily agree on: Kelly Marie Tran is our queen.

Chuck and his #1 Phan had a strong reaction to the recently released Star Wars LEGO Holiday Special. What began as a light-hearted attempt at a podcast turned into an epic of its own. In this first chapter, they set the context for their reaction by talking about the origins of their shared yet notably distinct approaches to Star Wars fandom, going from wide-eyed Jedi wannabes to disillusioned young adults. It only gets more intense from here.

Unlike other Asian-American groups, Vietnamese-Americans lean politically conservative. Chuck and His #1 Phan do not, and it's screwing up their holiday plans and their future relationships with their loved ones. This could all be a moot point because they're supposed to stay in and avoid the pandemic, but there's enough activity on social media to trigger a squadron of water buffalo. This episode is long - and it could have been longer.

The trailer to Disney's "Raya and the Last Dragon" dropped recently, and Chuck and His #1 Phan have a lot of feels: excitement, anxiety, concern, skepticism, and ultimately ... optimism? Here us revisit our past thoughts on cultural appropriation, plagiarism done right(?), and whether or not we welcome our Mickey Mouse monopolistic overlords.  

Chuck saw this image on Reddit and wanted to talk about it. Just under 30 minutes later, we examine our own biases and re-visit ongoing conversations about cultural appropriation and where we're at as of late with the so-called "rules of engagement" on such sensitive matters.

Chuck texted his #1 Phan in the morning to express how he was emotionally impacted by the release of the trailer to MINARI, starring Steven Yeun. Hours later, they got together to talk about the trailer and upcoming film and how it relates to their own struggles. Things get emotional for the first episode ever of this podcast.

They discuss the peculiar case of ethnic group representation in film and their sense of belonging, place, and responsibility - which might just be the whole point of MINAMI. The challenge of building empathy is not just a geographic burden, but a longitudinal one. Let's start with the generation above us first.