The Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter: March 15, 2024
Bad Batch action, Grogu's origin story, and Rogue Squadron just might happen.
Hello there
Welcome back to the Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. This week we’ve got a fun one. The Bad Batch keeps on batchin’, we had a banger of a two-part episode this week. Some true Sicko out there thinks they discovered the origin story of Baby Yoda. Spoiler alert, it’s in the comic books. The comic books are low key the craziest stories in Star Wars and nobody thinks about it. It’s like how LinkedIn is actually the craziest (mainstream) social media site. You don’t think about it, but it’s true. And finally a movie we thought was dead is getting a new life.
As always, if you like what’s happening here at Death Star HR, tell a Star Wars loving person in your life about me. Or, tell one of those Dune watchers. There’s sand and spice in Star Wars. They might like it. Now, let’s get to it.
This Is Where The Fun Begins
Got this text from long time real life friend and Death Star HR reader Obi-Wan Kenippy.
This man is a true Sicko and I salute him.
Crosshair’s Shifting Loyalty
Our favorite salty defective Clone has been the star of season 3 thus far, and probably had the biggest journey of any character. He started as a solider for the Republic. Then after Order 66 he fought for the Empire, even telling Hunter that it wasn’t his inhibitor chip, he chose the Empire. Unfortunately Clones didn’t really feature into Palpatine’s long term plans, and after an ill-fated mission on an Imperial outpost, Crosshair had enough. And now he’s come full circle and is back with Clone Force 99. Is Crosshair really loyal to his brothers? Or has he just run out of options and his bidding his time until he can leave again?
Crosshair says loyalty should go both ways. That’s what caused his change of heart. So far he seems to be living up to it. He took on protecting Omega during battle, a job usually done by Hunter or Wrecker. I’ve thought for a while that Clone Force 99 isn’t going to survive the series finale. Crosshair is going to come full circle and prove he’s loyal to his brothers by doing something…likely sacrificing himself to save Omega. Because she never gave up on him.
Organizations are rarely deserving of your blind loyalty. The Republic was corrupt, but at least they were trying. The Empire is…well…it’s the Empire. Look at the real world. There was a time that you’d work job your whole life. The deal was you didn’t leave and the company took care of you. That doesn’t exist. Trust in government and participation in civic institutions seems to get lower every year. Why show any loyalty to an organization that doesn’t show it in return? In the end, Crosshair went back to his brothers who have (grudgingly) welcomed him. I mean, he did try to kill them. So be loyal to your people. Because in the end that’s all we’ve got.
Some random thoughts on episodes 6 and 7.
The opening scene had a very John le Carre feel to it. A lonely meeting with Senators Singh and Chuchi, the location off the beaten path, the assassination attempt. It gave me “opening scene of Tinker Tailor Solider Spy” vibes.
I like the idea of Palpatine being concerned citizens of the Empire think of him, like he’s sitting in his office yelling at the HoloNet News for reporting that his approval rating is down.
Wrecker and Batcher. Love it. I want to see more of the two of them teamed up.
Omega copying Crosshair’s mannerisms. Also love it. And I liked Hunter’s look when he saw her chewing on the toothpick.
It was fun seeing the Clones we know. Glad Rex is back. And as soon as I saw Wolffe, I wondered if he was going to join up with Rex. But it looks like Wolffe still has his own journey to take.
We also know from the trailers that Cad Bane, Fennec Shand, and Asajj Ventress are still out there. If I had to guess, which I don’t have to but I’m going to, Dr. Hemock gets sick of the Shadow Clones failing to capture Omega so he starting hiring bounty hunters.
Is the Shadow Clone that Crosshair fought actually Tech? The only reason I’m thinking that is he had a bunch of rocks dropped on him AND went over a waterfall and lived. If he was a disposable Clone, he would have been killed off.
We’re halfway through the season. Or technically we will be at the halfway point of next week’s episode. Odd number of episodes season, what can you do. What are they going to do over say, the next five episodes to set up the finale? The team is back together. We’ve more or less established the mission, free the Clones from Tantiss. How are we going to get there? Not sure yet.
Baby Yoda Was Hiding In Plain Sight
Disney named the show The Mandalorian and Pedro Pascal had top billing but the second Mando revealed what exactly The Client was after, a star wars born. And he was eventually named Grogu. I would certainly argue he was the first real star of Disney era Star Wars. More so than Rey or Kylo Ren, the two biggest from the Sequel Trilogy.
I am still somewhat shocked that Disney didn’t have pallets upon pallets of Grogu merch ready and waiting to hit the shelves the second that the first episode of The Mandalorian aired. The explanation as to why not makes sense, don’t get me wrong:
The Child — or “Baby Yoda,” as “Star Wars” fans have been affectionately calling the character — wasn’t showcased in the marketing or prelaunch merchandise for the new Disney+ show because showrunners Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni didn’t want to spoil his surprise appearance.
And that’s fair. There is zero chance they could have kept Baby Yoda a secret if they had shirts and action figures and stuffed Baby Yoda’s and all the rest made ahead of time. Sure, you could have made Wal-Mart corporate sign the NDA from hell, but all it would have taken was one stock clerk thinking it’s worth the risk to snap a picture with his phone and be the first to post Baby Yoda on Reddit. I’ve worked unloading trucks before. The winter that the Play Station 2 came out? Yeah, we had a very small shipment of those come in and none of them hit the floor. Everyone working in the back bought them. I think just ruined my chances of ever going back to working at Meijer now.
I’m just amazed Disney chose the story over the money.
Now, what if I told you that much like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, Baby Yoda has always been here.
Long time real life friend and Death Star HR reader Darth Vo sent me this article.
I mean, could you imagine a nursery full of Force-senstive babies. My understanding is younglings are difficult enough at that age, just imagine one that can change it’s own diaper by using the Force to levitate it across the room. Best case scenerio there is your youngling hasn’t embraced the Dark Side. If that’s the case, chances are that dirty diaper floats across the room and gets dropped on your head.
The image is from the a story in 2002’s Star Wars Tales #13, entitled Children of the Jedi, written by Jason Hall and illustrated by Lucas Marangon. The plot of the comic is there’s a bounty hunter trying to kidnap a youngling from the Jedi nursery and Mace Windu has to battle him. A plot point and the name of the story were used again in an episode of The Clone Wars where Cad Bane tries to kidnap some Jedi babies. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that when you think about it, the Jedi practice of removing children from their families when they’re infants only to keep them secluded and indoctrinate them into the Jedi ways is fairly disturbing. The very least the Jedi should be doing is not allowing the babies in their care to get kidnapped by bounty hunters. Does Republic CPS have jurisdiction in the Jedi Temple?
We know that Grogu was raised in the Jedi Temple and when Order 66 went live, Kelleran Beq got him out.
Obviously you can’t say oh, the idea for Grogu started in 2002 and Lucas has been playing the long game. But we know that Dave Filoni is a Sicko. It certainly wouldn’t surprise if Filoni or someone else who worked on The Mandalorian had read the comic years ago and kept the idea of a baby Yoda in the back of their mind. And for any parents dealing with infants, just be glad they can’t shoot Force Lighting at you when you don’t get the bottle there quick enough.
Rogue Squadron is Cleared for Take Off
Rogue Squadron are the legendary pilots of the Rebellion and the New Republic. The pilots first appeared in the Battle of Hoth at the start of Empire Strikes Back and of course there was the movie Rogue One. They’re all over Legends as well. Video games, comics, books, etc.. They’re probably not quite as known to the general public like Luke or Vader, but among Star Wars fans there’s a lot of people who like the Rogue Squadron. And it looks like the switch for the Rogue Squadron movie has been switched back to “go.”
If you remember back to Disney Investor 20201, there were 11 shows or movies announced.
Honestly, more got made or are getting made than I thought. Right now seven out of eleven have either made it to the screen or in the case of The Acolyte we have confirmation it’s coming out this year. Over the summer it was announced that Lando is in fact happening. A Droid Story hasn’t had any official updates in three years. Probably not happening. Of course, we’d probably be on season 2 or 3 of Rangers of the New Republic if Gina Carano could have just logged off of Twitter2.
It’s been assumed for a while that Rogue Squadron wasn’t happening. Especially after director Patty Jenkins left to do Wonder Woman 3, it seemed like Rogue Squadron was going to the scrap heap like a droid with a bad motivator. But like Darth Maul, or Emperor Palpatine, or any other character that refused to stay dead, Rogue Squadron looks like it’s back.
The Wonder Woman director says she’s back in active development on the project and is working on a draft for Lucasfilm.
“When I left Star Wars to do Wonder Woman 3, and I started working on that, we talked about, ‘Well, maybe I’ll come back to Star Wars after Wonder Woman 3,'” she told the Talking Pictures Podcast. “So we started a deal for that to happen. So when Wonder Woman 3 went away, Lucasfilm and I were like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to finish this deal.’ We finished the deal right as the strike was beginning. So I now owe a draft of Star Wars. So we will see what happens there. Who knows? They have a hard job in front of them of, ‘What’s the first movie [since the sequel trilogy] they’re going to do?’ They have other directors who have been working, but I am now back on doing Rogue Squadron. We’ll see what happens. We need to get it to where we’re both super happy with it.”
This could be really cool. Arguably the most iconic scenes in Star Wars, at least ones that don’t involve lightsabers, are the space battles. The opening shot of the Tantive IV being chased by a Star Destroyer. The Death Star trench run. The Millennium Falcon in the asteroid field, or coming out of the second Death Star just ahead of the explosion.
There’s no plot info that I can find, which would make sense if Jenkins is still writing. My guess would be it’s a Filoniverse movie, Rogue Squadron serving the New Republic while helping fight the Imperial Remnant. It certainly would be fun to watch some space dogfights on the big screen, so here’s hoping Rogue Squadron happens.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
Proving that you don’t have to have a name to score yourself a Wookieepedia entry, this week we’ve got the Unidentified humanoid Sith Master.
Fun fact about the Sith, at least in Legends. Not only were the Sith the Dark Side enemy of the Jedi, they were also a humanoid race of aliens. If you ever win a Star Wars trivia night with this little bit of info, please give Death Star HR a shout out in your victory speech.
News From the HoloNet
The Mandalorian & Grogu Production Window Revealed
June. Which gives Jon Favreau time to call me up and ask for ideas.
Jyn Erso is an underrated female lead in Star Wars
I’m kinda surprised we haven’t seen more Jyn Erso. We could see her in Andor but seems unlikely.
Things are Wooking good for Fortnite's new Star Wars collab in Chapter 5, season 2
Hot new bowcaster just dropped. Bet that means a Chewie skin isn’t far behind.
Michael Culver, Star Wars actor memorably dispatched by Darth Vader, dies at 85
The lesson of Captain Needa is never apologize.
That’s it for this week. If you like what I’m doing, please subscribe. I’ll catch you next week, and may the Force be with you.
If you don’t want to remember 2020, nobody would blame you.
I know I say it all the time but I still remain amazed she chose shitposting over having her own Star Wars show.