Death Star Human Resources Department: July 7, 2023
A peek under the Mando season 3 mask, a successful cloning operation, we start a book club, and more.
Hello there
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Death Star Human Resources Department newsletter. As always, if you like what I’m doing please smash that subscribe button and tell a friend. This week we’re getting behind the scenes with Mando, reviewing a Legends novel, and more.
Mando Season 3 Gallery: the Hypocrisy of Death Star HR
Late in June Disney+ dropped the latest episode in their Disney Gallery series with a behind the scenes look at The Mandalorian season 3. Unlike the Galleries for season 1 and season 2, this season 3 only warrants one episode. I will let people make up their own mind if that is a tacit admission by the Mouse House that people just didn’t react to the latest season of The Mandalorian like they did the first two. Like every other Disney Gallery we’ve seen, it’s clips of behind the scenes footage mixed with talking head commentary from people involved with the show. By now you can almost always count on seeing a mix of Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Carl Weathers, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Rick Famuyiwa. Pedro Pascal was nowhere to be scene, likely due to his filming schedule but we did get some shots of Jack Black and Lizzo who were clearly having the time of their lives. Lizzo “greeting” the Grogu puppet and gushing over him while wearing what appeared to be a Grogu adult onsie and Jack Black just Jack Black’ing it up all over the place the made it pretty clear that even as big of stars as they are, they were incredibly excited to be on The Mandalorian.
If there’s a complaint to be had with the Gallery series is that they function almost as an advertisement for the show rather than a true behind the scenes look at it. Not going to lie, it almost worked. I got done with the hour-long show and thought to myself that I should give Mando season 3 another watch. You’re not going to get much more insight than Person A saying how great it was to work with Person B. And Person B saying Person A is a genius and how great it was to work with them. Plus, since these are at least mostly filmed during shooting, you’re not going to get any kind of real reaction to the show. I am not sure when they film some of the talking head segments, if it’s after the show is out or if they just film them as a person is on set.
Specifically there’s no mention of Gina Carano’s “mysterious” absence. Cara Dune was an integral part of the first two seasons and now it’s just no mention of her1. Disney pulled a Poochie2 and she was just gone. As an aside, it is truly amazing that she thought being a shitposter on Twitter was better than being in Star Wars. Think it about it. You have two options:
Option A: Have your own Star Wars series in which you star in. You’ll get action figures in your likeness. Decent chance you can get yourself a producer credit or maybe if you ask nicely, even direct an episode. Plus you’re in the show that everyone likes so your part isn’t going anywhere. All you have to do is show up and say things like “We’re a long way from Coruscant here in the Outer Rim” and “That gang of space pirates has hit three transport ships this month.” And then you get to keep cashing those sweet, sweet Disney checks.
Be a Twitter shitposter and not getting to do any of Option A.
It’s just wild that someone would choose Option B.
Also, no mention of Grogu’s return to The Mandalorian. I’m just the Disney marketing research just assume that anyone watching The Mandalorian. has probably also watched Book of Boba Fett. Their assumption has to be they’ve got a fan base that would watch two seasons of a show about a gonk droid so for sure they’re going to watch the Boba Fett show. And let’s be honest, I would absolutely watch two seasons of Gonk’s Adventures.
The end of The Mandalorian. season 2 was a tough one. Mando takes his helmet off, knowing he’ll be banished. He lets Grogu go with Luke even though he clearly would prefer to keep him, but he knows it’s best to have Grogu go with a Jedi. If you skipped Book of Boba Fett, you’d turn on season 3 of The Mandalorian. and wonder why on Earth, or maybe why on Mandalore was Grogu back with Mando. Why wasn’t he doing his Jedi training with Luke? No acknowledgment or discussion of why they chose to do this? My best guess is either A) they wanted to shoot season 3 of The Mandalorian. earlier but Pedro Pascal wasn’t available or B) Book of Boba Fett was supposed to be a movie like Solo, but when Disney put a pause on the Star Wars Story line of movies it got converted to a TV show and needed a little more filler.
Anyway, the show also doesn’t discuss the fan reaction to season 3. Maybe that was a deliberate choice on their part, maybe it was simply they had all the footage they needed by the time The Mandalorian. actually aired…errr…streamed. It’s no secret season 3 was not as well received as the first two seasons. A large part of the criticism was fans felt like the show had lost it’s focus. We moved away from Beskar Daddy and his weird looking adopted son flying around the galaxy having a new adventure every week. Instead we have the internal politics of Mandalorian clans. Or whole episode detour to Coruscant to check in on the ex-Imperials. It felt at times that our dynamic duo were side characters in their own show.
All this to say I don’t actually dislike season 3. It doesn’t make me violently angry like The Rise of Skywalker. I actually really liked the episode with Dr. Pershing and Elia Kane. I think she’s a great character. The question of how do you reintegrate former Imperials into the New Republic could be a great spinoff. A series with John le Carre-style espionage in the New Republic would be even better than two seasons of Gonk’s Adventures. New Republic Intelligence has to root out which former Imperials are rehabilitated and which ones are still loyal to the Empire. Jack Black and Lizzo hamming it up was great. The droid cantina AKA Mando’s worst nightmare was just a fun scene and a cool idea. But it just wasn’t what myself and a lot of the other fans wanted. We wanted the comfort of knowing that each week when we turned in, Mando and Grogu were going to have an adventure on a new planet and then at the end of the season we’d get a two-episode arc to tie everything together and maybe show part of a bigger story.
Now we get to the point where my hypocrisy is on full display. I pretty consistently say Star Wars is better when it takes chances, when it subverts your expectations, and when it tries something new. That’s why Andor was so great. That’s why the first season of The Mandalorian was so great. They were new stories that pushed the boundaries of what Star Wars could be. It wasn’t just another story about Space Wizards with laser swords. It showed that Star Wars can (mostly) exist without Jedi and Skywalkers3. By my own logic I should be singing the praises of season 3. It would have been extremely easy and less controversial for Favreau and Filnoi to say just keep using the formula. Mando and Grogu go to a new planet each week. Bo-Katan and Greef Karga do a pop in every once in a while. And we just do this each season until people get bored and the merch stops selling. That’s the easy solution. It’s just not the one they chose. Favreau and Filnoi and the rest of the Mando crew talk about how they’ve created this new universe and these new stories within Star Wars and want to explore them and I get it. You brought Bo-Katan to live action. Might as well see where that takes us.
And so, as someone who regularly rails against The Rise of Skywalker for it being cheap fan service, want nothing more than The Mandalorian to keep being cheap fan service. Maybe consistency isn’t my strong suit.
The Fly-By Landspeeders Headlining at Jabba’s Palace
Slight peek behind the curtain at the Death Star Human Resources Department, I am a big fan of the southern rock/Americana band the Drive-By Truckers. Looking to the left of my desk as I’m typing, there’s a framed, autographed poster from when I saw them in concert a couple years ago. Also while I was watching the Mando season 3 behind the scenes, as discussed above, I was struck by the fact that I’ve never seen Mandalorian showrunner Jon Favreau and Drive-By Truckers frontman Patterson Hood in the same room.
I’m not saying Moff Gideon and Dr. Pershing have perfecting cloning operations. But I’m not not saying it either…
Death Star Human Resources Department Book Club
Within the last year or so, I’ve been working on my collection of Star Wars books. Most of them are from Legends but I’ll occasionally pick up new canon ones if they are in paperback. Some of the stories are legitimately good. Some are middle of the road. Some are just bad. But I like to think of Star Wars books as like pizza, even when it’s bad, it still good. Or at least decent enough. Because hey, it’s pizza. Or a Star Wars book. This week we’re starting with the last novel I completed:
Title: Kenobi
Author: John Jackson Miller
Year published: 2013
Pages: 418
Status: Legends
Summary in less than 20 words: “Ben” hangs out in the desert on Tatooine, solves problems, thinking about getting freaky with a townie.
Can we just start with the fact that if you are a Good Space Wizard and you’re on the run after a couple of Bad Space Wizards tried to wipe out all the good ones, maybe you should try inventing a new name that’s completely different than your real one? Sure you’re on Tatooine where in theory the Empire isn’t going to come looking for you, but still maybe changing BOTH your first and last names might help. Also Obi-Wan was a hero to the Republic, surely even in the Outer Rim people have heard of him. Instead all the simpleton moisture farmers just wonder if he’s related to the Kenobi in Mos Espa who owes them some money.
Side note, does anyone remember the “Obi-Wan is a clone” theory? That Obi-Wan was actually OB-1, a clone number? Adding that to my notes to discuss another time.
Getting to the actual book, the slightly deeper summary is the book takes place in 19 BBY, shortly after the events of Revenge of the Sith and Order 66. Obi-Wan Kenobi has landed on Tatoonie, pawned baby Luke off to Owen and Beru Lars, and is settling into his hut in the Jundland Wastes at the edge of the Dune Sea.
While getting supplies at Danner’s Claim, a general store in the Pika Oasis, he befriends Annileen Calwell. Annileen is a single mom who runs the store she inherited after her husband died. She keeps all the moisture farmers in the area supplied with parts and with food and booze. Meanwhile, Orrin Gault is having trouble with the Tusken Raiders attacking the settlers and their vaporator. Gault is one of the big moisture farmers in the area and the leader of the Settlers Call. Basically a neighborhood watch to fight back against the Tuskens. He’s also a single dad, and if I’m being honest both his kids are kind of jerks. They try to start a fight with Obi-Wan at the beginning of the book and never really stop being monstrous children.
The book also follows A’Yark, leader of the Tusken tribe that has been harassing the settlers, raider their farms and destroying their vaporators. A’Yark is struggling with how to lead her tribe, especially after something that happened years ago involving a bunch of Tuskens being massacred. Hmm…who could that have been? The book makes a big deal about A’Yark being female, even treating it as a surprise twist. At one point they attack Danner’s Claim but the settlers, with the help of Obi-Wan using the Force on the sly, are able to fend them off.
Things escalate when Orrin and his horrible children dress up as Tuskens and attack the farm of the last guy who refused to sign up for Settlers Call. It turns out old Orrin owes a lot of money to Jabba the Hutt and has been running Settlers Call as a Ponzi Scheme. Worried about being fed to the rancor or something worse, Orrin decides his best bet is to get Annileen to marry him. Only problem is Annileen has eyes for the handsome new stranger in town. After threatening to rat Obi-Want out to the Empire, everything comes to a head with a big battle. Orrin is the big loser when he drives his speeder off a cliff trying to run over A’Yark; only to wake up paralyzed from the waist down and wrapped in Tusken robes. He’s part of the tribe now. Obi-Wan wants to get with the nice single mom but realizes that he’s on Tatooine to watch over Baby Luke but pulls some strings to get Annileen admitted to the University of Alderaan, as was her dream. And to make sure she’s not around to see him doing more Jedi stuff.
What works:
John Jackson Miller set out to write a western and he largely succeeded. Westerns aren’t a genre I’m really familiar with but it certainly hits the tropes. The posse, the lone stranger who is new in town, the widow at the general store, the frontier town out in the desert. It’s all there.
From the start of Star Wars, the Tuskens were pretty clearly coded as Bedouins. And treated as the violent savages who roam the desert killing everyone. Here the Tuskens are given more background story to flesh them out. There was a humanization of the Tuskens before The Book of Boba Fett did.
The events of the movies are hinted at or mentioned but aren’t the focal points. The Tuskens attack on the Lars homestead and Anakin slaughtering the Tuskens are part of the story but not the point.
Limited Jedi shenanigans. Sure there’s going to be some Force use, there’s a Jedi Mind Trick and Obi-Wan has to bust out his lightsaber a couple times. But it is a nice change of pace from the oh so numerous number of books focusing on Jedi versus Sith.
What doesn’t work:
Honestly one of my favorite parts of the Obi-Wan TV series was the scene with Owen Lars in (I think) the first episode when Owen tells Obi-Wan to get lost. Very strong “I ain’t got time for Jedi bullshit” energy. Would have liked Grumpy Uncle Owen to make an appearance.
The love interest is named Annileen, and she’s even called Annie. That’s way too close to Anakin. The author couldn’t think of any other name?
The wild card:
Ladies love Obi-Wan. We’ll talk more about this at later point. I have a sentence in the little notes/ideas page I keep for stuff I want to write about that says “Obi-Wan - horniest Jedi?” Stay tuned.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
Unidentified Tatooine moisture farmer. I swear I did not keep hitting refresh until this one popped up since I just reviewed Kenobi. This is what I got. In Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (tagline: the Star Wars video game with two colons) our hero, the unidentified moisture farm is at a bar on Tatooine. While enjoying a blue milk, he hears a bunch of Dark Jedi discussing how they want to resurrect a dead Sith Lord. You know, the normal things you and your boys talk about when you’re at the bar. The farmer tells his astromech droid to the record the conversation, but decides trying to snitch on Dark Jedi might not be a good idea and sells the droid to Jawas. That guy somehow warranted a separate Wookieepedia entry, for some reason I can’t explain.
News From the HoloNet
An AI-generated article about Star Wars had a lot of errors
The droids are still malfunctioning.
Nine pieces of underrated Star Wars media
Rebels is underrated? Get out!
Blahblahblah Yuuzhan Vong blahblahblah
I swear every week when I’m looking for articles there’s a “could Star Wars do the Vong” one. Quit trying to make fetch happen.
Skeleton Crew takes place during the New Republic
Because it’s a dangerous time. Unlike every other timeline in Star Wars
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.
Yes I know there was one line by Greef Karga in the show.
Poochie was a character introduced on The Simpsons for the sole reason of making fun of the “introduce a new character when the show gets stale” trope. He only lasted one episode and died on the way back to his home planet.
I say all that fully recognizing that the show is called “The Mandalorian” but the actual star is Grogu who overloads us with nostalgia.