The Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter: July 26, 2024
There should be less Star Wars. Also, make season 2 of The Acolyte!
Hello there
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. This week and probably the next few weeks are going to be shorter newsletters. Part of that is there isn’t a current show to keep me on task every week. Part of it is there’s some summer travel coming up. Part of it is trying to stay on target with a home improvement project. Pro tip, don’t buy a house that was built during the High Republic era. It’s nothing but trouble. This week I write about how maybe we’re reached over-saturation with Star Wars along with all the usual trivia and links you’ve come to expect and love. Or at least tolerate.
As always, thanks for reading and sticking with me. If you wanted to forward this to a Star Wars loving friend, that would be appreciated but maybe forward them one from a different week where there’s a little more to talk about. Now, let’s get to it.
This Is Where The Fun Begins
As the Bombad General of the Darth Jar Jar truther movement, I had to post this.
I’ve mentioned before one of my favorite parts of writing Death Star HR is just people sending me random jokes and memes and stories. This one arrived my inbox courtesy of one of my cousins. Not sure if he made it or found it floating around the series of tubes, but either way I love it.
Sometimes Less Can Be More
It’s always gratifying when you find someone who thinks the same way you do, and is much better at expressing themselves. Then you can just link to what they wrote. I’ve had this idea for a while that Star Wars needs to pump the brakes on new TV shows. I would say movies as well but we’re almost at the 5 year mark without a new movie, and there isn’t a new one scheduled until 2026.
Since the first season of The Mandalorian, which dropped December of 2019, we have had:
Eight seasons live-action TV shows.
Six full seasons of an animated show. (Three of The Bad Batch and one each of The Clone Wars, Resistance1, and Young Jedi Adventures.
Four animated anthologies, for lack of a better word.
Three LEGO TV specials.
Also, prior to The Mandalorian, Disney released three seasons of The Clone Wars, four of Rebels, and the first season of Resistance.
In short, that’s A LOT of Star Wars, even for the Sickos among us. Myself included. Even if you remove Young Jedi Adventures and the LEGO specials from the list, the shows that are specifically aimed at kids, that’s still a lot of TV for someone to watch. Also when you putting that many shows out into the world, the content is going to be hit or miss.
As an aside, I think we as a fanbase need to stop expecting every show is going to be the best and the most mind-blowing thing ever created. This applies for a lots of fanbases as well. A few months ago, if you thought that “The Tortured Poets Department” wasn’t the best thing ever, you were going to face the wrath of the Swifties2. And I’m pretty sure if you were a Swiftie who wasn’t in love with every track, you were exiled from fandom.
Compare the Disney output to what George released. Six live-action movies, The Clone Wars movie, 4 seasons of The Clone Wars series, the Tartakovsky Clone Wars, Ewoks, and Droids. That’s over 35ish years. Disney has released everything in 12 years. All of this to say, there’s been a firehouse of Star Wars material.
Much like The Simpsons, I will take just about any excuse to post a clip from UHF.
It’s a lot like what Disney has done with Marvel, although it’s still on a smaller scale. If we’ve had a firehouse of Star Wars content, it’s been a tsunami of MCU movies and TV shows. Star Wars was getting one movie a year while the MCU was getting three.
All this to say, it’s a bit of a paradox. If you’re a Sicko, you have more Star Wars than you know what to do with. Just on TV and the big screen. I’m not even getting into books and comics and things like that. All available right at your fingertips. Assuming you have a Disney+ subscription. But, it’s made Star Wars feel less special. It hasn’t made it worse (despite what the TOO MANY GIRLZ IN STAR WARZ crowd would say).
I wrote about it back in May when The Phantom Menace was back in the theaters. That movie was a cultural event. The media attention about the movie was happening for months before it’s release. People would buy a ticket for Meet Joe Black, watch the the trailer for The Phantom Menace, and then walk out. It was a shared event worldwide that you really just don’t see anymore. Maybe other than the Super Bowl. I think The Force Awakens would have qualified, there was plenty of hype. First new Star Wars movie in 10 years. First one under the watchful eye of the Mouse. The Disney movies hit their high point in 2016 with Rogue One and then it’s been hit or miss. And even if the quality of the movies was a little varied, it was still a STAR WARS MOVIE. It’s still an event. Maybe the first season of The Mandalorian was the closest thing we’ve had to an event.
Back in October I made the comment that I saw the fewest Star Wars costumes for Halloween since I bought my house. And that was right after Ahsoka, a show Disney really wanted to market to the Normies. How much cultural relevance is there? I can’t be trusted to answer honestly, I’m certainly not a neutral observer here.
I say all this because as I was scrolling through the news, seeing that’s new in the Star Wars universe, I found an article titled “Disney Needs to Hit Pause on Star Wars” and he was saying everything I’ve been thinking.
Disney has almost matched that movie count and it hasn't put a film out since 2019. The Mouse has turned Star Wars into a content machine, and in the process striped it of what made it so special to so many people. The scale of the adventure, the well-written characters, and the boundary-pushing cinematography are all gone as Disney has shrunk Star Wars for TV in every sense other than the production budget.
I think he might be stretching a little bit with well-written characters. Some are better than others but that doesn’t detract from his main point. The author uses the term “the contentification of Star Wars.” Under Disney, Star Wars isn’t special anymore, it’s just another I.P. in their portfolio that they have to churn out content for because every network executive lives with the fear that if the never-ending content machine isn’t fed, subscriptions will go down.
I think there’s a little bit of a bright light up ahead, a new hope, if you will. The next Star Wars movie The Mandalorian and Grogu with a release date of 2026. Nine years after The Rise of Skywalker, which had its moments but maybe didn’t stick the landing. That’s hopefully long enough for a Star Wars movie to become an event again.
Here’s where I get to what might be an unpopular thing to say, especially around the Disney boardroom. Let’s cut back on the shows. One every other year. That way when we get something new on streaming, it’s a big deal. Is that going to happen? Probably not. Disney didn’t spend billions to acquire Star Wars just to not produce Star Wars content. So far now I’m just yelling into the void that Star Wars simply tap the brakes.
The Acolyte Season 2: The Biggest Mystery of All
So now that I’ve spent 15ish paragraphs arguing that we need less Star Wars to make it special again, it’s time to talk about whether or not we’re going to get season 2 of The Acolyte. Pretty sure I mentioned last week about how I like self-contained seasons. The first season of The Mandalorian is a perfect example. Over 8 episodes of The Acolyte, they solved some mysteries but introduced a plenty more. To wit:
Will Osha become a Sith? Or at least Sith-adjacent.
What’s up with Darth Plagueis creeping around?
Did Mother Koril survive? I might be the only one who cares because I still think it would make more sense for her to be Qimir’s master.
Does Vernestra’s coverup get exposed by Senator Rayencourt?
But are we going to get a second season? Creator and showrunner Leslye Headland doesn’t know.
When asked by Entertainment Weekly what she has heard in terms of a second season being greenlit, Headland uses both hands to make a big zero. “Nothing,” she says.
I certainly don’t claim to know what goes into Disney deciding on whether or not they’ll greenlight a season two. This isn’t like Ahsoka where there was obviously going to be a season two even if it took a while for it to be officially announced. The Acolyte was well reviewed by critics. The reviews by fans…well…do we have to talk about those? I’d like to go one week without talking about Star Wars in the culture wars.
What would a season two look like? Do you like Space Politics? I hope so.
And some of a future season 2 would involve seeing more of the Republic Senate, which was introduced in the finale courtesy of Jedi skeptic Senator Rayencourt (David Harewood) and Supreme Chancellor Drellik. “A generation or two generations have gone by since the Nihil,” says Headland of the antagonist group in the High Republic novels. “There was a lot of drama, so it was just logical to me that there would be more of this button-down [idea]: ‘We're trying to avoid the mistake. Let's limit the power. Let's do that before someone asks us to.’ And it was just logical to me to show Vernestra as the bridge for that.”
It seems like Headland likes the idea of making Vernestra a main character in season 2. I know she was one of the few characters established in the High Republic books that made their way to The Acolyte.
…a second season would delve into the past mother and son relationship between Vernestra and Qimir. “I can't confirm or deny that that is something we are thinking about,” Headland says, “but I think if we're allowed to continue telling this story, you'll see more of Vern's history with the Stranger and how that's affecting the decisions she's making now.”
If you are into such things, a fan campaign has been using the hashtag #RenewTheAcolyte on the rotting corpse of Twitter to drum up support.
I’m here for it. Give us season two.
The Final Word on The Acoylte
I realize suspension of belief is required for Star Wars and that pointing out plot holes is both tedious and pedantic. But I always do enjoy this YouTube channel.
He does get right to the point. The heart of The Acolyte is just one big miscommunication.
This Day in Star Wars History
A few things of note that happened in the galaxy far far away on July 26th.
Spencer Wilding was born in 1972. Remember how awesome it was at the end of Rogue One - an already awesome movie - when Darth Vader appeared and just went off? Yeah, that was Spencer Wilding in the suit.
The first appearance of The Power Gem in 1982. A Star Wars comic strip in a newspaper sounds like fun. Also, remember newspapers? Those were fun.
Celebration Europe II kicked off in Essen, Germany on this day in 2013. The event offered the first look at Rebels.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
I’m starting to think the Wookieepedia algorithm is learning. Because once again, the randomizer turned up some food. It’s only a matter of time before Wookieepedia gains sentience.
Me: “Wookieepedia, give me an article about Ewoks.”
Wookieepedia: “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave. Here’s an article about spotchka.”
Everyone who’s seen The Mandalorian knows what spotchka is, but have you ever had a Hocekureem Sea salt crouton?
Hocekureem Sea salt croutons were a type of crouton made with salt from the Hocekureem Sea on Falleen. They were an ingredient in Xizor salad served at Dex's Diner for 7.7 credits on the planet Coruscant.
Decent chance Dex is just serving the croutons he picked up at the Corsucant Wal-Mart and is just passing them off as the Hocekureem sea salt ones.
News From the HoloNet
Gina Carano’s Mandalorian Lawsuit Is Probably Heading to Trial
Disney legal team, call me. Not to work on the case, I have a Darth Jar Jar series to pitch.
If K-2SO isn’t in Andor season 2, there will be hell to pay.
Please stop making this game sound awesome. I don’t want to have to buy a Play Station.
Yord Hoarde unite!
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.
Technically the 2nd season of Resistance was released a month before The Mandalorian, but we’re counting it anyway.
TTPD was better than Midnights but not as good as Folklore or Evermore.
"Bombad General of the Darth Jar Jar truther movement"! LOL!
Am I your only reader who's at the Venn diagram intersection of Taylor Swift and Star Wars? Would love to know. And, for the record, I heartily agree that less can be more in both areas as well — though I'm glad we got The Acolyte. Waiting for my Natasha Lyonne cameo in season 2!