The Death Star Human Resources Department: August 25, 2023
Ahsoka is here, cats are Sith Lords, a look back at The Clone Wars, and a lot more
Hello there
Well, it’s finally here. You know what I’m talking about. The 15th anniversary of The Clone Wars movie. Oh, that’s not what people have been waiting for. We talk about the first two episodes of Ahsoka. That’s what we’re here for.
It’s a pretty packed newsletter this week as well. We’ve got cats falling to embracing the Dark Side, monuments to evil, and we see what my wife thinks about Star Wars. As always, if you like Death Star HR and what I‘m doing, please tell a friend and subscribe if you haven’t already. Now, let’s get to it.
That Cat is NOT Part of the Rebel Whatever
So far in the Death Star HR canon, we’ve established that I love Star Wars and I love tacos. We’re adding a third thing to that today. My cat. Who is named Taco. How we got to AI generated pictures of Taco in a Star Wars environment is somewhat convoluted, but a subscriber only known as “Darth Fullz” decided to try using AI to get a picture of Taco piloting the Millennium Falcon.
I don’t think I have to worry about AI taking my job any time soon. While those are fun and I genuinely love them, the technology isn’t there yet. In the picture on the left, the fur on Tacobacca is too long. Real life Taco is not a long-haired cat. The fur and markings for Taco Solo in the right picture are better, but I’m not entirely sure what that cat is wearing or doing with it’s paws.
Because I often don’t have enough to do during the day, I sent the pictures to my wife, AKA Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan. Her only response was “that cat is NOT part of the rebel whatever.” As subscriber “burgetta” noted:
"that cat" and "the rebel whatever" are my favorite parts of this
Otherwise known as "your evil cat" and "your nerd shit"
He’s not wrong…
Maybe the AI is a little smarter than I should give it credit for. With some new prompts we got this.
Much like Chancellor Palpatine revealing his true form as Darth Sidious, AI revealed Taco’s true form as Darth Taco, aka Empress Tacotine. Come on, Disney. Let’s put Darth Taco in a show. Plus, a kitty-sized lightsaber might be the best thing ever.
Ahsoka Is Finally Here!
Ahsoka was released in prime time on Tuesday, August 22nd. As I am typing this it is August 24th at 10:01 PM and I finally got to watch the first two episodes. Do you know how hard it is to stay spoiler free when you’re as Extremely Online as I am? It’s not fun.
Just a reminder that this is NOT a spoiler-free newsletter. We’re going to talk about what happened on the show. So if you haven’t seen it yet, maybe skip this section
It has unfortunately been a long day and a long week here at Death Star HR HQ, as such rather than review every element of the plot, I’m just going to do my bullet points on things I noticed and liked or disliked over the first two episodes.
The New Republic has awful uniforms. Say what you will about the Empire, but they at least had style.
Ahsoka and Sabine look great. The costume department nailed the look. I am less impressed with Hera. Her makeup/costume looks like something that would win a cosplay contest but needs to be better for the Disney show.
They might not have nailed the look, but Mary Elizabeth Winstead is great as Hera. Still the mom figure keeping everyone on track
Live action Chopper! Can’t wait to see more of him.
Looking for the Star Map felt way too much like looking for the Sith Wayfinder in The Rise of Skywalker.
Ahsoka finding the map had real Indiana Jones vibes
Loved Star Wars Stonehenge.
Big fan of Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati. Baylan is a man who’s seen some stuff. Shin is just stone cold. I’m not entirely positive she blinked at all.
Since Huyang stated Baylan disappeared at the end of the Clone Wars, it seems like the idea he and Shin are from another timeline via The World Between Worlds is not likely.
Shin had a little Padawan braid, sticking with the master and apprentice themes.
Also, since Marrok has already made an appearance and is working with Morgan Elsbeth and not Thrawn, it wouldn’t make much sense if it was actually Ezra.
The rock song that plays when Sabine is on her speeder is “Igyah Kah,” by real life band Illuminati Hotties. I’ve never heard of them but I love the name.
I was not expecting Elsbeth to be a Nightsister. The little green flame when she activated the map was a nice touch.
And I was REALLY not expecting Sabine to get impaled by a lightsaber. Even though she was obviously going to survive it was still a shock.
I was worried that when the trailers showed some shots of Sabine using a lightsaber, it would turn out she’s a Jedi. I don’t think this is going to be the case.
It seems likely we’re going to get some kind of flashback back whatever happened to cause Ahsoka and Sabine to be frenemies.
I mentioned this a few weeks ago but I would love to see a John le Carre style thriller of New Republic Intelligence trying to root out Imperial loyalists.
As a final parting thought. I think I’m pretty consistent when I say Star Wars is best when it takes chances. When it just doesn’t rely on what we already know. When it creates new stories instead of just using the same old characters to tell the same old stories. That isn’t to say every project has to be brand new, that wouldn’t make any sense. Part of the fun is seeing the characters we love have new adventures. There’s a fine line between telling stories with existing characters and just cheap fan service. I think Ahsoka can be the former, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Poorly Reviewed Star Wars Movie Turns 15
No doubt you read that and asked yourself, has it really been 15 years since The Rise of Skywalker was released? I don’t blame you for asking yourself that, time certainly hasn’t had any meaning for the last 3+ years. Instead I’m talking about Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Released August 10, 2008, the movie introduced us the current Togruta of the hour, Ahsoka Tano. When we first meet her, she’s a 14 year old Padawan who Yoda assigns to Anakin Skywalker.
The plot of the movie is fairly simple. Count Dooku has kidnapped Rotta the Hutt, the son of Jabba, and set a trap for the Jedi. The Jedi agree to rescue Rotta so they can use Jabba’s Outer Rim hyperspace lanes to move troops and supplies around. If you’re saying to yourself “this sounds like they just smashed together several episodes of a C-level Clone Wars cartoon plot and called it a movie,” you would be absolutely right.
The environment in which The Clone Wars was released is similar to the current Star Wars environment. It’s 2008. The Prequel movies ended 3 years ago. There are still quite a few Star Wars books being published but even that had slowed down compared the amount published from 1999 - 2005. Fans really had no idea what was coming next. We have a little more an idea of what’s going on today. We’re still in a post-movie trilogy environment. Another one where the movies were uneven at best. There’s (probably) more of a plan with the pivot to TV. But there’s still uncertainly with movies and the Hollywood strike. Maybe I’m reaching here.
I’m not going to get into a review of the movie, other than to say it’s not great. It was pretty clearly was a 3-4 episode arc from the TV show that got stretched into a movie. There are some fantastic and unforgettable episodes/arcs of the Clone Wars cartoon. This was not one of them. Critics were not kind. The animation, dialog, and plot were all attacked. It currently has an 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score is a little better at 40%. By comparison, The Rise of Skywalker has 52%/86% scores on RT. I realized that I never actually saw it in the theater, but when it was released I was a few months away from getting married and a little busy at the time.
Finally to bring it back to the main topic in Star Wars land, when we first meet Ahsoka Tano she’s a skilled but fairly annoying 14 year old Padawan. A lot of fans did not like her, but in Ahsoka’s defense, all 14 year olds are annoying. We’ve come a long from her dubbing Anakin “Sky Guy.”
How Do You Say “I am your father” in Ukrainian?
According to Google translate: Я твій батько.
This happened a while ago but I missed it, and it’s too good not to share. In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law banning Communist propaganda in the country’s monuments. As a former Soviet bloc country, I would imagine there are a lot of Communist monuments1. Rather than tear down one of the monuments of Lenin in Odessa, it was turned into a statue of Darth Vader.
As an added bonus, the statue has free wifi. I don’t know if Vader would agree, but I’d say the residents of Odessa can be proud of the technological terror they’ve constructed.
Things My Wife Has Said About Star Wars
Welcome to yet another semi-recurring feature of Death Star HR. Although she is an Emperor Palpatine stan, my wife does not consider herself a Star Wars fan. At all. But over the course of our relationship she’s learned a lot more about the galaxy far far away through osmosis than she ever wanted to.
Scene. A lazy weeknight at Death Star HR HQ. I am sitting on the couch, probably with Darth Taco, watching The Mandalorian Season 3 Gallery. My wife is reading.
Me: Does it bother you that you know what they’re talking about?
Her: I’m not even listening.
Me: If they said that Bo-Katan was lost without the Darksaber, do you know what that means?
Her: …I hate you.
She doesn’t actually hate me. Sarcasm is our love language.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
This week the random article clicker gave us the UFM. No, that’s not a UFO typo. The UFO is the unidentified flying monstrosity. A green lizard-like creature from the planet Ziost. The creatures are featured in the Tales of the Jedi - Golden Age of the Sith comic book series. Ben Skywalker - and this is Legends Ben Skywalker - not Kylo Ren comes across them on Ziost. Ziost is an Outer Rim planet that featured heavily in Sith lore. That’s about all I got.
News From the HoloNet
Every cancelled Star Wars project, ranked
Someone reboot Detours!
Jon Hamm Returns to the Star Wars Franchise in New Boba Fett Project
Noted insurance pitchman Jon Hamm? No way!
Star Wars TV Is Way Too Serious, And It's Bumming Me Out, Man
Hopefully we’ll see Ahsoka lighten up a bit.
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.
The Communist Monuments sounds like a good name for an early 90’s Bay Area punk band.