The Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter: May 31, 2024
The Acolyte is almost here, George may be back, and the Sith that could have been
Hello there
Good morning, it’s Friday, and welcome to this week’s edition of the Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. Let’s all celebrate that we’re only four days away from The Acolyte. If a new Star Wars show can’t fix all the problems in the world, I don’t know what can. As I promised/threatened last week, it’s a pretty packed Death Star HR this week. We’ve got one final look at The Acolyte before the show drops, rumors fly that Papa George is coming back, and we look at characters that could have been. Plus all the usual nonsense you’ve come to expect from Death Star HR.
As always, I appreciate you reading this. If you’re not subscribed yet, you should put your email in below and smash that subscribe button. Now, let’s get to it.
This Is Where The Fun Begins
Have you ever wondered it would sound like if someone said “Cantina Song, but make it bluegrass?”
The Acolyte: From Various Points of View
We’re only a few days away from The Acolyte, the latest Star Wars TV show streaming on Disney+. Why do I say it’s a roll of the proverbial dice? Because Disney could use a win. Four out of the last five live action shows have been a bit of a mixed bag. You’ve had, from oldest to newest, Book of Boba Fett (aka The Mandalorian season 2.5), Obi-Kenobi, Andor, The Mandalorian season 3, and Ahsoka. Sure, Andor was an unqualified success. Both in terms of critical and fan reviews. A gritty show about the threat of fascism that is unfortunately all to real today, and one that changes it up by not relying on the Jedi. I’m not even sure I can remember the Jedi even being mentioned in the series. None of the rest of the shows are bad - Star Wars is like pizza even when it’s bad it’s still good - but they are all uneven. Some great episodes mixed in with some pretty meh ones and some uneven pacing.
I’m not the only one saying this, it’s pretty clear that Disney wants to make this a thing. We’re getting the big YouTube push, both with the trailers and some behinds the scenes shots. As I’ve been watching the playoffs this spring, I keep seeing commericals1 for it.
Completely unrelated but not really, I have floated the idea that Disney needs to take five years off from any live action Star Wars, both movies and TV. It will never happen, but it would let a Star Wars movie or TV show become special again.
The Acolyte in a weird way, might be just what we need to to shake Star Wars out of its funk. It’s not a sequel or based off of another TV show. It’s not stretching out what was probably a two-hour movie about a character into 6 - 8 episodes. Yes, it is set on the High Republic era, which is an established timeline but the High Republic has so far only been on the page, in novels and comics. This will be it’s first appearance on the screen. Books, and especially comics, are for the Sickos.
Plus it’s basically billed as a Jedi martial arts murder mystery. Those are all words that don’t normally go together, but I like them. I have largely been avoiding spoilers outside of watching the trailers, so I’m not quite sure what’s going on although some of it seems pretty straight forward. Mae (Amandla Stenberg) was a once a Jedi or maybe a Padawan and Sol (Lee Jung-jea) was her master. She gets accused of something and flees the Jedi. Now she’s hanging out with people who wear purple, Jedi are getting killed, and there’s a Sith with a scary mask. This is going to be fun. As showrunner Leslye Headland told The Hollywood Reporter:
“One thing to know about the show is that we’ve been talking about it as a mystery-thriller. It is a serialized story, so each episode gives you more information about the story,” Headland tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We were obviously influenced by samurai films and wuxia films, but also films like Rashomon, where you see one story and then you see it done a different way. So, what separates [Star Wars: The Acolyte] from some of the other Star Wars series is that it’s told in that particular way.”
One aspect of The Acolyte I am most looking forward to the story being told from different points from view. For a series that likes to say what we know is true depends on your point of view, we get very little differing accounts. It’s a film-making technique known as the “Rashomon effect.”
“You definitely get the point of view of the Jedi, especially in terms of Amandla’s character and trying to stop her and hunt her down. But you also get enough of Amandla’s character’s perspective that you can also see how both of them exist simultaneously,” Headland shares
I specifically name-checked it so I’d have an excuse to post what is one of my low key favorite Simpsons jokes.
I will also admit that joke went completely over my head the when I first saw that episode.
As far as I know, the only other Star Wars movie/TV show to show the same event from different points of view was The Last Jedi, where we had got to see both Luke and Ben’s perspective on the attempted murder of Ben Solo. It won’t be clear until we actually see the show if this will be something we see a lot of, or maybe just a couple times like in The Last Jedi. We’re not going to get all the answers next Tuesday, but hopefully we get some. Tune in next week for my first Acolyte impressions.
The Return of the King
Oh wait, that’s a title from the OTHER trilogy.
No, I’m talking about King George. Hold up, that’s Hamilton.
OK, no more trying to be clever. George Lucas is DEFINITELY PROBABLY MAYBE there’s a slight chance of him coming back. Yes, our flannel-loving Grandpa has returned to show those fat cats in Mouse ears what’s up and lead a new live action TV show. So that’s exciting, but is there any evidence for it?
Two clips from The Simpsons in one newsletter. I’m on a roll!
YouTuber Star Wars Theory had an interview with Roger Christian, a long time filmmaker who won an Oscar for set decoration with A New Hope and is credited as the inventor of the lightsaber, or at least the lightsaber prop. So as to not make you watch too long of a video, we’re just going with the important part.
I’ve mentioned a few times before that I don’t spend a lot of time on Star Wars internet. Generally on YouTube I watch the trailers and clips but I don’t spend a lot of time with the Star Wars YouTubers. I don’t do Reddit. I really don’t do other social media. Maybe I should, it might be better for Death Star HR if I knew a little more what the general internet was thinking. The reason I don’t is the never-ending and all consuming culture war came for Star Wars a few years ago and at some point, even for someone who is Extremely Online, it’s just not worth participating. My silly movies and TV shows about space wizards with laser swords are my escape. Yes, I know Star Wars is inherently political, some movies/shows more than others, but that doesn’t mean I have engage.
That being said, I do agree with Mr. Theory on one thing. George coming back certainly would be something that could reunite the fanbase. Sure, even if you’re one of those smooth-brained fans who hears Kathleen Kennedy’s name and starts foaming about the mouth about the WOKE MIND VIRUS, you’re probably going to be back on board if the Godfather comes back.
Even if Lucas came back and said he was going to write and direct a movie or be the showrunner for a TV show, I wonder how much control he would actually have. For better or for worse, up until the sale to Disney, George got the final say. Would Disney really give him free reign to just do what he wants? Even if Disney said “we’re completely hands off, do what you want” could the franchise survive Lucas releasing a stinker on the world? Sure, time heals all wounds and the Prequel Kids have meme’d the Prequels into something resembling respectability, or at least not outright mockery; but if George says he wants to make the Darth Icky movie or the prequel movie about how Jar Jar got banished from Gunga City are people really going to be here for it?
Just let George make the Darth Jar Jar series. Complete the circle and give Ahmed Best and Jar Jar Binks their redemption stories.
#SITHGIRLBOSS
I meant to write this last week and just ran out of time. Unfortunately, it feels like I’ve been saying that a lot lately. If you’re not familiar with the term…meme…whatever..of #GIRLBOSS, it’s probably more complicated than I can explain nor does it really have anything to do with our favorite galaxy far, far away. My TL;DR solution is to just quote Wikipedia:
Girlboss is a neologism which denotes a woman "whose success is defined in opposition to the masculine business world in which she swims upstream". She's the confident and capable woman who is successful in her career, or the one who pursues her own ambitions, instead of working for others or otherwise settling in life. Popularised by Sophia Amoruso in her 2014 book Girlboss, the concept's ethos has been described as "convenient incrementalism". The term is conversely used with sarcastic and pejorative undertones, to denote women who attempt to raise their professional lives by practicing the same abusive and materialistic practices found in the patriarchal society.
OK, got it? The term has fallen out of favor lately.
So what does this have to do with Star Wars? Well, a story came out a few weeks ago that one idea for Attack of the Clones was to have essentially a “Dark Padme” character. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find a picture, searching turns up either pictures of Padme as a non-Sith, or fan art. I’m going to have to look for "The Art of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" on my next trip to Half-Price Books. A trip to the Dallas Central Library got me a peak at the book, where as an added bonus I discovered they no longer charge for parking. Win-win right there.
When looking at McCaig's take on the Dark Queen, there's some resemblance to Padmé's intricate "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace" queen of Naboo look. First and foremost is the face paint, which feels far more sinister than regal in this context. Surrounding her painted face is long, wavy hair that appears more unruly and twisted than her neatly fashioned royal hairstyle from the 1999 film. She also wears a small crown and has adopted piercing Sith eyes, driving home her devotion to the dark side.
OK, so why I am writing about this, other than some of the Dark Queen concept art was certainly the inspiration for Asajj Ventress and it’s a fun little piece of trivia in a sea of Star Wars trivia? Because of this:
"I felt this was a great opportunity to introduce a strong woman character, to give girl fans an icon," he said, explaining that she would serve as evidence that women could find fulfillment in the dark side just as men do and stand toe-to-toe with the Jedi.
Look, I am all for adding more diversity in Star Wars, 100%. I have my issues with the Sequel Trilogy but it really doesn’t have anything to do with the casting. Still, the phrase “evidence women could find fulfillment in the dark side” just makes me…I don’t even know. It just feels like something that corporate makes you say. He’s not wrong though. There’s a reason my wife is referred to here as Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan. Fulfillment in the Dark Side is real.
Honestly, the more I’ve thought about the Dark Queen, the more she could have been an interesting character. I guess it would have depended on how well they were able to flesh her character out in the movies. Count Dooku was fairly meh when he was first introduced in Attack of the Clones. He just showed up and was the new Sith Apprentice2. It’s only been through The Clone Wars cartoon series and additional books that they really were able to delve into his character and make him much more interesting. Turns out, Dooku was right about the Jedi and the Republic. Although aligning himself with the Sith may not have been the best idea.
When I first saw the headlines about a Dark Padme, I took it to mean there was an idea to have Padme turn to the Dark Side. Which I am here for. If they ever come out with the Star Wars: What If series I talked about last year, I have the pitch for the last segment. Padme goes to stop Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting. Anakin convinces her to join him as a Sith and they kill Obi-Wan then Palpatine and rule the galaxy as a Dark Side married couple. No Master, no apprentice. Just equal partners in the Dark Side, like any good marriage.
And even if the Dark Queen character didn’t make it on the screen in 2002, a year later we got the rise of the ultimate Sith Girl Boss:
This Day in Star Wars History
Three things of note that happened in the galaxy far, far away on May 31st.
20th Century Studios was founded on this day in 1935. All I had to say was “20th Century Fox” in the context of a Star Wars newsletter, and the fanfare started playing in your brain.
In 2018, Michael Ford passed away. In addition to being the set derector for Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, he also worked on Raiders of the Lost Ark, GoldenEye, Titanic, and perhaps his most important non-Jedi film, A Muppet Christmas Carol.
Keeping with Disney’s never-ending quest to separate your from your dollars, the mouse opened Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland. Any Death Star HR readers have Galaxy’s Edge stories? I’ve heard it’s a good time.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
It’s an extra special From the Depths of Wookieepedia this week, the randomizer popped up with what is unquestionably one of the most important characters in Star Wars history. You know who I’m talking about. Unidentified Dulok cub 2.
Anyone? She’s from the Ewoks cartoon that came out in the mid-80’s. From the little bit I’ve read, it appears the Duloks were the enemies of the Ewoks. It’s interesting that a race of knee-high sentient cannibal bears are the good guys, but I digress.
News From the HoloNet
Casting KOTOR For A Star Wars TV Show: 10 Actors Who Would Be Perfect
Matt Berry is HK-47???? I could die happy after seeing that.
How Star Wars: KOTOR II Influenced The Acolyte
“The biggest inspiration for me was Kreia/Darth Traya in Knights of the Old Republic 2,” said Headland. That line right there is why I am excited for The Acolyte.
R2-D2 Was A Big Pain In The Butt On Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi
I mean, at least on screen, R2 was in every movie.
What Happened The Star Wars: Underworld Series?
We need to give up on Underworld. It ain’t happening.
Star Wars: Could The Acolyte Prove Andor Haters Wrong?
I was today years old when I learned there are Andor haters.
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.
It’s so weird watching live tv. Who does that, other than for sports.
Dooku happened because Lucas didn’t have the courage to go through with Darth Jar Jar
Your dedication to Darth Jar Jar will be rewarded in Gungan Valhalla.