The Death Star Human Resources Department: October 13, 2023
Final thoughts on Ahsoka (at least for now), the Galactic Starcruiser takes it final voyage, and a lot more
Hello there
Good morning and welcome once again to the Death Star Human Resources Department newsletter. I typed a lot of words for this week’s newsletter so I hope you enjoy reading them. We’ve got some final thoughts on Ahsoka, the Galactic Starcruiser hotel has taken it’s last “flight”, we look at what passes for a justice system in the New Republic, and my wife has some thoughts about Star Wars music.
As always, if you like what I’m doing here, please subscribe and/or forward this on to someone else who might like it. Now, let’s get to it.
This Is Where The Fun Begins
I’m going to write more about this below but so far, the New Republic leadership hasn’t been stellar…
Just Who Was Ahsoka For Anyway?
I wanted to write about this last week but just didn’t have the time. Look, I’m not a Star Wars insider. I don’t have a burner phone with Rick Famuyiwa’s number. I’m just a guy with a bunch of grammatically questionable opinions about Star Wars. But I truly believe there is a cold war going on in the Star Wars section at the Mouse House. It’s the battle I’ve referenced here at Death Star HR a bunch of times. The Normies versus the Sickos. I don’t mean to assign any kind of value with those terms, I just think it’s a fun way to describe the different types of fans. One isn’t better than the other.
The Normies are most people. Maybe they’ve seen the Star Wars movies. Perhaps they watched The Mandalorian, even if it was just because they liked the Baby Yoda memes. There are far more Normies than there are Sickos.
The Sickos on the other hand, well, you know who you are. I’m one of you. The people who go to a midnight showing of a movie, or skip work to see a different movie on opening day, or go see the original trilogy back to back to back. In case you hadn’t guessed, those are all things I have done. Maybe you have a collection of Star Wars books. Or toys. Or write a Star Wars newsletter and subscribe to several others. That’s also me. In case you hadn’t guessed. Well, I no longer have the toy collection like I used to. But that’s a story for another day.
The Normies and the Sickos are not in conflict with each other. I’m a firm believer in letting people like what they like. If you only like Star Wars because of Baby Yoda memes, that’s fine. If you want to get on Reddit and argue that Ahsoka’s lightsaber blades are more the color of “eggshell” than “white” that’s OK too. I want you to enjoy Star Wars on your own terms.
However, the Normies versus the Sickos comes into play when decisions are made about just who Disney is making a Star Wars series for. I’ve said before the “inside baseball” of Hollywood isn’t extremely interesting to me. But, there’s no disputing we’re in a weird time for Hollywood. The WAG writers strike ended a few weeks ago. The SAG-AFTRA actors strike is still ongoing, negotiations are continuing as I type. Well, maybe not at the exact moment since I’m typing this on a Saturday, but you get the idea.
It’s also no secret that Disney+, the Mouse’s streaming service is losing money and the Star Wars offerings under Disney have been hit or miss, both in terms critical and commercial success. With the movies, Disney did just fine with The Force Awakens followed by Rogue One. But their last three movies, The Last Jedi, Solo, and The Rise of Skywalker all had various issues1. A similar pattern followed with live-action TV shows. The first two seasons of The Mandalorian were a smash hit. Then up until Ahsoka, the other four live-action shows have again been hit or miss. Andor was the best show they’ve done, but Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the third season of The Mandalorian all had their issues as well.
Now that’s taken me longer to get to my point than it does to travel from Seatos to Peridea via the Purrgil Express. The goal of Disney to get as many people to go to the theater for Star Wars movies or sign up and keep their Disney+ subscription at home. That’s not a controversial statement. I believe if it were completely up to whoever ultimately calls the shots at Disney, they’d keep making movies and shows for the Normies. Disney had a hit with The Force Awakens, even if they essentially just let J.J. Abrams remake A New Hope and update it with better effects and some new characters. Rian Johnson tried something new with The Last Jedi and Disney had to deal with what I am certain was a small but loud backlash. Unfortunately we as a society seem to be stuck catering to the small but loud crowd but that’s another topic for another newsletter. Between the online backlash to The Last Jedi and Solo under-performing, Disney went back to J.J. and said make people like us again. I’m not sure The Rise of Skywalker made people like Disney, but you can’t say they didn’t throw every bit of fan service possible in it.
So getting to the ultimate question: was Ahsoka made for the Normies or the Sickos? I believe Disney wanted Ahsoka to be a show for the Normies. You had all the ingredients for it. A big-name Hollywood star in Rosario Dawson. Other actors and actresses like Ray Stevenson and Mary Elizabeth Winstead where you might say “hey, I recognize that person, they were in that one show.” The return of two characters in Ahsoka Tano and Grand Admiral Thrawn that are fan favorites. The new Weird Little Dudes in the Noti and the cute little creature with the Lothcat. Plus you have everything that makes Star Wars fun. Lightsaber duels, space battles, cool villains, it was all there. Maybe there would have been a bigger media blitz if the SAG strike hadn’t been going on. Who knows. But you will never not convince me that Disney didn’t see Ahsoka as a bounce back show to get the casual viewers.
However, and there’s always however. All you have to is watch Ahsoka and realize it’s a show for us sickos. As it is season 5 of Rebels, I wouldn’t say you had to see seasons 1 - 4 of Rebels, and maybe The Clones Wars as well, to be able to watch Ahsoka but there’s a lot of little bits and some big bits that wouldn’t have made any sense. If all you knew of the the Ahsoka character was one episode of Mando, you would have absolutely no idea what’s going on. You’d have no idea who Sabine and Hera are. Why Hera’s kid wants to be a Jedi and why he’s not a Twi'lek. That’s not even getting into what’s going with the World Between Worlds and Anakin showing back up again, or why it’s such a big deal that the show ended with Baylan standing in front of two statues. Or why Ahsoka seeing something that looks like an owl at the end was such a big deal as well. There’s the Siege of Mandalore and the Blade of Talzin. In short, there is A LOT of background that you’d need to know to fully understand what’s going on in Ahsoka. Even a sicko like me had to occasionally look something up that I had forgotten about.
Ahsoka is the show that Dave Filoni wanted to make. It’s a show for the Sickos who have seen The Clone Wars and Rebels multiple times. The ones who hunt easter eggs in ever seen. Who subscribe to something like Death Star HR. Maybe it doesn’t matter if the show is intended for the Normies or the Sickos, over at Ahch-To Baby, Matthew Freeman notes:
So, maybe I just need to overcome my own fear of change. Star Wars, since it moved primarily to Disney Plus in 2019, has become Star Wars for lots of different audiences: the mega fan who watches everything (Ahsoka), the family audience who wants something accessible (The Mandalorian), the nostalgic (Obi-Wan Kenobi), the hard sci-fi audience (Andor), and of course, the fans of the movies, which will always be there to be enjoyed. For all the talk of their being One Big Story, it feels more like there is no longer a single Star Wars Saga or even Star Wars aesthetic on screen. It’s variety of Star Wars-es for a variety of overlapping audiences. Ahoska, especially, makes that very clear.
Maybe after all I’ve written, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Normie or a Sicko. At least as a fan. Disney might have wanted a show for the Normies but they got a show for the Sickos. As far as the Mouse is concerned, as long as we keep watching they’re not going to stop.
The Halcyon is Heading to the Karthon Chop Fields
Disney’s Galactic Starcruiser hotel has closed. It’s last weekend was September 28 - 30th. The hotel lasted just about a year and a half, opening March 1, 2022 and settling down on it’s final landing platform September 30, 2023. If you’re hoping for a first-person report on just how it went, sorry, I never got to go. It looked cool, but I’m not actually positive I would have enjoyed myself.
A bit of basic background info. The Galactic Starcruiser Halcyon was a Star Wars hotel at both Disneyworld and Disneyland. It was, for lack of a better way to put it, a completely immersive experience that put you, the guest, in the middle of the Star Wars galaxy. How’s that for some corporate buzzword bingo? Guests would be there for two night booking on the Halcyon. While you were there, you’d interact with other guests living out their Star Wars fantasies and a bunch of crew members completely in character as someone from the Star Wars universe. Sounds like something that should print money, right?
Well, maybe not. In May of this year, Disney announced they were shutting down the hotel. It was reported it would cost $250 million to scrap the hotel, or $2.5 million per room.
So went wrong? Let’s start with the two obvious answers. I am sure that COVID and the pandemic didn’t help. Second, it was expensive. The cheapest package was $4,800 for two people. That doesn’t include airfare, tickets to see the rest of Disney, or money to cover your hospital bills when you’re attacked by an alligator on crystal meth. You know, normal Florida things. I’ve been told by friends who have younglings that Disney is not cheap these days, even if you’re not spending almost five grand to live your hero of the Rebellion or Jedi Knight fantasies.
I promise I didn’t mean for this to happen, but it goes back to what I talked about above, the Normies and the Sickos. A local Orlando TV station interviewed a couple of former Disney Imagineers on what went wrong:
“The hotel did not have a pool, not sure it had a gym. It was kind of Star Wars all the time, 24/7,” he said. “And for somebody who is a floater and probably even a swimmer, it’s too much!”
Harmon’s colleague, Joe Lanzisero — another former Imagineer who worked with Disney for nearly 40 years — explained that “floaters” are those who know about a certain franchise and might even like it, even though they haven’t seen many of the movies. Meanwhile, “swimmers” are bigger fans of the franchise who are more invested than the floaters — but they still aren’t the biggest.
That title goes to the “divers,” but there just aren’t enough of those sorts of fans to sustain the hotel, Lanzisero argued.
So I guess I need to add a third category. The Normies, the Sickos, and…the Hopeless? I don’t know. I’m going to think on this.
There are a pretty limited number of people in the world who would do this. It’s one thing to go to a Star Wars movie opening night. It’s another to commit several thousand dollars to pretend to be in that movie.
Speaking of movies, the story line for the Galactic Starcruiser takes place in the Sequel Trilogy, a series of movies that can be, uh, divisive to say the least.
According to Lanzisero, Disney could have made the hotel more attractive for the floaters and swimmers by bringing in more of the original cast of characters, rather than just characters from newer movies.
“So many people have that idea of the Star Wars universe that was formed by those earlier films. And I think we’ve had kind of an oversight on Disney’s part not to let people spend more time in those worlds, choosing those worlds from the earlier films and those characters from the earlier films,” he told News 6.
I get that Disney spent a lot of money buying the Star Wars property, and a lot more money making three movies and trying to make fetch happen with Rey, Finn, Poe, and company. The people who have the time and the money spend to on some very expensive LARPing are not the fans who grew up with Sequel Trilogy. If I had the choice to spend five grand to help the Rebellion on Cloud City because Darth Vader is there and Luke is coming to fight him, or spend five grand to spy on the First Order, I know which one I’d chose to spend that money on.
It also sounded like you’ve got to really commit to the bit. A fun article from a writer who visited on the final weekend confirmed it:
My boyfriend and I — casual Star Wars fans, extremely awkward Brits — threw ourselves into the LARPing experience with gusto, but not as much knowledge as dedicated fanatics. So we fumbled when fellow travelers asked us which planet we were from (apparently Earth isn’t an acceptable answer in the expanded universe) — we did make costumes, though. We also joined The First Order and became immensely competitive when the messages on our Datapads, one of the most intricately thought-out elements within the Play Disney Parks app, came from different characters.
Now, if the author was a regular reader of Death Star HR she would know that Earth was part of the Legends. It’s all in the June 30th newsletter.
All the Disney cast members are in costume and playing part, and they interact with you. Not just saying “Hi, I’m Bob the Rodian bartender, would you like a Blue Milk” but from what I understand you’re supposed to be a character as well. Let’s face it, human beings are awkward. If Bob the Rodian bartender tells me that he’s got a super secret mission he needs me to conduct for the Resistance, honestly I’m more likely to say “thanks, but I’m on vacation. Could you please add an extra shot of bourbon to my Blue Milk?” There’s a small set of people who would find that fun, and honestly have the confidence and the lack of embarrassment (I mean this in a good way) to just totally go all in. I would be too worried about winding up as Twitter’s Main Character for the day when I start yelling at the waitress I know she’s a Resistance spy and I’ll report her to General Hux.
In the end, it’s a very expensive flop. It’s an amazing idea. When I first heard about the concept, I was immediately checking flights to Orlando. Maybe it will be one of those things they can re-work and bring back. Or why not dial back on the interactive part of it, and just make it a Star Wars themed hotel. Set it during the Original Trilogy and make it the Cloud City Four Seasons. A Star Wars hotel sounds great. Dropping five grand to be part of three days of Star Wars improv is a tough sell. Even for Sickos like me.
The New Republic is a Kangaroo Court
At this point, I still think I know most of the Death Star HR subscribers personally. All the friends that I badgered into signing up for this. For those you don’t know, my day job is playing at being a lawyer. Believe it or not, writing a free newsletter about Star Wars isn’t what keeps the lights on at Death Star HR. There’s very little of the legal system in the Star Wars universe, which isn’t by accident. Watching Space Wizards battle each other with laser swords is way more exciting than watching a couple of Space Barristers argue about whether an act should be a Class 4 or Class 3 violation under the Imperial Legal Code. There is the scene in Andor where Cassian gets arrested and sentenced, seemingly in about a 10 minute span. The Judge’s line of “take it up with Emperor” does make me chuckle.
Of course, that’s the Empire. The scene is deliberately there to show us how an authoritarian regime that controls all aspects of the government just chews up and spits people out. No doubt the Imperial Judge knows that 6 years in prison for what Cassian allegedly did isn’t a fair punishment, she even laments it used to be a shorter sentence. But she also knows that there’s no such thing as an independent judiciary in the Empire and if she doesn’t want to end up in the Imperial Prison on Narkina 5 herself, she’s going to have to keep handing down the sentences as ordered.
I haven’t been a huge fan of just how bumbling and incompetent the New Republic has been portrayed so far. It’s a direct result of having the main bad guys of the Sequel Trilogy essentially be the Empire version 2.0. There’s only 30 years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, so even though the Mandoverse is only 4 - 5 years after ROTJ, you already need to start laying the ground work for the First Order.
That being said, after watching what might have a courtroom scene where Chancellor Mothma and Senator Xiono debate just how out of line Hera was while a few other Senators look on blankly, I can see why the citizens of the galaxy might want to throw in with the First Order. First off, is this some kind of senate hearing or is it a court? It’s tough to say.
There don’t seem to be any rules of civil procedure or rules of evidence. There’s no judge. Theoretically Mon Mothma should be running the show but it seems to the Senator Xiono shouting questions show. First off, they are going to court-martial Hera there should be a New Republic Defense Force prosecutor there and Hera should have a lawyer. Second, even if this was just a hearing to decide if there should be hearing later on to court-martial Hera, she should still have lawyer. And that lawyer should be filing a motion to recuse because clearly Senator Xiono cannot be an impartial trier of facts. I know we’re suppose to be cheering for Mon Mothma but in a court setting, she certainly can’t be helping Hera out.
Also, Hera needs to dress the part. Doesn’t matter if this is some kind of Senate hearing or a committee hearing or a court proceeding. Your bomber jacket is not courtroom attire.
That’s not even getting into the lack of rules of evidence and courtroom decorum. Look, I liked Hera’s sick burn just as much as you did, telling Senator Xiono she protects the New Republic by ignoring him. Hera, that’s why you need a lawyer. No good lawyer would even let you argue with a fact finder like that, even one that is smug weasel like Senator Xiono. Surprise witnesses are a lot of fun, in TV shows. When Carson Teva jumps up to talk about Mandalore, the bailiffs should have removed him. The little cameo by C-3PO was also fun, but what kind of government do we have when Senators and Droids are conspiring to falsify orders and suborn perjury? And the Chancellor of the New Republic is just like, hey this is cool.
I’m saying it right now, the New Republic runs a kangaroo court. At least the Imperial Court in Andor is honest about what it is. At this point I’m wondering if Miggs Mayfeld actually got a fair trial.
And besides, if there’s one person…errr…droid from the Ghost who should see the inside of the courtroom, its Chopper.
Things My Wife Has Said About Star Wars, Pt 4
For those wondering, I was spinning Star Wars Stories, which has tracks from The Mandalorian, Solo, and Rogue One.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
Since it’s a football Sunday in the fall and as I’m writing this I’m keeping an eye on my fantasy football team, today’s Wookieepedia entry is Grav-ball. Sports are not a huge thing in the Star Wars universe. Of course we have podracing. We should never forget that Qui-Gon Jinn ruined the career of the greatest human podracer the Outer Rim had ever seen. Also, the nanny state New Republic outlawed podracing. But, there’s no much in the way of ball sports. That’s where Grav-ball comes in.
In the junior novel Servants of the Empire: Edge of the Galaxy, author Jason Fry describes Grav-ball as "like American football with a bit of net-ball and a touch of hockey." Interestingly enough, if you click on the “Legends” tab for Grav-ball, it says another in-universe name for it is “Lacrosse,” an actual sport played here in our galaxy. One that was even played by yours truly a long time ago. Well, “played” might be pushing it. I was on the team because they needed enough people to have a team.
Anyway, how much interest is there in starting a fantasy Grav-ball league?
News From the HoloNet
Ahsoka's Biggest Failure Exposes a Frustrating Dave Filoni Blind Spot
There were 2 sets of masters and apprentices and there should have just been 1. Well, I guess there were 3 sets. But there should have just been 2.
10 Star Wars Theories Debunked By The Ahsoka Season 1 Finale
Master Troll Dave Filoni is always one step ahead of us.
C-3PO's Oil Bath In Star Wars Was A 'Disgusting Experience' Behind The Scenes
That does not sound fun…
Disney Using Fake People To Post Positive Star Wars Hype, Say X Users
What’s the point of having a Clone Army if you’re not going to use them?
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.
I’ve said plenty of times I liked The Last Jedi. But the direction of the movie was the first real sign Disney didn’t have a plan.
Good read. I think your Normies vs Sickos dichotomy is correct. I self-identify as a sicko, but Ahsoka was often too inside baseball even for me. Yeah, I watched The Clone Wars and Rebels.... years ago. Expecting me to remember, or frankly even care about, minutia like the Mortis stuff is asking too much. I want good Star Wars, not obscure Star Wars.
I read a really great piece in The Ringer about the declining state of the Mando-verse. It nailed all salient points and offered a reasonable way out of this mess. https://www.theringer.com/star-wars/2023/10/13/23915112/star-wars-mandoverse-ahsoka-the-mandalorian-dave-filoni-jon-favreau