The Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter: February 27, 2026
The two dirty words Disney won't let you say
Hello there
Good evening, or maybe good morning depending on when you read this and welcome back to the Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. It’s a quick one this week. The complete last week’s 6,200 word monstrosity. This week it’s just a quick one. Andor show runner Tony Gilroy that’s less about the show and more about that no, he can’t actually see the future and didn’t really want to be right about how our failing state would mirror Andor. Plus, LEGOS!
As always, thanks for reading Death Star HR. If you’re reading this and you’re not a subscriber, I’d love it if you entered your email below and smashed that subscribe button. There’s also an official Death Star HR Instagram and an official Death Star HR YouTube page as well and I’d love it if you subscribed there as well.
This Is Where The Fun Begins
As much as I truly hate Meta as a company, they’re pretty good at what they do. And I’m not just talking about the ads that Instagram serves up saying “Are you in your mid-40’s and facing career burnout?” Yes. Yes I am. Thank you for reminding me. But today, the Facebook algo served up a Simpsons/Star Wars shitposting group and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted in my life. My two great pop culture loves, together at last.
Decent chance you’re going to be subjected to dank Simpsons/Star Wars memes every week from here on out. You’ve been warned.
Tony Gilroy Can Finally Use the “F” Word
No, not the one you’re thinking of. Although according to Denise Gough, there was a take of Marva Andor’s funeral speech where she says “fuck the Empire!”
From the very start, a rebellious spirit was in the air. “Fiona’s voice was over all of us,” Gough says, recalling the finale’s fire-and-fury funeral monologue from Ferrix’s formidable matriarch. “Except, at the end, she didn’t say, ‘Fight the Empire!’ She said, ‘Fuck the Empire!’ Which we were all really excited about. But we weren’t allowed to keep it, obviously.”
Honestly, the whole interview is great because as I’ve mentioned before, Gough brings a chaotic energy to her interviews. Two choice lines and then I’ll actually get to the point.
“As I was walking home, I bumped into Ian McDiarmid,” the Irish actor tells Empire on Zoom, after Andor’s explosive finale hit Disney+. “I said, ‘Hello, boss!’ I thought, if anyone took a picture of this, it’s so brilliant – Dedra having an undercover meeting with the Emperor in Notting Hill.”
“My first day was Ferrix,” she said, recalling her arrival on the eight-acre town built at Pinewood Studios – a living, breathing, industrial planet. “I was given my two Death Troopers – one of whom had to be trained to run like a Death Trooper and not like a musical theatre star – and I couldn’t help myself, I just started doing the [hums the Imperial March]. Then, everyone started doing it.”
Instead I’m talking about the other “F” word of our time, fascism. One that Andor show runner Tony Gilroy wasn’t allowed to say when doing promotion for the show. The Hollywood Reporter has new interview with Gilroy out now, provocatively titled “Andor’ Creator Tony Gilroy Gives the Interview He Couldn’t During Its Release.”
A lot of people, myself included so I’m not acting it’s an original thought on my part, have noted that even though season 2 was filmed mostly during late 2022 and 2023, it has seemed more like a prediction of how 2025 and 2026 in America would go. Consider what we’ve seen the last 14 months: masked government agents murdering civilians, suppression of speech, people being disappeared without legal recourse or in violation of court orders, increasingly unhinged behavior from the executive branch as a distraction, and a propaganda network that as can only be described as completely detached from reality. Is that America in 2026 or season 2 of Andor? Or is there really any difference?
Gilroy doesn’t think of himself as a prophet, rather than someone who just took lessons from the past and applied them to the show.
So you get out your Fascism for Dummies book for the 15 things you do, and we tried to include as many of them as we could in the most artful way possible. How were we supposed to know that this clown car in Washington was going to basically use the same book that we used? So I don’t think it’s prescience so much as the sad familiarity of fascism and the karaoke menu of things that you go through to do it. You could list them from the show, or you could list them from the newspaper.
Yeah, it’s the same shit all the time. Get rid of truth, get rid of a free press, destroy communities, nationalize the businesses, find an arbitrary enemy that you can elevate and false flag them through propaganda. Flood the zone with as much gak and atrocity as you can so that nobody can pay attention to what just happened, and pray that you have an overwhelming majority of sheep that will follow you. It’s just tragically and sadly familiar. It’s on them; it’s not on us.
I think the current version being used is “Fascism By Dummies” but we’re splitting hairs here.
It’s not surprising that Disney didn’t want Gilroy to use the words “fascism” or “genocide” when doing promotion for the show. While it easy to write this off as yet another corporation behaving cowardly, and I’m quite certain that is part of it, there was a legitimate reason for not wanting Andor to get caught up in the all consuming and dreaded cultural war. As referenced in the question, James Gunn called Superman an immigrant and all hell broke loose. Disney absolutely did not want their prestige Emmy-bait show getting caught up Twitter flame wars and Reddit fights. I mean, Star Wars fans were already having flame wars and Reddit fights but it was kept in the family so to speak. No need to invite more people in.
Worth noting, when it first came out that Dave Filoni would be getting a promotion within Lucasfilm, one unnamed source claimed that Cowboy Dave was not a fan of Andor. It was pretty quickly denied by Lucasfilm, but of course that didn’t stop it from spreading. If Filoni hated Andor, that’s news to Gilroy.
We’ve only met a couple times, and we’ve only had a half-a-dozen conversations over the last ten years. Seriously. I saw Jon Favreau at a scoring session once. We’ve always gotten along with those guys, and we’ve never had anything but high praise for everything that they’ve done. We only have our show because of them, and we’ve always said that was true. There’s no Andor without The Mandalorian. It would not exist. So it has never been anything but cordial and pleasant, ever, ever, ever, ever. I don’t know anything that you don’t know. I really don’t.
Also worth noting that Brian Davids, the interviewer here, linked to a 2023 interview he did with Filoni where he expressed admiration for Andor.
It’s exciting, and Tony [Gilroy] did such a brilliant job with Andor. They’re just fantastic stories, and it’s great that it broadens the type of story that people can expect from Star Wars.
I’m glad there’s a Gilroy and Filoni long-distance bromance. The whole interview is worth the read.
Great Moments in Star Wars Merchandising
I can’t remember if I’ve posted this before. I know I’ve seen the video but even that even Alta Vista is better than Substack’s search function, I have no idea if it’s something I actually posted. Or something I thought about posting. Either way, please enjoy a 500,000 piece LEGO Galactic Senate.
The people that come up with this sort of stuff are absolutely fascinating to me. My brain does not work in a way that where I’d come up with something like this.
This Day in Star Wars History
It’s February 27th in the galaxy far, far away.
Novelist David Sherman was born in 1944. Sherman was primarily writer of military novels, based on his service in Vietnam and then he branched out into science-fiction. His one entry in the Star Wars universe was the Clone Wars-era move, Jedi Trial.
I’ve mentioned I usually skip comics, but Splinter of the Mind’s Eye #2 was published in 1996. I’m not sure why it took 18 years to get the novel adapted into comic book form. I’ve said this before, but a deep dive into Splinter of the Mind’s Eye is something I want to go.
The Darth Who contest wrapped up voted. I mentioned this a month ago. Fans out to vote on the name of the new Sith Lord for the Legacy of the Force series of novels. Unfortunately, I already used my Darth Icky and Darth Insanious joke.
Novelist Aaron Allston passed away in 2014. Allston was pretty proflic in the Expanded Universe, writing 5 books in the X-Wing series, 2 from New Jedi Order, and 3 each in Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi.
British actor Michael Culver passed away in 2024. Culver played the ill-fated Captain Needa in Empire Strikes Back. That scene also provides a good work-place lesson about how already need to have someone at the office to blame for your screwups.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
So this week as I was hitting the randomizer, I thought there was going to be a Wookieepedia entry for a very famous author. Instead it’s actually voice actress Jan Austin.
I really thought for just one second that Jane Austin somehow had a Wookieepedia entry. Maybe there was a book called “Pride and Prejudice and Porgs” out there that I wasn’t aware of. Also, nobody can use that book title, I thought of it first.
News From the HoloNet
No pressure. But the main thing I wanted to takeaway:
There’s a sense that “Star Wars: Starfighter,” a spinoff from “Deadpool & Wolverine” director Shawn Levy, is more likely to satisfy fans when it hits theaters next spring, with sources who have seen footage praising Ryan Gosling’s performance and suggesting Levy has recaptured the franchise’s spirit of fun.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Timeline Soon Expands at Disneyland
Not new news, but a pretty compressive rundown on what Galaxy’s Edge is changing into.
Calling All Jedis: Here’s a Peek at the 16 New Star Wars LEGOs Coming This Spring
Like most of you, I always go to goodhousekeeping.com for my Star Wars LEGO news.
Katee Sackhoff Confirms Bo-Katan's Star Wars Future
Solid click bait. Because you won’t know Bo’s future unless you click. Per Katee answering a question if she thought Bo-Katan might come back, "Always! She's not dead. She ain't going anywhere."
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.
Speaking of fun voice acting roles, Tom Baker, aka the 4th Doctor, does the voice for the Bendu in Rebels. Gotta love a Doctor Who connection lol.
Maarva's holo-ghost was supposed to say "Fuck the Empire!" but Disney wouldnt let him. I would have loved it.