The Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. June 7, 2026
The official newsletter of both Oga's Cantina and Ronto Roasters
Hello there
Welcome back to a Sunday evening edition of the Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. Or maybe Monday morning. Whenever you get around to reading this. It’s a pretty long one this week. I went to see The Mandalorian and Grogu yet again. I ponder killing off main characters. The Death Star HR Book Club returns. And if you don’t like reading words, there’s not one but two new trailers for Star Wars video games.
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
The calendar has switched to June which means that it is Pride Month. As the official Human Resources Department of the Death Star, it’s important to note that Stormtroopers of all sexual preferences and gender identities are welcome, just as long as they’re committed to serving the Empire.
Or maybe “Q” could have been “UnQuestioning loyalty to Palpatine.” I know that’s the same thing as the “L” but Palpatine does demand a lot of loyalty.
Final Theater Thoughts on The Mandalorian and Grogu
It was a slow Friday at work, my brain was already melted, so I knocked off early and went to see The Mandalorian and Grogu for the third time. Unfortunately, I broke my Alamo Drafthouse boycott, mostly because of timing and geography. I could go to the same AMC where I saw the movie in IMAX, but it was later in the day, would involve braving US-75 during rush hour1 (the second worst expressway in Dallas behind I-635), and there’s the little problem with AMC and their 30 minutes of trailers and ads. Alamo was 15 minutes of trailers, I checked. While not great, still better than 30 minutes. The other reason for Alamo was most of the day, there weren’t any tickets sold and I thought it would be a lot of fun to be the only one in the theater. I would both talk AND text during a move at Alamo Drafthouse and just dare them to stop me!
While I am resuming my boycott of Alamo Drafthouse, I will say that I did not really notice the mobile ordering system being too intrusive during the movie going experience. Perhaps it would have been different during a sold out show or something like that. It’s really more the principle of it. Alamo built their brand on providing an elevated movie theater going experience. The whole point was you had to put your phone away for a couple hours and actually watch the movie. And their cutesy little “yes we’re aware of the irony of telling you to order on your phone” PSA doesn’t cut it. Enshittification comes for everything.
Anyway, all that aside I am happy to report that nothing changed in-between my first viewing of The Mandalorian and Grogu and this, being my third one. Grogu is still cute. Mando is still the best dad. Rotta is still the most unexpected surprise. I really want to see a Stinky and Ahsoka reunion in season 2 of Ahsoka. Especially if he’s New Republic Commander Rotta the Hutt. I think there’s about a 3% chance it happens, but I’m not going to completely rule it out because A) it really seems like the type of thing Cowboy Dave Filoni would love to do, and B) they could have really easily filmed a couple minutes of footage with Jeremy Allen White to use at a later time.
Think about it. How great would it be when Ahsoka and Sabine finally manage to get back from Peridea and they’re greeted by Rotta the Hutt, resplendent in his XXXXXXXXL-sized New Republic uniform. Also, the New Republic uniforms are bad. The First Order are the bad guys, no two ways about it. But they at least have style. The New Republic can’t govern because they have no swag.
There wasn’t really anything new that I picked up on watching it a third time. I even tried to keep an eye on the sides of the screen or what’s happening in the background, just in case Favreau tried to sneak in, I don’t know, the Ghost at Adelphi Base or something like that. One thing I did think was sort of interesting is that it was clear, both from the movie and remarks from Favreau and Filoni, that they wanted to make a movie that someone who only knows Grogu through Baby Yoda memes could walk in and enjoy. Almost like they knew the criticism of season 3 and of Filoni in general is that it’s too much inside baseball. The movie almost went too far, there’s a way to throw in a few Easter eggs for the Sickos while not making them obvious or directly related to the plot. The one thing I really felt was missing was some kind of shoutout to Carl Weathers. It would have been really easy for there to be a statue of Greef Karga when the Razor Crest is flying over Nevarro. Maybe show IG-12 walking the streets as well.
Barring something strange, like having a completely free Friday again, I think that will probably be my last time seeing it in the theater. It also doesn’t seem like movies stick in the theaters like they used to. I remember The Phantom Menace was in theaters basically the whole summer of 1999. And then again in November of ‘99. If you haven’t seen The Mandalorian and Grogu in the theaters yet and you’ve been on the fence about it, you should probably do it in the next week or so. Summer blockbuster season is starting. And The Mandalorian and Grogu is, if nothing else, a fun summer popcorn movie.
What If Disney Did the Unthinkable?
I had a thought during the Grogu’s Big Adventure sequence. You know the part of the movie I’m talking about, when Mando is unconscious due to the Dragon Snake venom and Grogu has to survive, keep Mando alive, and do so while dodging the battle droids and Embo. On my first watch I thought it dragged a big but on rewatch, it really is the heart of the movie. Mando’s biggest fear is not being there to protect Grogu. But Grogu goes out and shows he can survive, if not thrive on his own. The old protect the young and the young protect the old.
And here's my thought experiment, what if in this case, the young couldn’t protect the old? What if Disney and Lucasfilm decided to give the movie a little oomph and kill off Din Djarin?
I know, I know. It wasn’t ever going to happen. Star Wars is pretty loath to kill off major characters, even Weird Al joked about this in 1985’s Yoda. And I am going to address the Sequel Trilogy in a second.
Well, I heard my friends really got in a mess
So I'm gonna have to leave Yoda, I guess
But I know that I'll be coming back someday
I'll be playing this part till I'm old and grey
The long-term contract I had to sign
Says I'll be making these movies till the end of time
With my Yoda
Obviously Obi-Wan dies in A New Hope, at the suggestion of Marcia Lucas, but that was before Star Wars was STAR WARS. Harrison Ford famously wanted Lucas to kill off Han Solo in Return of the Jedi but did not get his wish. Qui-Gon Jinn dies in The Phantom Menace, but as Star Wars rhymes, he was the Obi-Wan figure of the movie. More so than the actual Obi-Wan. Darth Maul was hyped as a major character because he was pretty cool looking. But as I’ve said before. The “importance on the poster to the importance in the movie” ratio is way off for Maul. He’s a main character and something of a tragic anti-hero now. But back in 1999 he was just a cool looking guy who got cut in half and died2.
Then in the Sequel Trilogy Luke, Han, and Leia all die. Working backwards, Leia had to die in some form because of Carrie Fisher’s passing in 2016. I don’t know this for a fact but I would expect that Harrison Ford told Lucasfilm he’d come back for one movie but not a whole trilogy. And he finally gets his wish of seeing Han Solo die. Luke dying in The Last Jedi seemed exactly on point with what Rian Johnson wanted to do in the movie and while I think it was a successful move, being upset about Luke was just the excuse for the angry and shouty parts of the fanbase to go online and be angry that Rian Johnson ruined their childhood while they were actually mad that Rose Tico has too much screen time. Because girls are gross or something like that. Mark Hamill has said that while he initially wasn’t happy with Johnson’s character arc for Luke, he eventually came around after Johnson explained what he was doing and now says he’s happy about it. Or at the very least has made peace with it, and does not have any plans to show back up as Luke Skywalker.
Of course we have to talk about two of my most-hated moments in The Rise of Skywalker, the fake-out deaths of both Chewbacca and C-3PO. As Rey attempts to use the Force to stop a First Order transport ship from flying away with Chewie inside, only to accidentally destroy it with Force lighting when the Dark Side inside of her bubbles up.
Chewie of course gets rescued later on in the movie and overall isn’t any worse for wear. While I will give Rise of Skywalker credit that they at least hinted there is a Dark Side in Rey, but they did very little with it. I’m not here to re-litigate the Sequel Trilogy, like all Star Wars movies they have parts I like and parts I don’t. Chewie’s death would have added a lot more impact to the movie. That there was the Palpatine blood in Rey. That she had to figure out how to control it. Instead, Chewie was alive, we got a shot of Dark Rey but no real reflection on it. Maybe she could have leaned into Dark Side teachings from Kylo Ren and when he saw what it was doing to her, could have turned back to the Light Side. I don’t know.
Star Wars had already killed off Chewbacca once. The very first book of the New Jedi Order series, Vector Prime, has Chewie meeting his untimely demise when the Yuuzhan Vong drop a moon on him. Yes, seriously. The reaction from Star Wars fans was swift. Author R.A. Salvatore even got death threats!
All this to say, what if they killed off Din Djarin in The Mandalorian and Grogu. Mando gets pointed by the Dragon Snake and Grogu does whatever he can, but it’s too late. He didn’t get there in time. Or the venom was just too powerful. Or whatever. Grogu goes to sleep in the crook of Mando’s arm, but when he wakes up, he finds that Mando isn’t breathing.
It would be a shock right up there with when we first saw Baby Yoda back in season 1.
I’m going to throw this out there as well and say that honestly, Disney should have ended The Mandalorian after season 2. The story starts with Din Djarin as a mercenary/religious zealot and ends with him as a father figure making the heart-wrenching decision to let Grogu go with Luke because he knows it’s what best.
But anyway, this is Disney. There’s money to be made.
The rest of the movie would be Grogu figuring out how he could get a hold of the Anzellans and how to contact the New Republic. Or maybe he goes on a Dark Side rampage.
Or even better, Mando heroically sacrifices himself to save Grogu. Maybe one of The Twins is about to eat Grogu as a snack. Mando rushes over and saves the little green guy, but he’s let his guard down and Embo knocks him into the pit where the dragon snake swallows him whole before he can react. I don’t know. As much as I liked the Grogu’s solo scene, Mando was never actually in any danger.
I get it, it’s a movie targeted to get the Baby Yoda generation, the younger Star Wars fans to keep the franchise going. I wrote about the girl with the Mando mask and lightsaber watching the movie with her dad. I’m not sure killing off one half of her favorite Star Wars duo would be really help keep her as a fan.
And then there’s the problem of how Pedro Pascal’s large and rabid fanbase, of which Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan is a part of, would react if Space Daddy got killed off.
Me: So, question for you. How would you react if they killed off Mando in the movie?
EP#1F: I would be…upset.
Me: Like burn the theater down upset?
EP#1F: Yeah, pretty much.
Probably safer for everyone involved that Mando lived.
The Death Star Human Resources Department Book Club
I’ve not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this or not, but most of my current Star Wars collection has come from Half-Price Books. There’s a somewhat decent chance you have a HPB new year, they’ve got 120 locations in 19 states, at least that’s what their Wikipedia entry says. But as luck would have it, the closest one to me is their flagship store. The good thing is, they probably get the most stuff in. The bad news is, anything good tends to go quickly. Nothing like walking in and seeing that someone has traded in a fresh collection of Star Wars books and you’ve got the first crack at it. Unfortunately, I’m at the point now were my Expand Universe collection is nearly complete so it’s a lot less likely I find stuff I don’t already have. It’s also interesting for as much as Star Wars is thought of as slapping their name on anything and everything, there are WAY more Star Trek books than Star Wars books.
All this to say, I almost passed up Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire by Delilah S. Dawson when I saw it on the shelves. My reason was that this seemed like the sort of cash grab Disney would have churned out to coincide with the opening of Galaxy’s Edge, the theme park. Something along the lines of a character in book visits each of the shops at Galaxy’s Edge and just happens to comment on all the items that one could buy if they wanted to visit Galaxy’s Edge in the real world. And in a lesser author’s hands, that could have very easily happened. Instead, it’s a meditation on trauma and found family, set in a Disneyland background.
Title: Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire
Series: It’s considered a standalone book, although you could say it’s an unofficial sequel to Phasma. It’s also part of the Galaxy’s Edge media project.
Author: Delilah S. Dawson.
Date published: August 27th, 2019
Pages: 527
Status: Canon
Summary in less than 20 words: Disney might be the happiest place on earth, but Batuu when the First Order arrives is much sadder.
Thankfully Dawson is a pretty great Star Wars author. She wrote 2017’s Phasma, which also introduced Black Spire characters Vi Moradi and Captain Cardinal, along with giving us a backstory for Captain Phasma3. I know I read Phasma a while ago but don’t really remember it. I feel like I read it shortly after it came out, and I can barely remember what I did a couple weeks ago. Dawson also wrote the excellent Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade which was published in 2023 and reviewed last year by yours truly.
The book itself is fairly simple. Starting in-between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, Resistance spy Vi Moradi is tasked by General Organa to go to Batuu and see if she can set up an outpost and recruit the locals into helping out the Resistance. The books skips ahead and mostly takes place after the Battle of Crait, so in between The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker. This checks out as it’s the timeline that Galaxy’s Edge takes place in4.
Riding shotgun with Moradi is the recently deprogrammed Captain Cardinal, no longer with the First Order but not quite committed to the Resistance. You need to read Phasma for the whole story. Unfortunately things don’t go quite as planned and they end up getting shot down and crash landing. Because nothing can ever be easy for the Resistance, almost all their supplies have been stolen by associates of Oga, the local crime lord.
That’s Oga as in Oga’s Catina, home of the Bespin Fizz and Coruscant Cooler, at both Disneyland and Disney World. Reservations are suggested.
I’m kinda poking fun at the book being what I was worried about, a 500 page theme park advertisement. But you can’t really write a book about in-world events happening at Black Spire Outpost5 without referencing the places Disney created for Galaxy’s Edge.
Moradi manages to eke out survival becoming a gatherer helping out at Savi & Son Salvage and doing some errands for Dok-Ondar. There’s meals and Ronto Roasters and drinks at Oga’s. All scenes from Galaxy’s Edge. And while her recruiting for the Resistance isn’t going as well as she hoped, it’s not too bad of a life for Vi.
The good citizens of Black Spire Outpost though aren’t thrilled that there’s a Resistance spy in their midst stirring up trouble. Most of them, to borrow a phrase from Luke, think that “it’s all such a long way from here.” That they’re too much of a backwater Outer Rim planet that the First Order can’t be bothered with them. And they’re right. Until they’re not. Eventually some narc in Oga’s calls the First Order and lets them know a Resistance spy is running her mouth all over town. Quickly the First Order comes to town and starts doing what they do best, being jerks to everyone.
Eventually Moradi realizes the First Order isn’t going to go away without any encouragement, so she assembles her crew of misfits. Dolin, a farm boy from the outskirts of Black Spire Outpost who lost his parents and seems to be coded as Space Amish, or maybe Space Mennonite. Also, while Dolin wants to help, his grandmother isn’t so sure and doesn’t want to him to go with Vi.
Along with Dolin, she picks up Kriki, a Chadra-Fan and Zade Kalliday, a drunken smuggler. And rounding out the crew, remember Captain Cardinal? He’s had a rough go of things since escaping the First Order but he’s ready to help out.
Things eventually come to a head when Vi gets captured by the first order and her new family along with some townsfolk have to band together to rescue Vi, drive off the First Order, and then make the whole thing look like the First Order ship exploded on accident so General Hux doesn’t want to keep investigating. Unfortunately for Cardinal, he’s on board when the First Order transport goes boom. Everything seems to be OK for a while at the Black Spire Outpost, until Vi gets word that Kylo Ren is on his way…
The Good:
As I said at the start, it would have been really easy for Disney to just treat this book as an advertisement for Galaxy’s Edge. Instead Dawson takes two characters she already created and helps finish their story. In addition, she gives all the characters some depth and a reason to fight. Vi was captured and tortured by the First Order, she’s still dealing with that while trying to lead. Cardinal is also dealing with injuries while trying to figure out a purpose. The only life he ever knew was the First Order. When that’s gone, what’s a solider to do? Dolin lost his parents and needs a purpose as well. Kriki lost her sister when Hosnian Prime got exploded. Zade’s partner was killed by the First Order when they got their ship boarded. All of them had to find a way to work through their pain and Dawson gives a lot of depth to what could have been minor characters.
The Bad:
I really don’t have anything to put here. Maybe it felt a little long. There’s quite a bit in the middle of Vi just going around Black Spire Outpost doing her thing. Maybe tighten it up and trim 25-50 pages? Funny since I’m pretty sure my review of Dawson’s “Rise of the Red Blade” said I wanted it to be longer.
Wild Card:
This is probably a pretty accurate description of General Hux
Next up, I’m going back to the Expanded Universe and getting into the Legacy of the Force series. First up, Betrayal by Aaron Allston.
Now This Is Podracing…On A PS5
Two new Star Wars video game trailers just dropped. First up, even though the whole point of the new podracing game, Star Wars: Galactic Racer is to drive a podracer really fast, there apparently is a story to it. Or so they’re claiming in the new trailer.
Story is fine, I guess. It’s not Knights of the Old Republic II.
Next up is Star Wars: Zero Company. A turn-based tactics game set during the Clone Wars. Fun little cameo at the end of the trailer.
A whole game blasting clankers6? Sign me up.
This Day in Star Wars History
We’ve got four births and a death that took place on June 7th in the Star Wars universe.
English actor Michael Pennington was born in 1943. If you feel like you’ve heard his name lately, it’s because he passed away on May 7th of this year. Pennington played Moff Jerjerrod in Return of the Jedi. The Imperial who greets Darth Vader when he lands on the 2nd Death Star. Pennington had a long career, primarily in the theater across the pond. In 1986 he co-founded the English Shakespeare Company and played many of the title roles in Shakespeare plays.
Nerd series actor extraordinaire Karl Urban was born in 1972. Urban has appeared in The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, The Boys, and the MCU. His role in Star Wars was a lot smaller, playing a Stormtrooper in Rise of Skywalker. Not a bad gig.
We’ve got a big one here. Cowboy hat aficionado and current co-president of Lucasfilm Dave Filoni AKA Mr. Ahsoka Tano was born in 1974. Filoni was born in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania which is an inner-ring suburb of Pittsburgh. Interestingly, he’s not the only Star Wars person from Mt. Lebanon. Ming-Na Wen, better known as Fennac Shand, grew up there and they both went to the same high school, although at different times. I’m not sure where Filoni picked up his love of cowboy hats, but I can’t imagine that the suburbs of Pittsburgh are cattle country.
Actor and comedian Bill Hader was born in 1978. Not in Mt. Lebanon but in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hader is probably best known for working the Saturday Night Live Weekend Update desk. Hader did some voice work for BB-8 for The Force Awakens, although he later said he probably didn’t deserve a credit for it.
Sir Christopher Lee passed away in 2015. Lee played County Dooku/Darth Tyranus in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith along with voicing the character in The Clone Wars movie. It is impossible to sum of Lee’s life and career in a paragraph here, other than to say it’s pretty amazing. He was an actor, singer, heavy metal fan and musician, and a spy with the British who saw some shit in World War II. From the Los Angeles Times after his passing:
According to the video, Jackson was blocking a scene in which Wormtongue (Brad Dourif) stabs Saruman (Lee) in the back. Jackson goes into a long explanation about how he wants Lee to react and Lee says, "Have you any idea what kind of noise happens when somebody’s stabbed in the back? Because I do.”
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
If I told you this week’s FTDOW was for “Demtri” your brain probably autocorrected to “Dimitri” and you assumed I was going to be talking about a henchman from an 80’s action movie when the Soviets are the bad guys or maybe someone who was a third line defenseman for the Philadelphia Flyers in the early 2000’s. But no, we’re talking about Demtri. Member of a Dark Jedi cult.
Demtri, brother of Gerlun, was a member of the Malevolence, a Dark Jedi cult that lived in Andeddu's Keep on Prakith. When Darth Wyyrlok III appeared at the Keep to learn Darth Andeddu's secrets, Demtri and the other Dark Jedi confronted the Sith Lord. They were, however, no match for Wyyrlok's mastery of the Force and, under the influence of a Force illusion of multiple Wyyrloks, Gerlun struck down Demtri.
Rough way to go.
News From the HoloNet
What We Learned from Jon Favreau’s “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” Audio Commentary
Lots of cool little tidbits.
Disney+ Announces Its 3rd Star Wars Release For 2026
No, it’s not that Ahsoka season 2 is getting bumped up. Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi is dropping this summer.
What a Star Wars helmet had to do with Ole Miss baseball making College World Series
A team called the “Rebels” wearing a Stormtrooper helmet is quite a choice. Ole Miss, call me and put me on your payroll as a “Star Wars Celebrations Consultant.”
10 Wild Star Wars Fan Theories Audiences Had When The Original Trilogy Came Out
Some of these I’ve heard before. Others are new to me. #5 has always been a favorite of mine.
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.
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Rush hour on 75 in Dallas is pretty much a 24/7 thing at this point.
Just reminding Bob Iger nobody really dies in Star Wars.
Am I out of line to say that Phasma was the Boba Fett or the Darth Maul of the Sequel Trilogy? Cool looking character that goes out like a punk.
As long as you’re at Disneyworld. The Disney Land timeline? It’s a little loosey goosey.
I’ll likely end up using Galaxy’s Edge and Black Spire Outpost interchangeably. Technically speaking, Galaxy’s Edge is Disney’s name while Black Spire Outpost is the “in-world” name.
Safari’s autocorrect changed “clankers” to “clunkers.” Honestly it kinda works either way.
My two bits on Mando and Grogu:
Everyone is pointing out that this film is a flop but it was a kid's film. Just a very expensive one. But the marketing is still going on and I don't think it's for us to keep on going and watching the film. It really didn't make the kids see it more than once. What I feel like is that it's true weight will be in merch and how many baby yoda things we, or the kids want.
Because of the movie's marketing, nearly a month later I got my best friend baby yoda socks thanks to the social media campaign. The Japanese Star Wars IG campaign is still heavily promoting it and merch is merch.
Star Wars metrics are going to be different from hereon. Everyone is talking about the return of Star Wars to what it was but I don't think that world exists anymore.
After watching Pedro get (spoilers) rekt in TLOU my mom would have set the cinema on fire