The Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter: February 14, 2025
In which we ponder Hollywood schedules and the end of the world
Hello there
And welcome to a very special edition of the Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. I’m back to the Friday morning schedule and I’m really hoping it will stay that way. This week, there’s some Star Wars/Valentine’s Day fun, we get a sneak peak at Andor season 2, there’s an update on the Rey New Jedi Order movie along with some questioning if it will ever get done. And finally, home decor, Star Wars style.
As always, thanks for reading. If you haven’t subscribed yet, I’d love it if you went ahead and smashed that subscribe button that’s below.
This Is Where The Fun Begins
It is Valentine’s Day. If you have a significant other, I hope you have a good day with that person. Here’s a valentine for you.
For those who don’t have a special Anakin or Padme in your life, here’s one for all of you:
And finally, for those of you who just don’t like anyone anyway.
Have a good one, everybody.
Democracy in Action: Vote on Love
I’ve never tried Substack’s polling feature, but here we go. In celebration of Valentine’s Day, cast your vote for the best couple in the galaxy far, far away.
Substack limits it to five choices, but also eligible for a write-in vote: Jar Jar and Julia.
Andor Speculation Based on Almost Nothing
Anti-establishment rebel Cassian Andor was sighted during the most establishment of events on Sunday. The Super Bowl. Or as Disney calls it for legal reasons, the Big Game. Given how many companies just refer to their Super Bowl ads/sales/specials/whatever as “The Big Game” it’s a wonder the NFL hasn’t tried to copyright “The Big Game” as well. Because let’s be honest, if professional American sports leagues were Star Wars characters, the NFL would be Emperor Palpatine. I’ll leave it up to my readers to decide what character the rest of the leagues are. Anyway, there were no Star Wars specific ads this year, but we got to see some friends from the galaxy far, far away in the “What If” spot1.
As a rundown, there’s 3PO and R2, the Falcon, Grogu, and in the only new footage, Andor himself.
Diego Luna is looking fairly roguish there. Season 2 of Andor premieres in about 9 weeks, so it seems likely we’ll get the Andor media hype machine starting up pretty soon. Although I have wondered what kind of media push Andor is going to get. It is easily the least Star Warsy Star Wars show out there. The only legacy characters are Mon Mothma, Wullf Yularen, Saw Gerrera, and Cassian himself. And let’s be honestly here, calling those four “legacy characters” is a bit of a stretch. Mon appeared briefly in Return of the Jedi. Yularen was a background character in A New Hope until he got a back story in The Clone Wars. Saw is a Clone Wars character as well although we first got to see the live-action version of him in Rogue One, the movie where Andor was introduced. There’s no Jedi or Sith. No Skywalkers. No sneaking in a cameo of Vader or Palpatine in. It has more in common with a John le Carré novel than it does with the rest of the Star Wars universe. Like a le Carre novel, it’s slow burn. The opposite of an action packed Skywalker Saga or James Bond movie.
Anyway, back to the commercial itself, we get a quick shot of Andor, looking fancy. He’s not wearing his usual Rebel intelligence-casual clothes. He’s dressed up like a Coruscanti. Her certainly looks like he’s in a Coruscant apartment instead of his home on Ferrix. So, based on this single screenshot and nothing else I’m going with at some point during season 2 of Andor, he’s going to have to sneak onto Coruscant to meet up with Luthen Rael and/or Mon Mothma.
Which Happens First? The Rey Movie or the End of the World
The news has been exhausting this year, but there’s finally some good news on the horizon. In a story that’s been making the rounds the last week or so, scientists believe there’s about a 2% chance an asteroid, labeled 2024 YR4, could strike the earth. Unfortunately, we have to take the bad news with the good. Even if 2024 YR4 does hit Earth, it wouldn’t be until 2032. And, to make things worse, this isn’t a planet killer like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. To be clear, it could cause a lot of damage though.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 is thought to be between 40 meters and 90 meters in diameter (130 feet to about 300 feet), which puts it between two of NASA's lower classifications: 50 meters (165 feet), which could cause "local devastation" — of which only an estimated 7% are known and 140 meters (460 feet), with 40% unknown and the potential to be deadly over metro areas and states with likely mass casualties.
Can I petition NASA to redirect the asteroid straight into Dallas?
Anyway, if we only have 7 more years to live, will that be enough time for Disney/Lucasfilm to finally get the Rey New Jedi Order movie into theaters? Well, as Master Yoda says, "Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future." Maybe in a moment of serendipity, 2024 YR4 slams into my Alamo Drafthouse just as the opening crawl starts.
All that to say, we’re getting a little bit of movement on the Rey movie. And no, it’s not that they’ve announced yet another writer. As Daisy Ridley told Screenrant:
I don't think it'll be the next thing I go to production on because I'm supposed to be doing, oh no, it's not because I'm doing something next month, very excitingly. So it's not the next thing production wise, but the script is being written and I'm very excited.
Perhaps she realized saying “we’re getting to it” might not get everyone fired up, so Ridley was a little more positive speaking to Comicbook:
“I have not read the latest script, but I know what’s happening, and I know the story, and I think what feels really good is that George is a phenomenal writer,” Ridley told us. “I think we’re making sure that this story is the best way, this script is the best way to tell the story, and I think it will be worthwhile. for everyone watching it, and I am very excited, yeah.”
Is there a latest script? I guess there’s the question of how much was written by the previous writers and is Nolfi starting from scratch or building off of what’s already been done?
Either way, that does not bode well for the Rey movie being on the big screen any time soon. As I noted a few weeks ago, Disney has 3 Star Wars released dates locked in, with Mando and Grogu already taking one of them. Per my very quick Wikipedia search, a Star Wars movie takes anywhere from a year and a half to two years from when filming starts to butts in the seats. Maybe if a script gets written and approved this year, and filming starts next year, there can be butts in the seats for the December 2027 release date that Disney has reserved.
At that point, even assuming that the Rey movie is the December 2027 release, it will have been 8 years since The Rise of Skywalker and there really isn’t any other mainstream Rey media that I’m aware of. She’s not popping up in any TV shows. I’m not up on current canon books so I don’t know if there’s anything featuring her. Disney has acquired a reputation of announcing projects and then cancelling/changing/ignoring them.
In 2027, will Rey Palpatine Skywalker be a name that gets people to come to the theaters? I don’t know. Maybe if The Mandalorian and Grogu and whatever movie gets the May 2027 slot (the Mandoverse movie or the Shawn Levy movie seem most likely) are big hits that rekindle the magic, then maybe people will be braving December weather to see what Rey is up to. If the movies are just perfectly cromulent at best and money losers at worst, I’m not really sure what Disney would do.
Great Moments in Star Wars Merchandising
I had a birthday recently, and it’s without giving my age away I can now say with 100% accuracy that I am closer to 50 than I am to 40. As Han Solo Indiana Jones said, “it’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.” And thanks to my awesome next door neighbors, when I put on my reading glasses to sit down and read the next New Jedi Order book, I can use my awesome new lamp to see the words on the page.
It’s a pretty cool lamp, the Falcon actually has a pretty good amount of detail on it.
And, the obligatory:
This Day in Star Wars History
A birth and a death to mention here on Valentine’s Day in the Star Wars universe.
Tony Philpott was born in 1946. Philpott was one of the puppeteers who controlled Jabba for Return of the Jedi. He was also a method actor, “he two would only occasionally leave the suit to directly discuss Jabba-related business, but preferred to remain in character within the suit. Philpott and Barclay employed an approach by Jim Henson in which they took direction while in character; director Richard Marquand agreed to give Jabba direction as if the character was the actor, and they talked back to the director as if the puppet itself were a live performer.” Prior to getting into pupeteering on movies, Philpott worked as a street performer and after leaving Hollywood was part of a group that started a traveling circus. In the least surprising news ever, his favorite band is The Grateful Dead.
Drewe Henley passed away in 2016. Henley, miscredited as “Hemley” in the closing credits, played X-Wing pilot Red Leader in A New Hope. That was the last movie he worked on, he then retired from acting due to bipolar disorder. I wondered if was related to East Texas’s own Don Henley, but that does not appear to be the case.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
I often comment on the minutia that some how manages to get it’s own Wookieepedia entry. Like do the lug nuts on a Y-Wing really deserve their own page? I don’t know if there are actually is a page for Y-Wing lug nuts and I’m not going to ruin the mystery by checking. Then there are entries where you’d think it’s going to be 10,000 words and it’s just a paragraph. That was today’s, with the Doctrines of the Luminous.
Doctrines of the Luminous were a set of ideas that were distinct from the ways of the Jedi. Ugnaught Jedi Master Fitan thought that Jedi should travel the cosmos teaching the doctrines of the Luminous and not just the ways of the Jedi.
Let’s start with I love the idea of an Ugnaught Jedi. And what exactly are the Doctrines of the Luminous? I don’t know. Maybe something about transcending your mortal body. After all, Yoda said “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.” But we have no clue, at least based on this article. But sure, give 6 paragraphs to a character that appeared in a background of a video game or something.
News From the HoloNet
R2-D2 and BB-8 Are Great, But No Droid Deserves a Solo Series Quite Like Chopper: Here's Why
Chopper is an unrepentant war criminal and completely deserving of his own show.
I only skimmed the article since I’d like to avoid spoilers for the book. But the positive headline makes me hopefully. I’m really excited about this one.
Disney’s Star Wars Lightsaber Experience Is Getting Its First Refresh
Shut up and take my money!
Six Months After The Acolyte's Cancellation, The Star Wars TV Show's Story Is Still Far From Over
Glad that The Acolyte will live on. There were too many interesting ideas in the show to just let them die in a fire.
Mark Hamill doesn't look like Luke Skywalker anymore to young fans' dismay
""When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not."
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 comments section is fire. And not in a good way.
That is an incredible lamp! Super jealous. :D
Happy belated birthday! Star Wars fans born in February are awesome.
I hit 50 this summer. I would love that lamp as a gift as well if your neighbors are interested.