The Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter: September 19, 2025

Is the next Star Wars movie just Ryan Gosling in a Water World remake?

Sep 19, 2025

Hello there

It’s Friday afternoon and there’s a new Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. Not my target time of Friday morning, but hey, I did manage to get it sent during the day on Friday. Like I said last week, the next few Death Star HR’s are going to be a little shorter. This week we’ve got another photo from the new Starfighter movie. Time to engage in baseless speculation! Andor gets a big Emmy, and the really expensive Death Star turned out to be 2d.

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

Offered without comment.

More Photographic Proof Starfighter is Happening

A couple of weeks ago, fans were treated to the first photo from the first day of shooting for Star Wars: Starfighter. The Shawn Levy directed movie starting Ryan Gosling, among others. The black and white photo was Gosling and Flynn Gray leaning against and sitting on a landspeeder, respectively. We learned absolutely nothing about the movie other than at A) Flynn Gray is in it and B) there will be a landspeeder in it. Now, thanks to Levy’s Instagram, we also learned there will be water involved.

slevydirect

A post shared by @slevydirect

Captioned “Somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea” we see a scruffy looking Gosling and Gray standing on a Space Boat in Sardinia. Not a bad life if you can get it. And cue the jokes of Gosling’s character getting to do “beach” as his job, even in another galaxy.

Not clues are given as where in the galaxy far, far away this is supposed to be taking place. Famous water planets include Kamino, last seen in The Bad Batch on the receiving end of a turbolaser barrage and Mon Cala, home of Admiral Ackbar. It could be the homeworld of the Mythrol. Or who knows, it would be a completely new planet. Or maybe they’ll tie it into the under-appreciated Resistance cartoon and set it on Castilon. No matter what, it will be some kind of water planet because in the Star Wars universe, planets with diverse topography are few and far between. You either get to be a water planet or an ice planet or a desert planet. Or in the case of Coruscant, a city-planet. But one topography only!

Shiny Gold Statues Confer Validation

I mentioned last week that Andor already took home four Emmy Awards during the first night, which I guess are called the Creative Arts Emmys. I did know there was a first night of Emmys, I didn’t actually know what they were called. Andor did pretty good at the Emmys for Art Nerds. Then last Sunday were the big boy Emmys where they hand out things like “Outstanding lead actress in a comedy series” and “Outstanding Drama series.” While Andor was up for some big awards, including aforementioned “Outstanding Drama Series,” the team from the galaxy far, far away was only able to add one more statue to the trophy case, with a win for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series.” Specifically episode 9 (or IX if you prefer), “Welcome to the Rebellion.”

Dan Gilroy, brother of showrunner Tony Gilroy, accepted the award.

Do awards really matter? I mean, these days you could say that nothing matters. And really, the Emmy Awards are just self-congratulatory nonsense, the band telling themselves how great the sound as the Titanic goes down.

On the other hand, this was the first Emmy in a major category for a Star Wars show. The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka have all won Emmys, but the wins are the in Creative Awards section. That isn’t to denigrate the Creative Emmys, but the Sunday night Emmy broadcast where the general public gets to see the actors and names they know does carry a bit more juice. Awards shows generally don’t go for sci-fi/fantasy like Star Wars and the like. Game of Thrones is probably the exception to the rule. And as friend of Death Star HR

Matthew Freeman

wrote, it’s fun when your team wins.

I think, for one, it’s just fun to see your team win something; that’s just human nature. If you’re a Star Wars fan, it’s fun to see them score a goal, the same way it’s fun for me to watch the Philadelphia Eagles win a game.
But I also think there’s something fun about a counter narrative to the (as ever, overblown) online general consensus that Star Wars has lost a step. In my view, the last six years of Star Wars, the streaming years, have been just an incredible run of experimentation, wish list items checked off, new characters, and exciting visions.

(You should read the whole thing, and subscribe as well because Matthew write fantastic stuff.)

This could also be the last time we see Star Wars at the Emmys for a while. But with the Lucasfilm pivot to video, that just means we’re going to see Star Wars at the Oscars! Right? Right?

And in light of well, [gestures at everything] it might be worth watching Mon Mothma’s speech again.

The LEGO Death Star Only Exists in 2-D

A few weeks ago I mentioned the new LEGO Death Star. Coming in at 9,023 pieces, it’s the 5th largest LEGO set in history, and that’s all of LEGO not just the Star Wars sets. It beats the 2nd largest Star Wars LEGO set, the UCS Millennium Falcon by roughly 1,500 pieces. And it has a price tag to match, $999.00.

It’s also…flat.

A 2 dimensional Death Star feels like a Space Balls bit. Source.

Previous Death Star playsets were round, like the actual Death Star. Can we call this one the LEGO Death Star for flat earthers? It looks like it’s more of a display piece than a LEGO set that you’d build and play with. Obviously at $1000 Republic credits, it’s really not meant for kids. It’s meant for large adult sons or daughters with too much money who want a display piece.

I’ve probably mentioned this in the past but I can’t be sure and Substack’s search function is pretty worthless. At one point, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I had a decent LEGO collection. I bought a lot of them during college and right after when I worked at Meijer1, and could use my employee discount. I never had any of the expensive ones. I think the biggest one I had was the Imperial Shuttle #7166, this set was cool because it was (I believe) the first appearance of the Imperial Royal Guards. Sadly, at one point I sold the whole collection. I don’t remember if it was before or after I moved to Texas. I kind of wish I still had them, but at the same time, I would absolutely not have any room for a large collection. Right now I have two sets. The Dagobah Jedi Training Diorama, a Christmas present from Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan. And the Millennium Falcon Holiday Diorama, which was a present from Friend of Death Star HR, my cousin Julia and her husband, Brian.

Would I love a giant Death Star to put in my office? Absolutely. Do I have any room for it? Absolutely not. Might one be able to get one at a deal in six months? Maybe. Several LEGO websites (Brick-fluecers?) received the set early for review. The early reviews have been…mixed.

From Brothers-Brick:

The biggest ask of all is the $1000 price tag. Sure, you can justify it by the weight of the plastic in those 9,000+ bricks. But despite the luxury of the price, it is ultimately an average feeling build. Throughout the lengthy build process, I was was seeing the compromises of scale more than the surprising moments that elevate construction into an artform.
Even in a post-capitalist society where any curious builder could have access to this set, regardless of cost, I would hesitate to recommend 75419 Death Star. It takes things I love and makes them exhausting.

From Brickset:

However, there are many imperfections. I think the model gets weaker towards the top, as the control room is too small and the Emperor's throne room seems unexpectedly lacking in detail, compared with other areas of the Death Star. Issues with the minifigures are also frustrating, as even though the overall selection is broadly comprehensive, better versions of C-3PO and the Imperial officers have appeared elsewhere.
That brings me to the topic of value. £899.99, $999.99 or €999.99 is a huge amount of money and many will reasonably think no LEGO set is worth so much. However, when I compare this model with 75192 Millennium Falcon or 75313 AT-AT, which cost £734.99, $849.99 or €849.99 each, the Death Star's price feels relatively reasonable to me.
Even so, whereas 75192 Millennium Falcon is a set I would recommend to any Star Wars fan able to afford and accommodate it, the Death Star is different and does not possess the same broad appeal, despite its numerous qualities.

And from Brick Fanatics: Not sure you’ll allowed to have a LEGO site without “brick” in the name.

For the very few who will buy it, 75419 Death Star will dominate as a display piece. For those who want to recreate the films, it will serve as a giant diorama. But for everyone else, the truth is unavoidable: your money and your time will be better spent elsewhere.
Our honest opinion: While vast, ambitious and awe-inspiring at first glance, 75419 Death Star falters under scrutiny, leaving gaps in both its structure and its magic that stop it from ever being the ultimate power in the LEGO galaxy.

I’m not familiar enough with the world of LEGO fanatics to know, maybe these guys are all really negative or something. But overall they seemed pretty fair. If you’re going to spend more than a car payment on a LEGO set, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that it will knock your socks off. So I think I will have to pass on the big Death Star. Now…I’m sure I can find room on my shelf for one of the giant Star Destroyers though…

This Day in Star Wars History

Only a couple things to mention from September 19th in the galaxy far, far away.

Actor Victor Brandt was born in 1942. Brandt was primarily a voice actor, probably best known for his role as Emil Hamilton in the Superman animated series from the late 90’s. He voiced Keeper Agruss in two episodes of The Clone Wars.
A real time entry to This Day in Star Wars History, on this day in 2025, that would be today, LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past was released for streaming on Disney+. Check back next week for my review.

From the Depths of Wookieepedia

Wookieepedia turned up an entry that seems appropriate since I’ve got quite a bit of travel on the agenda the next month or so. This week we’ve got Star Tours Flight 806.

Star Tours Flight 806 was the designation of a Star Tours travel agency flight to Coruscant. On the morning of the Raid at Spaceport THX1138, the gate for its planned arrival at 1045 hours was changed to Gate 3A. It was scheduled to depart again at 1140.

Star Tours was (I believe) the O.G. Star Wars ride a Disney. I do remember riding in at Disneyland in the early 2000’s. It was redone a year or so ago to update it and add some new characters, I guess. I watched a few YouTube videos but didn’t see Flight 806. 806, as far as I know, is not a common number in the Star Wars universe. It’s also the area code for the Texas Panhandle. Maybe a Lucasfilm employee who went to Texas Tech got name pick the flight numbers.