The Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter: July 19, 2026
The newest and least useful member of Phoenix Squadron
Hello there
Welcome back again to the Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. Bit of a hodge podge this week. The Mandalorian and Grogu is heading to the small screen in various formats. Plus we got an update on Spaceballs 2, an (alleged) update on the Knights of the Old Republic remake, and Uncle George gets a pretty big honor. All this plus the return of Things My Wife Has Said About Star Wars and all the usual Death Star HR nonsense.
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
Just a reminder, you can speak ill of the dead.
The Mandalorian & Grogu Are Coming to Your TeeVee
In case you haven’t gotten enough of the best dad in Star Wars and his little green son, The Mandalorian and Grogu is coming to the small screen this week. On July 21st, the movie will come home to video-on-demand (VOD) platforms to “buy” or rent. Strangely you’ll be able to find it at places like Apple TV and Amazon Prime but not Disney+. There’s no official release date for Disney+ yet. After all, why release it where anyone with a subscription can watch when you squeeze out a few more dollars from the digital rentals. When will the movie show up on Disney+? Who knows. One guess is Labor Day weekend.
Makes sense I suppose. The Mandalorian and Grogu was released for Memorial Day weekend. I think of the two holidays as related to each other, the beginning and end of summer. Except for in Texas, summer runs from March to November.
Also, if you are someone who buys digital movies, it’s always worth remembering that you don’t actually own it. Sony just made headlines last month when over 550 movies were suddenly removed from the PlayStation library. Will people who bought those movies get a refund? Does the Empire conduct fair trials? Of course they won’t. That’s just the price of living in a digital society. You own nothing and you will like it. I made the argument to Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan the other day that sure, my collections of books and records are taking over my office. But really by not participating in the digital media economy and buying books and reocrds, I’m striking a blow for artists and against our techbro overlords. It basically makes me Luke Skywalker, from a certain point of view.
If you do want your very own copy of The Mandalorian and Grogu that you can’t still watch even after turning off your Disney+ subscription, you are going to have five, count ‘em, five different options to choose from, all coming out on August 21st.
Physical:
Beskar Collector’s Edition including Special Packaging, SteelBook, Metal Posters (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital Code)
SteelBook Packaging (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital Code)
4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital Code
Blu-ray + Digital Code
DVD
It was news to me that regular DVDs were still getting produced. I would have just assumed everything was Blu-ray at this point. I largely sold off most of my DVDs over the years and never got into Blu-rays, but I have been thinking for a while that I’ve wanted to get physical copies of my favorite movies/TV shows. Maybe The Mandalorian and Grogu is a good place to start. Check out the Beskar Collectors Edition.
And finally, if you’ve already rewatch all three seasons of The Mandalorian plus the Mando episodes of Book of Boba Fett plus The Mandalorian and Grogu and you still need more, don’t you worry. LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian is dropping on Disney+ September 2nd.
No word yet on the “plot”. Quote are intentional since LEGO Star Wars of often pretty light on light. The marketing material says:
Filled with unexpected laughs and action-packed fun, this new animated galactic adventure celebrates your favorite stories and characters from all three seasons of The Mandalorian series, making it perfect for Star Wars and LEGO fans of all ages.
Not a bad little late summer of animated Star Wars. We’ve got Visions: The Ninth Jedi followed by the LEGO Mandalorian? I can dig it.
Spaceballs 2: Somehow Dark Helmet Has Returned
I am a little surprised just how much I’m looking forward to Spaceballs 2: The New One, hitting theaters April 23rd of next year. Possible it’s because the comedy as a movie format seems like it’s on life support. There hasn’t been a trailer or anything released, but there is a description and a teaser poster.
Solid teaser poster. Referencing a classic Spaceballs moment.
There is a Spaceballs panel and San Diego Comic Con this weekend. I haven’t seen any updates from it. Maybe a teaser trailer? Who knows. But we also did get a description for the movie:
Somehow, Dark Helmet has returned! Forty years after the events of the first Spaceballs, fifty years after the events of Star Wars: A New Hope, and one year after the events of The Devil Wears Prada 2, the galaxy is once again under threat. A threat so evil, so unstoppable, so completely lacking in any original ideas, that it has vowed to bring back the past… every last bit of it.
With Lone Starr in hiding, Queen Vespa on the throne, and the Schwartz stretched thinner than a franchise releasing TV episodes theatrically, the only hope for the galaxy is Vespa’s undisciplined son, Prince Starburst, and a mysterious Palace advisor named Destiny. Together, they must find Lone Starr, Yogurt, and any other iconic legacy characters fans are demanding before they discover the hard way that, while some threats you can fight, the reboot is not one of them.
The reboot is undefeated…
Don’t Pull the Plug on the KOTOR Remake Yet
I honestly didn’t realize that the Knights of the Old Republic remake has been floating out in the ether for nearly 5 years. September 2021, Aspyr posted a little teaser with no actual footage. But enough to get KOTOR die-hards such as myself to think about maybe I needed to buy a PS5.
If you’re a KOTOR fan, how can you not get excited watching that trailer? Heck, I just watched it yet again and am fired up after seeing the close up of Revan. Saber Interactive took over development in 2022, and it’s more or less been radio silence ever since. The last update was over a year ago in March 2025. Saber Interactive creative director, Tim Willits, said that the KOTOR remake was in fact still going to happen. But that’s it. Until last week.
According to Saber’s new chief business officer, Steve Allison, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Remake is planned for a 2028 launch. “We’re preparing to do more self publishing and I’m here to organize the group in preparation of the lineup forming for 2028 [...] that includes Space Marine, Wick, hopefully KOTOR remake, and a few unannounced titles,” he explained.
The catch here is that the source comes from Reddit, and has since been reshared. As such, it is worth taking this news with a pinch of salt as there is no official source. Nevertheless, with a 2028 release planned, it is likely the only update we are going to receive for a while, so take that as you will.
Well, even unofficial, third-hand news is better than no news.
George Lucas is a Knight. But is Not Granted the Rank of Master
For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, last week George Lucas was honored by France, being awarded the medal of a Knight of the Legion of Honor by French President Emmanuel Macron. Lucas, along with Jodie Foster, Chris Meledandri, and Sigourney Weaver were made Knights while French filmmaker Claude Lelouch was awarded Commander of Legion of Merit, which is two higher than a Knight. For the sake of my mostly American readership, I was trying to find what our equivalent would be and I don’t think there’s a direct one-to-one translation, since the Legion of Honor awards can be presented to both military and civilians. Maybe it’s one of those things where as you’re on the back nine of your life and you’re a famous person, you start acquiring these sort of things. Either way, President Macron did have nice things to say.
The French president also celebrated Lucas’ influence beyond directing, calling him “an exceptional entrepreneur” who founded Lucasfilm, THX and Industrial Light & Magic. He highlighted Lucas’ ties to France, including his commitment to preserving the wine-growing traditions of Provence at Château Margüi, and recalled that Coppola presented him with an honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024.
…
“You have become a great Jedi Knight of cinema, and today you become a Knight of the Legion of Honor,” Macron said. “For your pioneering use of technology in the service of cinema, for your visionary imagination and for this force that, for decades, has continued to inspire wonder in young and old, and for your love of France, I am extremely proud to present you today with the insignia of Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur.”
I’m just impressed that Uncle George actually put a suit on and didn’t just roll up to meet the President in his usual jeans and flannel shirt.
Things My Wife Has Said About Star Wars
So I’ve been doing a Rebels rewatch the last week or so. As I’m typing this, I’m in the middle of season 3 where Sabine Wren starts training with the Darksaber. It’s early in her training, so she’s still having a rough go of it.
Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan is sitting on the couch with me, reading and trying to pretend like she’s not paying attention. Sabine is of course frustrated with Kanan, thinking he’s not a good teacher. But as she’s throwing a bit of a temper tantrum, she looks up and says to the TV:
“You need to stop whining and keep training, your friend is going to get stuck on another world.”
She acts like she doesn’t pay attention…
Great Moments in Star Wars Merchandising
I recently upgraded my landspeeder. It was a time for a new car. The saddest part of getting ride of our old one? Getting ride of the Darth Family sticker that was on the back.
We had the car for 14 years. Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan actually drove it longer than I did. And had to occasionally deal with seeing people in her rearview mirror pointing at the stickers. The shame she suffered of total strangers thinking she was a Star Wars fans. I’m not sure she’s ever recovered. But, as I’m currently rewatching Rebels, I decided to make the new ride part of Phoenix Squadron.
I even kicked around the idea of adding a license plate to go with it. All the obvious ones, VADER, SKYWLKR, YUBNUB, were already taken. There are about 32 million people in Texas, it’s not surprising I couldn’t get MFALCON. But all the ones below are still available.
Debating if I actually want to get a Star Wars plate. I’m leaning towards no. While it would be fun to drive around with EWOKS plate, I don’t want to see my car on the Dallas Reddit because someone thought it was funny.
This Day in Star Wars History
Three birthdays, a novel, and a rebirth all happening on July 19th in the Star Wars universe.
Voice actress Courteany Taylor was born in 1969. Taylor has a pretty extensive career, mostly in videogames. She first got involved in Star Wars by voicing Juhani, the Cather Jedi who falls to the Dark Side, in Knights of the Old Republic. Taylor also provided voices for The Old Republic, Jedi: Fallen Order, and Jedi: Survivor.
Another voice actress, and fellow Dallasite, Cherami Leigh was born in 1988. Leigh appeared as New Republic pilot Mia Gabon in the premiere of Star Wars: Resistance in 2018.
English actress Beau Gadsdon was born in 2008. Gadsdon’s first acting job was playing the 8 year old Jyn Erso at the beginning of Rogue One. To keep things consistent, her younger sister Dolly played the 4 year old version of Jyn in the movie.
Timothy Zahn’s second-to-last1 Expanded Universe novel Choices of One was published in 2011. The sequel to 2007’s Allegiance, the book takes place inbetween A New Hope and Empire Strikes back and has our heroes on a wacky of trying to find a new base while not getting killed by Mara Jade. Hi-jinks all around.
The trailer for the seventh and final season of The Clone Wars, titled “The Return” and first shown at San Diego Comic Con, was released on YouTube in 2018. I’m not sure how anyone would be able to watch this and not get fired up.
Per Wookieedia, actress Tudi Roche was born on this day but they don’t know what year.
According to Wikipedia, she was born in 1970 in San Angelo, Texas and she’s married to Richard Karn, better known as Al Borland on Home Improvement.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
Regular DSHR readers know I love when the Wookieepedia randomizer gives me Star Wars food. Even better when I get food that has both a Canon and Legends entry. And that’s what we’ve got this week. The Mandalorian dish known as “Tiingilar.”
The dish first appeared in Expanded Universe novel Order 66 where it was a spicy casserole. As a native Midwesterner, I approve of the casserole element and as an adopted Texan, I approve of it being spicy.
Tiingilar was an intensely spicy casserole made by members of the Mandalorian culture, using a blend of meat, vegetables, and potent spices. Tiingilar's spices gave the dish a pungent scent, enough to burn an individual's nasal passages. This effect was known as hetikles,[1] or "noseburn," when translated from the Mando'a language to Galactic Basic Standard.
Once Galaxy’s Edge opened, Tiingilar made the jump from words on paper to something you can put in your belly. It doesn’t look like it’s currently on the menu, but at least at some point you could swing by Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo to try Yobshrimp Tiingilar Stew, described as “a shrimp and sausage stew with orecchiette pasta.”
There’s also a recipe for it The Official Black Spire Outpost Cookbook another stew seasoned with garam masala and curry powder. I’m not quite sure why the cookbook recipe and what you could get in the parks were different. Guessing that Disney figured figured a probably-not spicy stew with pasta was a little more palatable to the majority of guests over a vaguely Indian-ish dish.
News From the HoloNet
Mark Hamill’s Star Wars lightsaber sells for record-breaking price at auction
That’s a lot of Republic credits.
You can’t be surprised that Uncle George wants to use the new and shiny toys to make movies.
New Star Wars Darth Revan Collectable Figure Revealed
Have you ever wanted a Revan figure that costs more than a mortgage payment? Because I certainly have.
Rancho-Obi Wan: North Bay man owns largest private Star Wars collection
I’m assembling a crew for an Ocean’s 11 style heist. Who’s in?
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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His last EU novel is a strange situation. Scoundrels was published after Disney bought Star Wars but it’s still not considered canon.
Whaddaya know: “KLO BMHR” is available. What are the odds?