The Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter: September 26, 2025
Shiny objects in the form of movie trailers
Hello there
Welcome once again to the latest edition of the Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. There’s a lot here to talk about, and even more out in Star Wars land that I didn’t get to and hopefully next week. But this week, there’s a new trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu. There’s a new trailer for Visions Volume 3. There’s not a trailer but there’s at least a new photo for Spaceballs 2. Eveything is new and distracting!
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
Got this from my old college roommate, known as the proprietor of only Irish pub on Ord Mantell.
This is also extremely accurate when it comes to Simpsons trivia.
In Case of Emergency: Break Glass and Smash the “Baby Yoda” Button
It’s been a rough couple of weeks over at the Mouse House. Mostly self-induced. Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the aptly named “Jimmy Kimmel Live” was suspended by ABC, more or less the behest of the FCC Chairman, for comments he made on air after the murder of conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk. Less than a week later, ABC reversed course and said Kimmel would be returning to network on Tuesday. ABC is of course owned by Disney. The return of Kimmel is not because ABC/Disney found a spine made out of Beskar, but rather people cancelling Disney+. Even to the point where the cancellation page for Disney+ was crashing.1 I often comment that we are living in the absolute dumbest timeline and the former host of The Man Show, best known for it’s outro bit of “Women Jumping on Trampolines”, being the First Amendment avatar of our times is more proof that.
Thankfully for Disney, they have a solution to the bad press. And it’s a little green guy. What better distraction than some sweet Baby Yoda action. I’d imagine the scene at Disney HQ was something like this.
Underling: Mr. CEO, sir. People are being mean to us on the internet.
Bob Iger: Hahaha [the laugh is an evil one]. It’s OK. The country is so polarized that as long as one side likes us, we’ll be fine.
Underling: But sir [pauses like he’s Captain Needa about to give Darth Vader bad news], both sides are mad at us.
Bob Iger: Both sides?? Oh no, we’ll never survive. There’s only one thing to do. [dramatic pause] RELEASE THE GROGU TRAILER!
[buttons are pressed. dials are turned. people hurry around Disney HQ. It’s a scene strangely like igniting the Death Star Superlaser. And then the trailer below is released on YouTube]
OK, so that’s a bit of a dramatic reenactment. But I’m certainly not the only one to note that Disney just happens to release the teaser for the first new Star Wars movie in seven years the very same week they’re facing all sorts of negative press. Maybe it was the will of the Force. Maybe it was hand of the ISB. Who can say.
I try to stick with my schedule for publishing Friday morning. I figure if I have a set time, that means if there’s breaking news, oh well someone will beat me to it. So friends of Death Star HR have already written about the trailer and its relation to, well, everything going on. You can read thoughts from Matthew Freeman at Ahch-Tu Baby, Eric Pierce at All the Fanfare, and Dominic Jones at Hoth Off The Press. I’m pretty sure Matthew had his piece up within hours of the trailer dropping.
There’s really no plot that can be determined from the trailer, other than that Mando and Grogu are going to likely be working with the New Republic. The appearance of Zeb and Sigourney Weaver’s character all but confirm that. And that’s OK. We get a little bit of information from the Official Site, but it’s not much.
The evil Empire has fallen, and Imperial warlords remain scattered throughout the galaxy. As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the Rebellion fought for, they have enlisted the help of legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his young apprentice Grogu (as himself).
That’s not anything you don’t already know from watching The Mandalorian or Ahsoka. Really, all I want from this movie is for it to be fun. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be Andor or Empire Strikes Back. I just want to walk out of the IMAX2 theater where I saw it and say “that was a great way to spend 2.5 hours.”
The leaked footage and description of the trailer has been floating around the internet for a while. There is one other piece of footage that was seen at D23 but never officially released yet, a scene of Mando fighting off Snowtroopers. But everything else is what we’ve been promised: Signorney Weaver, Zeb, Babu Frick, and Rotta the Hutt are all there.
Grogu himself seems to be the star of the movie, or at least the trailer. Which makes sense because he’s been the star of the show for 3 seasons now. Sure, the show is called “The Mandalorian” and there were lots of Mandalorians, especially in season 3. But the little green guy has always been the star.
Also, we got a really cool poster.
Spaceballs: The Behind the Scenes Photo
We have, in fact, found shit.
Also, because it’s Spaceballs, the photo is in the style of the first table read for The Force Awakens.
Rick Moranis is officially out of retirement for this. I think there had been some question if Daphne Zuniga would return, she’s back. Sequels are always a little concerning, especially when you’re trying follow a classic. I saw the new Spinal Tap movie a couple weeks ago and I enjoyed myself but I’m not sure it’s a movie that needed to exist. No matter what, I’ll be seeing Spaceballs 2 opening weekend. It’s the will of the Schwartz!
I’m Having Visions of a Visions Trailer
Star Wars: Visions is one of the cooler, and weirder, ideas that’s come out of Lucasfilm in the past few years. Basically the idea was just let a bunch of international animation studios tell whatever Star Wars story they want. Nothing is canon, so they rules are out the window. I’m sure there are something things that are off limits, but it’s more or less let your freak flag fly. Last night, hot on the heels of the new movie trailer this week, Disney dropped the trailer for Visions: Volume 3.
That scene at about 0:45 of the AT-AT’s breaking through the ice is just fantastic.
The mothership has the official synopsis:
The trailer — available as the original Japanese trailer, as well as the English dubbed trailer — showcases a glimpse at the stories to come with the premiere on Disney+ on October 29, including the return of Ronin from the Emmy®-nominated “The Duel,” F from “The Village Bride,” and Lah Kara from “The Ninth Jedi,” three shorts available in Volume 1, streaming now on Disney+.
This season, Star Wars: Visions Volume 3 returns to Japan where it all began, featuring nine shorts from nine different anime studios — david production, Kamikaze Douga + ANIMA, Kinema citrus Co., Polygon Pictures, Production I.G, Project Studio Q, TRIGGER, WIT Studio — to further demonstrate the diversity and creativity of Japanese animation.
I do especially love that we’re getting a sequel to “The Duel.” It might be worth watching Volume 1 again. Volume 3 drops October 29th on Disney+.
Great Moments in Star Wars Merchandising
I may have posted this before, I don’t think I have. And honestly, Substack’s search function is awful; so if you’ve seen this before, I’m sorry. But with the new trailer dropping for The Mandalorian and Grogu, seems like a good time to post this.
Remember back to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Namely 2019. We’re living in that sweet time when The Mandalorian has been released but COVID hasn’t shut everything down. When Springsteen sings “Glory Days”, this is what he’s talking about. If you’ll remember, when The Mandalorian came out, there really wasn’t much in the way of merchandise. Given Disney’s love of money, this is surprising. I remember reading an interview with Jon Faveau where he talked about keeping The Child, as Grogu was then known, out of marketing materials.
You worked with Disney to keep Baby Yoda out of the prerelease marketing and the initial wave of toys. How did you manage to pull that off and why?
I think that part of what people really value is to be surprised and delighted, and I think that’s becoming all too rare. It’s very difficult to keep secrets about projects you’re working on. By holding back on that one product, we knew that we may have had the disadvantage of not having toys available day and date, but what we got in exchange was an excitement surrounding the character, because everybody felt like they discovered him together. That emulated more what my experience growing up was like.
All this to say, this mug was one of the few easily available things with Baby Yoda’s, well, mug on it. Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan got me the above mug for Christmas that year. Pretty sure they were rushed into production without quality control. The handle has already broke once. I super glued it back together. That worked for a while and it broke again. Currently it just sets on my shelf, a reminder of a simpler time when he wasn’t “Grogu” but was merely “Baby Yoda.”
Things My Wife Has Said About Star Wars
Scene: Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. We have just enjoyed an overpriced dinner at TGI Friday’s and are heading to our gate. I am dressed fashionably for this flight, wearing my t-shirt that has Mando pushing a paleta cart with Grogu in it. It’s the kind of t-shirt that says “I wanna be formal but I'm here to party too.” Classy. Anyway, we are walking on the concourse and see a group of younger teenagers walking towards us. One of them was wearing a Star Wars t-shirt as well. I don’t mean to disparage him, or the rest of the kids, but they looked like nerds. I don’t say this with judgment, as I was a nerdy teenager as well. Lack of game recognize lack of game.
As we walk past them, the kid sees my shirt. I see his. We do a little nod and keep on going.
Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan: You just gave that kid hope he might get laid one day.
Death Star HR: inspiring the youth of America.
This Day in Star Wars History
September 26th was a pretty busy day in the Star Wars universe. Birthdays, deaths, books, and a band.
Television producer Gerald W. Abrams was born in 1939. Abrams appeared as a Resistance officer as a cameo in The Force Awakens. He’s also the father of The Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker director, J.J. Abrams. Somehow, finding out that J.J. was a nepo baby does not surprise me.
Comic book writer Tom Veitch was born in 1942. Veitch was the writer or co-writer for several titles published by Dark Horse Comics, most notably the Dark Empire series. Those comics, along with the Heir to the Empire trilogy really kicked off the Expanded Universe.
Actor Togo Igawa was born in 1946. He played Resistance captain Idrosen Gawat in The Last Jedi.
Now we’ve got a Wookieepeida getting weird alert. It claims that on this day in 1954, Jefferson Starship was born. This is of course not even close to correct. Jefferson Starship was spun off from Jefferson Airplane, a band who formed in 1965.
It seems pretty likely this is referring to Craig Chaquico, who was one of the original members and the lead guitarist for Starship while he was in the band. And has a birthday of September 26, 1954.
Novelist Roger MacBridge Allen was born in 1957. Allen wrote The Corellian Trilogy, released in 1995 which detailed a Solo family visit to Corellia and, surprise surprise, our heroes run into trouble. The books introduced Han’s cousin Thrackan Sal-Solo, who again you know is a bad guy because he has a mustache. Sal-Solo and some of the events/places from The Corellian Trilogy would be revisited in The New Jedi Order books.
In 2002, the Oxford English dictionary added the words “Jedi”, “the Force”, and “the Dark Side” to the dictionary.
Expanded Universe novel Darth Bane: Path of Destruction was published on this day in 2006. A guy who eventually calls himself Darth Bane joins the Sith and starts the Rule of Two. Sorry for the spoilers but I think the statute of limitations has run for 19 year old book.
Barry Dennen, who voiced King Ramsis Dendup of Onderon, passed away in 2017 at 79 years old. Dennen appeared in a wide range of movies, Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar, Kentucky Fried Movie, and The Shining. That’s quite the collection.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
I thought for sure that “Those Who Dwell Beyond the Veil” was the name of a Star Wars heavy metal band.
Those Who Dwell Beyond the Veil were Aing-Tii deities. They may have been early space travelers. The Aing-Tii claimed that it was these deities who taught them the ways of the Force.
Well, I was wrong. But it would still be a pretty great name for a doom metal band.
News From the HoloNet
I get it. But I’m not sure you could have talked Harrison Ford into 3 more movies. He was already trying to kill Han off in ROTJ.
Mandalorian & Grogu Finally Fulfills An Unspoken Star Wars Promise
Totally here for the Zeb-aissance.
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.
As always, take a Reddit thread with a grain of salt.
I am truly excited to see this on IMAX