We react to the news of the cancellation of THE ACOLYTE and speculate why it happened and what is ahead for STAR WARS streaming on Disney+. Next up for STAR WARS is SKELETON CREW. We have audio highlights of show star Jude Law discussing the upcoming show and look for hints hidden within his comments. We continue our ongoing support of the world’s largest STAR WARS memorabilia collection, RANCHO OBI-WAN, and check in with founder Steve Sansweet and museum president Anne Neumann, both dear friends of RFR. Plus, a full report from FanExpo Chicago and Blues Brothers Con: The Sequel as RFR with Baby Belushi took over both events last weekend and more!
Check out last week’s show – SKELETON CREW Reveals at D23
Today we’re discussing the rumors about the supposed Mandalorian video game being worked on by Respawn as well as the coming re-releases of the classic Battlefront games and Dark Forces!
0:00 Intro
3:13 The Mandalorian video game rumors
8:49 Classic Battlefront games
11:21 Glup Shincidents
18:19 Yoda’s species
Is The Mandalorian season four being turned into a movie? How prominent will the First Order be in future seasons? These questions and more answered in this week’s Q&A!
While we were at San Diego Comic Con 2023, we got the chance to sit down with George Mann, Charles Soule, Cavan Scott, and Justina Ireland! I asked them about their upcoming work in Phase Three of the publishing initiative and they answered…as best as they could, anyway!
When Rosario Dawson was cast as Ahsoka in live-action, many fans thought that it might mean the end of the much beloved animated version of the character, who was voiced by Ashley Eckstein.
Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, as she returned to voice the character in three installments of the recently released Tales of the Jedi on Disney+. But where will she pop up next?
Chronologically, the next time Ahsoka is seen after her final episode of Tales is in Star Wars: Rebels, where she’s revealed to be the mysterious Rebel Fulcrum. However, after her final appearance there, the Star Wars timeline catches up to where the live-action content is now.
On the animated side, she could still end up in Star Wars: The Bad Batch at some point, which takes place shortly after Revenge of the Sith—a lot of that time remains unaccounted for. Or could it be an unannounced project? According to the actress, not even she knows…
Check out a new clip from episode 9 of #Andor. Find out what’s happening on level 2 in tonight’s episode, streaming only on @DisneyPlus.
The “Andor” series will explore a new perspective from the Star Wars galaxy, focusing on Cassian Andor’s journey to discover the difference he can make. The series brings forward the tale of the burgeoning rebellion against the Empire and how people and planets became involved. It’s an era filled with danger, deception and intrigue where Cassian will embark on the path that is destined to turn him into a rebel hero.
Diego Luna returns as Cassian Andor and is joined by cast members Genevieve O’Reilly, Stellan Skarsgård, Adria Arjona, Denise Gough and Kyle Soller. The executive producers are Kathleen Kennedy, Sanne Wohlenberg, Diego Luna and Michelle Rejwan. Tony Gilroy is the creator and showrunner.
This issue was remarkable, because as it was coming together, the news about the Disney acquisition and the new Star Wars trilogy was just about to break. I wouldn’t call myself an editor of the magazine – I just advise when and where I can – but this time, I got to channel the ink-fingered editors of yore and put a call out to HOLD THAT FRONT COVER!
I had gotten wind that these announcements would soon be public while I was at New York Comic-Con, which made for some very cagey phone calls with Lucasfilm while I was at a very public venue (oh, if only the people within earshot had any idea what we were talking about!). As soon as I got back to California, Howard Roffman led us in hammering out a plan on how this news would be announced on starwars.com. It was kept to a very small group of people at first, and I didn’t want Insider to miss what would be the biggest Star Wars news in years.On October 25, I emailed editor Jonathan Wilkins at Titan Magazines, requesting that every effort be made to accommodate an upcoming major announcement that was brewing at Lucasfilm. “This could end up being the most important issue you’ve published to date,” I wrote, but I could not give him any specifics. I just said to hold the cover (and never advised what to run instead of a planned Clone Wars cover) and said that I have about 4,800 words of story coming his way, so that he had to move editorial around to make room. To his credit, Jonathan responded exactly the way a Star Wars fan should: he was excited to hear what was coming.
Now, per schedule, the content for issue #138 – which arrives at newsstands tomorrow – was supposed to be delivered by mid-September. Here we were, way past that deadline; we had to move fast. George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy had sat down to record their video conversation with Lynne Hale on October 19th. A few days later, I got to review the video in its entirety to help advise where individual featurettes could be cut from this longer piece. I figured while starwars.com got to run the shorter video chapters, the Insider could present the entirety of the interview for those who prefer reading their news and having this content in textual form for easy future reference, without fast-forwarding and rewinding. (Full disclosure: I’m a text guy. I’m not a video guy. I prefer to read on the Internet. And if you’ve made it this far, maybe you do too!)
So I quickly transcribed the text by the 24th, a 4,800-word document (turns out, I’m really good at estimating word counts), and reformatted the text by topic and turned it into a feature article for Insider. Issue #138 communicates this major news in the world of Star Wars in a format worth preserving in print, and also has some content that has not yet made it online or will never make it into the web series.
Of course, that’s only one of the features in this issue of the magazine. There’s plenty more filling out Insider #138.
Scoundrel Days. The deep mining of some never-before-published gems continues with the surfacing of a Harrison Ford interview from January 1977. This is before Star Wars exploded into a worldwide phenomenon, and is based on a discovery made by JW Rinzler of interviews done by Charley Lippincott during the making of Episode IV. This completes a trilogy of rare interviews; issue #137 featured a similar article with Mark Hamill, while issue #136 featured Carrie Fisher.
Scoundrels: We Like the Sound of That. Speaking of Scoundrels, this is the issue that pays tribute to Timothy Zahn’s forthcoming heist novel. Tricia Barr interviews Zahn about the making of this eagerly anticipated book that takes Han, Lando, and some other checkered rogues and put them firmly in their underworld element.
Heist: Zahn supplies the exclusive fiction in this issue, with a short stories that stars two of the scoundrels from his book, the beautiful and resourceful cat burglar twins Bink and Tavia Kitik. Brian Rood (who illustrated the portraits in The Essential Reader’s Companion) provides the artwork.
The Art of Tsuneo Sanda: On the subject of art, one of the nicest and most talented Star Wars artists is profiled in this issue by Mark Newbold. Sanda-san has been illustrating Star Wars for over ten years, including some striking pieces that have appeared in previous issues of Insider as well as Star Wars Celebration.
Celebration VI Through the Eyes Of… Celebration VI continues to be a subject of discussion – no surprise, given an event as big and exciting as that convention. In this feature article, some of the guests themselves offer their inside look at what made the event so memorable. Mark Hamill offers his perspective, as does James Arnold Taylor to interviewer Amy Ratcliffe. My particular favorite is the piece penned by Samantha Roberts, the daughter of Tom Kane. She describes how she would not let her battle with Hodgkins Lymphona get in the way of appearing at Celebration VI in costume as Asajj Ventress. It’s an inspiring and heartwarming tale that shows the power of Star Wars and its fans.
And More. Bantha Tracks celebrates the Season of Giving, Catherine Taber shows off an impressive knowledge of blaster types, the comics column looks at the latest arc in Dawn of the Jedi, Incoming is filled with Angry Birds while Rogues Gallery profiles some pigs – Ugnaughts and Gamorreans – and the sexy Black Milk models make this issue’s cover of Blaster one to remember.
And there’s more beyond that, so check out Titan Magazine’s official site here for more about Star Wars Insider, and go like ‘em on Facebook.
The fishy comics store-exclusive cover for issue #138.
Pablo Hidalgo is paid to know the difference between Romba and Lumat and dies a little bit inside when you misspell Wookiee or Lucasfilm.
Two starwars.com writers defend their own chosen ones from the six-part Star Wars limited series now streaming on Disney+.
Kristen Bates and Neil Kleid
One of the great things about Star Wars is that it inspires endless debates and opinions on a wide array of topics. Best bounty hunter? Most powerful Jedi? Does Salacious Crumb have the best haircut in the saga? In that spirit, starwars.com presents From a Certain Point of View: a series of point-counterpoints on some of the biggest — and most fun — Star Wars issues.
Spoiler warning: This article discusses details and plot points from
Obi-Wan Kenobi.It’s the penultimate episode, Part V, says Neil.
For me, Star Wars has always been about the echoes of the past. That moment when the story reflects a moment that reminds us of another place, another person, a time in the saga dear to our hearts. The fifth episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi, while staying present in an anxious moment — Obi-Wan, Leia, and the Path refugees hunkered on Jabiim, trying to escape the approaching Empire — manages to echo an expansive set of films and television shows.
Opening with a brightly-lit flashback to the prequel era, this episode reunites us with Anakin before his turn to the dark side: the smiling, devil-may-care Jedi, sparring with Obi-Wan in order to prove himself yet again. For those of us with a deep, abiding love for the prequel era of the Skywalker Saga, that return to Coruscant — really just seeing Hayden Christensen without that bulky armor in the way — stirred something in our hearts. The rest of the episode, flashing between Obi-Wan’s duel with Anakin and his desperate attempts to protect Leia and the others from Reva’s assault, reminds us how much of that prequel-era Anakin (brash, headstrong, focused on victory) remains in present-day Darth Vader.
The action-packed and heartfelt finale, Part VI, is definitely my favorite episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi, says Kristen.
When Obi-Wan Kenobi was first announced, we had no idea that this series would take us on an adventure with Leia and Ben fighting side-by-side against the Empire. The twist that Reva was a youngling almost killed by Vader himself during the atrocities of Order 66 had us reeling! The Grand Inquisitor and the Inquisitorius in live action!
But the final episode is by far my favorite. There’s nothing more satisfying than a fantastic conclusion and Part VI of Obi-Wan Kenobi delivers. It’s the episode that finally relieves the tension and provides a greater emotional context for Star Wars:A New Hope, while also paying tribute to the prequels.
Not only do we get another emotional confrontation with Darth Vader and Ben Kenobi, but it also has the redemption of Reva, Ben reuniting with both of Anakin and Padmé’s kids, Force ghost Qui-Gon, and — maybe my favorite part of all — Aunt Beru defending her homestead without even breaking a sweat. There is so much character development here, I found myself cheering, crying, and aching for each one. Part VI continues the main themes of hope, the importance of friendship, and exemplifies the idea that every character has a choice to be better….
