Willow & Lucasfilm’s Exploration into Fantasy

Caitlin and Charlotte take a dive into the magical world of Willow! First, they share their premiere experience, fresh off a quick trip to LA. In part one, we go over the production history of Willow (1988) and talk about some of Lucasfilm and George Lucas-isms that are present in the original film. In part two, we talk about all the facets that we love about Willow (1988). In part three, we dive into the first two episodes of Willow (2022): sequel trilogy parallels, predictions, analysis, and much more.  Click here to download the episode directly!

Essays on Carrie: Part 2 “Gatekeeping the Past”

Caitlin and Charlotte continue their multi-part series discussing essays on Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia from “Our Blessed Rebel Queen: Essays on Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia,” edited by Linda Mizejewski and Tanya D. Zuk. This episode covers the essay “Gatekeeping the Past: Fandom and the Gendered Cultural Memory of Star Wars” by Philipp Dominik Keidl. On the episode: More talk of commodification, “participatory historical culture,” cultural memory and fandom, traditional gatekeepers, Star Wars as “a boy’s thing,” the “fake geek girl” trope, personal reflections of our own fandom experience, and much more. Click here to download the episode directly.

Click here to buy the essay anthology on Amazon.

War of the Bounty Hunters #1 “Most Wanted” Comic Review

On a quest to discover more about Boba Fett in anticipation of The Book of Boba Fett coming out this winter, I was intrigued by War of the Bounty Hunters, a short comic book series that takes place in the short time between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Star Wars comics and me have an on-again, off-again relationship; often I choose certain storylines and follow them to completion but the timelines and restarting of series often confuses me. However, this series seemed accessible and there was a fair amount of hype from creators. I’m always intrigued by Charles Soule, too, who authored this comic, as he seems to take story risks that leave an impression on the fandom. 

The first thing to cover about this comic is that it’s gorgeous. Luke Ross, the artist, leans hard on cool tones; some of the panels are really breathtaking. Some of the ship designs, too, like the Vermillion, that slightly resembles a butterfly and feels overtly feminine, are really gorgeous. I always appreciate overt stylistic risks like this in comics, where I feel design risks can and should be made. 

War of the Bounty Hunters #1 begins with a crawl that explains that Han Solo in carbonite was stolen from Fett on Nar Shaddaa, and the conceit of the entire issue begins: “Who would dare steal from the galaxy’s most dangerous bounty hunter?” Soon we meet the people who stole him, and the person they deliver Solo in carbonite to is a hooded, albeit stylish figure. This really piqued my interest as I knew there would be familiar bounty hunters from Empire included in this series, but perhaps this was a new character?

*Spoiler warning beyond this point*

Click to read more

Announcing Our Sticker Sheet!

Hello! We wanted to take a moment and write a little bit about our sticker sheets that just launched on our website! While we’ve had different merchandise through the past few years (see: our incredible “Look to the Animation Department for the Future of Star Wars” design from our friend, James W), our sticker sheet also felt very on brand for us! We wanted a way to incorporate a lot of our favorite things and sayings into one place and a sticker sheet seemed like the best fit. 

Caitlin has been an avid bullet journaler the past few years and recently has started to grow a little sticker collection of her own. The idea for a Skytalkers-themed sticker sheet grew from there. A couple of months ago, we hired one of our long time friends, Katie Gettys (we all went to middle and high school together), who has a sticker shop on Etsy called Exploremoredesigns, co and she worked with us to design a sticker sheet that highlighted some of our favorite sayings and things from Star Wars (You can see in some photos the stickers put to good use in Caitlin’s bullet journal already!).

Of course, there is Dave’s hat, the Revenge of the Sith novelization, George’s plaid shirt, and the Reylo of it all: the hands are a language and the amazing kiss.  If you’ve listened to our show, you know these sayings and items are a part of nearly every conversation we have. Our sticker sheet felt like a fun way to celebrate some of the things we love to talk about most on Skytalkers and with our listeners as well! 

We created a limited run of these sticker sheets to start off with, with the hope of making more in the future if there is enough interest. We hope you enjoy! Please share with us and tag @skytalkerspod on Twitter and @skytalkerspodcast on Instagram where you put the stickers (aka, please share your bullet journal pages, calendars, laptops,  and more!). 

Shop the sticker sheet by clicking here!

The Last Jedi Entertainment Weekly News Breakdown

Click here to download the episode now!

Surprise! Charlotte and Caitlin are here mid-week to break down our favorite aspects of Anthony Breznican’s Entertainment Weekly coverage of The Last Jedi. We cover Luke Skywalker, Rey and what her parentage means (yes, our theories emerge once again!), and Kylo Ren’s struggle and—how we see it—his redemption. All this and more The Last Jedi speculation on this episode!

Listen on iTunes: click here
Listen on Google Play: click here
acast: click here
Stitcher Radio: click here
Assembly of Geeks: click here

Follow us on @skytalkerspod for more fun and individually @crerrity and @caitlinplesher. Thanks for listening! 

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Weekly Transmission 6/9/17

Hope you’ve all had a fantastic week! New podcast drops tomorrow here. Here’s a roundup of our favorite things on the internet this week.

  1. This thread on Twitter by user Glendon Mellow about the merits of the Star Wars prequels. Our listeners know we love the prequels, and this is an amazing visual look at what makes the prequels great.
  2. If you’re a lover of all things Disney Parks, be sure to check out Amy Ratcliffe and Aaron Fairbanks’ new podcast The Disney Diet. Their newest episode discusses the future of franchise lands, which has some serious relevance to the upcoming Star Wars Land addition.
  3. Bobby Roberts cut the original John Williams track for when Rey grabs the lightsaber into The Force Awakens. Here’s what he had to say about that:
    When Rey grabs the lightsaber in the climax of The Force Awakens, John Williams’ *original* score for the moment (it can be heard on the official soundtrack in the track “The Ways of the Force”) was replaced in the final edit with tracked-in music from Star Wars (“Burning Homestead” on the Special Edition soundtrack, “The Return Home” on the original soundtrack LP). The music as scored doesn’t fit exactly with the final edit (hence the tiny silence before Rey’s saber ignites) possibly suggesting that the tracked music was chosen as much for its length as it was its emotional power, or that the scene was lengthened to accomodate the emotion of the tracked music. This is what it would have sounded like in the film had Williams’ score been (more or less) left alone.” Watch the video below to see it cut together. What do you think?
  4. New Battlefront II image shows Theed and it’s cool:3244118-screen+shot+2017-06-07+at+1.51.06+pm.png
  5. Dave Filoni had a birthday and squashed our dreams of Ahsoka being the giant wolf in Rebels: