Star Wars 7x7: A Daily Bite-Sized Dose of Star Wars Joy

It's ironic, in a way, that soap opera would pave the way for space opera. But it's happening as we speak. In the US, you have shows like General Hospital (on which Mark Hamill had a brief stint, as pictured!), Days of Our Lives, and The Bold and the Beautiful. Across the pond, you have shows like EastEnders, Coronation Street, and Hollyoaks.

These soap operas - also known as serials, funnily enough - are already back in production, with new protocols to protect the safety of cast and crew during the pandemic. Now that they've been running for three months or more without a major incident, it's time to consider the possibility that Star Wars in specific, and Hollywood in general, may be able to get back to live action production themselves very soon.

On today's show, we'll talk more about what soaps have been doing both in front of and behind the camera, and explore an altogether different way they could make it happen, which would also support the secrecy of Star Wars productions. Punch it!

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An Instagram Story on the German localized Disney+ account seems to have confirmed the presence of Rosario Dawson and Timothy Olyphant for season 2. But not all of the information you may have seen about this online is exactly accurate. And we need to talk about an elephant in the room... Punch it!

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In our latest What to Watch Now segment, we examine a couple of behind-the-scenes videos that reveal The Mandalorian's technical wizardry - and a surprising connection to The Clone Wars. Punch it!

Here are the links to where the videos referenced in this episode live:

This Mandalorian Video Illustrates Just How Wild the Production Was https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-mandalorian-video-illustrates-just-how-wild-the-pr-1845052483

This VFX Reel Shows Some of The Mandalorian's Best Moments Coming Together https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-vfx-reel-shows-some-of-the-mandalorians-best-momen-1844970961

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Star Wars Squadrons is out today! The fourth console game from Electronic Arts is only getting partial reviews so far, and of those, there's a lot of positives, but also not entirely so.

Looking at the early reviews also offers a rather interesting peek behind the scenes at the reviewing aspect of the video game industry, since there were only certain things that could be tested in time to get a story posted on release day. We'll talk about that, about what's covered in the reviews, and where the bright and not-so-bright spots seem to be, based on the reviews out there so far. I'll say that, on first blush, it looks like video-game-specific outlets are being harder on the story mode than more general entertainment review outlets... Punch it!

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We've divided the Star Wars storytelling media into ten distinct groups, and on today's show, we'll tell you what's coming up in October (if anything) for each and every one. Punch it!

The categories are:

Movies Live Action TV Animation Books Audiobooks Comics Virtual Reality Video Games Experiential (Events/Conventions/Parks) Merchandise

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A Patron and long-time listener and supporter of the show reached out to ask when - if ever - there will be a DVD for season 1 of The Mandalorian. Which raises questions about how they'll be handling DVDs in general, now that Disney+ is here...

On today's show, I'll explore Tim McMahon's question in light of The Rise of Skywalker and the Clone Wars for season 6 and 7, and I'll even bring that other "Star"-related franchise into the discussion. We'll also talk about how there are literally hundreds of Mando products already, even though Mando Mondays haven't even started! Plus, I'll share the one thing I found that seems to suggest a Mando season 1 DVD is on the horizon... Punch it!

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It was the big reveal at the end of Mandalorian season 1. It's analogous to Excalibur for Mandalorians. Today, a brief history of the Darksaber, including thoughts on the gap in its timeline between Rebels and The Mandalorian. Punch it!

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With the notion of multiple seasons and rumors of familiar characters, it's looking more and more like the Mandalorian is building to something even bigger - but what? I've got a very logical answer today... Punch it!

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After seeing Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" at a drive-in, I've been thinking about another of his movies, "Inception."

If you haven't seen the movies, don't worry, none of them are spoiled in the podcast. To frame the discussion, though, I explain a piece of the setup of "Inception," which is that it's easier to extract ideas from people's minds, but to insert an idea is much more difficult. It requires that the idea be simple and easy to grasp, and one that the mind can believe it to have created by itself (rather than the mind sensing that the idea did not originate within itself).

The notion of Inception as a concept gave me a different way of looking at the story decision about Rey's lineage that I thought I'd explore with you today... Punch it!

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I was listening to the Force Toast podcast yesterday, and their conversation about the season 2 trailer of The Mandalorian got me thinking about a couple of the episodes we've done here on Star Wars 7x7 recently...

Specifically, one possibility Laura and Alyce posed about the graffitied location made me think back to the show I did about Nevarro's location in the galaxy, as well as the show I did about which Jedi Din Djarin could run into during his travels with the Child. We'll talk about those possibilities today, as well as something unusual about The Client's behavior that I wondered about during a recent rewatch of the first three episodes of season 1. Punch it!

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