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Spark of Rebellion.

Hello there and welcome to Spark of Rebellion.

This is your weekly Star wars podcast and welcome to episode 237.

My name is Gary.

I'm one of your hosts here at sor and before I bring on my co hosts, just want to say I hope you've had a good Star wars couple of weeks because we are drowning in a sea of just mediocrity in the old Star wars news.

At the minute, not much is kicking around, so I wouldn't say we're down to the wood yet after we scraped the barrel a few times.

But yeah, it's really, really quiet out there.

So we've got a couple of bits coming up in terms of skeleton crew and whatnot, but films and other TV shows.

Yeah.

But we have managed to get a few new stories together.

So coming up in today's episode, we've got some news that's just laughable until we get some more concrete information on this one.

We've been down this road before, so we're going to get, you're going to get our views on that one, some gaming updates.

We're going to talk about the Skeleton Crew trailer that dropped the other day, which looks pretty good.

And then we're going to finish up with this.

It's one of those new stories that does the rounds every time on this subject over the last year or two in Star wars.

So we'll get to that as well.

As I said, my name is Gary and just very quickly before I bring on my co host, just want to say a very big thank you to all of you that listen to us every single week and more.

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Choose your side.

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That way you won't miss an episode or a notification for an episode when it goes out every week, every Saturday morning.

To kickstart your weekends off, let's bring on the dude who I need to chat About Star wars with.

It's the scoundrel of the galaxy.

It's the guy that's making the galaxy a better place.

One cantina pub crawl at a time, eh?

It's Mr.

Mark Asquith.

How you doing, dude?

Not bad, geezer.

Not bad.

It is a little bit quiet on the old Star wars front, isn't it?

Big time.

And it's also like more of the same old as well.

See, it's funny that in it, it's like goes round and round the yearly cycle like this.

Yeah, it really is.

Like, it's a constant stream of apathetic bullshittery.

It's almost.

Still could be fun.

You had a good week, dude.

You watched anything Star Warsy?

How are you getting.

What's the last book you started reading?

It was.

I'm on that.

That Empire one.

Anna.

That's it Rising.

All of it.

It's really good, man.

Like, it pulls in from it literally everything that's canon as of now.

It just really, like, pulls in from everything.

It is.

It's quite fascinating, actually.

Kev mentioned it as being a good book.

And it is fascinating because of how it does what it does.

Like, it sort of.

It'll take, like, little plot points and that.

You sort of, you know, like certain pop plot points from, like, the original trilogy, for example.

It does this with other things as well.

But let's just take the OT as an example, and it will.

It will.

Like, they've been bugalooks for retconning stuff, but it sort of retcons stuff in, like, a common sense way, almost like as if this happened in real life, which is quite cool.

So it's like, okay, here's why Vader was, like, underneath Tarkin, but not really when the.

You know, when Lucas realized that he was the star of the show.

After A New Hope, let's explain in canon why he suddenly became the star of the show.

So it was sort of.

It's good, but it pulled.

It literally pulls from everything, man.

The comics, the Crimson dawn comics, Crimson Rain stuff, all the TV shows.

And I always find it telling as well that, I mean, this is Horizon, Fall of the Empire, but it's set after.

As if it's been told after the first order guff and mate.

There's all.

It's always the same.

Like, there's no time dedicated to that stuff.

Like, I'm 3/4 of the way beyond, 3/4 of the way into it.

And it's like, okay, we're at the Battle of Endor, and they still Got to dig into some of the first order stuff and then obviously exegol the.

The follow up stuff.

So it's.

I don't know, man.

It just shows to me.

It just shows how just narratively weak all that is.

It just really does.

We've said it before, like, but with the.

The prequel stuff.

Love or love the political aspect of it at least it was complex.

At least it was interesting to dissect in other media know.

Whereas this is just like, well, Emperor's back.

So it's.

Yeah, I just think they're struggling to fill it with.

With.

Yeah, just.

It's like there's almost nothing to tell, you know.

Oh dear.

Yeah, it's interesting.

What about you, man?

Done anything?

Just finished up since we last spoke.

Oh, a week before last.

I finished up that season one of.

Of Rebels.

I started watching that.

I think it's the anniversary, right?

10 years or something.

I can't remember that.

First season's really cool, you know, with that.

That sort of undertone of.

Of as they.

It's about Ezra, of course, but it's really cool.

Some of the.

The stuff around what's his face with a ponytail, what's his name, you know, the Jedi?

Kieran.

Yeah, Kanan.

That's it.

Yeah, it's really cool.

His, his relationship with Ezra and you know, his loss of patience with him and how he sort of tries to.

Yeah, it's just some really good characters building in that first season.

I know the other seasons are really cool when you start to get into Thrawn a little bit and some of the other bits with Fulcrum and Ahsoka and stuff, it's very cool.

It's.

But I don't know, it's just got a really nice vibe to it.

It's like a lot of people viewed that as a.

As a bit of a one or the other.

It's like you either watch the Clone wars or you watch Rebels and they do very different styles and stuff, but I think complement each other quite well as you go through and you see the bigger picture there.

But yeah, it's a good season.

That first one sounds good.

Other than that.

Dude, I've got done now, else I've got a.

I need to get back on to Star Wars Outlaws.

I'm about, I don't know, 60 of the way through that.

70 maybe through that, but need to get back on that.

That's pretty cool.

So, yeah, a couple of bits.

Nothing too crazy.

Couple of things.

Couple of questions.

Here we go.

You're not going to Lose your job.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, right, dude, this news first.

This first news story is I can't wait to get your action to this one.

So if you re.

If you've read the show notes listener, you'll know that this one's a little bit of a.

A trip down memory lane that we've been down here many times before.

So the breaking news story is we have a new trilogy of Star wars films in the works with a new writer, slash overseer, showrunner, whatever you want to call them.

It's the dude that's handled the X Men films, Simon Kinberg.

I think he directed them or produced them or both, or he was heavily involved in that stuff and, you know, better luck to him.

You know, got your X Men stuff kicking around.

All good.

Kath has roped him in to.

To do some new films.

Now Lucasfilm or Cath haven't come out and said, yep, thumbs up.

This is exactly what's happening.

But this, you know, the news is over every single blog, media outlet, everything.

So it's.

It's basically happening.

The only thing that's not really concrete yet, dude, is some outlets are saying that this is the next trilogy after the Rise of Skywalker.

So Rey's stuff is done.

That's all put to bed.

This is going to be set God knows how many years after the end of that film with some new characters, new stuff going on, all the rest of it.

Other people have said that this is a direct continuation with Rey, So this is a new trilogy of films with Rey's new era of Jedi training and all that stuff, and that it links directly into some of the other films that are being worked on.

So it's going to merge a little bit with New Jedi Order, all that sort of stuff.

So that's the.

That's the crux of this.

There's not much else in terms of details.

Like I said, Lucasfilm haven't officially said it, but it's basically happened.

So, Simon Kinberg, dude, what are your thoughts on this?

This bombshell?

Just completely.

Just not really that fussed.

You know, not both.

It's like, at all.

Well, there's a couple of things.

Like, it's not been announced by Star wars or Disney, so I saw a, you know, pinch of salt, but, you know, let's assume it is true.

Cool.

Like, it's just not at the point where you think I'm gonna get excited about it because we've seen all the crap that's gone before it.

And plus, like, Kimber's a really Weird choice.

Right?

So I like Simon Kinberg to a degree, but what do you mean?

To the news reports that he's going to write and produce.

So what I thought I'd do is have a look at his filmography because I like the guy.

I do.

I like summary stuff.

Right.

To a degree.

So what I'm going to do is talk to you about the stuff where he was just the producer and then the stuff that he was writer and producer on, and we'll see if we can spot a distinct difference.

All right, so the stuff that he was just the producer on.

X Men First Class.

Cool.

Elysium.

Neil Blomkamp film.

Cool.

Chappie.

Great film.

The Martian.

Great film.

Deadpool.

Great film.

Logan.

Great film.

Deadpool 2.

Great film.

The New Moon Mutants gets a lot of.

A lot of praise, actually, after the fact.

And then some TV stuff.

Just the producer.

Designated Survivor.

Great stuff.

Legion got some decent reviews.

Now the stuff that he was writer and producer on Jumper, I actually watched that recently.

Not amazing, but that's probably because I like Aidan Christensen and actually sort of give it a bit of a pass.

There's a future past.

All right, you can have that one.

That was a good one.

That was a good one.

And then we get to Fantastic Four.

We'll get to X Men Apocalypse.

We get to Dark Phoenix.

Not good.

Then we start to look into.

Wait a second.

He's done some rebel stuff.

Twilight of the Apprentice.

Fantastic.

Really good.

With Dave Filoni and Stephen Melchin.

So he's sort of a mixed bag dude.

Mixed bag.

My view would be, if there's a good director in place, all well and good.

All well and good.

If he's writing in the Filoni space and Filoni is helping with that, could be all well and good.

If he's got free reign and he's writing and producing.

A little bit nervy.

A little bit nervy.

So.

This is not the.

Not the reaction, I think.

I don't think that Lucasfilm and Star wars expect.

But it's their own fault.

Exactly.

And so he was gonna write the.

He was writing the script for the Boba Fett film, remember, back in the day, and he recommended Josh Trank to direct that one.

Now, Josh Tran was a real weird one because he was.

He was recommended to direct the Boba Fett film and he did the Fantastic Four film.

But did he.

Was he the one that did.

Was he the one that did.

What's that?

Superhero movie Chronicle, which was amazing.

Which clearly him and K.

That that movie and Kimberg got him the Fantastic Four gig and that was just shite.

So it's.

I don't know, man.

I just hope it's not.

I hope it's not like, guess what?

Big news.

We brought Josh Trunk in to do the directing.

You know, I mean, I'm just a bit worried about it all.

So.

Yeah, you know, a bit of a deep dive there, man, but I just.

I'm just bored, man.

I'm just bored of it.

Like, it's genuinely putting me off.

Star Wars.

It really is.

Like, if it wasn't for the books, I don't think I'd do anything.

Star wars at the minute.

I genuinely think I'd just be out of it because they're battering us.

They are battering us.

Yeah, it's weird, isn't it?

If we rewind, you know when the whole buyout thing.

When Disney bought Lucasfilm and Star wars at the same time as them buying them out, they announced the new films, the new trilogy of films, and everybody lost their mind.

It was like the best news ever.

Like a new trilogy of Star wars films.

And it was just amazing.

Like from that moment on, the hype train was just at full speed right from the get go.

And it was so cool.

It was amazing.

That build up to the Force Awakens, really cool.

Fast forward to now.

We've got an announcement for three new Star wars films.

And everyone's like, yeah.

Innit, whatever, just don't get it.

And I feel as if it's like number one because of the sequels, but also just the lack of cohesion.

You know what I just don't get?

And I'm sure it's happening because, like, well, I'm sure it's happening, but I don't know why it's not delivering anything right.

I just don't know why someone's not sitting down and all.

Everyone sat down, just going, right, let's just tell a story.

Let's just tell a story and let's just get it over the line.

And like, obviously our studio meddling is not working.

So why don't we just step back just a touch from that?

Because it's clearly not working and I just don't know.

I just don't know why.

And that's as we know that started with a sequel, so it started with the sequels.

But I do think the fans are to blame a little bit because whatever's put out there, people don't like.

True.

It's just in a mess, man.

I just feel like you might Just need.

We've talked about this before.

It's never going to happen because of the money trend.

But just have, like, five years off.

Just don't do anything.

Just kill everything.

Put some books out, whatever, but just kill everything.

And then come back and said, you know what?

We screwed up a little bit here.

Let's go.

But again, you've always got this problem with the sequel.

Trilogy.

Yeah.

It's the thorn, isn't it?

Yeah.

In the.

Yeah.

The other.

The other thing that's probably playing a lot of people's minds is that how long is this going to last for?

Because that's the other thing with not so much the films themselves, but the actual people they bring in to make them.

So, you know, we just had this long string of people that they've announced who have coming.

Who are coming in to write a Star wars film or a Star wars trilogy of films.

And then you either just don't hear anything.

Remember the Rian Johnson trilogy of films?

That was.

That was net.

They never actually said that.

We've canceled that.

So technically, that's not been canceled.

That's still in the thing.

Well, they said this week, actually.

That was gonna search.

They said this week it's just because he's doing Knives out stuff.

Once he's finished with Emma, we're back on Star Wars.

Yeah.

No, and.

And then you got the Benioff and Weiss, and he got other people that come in, and they just get.

It feels to me like it goes one of two ways.

Number one.

Yeah, they bring someone in and they've genuinely got a great idea for a Star wars film or a trilogy, but somebody at lucasfilm is like, nah.

So they're like, well, it's either you give me a bit of freedom, you know, you let me make a good film, or I'll see you later.

And they're like, right, we'll see you later.

You know, it's like they've got the reins wrapped so tight around it all that nobody can penetrate, you know?

You know, and.

And do that.

So I don't know, man.

And then the other way is that nothing gets said.

It just gets left in the abyss.

The limbo.

The Rian Johnson limbo.

So I don't know, man.

It's.

That's playing on the minds of everybody, I'm sure.

It's like, what month in 2025 are we going to get the announcement that Simon Kinberg has walked away?

Because.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it?

It's not.

It's just Not.

It's not the way that you keep fandom engaged.

It's just not the way that you keep fandom going.

And I know Marvel has done it a little bit like nudging Blade around and stuff, but that's.

They're.

The amount of stuff that they're putting out on Disney plus and whatever else, I mean, it's dropped right down, but it's at least they're sort of constantly there, you know, And I feel like Force Awakens and even the other stuff after it was so anticipated because there had been nothing for 10 years.

Yeah.

Yep.

And also with the Marvel stuff, you get the feeling that that's going to get across the line.

You know, the, you know, the announcements at comic con with Dr.

Doom, you know, with Downey Jr.

And then the Russo brothers coming back to do the new Avengers films, you get the feeling that they're going to be made.

Like the dates that they've set, I don't know what they are.

So 20, 26 and 27.

I think for the new Avengers films or something, you get.

You just have that feeling like, yeah, we're going to enjoy them in the cinema in those years that they've said they're going to be made.

That's what you want.

You need that.

And Star wars doesn't have that.

So, yeah, the comparison is glaringly obvious, man, just get your shit done.

Get over the line.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And I just, you know, even Marvel, they've struggled with the Multiverse saga.

It's been so hit and miss.

And the Jonathan Mazes stuff, whatever, you know, it's.

But it's.

They've been quick with stuff, regardless whether it's been good or not.

They've been quick.

And a lot of it has got, you know, the, the majority of stuff has happened versus not happened.

And Star wars is the exact reverse of it, in terms of movies, at least.

Yeah.

I just think it's really.

And I just don't know why it's so difficult.

I just don't know why it's so difficult.

Actually, I do.

I think the reason that it's so difficult is because they said we're gonna.

We're done with the Skywalkers.

And it's just that slight Marvel going, you know what?

We.

It.

We don't need Spider man or even now we don't need Iron man.

Even though Iron man was such a B list character.

You know, they were always going to go back to Spider man.

It's like D.C.

saying it, let's do Booster Gold.

Only Forget Superman, forget Batman.

Do you know what I mean?

I don't know why they.

I don't know why.

It just felt like a thing that they had to say that we were just done with the Skywalker Saga.

It just seems just stupid.

It really is like genuinely silly.

Like you, you, you want to make your dollars.

You just don't do it that way, you know, if you look at the way that.

I mean, again, Marvel's just the obvious example of this one, you know.

No, who gave a.

About the Winter Soldier on screen.

Who gave a really about Captain America and Iron man and stuff like that.

And they don't start necessarily as big hits, but 20 years in almost, you know, that they're becoming that they are the main A list characters.

But it didn't happen overnight, you know, so it's.

And it sort of feels like that sequel trilogy didn't quite get that right because it was just a case of right, we're done with these ones.

They're sort of bit part characters.

They are OGs.

And here this new raft of people, like finish that story but introduce new people.

Like, you don't have to instantly switch the stardom over to other people.

It can be slow and it just.

Yeah, I don't know, man.

There's a lot that we can unpack on it and we've gone over it before, but they're just never.

I don't know how you get it that wrong.

And it's not as we've talked about before, it's not about being like an OT or a prequel fanboy or you know, being a.

Just not liking anything new or anything quote unquote work or any of that stuff.

It's just.

They're just not that good because they lost.

They lost Lucas and then they just.

It was felt like they were treading water for ages and it took them way too long to promote Filoni up to.

Up to overseas stuff.

That's my.

Yeah, my two cents, dude.

Like Marvel always had a feige.

So you had somebody that knew.

Knew what they were doing, getting it all together, sorting everything out, steering the ship.

Star wars lost that person when George Lucas retired.

And then you just had a group of people kind of doing it, kind of, kind of thinking they know what they're doing.

And then you had somebody in the background who definitely did know what they were doing, but just left him in the, you know, the broom closet to do the animation in the background.

And then all of a sudden it's like, actually this guy's the.

That's good.

Well, you know, I mean, that's the thing as well, if you think about it, like, okay, the approach to Force Awakens with this whole Neo fascism sort of thing.

Neo, you know, undertones of like, Neo Nazi and so on and so forth, which I totally got, like, fine.

But there was no risk involved.

There was no.

There was no reason that they couldn't tell a different story.

It didn't have to be a story of another order rising.

And then you fast forward to, like last week, Charles Soul, a friend of the show Charles Soul, announced that he's doing this whole comic book run around, and he's like, super excited about it and, like, putting it out as if it's such a big thing.

And it is in the Star wars universe, like, oh, we're gonna explore Kylo Ren's obsession with Darth Vader and what happens, right?

And you're like, oh, what the hell?

Like, that was the film.

Like, that was.

That was.

That is the film.

Right?

That's what the film should have done.

You know, they even lined it up.

You know, I'll finish what you start.

And then it was like, I forgot about that.

You know what I mean?

So.

And it just.

Yeah.

Don't remember.

And it.

You just sort of like, I want to even get excited about the child's soul stuff and that stuff that's coming out in comic.

But it just winds you up because, you know, that would have made better movie.

You know, that fight with, you know, just the tussle.

You know, Han, Luke and Leia were positioned so well to tussle with this kid being obsessed with Darth Vader.

Like, how does that.

Not interesting?

It doesn't even need to do a big action film.

It's just, you know, we've got this rebellious little teenage that's super powerful.

How do we stop that happening again?

And then this other, you know, the.

The other storyline running alongside it, which could be anything, a new threat, a new anything.

And I just.

Now they're doing it in the comic and you're like, what?

What are you doing?

Yeah, it's almost like they're.

It's like they're starved a little bit of where to go of ideas, I guess, that they're not sure where to go.

So they're just treading.

Treading old ground a little bit.

But it's interesting ground because it's not been really dealt with.

And that's the frustrating thing is that if you introduce a new character that's the son of laying layering Han, the fallen Nephew of Luke Skywalker, who was obsessed with Darth Vader.

And then you don't even address any of it.

That's like releasing the Phantom Menace and being like, oh, that kid's going to become Darth Vader.

And then the next film is a new hope.

You know what I mean?

Well, how did that happen?

No one cares about that.

Well, I think they tried to address it a little bit, you know, with the flashbacks that Luke has, you know, when he's in the tent and he's about to kill him.

But that's a different flashback to what actually happened and whatnot.

But that was only like, we're talking seconds.

And that's them trying to be all clever in it.

That's them trying to be the whole a certain point of view thing.

But it's just completely subtextual and completely unfocused that you're like, you just miss it if you're not looking for it.

If you're not like, oh, Star wars about perspective.

Right, okay.

And you just.

You just miss it because it's not well done.

Yeah.

So it's frustrating, man.

It is.

It's frustrating to.

To number one to see them trying to fix stuff that should have been done on screen in the comics and the books whilst also then announcing this constant stream of new stuff that probably like 40% of it even gets close to coming out.

Really difficult.

Yeah.

Yep.

It will take cleverer minds than.

Than you or I.

Well, definitely you probably not to.

Well, at this point.

Yeah, at this point.

Oh, dear.

Anyways, Simon Kinberg, best of luck to your fella.

You're gonna need all your.

You're gonna need the best of luck to.

To get this one rocking and rolling.

We'll obviously keep you up to date as we roll through next year.

I can't imagine anything happening mega soon for this.

Unless this is one of those things where he's just been doing it as a side hustle and then he's got the entire thing already done and mapped out and caf's like, yeah, cool.

So I'd imagine he's not even close to pre production on anything yet.

So this is a few years away.

We'll keep you up to date talking to something that definitely is happening, though.

Skeleton Crew got a new trailer for that dude last week, as is the usual timing after we recorded last week, literally an hour later.

I think trailer drops for Skeleton Crew and that's done around as well, with a lot of outlets saying that the usual stuff that we've spoken about don't Dive into that too much.

Basically, everyone's saying, you know, it's Stranger things in space, Goonies in space, Spielberg vibes, Amblin vibes, all that stuff.

So that's the obvious stuff.

But what did you think to some of these specifics in the trailer that they expanded on that we didn't see in the first one?

So, you know, in the first teaser that dropped, we saw a little bit of suburban life in Star Wars.

We saw, obviously, the kids and Jude Law and.

And that was it.

But in this one, we've got a little bit more of a direction into how the vibe's going to be, I think, for the individual episode.

So add a little bit more grit to it, this trailer, a little bit more threat with what's going on.

Space pirates after the kids and whatnot.

But they still keep the.

They're still keeping the Jude Law character under wraps in terms of what his MO Is.

And is he a Jedi?

Is he not all that stuff?

So what are your thoughts on the.

On the trailer, man?

Yeah, man, I quite like it.

I sort of want this one to be completely disconnected and just have a little bit of fun and just to see how everyone feels about that.

You know, if it turns out he's a Jedi, all well and good.

If it turns out he's not all well and good, you know, I mean, I don't know how old Jude Law is like this.

It takes place, what, 30 years, 25 years after.

So he'd like 10 years after return.

Of the Jedi, Roughly.

Yeah, yeah.

Does it?

I thought it was in the Mando space.

Yeah.

So 10 years.

Five, 10 years.

Yeah, it's.

Man.

Sorry.

Yeah, yeah, five, 10 years.

All right.

So that's like, late Mando stuff, isn't it?

It's like where we get where.

Where the Mandalorian is now.

So, yeah, the timing works.

He could just about probably just about, like, be a Jedi, like Caleb Doom sort of Kanan Jarus age, Caletis age, you know, 18, 19 at the fall of the Jedi Order.

So, yeah, I.

I just want this to be on its own.

Just have a little bit of fun.

Lean into the vibes, lean into the standby, me, the Goonies, the, you know, all the ambling stuff.

Just lean into the Spielberg feel to it and just see what happens.

And, yeah, I feel all right about it.

I thought the grittiness was quite interesting.

I thought it was interesting that it was like, it appears that Jude Law just happens upon these kids that are getting to a little bit of, you know, he only ends up taking him home or what?

You know, whatever really obvious sort of, you know, what?

You know, takeaways from the trailer, which maybe bait and switch, who knows?

But yeah, just the acolyte.

Looked all right, didn't it?

And it wasn't that good.

But then this, you know, I decide.

I don't know, I'm just hoping that it just sort of remains, like, not.

Not normal.

And just when I say normal, I mean, like, tells its own story.

Doesn't try and, you know, doesn't try and pull in certain directions.

You know, it doesn't try and link to the saga, for example.

If it does naturally, all well and good.

If it doesn't all well and good, people hate it.

People hate it, though.

People hate it.

There will be a.

Yeah, there'll be a bunch of people that slay it after.

They'll.

They'll watch 30 seconds of it, pause it, jump on Twitter and say it's the worst thing that they've seen ever.

You know, there'll be people like that.

But, yeah, I hope you're right, dude.

I mean, totally the same mindset as that.

I just want it to be a nice.

I just want a bit of magic back, you know, in Star Wars.

Just a cool.

A cool adventure with no heaviness on it.

It's not buckling under the pressure of its own weight that it's put on itself because you have to link it to a billion other things and introduce all that stuff.

There's a small part of me that thinks, fuck, Jude Law's character is probably going to be a fucking.

The kid of the clone of Palpatine.

That's going to be blah, blah, blah.

What?

We just.

Yeah, ain't it?

No, thank.

I know that's.

There's 10% of me that's like, that's coming.

Something like that is.

Is going to be in it at some point.

There'll be the cliffhanger to the final episode before the second season where, you know, fucking Palpatine's involved some.

Yeah, whatever.

But hopefully not my.

Hopefully it's just a.

And the trailer does look pretty cool, I think in the first teaser that they brought out, I think a lot of people were like, this doesn't feel like Star wars to me.

Like, it just because of the whole.

It felt more Earth, like with the whole streets with the cars and people going to work and kids in school and stuff like that.

It felt like Grange Hill.

Oh, he's going back.

No, you're going back.

So this one feels like it's kind of still got that.

But it also is a bit more.

Now we've.

Now we've seen more sort of space travel and, you know, pew, pew, pew.

And some other bits going on.

Yeah.

It does feel a little bit more towards a direction you expect something in the Star wars universe to be set.

So.

Yeah.

Quite liking this trailer.

It's not too bad.

Seen better trailers, seen worse trailers.

We'll see.

Yeah.

I hope you're right, dude, about it not being anything linked to like, I don't want them to use this sort of thing to retcon anything.

I'll tell you what, dude, the first time that Jude Law's character, they get into conversation about where you're from.

What's the betting that.

Oh, yeah, there's this planet in the Outer Rim.

Yeah.

Better not be exaggeral.

Yeah, Been there a few times.

Or Tatooine.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Why is that where everyone goes?

Must be.

It will either be.

It'll be the boring, oh, yeah, I'm from Coruscant.

Of course you are.

Or it will be the obvious, I'm from Tatooine.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

My dad's mate Owen and Yeah, they're knocked about together.

Oh, yeah.

Or the other one.

It will be, yeah.

Exegol.

There's some weird going on in Exegol.

We should probably go back there at some point, check it out, see what's going on.

It's just.

Yeah, it's just a big gimpy in it.

But I just hope it's not any of that.

I hope if he's a Jedi.

Cool, whatever.

But I saw it.

Doesn't it?

Or is it going to be like some sort of Han Solo scoundrel Murph or, you know, that kind of.

That'd be quite interesting.

You know what I mean?

Had run ins with a rebellion and know whatever.

He is Force sensitive though, right?

Because in the first teaser, he made the thing float across.

Oh, yeah.

Do you remember?

So he is a Force.

Don't know if he's a Force user as such.

Don't know whether he's Jedi or Sith, whatever.

Or he could be linked to, you know, the.

The witches in the coven.

He could be using the thread instead of the Force.

Yeah, we're forcing it by another name.

You know what I mean?

What I hope doesn't happen is like, oh, guess what?

I didn't have a dad.

Oh, God.

Anyway, we'll see.

Yeah, hopefully.

I'm hoping that he's a scoundrel.

Like a Han Solo.

Type of dude.

Yeah, just have a bugs but just happens to be a.

Something that they were probably wanting to do with Finn's character in the sequel trilogy because they kind of alluded to a little bit, didn't they, that he was gonna be.

Yeah, so something like that.

That'd be cool.

Some.

Let's move on some gaming news because we've spoken about films and TV shows and happening and not happening, whatnot.

There's even more stuff that's potentially not happening in Star wars games.

So.

Nice one.

Well, it sounds mint.

Let's dig into it.

There we go listeners.

Just to perk you up, get you motivated for some gaming.

Here's some other canceled stuff.

So with the launch of Star Wars Outlaws, that was the first game that launched outside of the exclusivity license that EA had with Lucasfilm and Lucasfilm games.

So that's kick started a bunch of stuff that was announced a while ago, admittedly with the.

With a view to the future that they would be able to release it without EA as the publisher and everything like that.

And a couple of those games are still on the map and a couple of them we know are definitely happening.

So the first one, this is one of those ones that was announced ages ago and we still don't know what's happening with it.

That's Star Wars Eclipse.

So Star Wars Eclipse.

Was that the bong one?

Bong, yeah, yeah.

Bong, yeah, bong.

That one.

Yeah, exactly that, yeah, yeah, nailed it.

It was, it was a kind of dark sidey acolyte bong, Bob Bong thing.

It probably, if this still comes out, this will probably be better than the Acolyte I would say.

It's got that kind of just loads of stuff that we've not seen in any Star wars books or films to date.

But it's very heavily, you can tell it's like early dark side Sith stuff.

It's made by developer Quantic Dream.

They had a really good game out a few years ago called Detroit Become Human.

Really, really good story driven narrative, first person story driven game.

Really good FPS.

That's what I call it.

Yeah.

And this was out, this trailer, believe it or not was 2021 that they, they launched the trailer.

So it went into limbo for a while and then I think one of the head, the head dudes at the studio basically said look, I can't give you any more deets but it's definitely not cancelled so take that as you will.

But we don't know release date for that one thing that's definitely happening is the third game in the Jedi series that takes place after Jedi Survivor with Cal Kestis.

That's happening already.

We know definitely that's in development and that's likely to launch probably 2026, I would say.

I'd imagine we'll probably get some kind of teaser drop or trailer announcement at the back end of next year and then probably the back end of 2026 that will probably drop.

So that one's definitely happening.

We've also got this remake of Knights of the Old Republic.

Again that's very similar to Star Wars Eclipse.

That was one that was announced, had a little some artwork knocked up for it.

The studio said, yeah, it's going really well.

Then it went into limbo.

The studio was bought out by another company, didn't know what was going on with it.

And then Carbon Copy.

Somebody at the studio said, look, it's definitely not canceled, but can't tell you any deets on on when the release date is coming up for it.

Blah, blah, blah.

This one looks really cool actually because it's a solid game.

Back in the OG Xbox days when these kind of games were really, really cool, like the Fable games and that kind of thing, you just get lost in it.

Really, really cool.

So.

And this one and Knights of the Old Public two are often cited as some of the best Star wars games.

It's always in people's top three, so that'd be cool.

And then just very quickly we've got a strategy game, untitled as yet.

This is from Respawn, the guys who make the Jedi Fallen Order games.

If you think back to the old like Command and Conquer games and that sort of thing, that could be quite cool.

And then lastly, we've got another untitled action adventure game.

So this was first.

This kind of game for Star wars has been rolling along for a few years now.

I remember like years ago, the woman who was the head writer on the Uncharted games, she announced that she was doing this Star wars like big action RPG style game that then went to.

She started her own studio and I think she's back on it or something like that.

It was called Project Ragtag to begin with.

And this was based on like Johan Solo, Scoundrel, you know, taking on the shady side of the galaxy sort of thing.

This is apparently still in development.

New developer now, Skydance New Media and release date to be confirmed.

So, dude, I know you've not got a controller in your hands too much these days, but we've got a dozen or half a dozen games here which will likely be out over the next five to six years.

So any of these pique your interest?

The yeah, the whole project ragtag one does actually.

Mainly because I like the dead space stuff.

Really remember that coming out like back in the day.

God knows I get 20 years ago.

So yeah, I, I, I, I like that sort of game.

I'm not saying it's going to be that kind of game, but that, you know, if that studio made that game then it, I'm a fan of it, so I'm quite interested in that.

Obviously the Knights of the Old Republic had.

I never really played those games just because I like they just weren't in my wheelhouse.

Like I played them a little bit but didn't get obsessed with them.

So I'd quite like to get obsessed with them and do it through the remake.

So that'd be quite good.

The strategy one, I'm not that fussed about the Jedi one obviously I am.

I've actually got Jedi Survivor to play, which I might start next week.

Actually I've got a spare bit of spare time now.

The Eclipse one, I am curious about it like you said, it's just I didn't realize it was like three years ago since we got the trailer.

So I am actually curious about that one because I like the High Republic stuff.

Despite the Acolyte.

I still think there's some interesting stuff in that.

In the Acolyte as we know and, and where this is set within the High Republic sort of fascinates me.

It does make me wonder whether they're going to do anything like to pick up the Acolyte threads.

And maybe that's why it's taking a bit of time because there's some.

There were a couple of great characters in there.

So the.

I think inevitably as you alluded to, like I don't get to play that much anymore.

So these will always be sort of backup things.

It'll always be something that I do when I just oh crap, look at that.

It's on sale or it's.

It's free on Game Pass or PlayStation plus this this month or whatever.

So I, I won't rush to get any of them but all of them apart from the strategy one because I just, I don't have the patience for that stuff anymore.

I will, I will end up playing at some point.

I'll end up playing at some point.

What about you?

If you had to pre order one that wasn't Survivor sequel, which one would you pre order?

It would either be the, the Ragtag project, ragtag game.

If it is going to be in the ilk of the Uncharted.

Because they're really good games, the Uncharted games.

Especially the last three.

Two or three, just real.

You don't have to think too much, you know, you don't have to worry about scaling up like your level trees.

And it's just a real cinematic, story driven game.

So that could be quite cool if the characters are done right with that one.

So it's either that one or Eclipse, I think.

I think if Eclipse is done well and they steer clear of some of the, some of the crap we had in the Acolyte, that could be very cool from a story perspective.

Yeah.

Because that trailer was really stylized and really at some point you thought is this a trailer for like Dune or something?

Or is it, you know, like that old Blade Runner, Dune style.

Dune, sorry, style sci.

Like Dune.

Dune.

You read the books?

Read the books.

You read the Doom books?

Have you?

Didn't think so.

I haven't got.

I haven't got three years spare.

I got the whole Dune trilogy right in one book.

It's about fucking six foot four.

Have you read them?

Have you read it?

No.

I get bogged down with Star wars shite, don't I?

Well, you might have finished that in a quicker time than you did.

What was that Jedi book you're reading?

Living Force.

Oh, let's.

Yeah, I finished all the Star wars ones.

Got caught up.

Let's move to another Sandy book in space.

Yeah, let's not, let's not do that.

Yeah, apparently they are classic books though.

Who knows?

Yeah, last one to finish up with.

This should be a non story, really.

It should be.

But because this is Star wars, it's obviously hilariously been latched onto by a portion of fandom.

So this comes the reason why, why it's.

It's a story because it has appeared in some of the.

The bigger news outlets.

So here in the uk, the Daily Mail, this is their website, Mail Online and I've seen it pop up in another few outlets as well.

Is this stormtrooper called Sister, which is the first official at least transgender character to appear in the Star wars universe.

And I think this comes via a new book that's just launched with this character.

Where is it?

So yeah, so there was a bit of fan art.

So the character itself has been knocking around for a little while and then there was some fan art for it and then the characters was picked up and.

And there's was part of a recent book.

What's the book.

Is it A Queen's Hope is the book that they first appeared in.

I think that was the book.

And so, yeah, this.

This dreadlocked sporting soldier, stormtrooper soldier is a thing.

Like, we've got the first official image, which is in a.

Which has come from Lucasfilm and Star wars and whatnot.

So the reason why it should be a non story is because it's, you know, it's 2024, but Star wars fandom are not too happy with it.

So they've screenshotted a few tweets and stuff.

There's only a few, but it is the voice of quite a sizable chunk of fandom.

So someone says, I remember when Star wars used to be about space wizards, epic adventures, and lightsaber combat.

Now it's this with a bunch of emojis.

Somebody else says, this can't be real.

Got to be a parody.

There is no freaking way.

And then somebody says this.

She literally has the trans flag on her armor.

The transgender flag.

This is supposed to be a galaxy far away, not downtown California.

These people just love to kill escapism and fantasy.

So, mate, yeah, fans are not happy, as usual, about something to do with Star Wars.

It's a weird thing, isn't it, this, because I do get both perspectives on it.

And I'm not saying that the trolls are right, but I'm saying that I understand sort of the point of the escapism element of it, but at the same point, like, who cares?

Live and let live.

Like, if everyone.

You know, we live in a world where there's a requirement for more representation.

And as much we're set.

As much as we're setting these stories in alien galaxies and, you know, beyond, they are still written by people from Earth.

So, you know, it's always going to reflect the times and the fact that it's not escapism.

It fucking ally and New Hope was Vietnam War inspired.

You know, we talked about it earlier.

Neo Fascism, neo Nazism.

And so, like, they've always had.

They've always had undertones of.

Of politicism and social commentary and everything else that went on it.

This is no different.

I do understand people saying, well, sort of, what's the point?

Because I just don't think.

And I'm saying I understand it because I see that they won't get why it's not a problem, because if it causes you offense, then there's.

There's something clearly wrong with probably you getting offended by everything.

But then you can just.

You don't.

Like, if you don't.

If you don't, if you're not interested in what difference does it make to you?

You can, like, this character exists.

It's just a character who gives a.

You can just move on and you can enjoy stuff.

And you know, I mean, it's not like someone should see this and go, do you know what?

I disagree with this.

So I'm never going to enjoy Star Wars.

Like, who cares?

You know, like, it sort of makes no sense.

I, like I said, I do get the perspective because I understand that they just simply won't get it.

And I just, I, it's just a shame that you can, you can put stuff out to try and basically inspire other people that it's not like this is not to force transgender, transgenderism into Star wars.

It's to help people that might be struggling with things to understand that it's cool.

Like, you know, even the people at Disney and the people that have got these billion dollar franchises that they keep canceling, you know, they still think about people like you and you can identify, I think we all need to identify it.

Like, that's why the moaning, boring, middle aged twat of an old white guy loves Predator and loves Commando and loves Rocky and loves anything with Van Dam in it.

Because it's like, ah, identify with that.

Look at me, I'm inspired.

I'm gonna do it.

But it's because it's not Van Damme or Stallone or any of that.

They're like, oh no, I don't like that.

That's not my inspiration.

So why should we like it?

And it's so, yeah, you know, I mean, Star wars fans are outing themselves as like the biggest twats in the world.

A lot of them, like the males will just wear signs on their armor that just says twat because they're just, It's a difficult.

I always think about this like through the lens of being a parent and you know, having a young kid, not an older kid, like a young kid.

How would you explain that to your kid?

How do you say that person doesn't like this character because they don't like something that they deem to be different?

Like, how would you explain that to a kid?

And if you were sat there in front of like one of the trolls, they would.

And you would just say you were trying to ask them to explain it to your kid.

They would probably attack your kid or you for trying to understand it.

And it's like, it's the same old argument.

All they'll do is be like, oh, you're woke.

It's like the get out of jail free card in it.

It's the get out of jail free car.

When there's no decent argument, there's no way to think of anything.

You don't have the brains to articulate anything.

And you don't know that you're stupid enough to not argue with.

You just go, oh, you're walk, aren't you?

Oh, you're offended by everything.

And you're like, well, wait a minute.

All the one tweeting you peck.

So I.

I'm always disappointed by this stuff, dude.

I just think I, like I said, I understand why they do it because they don't get why it needs to be done.

And what difference does it make if you don't like it, just move on.

Like, I don't like Captain Phasma.

She's boring as a character.

But I don't go and tweet about it because I don't care.

I just understand that other people like it and like that character.

So, yeah, we rant about that all day, man.

But people are absolute morons a lot of the time.

It's weird, isn't it?

Yeah.

I think everyone just needs a.

They feel like they have to have a voice on stuff these days.

It's always the voice, though, that's like, it's always the same voice.

It's always the quote unquote anti work.

And like, you can never have a discussion with them because like I said, all they'll do is go your work.

And you can't.

They just hit you back with the whole, oh, you get offended at everything.

Like, no, it's not.

You cannot.

We're having a discussion and you have nowhere else to go with it.

So all you do is start saying things like that.

It's.

It genuinely is the classic, you can't argue with stupid people.

It genuinely is.

Because they don't know the stupid.

That's what I was going to say.

You can't, can't argue with stupid.

I think with a lot of people, they have too many fucks to give.

And I think that's something that maybe comes with age and wisdom and experience, I guess.

But like, the amount of, the amount of fucks that I wake up with in the morning is drastically less than when I was 20, 21.

Whatever.

I've got like three in the bag.

I used to wake up with like 50 of them.

Yeah.

But now, now I've got three.

A push and you know, tweeting about.

Tweeting about a photo of a transgender stormtrooper in a book that no one's gonna buy is not one of them.

Well, that's the thing.

In it, you wake up with, like, in my book, you've got two Belen credits.

Everyone's got two bell end credits, right?

You can spend one on a mistake and then the second time, you understand that.

Actually, that's, you know, fool me once and all that sort of stuff.

So everyone gets two bell end credits for me.

And that's it.

That's my version of not really caring about this stuff.

And it's like, wow.

You say, well, I could spend.

Like, why would I spend time tweeting this stuff?

I just go and do something that I enjoy doing.

Yeah, yeah.

And also, I think it's a case of they just don't want to.

They don't want to.

What's the word?

They have a problem with it.

And that's as far as they want to go.

They just want to close it off as.

Yeah, it's woke.

Whatever.

So if you were to.

If you were to say to them, look, let me just hit you with a scenario, right?

You're a teenager who is transgender, you know, and you hate the fact that the world hates you for it.

And there's all these cool Star wars conventions that you want to go to, but you can't because you feel like you're just going to be attacked or you're going to be made fun of, whatever.

You see this picture and about this character, and then that inspires you to then think, actually, it.

I'm just going to do it.

So I'm going to cosplay as this stormtrooper, and I'm going to go to this Star wars convention, and I fucking loved it.

Are you really telling me that you wouldn't want that experience for somebody?

They would be like, well, when you put it like that, yeah, you know, fair play to him.

You know, whatever.

It's like, well, hell, that's the whole point, mate.

You know, that's the thing, man.

Yeah, that's it.

And it's.

People are idiots, man.

And it's like the whole acolyte thing.

Like the same twats that are stuck in the mum's basement in the pants complaining about two witches are the same ones that are fucking porn or being lesbian porn because they've got fuck all else to do.

And it's.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, just in the pants.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

They're literally all the same.

They are.

There are.

They're either losers that don't do anything or losers that do too much and think they've achieved something.

And mostly that's everyone's that is doing this is a loser.

Like an actual loser.

Like, if you were to call them for genuine help, they wouldn't be able to do anything about it or ask them for ideas or solutions.

They wouldn't be able to do it.

Do you know what I mean?

All they do is be like, oh, I'll come down pub and fate if you want.

Fate if you want to fit.

You know what I mean?

Shut up.

You're a moron.

God.

Yeah, Talk about that.

Anyway, should probably put in it, shouldn't we?

We should.

So that is the.

The transgender character sister appearing in the book that's just released, Secrets of the Clone Troopers.

We'll see how well that goes down in terms of sales and stuff.

But yeah, let's stick a pin in it there, dude, for episode 237, Spark of Rebellion.

Alrighty.

Thank you very much for listening to another episode of Spark of Rebellion.

It's been great to have you along as we chat all the Star wars news, even if there's little of it, it's cool to break down and dive into some of that stuff.

Let us know what you think about the whole trilogy of films from Simon Kinberg.

It's up on the Twitter.

You can find us@sparklebelly.com Twitter.

Let us know what you think.

We're on Instagram as well.

Instagram.

And we chat Star wars throughout the week, so come and get involved over there.

And as I mentioned, please make sure you're following or subscribing to SoR on your fave podcast app so you get a notification every Saturday when a new episode lands.

And thank you very much to our members and supporters.

Kev, Danny, Pascal, all you guys are very, very cool.

Thank you so much.

And you can support us as well over@sparkrebellion.com support and we'll have a pint on you the next time we meet up at 4.

Next time, dude.

Until then, it's been cool to chat as always.

Always fun, dude.

Yeah, yeah.

Bit of a ranty one, actually.

We thought it was gonna be a short one, didn't we?

But here we are.

Two things to rant about, but no, see you next week.

It'll be a fun one indeed.

Issa, until next time, take care of yourselves.

And may the Force be with.

Sa.