ForceCast.net: Listener Mailbag: July 25, 2012

Listener Mailbag: July 25, 2012

Posted by Eric on July 25, 2012 at 12:00 PM CST

In this week's mailbag, our listeners write in about a second animated series, an Ashley Eckstein encounter at Disneyland, the Star Wars continuity situation, and more.

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A Notorious GL Kids' Costume

I thought all of you would find this funny. This is my neighbor's 7-year-old (nearly 8). He had to do a bio in class of real person, and he chose to do the man himself, complete with costume. He "interviewed" me about what I knew about GL for the bio. (I was a primary source.) Anyway, I think he pretty much nailed the look. The plaid shirt sells it.

Best,

Laird

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Meeting Ahsoka At Disneyland

Hi guys,

Just wanted to share a little bright spot in our Disneyland vacation.

After stepping off our best run on Star Tours (Vader/Kashyyyk/Battle over Coruscant), we entered the Star Trader store to find Ashley Eckstein promoting Her Universe apparel today. My 8 year old daughter, Guinevere, loves Ahsoka, and we were all stoked to be face to face with our favorite hero from The Clone Wars. Ashley is just as nice in person as she is on your show. I am certain we wouldn't have the awareness of or interest in Ashley that we have without the ForceCast, and we told her that we love it when she is on your show. Thanks for introducing us to her through your program. We appreciate all that you do.

Regards,

Bradley Littlejohn

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Musings on Star Wars Continuity

Hi ForceCast crew.

Just wanted to leave my two cents as a fan who has enjoyed much of the Expanded Universe material yet does not share the up-to-now-official take on continuity. While I love the fact that a single, unified attempt at continuity the fictional material of the Star Wars franchise gives fans like Leland Chee and Pablo Hidalgo jobs on the inside at Lucasfilm, I personally looked at all stuff outside of the original films as apocryphal. As in, there if you want it but not the be-all-and-end-all when it comes down to it. I also value George Lucas' commentary on the lore of the films, but oftentimes I find he changes things around too much.

Anyway, funny that Kyle mentioned the Star Trek "reboot" in the last ForceCast, since when it comes to the Trek franchise, Paramount has always treated material outside of the television shows and films as fair game. This allows the characters of that franchise to have different storylines explored at the same time in comics, novels, video games, etc. I remember George Lucas even mentioning this approvingly in an older interview in Starlog magazine in 2005 (see an excerpt on Wookiepedia here). While I love material like "Star Wars: The Complete Encyclopedia" and the great work Leland Chee does with the Holocron database over at Lucas Licensing, I think Paramount has a better system for such material with their treatment of Trek then the complex headache Lucasfilm has with Star Wars.

Best regards,

Rob
Ontario, Canada

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Consequences on The Clone Wars

Jason is always talking about how he wants to see "consequences" in The Clone Wars, so that events from one story impact another. I totally agree. But I don't quite understand how that reconciles with an EU reboot, which would effectively wipe out all consequences from the stories that came before.

The following text used to be printed in the back of most EU novels in the Bantam days:

"Lucasfilm and Bantam decided that future novels in the series would be interconnected: That is, events in one novel would have consequences in the others."

This is what has made the EU a real concept. Without consequences, we have just a jumble of random stories. If what happens to Luke Skywalker in one book is contradicted in another book, then neither story has any significance. It becomes less fun, because in every story I'd be thinking, "Well, this doesn't really mean anything, because
they're just going to change it in some other story. I'm never going to see how he deals with the fallout from this." Then the stories might as well not even be about Star Wars characters at all. It would be as if The Empire Strikes Back ignored what happened in the original Star Wars and told a different, contradictory story that just happened to use characters with the same names.

I don't want an EU reboot. I don't want to see the "Expanded Universe" become an "Exploded Multiverse." All hail continuity! All hail Leland Chee! :-)

Rob Cavicchio

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A Call For A Second Animated Series

Hey guys,

Just heard Kyle's thoughts on how The Clone Wars should end and about the development of Anakin's character after the end of ROTS. My thoughts -- and hey, let me know what you think -- are that these issues can be explored in a sequel series taking place during the First Galactic Civil War.

The Clone Wars is certainly a successful series, especially for it to be run for 5-6 years (very rare for any series these days), but it can't last forever. There are plenty of storylines and story hooks that probably will not be resolved by the end of the series. A sequel series would give an opportunity to explore these plot threads in a new setting with new characters. Wouldn't it be cool to see hints of Anakin's character in Vader, and to see if some of the decisions he made in the Clone Wars came back to haunt him?

My other thought is that, for an increasing number of fans, the Prequel-era characters are the only ones they know. Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme have gotten so much exposure in the past several years that younger fans don't even know about Luke, Han, and Leia. I'd love to see the classic characters in the Clone Wars style and reintroduce them to a new audience.

What do you guys think? Pass it on to Filoni and see what he says!

Tyler Archbold
Guelph, Canada

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From the Archives: "Big Honkin'" Steve Glosson At Celebration III?

I just spent some of tonight planning for my trip to Orlando and the parks we're looking at attending prior to Celebration. While I was taking a break, I was watching a video on StarWars.com called "The Journey Part 2." The video came out around Celebration 3 and just before Episode III. About halfway through the video, there is an interview with a fan at Celebration, and I immediately did a double take upon hearing the voice: I recognize it from the ForceCast!

It's Steve Glosson!

How cool is that!? If I bump into Steve at CVI I will be sure to say hello!

Have a good weekend!

Will Melay from St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada

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Star Wars Origami

Greetings!

After listening to your latest podcast, I noticed no one could really give you an answer about the Star Wars Origami panel at San Diego Comic-Con. Well, I was there, and I can give you this quick summary:

The panel was headed by Chris Alexander, author of the upcoming Star Wars Origami book. He passed out a special Comic-Con envelope that had sheets for two models: a Boba Fett helmet and a lightsaber. Most of the panel consisted of Chris demonstrating how to fold those two models (using BIG sheets) and the rest of us trying to replicate him using the sheets provided in the envelope. I actually did not participate in the folding because I wanted to keep the envelope closed and wait until I was back home to do it. There were very few questions asked in the last few minutes.

One question was about how he came up with Star Wars Origami. Chris explained that it was just one of those accidents. He had been involved with origami for many years and was folding something (I cannot remember what) that happened to look almost like a B-wing. After a few tweaks it actually was a B-wing. Being a lifelong Star Wars fan, he decided to see if he could come up with some more models. At some point a friend introduced him to someone who worked at Lucasfilm. He showed this gentleman the two models that he could do up to that point and was asked if he could do any more and if he'd ever thought about publishing a book.

On the book itself, Chris said that the models range from very simple to REALLY hard. You should practice the simple models several times before you move on.

The biggest Star Wars origami model he ever folded was using a 30-foot-by-30-foot piece of paper.

For more information: http://www.starwarsorigami.com/index.htm

It was a fun panel and I will definitely buy the book.

Regards,

Christoph Wagner

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Thanks to all of this week's mailbag contributors! Keep your emails coming to forcecast@forcecast.net.

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