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The SAG-AFTRA strike is ongoing, but there’s still more Star Wars storytelling on the way in November 2023. We’ll run down the releases on today’s show… Punch it!
Note: The YouTube version of the show will appear below at 9:00am Eastern Time (USA).
Raw Episode Transcript:
Hey, Rebel Rouser, I’m Allen Voivod, and this is Star Wars 7 by 7, your daily dose of Star Wars joy. Thank you so much for joining me for it. We’re going to do our rundown of what is coming in the world of Star Wars storytelling for the month of November 2023. There are 12 categories that we track doing this. We’ll start with the big one, movies, and there’s not going to be much on the movie front because SAG-AFTRA is still on strike. And as I’m recording this on October 31st, they are allegedly at the negotiating table with the studios. However, there is still some big distance between the two parties, and so we have no resolution in sight. Apparently, some motion has been made, and there had been talk over the last couple of weeks that, hey, maybe we’re going to get to the end of this. But it’s still looking like there’s a wide gap, a chasm, if you will, between the two.
That means that development work can still be happening on various Star Wars movies, including the New Jedi Order movie featuring Daisy Ridley, the Dawn of the Jedi movie from James Mangold, and Dave Filoni’s movie that will tie in all of the live-action series. But we get to a sticking point at casting, basically, because they can’t cast actors for any of this, but they can do a lot of pre-production work, and they should be done with the script, hopefully, for at least the New Jedi Order movie by now. I imagine there’s quite enough to go on with Dave Filoni’s movie where concept art can be in full bore development now as well.
On the live-action front, we’ve got four series that we can talk about. Two of them are also affected by the strike and the studios not meeting the demands or coming up with reasonable responses to the demands of striking actors. So Mandalorian Season 4 will not be going into production, and Andor Season 2 will not be able to continue its production until the strike is resolved. Then you have The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew. There have been rumors percolating saying that Skeleton Crew will come out in 2023. But the fact that we’ve gone this long after the end of the Ahsoka series and we still haven’t heard anything about it just makes me wonder whether there’s work that needs to be done that is affected by the strike situation that they just can’t do. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they have announced the date by now? It seems very strange in that regard.
And then as far as The Acolyte goes, we knew it was supposed to be coming in 2024. They established that much already. They finished production in May, I believe it was, just before the writer’s strike or just at the writer’s strike situation. So if they need to do any rewrites, reshoot, set-up things, they can do that now. But if they need to have actors come in for reshoots, if they need to do additional dialog recording or anything like that, they can’t do that. We’ve got no word on The Acolyte either, but we should consider all of those as frozen for the time being. It’s just Skeleton Crew is still really the big mystery to resolve.
On the animation front, that may not be affected by what’s happening with SAG-AFTRA and the studios. So Bad Batch season three could be continuing its production as well as season two of Tales of the Jedi, and then who the heck knows what’s happening with A Droid Story? Maybe we’ll hear something about that someday. But yeah, it’s been all quiet on the announcement front for everything animation related. You figure at this point, that’s where we’re going to hear something more likely than not at this point. If the strike continues to go on, then animation is probably where we’re going to be hearing the next big announcement of Star Wars storytelling coming out.
On the book front, we’ve got one novel and two reference books coming out. The novel is the first adult novel in phase three of High Republic storytelling. That is Eye of Darkness by George Mann. That’s coming out on the 14th. Also coming out on the 14th is Secrets of the Wookiees. That is an Insight Editions book by Marc Sumerack. I hope I’m pronouncing your name right, Marc. And then we’ve also got the High Republic Character Encyclopedia by Amy Richau and Megan Crouse that’s coming out on November 9th.
On the audiobooks front, we will be getting a version of Eye of Darkness that’ll be narrated by Marc Thompson. On the short story front, Star Wars Insider Magazine 223 is scheduled to hit newsstands in December, but probably going to be hitting subscriber mailboxes in November. That is going to have the second half of the first phase three short story for Star Wars Insider Magazine from the Tales from the Occlusion Zone.
Then we get to the comics front, and there’s, I think, is it 14? I think there’s 14 of them. The standard monthly titles will have Bounty Hunters 40, Star Wars 40, Darth Vader 40, Doctor Aphra 38. Also getting Hyperspace Stories issues 10 and 11. Then the first issue of phase three of Marvel’s High Republic, that’ll also be coming out as well as the Shadows of Starlight limited series, issue two is coming out for that. Then let’s see what else. The Dark Droids limited series, issue four is coming out for that. The D-squad mini series related to Dark Droids will drop issue three. Mandalorian, the adaptation of season two continues with episode six coming out in November, and the third issue of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series adaptation will be coming out. Also, there’s going to be a From a Certain Point Of View thing, but in comics form, where they’re going to publish all 40 variant covers that they released in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Return of the Jedi, and they’re going to have a retelling of Return of the Jedi using those images as jumping-off points for inspiration, which sounds very cool.
There will also be a Star Wars: Visions one-shot that is written by Peach Momoko and illustrated by Peach Momoko as well. This is the first of many more one-shots to come that are Star Wars: Visions-focused. That’s really fun to see that proceeding now in a third medium. Of course, there were the animated shorts on Disney Plus and then the Ronin novel that came out, and now we’re getting a comic-style version.
On the video game front, the Minecraft Path of the Jedi, DLC that has its own story mode that is dropping on November 7th. On the video or the virtual reality front, excuse me, yeah, still waiting to hear something new about that and nothing necessarily expected on the horizon at this point. So it’s just a matter of when. And as we get to the Christmas season, if they haven’t quite announced it yet, then I’m not sure we’re necessarily going to be getting anything for the rest of the year. So we’ll just keep our eyes out, see what happens out in that regard.
There is a whole bunch of Star Wars merchandise that is being announced on Star Wars.com over the next few weeks. I’ve been looking at them to see if it’s anything that might have product descriptions that tell us anything about characters or stories, that thing. And so far, I haven’t seen anything yet, but I’m going to be keeping an eye on those weekly releases. And if there’s anything that pops, I’ll let you know about it.
On the streaming front, they’re going to add six episodes of Young Jedi Adventures to Disney+. That’s the series that takes place in the High Republic, focuses on a bunch of Jedi younglings, definitely designed for younger audiences. We haven’t talked about it yet on the podcast here, but we’re going to at some point. One of the episodes is going to celebrate Life Day and go to Kashyyyk and learn about customs there. So that’s bound to be fun.
Then for our last category, live events and experiences and whatnot, on November 8th, Disney has its fourth quarter situation. Yeah, their quarters run differently from real quarters as it were. They’re going to have their earnings announcement and Bob Iger will be talking about various things that have happened during the quarter and looking forward and all that stuff. We’ll see if he has anything to say about the strike, if it’s still going on at that point, and if he has anything to say about Star Wars stuff at that point, too.
That is everything across all 12 categories of Star Wars storytelling or things that affect Star Wars storytelling that we have to look forward to in the month of November 2023, and that is going to do it for this episode of the podcast. It just remains for me to say thank you so much for joining me for it, as always, and may the Force be with you wherever in the world you may be.