Rebels Review: The Secret of Chopper Base

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rebels logoThe Mystery of Chopper Base has the distinction of being an episode that I was enjoying but mostly ambivalent towards for most of it but had me completely hooked by the end thanks to a very well placed musical cue. Kevin Kiner continues to nail it this season. That last slowed down version of the Imperial March? Perfection. That Big Damn Heroes moment? Also perfection. But let’s break down the rest of the episode.

As mentioned in Rebels Recon, this episode served a sort of season finale for most of the crew of the Ghost. They found a new base for the Rebels and complete their mission. For the Jedi amongst the crew, we’ll continue to follow them next week so it was nice to get one last team up and see them work together to save Rex from the spiders on the planet. Sabine in particular gets some solidly good moments and even saves the day. If the Ghost family had been relying on their Jedi to save them, they never would have survived. Speaking of which… Continue reading →

Western Reaches #2

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This week on Western Reaches, Saf and Megan bring you up to speed on what they’ve been reading, discuss the worlds that make up YA fiction, dive into the new Halo graphic novels, VR, Kanan, and open up the geek grab bag!

You can find Megan on Twitter with the handle @blogfullofwords and you can find Saf with @Wanderlustin. Be sure to subscribe to Western Reaches on iTunes and subscribe to the Tosche Station Radio Mega Feed for more great shows, discussion, and commentary.

This podcast has been brought to you in part by Her Universe and your support on Patreon!

Review: Obi-Wan and Anakin #3

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Everyone’s favorite Master/Padawan team is back in Obi-Wan and Anakin #3 by Charles Soule and Marco Checchetto.  It’s a little more of everything that’s made this book so gosh darn good thus far.

Palpatine.  We’re going to start with Palpatine.  Look, I know I said it last time but I’m sad that we can’t get a Palpatine ongoing from Soule.  He is so clearly having the time of his life getting to write these Palpy Flashbacks in this book.  I know he’s already writing the Poe book and a zillion others for Marvel but… oh you mean that even writers have to sleep sometimes?  Alas.  Getting back to the point, it’s fun to watch Palpatine and Anakin interact because while he clearly has an agenda, he doesn’t have to be nearly as subtle because Anakin just doesn’t pick up on the manipulations.  It’s simultaneously delightful to watch Palpatine be the Puppet Master and incredibly sad to watch Anakin be manipulated by someone he trusts.

Back in the current time line, Obi-Wan’s brokered a temporary truce between the waring groups but… okay can people please stop taking advantage and twisting Anakin to their goals?  If you’re not careful, you’re all going to turn that poor boy to the dark side and then you’ll– Oh wait.  Crap.

Checchetto’s art paired with Andres Mossa’s coloring continue to be drop dead gorgeous, by the way.  This is an amazing team who puts out some really gorgeous work.  I hope we get to see more from this pair in the Star Wars universe.

Obi-Wan and Anakin continues to be so enjoyable that I can’t stop wishing it was an ongoing.  (How’s that for an endorsement?)

Star Wars News from C2E2

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Star Wars fans didn’t have to wait very long to get comics and books related announcements from C2E2 out in Chicago but it was all rather vague.  At a retailer breakfast this morning, it was announced that Marvel will be releasing a three issue comic plus a standalone issue in October that will be related to Rogue One.  No writer or artist has been announced yet.  We don’t know any other details but it’s likely filling a similar role to what Shattered Empire was for The Force Awakens.  The Star Wars Free Comic Book Day offerings will be $1 a pop copies of some of the previously released books, mostly #1s.

At the Star Wars books panel this afternoon, the big announcement was Star Wars: Catalyst.  Arriving on October 4th, the novel will be a prequel to Rogue One… and that’s all we know.  Author announcement is forthcoming.  Start the betting pool.

Outside of the Rogue One pattern, we did learn from Claudia Gray that a character from Lost Stars will make an appearance.  You may also start the betting pool on this one.  Claudia Gray also mentioned that the reason for the Bloodline’s delay was that she wanted to see The Force Awakens before finalizing her draft but also that this is a book about Leia herself  and not Leia defined by her roles as wife or mother.  For fans of Mark Waid’s run on the Leia comic, it sounds like Gray had the option to pull from the book but didn’t so don’t expect Queen Evaan to appear.

The Star Wars books panel featured Claudia Gray, John Jackson Miller, Jeffrey Brown, Adam Bray, and Elizabeth Schaefer.  You can read Newsarama’s liveblog here for some of the more fun tidbits that panelists mentioned throughout the hour.

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Rebels Review: The Forgotten Droid

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rebels logoWith a potential new base found, the Rebels need fuel, and the Ghost crew is once more on the case. Heading to a well-guarded Imperial refueling outpost, Hera puts Chopper in charge of staying with the Ghost and monitoring Imperial transmission, but he instead gets distracted by a new leg strut at a nearby shop.

Chopper being Chopper, he ignores his orders and instead steals the leg. After being accidentally abandoned by the Ghost crew, he is chased by stormtroopers into an Imperial cargo ship, where he meets an inventory droid, AP-5.

In The Forgotten Droid, we learn a bit more about Chopper’s backstory and his character beyond the fact he is a somewhat malicious, unpredictable droid. He’s a veteran of the Clone Wars, where he was a military droid, saved from a crash by Hera on Ryloth. AP-5, too, is a Clone Wars veteran, having been a tactical droid during the same Ryloth campaign. The two droids bond over their war stories, and Chopper shows he can care about something other than himself, surprising even Hera. This episode helps to build upon previous episodes, such as Homecoming, with little tidbits of character history.

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Disney Announces the Return of Indiana Jones in 2019

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Indiana-JonesVariety has the the press release from Disney stating that Indiana Jones will be returning for a fifth epic adventure.

Steven Spielberg, who directed all four previous films, will helm the as-yet-untitled project with star Harrison Ford reprising his iconic role. Franchise veterans Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall will produce.

Perhaps not entirely unsurprising as there have been rumblings of a new Indy film since the Disney purchase. Get ready to see the fedora and bull whip again!

The Last Days of The ForceCast

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In the interest of full disclosure, former ForceCast hosts Saf and Megan are contributors here at Tosche Station by way of hosting Western Reaches, one of our network’s podcasts. Because of that, I don’t want to speculate on any motivations as to why things unfolded the way they did. I want to cover the timeline of events as they unfolded as this has caused a tremendous amount of confusion among fandom. Additionally, I want to use the readily available information to pinpoint where things went wrong.

Logging this timeline gets tricky, because in addition to announcing the end of the ForceCast, all of the shows social media touchpoints were deactivated. Still, this is important to write down and have a history of. The ForceCast was one of the most important fandom touchpoints in not just Star Wars fandom, but all of genre entertainment. As such, there’s a need to document what led to its demise.

Ed. note 3/14: There’s been (understandably, I might add) some confusion over how this post was written. This post is broken down largely into two sections, a recap of the events and a post mortem analyzing why those events happened. The first section contains posts, tweets, images, and verbiage from the actors involved. The post mortem are my thoughts. 

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Tosche Station Radio #144: Caf Talk with Pablo Hidalgo

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This week on Tosche Station Radio: The network launches a new podcast, Nanci’s busy writing books, Brian’s busy reading books, THIS IS MADNESS returns, Bob Iger confirms water is wet, and Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo joins us to talk about the finer points of coffee (and The Force Awakens Visual Dictionary, a look back at sixteen years at Lucasfilm, and more).

You can find Pablo on Twitter and hear him on the all new podcast IT CAME FROM THE DEPTHS OF NETFLIX. Be sure to grab your copy of the excellent Star Wars: The Force Awakens Visual Dictionary.

Tosche Station Radio is the official podcast of Tosche-Station.net and a part of Majestic Giraffe Productions. If you like what you hear, please leave a review on the iTunes Music Store. We can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Nanci and Brian are the co-founders and writers of Tosche-Station.net. You can find Nanci on Twitter with the handle @Nancipants and you can find Brian with @LaneWinree.

This podcast has been brought to you in part by Her Universe and your support on Patreon!