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

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

Star Wars 7×7: A Daily Bite-Sized Dose of Star Wars Joy — TV & Film
Star Wars 7×7: A Daily Bite-Sized Dose of Star Wars Joy

The Star Wars 7×7 Podcast is Rebel-rousing fun for everyday Jedi, generally between 7 and 14 minutes a day, always 7 days a week. Join host Allen Voivod for Star Wars news, history, interviews, trivia, and deep dives into the Star Wars story as told in movies, books, comics, games, cartoons, and more. Follow now for your daily dose of Star Wars joy. It’s destiny unleashed! #SW7x7

Latest Episodes:

2,117. Star Wars Celebration Anaheim Update Apr 20, 2020

Show notes

So we don't bury the lede: There's been no new announcement one way or the other about Star Wars Celebration since our last update. For all intents and purposes, ReedPOP is still proceeding as though it's going to happen, and that it's going to happen as scheduled, August 27-30, 2020.

To that point, there have been application periods related to Star Wars Celebration that are still happening, and Reed Exhibitions (the parent company of Reed POP) said in their most recent update (4/14/20) that "Currently, no federal restrictions are in place" that would prevent events like Star Wars Celebration from happening. And the news you may have heard about Los Angeles concerts and sports events isn't the official death knell you might have feared it to be.

That said, as much as I want to be as positive and optimistic as possible about the possibility of Star Wars Celebration happening as planned, I have to say that, since the last time we talked about it on the show, there are other things happening that are tipping the hope scales for me in a less than optimistic direction. We'll discuss all of this on today's show... Punch it!

***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.***

2,116. Star Wars POP! Featuring Force Toast's Alyce and Laura Apr 19, 2020

Show notes

Our Sunday conversation this week is a new installment of our Star Wars POP! series - that's "Podcasters on Podcasting," in case it's new to you. I had a bit of a bittersweet moment thinking about the introduction to this, because the one in-person time I met Laura from Force Toast: A Star Wars Happy Hour was at Star Wars Celebration Chicago last year. I was introduced to her by Steve Kirk, the podcaster and co-founder of San Diego Sabers, who passed away only a few months after that very fun evening.

The meeting with Laura was a quick one - she and Alyce were among a group of podcasters doing live recordings of their shows at an after-hours event that evening. But we've traded tweets here and there since then, and they were kind enough to say "Yes!" and join me for joint POP! interview.

***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.***

2,115. Old Friends Not Forgotten (Clone Wars Briefing, Season 7, Episode 9) Apr 18, 2020

Show notes

This is what we've all been waiting for, and Dave Filoni and company do treat it as a special event. "Old Friends Not Forgotten" kicks off the final story arc of the final season of the Clone Wars, the Siege of Mandalore story arc, the one that connects the TV series with Revenge of the Sith, and also launches Ahsoka Tano into her post-Clone-Wars adventures.

From the moment we got the "Lucasfilm Ltd." opening to the red text "Part I" title screen, and the jump into the narrator's opening without a moral/fortune cookie before it, we know we're in different territory. And as the episode progresses, we can see the cinematic scope and scale to which this arc is rising.

I will say - and I'll say it in detail in today's episode - that I'm having a bit of a challenge with the moment that is supposed to be the BIG emotional moment in this episode. It's based on reasons we've discussed in previous episodes, but let's talk about it and see whether it's just me, or whether you were feeling the same way. That said, as usual, there's a lot to recommend the episode. The action is great, and there's nothing in the episode that feels like it didn't need to be there to tell the story. And that includes the opening sequence, which doesn't bear on the story arc itself (at least, as far as we can guess), but certainly re-grounds us in the nature of this war and its Jedi players. Punch it!

***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.***

2,114. The Nature of Hope in The Rise of Skywalker Apr 17, 2020

Show notes

In this, the final formal installment in our series of looks at the Star Wars movies through the lens of hope, we're talking about the last movie in the Skywalker Saga, The Rise of Skywalker. It's interesting to note that, similar to Return of the Jedi, the movie starts off in a very reversals-of-fortune way, which is the kind of storytelling form prescribed by screenwriting guru Robert McKee in his popular book Story and his famous seminars.

From there, it continues to bear a resemblance to Return of the Jedi, structurally speaking - it keeps the heroes together until it separates the Force users from the non-Force users, and then it separates the non-Force users into a spaceship battle and a mission-specific battle. (ROTJ=destroy the shield generator; TROS=destroy the navigational beacon)

From the hope perspective, it bears a closer resemblance to Rogue One. The odds of success are so slim, and the task is so massive, that the only way to keep hope alive is to focus on the next task, and the next, until they succeed. As we talk about this on today's episode, we'll also talk about the difference between hope and its related but comparatively selfish cousin, ambition; the innate hopefulness of heroes, and how that hopefulness is necessary to "light the spark" in good people who don't internally generate that attribute; and a big-bang hope moment that sets The Rise of Skywalker apart from every other Star Wars movie. Punch it!

***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.***

2,113. The Nature of Hope in Solo: A Star Wars Story Apr 16, 2020

Show notes

In doing my research for these "Hyperspacing Hope" episodes, Solo: A Star Wars Story caught me off guard. Of all the movies I've examined so far, Solo is the one in which I got most caught up. I barely stopped the movie at all to take notes, and the notes I took were the least of any of the movies we've discussed to date. I kept getting sucked into the movie and forgetting what I was there for!

And there's a lot of hope to be discussed in the movie - although it doesn't go by that name, if it's even named at all. Instead, when these scoundrels talk about "luck," they're really talking about hope. When Lando says, "I'm a lucky guy," he's talking about an ingrained sense of hopefulness. And when Han pulls out a rock and pretends it's a thermal detonator, or when he convinces Chewbacca that his "very good friends" are in that AT-hauler, the force of his belief - his hope - is so strong that you could make a case for Han as the most hopeful major character in the franchise.

Today, we'll talk more about luck and hope, how being lucky or unlucky overlays the spectrum of hopefulness, how this movie made me want to re-watch the Original Trilogy and The Force Awakens in a new light (because these ones have Han and/or Lando in them), and much more. Punch it!

***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.***

2,112. The Nature of Hope in The Last Jedi Apr 15, 2020

Show notes

This the 9th of 11 episodes focused on the nature of hope as it's depicted in the Star Wars movies, and the 8th out of the nine Skywalker Saga movies we're covering as part of this "Hyperspacing Hope" series related to the TEDx talk I gave in November 2019. (For those of you asking - none of the videos from that event have been released yet. When I hear more, you'll hear more!)

Today: The Last Jedi. This movie does something that we haven't really seen since The Empire Strikes Back, keeping our heroes on the run for much of the movie. It also illustrates the range of the scale from hopeful to hopeless, but also helps define a couple of polar opposite experiences, apathy and desperation. And it also plays on the spiritual level with hope being tied to the Jedi, and the secular with Leia's down-to-earth comparison of hope to the sun. We'll discuss it all and more on today's show. Punch it!

***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.***

2,111. The Nature of Hope in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Apr 14, 2020

Show notes

This is the eighth episode in a series of looks at how the nature of hope is depicted in the Star Wars movies. Previous episodes focused on the movies in order of theatrical release, so we've already gone through the Original Trilogy, the Prequel Trilogy, and The Force Awakens to date.

Today, we look at Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. From the morally good and hopeful center of the movie (Galen Erso) to immoral and hopeful (Cassian), moral yet hopeless (much of the Alliance leadership), immoral and increasingly hopeless (Saw Gerrera), and finally to the person who goes from the deepest depths of hopelessness to acting on hope with the razor-thinnest of margins (Jyn), Rogue One is quite possibly the Star Wars movie that's more thoroughly driven by hope than any other. Punch it!

***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.***

2,110. Final Notes on the Second Story Arc of Clone Wars Season 7 Apr 13, 2020

Show notes

The second story arc Clone Wars season 7 - which had been known as "Ahsoka's Walkabout" when it was first introduced to fans at Star Wars Celebration Europe (London) in 2016 - is now complete. On today's episode, I'll be diving back into the "Ahsoka's Untold Tales" panel from that event to see how the original version (or, at least, what we knew about it back then) differed from the final version we saw on Disney+. And we'll also talk about what's next. Punch it!

***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.***

2,109. Interview With Star Wars Audiobook Narrator/Performer Marc Thompson Apr 12, 2020

Show notes

If you've listened at all to Star Wars audiobooks, you've heard Marc Thompson's voice. His *many* voices, as it were, as he typically performs dozens of characters in each novel's narration. And if you've been listening to the podcast this past week, you've heard snippets of his performances as Leia, Luke, Rey, Kylo, Palpatine, and others in The Rise of Skywalker Expanded Edition audiobook. (Thanks once again to Penguin Random House Audio for sending me a review copy to dissect and share with you...)

On today's show, a special Sunday conversation treat. Marc Thompson joins me on the podcast to talk about what it was like to read the novel for the first time after having seen The Rise of Skywalker in theaters; what the recording sessions were like; the fun and challenging aspects of the project; what it's like as the sole voice actor to record scenes where multiple characters are speaking; what it was like to perform the characters of Luke, Leia, and Han one last time; and much more. Punch it!

***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.***

2,108. Together Again (Clone Wars Briefing, Season 7, Episode 8) Apr 11, 2020

Show notes

"Together Again" is episode 8 from season 7 of the Clone Wars, and the final episode of the story arc that's been known as "Ahsoka's Walkabout" since details of it were shared at Celebrations past. You know what generally needs to happen by the end of the episode - Ahsoka and the Martez sisters need to escape from the Pykes, and the Martez sisters likely need to be able to get away in a manner that will keep them out of trouble with the Pykes for the foreseeable future.

The key for whether it turns out to be a good episode is whether the way it happens is surprising, and as it turns out, there are multiple surprises in the episode. I'll talk about the unexpected things that happen along the way; the dramatic character reveal that's going to take us into the final story arc; and the creative team's first steps toward resolving the fact that there was going to be a story arc that took place in between this one and the Siege of Mandalore. Punch it!

***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.***

Related Podcasts