Suvudu Universe

Here is this week’s Podcasts in Review.

Full of Sith: Episode XCII is another cross-over style episode, this time featuring the hosts of the ForceCast, Eric, Erik and Justin. They talk about their introductions to Star Wars, how they got started on the ForceCast, and some discussion on the trailer and the Mace Windu rumors.

Episode XCIII kicks off with a full on discussion of the newly released trailer for The Force Awakens. Mike, Bryan, Bobby and Amy share their favorite moments from the trailer without taking up an hour of time. Instead, the rest of the show focuses on Star Wars Tours. They talk about the old version of the ride, the new incarnation, what the ride is like, and they even get into a Disneyland discussion about Disney jail and Tom Sawyer island. Really fun episode and definitely worth a slot on your playlist.

Now Playing Podcast: to broaden my horizons a bit (and mostly because I enjoyed Star Wars Action News’ cross-over cast for Plastic Galaxy), I decided to try out a few episodes of Now Playing Podcast. Fair warning, if you see a short show, it’s because it’s a teaser for one of their fundraising episodes. Sometimes they’ll do exclusive shows only available to those who donate and they’ll release a short teaser of the full show for everyone to check out. I’d recommend skipping those as it’ll just aggravate you that you can’t listen to the full show. Picking some movies I like at random, I tried their Halloween, Predator, The Lost Boys and Terminator shows. Each is a full discussion with a three host format breaking down the main scenes of the movie, providing a little bit of film trivia, and sharing their thoughts on the film, the actors, the director and the music. I don’t mind, but for those that do, they do use profanity. Overall, it’s kind of entertaining, but I’m not sure if I’ll check out more or not.

Radio 1138: Episode 19 is packed with interviews as they talk with Warwick Davis in correlation with the 30th anniversary of The Ewok Adventure, they speak with Star Wars author Jason Fry, and touch base with Star Wars Insider editor Jonathan Wilkins who covers what’s in the latest issues. There’s a lot of Ewok focus in this episode so I was way onboard. Warwick talks about working on the Ewok movies, doing birthday events for George Lucas, and even talks about a sequel to Willow. Very awesome interview, and with Jason Fry and Jonathan Wilkins added in there, it’s one you won’t want to miss. I recommend checking this one out along with Skywalking Through Neverland Episode 56 for a complete Ewok Adventure experience.

RebelForce Radio: The Force Awakens Episode covers the 88 second trailer with an entire hour of discussion. On the one hand, it’s a little bit overkill, but they’ve got a good array of guests to talk about trailer including Jason, Jimmy, Kyle, Paul, F.J. Desanto and J.C. Reifenberg. They break the thing down scene-by-scene, touch on their favorite parts, and what the trailer doesn’t show.

Rebels Declassified: “Out of Darkness” features hosts Jimmy and Jason along with guests Stuart “Shazbazzar” Tullis and Josh “Jedi Shua” Stolte from Techno Retro Dads as they discuss the episode of Star Wars Rebels. They cover Sabine, her role and relationship with the rest of the crew, speculation on her past and who Fulcrum might be, a comparison of Zeb, Ezra and Chopper to the Three Stooges, and how big they think the rebellion is at this point. It’s a nice discussion with good guests.

“Empire Day” steps things up with guests Tricia Barr and Adam Bray. As a book fan, I really enjoyed the pre-episode discussion they had about the upcoming DK book Ultimate Star Wars: The Definitive Guide to the Star Wars Universe which will be out April 2015. Back to the episode discussion, they cover the Empire and propaganda, debuting the new TIE like an auto show, the connection between Seebo and Lobot, the fate of Ezra’s parents and more. Personally, this is one of my favorite Rebels Declassified episodes yet. While the heads up on the new book was really cool, the discussion of the Rebels episode was equally fun and Tricia and Adam had a lot to share. Plus this episode was a lot more on-topic than previous episodes which I really appreciated.

Rebels Report: Interview with Jason Fry covers the authors latest Star Wars book Empire: Edge of the Galaxy. Jason talks about the main character Zare Leonis, making the story into a Friday Night Lights in space, filling out the scenes not covered in the Star Wars Rebels show, Greg Weisman’s contributions, and he even touches a little on his original series The Jupiter Pirates. Great insight and discussion.

Rock Out Loud: “Hangin’ Out” is a freeform episode where Steve and Kristin share some random songs that may catch your interest. In particular Steve reminded me that I needed to pick up a copy of the “Immigrant Song” cover by Trent Reznor and Atticus Rose.

Skywalking Through Neverland: Episode 54 dives into their coverage of Stan Lee’s Comikaze featuring their interviews from the con. They also talk with Mar­cus Gon­za­lez about his design of the Baymax balloons and beverage sippers at Disneyland who also lets slip that they’ve worked on a product for Star Wars Rebels that has yet to be released. It’s a fun episode as always.

Episode 55 has their coverage of the Disney Avengers Half Marathon which Rich and Sarah both participated in. They talk about what the race was like and interview some of the participants after the race. Also in this episode they pay homage to the Star Wars Holiday Special with a scene-by-scene discussion with various guests which was really cool. I still haven’t seen the Holiday Special, so this was a nice way to get a better idea of what the special is like and perhaps some more incentive to seek it out and watch it. Definitely worth checking out and in comparison to some of the other podcasts I listened to that honored the anniversary of the Star Wars Holiday Special, this was one of the best.

Episode 56 kicking things up another gear, Skywalking Through Neverland tops themselves by celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Ewok Adventure by interviewing Mace Towani himself, Eric Walker. Celebrity guests can be hit and miss, but Eric knocked this one out of the park as a fantastic guest. He talked about his experiences on set with Warwick Davis and George Lucas, gave some behind the scenes details including Wilford Brimley punching out an assistant director and Eric’s two hours of unreleased documentary footage, plus talked about what he’s been up to including a book he wrote covering The Ewok Adventure which should be out this month. I have to admit that I’m biased as I love Ewoks, but this was a great show. I highly recommend checking it out as not too many people talk about the Ewok movies.

Star Wars Action News: Episode 437 is a Black Friday episode, so it’s a bit late for those deals, however the second half of the episode is focused on Christmas shopping for the Star Wars fans on your Christmas list, so it’s still worth checking out for gift ideas.

Star Wars Collector’s Cast: Episode 6 is a bit different as Curto isn’t co-hosting. Instead, Mark Newbold joins James as Mark talks a bit about his collection, from trading cards to comics. They also have several interviews breaking things up, including one with the guy who helped designed the Star Wars Hotwheels cars, and two interview segments with Steve Sansweet covering his San Diego Comic Con experience and holiday collectibles.

Star Wars Report: Episode 153 is pre-trailer release and features Mark, Riley and Bethany. Aside from the pre-trailer speculation, they do cover the Mace Windu spinoff rumors which is fun and still worth a listen, but most of the show is still pre-trailer discussion. I haven’t gotten to it yet, but Episode 154 is their post-trailer discussion.

Techno Retro Dads: Holiday Special 2014 covers the Star Wars Holiday Special along with other retro discussions from Etch A Sketch to cereal cakes. This is the first episode I’ve listened to, and it’s…different. Rather than just being a discussion type show, they do audio bits with various people playing out scenes–in this case relating to the Star Wars Holiday Special. There are a lot of breaks with different segments, and it runs kind of long (1 hour 35 minutes, which really isn’t too bad but it felt long). It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t quite hook me. Still, you might want to give it a try.

Reviewed By: Skuldren for Roqoo Depot.