Podcasts in Review

November 20, 2014 at 12:00 am | Posted in Interview, Podcasts, Podcasts in Review, Regular Feature, Reviews, Star Wars | Leave a comment
Tags: elvira, Freddie Prinze Jr, james luceno, pablo hidalgo, plastic galaxy, vanessa marshall

Here is this week’s Podcasts in Review.

Bombad Radio: Episode 173 features special guest David Collins as they talk about his podcast Star Wars Oxygen, whether they’ll cover video game music, Sam Witwer’s lyrics to The Force Unleashed music, how Republic Commando was slightly inspired by Halo, the limitations of memory on video game music, doing the sound work for the amazing Star Wars: The Old Republic trailers, Darth Malgus being voiced by Julian Glover’s son (Julian Glover being General Veers from The Empire Strikes Back) and much more. Whether it’s mixing sound for video games or recounting the old days when Sam Witwer would just hang out, Dave covers a lot of territory and fun stories. Awesome episode.

Full of Sith: Episode LXXXVIII features the hosts of Fangirls Going Rogue Teresa Delgado and Tricia Barr as they join Mike, Bryan and Bobby for some really interesting conversations. Chief among them is their discussion of Star Wars Rebels, it’s placement on DisneyXD, ratings, marketing it as a boy’s show when there’s a significant female audience, they paywall, and whether it can get a season 3 if it stays on DisneyXD. They they have a character discussion on Darth Bane, the creator of the rule of two, as Teresa educates everyone on his background, what he did to make him so memorable, and the books by Drew Karpyshyn. Really nice episode and definitely one to check out.

Episode XC features guest Pablo Hidalgo as they talk about the dark times, how Pablo was introduced to Star Wars, sharing memories of their fandom, and much more. Very cool interview and well worth listening to.

Jedi Journals: November 2014 episode includes coverage of the newly released Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy, a Tarkin audio excerpt, and a nice interview with author James Luceno who talks about his new book Tarkin, the opportunity of naming Palpatine, carrying forward Palpatine’s story from Darth Plagueis, writing Tarking as a colonial, drawing on TCW, not having as much time to write the book, addressing the shorter length, and what he wanted to accomplish with the story: covering the close relationship between Vader and Tarkin as seen in A New Hope and why he was in command of the Death Star.

Hyperspace Theories: Episode 1 launches a new podcast hosted by Tricia Barr, BJ and Kay from FANgirl Blog. This being the first episode of the new podcast, it’s sort of an introductory episode to give listeners an idea of what the show will be like. They cover a lot on storytelling, how it’s changed from just one storyteller (George) to many (the story group, JJ Abrams, Disney, etc). They touch on Dave Filoni as a storyteller, the different aspects of the films and how it’s change from trilogy to trilogy. They dig deep into the various discussion points giving listeners a lot to think about.

Episode 2 focuses on George Lucas as a storyteller, the black and white, good vs. evil, selfishness vs. selflessness of the movies, but also the gray characters. They cover the elements of the prequels that they liked, George’s influence on the sequel trilogy, and dive into some speculation on two leaked pieces of concept art and what that might mean for the film and the direction of the characters. They also on Star Wars Rebels and what that might tell us about the sequel movies. Again, some thought provoking discussion. Worth noting the coverage of the two pieces of concept art is somewhat spoilerish, so depending on how hard you’re avoiding Episode VII stuff, you might want to skip the rest of the episode once they get to that point.

RebelForce Radio: Episode 10.24.14 has an interview with Star War Rebels voice actor Freddie Prinze Jr. who talks about Kanan (comparing him to fighter Roy James Jr.), his relationship with Ezra, comics, Wolverine, characters suffering, martial arts, getting advice from Steve Blum, and playing with Boba Fett as a kid. Overall a really nice interview. Afterwards they cover the Lucas museum, feature some audio from George Lucas, and some audio from Dave Filoni talking about George’s retirement and making Star Wars for kids.

Skywalking Through Neverland: Episode 52 starts out with a quick interview with Elvira, then transitions into in-universe mentions of Halloween in Star Wars. They talk with Alan Sanborn about his Halloween song, Dr. Demento, doing haunted houses, and his overall embracement of the holiday. Then they cover the Disney short The Lonesome Ghosts which caught my attention when they mentioned Mickey with a shotgun. C-3PO also stops by for some Halloween safety tips. Good episode as usual with an interesting variety of topics and guest and a nice Halloween theme (though I got to this a bit late).

Star Wars Action News: Episode 436 is kind of special in that it’s a hybrid between Now Playing podcast and SWAN. In this episode Marjorie, Arnie and Jerry review the Star Wars documentary Plastic Galaxy, giving both criticism and praise for it’s coverage of Star Wars toys, collectors and collecting, and the history of Kenner. If you haven’t seen the documentary yet, this would be a great episode to listen to as they give listeners an idea of what to expect without spoiling it. It’s also caught my interest to check out their other podcast, Now Playing.

Star Wars Bookworms: Episode #33 includes special guest Vanessa Marshall, the voice actress for Hera in Star Wars Rebels. Vanessa joins Teresa and Aaron as they talk about Rebels, fandom, NYCC, and their discussion of A New Dawn. As always, Vanessa is a lot of fun and it’s interesting to hear her viewpoints on the book and the characters.

Episode #34 features a great interview with Star Wars Rebels executive producer Greg Weisman as he covers how he got into comics, how he got into Star Wars, working on Star Wars Rebels, his original novel series, the upcoming Kanan comic and more. Definitely one to check out as Greg reveals a lot about himself as well as hints at what’s coming.

Star Wars Rebels Declassified: “Breaking Ranks” features a special guest–Jimmy Mac’s son, Dillan–who joins them at the start of the episode to share his thoughts on the characters, the show and how it compares to Star Wars: The Clone Wars. For the rest of the episode, Jason, Jimmy and Paul Bateman dig into the Inquisitor, his hunt for Force-sensitive children, his relationship to Vader and Palpatine and more. They focus a lot on broader, almost esoteric topics when considering what actually unfolding in this episode. It kind of felt like they got off topic for the whole thing. I did appreciate hearing Dillan’s viewpoint, though, especially considering how he didn’t like how dark the TCW got and he’s really enjoying how bright and fun Star Wars Rebels is.

Star Wars Report: Episode 151 features guest Jason Hunt (Wampa’s Lair) as they talk news and rumors, Vader’s appearance on Star Wars Rebels, Ewan McGregor’s recent comments about Star Wars fans, Marvel news, the Episode VII wrap party, the departure of Hamill’s beard and other topics. There’s also a guest interview with Joseph Tavano who talks about Rhode Island Comic Con.

Episode 152 covers the big news of the title reveal for Episode VII and their thoughts on what The Force Awakens might mean. Hosts on this episode include Riley, Mark and special guest Steve Glosson. Pretty good episode and worth checking out. Riley, Mark and Steve make for an interesting mix for discussion as they come at the title from different, and perhaps surprising, directions.