Anyone listen to Star Wars podcasts, and if so, what? I'm a huge Force Cast fan. I listen to all their shows. They have a main news/discussion show, then a general discussion show (Echo Base), a Rebels commentary (but they haven't done it in months), a literary SW podcast (Jedi Journals), occasionally one about SW Gaming (Sabaac Table) and one about SW music (Galactic Radio), a non-SW SF/F podcast (Outer Rim), and separate podcasts for Flash and Arrow and SHIELD/Carter. The group has unfortunately been going through some upheavals in the last year, people leaving abruptly, new people coming in and leaving... but I like the current batch of people. Hopefully they get back to doing Rebels commentaries... http://www.forcecast.net/default.asp
I was recently introduced to Rebel Force Radio, mainly for there Oxygen podcasts focused on the music of The Force Awakens, which are brilliant. http://rebelforceradio.libsyn.com/webpage/category/Rebel Force Radio
I loved Forcecast back when Eric Geller and Erik Blythe were hosting it. Then Justin Bolger joined them and the show was still pretty good for a while, but when Geller left things kinda started going down hill. I even loved their intro ("here we go" - BAM! SW fanfare!), always got me pumped. Then they changed it. For what ever reason.
I will always look on the brief Eric-Erik-Justin days as the golden period, yeah. But the current batch is pretty good. They have Old Erik (I don't know which spelling is right lol) with a very enthusiastic guy (Paul?), a very exciteable and adorable New Zealand girl Saph, and a slightly dour girl Meghan. It's a pretty good group. I do miss Justin's pro-Empire schtick though!
How ironic, just a week or two later, the Force Cast fires all of its hosts and some new guy takes over. This was really crappy news to me, but hopefully the old hosts will start their own podcast somewhere else and I can follow them there. https://www.facebook.com/forcecast/posts/10153952630704814:0 So, Erik is taking most of the Force Cast shows to Random Chatter, including Echo Base, Outer Rim, Agents of SHIELD, Flash, and Arrow. http://randomchatter.com/
Well, this has been a whirlwind of emotion. The Force Cast is cancelled. http://www.forcecast.net/story/topstory/IMPORTANT_ANNOUNCEMENT_FORCECAST_CLOSING_DOORS_168247.asp I didn't really see what happened but apparently there were a lot of nasty comments being made by people not involved with any version of the show, and the new regime took offense to it and said some nasty things (I saw that part), and now it's all canned. Wow. The Force Cast has been a part of my live since October 2012 and it means a lot to me... ...but you can follow most of the old crew on their website: http://randomchatter.com/
Erik Blythe wrote this in the middle of the controversy before they cancelled Force Cast: http://randomchatter.com/lets-clear-the-room And then recorded this podcast Saturday night about it. I participated in the chat for the first time ever... http://randomchatter.com/rc-rip-fc
Hey, guess what? I'm the new Facebook guy for Random Chatter! I'm going to be regularly updating the RC Facebook page with podcast links, news, and discussion topics. https://www.facebook.com/randomchatternetwork/?fref=nf&pnref=story http://randomchatter.com/
I'm still trying to find a good, consistent, Star Wars podcast. I found Force Cast recently, specifically the full length commentaries on the films (listening to "The Force Awakens" one now). I also have found Star Wars Minute, which is a minute by minute breakdown of each film. Quite interesting because they focus on different characters and individuals, as well as work on being more positive and constructive in their TPM analysis.
I like Echo Base on Random Chatter (obviously, haha) and I also listen to Super Hero News (http://superheronews.com/category/podcasts/) and Western Reaches (http://tosche-station.net/podcasts/western-reaches/) and Blaster Cannon (http://www.denofgeek.com/us/podcasts) who all have former Force Cast hosts. The biggest one is Rebel Force Radio (http://www.rebelforceradio.com/), but it's not my cup of tea, personally.
That's too bad. Rebel Force Radio has an interesting variety of programming, but my favorites, hands down, have been their full length film commentaries with Sam Witwer. Sam has a certain perspective on the Star Wars films that I find absolutely fascinating. Even the PT commentaries he is very positive, and looks at the larger picture of the universe being created. I haven't listened to every episode, but Sam's insights are really enjoyable and adds a positive, and unique, look at the Star Wars films.
I've heard a couple with him on them and he's very funny. But I don't like the radio show host format. I like my podcasts to be pleasant chats between friends, as if I actually had people in the real world I could talk about super nerdy stuff with
I didn't get that vibe at all on the commentary tracks Also, while not Star Wars related, and no longer active, The Friends in your Head network has Star Wars commentaries for PT and OT. That is far more of a back and forth between friends.
I have mixed feelings on podcasts. I've heard some that were interesting to listen to, but all too often it's just noise and gabbing. More often than I've found listening to an hour and a half podcast, you get maybe 5-10 minutes of actual content. The rest tends to be very skippable. I tend to agree that commentary tracks seem to work better since there's something to focus on. The Sam Witwer commentaries are brilliant. Very measured and insightful and frequently hilarious (especially when he starts doing an impersonation of Arnie doing a commentary track.) I actually listened to one the other week and he mentioned something that's had me scratching my head since. Something about a video game company that had a Star Wars game in development but was cancelled and that they were told off for having cut-scenes with swearing stormtroopers. He specifically avoided mentioning the name of the company, but I've been trying to puzzle it out. My first thought was the 1313 guys, but that didn't seem to fit the context of what he was saying.