We Star Wars fans are a funny lot. We like pouring over the minutiae of the films, books, comics and games, finding the hidden little connections, identifying the plot holes that will later be filled in by said books and comics when enough of us start bitching about why something was left out, and then arguing over said books and comics when they hit the streets because dammit, they totally got it wrong. Comedian Steele Saunders is a huge Star Wars fan and he knows all too well the frustration and pain of losing a few hours to a good Star Wars argument on Facebook. His Steele Wars podcast is like a safe place for fans to gather around and geek out with without that persistent sense of dread that you’re going to be drawn into some dude’s theory that Jar Jar Binks is a Sith lord or that there’s some deep significance behind Rey pronouncing her name slightly differently in one scene from The Force Awakens.
There’s a nice balance of one-on-one and live-on-stage Steele Wars episodes, and you can catch a live recording every Saturday during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Saunders always tends to draw pretty heavily from his comedian mates as guests which means the show never gets too bogged down in procedure, as it were. On the first week the guests were comedian Dilruk Jayasinha and comedy aficionado Nick Mason, the host of ComicBookMovie.com’s Weekly Planet podcast. With Mason having appeared on the podcast before (check out Episode 59), much of this taping was spent talking to Dilruk about why he loves Star Wars and learning about his perspective on the franchise, having grown up in Sri Lanka a little too late to catch the original movies during their first theatrical run. The short version: he’s a Darth Vader guy, loved The Phantom Menace, and has a pretty interesting toy collection, discussion about which may or may not make it into the final version of the podcast – let’s just say light sabers aren’t the only long vaguely-cylindrical in that guy’s toy box.
The last chunk of the show was dedicated to audience participation, including JC Fortuna – no relation to Bib – jumping up to spruik another Star Wars-related Comedy Festival show, Ged & Jamie Cockbagg’s Ye Olde Star Wars – Ye Olde Empire Doth Strike Back. Audience question segments can be a bit hit-or-miss but in the case of Steele Wars it’s a neat little microcosm of the show’s fanbase: many of the live show attendees are podcast subscribers who have been to multiple recordings and have built up a real sense of community among one another, so it feels like a discussion among buddies who are all on the same page instead of a fight between different fanboy factions. Or to put it another way, I barely had any ‘Sidious is Palpatine’s clone’ fan forum fight flashbacks.
BY PETER HODGSON
