Chris Kempshall joins us to talk about the definition of fascism and how to rebel against it. Star Wars may be fiction but there's plenty of timely lessons, especially in the recently completed show Andor. How can that help us understand what's happening in American politics? Can we practice resistance in an immersive environment like Galaxy's Edge and use it to talk about the ongoing ICE raids? Is there reason to hope? And of course we chat about Order 66.

Check out Chris's books "The History and Politics of Star Wars" and "The First World War In Computer Games."

The books Chris recommended are "The Empire Triumphant" by Kevin J. Wetmore and "The World According to Star Wars" by Cass R. Sunstein.

Listen to Chris's earlier appearance on the podcast in our Andor season 1 panel. Chris also joined James's panel at Star Wars Celebration 2025 "Droids, AI, and Sentience."

You can order James's crossword puzzle book now! For a free puzzle, download the activity kit from Star Wars Reads!

Subscribe to never miss an episode of Star Warsologies on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Did you miss an earlier episode? Catch up here!

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram or join our Facebook fan group!

Star Warsologies is a podcast about science in a galaxy far, far away. Hosts James Floyd and Melissa Miller combine their love of storytelling in the franchise with their keen interest in all things academic.

In this episode of Star Warsologies, we share the recording of Melissa's WonderCon 2025 panel "Science of Disneyland!"

Panel description: Disneyland is just down the road, so let’s take a virtual field trip to explore the parks from a different point of view. There’s something to discover in every land - life on other planets in Galaxy’s Edge, dinosaurs roaming the railroad, and majestic rock formations in Cars Land - just to name a few. There’s also robotics everywhere, from the original audio-animatronics to the advanced Spider-Man that swings across Avengers Campus. Our panel of experts includes astrophysicist Lisa Will, geologist Garrett Vice, paleontologist Stuart Sumida (who worked on the Matterhorn animations), and biologist Elizabeth Rega (who consulted on the Hall of Presidents). All are huge Disney fans who can’t wait to geek out and help you experience Disneyland from a whole new angle.

Listen to the episode Geology of Galaxy's Edge, where Garrett dives even deeper into the cool rocks around both Disneyland parks in California!

You can order James's crossword puzzle book now! For a free puzzle, download the activity kit from Star Wars Reads!

Subscribe to never miss an episode of Star Warsologies on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Did you miss an earlier episode? Catch up here!

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram or join our Facebook fan group!

Star Warsologies is a podcast about science in a galaxy far, far away. Hosts James Floyd and Melissa Miller combine their love of storytelling in the franchise with their keen interest in all things academic.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode for all the amazing behind the scenes visuals shared during the panel!

You should also watch the YouTube video we refer to in (and showed during) the panel, which includes many of the miniatures in the Star Wars prequels.

Panel description: Episodes I, II, and III revolutionized the use of computer graphics in film but did you know that the ILM model shop was still in full swing during production? There are more miniatures in each of the prequels than the original trilogy combined! Fon Davis, an ILM model maker during the Special Edition and prequels era, takes us through his favorite behind the scenes photos and stories - many of which involve explosions. From the podracing arena on Tatooine to the lava flows of Mustafar, a surprising number of miniatures were created and used in tandem with other visual effects. Take a deep dive into the movie magic!

Watch season 2 of Light & Magic on Disney+ now for more from Fon and other ILM behind the scenes images and stories!

For more ILM stories, check out the Episode II panel from SiliCon 2022 with Fon Davis, John Goodson, Kim Smith, Nelson Hall, and Don Bies!

Fon has also joined us for convention panels about Galaxy Quest, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline, as well as at Star Wars Celebration in London in 2023!

You can order James's crossword puzzle book now! For a free puzzle, download the activity kit from Star Wars Reads!

Subscribe to never miss an episode of Star Warsologies on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Did you miss an earlier episode? Catch up here!

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram or join our Facebook fan group!

Star Warsologies is a podcast about science in a galaxy far, far away. Hosts James Floyd and Melissa Miller combine their love of storytelling in the franchise with their keen interest in all things academic.

Panel description: R2-D2 and C-3PO. BB-8. Battle droids. Star Wars isn't Star Wars without its lovable droids. We'll examine the science of robots, the programming of personality and the ethics of sentient mechanicals in society, plus go behind the scenes on designing droids for the movies. Why do droids in Star Wars look the way they do? Why do we all love R2-D2? How close are we to having droid intelligence and personality in our own world? Let's go inside the gears and processing units to explore all the possibilities. Our team of experts includes Yukie Nagai (Project Professor, International Research Center for Neurointelligence, University of Tokyo), Fon Davis (ILM Model Maker - Star Wars), Chris Kempshall (author, Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire and The History and Politics of Star Wars) and Joel Welch (PhD Law candidate at Western University, Emerging Technology Policies & SciFi). Moderated by James Floyd (Star Wars Insider; Star Warsologies, Star Wars Crossword Puzzles).

Check out Yukie Nagai's robotics website.

Check out Chris Kempshall's website.

You can order James's crossword puzzle book now! For a free puzzle, download the activity kit from Star Wars Reads!

Subscribe to never miss an episode of Star Warsologies on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Did you miss an earlier episode? Catch up here!

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram or join our Facebook fan group!

Star Warsologies is a podcast about science in a galaxy far, far away. Hosts James Floyd and Melissa Miller combine their love of storytelling in the franchise with their keen interest in all things academic.

Panel description: Revenge of the Sith is full of connections to real world science and technology - from droids and starfighters to the ecosystems of Mustafar and Utapau. How could we make a working lightsaber? Can you really battle over a river of lava? How would wildlife thrive on Coruscant? Are we close to making robots similar to C-3PO and R2-D2? We'll try to tackle these questions and more with our lineup of experts in all sorts of fields, including Dr. Yukie Nagai (robotics), Dr. Takafumi Maruishi (volcanology), Dr. Kazuo Tanaka (particle physics), Gabriel Santos (paleontology), and Melissa Miller (science communicator). Join host James Floyd (Star Wars author, Star Wars Insider regular contributor, Star Warsologies podcast co-host) in celebrating the 20th anniversary of Episode III with a look into its science and technology.

Check out Yukie Nagai's robotics website.

Check out Kazuo Tanaka's at home particle detector

Check out Takafumi Maruishi's volcanic research.

You can order James's crossword puzzle book now! For a free puzzle, download the activity kit from Star Wars Reads!

Subscribe to never miss an episode of Star Warsologies on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Did you miss an earlier episode? Catch up here!

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram or join our Facebook fan group!

Star Warsologies is a podcast about science in a galaxy far, far away. Hosts James Floyd and Melissa Miller combine their love of storytelling in the franchise with their keen interest in all things academic.

Tom tells us how Star Wars books come into being and gives us advice for how to get started with the amazing (but daunting) content of The High Republic. We also dive into in-galaxy books and publishing, like the holo-books seen in Skeleton Crew. Who edits and publishes books? Did the Empire erase or burn all books about the Jedi? Did that lead to a renaissance after Return of the Jedi, with stories of Luke Skywalker turning into everything from fairy tales to fan fiction?

Check out all the amazing Star Wars books available from Penguin Random House!

You can order James's crossword puzzle book now! For a free puzzle, download the activity kit from Star Wars Reads!

Subscribe to never miss an episode of Star Warsologies on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Did you miss an earlier episode? Catch up here!

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram or join our Facebook fan group!

Star Warsologies is a podcast about science in a galaxy far, far away. Hosts James Floyd and Melissa Miller combine their love of storytelling in the franchise with their keen interest in all things academic.

This episode, we dive into lasers in Star Wars but it turns out that many of the examples are likely actually something else entirely - plasma! Though lightsabers are sometimes called laser swords, Karen breaks down the reasons that light / lasers simply wouldn't work this way. Same goes for the Death Star's mighty weapon. Somehow we also end up talking about repulsor vehicles, invisible tires, and a lot of other physics and engineering quandaries. Enjoy!

Want to know more about transparent chicken? Of course you do! Here's the paper Karen mentioned.

Listen to our Celebration London panel that Karen was part of, The Science of Return of the Jedi, which we referenced a few times during our discussion!

Learn more about metamaterials and rail guns that Karen mentioned in this episode.

You can order James's crossword puzzle book now! For a free puzzle, download the activity kit from Star Wars Reads!

Subscribe to never miss an episode of Star Warsologies on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Did you miss an earlier episode? Catch up here!

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram or join our Facebook fan group!

Star Warsologies is a podcast about science in a galaxy far, far away. Hosts James Floyd and Melissa Miller combine their love of storytelling in the franchise with their keen interest in all things academic.

On this episode, we talk about mouths - teeth, tongues, and lips all contribute to how an animal eats, sounds, and plays musical instruments. Do clone troopers have baby teeth or did they skip right to adult teeth? How might Max Rebo and Sy Snootles eat? Why do Sith Lords have such terrible oral hygiene? We also talk about porgs, of course!

Check out Ryder's Star Wars podcasts! Star Wars School of Dentistry, follow the show on Instagram, and Idiot's Array, also on Instagram!

He's also part of the Dental Realists podcast.

Here's the video Ryder mentioned where Temuera Morrison gets a smile makeover.

You can order James's crossword puzzle book now! For a free puzzle, download the activity kit from Star Wars Reads!

Subscribe to never miss an episode of Star Warsologies on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Did you miss an earlier episode? Catch up here!

Follow us on BlueSky and Instagram or join our Facebook fan group!

Star Warsologies is a podcast about science in a galaxy far, far away. Hosts James Floyd and Melissa Miller combine their love of storytelling in the franchise with their keen interest in all things academic.