Baby Yoda is cereal now, and The Mandalorian is a music video

Time again for STAR WARS WEEKLY, the SYFY WIRE series that rounds up the most important news of the week from a galaxy far, far away.

Think of us as your own personal Star Wars Holocron.

BABY YODA CEREAL 

It was announced on May the Fourth that a cereal featuring the so-called Baby Yoda would be coming out sometime this summer. Well, good news, everyone! The fruity, corn-pop cereal with green marshmallow assets is finally hitting store shelves now.

The initial announcement might have slipped through everyone’s radar because of the pandemic, but seeing it on shelves now has renewed interest.

On one hand, it seems like a very cynical manipulation by General Mills to use branded content to get us to eat really unhealthy breakfast options. On the other hand, Baby Yoda marshmallows.

They’re available exclusively at Sam’s Club and will be available in stores nationwide by the end of the month.

This is the way.

THE MANDALORIAN MUSIC VIDEO

The official The Mandalorian Twitter account dropped a behind-the-scenes music video that documents Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson putting together the iconic theme song for the show.

It’s particularly poignant this week. The show’s music owes an influential debt to the work of Ennio Morricone and his work on spaghetti westerns. The Italian composer passed away this week at the age of 91. In an interview with Vanity Fair this week, Göransson talks about the influence Morricone had on the score. 

“I don’t know how you can be in this field and not be inspired by his achievements and his music," he said. "Just the way he experimented in production, the way he brought in different styles of instruments combined with each other, and he really pushed the envelope so far and he made it also sound so simple and so close. In The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, it’s a similar idea, is that it’s two notes. But immediately when you hear it, it resonates with your whole body. That was a magic power that Ennio had, to be able to make these interesting combinations.”

The second season of The Mandalorian hits Disney+ in October, right on schedule, and will once again feature Göransson’s music.

THRAWN: ASCENDENCY: CHAOS RISING

A new book about Grand Admiral Thrawn is coming out soon, the first of a planned trilogy that will, presumably, deal with the dangling threads about the Chiss Ascendency that author Timothy Zahn has been seeding throughout his tenure in the new canon. 

We got our first excerpt of the story over at StarWars.com.

This chapter brings us the earliest glimpse we’ve seen to date of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s timeline. The prologue to Chaos Rising happens prior to his joining the Empire as the Chiss look to discover who might be attacking them before they send Thrawn to discover the secret (as we read about in Thrawn).

Thrawn: Ascendency: Chaos Rising comes out on Sept. 1 and, hopefully, all of our questions will be answered then. 

RESET RUMORS

Rumors have been flying in the last week or so that Lucasfilm is embroiled in the middle of a creative civil war and that Disney is interested in rebooting the Star Wars trilogy.

Don’t believe everything you read.

For fans concerned about this, don’t be. The story that’s been written up at a lot of websites has been sourced to one errant YouTube video that you would be foolish to waste your time with. As far as we can tell and are hearing, it has no basis in reality and there’s nothing to be concerned about. There’s no civil war brewing, Kathleen Kennedy is still in charge, Rian Johnson is still making his trilogy, and 2022 is still (COVID-19 notwithstanding) going to see the release of the next new Star Wars film.

Pay no attention to the random YouTubers out there claiming they have a source. More often than not, they don't.

STAR WARS VIDEO GAMES

With the upcoming video game Squadrons garnering a lot of interest, I thought it would be fun to go back to one of the earliest commercials in the world of Star Wars video games. This absurdist bit of Star Wars history is an ad for the original Star Wars flight simulator for its release in 1984 for the Atari.

It will literally blow your mind.

Isn’t that just completely bonkers?

Until next week, may the Force be with you!