20 guests are asked to pick just one thing in (or about) Star Wars: The Force Awakens to talk about for two minutes or less. This episode includes a spoiler warning.
Header and footer art cropped from the exclusive Star Wars Celebration 2015 poster by original trilogy (and otherwise master) artist Drew Struzan.
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Special Guests (in order of appearance)
John Gruber is the technology writer, troublemaker, and raconteur behind Daring Fireball and The Talk Show. I started writing all my show notes in Markdown (which he created) this year, and I’m ashamed I didn’t start doing so sooner.
Mikah Sargent is a Senior Editor at Newsy, and co-hosts Integrate and Cartoon Cast. He can get downright scholarly about Kim Possible. No, seriously.
Drew McWeeny is Chief Film Critic for HitFix, writes the compelling Film Nerd 2.0 series (about raising sons on the best media diet he can…start at the beginning), and was once Banned From the Ranch as detailed on this show.
Jason Snell writes about technology (Apple especially) at Six Colors and his Incomparable Network has produced over seven hours of Force Awakens panel discussions in the last week (starting here), in case you aren’t already overloaded on Star Wars talk. He recently took up programming his live-in family droid.
Aleen Simms hosts and produces Less Than or Equal, a podcast dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of geeks facing inequality in their field(s). Talk crap about Jessica Jones and she will cut you.
Walter Chaw is General Manager at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Denver, and is Senior Film Critic at Film Freak Central. His review of The Force Awakens is a great read, and yes that is a cartoon drawing of Short Round as his Twitter avatar, Dr. Jones.
Merideth Muñoz is a musician, and half of Coeds. Get a taste of “Sensitive Boys”, a song that might have preceded Kylo Ren, but could still be about him.
Jen Yamato writes about entertainment for The Daily Beast. God help you if you end up in a karaoke contest with her.
Craig Mazin is a screenwriter and half of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things interesting to screenwriters co-hosted by John August. Craig’s next project hitting screens is The Huntsman: Winter’s War. He survived being college roommates with Ted Cruz. Craig returns on the next episode of Electric Shadow.
Jessica Dennis works in I.T. by day and fights evil by night as half of ESN’s Unconsoleable, the premier podcast focusing exclusively on casual and mobile gaming. She also hosts Totally Uncool, a show about “boring” and/or “uncool” stories that aren’t actually boring.
Kahlief Adams co-hosts ESN’s Spawn On Me, a podcast that focuses on diverse voices in video games, from players to designers. His idea of a fun time is planning a podcast episode about SWATing on a Saturday night.
Eric Vespe is Managing Editor for Ain’t It Cool News and interviewed George Carlin for his high school newspaper. He previously appeared on Electric Shadow talking about Ghostbusters. Eric will return to the network with something new in 2016.
Jules Rivera is creator of the comics Valkyrie Squadron and Misfortune High. She wants to be Sailor Mars when she grows up.
Serenity Caldwell is Managing Editor at iMore and based her roller derby persona (“Artoo Detoonate”) on the greatest hero in the entirety of Star Wars lore.
Brett Terpstra is a developer, writer, and host/co-host of ESN’s Systematic and Overtired (the latter alongside Mashable’s Christina Warren). He recently vowed to apply the “mommy blog” model to being an adoptive “doggie dad”. He is the world’s biggest fan of “Jar-Jar Bing”.
Richard Whittaker is a film critic, columnist, and sometimes politics reporter for the Austin Chronicle. Patrick Stewart once said “Yorkshire is sort of the Texas of England,” and Richard probably has opinions about that statement.
Cicero Holmes co-hosts ESN’s Spawn On Me with Kahlief Adams. His “Stubnostications” on SoM are Nostradamus-like prophesies about the future of gaming.
Peter Sciretta is Editor-in-Chief at Slashfilm and might hold the title of the world’s biggest fan of Back to the Future.
Elizabeth Grasham is a minister, mom, sci-fi and fantasy nerd, and lifelong D&D player. She and Moisés played Juliet and Tybalt (respectively) in their high school production of Romeo & Juliet.
John Gholson is a writer, actor, cartoonist, and co-hosts ESN’s Giant Size. In his considerable free time, he operates Fake Shalit, one of the best Twitter accounts on the internet.
