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Cult Of Games XLBS: Star Wars Day! Why The Phantom Menace Is Actually Ace & More
May 4, 2025 by brennon
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Happy Sunday Backstagers, CoGs and OTTers!
May the 4th be with you!
May the 4th be with you!
Yes, May the Fourth be with you too.
Ep. IV damn good for nostalgia as icebreaker for the franchise. I’ll pop in the mandatory note about Kurosawa and “The Hidden Fortress” as the ‘inspiration’ Lucas found. I’ll leave out the technical shot by shot side by side reviews of the films but say that the analysis has been done.
Aside from that, @dignity There is a regular convention game here local to me of podracing on a huge 6×8(?) board. It really draws a crowd for a two lap race. The fun part is that the pods are huge compared to 28mm and give the dynamic feel of being in the environment. The guy who designed and built it also runs a Roman chariot circus that runs on a push your luck/dice rolling/drift mechanic. I’ll see if I can get pictures next year.
@johnlyons Tie Fighter… so.. distracting.. ack! Good anime and great conversation. Brain torn in different directions. Good analysis of the Dark Side arc between trilogies. Will we see you go into the background of ILM and their raiding of plastic armor kits for model creation? I believe there is a project out there by modelers that searched the specific sprues for a screen accurate Y-wing kit.
@brennon If there were a reboot of the FFG system would it be better or worse than that of the West End production? The artwork of any publication will definitely get better but how can mechanics get tooled to run smoother? I just don’t see it in the cards.
the model makers in the 80s through to the late 90s are such an inspiration. I’ve always admired the old ILM and the current Weta Workshop teams for thier eye for detail and understanding of model making.
Truly people us hobbyists can, do and continue to learn from.
I suppose you’re right on the mechanics. I guess it would just be done for the sake of it. Maybe I just need to get stuck into the FFG one and make the most of it!
May the 4th is my birthday and for the last couple of years I’ve nade everyone play a star wars game. This year I’m breaking from that tradition. I’ve got a big fallout Table to go set up
Hah – always good to break with tradition but cool all the same.
I remember queuing up se a New Hope at a single screen cinema and on morning night thrybplated it 3 times back to back…I think the only reason I wanted to see it was that Mark Hamill had been on Blue Peter in 1977 and then the whole cast was on in 1980 including one of the dogs attacking R2D2
May the 4th be with you! Although in the Netherlands it’s also Remembrance of the Dead. My fvourite Star Wars film is also The Phantom Menace. It came out when I was eleven and I loved every bit of it. The epic battle between the Gungans and the Droids, the duel between the Jedi and Darth Maul, and yes, even Jar Jar Binks. We even named one of our foals that year ‘Binks’, because he had a goofy walk xD
I think the original trilogy is just classic and good for that. It started it all and gave us a basic universe. Now, I never really did much with media outside the films, so for me the universe was beautifully fleshed out by the prequels. (Although yes, Anakin was mostly annoying) The new trilogy has had its moments. I liked Kylo Ren throughout the trilogy, although I never really understood the Knights of Ren thing (or I forgot it again). The first film was okay, but the later ones were a bit of a fever dream to me. Wouldn’t help that I watched those when I was ill. What I specifically didn’t like was that what felt like a huge universe by the prequel trilogy, felt reduced to a few planets you could instantly jump between and shoot at each other with death rays.
I think the film makes forgot about the Knights of Ren as well so I wouldn’t worry.
There are plenty of scifi games out there that have “Empire vs Rebels” army lists.
Couple of thoughts:
Attack Of The Clones is a solid re-edit away from being pretty great. There’s no sense of how much time has actually taken place over the course of the film
Sequels – the original version of Episode IX from when Colin Trevorrow was to direct it is a much more thematic continuation of the themes in Last Jedi, with stuff like Finn leading a Stormtrooper rebellion on Courscant. A lot of the jank in Rise of Skywalker was what Abrams brought to the table (and whilst he has form on not delivering satisfying answers, wallowing in nostalgia, he *does* get a pass here due to the truncated pre-production for Episode IX)
The Galaxy Far, Far Away being less Science Fiction and more Fantasy. I mean? Yeah? Worth watching Lucas’ main inspiration for Star Wars though, Akira Kurosawa’s excellent The Hidden Fortress.
(There is a fascinating alternate reality though where Lucas never makes Star Wars as he was able to acquire the rights to Flash Gordon)
Oh, and if anyone wants Star Wars fluff, Humble are running a bundle full of Star Wars Insider collections…
Fascinating on the sequels – didn’t know that!
Oh, ran a Watchalong in the Fluffenhammer Discord last night of Rogue One followed by A New Hope and it was pretty great – running Empire Strikes Back and The Last Jedi tomorrow night (sadly I’m podcasting tonight or I’d be running another one)
I think it was Peachy who did the Ewok diorama
Yeah : in his Painting Phase incarnation.
You are indeed right!
For me the original trilogy + Rogue One are the best for Starwars movies.
The prequels ?
I’ve honestly only seen ‘Phantom Menace’ in theaters.
The other two I’ve struggled to see to completion. They also fail to show Anakins’ fall.
The Clonewars series kind of fixed that by showing how both the Jedi Council as well as Palpatine were manipulating him.
The new trilogy I’ve all seen in theaters, but I kind of wished I hadn’t.
There’s nothing in them that makes any sense.
Mandolorian was at its best in the first season. It started to suck the moment they made that baby Yoda a bigger deal than he should have been.
Andor in its first season was great. It is probably the only show that managed to avoid the damned Jedi and Force … and it’s better for it. I’m not sure if it needed a second season to be honest. Not every story needs to be told in detail.
Heck, if anything the prequels proved that by removing the mystery the entire setting stopped making sense.
Heretical video thumbnail!
00:00 Do it again!
00:50 May the 4th!
04:00 What a controversial question!
05:00 But that’s the book of Boba Fett with the mopeds!
05:30 also: go watch Andor. It’s adult Star Wars.
06:30 Empire Strikes Back! No questions asked!
22:45 High blood pressure
31:13 It’s not easy! It’s hard! Because you’re all wrong!1!1
36:40 Murder-teddies!
43:00 Star Wars Anime… NOOOOOO!
48:45 Just print the current rulebook 😉
52:00 AT-AT murderer!11!!
1:00:00 X-Wing, Armada. I fear those are gone. Legion could make a comeback if the tariffs don’t kill trade It might push companies towards doing more 3D printing stuff
1:03:00 The care bears!
1:05:30 Star Wars: Crisis Protocol
1:10:00 Huzzah! 8)
1:14:00 CGL really did shot themselves in the foot. Twice. With a shotgun!
1:15:00 BT in Ireland… oh noooooooooo!
1:15:45 Swing at a man that’s down. No. Why? I’m not *that* evil. Also I know you’ll go mad with making your Merc force is some weird camo pattern! @johnlyons
1:17:40 Is his PC fixed or just… Gerry-rigged?
Now back to my Sunday.
Happy Sunday.
Nice Bullseye reference there at the beginning.
My favourite Star Wars film is Return of the Jedi. It’s the best looking of the original three and rounds off the story nicely.
The 80s Droids cartoon series is one of my favourite Star Wars TV show.
I would love to see Reven and the Old Republic on the Silver Screen in my life time, but I don’t want Disney to do it. They ruin everthing they touch.
Just watched Tales of the Underworld after the show (teleased today). That’s quite a good start wars animated show. However, when he’s right he’s right, Rogue 1 is probably my favourite star wars movie. Hit all the right notes for me, though wouldn’t be possible or make much sense without the main 3/6/9 (delete as appropriate) – having an established universe allowed them to skip over a lot of explanations which would have bogged it down.
But if I had to pick one of the main ones it would be JEDI. Nothing as terrifying as an Ewok with a taste for man flesh. Once the have the taste it’s all they crave.
Quite enjoyed Solo but that was mainly for the Easter Eggs and Lando.
Thanks for the Golden Button!
My favorite film from episodes 1-9 is without a doubt The Empire Strikes Back. The asteroid field chase is a spectacular yet underrated set piece, and the cinematography during the duel in the carbon freezing chamber is as good as it gets.
For media I’d like to see more obscure corners of the Star Wars universe. The setting is so unbelievably rich, there’s no reason they can’t give us new stories with new characters.
On the tabletop, I like the direction Shatterpoint is going, I hope they can keep it up with steady releases of interesting characters. I would like to see X-Wing make a comeback, if they can make it more accessible to “kitchen table” gamers — I think the biggest mistake they made with second edition was making it too fiddly and overcomplicated for the sake of tournament play.
And yes, I think a podracing tabletop game would be amazing, I would buy that in a heartbeat.
@brennon @johnlyons @dignity there have been rumors that one of the upcoming movies will be set 25000 years prior to A New Hope and will be about the first Jedi and the founding of the Jedi Order. There is an animated series that has been announced that’ll be about Maul and the underworld.
Best movie of the original 9, probably Episode 4, A New Hope but maybe Episode 6, Return of the Jedi.
Gaming? I’m surprised no one mentioned Imperial Assault. I’d like to see X-Wing come back but I suspect if it did, it would be as a board game with carboard counters instead of miniatures. A 10mm mass battle game would be awesome. Clone Wars(Clones vs Clankers), Siege of Naboo (Trade Fedetation vs Gungans) or Galactic Civil War, Empire vs Rebels.
And yes, BattleTech is much better at dealing with retcons. All retcons are to correct enemy propaganda!
I just realized, Tales of the Underworld released today, May 4th. Six episodes
I love star wars, but I haven’t played a table top game that has really sold me.. X wing was the nearest but when the model count increased it just lost it.
This is all weird since I love star wars video games. I’ve played battlefront to death.
What might be interesting is a 10-15mm star wars game. Which would allow for the grand scale keeping in the various vehicles too.
May the Fourth be with you, or for Americans: April the Fifth be with you.