The new Star Wars movie isn’t strong enough to get the franchise back on track.
May the Fourth is here, and so are some deals on Star Wars games, toys, and other nerdy accoutrements.
Sorry, I mean Star Wars: Galactic Racer. A new trailer shows off what appears to be the game’s story mode. The conversations look a little stilted, but who cares — all I care about is the podracing. It’s coming out on October 6th.
The original lightsabers in Star Wars were hacked together from antique camera parts, so it’s fitting that folks are still going back to basics to build new ones. As lightsaber home-build videos are exploding right now on TikTok, it’s fun to see Home Depot embrace it. Sure, you can still buy something fancy directly from Disney, but the best lightsabers in the world have always been built by fans.
I can still be easily sucked into a book of cross section artwork, so it’s fascinating to see the process of how the complex illustrations are made. Artist John R. Mullaney condensed the long process of creating a cross section of The Mandalorian’s N-1 Starfighter into a timelapse that’s four minutes well spent.
Star Wars is making its long-awaited return to theaters with The Mandalorian and Grogu next week, but the galaxy far, far away still has a home on streaming. Disney announced that season 2 of Mando spinoff Ahsoka will premiere in early 2027. That’s more than three years removed from when the show debuted.
Ahead of The Mandalorian and Grogu hitting theaters on May 22nd, Hasbro has announced a new animatronic version of Grogu packed with motors, sensors, and the ability to shuffle around on its own two feet. CNET’s Bridget Carey visited Hasbro HQ for an early look at the toy including how it simulates using the Force.
There’s an obvious joke here but I’ve used it about this game already. Twice. Anyway, the game looks great.
Disney released the “final trailer” for The Mandalorian and Grogu ahead of its May 22nd debut in theaters. It looks fun! And Grogu is still so dang cute.
Now that Andor has come to end, series creator Tony Gilroy is free to speak more openly about what it was like working for Disney, and in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter he says that the studio was very insistent on him not using the word “fascism” while talking about his show focused on fighting fascism.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
The latest trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu really highlights how very, very young Grogu still is for one of Yoda’s species, which makes it seem that much more absurd that Din Djarin still hasn’t found his son a helmet to protect that (presumably) soft head.
While the new trailer for Disney Plus’ Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord series doesn’t at all make the Sith Lord look like a heroic figure, it does suggest that meeting his new apprentice is going to reveal new things about his character when the show premieres on April 6th.
Ahead of debuting a trailer for its new Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord animated series tomorrow, Disney Plus has shared a short (and inky) teaser that makes it seem like the Sith Lord’s lightsaber is going to be seeing plenty of action.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer, which is launching in 2026, looks like the Star Wars Episode I: Racer successor I’ve always wanted. While it seems to focus more on various Star Wars vehicles than just podracers, the trailer includes a brief shot of Sebulba and the iconic sound of his podracer. I know my main already.
We’re still waiting for news about the remake of the first Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but as part of a huge report digging into court filings about why KOTOR II for Switch never got its Restored Content DLC, Game File found mentions of a KOTOR II remake in development as recently as March.
This interview goes wildly off the rails, starting just before this anecdote:
I wrote a book a few years ago on Star Wars. We invited Dr. Kissinger to my Star Wars book party, and he said, “You wrote a book about Star Wars? Why’d you write a book about Star Wars?” He was puzzled and courteous, but really confused. And then he came to the book party, which was quite generous. He was a busy person.
[The New Yorker]
We reported yesterday that a pretty extraordinary selection of movie props went up for auction, from Indiana Jones’ whip to Michael Keaton’s Batsuit. The biggie is Darth Vader’s lightsaber, estimated to sell for $1 million to $3 million, a price that all but guarantees it’ll go to someone truly deserving.
philoneous:
Hopefully some deserving oligarch gets it.
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Bambu now sells electronics to drop into your creations — remember my floating light bulb and TARDIS? This time, I’m using the $135 “Motion-Activated Sound and Light Props Kit” with Joel He’s double-bladed saber files, but you can design anything you like. Should I try a Zelda Master Sword next?
It’s apparently already time to start thinking about more than just your Halloween decor. Hallmark’s 2025 lineup of Keepsake collectibles includes a $99.99 Star Wars ornament recreating the scene aboard the Millennium Falcon where R2-D2 and Chewbacca play a game of Dejarik.
The ornament includes lights, sounds from the movie, and what appears to be a simple Pepper’s Ghost illusion that uses a hidden screen and a transparent surface to recreate the holochess effect.
2027 will mark the 50th anniversary of Star Wars: A New Hope’s debut, and to celebrate the occasion, Lucasfilm is putting the movie back in theaters beginning May 4th of that year — just a couple of weeks before Star Wars: Starfighter’s premiere.
Oh, I had such high hopes for the Piaggio G1T4-M1N1 (“Gita Mini”). An officially licensed Star Wars bot that follows you around, dodging pedestrians while carrying 20 pounds of cargo and playing The Imperial March on its party speaker? Heck yes. But a single walk to the park showed me that this $2,875 bot doesn’t have enough smarts. (I couldn’t fit all its fails into one video!)
That’s according to The Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin, who also said, “It felt less like watching a blockbuster in the modern sense than the greatest game of dressing up in the desert anyone ever played.”
The Hollywood Reporter points out that George Lucas has been tweaking the flick going back to its rerelease in theaters in 1981, along with this YouTube report from Cinema Savvy detailing “so many little things” that are different. If you want a better blend of the updates without CG fluff and “Greedo shot first,” you may have to wait for Harmy to get back from his honeymoon.
Alongside a shiny rebrand and airline integration, Google is expanding the range of trackers in its Find Hub network. But not with boring practicalities like better battery or more accurate tracking — no, we get Baby Yoda, thanks to a new set of Disney-themed tags from Pixbee.
Some Star Wars fans build their own lightsabers, but YouTuber Maker Mac70 instead devoted a significant amount of time recreating the Millennium Falcon’s Holochess table. Built using six small LCD screens and a special plate from a Japanese company called ASKA3D that creates a floating holographic effect, the table features a single-player version of the game because of a limited viewing angle.
In addition to a video, more details about the build are available through Hackster.io.
...if you link your Epic Games account to your MyDisney account, according to a blog post. It’s a “first step” ahead of the planned “universe” Disney and Epic are building together that’s tied to Fortnite. You’ll also be able to catch two episodes of Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld in Fortnite starting May 2nd, which is two days before the show debuts on Disney Plus.
Fortnite’s Star Wars-themed season kicks off on Friday.
The studio will “step away” from “two early-stage incubation projects” and is making “targeted team adjustments” across its Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi teams. That translates to layoffs, though it’s unclear how many people are affected, per an IGN report.
Andor’s final chapter feels like a series of mini-movies about how wars for freedom are won in fits and starts.
