The end of 2020 is finally upon us. Here’s hoping for a better year in 2021, though it looks like it will be a slow start and slow progress. Hopefully there will be more progress. It has been difficult here as well, though we could be much worse off. As for Star Wars Wednesday, you would think with more time and a great supply of new Star Wars content that I would have been posted more often. This might be the least I’ve done in a number of years, but I’m not going to check. So, here are are a few notes to end the year, and we’ll see how things go next year.
A piece of bad news emerged today. Tom Kane, voice of Yoda in The Clone Wars and loads of other animated series, etc. is recovering from a stroke that affected his voice. He is in therapy, but a return to work is not at all certain. He lives in the KC area. I haven’t talked to him in years, and met him at Planet Comicon early on in The Clone Wars run (along with Ashley Eckstein and Mattew Wood).
The Mandalorian is still impressive and I’ve enjoyed it a lot. I like the music, though I still think they’re charging too much by dividing it into individual episodes. The series hits a lot of the right notes and balances a lot of competing interests well. I’m always a big fan of Dave Filoni and more impressed with Jon Favreau with each new project.
Star Wars comics have been up and down for me. I’m still getting a few series, but cut back earlier this year on a few titles. I think the Darth Vader line has been consistently good.
I’m way behind on the novels. As usual.
The new Clone Wars episodes were excellent, and provided a good wrap up for the series. I wasn’t expecting them to get so close to Episode III.
Star Wars Resistance wrapped up early this year, which that seems like forever ago now. The series got stronger with time, though it never quite tied into the sequels as much as I hoped for. For anyone running the RPG in that era, Resistance does provide new locations to interact with.
Star Wars Squadrons is out. Being the first real Star Wars flight sim since X-Wing/TIE Fighter, it is one I should pick up and likely will someday. I can’t play a lot of video games or I’ll run into problems with my hands, so I have to pick and choose a lot. For now, I’ve just been watching Sam Witwer’s twitch streams.
The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special was a laugh, and even got Leland Chee a songwriting credit for the Jingle Bells Huttese version, Joh Blastoh. Apparently there are loads of inside jokes that I missed, from sound to visual gags.
For Christmas, I received a copy of the new release of the original Star Wars Escape from Death Star Game, which I had missed was even a thing that existed. I still have my original copy, so I’ll do a post comparing the two next year. It should be fun. I really liked the game as a kid, and it is probably the first Star Wars game I played. I did play through it a few years ago, but this time we’ll see how it holds up.
One of the year’s unexpected events hit the Star Wars RPG first thing - the move from FFG to Edge Studio, followed even more unexpectedly by the move of the Star Wars minis games like X-Wing and Legion to Atomic Mass Games. Here’s hoping we see more from both next year.
Speaking of next year, The High Republic is finally ready to kick off in a few days in early January, so I’m looking forward to seeing how that rolls out.
And I’m looking forward to the avalanche of new series and products announced recently. There is a lot of potential for some great stories.
On to 2021.