The Pop-Culture E-Zine
Social media scrolling at 4am is usually fraught with danger as you flick your finger up the screen. We are happy to report that on this occasion, it wasn’t all doom and gloom!
We stumbled upon these very cool Star Wars inspired bookends, which are quite clever in capturing the spirit and theme of Star Wars.
Which one is your favourite?
This Star Wars fan desperately needs some of these bookends 😉
source: Star Wars always via Facebook
There is no doubt that Stern Pinball Inc. has played a huge part in the renaissance of pinball, so it is great to see the world’s biggest pinball manufacturer not sit on their laurels and bask in their success. Stern keeps striving and pushing the boundary of innovation, events and supporting the pinball community around the world with thousands of competitions.
Stern announced their The Godzilla Stern Heads-Up Pinball Invitational in partnership with Toho International Inc., owners of the Godzilla franchise, which is on August 10, starting at 7pm (CST local time). Catch all the action on YouTube!
The other announcement Stern made last week (August 3rd) was that they were launching new Insider Connected features, like mobile ID and Home Teams – which was great to see. However, we were quite excited to see that Stern had released the replacement arches for Insider Connected for their Batman 66 and Star Wars (Premium/LE) pinball machines. These replacement arches have quickly sold out, so we are keeping a very keen eye on one for our Star Wars Comic Art Premium machine! Go team Stern!
image source: Stern Pinball
When it comes to villains, we reckon no one tops Darth Vader. He has been our fave antagonist from the first time we saw him wield his lightsaber and force choke his underlings.
The story of Darth Vader has evolved since we were kids in the late 70s and early 80s, but that doesn’t diminish our love for the character, on the contrary, the latest Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ series cemented Lord Vader as our favourite villain of all time.
With that said, here are some awesome Lord Vader artwork!
image source: Star Wars Always (Facebook) – Stern Pinball Inc.– Fine Art America – Pinterest – myhotposters – comicbookmovie – Artsper – disneyartonmain – Robert Voisenni
We cast our vote in the ABC Classic’s 2022 Classic 100: Music for the Screen countdown and we are happy to report that our top vote, John Williams’s music for the Star Wars series, is now officially Australia’s favourite music for the screen!
With over 215,000 votes, this was the biggest countdown yet. The top 100 soundtracks spanned beloved music for film, TV and video games across genres and generations. On the video games music front, Kojo Kondo’s The Legend of Zelda came in at no. 23!
Check out the rest of the interesting statistics from the ABC Classic 2022 Classic 100: Music for the Screen countdown:
story source: ABC Classic
Since it is that day, May the 4th, we thought we’d share some amazing (and possibly very expensive) Star Wars inspired home theatre rooms!
These were just some of our favourites, with plenty more on this Star Wars always Facebook post. What are your faves?
image source: Star Wars always via Facebook
By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.
In the fifth episode of “The Book of Boba Fett,” it was thrilling seeing The Mandalorian flying his newly constructed Naboo N-1 Starfighter through the very same canyons on Tatooine that young Anakin Skywalker raced through in “Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.”
That night, after watching the excellent episode, I broke out my Nintendo 64 and started to play one of my favourite racing video games “Star Wars Episode 1: Racer.” Twenty-three years later, the LucasArts game is still visually impressive. After seeing “The Phantom Menace,” I played “Racer” constantly after school, trying to break my previous lap records with every session. The more I played the game, the better my racing reflexes developed over time. At first, I would often crash and get frustrated. However, it didn’t take long before I’d pick up my Nintendo 64 controller, rally, and start another race.
image source: N64Today
I enjoyed racing on the various tracks on the ice planet. Was it Hoth? It could’ve been. I like thinking that it was, seeing that “Empire Strikes Back” is my favourite Star Wars film. I never played much multiplayer. I never liked the two-player split screen mode. My friends enjoyed playing the two-player mode, but my eyes could never adjust to the split screen for some strange reason. I couldn’t concentrate as well with the split screen. My controller skills were sloppy in that mode.
The boost function that you could activate when another podracer is closing in was a fun option. If you used it for too long your engine would suddenly explode. You had to keep an eye on your racer’s temperature.
The smack talk between podracers adds a humorous, competitive touch to the 1999 game. Jake Lloyd, the actor who portrayed Anakin Skywalker, provided voice-over for his character in the game. I never liked the two-headed commentators of the podrace in “The Phantom Menace.” They seem like they don’t belong in the Star Wars universe. They added some humour to the film, but I wish they would’ve been left out of the game.
Its, or there, name was Fodesinbeed Annodue. And I’m sure there’s a toy of them out there somewhere. I’m glad we didn’t see them thirty years older in “The Book of Boba Fett.”
For those of us that have been consumed by the beautiful silverball game, Stern Pinball has kept spoiling us with some brilliant innovations, including their new online platform, Insider Connected.
When launching Insider Connected (IC), Stern Pinball announced that they would roll out the platform to all of their past Spike® 2 LCD games, dating back to late 2016 with the awesome Batman 66 pinball machine.
Well Stern have been quite busy in updating the code on their previous Spike® 2 LCD machines so that they can take advantage of the new Insider Connected platform. With that said, we were quite excited to see that Stern have finally released the new v1.20.0 code for their Star Wars pinball machines!
We can’t wait to update our Star Wars Comic Art Premium machine with this new code, but we still have to wait a tad longer to procure and install the Insider Connected kit (they haven’t reached Australia as at the time of this post) to unleash the full online potential of the Stern Pinball Insider Connected platform. The FORCE is indeed strong with this new code!
PS: If you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to sign-up for your free Insider Connected account here.
It is amazing how far technology has come in the last few decades, with a super computer in our pockets and gaming consoles that blur the line between reality and the virtual world.
We are in awe of our smartphones and can’t even imagine what our 15 year old self would have thought of this contraption if we were able to time travel back to the 80s. Back in the old days, we would play and then trade or sell our last gen system to fund the next big shiny new gen gaming system – this cycle was repeated for close to 3 decades! As we have gotten older and perhaps wiser, we keep yearning for the good old days, hence why we have immersed ourselves in retro gaming, reliving and revelling in games and systems from our distant past that gave us (and are still giving us) much joy.
The PocketCHIP beast!
Anyone for tennis?
Even with all of the classic gaming systems and games we have in our possession to intoxicate ourselves with nostalgia, we felt like something was missing, but we didn’t know what. We then stumbled upon contemporary technological marvels that stirred up something deep within us that made us take note. Thanks to playing retro-inspired games on the fantasy video game console, the PICO-8, we went down the rabbit hole of finding out more about playing pixel perfect 8-bit style games on modern devices, which also allowed us to tinker and do other stuff like coding! Welcome to the world of the PocketCHIP and Arduboy FX! Yeah, yeah, we are aware that you can play 8-bit style games on modern consoles, but these two little beauties are different – they are simple (in comparison), yet powerful, and very very elegant indeed.
Bit of Linux action
The Arduboy FX modded to be used as a gamepad for playing PICO-8 games on the PocketCHIP!
Selecting our next PICO-8 game
The PocketCHIP and Arduboy FX are both marvellous technological achievements, which fit the bill of being modern enough to be able to get on the net, code, tinker and also create our own games! The fact that you can also play games that other people have created is certainly the cherry on top!
By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.
Warning: This article features Book of Boba Fett spoilers!
Boba Fett is hot right now. The Star Wars character has his own hit show on Disney+ and action figures of Fett are in high demand by collectors. Boba is cool again like he was in 1978, when he was introduced in the “Star Wars Holiday Special” and “The Empire Strikes Back,” in 1980.
Now, Disney has announced the bounty hunter’s addition to Fortnite. The Boba Fett skin in the battle royale is available to purchase by itself or as part of a Boba Fett Set. The set includes the bounty hunters Z-6 Jetpack back accessories, Gaffi Stick pickax, and Fett’s Starship glider. Several Star Wars characters, like The Mandalorian, Kylo Ren, and Rey have their own Fortnite skins. The release of “The Book of Boba Fett” is the reason for the addition of Boba.
I never saw Fortnite broadening their revenue stream with merchandise, like blankets, toys, and backpacks. The game is a phenomenon. Star Wars and Fortnite joining forces (no pun intended) is a perfect business collaboration. I see Star Wars and Fortnite merchandise out of the corner of my eye at my local Target.
image source: Epic Games
The Disney+ series is introducing Boba Fett to a whole new generation of Star Wars fans. The first three episodes of “The Book of Boba Fett” have had moments of brilliance, and moments of incredibly slow pacing. For the first two episodes of the series, Kevin Costner should get a cheque from Disney. There are some odd similarities between “Dances with Wolves” and some of Boba Fett’s scenes with the Tusken Raiders. Banthas, the creatures that the Tusken Raiders and Boba ride, really get slaughtered in this series. What did the banthas do? The banthas’ deaths were shocking and seemed unnecessary.
In the first episode, I enjoyed seeing how Boba got out of the Sarlacc pit, or the Great Pit of Carkoon. It’s even better when you go back and watch “Return of the Jedi” again. I wish we could have seen more of Boba in the Sarlacc pit. How long was he in there?
I love the veteran actor Danny Trejo but seeing him as the Rancor wrangler in the third episode was a little jarring. The third episode had some problems, but I still enjoyed it. The chase scene through Mos Espa at the end of the most recent episode was tedious and unintentionally cliche. And there was fruit. A lot of fruit.
Will there be other characters from “The Book of Boba Fett” that’ll get their own Fortnite skin? Time will tell on an app or gaming platform not far, far away.
The silly season is upon once again! After the last couple of years we’ve had, we reckon it is time to spoil ourselves and our loved ones on some stuff that will spread the cheer.
With the millions of things out there, we thought we’d give you a hand at picking some cool geeky items in this year’s gift guide. So no matter if you are a retro or modern gamer, into emulation, pinball, a Star Wars fan or into comics, we have you covered.
Anbernic RG351V $209.99 (via Amazon)
LENOXX Bluetooth/Turntable Retro Music Centre $179 (via Catch)
The Legend Of Zelda Game & Watch $69 (via Catch)
Arcade1Up Mortal Kombat II Midway 12-in-1 Legacy Series Arcade Machine $770 (via Catch or Amazon)
Pinball : A Graphic History of the Silver Ball $31.96 (via The Book Depository)
The Best Of Archie Comics $23.14 (via The Book Depository)
LEGO Star Wars Darth Vader Helmet $71.20 (via Amazon)
Pixel Frames Street Fighter II – Car Scene 9×9 inches (Big) Shadow Box Art $45.59 (via Amazon)
Game and Watch Display Stand $9.50 (via Etsy)
Exploded PS1 – Art Print Poster (A4 size) $20.00 (via Etsy)
Enhanced Wireless Controller Super Mario – Nintendo Switch $89.00 (via Amazon)
Hyperkin M07280 RetroN 77 HD Gaming Console For Atari 2600 $103.70 (via Amazon)
TheVIC20 – Full sized VIC20 with working keyboard $260.64 (via Amazon)
LEGO Super Mario Master Your Adventure Maker Set $42.87 (via Amazon)
NOTE: Prices correct at the time of publication