Transcript
Speaker: Somehow Bob has returned and we'll get to real quick And welcome back to season three of short for a stormtrooper after yes, I've been gone for a long time and after
Speaker: and welcome back to season three of short for a stormtrooper after yes i've been gone for a long time and after Three, four people reached out and gave me all sorts of garbage about the fact that I haven't released an episode of Short for a Stormtrooper recently.
Speaker: i decided it was time to get back on the ball. I do have an excuse, friends. ah New job, new home. Lots of different things going on. Also, my software subscription changed. have to change the tool that I'm using to make these and having to learn them and wah, wah, wah, wah.
Speaker: I'm back. All right. Now, I can't guarantee from here on out that I'm going to be able to do weekly updates, but I will try my best. And let's just do this and see how it goes.
Speaker: All right, you're not here to hear about that kind of stuff. You don't really care. You want to hear about what's going on with Star Wars. So let's talk about that a little bit. Now there are two things that I really wanted to talk about today in the world of Star Wars. The first is the state of the movies.
Speaker: I owe you all a final review with Ben and Phil and I doing our recap of The Mandalorian and Grogu.
Speaker: You haven't heard yet what Phil heard about the movie. I haven't heard yet what Phil thought about the movie. And, you know, I've thought about it a little bit since it has, since the last time we talked, it has come out on digital download. I understand that it has actually been quite successful on digital download. So while there was a lot of disappointment in the box office performance of The Mandalorian and Grogu, it sounds like Disney is pretty encouraged by the fact that
Speaker: uh the movie is doing pretty well in streaming so that's a ah good thing uh but i've got some renewed thoughts about it so it's worth the conversation so i'm gonna try to hook up with ben and phil and make sure that we can bring that to you on the next episode or two of this very podcast we'll let you know what we see about that but let me tell you something yesterday We went to see the new Spider-Man movie. ah and all I can say is, number one, it was phenomenal.
Speaker: Number two, it really made me excited about the upcoming slate of Marvel movies and actually gave me a lot of hope in the future of superhero movies in general because i don't know about you, but I was definitely feeling some so some superhero fatigue. I was getting very tired of the Marvel movies. They just seemed so formulaic and the same thing over and over again.
Speaker: and I had just kind of lost my appetite for them. But I had seen great reviews of start of Spider-Man and we really liked Spider-Man and like I said, it gave me new hope. So what does that have to do with Star Wars?
Speaker: Well, of course, as we all know, Star Wars and Marvel are all owned by Disney and i am hoping, I have no idea if this happened or not,
Speaker: But I am really hoping that as Josh DeMauro came in as a CEO of Disney, Josh who of course I've met a couple of times, the last time i bumped into him in the bathroom at the Orlando airport and then of course guys don't talk to each other in the bathroom, so I waited until we were both outside and then I talked to him again. He's a great guy. Very friendly.
Speaker: i actually met him when he was down to test ride Rise of the Resistance at Star Wars Galaxy's Edge just before it opened. And he told me, you know i know, you think I need to say this.
Speaker: because of my role, but it's really phenomenal. And he was right, it's a great ride. so So I think Josh is a really good guy. I am really hoping that Josh, as he came into being the CEO, said, guys, we are wrecking our big tentpole franchises.
Speaker: We need to do something about it. let's fix it for Marvel and let's fix it for Star Wars. Now, I mean, I'm sure Spider-Man was well into production before Josh came into office, but still, I have hope that if Disney was able to kind of turn the ship on Marvel, that they can kind of turn the ship with Star Wars. And of course,
Speaker: We have heard nothing but excitement and expectations for the new movie that is coming out next May, Star Wars Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling.
Speaker: So I am hoping that we're going to see a return to form. I mean, I'm going to love it no matter what. I love every Star Wars movie.
Speaker: I have criticisms, but I do love every Star Wars movie. I'm going to love it. But I'm hoping that this is something that will reignite some excitement of the more casuals, the more normie Star Wars fans and kind of bring the franchise back. So I'm excited about that.
Speaker: The other thing that I wanted to talk about is last weekend we went to Gen Con. Now Gen Con is the annual gaming convention held in Indianapolis.
Speaker: It is the mecca of gaming. And like I was telling my friends, it is a gaming convention, but mostly Dungeons and Dragons, of course. Gen Con started, it's named Gen Con because it started in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with TSR Hobbies.
Speaker: And they were the original creators of Dungeons & Dragons. And so the original Gen Con was largely Dungeons & Dragons themed. And when you come to Gen Con, there is a lot of role playing that goes on.
Speaker: Now, one of the big announcements that came out at Gen Con... was that Dungeons & Dragons will be releasing two new books, source materials, over the next years.
Speaker: Next year, they're gonna be, or actually, i think later this year, they're gonna be releasing one about World of Warcraft. This is under their, I think they call it Universes Beyond.
Speaker: line and so it's you know it's IPs universes beyond the traditional Dungeons and Dragons so they're going to be releasing source materials so that you can play Dungeons and Dragons but have it be World of Warcraft themed and then in 2027 you guessed it they will be releasing a Star Wars theme so you can play Dungeons and Dragons but with a Star Wars theme now Don't have any fears that this means that, you know, there's gonna be swords and magic and monsters, although when you think about it, that's really what Star Wars is. It's just laser swords and space magic and yes, monsters. So, okay, there's a lot of similarities between fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, and what we see in Star Wars.
Speaker: But the reason I'm excited about this is because Even though we haven't actually been playing a lot of Dungeons and Dragons lately, we've been playing Daggerheart, which is a little bit more narrative driven. We've also gotten into what they call the OSR line of role playing games, old school renaissance to kind of go back to what Dungeons and Dragons was like when I was in junior high. And it was very simple. it was just a few simple dice rolls to decide what was happening in the story and you make it work.
Speaker: I'm excited about this because i was never super happy with the current version of the Star Wars role-playing game. There have been a lot of versions. There's been at least two main versions that I can think of. The original one by West End Games.
Speaker: which actually created a lot of content. They were the ones who defined the Orabesh letter system, and that has since become canon. So West End Games did a lot. I also believe that Pablo Hidalgo, who is now like the main lore keeper in Star Wars, actually started off at West End Games working on those books.
Speaker: ah Tad Lechman, if you're listening to this, I know you know Pablo, so you can correct me and let me know if I am right or wrong on that. But the more current version of the Star Wars role-playing game is published by Asmodee. They acquired Fantasy Flight Games, who was the publishers of it. And this is the one that I was never really satisfied with because it's a very complicated system. You have just a ton of different dice, And when you are trying to decide something, you have to pull together a whole pool of different dice. You might roll nine or 10 or 11 different dice, and these dice all have different symbols on them, and some of them cancel out, and it takes like five minutes to figure out
Speaker: what the results are when you try to do something that's even remotely challenging. I just never really found it all that fun all that fun in the couple of times I have played it. So Dungeons and Dragons, I'm more familiar with that.
Speaker: It is a little bit crunchy, but I do think it's gonna be more straightforward. And I'm excited to see what Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro does with this in creating a Star Wars version of Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker: So that really is about the update. Now, I will tell you, I am using a new tool here, which is Logic Pro. And I am realizing that I don't really have a very good timer that is telling me how long this is going on. So from now on, I'm gonna have to keep a timer when I am recording. I have no idea how long I've been going. I could have been going way short of 15 minutes or way long. I don't know, we're gonna find out pretty soon.
Speaker: But that is how we are going to wrap up this episode. So in recap, I'm excited about the future of Star Wars movies because I like what Marvel did. i am excited about the future of Star Wars role-playing game because I like where they're going with Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker: All in all, things are on the up and up. Anyway, I am back. Welcome to Season 3 of Short for a Stormtrooper. We'll get back on with Ben and Phil and recap Mandalorian and Grogu.
Speaker: And then we'll see where it goes from there. So until then, thanks for sticking with me. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. Welcome back. I'm glad I'm back. Thanks for listening. May the Force be with you. We'll see you very soon.
Speaker: Until then, bye-bye.
Speaker: Who's that mindless toys to do? Podcasts, hope you see them through. Star Wars is your favorite unit. Let's chat for 15 minutes. Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short?
Speaker: Aren't you a little short for a smorn trooper? Aren't you a little short for smorn trooper?
