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S02E38: Quickly Catching Up on Star Wars Stuff
29 Plays12 days ago
We're back after an unplanned one week hiatus! Hear about a spooky Star Wars comic, and more details on the new Star Wars pinball machine!
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Transcript
Introduction and Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
We're doing a quick catch up and we're doing it real fast. Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome back to Short for a Stormtrooper. And first off, an apology. If you missed the show last week, you really didn't miss anything because I missed it.
Absence Explanation & Guest Plans
00:00:24
Speaker
True confessions, I was traveling, was actually just coming back from traveling, ah had a lot going on, work was really hectic.
00:00:33
Speaker
And so I thought, I'm gonna take a little bit of a break this next week and I am going to schedule a recording session with a really great guest.
00:00:44
Speaker
And the idea was that we would have that set for this week, for Tuesday. Unfortunately, my really great guest has had a little bit of challenge getting everything scheduled.
00:00:56
Speaker
Some great stuff involving electricians and and outages of internet and all these other things that block it. So I have decided that um I'm just going to go ahead and hop on today. it is a little bit late. Usually I publish first thing on Tuesday mornings.
00:01:11
Speaker
This is going to come on Tuesday afternoon, so bear with me. But we will be back. into kind of full blast again with a really great guest next week.
00:01:23
Speaker
I'm not gonna tell you who it is, but it is a return guest. It is somebody who has a history working with Lucasfilm, and we're gonna talk about games.
00:01:36
Speaker
And if you're fans of this podcast, you're probably gonna be able to figure out who that is. but Anyway, we'll get him on next week. So what are we gonna do this week? Well, there's just a couple of things that I wanted to touch on really
Spotlight on Kevin Scott
00:01:49
Speaker
quick.
00:01:49
Speaker
First, the very, very fastest thing is There is a Star Wars author by the name of Kevin Scott, and he is a guy who I've never met personally, but I have always been very jealous of him because he seems to land all of the writing assignments that I would love to do for Star Wars. like He has written radio plays for Star Wars and had those produced as audiobooks.
00:02:15
Speaker
ah You can check out his one on Dooku. It's amazing. um He has written for some kids' shows. He wrote for the ah the the Jedi Temple. I forget exactly what the name of that show was, but it was kind of the...
00:02:31
Speaker
um the Nickelodeon game show type thing that was based on Star Wars, you know, like the the hidden temple. And now i'm getting my names right and i really should do this research before I start recording.
00:02:42
Speaker
But anyway, he wrote for that. He he does all these fun things i would like to do. He does write comic books. And for the last several years, he has around spooky season written a book or two of of an anthology series of of spooky Star Wars stories.
00:03:02
Speaker
And they have always been fun. Well, this last week I was up at Revenge of one of my favorite comic book stores in the whole world, where you can you can get comics and you can play pinball and you can eat sandwiches and play games.
Comic Book Store Adventure
00:03:20
Speaker
It's a cool place. If you're ever in LA, make sure you hit up Revenge of. Anyway, I was there.
00:03:25
Speaker
i was combing through the racks and I saw his his first book for this year. It's called Tales from the Nightlands. And it was really good. It was really interesting, really spooky.
00:03:39
Speaker
And this is just part one. So part one just came out this month. Part two is coming out next month. So if you want like a really different take of a Star Wars story, i recommend go check out Tales from the Nightlands. It's under the Dark Horse Comics label.
00:03:57
Speaker
And it is written by Kevin Scott with art by Sue Lee. Good stuff. Check it out. And, you know, I think that there is room for all sorts of genres in Star Wars.
00:04:09
Speaker
ah They said that Tony Gilroy said that about Andor, like it just proved that other genres work with Star Wars and I'm here for it. Would love to see more
Star Wars Pinball Machine Overview
00:04:17
Speaker
of that. So that was that Tales from the Nightlands. Now, I mentioned at Revenge of you can play pinball and I just wanted to loop back on the last episode that we we had because Stern Pinball has released videos and specifications and all that for their new Star Wars themed pinball machine, which again is called Fall of the Empire.
00:04:42
Speaker
It is based on the original trilogy, episodes four, five, and six. And I would say probably a little bit more heavily on Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
00:04:53
Speaker
um they're ah Where do I start with this thing? If you're a pinball person, i will tell you it's got a fan. Well, you know, if you're a pinball person, you probably already know about it, but just bear with me for a second. ah It's got what you call a fan layout where kind of the middle of the play field is a little bit open.
00:05:13
Speaker
And then there are various ramps and targets and shots to make that are kind of distributed around the top edge of the play field in a fan formation. That's why it's called a fan layout.
00:05:25
Speaker
So, not fan like Star Wars fan, although it will resonate with people like that, like with me. um I like this style of game. I think that it's really good. Some of the things that you will see on there is there is AT-AT mech, and it is a um Well, there's a ramp around it where if you hit the ball up the ramp, it circles around this AT-AT just like it is a snow speeder locking it up in its tow cable.
00:05:57
Speaker
And if you get the right sequence of shots When you do this, you actually take down the walker and you see it fall. And the animation looks just like it does in Empire Strikes Back, where it kind of drops to its front knees and then its it's face hits the scene the snow and then the rest of it just explodes.
00:06:18
Speaker
Looks really, really cool. I need a collapsing walker mech. in my Star Wars pinball machine. Thank you very much. ah It has a Death Star, which we have seen in other Star Wars pinball machines, but we've never seen a Death Star 2.
00:06:34
Speaker
It looks pretty epic. You shoot the ball up into this Death Star 2, and you get enough in there. The balls lock. When you get multi-ball, they come shooting out down the ramp at you, just like the Death Star 2 taking out a Mon Calamari ship.
00:06:52
Speaker
Looks super cool. So that looks like fun. ah It's got a cool hyperspace ramp where if you hit it up the middle enough times, a ramp will go up. And then if you shoot it up then and you launch into hyperspace, it goes right by a Millennium Falcon model.
00:07:07
Speaker
And it shoots up this ramp. It crosses a small gap and then it goes into a hole in the back of the the play field in the back of the the head of the machine and then swoops back around into another ramp.
00:07:22
Speaker
Super cool. um There is also a little... Sarlacc pit, I'm kind of iffy on the Sarlacc pit. I'm not gonna completely fanboy on this game. There are some things about it I think could be a little bit better, but you can hit it into the Sarlacc pit and the ball kind of swoops around a few times and then drops through.
00:07:40
Speaker
um But let me tell you what I think is the coolest thing about this game.
Pinball Machine Features & Excitement
00:07:46
Speaker
There is a feature called force save where there is a magnet that is right in between the flippers And if the ball drains, if it comes down between the flippers and you're about to lose it, you can hit the button on the pinball machine cabinet and that will activate this this magnet.
00:08:07
Speaker
And depending on how active you've actually made it, depending on how many Jedi targets you have hit, it will either... it will either swoop the ball away and it will send it up into the trough where you can just launch it back into play.
00:08:24
Speaker
Or if you've really maxed out that Jedi, it will actually catch the ball for you and hold it between the flippers for you for a few seconds and then toss it back upward into the play field where you can keep playing with the ball.
00:08:37
Speaker
That is so stinking cool. And it's like Yoda right there who is doing that. So I am pretty excited about the Star Wars ah Fall of the Empire pinball machine.
00:08:50
Speaker
i am really hoping that I will be able to get one. i We're going to see if some things fall in order in order to make that take place. I talked about that on the last episode.
00:09:02
Speaker
But I sure hope that that I am able to do that. If not, I'm going to be playing it at the place where I play pinball. Don't worry about it. I will give you thorough reviews as I come to play this game and hopefully master this game.
00:09:16
Speaker
But I am hoping that it's something that I will be able to keep in my house for a long time. And it will be a nice little shrine to Star Wars. So... All right. I think that's about it. We're going to do a short episode this week because it really kind of is just a little bit of
Episode Wrap-up and Listener Engagement
00:09:32
Speaker
patch.
00:09:32
Speaker
Just wanted to say, sorry, I missed last week. Missed you guys, but look forward to next week. ah In the meantime, as always, please hit like, hit subscribe, do all the things. Help me help me build this audience so that someday I will get invited up to Sturm Pinball to...
00:09:52
Speaker
to to get the previews of these machines. that would be wonderful. ah Anyway, and of course, if I do that, I'll bring it all to you. It's not all about me. It's all about you, the audience. So we'll see you on Tuesday.
00:10:06
Speaker
Until then, may the force be with you. We'll see you there. Bye-bye. Who's that mindless choice to do? Podcasts, hope you see them through. Star Wars is your favorite unit. Let's chat for 15 minutes.
00:10:17
Speaker
Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short for sporn trooper? Aren't you a little short for a sporn trooper?