Awesome Star Wars

Those Kenner Star Wars AT-AT toys were awesome to play with, but we had to use our imaginations to get them to walk as they did in The Empire Strikes Back. For engineer James Bruton, that wasn’t good enough, so he got to work rebuilding a version of the imperial walker with a servo-powered drivetrain that lets it really walk.

Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws is an open-world game that puts you in the role of Kay Vess, a mischievous young woman attempting to start a new life against the backdrop of Imperial rule. Taking place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, she and her companion Nix must elude the Empire and contend with galactic crime syndicates.

There are plenty of good books out there for honing your survival skills, but how many of them cover what to do if you’re held captive by furry creatures on Endor, stuck on an exploding Death Star, or frozen in carbonite? Well, you’re in luck, thanks to BBC culture editor Christian Blauvelt and his handy Star Wars survival guide.

The “I love you — I know” pliable silicone ring set from Enso Rings woos Star Wars lovers with lines uttered by Princess Leia and Hans Solo in The Empire Strikes Back… engraved in Aurebesh. The metal-free, bendy, and comfy rings come in faux finishes like platinum, black pearl, rose gold, and icy silver.

Hacksmith Industries has made plasma lightsabers in the past, but they all required a bulky external energy source to function. Now they’ve figured out a way to go cordless. Their latest design produces a face-melting 4500ºF beam, but its fuel and power source fit inside its (very long) handle. The 11,000-watt torch runs for 3 minutes per refill.

South Korea-based artist Drawholic wows us with a colored-pencil portrait of Din Djarin and Grogu. The time-lapse video lets us observe the entire process from start to finish, as the rough outlines give way to color, shading, and a background that makes the image pop off of the page.

To celebrate Star Wars Day 2023, LEGO is releasing its biggest and most detailed model of an X-Wing Fighter ever. The 1949-piece model measures 11″ x 18″ x 22″ when complete, and its wings can go from flight to attack mode with the turn of a dial. It includes a unique Luke Skywalker pilot minifigure and R2-D2 on astromech duties.

There have been lots of memorable battles in the Star Wars universe. To celebrate his love for these action sequences, Boylei Hobby Time created a diorama with a trio of tiny battle scenes. He used miniatures from Star Wars Legion to recreate moments from A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.

There’s no question that Wes Anderson has a distinctive visual style. Curious Refuge envisions what sort of movie we might get if the auteur filmmaker was invited to direct a Star Wars movie, titled The Galactic Menagerie. Though we’re disappointed that Jason Schwarzman isn’t playing C-3PO. (Thanks, Rob!)

If want to be a Mandalorian, you must recite their creed, “This is the way,” to acknowledge that anything is acceptable. Auralnauts went back through the first three seasons of the hit Star Wars show and tallied up every time the phrase was spoken, and turned it into a pleasant little synthwave track.

The physics of Star Wars aren’t the same as our reality, so you have to take this video from RED SIDE with a grain of salt. But they did their best to convert science fiction to reality and calculate the relative speeds of various vehicles and spacecraft. Place your bets now on the fastest way to travel in a galaxy far, far away.

The TIE fighters from Star Wars are some of the most intimidating spacecraft in the history of science fiction. Scott’s Mini Workshop celebrates the Empire’s starfighter by encasing it in resin, then turning it into a perfect sphere on his lathe. He’s also made an X-Wing fighter sphere using the same technique.

Controversial or not, AI technology like Midjourney is creating amazing digital art with the correct prompts. TheArtofAI used the generative image technology to imagine what Star Wars: A New Hope might have looked like as a 1980s anime, from young Luke sipping his blue milk to the Death Star exploding. (Thanks, Rob!)

Now that Din Djarin has reunited with his pint-sized companion, The Mandalorian’s third season sets the duo on a journey toward Mandalore. Set against the backdrop of the rise of the New Republic, our heroes find themselves pulled into new conflicts as Grogu hones his skills. The season kicks off on 3.1.2023 on Disney+.

After seeing Top Gun: Maverick, model maker Boylei Hobby Time wanted to make a diorama inspired by one of the movie’s big action sequences. While he found a 1:144-scale model of the soviet gunship helicopter, he couldn’t find one of an F-18 fighter jet a the same time, so he decided to swap in an X-Wing from Star Wars.

His backpack’s got jets. He’s Boba the Fett. The OG Mandalorian flies into battle above your desktop with this light-up diorama. This official Star Wars collectible features a figure of Fett launching into the sky on a trail of smoke and fire, leaving fallen Stormtroopers in his wake. The 12.5″ tall lamp runs on any standard USB charger.

(Spoilers) If you watched Andor season one, you know that it’s one of the best and most intelligent Star Wars stories yet. But Honest Trailers must have found something about the series to complain about, right? Or maybe they’ll just moan about all the other Star Wars stuff it’s better than.

Andor starts with a slow burn and gradually elevates its way into one of the best Star Wars series yet, brilliantly tackling issues like fascism, greed, and revolution. It also feels like one of the most relatable Star Wars stories to date. Film buff Thomas Flight explores how Andor’s visual approach makes its locations feel so real.

(Spoilers) Since Andor takes place a few years before 1977’s Star Wars: Episode IV, it only stands to reason that the TV series should have come out in the mid-1970s. Auralnauts created this retro-style TV intro based on the Disney+ show about the reluctant hero who would rise to become a hero of the Rebellion.

When it comes to the characters in Star Wars, many of them have deep-seated issues driving their behavior. Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Dr. Eric Bender sat down with GQ to analyze key characters and their motivations, including Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, and the Jawas, who are not simply kleptomaniacs.

Here’s a silly video that reminds us of the simpler days of the internet. A couple of University of Wisconsin sousaphone players realized their brass instruments make a sound that’s a whole lot like the lightsabers from Star Wars, so they staged a duel. We loved the guy who chimed in with, “why are you filming vertically?”

(PG-13: Language) Conversations between humans and aliens date back to the very first Star Wars movie. This hilarious comedy sketch from Wizards with Guns pokes fun at the trope by imagining what might happen if one of those creatures spoke a language nobody could understand without reading the subtitles.

The Death Star trench run scene in Star Wars is one of the best action sequences ever – and it was created with practical effects. Star Wars fan Petr N replicated the scene by taking his FPV X-Wing drone for a treacherous flight through a drainage ditch. He’s also got a speeder bike.