Star Wars Archives | Otaku No Culture

Star Wars Day in 2025 And Why It Remains Special To Me

On Star Wars Day, each fan will enjoy May The Fourth in their own way. It doesn’t have to be a commercialised affair.

This year, what I offer is a retrospective on what I enjoyed about Star Wars rather than look at the commercialization of the date. I have no interest in picking up new merchandise because I have everything I want. With four lightsabers in my man cave, I think that should be enough.

Every time this annual event comes up, I’ll look and to be honest, the discounts are not very good. Also, the products produced are more focussed on recent releases rather than old. I want more recognition for Episodes IV to VI.

The best spinoffs and expanded content from the Star Wars universe will always be with the original releases. Whether that’s with the early Marvel Comics series or Dark Horse, the comic book medium embraced giving fans what they enjoyed faster than any other platform. No one wants to admit a certain holiday special remains partially canon. While Life Day is more prominent in the Disney-ification of the Lucasfilm content, none of the original considered this holiday as essential material.

For me, my enjoyment started with:

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How To Buy A Lightsaber (Prop) in 2025

Some folks may well want to pull out their lightsaber or buy one during #starwarsday. When a lot of vendors and smiths are at conventions selling you their wares, what I offer is what I learned after talking to various sellers.

When pop culture conventions host a variety of vendors selling lightsabers from Star Wars, the caveat is on choosing who to buy from. Some pop up type operations are looking to cash in on the craze, and others are true enthusiasts who deserve the moniker. When I fell deep into this rabbit hole, I made sure I looked around for years rather than impulse buy. There are a lot of things people need to be aware of before buying their first saber.

At its most basic level, what you’re buying at toy stores is a flashlight. Those are the cheapest. The next step up includes a sound board and a motion sensor to activate the various audio effects (known as fonts). Everything else is a modification, with more bells and whistles. The best chipset to use requires some computer programming knowledge.

The same rules apply to the shape of the hilt. Between a basic aluminum stick with some grooves and curves to movie-authentic, the cost will rise. The offerings found at conventions range from starter units to movie replicas. Those enterprises are mostly resellers and do little work to create something new for customers. One search on Alibaba or Temu will reveal who the true manufacturers are. TXQ and LGT/Nexus dominate the market. When a portion of lightsaber businesses make orders from them and do further customizations or come up with different names to make what they sell look like they got exclusive rights, they realistically do not.

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Lucasfilm’s Maul – Shadow Lord, My Reaction and What to Watch In Prep (Which Surprisingly Isn’t Much)

The good news is that there’s more animated content from the Star Wars universe with Maul – Shadowlord, but the bad news is…

Coming to Disney+ in 2026

During Star Wars Celebration, which is taking place in Tokyo, Japan, Lucasfilm treated fans to a teaser of their next animated project, titled Maul – Shadow Lord. His story is most likely going to continue to explore the seedy underside of this other universe. CCO Dave Filoni, VP of Animation Athena Portillo and voice actor Sam Witwer were present as the news and teaser dropped.

As far as I can recall, after a rough alliance with Ashoka in the former series, this villain could live out his life much like how Garmadon left after the fight with the Oni in LEGO Ninjago. Not much is known about what has happened since, and I have chosen not to read the comic books and novels which followed.

The production remains secret aside from the news. From ComicBookMovie.com, what’s revealed is that the animation style will not match the previous series and that has me hesitant to endorse. Despite making this visual change, I will watch it. At least, the story is going in the right direction. This website wrote:

“After the Clone Wars, Maul plots to rebuild his criminal syndicate on a planet untouched by the Empire,” reads a brief synopsis. “In a new series set after the events of the final season of The Clone Wars, Maul rises again to lead the underworld factions.

According to Variety’s report, Portillo said fans can expect to learn “a lot,” about Maul in the series. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you too much, but what I can say is Sam Witwer’s involvement in the show has been pristine,” she said. “I’m very excited about him being able to review the scripts and provide input in all of that as well. Dave Filoni and Sam created the character for animation, and so it’s very important to hear his thoughts as well for the character depth.”

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Thoughts, Concerns and Praise for Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.

After giving Star Wars: Skeleton Crew a full watch, I have new hope for what may be offered going forward. Not every series has to be unique. It just has to honour what fans love about this franchise back when George Lucas was in charge.

The latest entry to Disney’s Star Wars, curiously titled Skeleton Crew is boldly offering a concept that has been done before. It’s too similar to Star Trek Prodigy. In the world of literature, some fans have compared it to Treasure Island and I agree. Although the circumstances are different, Wym (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) is a kid who likes to dream big and wants to explore the galaxy. After discovering a spaceship buried underground, the group he brought together to investigate goes in, and it blasts off into outer space! Pretty soon, this lad, Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), KB (Kyriana Kratter) and Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) are lost in space.

Afterwards, they encounter space pirates. Although they figure out they’re at least not jettsoned to the opposite side of the galaxy, all is not well. They want to go home, but nobody knows where the planet of At Attin is located. All viewers know is that it’s hidden in a sector known as the Unknown Regions. Everyone from this world seems to be involved in some grande experiment, and I have to wonder if the scientists are working on deconstructing the atom? It’d be a terrible pun should that be the case, but there’s a meme to be made with the name of this planet.

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Top 10 Inspiring Dark Horse Art Books (2000-2025) To Learn From!

Just how many Dark Horse Art Books I have are many, and they are great inspirational tools to whet any fans appetite for more content of their favourite series, and perhaps inspire them to draw too!

For much of this decade, Dark Horse Comics released a lot of terrific art books, and instead of offering the best of what’s released so far, I’m going to offer a list of what I believe are the best from the past five years and offer what I’m looking forward to picking up in 2025! We are at the halfway point, and to use a common idiom: “There’s no time like the present” to create this list of Dark Horse art books! (gotta work in the SEO somehow)

Where possible, I’ll offer quick reviews of the books I own and also received over the holidays. Santa was kind enough to put one or two of my wish list items under the Christmas tree! If only I got the last item on the list. I can imagine the buffed up J. K. Simmons Santa (from Red One) delivering this prize.

Disclaimer: We are a member of the Amazon affiliates program, and any sales made through these links (just click on the title) help support this site. I sorted these titles by series title and included their release dates to show which items are newer.

The Art of Arkham Horror
June 2021

Anyone who has played the card game or board game of the same name will find joy at endlessly flipping through this book. This fictional town appears in all its beautiful and haunting glory here. But the true showcase is with the personas who have to live and die every day, exposing the secrets from within. While this book won’t reveal to readers what they are, it’ll tempt some to play the game again!

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Breaking Down the Bricks That Made Star Wars Rebuild the Galaxy Great

Although the animation style is a step backward, Star Wars Rebuild the Galaxy forward thinking attitude suggests all’s not Back to the Future.

Spoiler Alert

The LEGO Star Wars universe is one of my guilty pleasures because of how The Force is used to build things to help the heroes (and sometimes villains) win the day. The latest release, subtitled Rebuild the Galaxy has concepts to like, and that’s because those concepts regarding the Force Builders get a story expansion I’m sure even George Lucas would approve of without getting too woke. In what I truly appreciate is that this entry builds upon what’s said before regarding this group. The last time they were referred to was in The Freemaker Adventures.

Although the visual style is straight out of LEGO Batman movies with a lower frame rate and simplified tales, I can get behind the ideas being offered. That’s because the cliffhanger style reveal at season one’s end got me cackling. I always wondered when Lando’s conversion would happen. He’s neither good nor bad, and I won’t ruin what faction he’s involved with. And I’m glad this world is catching up with the live action series material!

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