Five Ways To Get Your ‘Star Wars’ Fix Before December
With Star Wars: The Force Awakens on the horizon but just out of reach, fans are clamoring for every scrap of Star Wars they can get. Below is a list of some of the best ways to sate your Star Wars appetite until the film’s release. From the animated series to the upcoming Star Wars game releases, we’ve got you covered.
The Clone Wars Animated Series
The Clone Wars animated series predated the better known full-scale 3D animated series of the same name by three years. The whole micro-series can be found on YouTube, and it bridges the narrative gap between Episodes II and III, providing glimpses into characters only seen momentarily in the movie series. But with a bigger budget and longer runtime, the 3D animated series does an admirable job of building on the micro-series. It borrows the art style from the micro-series, but with six seasons and a much bigger budget, the Emmy Award-winning series is definitely worth watching. And there’s a lot of it — six seasons in total. Every episode is available on Netflix could certainly help kill some of the time between now and December.
Star Wars: Rebels Animated Series
The successor to the Clone Wars series focuses on a group of Rebels in the early days of the rebellion living aboard a ship called the Ghost. Featuring an all-star voice cast and the return of James Earl Jones as Darth Vader, the series premiered as a feature-length film on the Disney Channel. Season 1 is available on Disney XD for cable subscribers, and Season 2 just started on October 14.
Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO
Luckily for Star Wars fans, the reinvigorated franchise has drawn significant attention from the gaming industry, and just this week sees the release of a sprawling expansion to the popular 2013 MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. The expansion focuses on the mysterious Fallen Empire of Zakuul, a foe significant enough to unite the Jedi and Sith in a common cause. The game itself, which was praised by critics for its story elements and talented voice cast, breathed life into the aging MMO genre with an emphasis on character development and player engagement. Star Wars: The Old Republic has seen flagging membership numbers over the past couple years, but with Star Wars: The Force Awakens coming up, the free-to-play MMO has seen numbers swelling dramatically.
Star Wars: Battlefront
No discussion of Star Wars video games is complete without mentioning Star Wars: Battlefront. Featuring Electronic Arts’ largest public beta test ever, with some nine million players, Battlefront is poised to release on November 17, 2015, just in time for the holiday season – and just in time for eager fans before the film comes out in December. The game allows players to participate in famous battles from the Star Wars film series from the perspective of ordinary ground troops – and with the aid of a power-up hidden on some maps, players can take on the role of famous heroes and villains from the series. Have a look at the Inquisitr’s write-up for a more detailed look.
New Star Wars Novels
Perhaps the most fulfilling and informative addition to this list are the new Star Wars novels which take place in the Disney-helmed Star Wars expanded universe. Not to be confused with the Expanded Universe of yesteryear, from which Disney has taken pains to distance itself, but a new Expanded Universe featuring new novels from writers new to the series and a few veterans like James Luceno. Most of the novels take place before the events of Return of the Jedi, but one novel, Aftermath by Chuck Wendig, bridges the gap between Episodes VI and VII, providing fans with a glimpse into what the galaxy is like after the second death star is destroyed by the rebellion and leading directly into the events of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The book is available on Amazon and other online retailers.
Hungry for more Star Wars? Tell us where to get our fix in the comments!
[Images via Random House, Electronic Arts]
