May The Fourth Be With You

PT Here, Happy Star Wars Day!

Star Wars Day is an informal commemorative day observed annually on May 4 to celebrate the Star Wars media franchise created by filmmaker George Lucas. Observance of the day spread quickly through media and grassroots celebrations since the franchise began in 1977.

The date originated from the pun “May the Fourth be with you,” from the Star Wars catchphrase “May the Force be with you.” Even though Lucasfilm did not create or declare the holiday, many Star Wars fans have chosen to celebrate it. It has since been embraced by Lucasfilm and the Walt Disney Company as an annual celebration of Star Wars.

The Walt Disney Company has officially observed the holiday with several Star Wars events and festivities at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. In late 2012, Disney purchased Lucasfilm, including the rights to Star Wars.

The finale of The Clone Wars was made available on Disney+ on May 4, 2020. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, as well as the documentary series Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, were also made available on Disney+ the same day. On Star Wars Day 2021, the animated series Star Wars: The Bad Batch also premiered on Disney+, along with the short film Maggie Simpson in “The Force Awakens from Its Nap”. The second trailer for Obi-Wan Kenobi was released on May 4, 2022, as well as Disney Gallery: The Book of Boba Fett. The second volume of Star Wars: Visions, the short film Maggie Simpson in “Rogue Not Quite One” and “Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures” were all released May 4, 2023, on Disney+. The sequel series to Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, Tales of the Empire will premiere on May 4, 2024.

Some recognize the day after, May 5, as “Revenge of the Fifth,” a play on Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith. They celebrate the Sith Lords and other villainous characters from the Star Wars series rather than the Jedi.

With the Star Wars Day history lesson out of the way, what all is happening in Star Wars?

Upcoming releases for include:

• Star Wars: Tales of the Empire (May 4, 2024)
• Star Wars: The Acolyte TV Series (June 4, 2024)
• Star Wars Skeleton Crew TV Series (2024)
• Star Wars: Andor Season 2 (2025/Possibly 2024)
• Star Wars: Ahsoka Season 2 (In Development)
• Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian & Grogu Movie (May 22, 2026)
• Taika Waititi’s Star Wars Movie (In Development)
• James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi Movie (In Development)
• Dave Filoni’s Mando-Verse New Republic Movie (In Development)
• Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s New Jedi Order Movie (In Development)

As always our team will be putting together everything we can for Star Wars The Roleplaying Game. On top of the new shows, we have completed The Bad Batch Source Guide. Every character, species, ship, and droid are all included. Whether you are putting together your own campaign or just want to learn more about it, we have put it all together for you.

Over the coming days we will also be putting together the pieces for Tales of the Empire that we are including in our Star Wars Tales Source Guide as we expect this series to be a common means of storytelling in the future.

If you didn’t already know, Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace, has returned to theaters, and we completed our Phantom Menace Source Guide just in time for you to enjoy. This is the first time anyone has captured the entire film for Star Wars The Roleplaying Game. Over the coming weeks, you’ll see that we have been putting a focus on the Star Wars films, and with the conclusion of The Bad Batch, that will be our primary focus. We are well on our way of finishing Rogue One A Star Wars Story and Episode II Attack of the Clones in 2024. Be sure to keep an eye out for those releases. We will begin to capture roleplaying stats for Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, and continue through the Skywalker Saga all the way to Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker. We will also mix in Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars Resistance along the way.

We have had a few inquiries about PDF copies of our stats, and that is something we plan to do in the future, but we have not had anyone on the project team who wants to tackle that burden at this time. The problem with PDF’s is the constant requirement to keep them up to date with new information. Star Wars is still releasing loads of content that take up a large portion of our time. If you are interested in compiling our stats into a PDF, you are welcome to do so and we just ask that you credit the site and our authors. These stats are for you, the Star Wars community. We don’t own them, we just make them to help keep Star Wars alive. This game is our hobby, and for many of us, it is how passion. We want to make sure all of Star Wars fandom have the tools to create epic campaigns and to grow to long Star Wars as much as we do. Everything we do, we do for you. When Star Wars slows down, creating those PDFs will become more of a priority, but until then, we will keep everything here for you in our database.

We have one last project we are wrapping up, the Young Jedi Adventures Source Guide. This series is a lot better than you know and while it is geared toward young children, it isn’t bad to watch. For those interested in The High Republic or Jedi Training the series is a great resource. We are just about to wrap up Season One in a few weeks. With the series releasing in batches and usually, when other Star Wars projects are occurring, it’s taken longer to get everything out. We hope that it provides you with some good material for your campaigns like we do all of our Star Wars projects.

Finally, let’s talk video games. Star Wars Outlaws be released on August 30, 2024, and we do plan to stream the PS5 version of the game on our Twitch and YouTube channels. Please subscribe to those channels if interested. It might not all be Star Wars content as I do rotate between Fallout Games, World of Warcraft, and I do plan to play a bit of College Football when that comes out. I’ll try and put together a schedule for Twitch during the summer but it will be designed around my personal family time and very casual. If you like to sit back and chill or talk about films, tv shows, or whatever, those are the feeds to follow. It’s about the journey and I’m not fast at anything! I hope some of you will join us for those. More to come on that.

I hope you all have a great Star Wars Day! May The Fourth Be With You!

~PT