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Scratch the Star Wars Itch: The Digital Collection, TV Shows and Games

By on April 21, 2015

The Star Wars celebration came and went over the weekend. We saw a new trailer for The Force Awakens, peeked into the gameplay potential for Star Wars: Battlefront and generally freaked out for a solid 72 hours. Now that life is boring again, you’ve got the itch. You know the itch. You need to watch Star Wars stuff right friggin’ now. Disney planned for that.

Star Wars: The Digital Movie Collection

Hitting pretty much any relevant piecemeal VOD service is the Star Wars The Digital Movie Collection, delivering all six core films in one relatively affordable package ($90).

Star Wars: The Digital Movie Collection

Here’s the full list of ways you can (digitally) get your hands on the collection, from iTunes to even the PlayStation and Xbox video services. And, because we like Amazon so much, here’s the link to that one too.

Unfortunately, the existence of this package pretty much destroys any possibility of any of the films appearing on any Netflix-style monthly fee service. That’s not surprising. Star Wars is about to reemerge as one of the most valuable brands on the planet.

If you do happen to own some, but not all, of the films, you can purchase any of the digital copies individually as well. And, if you don’t trust the internet to deliver the best quality lightsaber visual and sound effects, there’s always the Blu-Rays.

Star Wars Blu-Ray on Amazon

The key here is to time out the necessary viewing of all six movies so you don’t reach a peak craving at the wrong time. You don’t want The Force Awakens off in the distance when the credits roll on Return of the Jedi.

What’s that? You just came here to watch the trailer again? Fine, you can watch the damn trailer again.

Where to Watch the Animated Star Wars Shows

If you ever wanted to fill the lore gaps between the films, you’d turn your eyes towards to the two recent animated TV shows (or await the first full-length live-action spin-off, Rogue One, coming sometime after The Force Awakens). Star Wars: The Clone Wars is exactly as it sounds, following Anakin and Obi-Wan as they fight alongside the clones in between episodes II and III. Thankfully, the former of the pair isn’t voiced by a grown man not yet emerged from puberty.

Star Wars: the Clone Wars

It’s the same premise as the 2003 series of the same name, only this time sporting fancy 3D animation rather than a Samurai Jack 2D style. The show does an ample job of jumping tones, themes and characters to give a well-rounded look of the tumultuous time period, unafraid to invent new and interesting characters.

All six seasons and the full-length film that kicked the whole thing off are available through Netflix streaming. Because of this, you should consider Star Wars: The Clone Wars the easiest, and cheapest, way to scratch the itch. Familiar heroes will often grace the screen in stories considered official canon to the universe as a whole.

The Clone Wars originally aired on Cartoon Network. The follow-up series, Star Wars: Rebels, is about to enter its second season on one of Disney’s channels. You might guess how that happened. Rebels takes place after Episode III, which means the good guys are no more than scattered survivors and the bad guys (including Darth Vader) are doing the whole galactic domination thing they always wanted to do. So, instead of hailed Jedi heroes known through the ages, the show follows a Firefly-like group of outcasts crisscrossing between survival and attrition.

The entire first season, the start-off film and a collection of shorts derived from the premise are all available to watch through the Disney DX website, or as VOD purchases on whatever streaming service you prefer to use. You’ll need a cable-provider log-in to access the website versions.

The Best Star Wars Games and How to Get Them

Steam has a fairly robust Star Wars collection, running 14 games for $100, and saving you $60 total from the individual prices. The only notable games missing are the LEGO Star Wars titles, which, despite their cutesy nature, get you closest to revisiting the plots of the movies in their fullest form. Neither will you find the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron games, a dogfighting series popularized on old-ish Nintendo consoles. Without a Gamecube or Nintendo 64, though, you’d be hard-pressed to find a workable version.

Steam Star Wars Collection

Of the games in the bundle, two really stand out.

Knights of the Old Republic

Before BioWare made the Mass Effect series and lapsed to the dark side (EA), they made Knights of the Old Republic, earning for a decade the love and respect of science fiction gamers exhausted in a universe of swords and dirt. It’s an RPG very much in the BioWare tradition, melding tactical combat with deep character development and dialogue, both riddled with the same level of choice so elemental to Mass Effect.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Chronologically, Knights of the Old Republic is one of the earliest stories ever told in the Star Wars universe, though since Disney took the reigns and essentially reset the canon, BioWare’s RPG sadly doesn’t really count anymore. Still, it features writing that pretty much puts the prequel films to shame.

BioWare forewent developing the direct sequel, but came back to the series to build an MMO from the roots of the already great RPG. Star Wars: The Old Republic is still going strong today; it remains one of the few legitimate World of Warcraft alternatives, and free-to-play at that. Check it out here.

Star Wars Battlefront

On the other end of the spectrum are the Battlefront games, which are experiencing renewed fan fervor due to EA’s series reboot due later this year. The initial titles, Battlefront and Battlefront II, exist in exact opposition to the ideal of a Star Wars video game. You’re not a Jedi Master or a Sith Lord, you’re just a grunt on the battlefield subject to the war waged online against tons of other people. Take the battle on foot, in a raging AT-AT or even in the air, few games capture the insanity of science fiction war any better.

Battlefront II mixed it up a bit by allowing well-performing players to step into the shoes of familiar heroes and villains, or partake in space battles about massive cruisers. You’ll notice such influences in the recently revealed Star Wars Battlefront (2015) gameplay footage, though with a visual quality ripped right out of theaters.

If Star Wars games, movies and TV shows aren’t enough to satiate your desires, then I honestly can’t help you. You should just head over to StarWars.com, where there’s a whole bunch of extra stuff about a whole bunch or Star Wars things, and on and on. Or you could go to Amazon’s Star Wars storefront, though I’d imagine sifting through that is a bit like trying to find a game on the Android app store that doesn’t automatically post to Facebook.

Worst comes to worst, go to Disney World and do this.

Spice Girls hits at around 2:10.

Check Ben’s for Star Wars Deals

 

About Trevor Ruben

Though I contribute to many online publications on a regular basis, including The Checkout, the crux of my writing lies in video games. When not writing, I'm often streaming a variety of games on Twitch.