New Rumored Upcoming Theme for Stern Pinball

Happy Friday everyone! Wow, what a week. I love it when there’s tons of exciting stuff to talk about in the hobby. We haven’t even seen official gameplay of Stern Pinball’s newest cornerstone game, The Uncanny X-Men, yet (I can’t wait to see it in action) and I’m already looking ahead lol.

So what’s next for Stern Pinball? As we’ve mentioned numerous times here, Metallica Remastered by John Borg should be coming out for the upcoming Pinball Expo show in Chicago, which takes place from October 15th through the 19th.

After that, we will likely see another cornerstone game from Stern probably some time in January 2025. The question is, what theme will it be? Honestly, I don’t know yet. We have the usual rumors of a Brian Eddy Dungeons and Dragons pin and one that I’m actually starting to think might really happen - a Keith Elwin Pokémon game, but I’m here to talk about a brand new rumor.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been hearing from two knowledgeable, independent sources that Stern has a new Star Wars pinball machine in the works. Given Stern’s relationship with Disney, another Star Wars themed game would not be a surprise at all. The question is, what will the specific theme for the game be? This is where my sources differ. Each has heard a different specific theme for this upcoming game.

One has heard that Brian Eddy or John Borg is working on a pinball machine based upon the upcoming Disney Plus series “Skeleton Crew.” When I heard this, I wasn’t very familiar with the IP, so I Googled a synopsis of it and this is what AI told me:

“The synopsis for Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is that it follows four children who get lost in the galaxy after making a mysterious discovery on their home planet: 

Story

The children must find their way home, while encountering strange aliens and dangerous places, and making unlikely allies and enemies.

Setting

The series is set in the New Republic era of the Star Wars canon, after the fall of the Empire in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

Cast

The series stars Jude Law, who plays a character who discovers the children and leads them on their adventure. Nick Frost voices the droid SM 33, who reluctantly helps the children.

Creators

Jon Watts and Christopher Ford are the creators and executive producers of the series, along with Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni.

Release

The series will be released on Disney+ in December 2024. 

Some say the series will have a similar dynamic to The Mandalorian and will share parallels with children's classics like The Goonies.“

That actually sounds very promising. I’m definitely going to watch it and in theory, I could see that working for a pin.

The other possible theme that I have heard for this upcoming Stern Star Wars pinball machine is… a Star Wars Episode 1, 2 and 3 trilogy game.

Star Wars Episode 1 already was the theme for a 1999 Williams Pinball 2000 game. A title that I actually owned for a while years ago. I liked it, plus the NYC bar that I bought it from never emptied the quarters from it when Fast Eddy went in to pick it up for me. It was loaded :).

2024 marks the 25th Anniversary of the first film in the prequel series, Episode 1. Again, this rumor says that the Prequel Trilogy pin is a John Borg-designed game.

So there you have it, you heard it here first…a Star Wars game is in development at Stern Pinball and it’s either Skeleton Crew or SW EP 1, 2, 3. Of course the peril of being first is that I haven’t gathered enough intelligence on this yet, hence the two themes. I thought about waiting to try to narrow it down to one educated guess on the theme, but where’s the fun in that? 😂 . This sort of article is exactly how I started talking about X-Men as a possible Stern game last winter.

Time for the disclaimer that these are rumors. Sometimes rumors are right and sometimes they’re wrong…and sometimes in-between. At this point I’m pretty sure a Star Wars pin is coming and somewhat sure that it’s one of these two titles. When? It’s hard to say. Probably sometime in 2025 but probably not next. That’s my best educated guess at this point. Right or wrong, for me this stuff is always fun to talk about.

Have a great weekend everyone. Thanks for reading. Football 🏈 is back! (I write this as if I won’t find something else to write about here at some point today lol)