A love letter to Jedi Academy

Vision

The 20th anniversary of the game  Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy was fast approaching in 2023 and I wanted to start making something that would summarise my thoughts on this game, the game that literally gave me everything I love and cherish in this world. Family and friends. It’s through this game that I found my beautiful wife, dozens of very close friends and a decade and a half of fun experiences.

Throughout my time playing the game from 2005 – 2019 (15 years old until I was 29) I mostly went by the name Link or SiLink, but people usually saw me with my tags/rank which was (JAWA)LeaderLink. and later after leaving the clan, just Link.. I don’t think I’ll ever put Jedi Academy down, at least not fully, it’s just a huge part of my life and I’m connected to it in so many ways but I am for sure retired from it daily. I can maybe play it a few times a year at most now instead of a few hours a day like I used to.

I had been swirling the idea in my head ever since the release of my first “Love Letter” about RuneScape. Revisiting all the memories I’ve been holding in my head since 2005 was a ride, it was literally like opening a book and feeling a wave of nostalgia hit me.

Development

Video

The main problem I had making this was the thought “Why would anyone but me care about this?” and it’s quite a legit thought I think. I don’t want to bore anyone and the stuff I’m talking about is almost certainly only exciting to me and maybe a few close friends. That thought alone stopped me from doing anything with this for around a year until I got bored and just needed to do a big project again regardless of if it’s interesting to someone else or not. It’s kind of like a time capsule for me to look back on at some point in the future and if anyone else finds it interesting, awesome.

So, I went at it. I think it took me around 4-5 months in total which was mostly me just re-writing the script and getting my thoughts in order. I cut out huge chunks that weren’t necessary, getting it down from a 25-30 minute video to around 15 minutes.

Working on this project did make me realize how limited Vegas 18 Pro is, compared to more modern video editing solutions like Adobe Premiere. I really need to get on learning that.

I don’t know whether I’ll make more “Love Letters”, the only two things that come to mind right now are Zelda and Pokémon but I’m not feeling those if I’m honest. There’s enough content about those game series out there to last a lifetime so this will likely be it for a long time.

This was probably my most fun project and I put everything I had into it 😊 I hope whoever is watching enjoys!

Feedback

Amazing love letter. Even if you weren’t in JAWA, you can appreciate and relate to this. I think anyone that played online on JKA for any length of time found a group like that and could hopefully attribute a lot of what you said to as well. Jedi Academy will always live on, even if just in our hearts as we move on to other things in life.

YouTube Comment

Thank you so much for articulating into words that bittersweet place in my heart for this game and the communities that resided in it. I wasn’t a JAWA but was a ::JEDI:: and my years on JKA were unlike any other. I absolutely loved the social side of it and form of escapism it provided. It also gave both myself and my brother an immersive platform to bond over and enjoy together. This letter speaks volumes, so thank you.

YouTube Comment

You summed it up perfectly. Beautifully made love letter video Link! This game will never die, as long as communities like us are here to always cherish it, forever.

YouTube Comment

Credits

Music

I spent way more time and music on the music for this project than anything else. Free music is cool and all, but it’s never exactly what you want whereas more premium music has more depth and a more personal feeling to it, mostly because it’s not used everywhere on the internet. Bulldog by Pete Davis has become my intro theme for all of these videos and it’ll stay that way unless this is the last one.  We shall see!

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Software

Hardware