Category: Opinion

“You Don’t Know the Power of the Dark Side!” How does it work?

Posted on March 25, 2014by Obiwomble's Outlook

Star Wars has a strange relationship with the Dark Side of the Force. It flits from being full-on satanic influence to distilled psychopathy depending on the story, but there is one common factor – the idea that the dark side lulls the wielder in, that however constructed, it’s always a Faustian bargain at best.

Does this render the dark side power wielding nutcase that invariably results free from any kind of responsibility? Short of outright possession – which has happened – the answer has to be no. What is of interest here is that those few dark side wielding maniacs that have kicked the habit have never played the “dark side made me do it” card that fandom is fond of invoking.

I propose to look at four case studies in how the dark side operates and how the individual responded to it: Quinlan Vos, Anakin Skywalker, Kyp Durron and Cade Skywalker. Each represents a different dark side opening as it were.

Read More

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V: LucasArts, Inspiration and Appropriation

Posted on March 24, 2014by Feature Articles, Sidelong Glance

Being both a Star Wars fan and an avid video game player has been a rough road in the past few years. The fact that LucasArts, the videogame production arm of Lucasfilm, was closed by Disney shortly after their acquisition of the company, but even the past five or six years before that were disappointment after disappointment. In the last four years, we have Star Wars Angry Birds, The Force Unleashed II, Kinect Star Wars, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars and The Old Republic. That’s it and all. Going back two or three years more gives us Battlefront: Elite Squadron, Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, The Force Unleashed in both initial release and the “Ultimate Sith” edition, three other Clone Wars tie-in games, and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

Out of that list, only five games not tying in to the Clone Wars TV show made it to the mainstream console market: TFU, TFU II, Lego SW: Complete and Kinect Star Wars. The biggest release by far, however, is The Old Republic, a game developed over a five-year cycle that cost LucasArts, EA and Bioware $200 million to make, more than many blockbuster movies. While an argument can be made for all of these games relative to how fun they are to play or how entertaining they are, no one will argue that any of them are original, exciting and new concepts in the realm of video games. Read More

Infinities: Unlimited Possibilities

Posted on March 20, 2014by Pen and Paper

swt

One of the greatest strengths of the Star Wars Expanded Universe has long been its adherence to the concept of a single (more or less) ironclad canon, in which all works are considered to be equally true and valid and any addition made to the franchise must respect those works which came before it and, in turn, must be respected by those that come after.

In terms of constructing and maintaining a logical and consistent vision of events occurring beyond what was covered by the films, it is almost impossible to heap as much praise upon this approach as it deserves. To tie together so many stories on such a scale, written by so many different authors over the course of so many years, it can be said with certainty that no comparable franchise exists. That is not to say, however, that there are no sacrifices that come with a system as strictly regulated as this one.

Read More

Escape Pod: Hoojibs

Posted on March 18, 2014by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

As I’ve mentioned before, my first exposure to Star Wars was the Special Editions. When they were released in a VHS box set later in 1997, each tape began with a little 10-minute featurette detailing some of the changes made to that particular film. Being brand-new to the franchise, these featurettes were my first exposure to George Lucas, Rick McCallum, Dennis Muren, and so on, and the behind-the-scenes world of Star Wars as a whole—and as such, they’ve stuck in my head in a way that weirdly eclipses their actual importance as early “bonus content”. Case in point: my op-ed category title here at Eleven-ThirtyEight, Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks, comes from a quote by Mark Hamill referring to the Death Star battle in A New Hope.

Another line that’s always stuck with me comes from a little later, when Lucas is discussing the dewbacks—whose presence on Tatooine was scaled back due to the limitations of the physical puppetry at the time. The formative ingredients of Star Wars’ universe, he said, were plot, naturally, his own “psychological eccentricities” (no kidding, right?), and finally, whimsy: “I wanted to give a kind of random, real-world feel to everything.” The dewbacks, he explained, were there for whimsy. Read More

Fleeing the End: Giving a Damn!

Posted on March 17, 2014by

do_not_want

You know you’re successfully fleeing the end when you realize yes, you do give a damn and still continue to care about this stuff. Companies, however, in their corporate wisdom often fail to realize the importance of this outlook and the financial benefit they accrue from it. For, where a consumer would likely conclude “fuck this shit” and walk away, a fan will, as part of giving a damn, contrive ways to justify the continued purchases and interest.

At present there is an interminable haze over the nature of the Star Wars expanded universe on the part of Disney and Lucasfilm. Doubtless this is done with good intent, they don’t want to issue a harsh statement that would see lots of fans feel done over and so walk away. Yet in the absence of that declaration, speculation reigns and speculation says standard corporate practice is exactly that which is not being said!
Read More