Tag: What Star Wars Can Learn From

The Star Wars gaming industry has had its fair share of controversy in 2017. These types of grievances are not unknown in Star Wars gaming. In recent memory, Star Wars: The Old Republic has suffered through similar issues and yet the game is still chugging along like an old Corellian freighter. SWTOR, as it is commonly referred to, will be celebrating its sixth birthday on December 20th.

SWTOR has had numerous controversies over the years that have dwindled its player base, from players leaving the game due to many things such as the lack of new story-driven experiences, the implementation of microtransaction loot boxes, an overall lack of content and a poor progression system. All of these issues have also plagued other recent Star Wars games, including the Star Wars Visceral game that was delayed, and, according to EA, was shaping up to become a linear, story-based adventure game. EA seemed to decide that was no longer what they wanted, ultimately closing down Visceral and delaying the game to make adjustments to better fit their vision. Battlefront II has been criticized for its microtransaction and progression systems, and Battlefront I launched in 2015 to numerous complaints surrounding its lack of content. SWTOR was developed by Bioware and produced by EA and it has experienced all of these aforementioned controversies in its six years.

When SWTOR first launched in 2011, gamers were unaware that less than a year later George Lucas would sell Lucasfilm, and therefore LucasArts, to Disney. We had no idea that we would be given the opportunity to watch a new Star Wars film in the theater! We were also blind to the fact that the slate of Star Wars canon was going to be wiped clean of the Expanded Universe. Yet SWTOR has survived it all in this ever-evolving landscape that is Star Wars of the twenty-tens. Read More

For mainstream Marvel fans, big, universe-shattering events are becoming a dime a dozen. I remember my first experience with events, House of M, which ended with the Scarlet Witch wiping out most of the mutant population. Since then there has been a massive event seemingly every summer. Skrull infiltrators disguised themselves as famous heroes one year, while another year focused on the collision of the multiverse into a single world. Some gave single villains time to shine while others introduced brand new threats for the heroes. These events would shape the course of many comics for the rest of the year, leading up to the next event.

Star Wars, on the other hand, has not had the same type of events in its two-plus years with Marvel. Rather than building to an event storyline, the Star Wars series have kept to crossover arcs. These are de facto events, just not advertised as such. The first, Vader Down, took place at the intersection of Darth Vader (as Vader fought Cylo’s creations) and Star Wars (as Luke continued his Jedi training.) Stranded on Vrogas Vas, Darth Vader fought the Rebel Alliance as Luke and the murderbots explored a Jedi temple. Recently, Star Wars and Doctor Aphra met in The Screaming Citadel, a gothic-esque storyline where Aphra’s search to make bank on a Jedi artifact tempted Luke to join her quest.

These crossovers grew in scope from one to the next, and if they want to keep up their pace, I believe they should recalibrate a bit and make a few changes. Both Vader Down and The Screaming Citadel introduced a lot of concepts which were underdeveloped and left hanging. If a film left those threads open, we would expect a novel or comic to fill in those gaps. But, seeing as these events are comics, we don’t expect supplementary material – the event is generally all we get, so to speak. To allow for more breathing room and to further explore these crossovers, changes should be made. I think the Star Wars line should take two major points from mainstream Marvel. First, events should be set up much further in advance, while their consequences should be far more lasting. Second, they should be longer, allowing for a more in-depth event, in terms of both characters and plotting. Read More

There is a conversation that has existed since the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens regarding the narrative direction of The Last Jedi and the possibility of it paralleling certain story elements of The Empire Strikes Back. The Force Awakens was a wonderful successor to the original trilogy – it captured the saga’s serialized thrill and introduced us to new characters who were so well developed that they were adopted immediately and are praised among fans (with the exception of a few vocal minorities). However, one of its biggest criticisms, and one I hold myself, is its narrative parallels with A New Hope.

I love The Force Awakens as a whole and this subject has been talked about endlessly. Suffice it to say that, with characters as good as Rey, Poe, Finn, and Kylo Ren, I would have liked to see them take more chances with the story; although I understand the apprehension involved that drove them to play it about as safe as safe can be. My hope is that The Last Jedi sets itself apart from its original trilogy counterpart by having a different overall direction and narrative beat. However, there are plenty of elements from Empire that The Last Jedi should strive to emulate and they have nothing to do with the plot of the film, but rather how the film itself is told.

Empire is unlike many sequels. It doesn’t seek to top A New Hope in terms of effects or spectacle. It never feels like the unnecessary continuation of a story; or a reactionary effort greenlit in the wake of monetary success. There’s no greater threat to top the Death Star, no McGuffin, no prolonged action sequences that try to distract the audience from a lack of story. Empire is a much smaller film than A New Hope and that may be its greatest asset. It recognizes that the best sequels don’t artificially increase their scale in lieu of story, but expand upon the characterization and emotional scope of their predecessors. It understands that great sequels allow their characters to change. Irrevocably. Read More