Army Manoeuvres

Also, while I understand you found the pre-planned storyline of the New Jedi Order series a little constricting, I think you’ve said in the past that you’d be interested in doing a story detailing the war between the Empire of the Hand and the Yuuzhan Vong?

- from TFN’s recent interview with Timothy Zahn.

Total demandage.

Seriously.

A New Hope

One of my Force Unleashed posts was mentioned on io9’s Morning Spoilers in September - colour me shocked.

On an unrelated note, and in a world where neither the Secret Apprentice nor a Mary Sue from The Han Solo Trilogy founded the Rebel Alliance, I’ve been meaning to mention for ages now that a while ago, having two much free time, I watched both the Special Edition and the original edition of A New Hope…at once.

insert Star Trek style cloaking device joke here

I don’t think I have anything to add that hasn’t been said before, yet not having watched the Special Editions since long before the PS2 came out, I was surprised by how many scenery shots were altered – in particular, Obi-Wan’s hut.

A New Hope Special Edition makes a great supplement to the original film but it’s certainly no replacement.

The Old Republic: First Thoughts

Much against everyone’s advice my better judgement, I’ve been rethinking my stance on the KOTOR MMORPG. This is mostly due to Master Devwi’s epic post at EUcantina compiling all the known facts about the forthcoming game.

Rather than use my own words to illustrate what it was that has made me change my mind I thought, like a second rate hack, I’d simply re-post the stand out ideas that really made an impact on me from Master Devwi’s article.

So, without further ado:

• It will be a good game for KOTOR fans who don’t play MMOs.
• You can have companion characters.
• Companions will have their own stories and quests.
• If you start in the Sith Empire, you can eventually become a Sith Lord, or you can be good. (my emphasis)
• If it’s in the movies, you should be able to do it in the game.
• “It’s not just about the Jedi Knights.”
• The good/evil mechanic has a gray area.
• BioWare: “you can play on your own, but we’re going to encourage you to be social; we’re not going to force grouping, but we aim to encourage.” (my emphasis)
• BioWare is trying to humanize the Sith Empire.
• Even though the leaders may be bad, not all members of the Sith Empire are.
• As a Sith, you can decide whether you uphold Sith values or change things from within.
• BioWare: “we’re focused on making a heroic game, so even if you’re not a Jedi, you’re the best representation of that class.”
• Characters from KOTOR may show up (at least, those that can live for more than 300 years… HK-47, maybe?).
• “Story gives meaning.”
• “You can’t have Han Solo without Chewbacca” (referring to companion characters).
• They are trying to bring story to the online space.
• BioWare doesn’t want people coming in and dressing up in crazy outfits, ruining the “Star Wars” experience.
• BioWare wants to make the story interesting for everyone.  Even players who usually just to rush through games and don’t care about story.

CW S01E04 (SPOILERS)

There is unfortunately, not much to say about the fourth episode of The Clone Wars. It is equal parts an overly extended confrontation appended to the end of episode #3 and an attempt to seemingly re-create mid-Episode II antics and give Padme something to do.

I will be blunt and say that I think it’s too early in the show for the story to shy away from the Anakin/Ahsoka dynamic, even if it is in favour of the relationships featured in the main canon. I just feel that it doesn’t help the flow of the show to introduce a brand new character in the pilot/movie and then not feature her in the first episode and sideline her in the following three.

What worries me is that this was done on purpose and I don’t like that because it reminds of the manner in which Lucas handled the character of Jar-Jar Binks; ‘Here’s my new character, I don’t care what people say about him, you just have to get use to it as it’s my story…yet at the slightest criticism, I’m going to relegate him to near insignificance whilst still not being able to actually admit that the critics do have an impact on the way I think’.

Fortunately, Lucas isn’t in sole control of this series but I can’t help but fear that his mentality is pushing it in these directions and…I don’t like it.

Having said that, there are a few moments wherein this episode works. Both Padme and 3PO are handled well in the story, despite the fact that they prolong what should have been a much shorter storyline, and I was really pleased to hear a London Underground reference aboard the railway chase on Mister Grevious’ ship. Yularen also has a lot of dialogue during the course of this episode (more so than Ahsoka and Plo Koon!) but aside from that, there isn’t much to report.

Still, as they say, two out of three four ain’t bad.

1996 Tunes Advert

A genuine classic and, seeing as it is the time of year when everyone seems to have colds, I thought we could all learn a lesson from this.

CW S01E03 (SPOILERS)

All of this sudden content is a little overwhelming for me, I’m finding it hard to keep up! What’s that you say? I’ve stretched myself too thin with my multiple blog posting? Perish the thought!

On my agenda of things to do that I haven’t is to check out both the new Clone Wars web comic and the paper comic. What I have been doing, however, is watching the series.

Episode #3: Shadow of Malevolence was a lot more of the kind of thing I signed up for. It occurred to me, whilst watching it that, in retrospect, if this three parter had been a film then I probably wouldn’t have been as harsh on episode ,#2 as I really enjoyed both the space combat and the interaction between members of Shadow Squadron during this episode. The real trouble with episode #2 was that, by itself, it went nowhere. When coupled with episode #3 however, that dynamic changes.

It was really nice to see the Y-Wings in use, especially with Imperial markings and I am, once again, pleased to see Yularen. The combination of the good admiral and clone veteran, Commander Wolffe make for good scenes, in my humble opinion and I really hope we get to see more of these two characters and, indeed, their interaction with Anakin. The fic part of my brain is already wondering what Yularen must have been thinking as, twenty odd years later, he sat down at the Death Star briefing room table watching Darth Vader almost throttle Motti. Does he equate Vader with Anakin? Is he as concerned about the presence of Obi-Wan as Vader is? Would Obi-Wan’s actions have been different if he had known Yularen was onboard?

And so on.

Or am I taking this too far? My mind has sort of compartmentalised canon so that it overlaps but only in tiny ways. I find myself increasingly pairing The Phantom Menace with the few EU Episode I books and overlapping the Clone Wars era with A New Hope, including a significant grey area for the events I assume take place leading from the wars through ground covered by the third film and into the fourth film. But beyond that, I don’t really make connections.

The writers obviously do however and every week one of my favourite games is to play spot the original trilogy dialogue homage.

Visually, despite the stylistic character designs, after TFU and the immense CGI of the prequel trilogy in general, it’s hard to think of this as anything *but* Star Wars. In fact, I’m willing to say that this looks more like Star Wars than some of the additions made to EU canon over the years, in terms of computer games and comics.

Dooku comes across as a more aggressive and forceful character, especially with his application of military goals. I like this portrayal of him, as well as his showmanship and rivalry with former master, Yoda, much more than Karen Traviss’ attempting back-story from the Clone Wars ‘adaptation’ novel.

When speaking to my wife’s brother, I was somewhat surprised to find out how much he hated the opening episode. I’ve since begun to wonder if all the things I now quantify as being Star Wars are so different from what everyone else expected that I’ve either missing the big picture…or I’m beginning to think more and more like George Lucas.

In all honesty, I don’t know which prospect scares me more.

FICTION: The Once and Future Handmaiden

Title: The Once and Future Handmaiden
Era/Series: Episode I: The Phantom Menace, post-film/Clone Wars era
Pairing/Characters: Rabé/Amidala (briefly implied)
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Length: 818 words
Disclaimer: All characters created and owned by LucasArts
Summary: During the Clone Wars, Rabé reflects on the past she knew and the present she endures beneath the lights of the smuggler’s moon.

Read it here.

TFU + CW S01E01 – 02 (SPOILERS)

"It's just a flesh wound!"

This has been gnawing away at me for a while now (beware Force Unleashed spoilers): as much as I like the Secret Apprentice, despite his SSJ4-like power levels, I find it hard to accept that, prior to ANH, Vader could take such a beating that he can be standing on the Death Star with nothing of his helmet left save for his harmonica whereas in ESB, he can’t leave his chamber without the helmet and in RotJ, getting electrocuted and pulling the masque off does him for good. I don’t see how the two events can co-exist…

…and speaking of breaking continuity, I realise I haven’t mentioned the first two Clone Wars episodes yet. ^^

To sum up, I really loved Ambush, but wasn’t so keen on Rising Malevolence.

Ambush is the kind of story that I already think of as ‘a good Clone Wars story’ – the focus was on military and political aspects of the war and it showed both Yoda and the clones in a fashion that made use of their strengths and characters. The two cartoon series also seem to be the only medium in which gymnastic!Yoda works, his fight sequences coming across as an extension of his character rather than a cheap attempt to throw in more CGI (as his duel in AotC appeared).

Rising Malevolence, whilst featuring Yularen and having an interesting focus on Mister Grievous was, for the most part, slightly less entertaining. Perhaps it’s because the majority of the important parts already played out in the Preview’s Sneak Peak segment.

I really like the clone veteran officer characters and it’s nice to see one of them make an appearance during this episode but for the most part, I couldn’t warm to Plo Koon and I found Ahsoka to be unusually subdued.

But as this is a multi-part storyline, there’s still hope ~ hopefully tomorrow morning’s episode will improve on the groundwork laid in this episode.

More on the series later!

DS9 S05 E15

«This bounty hunter is my kind of scum… fearless and inventive.»

Princess Leia Organa herself! Captured by the Dominion! Where’s the Rebel Alliance when you need it?

KOTOR Lite

For a while, I was really excited about the prosepcts of Alex Irvine’s forthcoming Knights of the Old Republic novel. I was really hoping for a novel that featured the central cast of either of the games, even if avoiding the characters of Revan and the Exile. If the rights to such characters had been too difficult for Del Rey to obtain as part of their revised contract, I would have settled for a book about the Mandalorian Wars or Rakata Prime or the Jedi Civil War.

Instead it looks like we’re going to get a novel about another of Kevin J. Anderson’s Mary Sue Jedi, the ‘renowned’ Nomi Sunrider. Big do not want.

What I find most frustrating about this is that it means it’s not a KOTOR novel…it’s a Tales of the Jedi novel and I just have no interest in that at all.

On a related note, it looks as though the ‘top secret’ KOTOR MMORPG is about to hit the headlines. Again, I reiterate: Do not want.