T w e n t y S i d e d
Cal finally beats Trilla into submission and recovers the holocron. Then Cere shows up, and makes another appeal to Trilla for redemption.
Cere’s speech is actually really good, particularly the line where she says, “I know the choices I made took all of your choices away. And I have failed you, Trilla.” It’s a wonderful scene, well-written, and the actors perform the hell out of it. It’s a good line, although it trips over the fundamental problem with using torture in this game.
Trilla didn’t get a choice because she was tortured, and breaking under torture isn’t a choice. I agree. But Cere only made those choices because she was tortured. So therefore nobody made any choices and nobody in this story is at fault.
Regardless of what you think about how much responsibility a torture victim has for their own actions, the morality of this situation is inherently contradictory because both of these people are grown adults that took actions in response to torture.
- If Cere is guilty for giving up her apprentice, then Trilla is guilty for all of the evil sadistic shit she’s done since becoming a Sith. On the other hand…
- If Trilla isn’t guilty for any of her evil deeds because she’s a torture victim, then Cere isn’t guilty for giving her up.
Nobody Can be Forgiven if Nobody is at Fault
This is what I mean about the game needing an overarching villain. It would be really nice if Cere could say something to the effect of, “We shouldn’t fight each other. The real enemy is Darth Torture Face, and if we fight each other then he wins.” Or whatever. Maybe do a callback to one of his taunts, or refute one of his claims, or whatever. Even if we don’t directly face the torturer, we need to defeat him rhetorically.
Without an ultimate enemy for this guilt to land on, we just end up with this paradoxical loop of blame where nobody can accept responsibility for anything so nobody can be forgiven of anything because nobody chose anything.
Again, this isn’t terrible, it’s just a missed opportunity to put some heft into this scene. The writer is swinging around some pretty heavy themes here, and it ought to pack more punch when Cere and Trilla finally confront each other.
Regardless of this lack of accountability, Trilla softens anyway. Her anger melts, and she begins to forgive Cere.
Then Darth Vader enters the room and kills her.
No I’m not kidding.
Please Tell Me This is a Joke
I said earlier in the series that this game only surprised me twice. The first time was when the designer didn’t pull the lightsaber tease. The second time is when they pulled…. this. Not because this is a clever twist, but because it’s so outrageously clumsy and infantile that I didn’t think it was possible.
Despite my nitpicking about torture and the Dark Side, this writer knows how to construct a plot, establish stakes, make us like characters, and otherwise tell a story. The storyteller for the first 99% of the game does not feel like the sort of clueless hack that would take the central conflict of the story and the resolution between two major characters, and toss it aside for a childish fanservice stunt cameo.
But here’s the thing: I don’t blame the writer for this. I blame this obnoxious mess on EA.
The All-Clown Circus
A few years ago, the now defunct Visceral Games was working on a Star Wars game called RagtagThat was actually the project name, not the intended title of the game. I don’t think it ever got a proper title before the project was canned.. It was intended to focus on a group of scoundrels and criminals instead of giving us yet another story revolving around the well-worn Jedi vs. Sith glowstick fight. The problem was that EA didn’t realize that Visceral Games knew what they were doing. As revealed in the Jason Schreier expose The Collapse Of Visceral’s Ambitious Star Wars Game:
Two former Visceral staff recall EA looking at Ragtag and asking where Chewbacca was. “EA would get obsessed with market research and start asking people what’s important to them about Star Wars,” said a former staff member. “You’d get, ‘Oh, the Force, lightsabers, the usual Jedi continuum.’ They’re hyper focused on that stuff, and it’d be a topic of conversation in every pitch meeting.”
This is so obnoxiously idiotic that I honestly have trouble analyzing it. There are so many glaring problems and they’re all so infuriating that I have trouble calming down and forming a coherent plan of attack. I just want to stride into the boardroom and flip tables.
One, they hired industry veterans like Amy Hennig. Hennig is a legend. She’s a major force behind the Legacy of Kain / Soul Reaver series, Jak and Daxter, and Uncharted. She’s been the creative leadOr one of a small group of leads. on many quality titles and also Battlefield: Hardline. Why would you hire someone with a resumé like that and then second-guess them? Second-guessing your talented creative teams with proven track records is dumb enough, but doing so based on the feedback of FUCKING FOCUS GROUPS isn’t just dumb, it’s an absolute dereliction of your duty as company executive.
This isn’t even how you’re supposed to use focus groups! You don’t ask people to name what they like about Star Wars and give them more of that! If you asked people in 1978 what they liked about Star Wars, they wouldn’t tell you Yoda, because they’d never heard of Yoda before. You shouldn’t make focus groups a foundational element of any creative decision. Don’t ask them what to make, ask them what they think of what you’ve already made. I know the EA leadership is shit at running game studios, but how is it possible they’re also shit at basic business management?
At most, you should use focus groups as a gut-check to fine-tune stuff your brilliant creative staff has already decided to build. You don’t ask them, “What characters should we put in our next movie?” You say “Here is a Yoda character we made. What do you think of him?” Asking them what to make is nonsensical. If those random people had any skill at narrative or character design, they wouldn’t be working in a fucking focus group.
You absolute pillocks.
As a leader of an entertainment company, you should understand the business you’re in. You should understand how the products work, why people enjoy them, and what the audience is looking for. That is, in a nutshell, your entire job. But if you’re more into golf than video games and you can’t be bothered to join the hobby you’re trying to serve, then you can at least hire talented people and trust them to know what the hell they’re doing.
But the absolute worst – the most ridiculous and farcical thing you can do as you attempt to embody every negative stereotype people have regarding corporate executives – is to hire a focus group and take their word over the word of your creative staff. You have no ability to make coherent decisions or to tell good ideas from bad, so you hire other laypeople and blindly follow them? That’s not the blind leading the blind. That’s blind people hiring other, less knowledgeable blind people to tell the sighted people where to go.
Can you imagine if Walt Disney asked his staff to wander around the park and randomly ask guests how to make the park more popular? Dude! If you have no idea how to run the business then why are you in charge?
Getting Back to Vader
I’m not inclined to think that this writer decided to throw away the Cere / Trilla conflict and build the ending around a cameo that relies entirely on an audience’s external knowledge of Star Wars and otherwise has no relevance or emotional connection to anything that’s happened in the previous ~12 hours. I think this was a move of basic self-preservation on the part of the developer. Ragtag got shitcanned because it didn’t have Chewbacca or any of the other six characters that the casual rando off the street could name. So when the team at Respawn Entertainment was making their game, they knew they had to shoehorn in a stupid cameo. Not for the fans, but for the know-nothing executives at Electronic Arts who would otherwise cancel the game if it didn’t pander to the casually disinterested general public.
As proof: Even though this scene feels like it’s supposed to be the big “Oh shit!” moment of surprise for the audience, Vader was featured in the trailers for the game. Marketing didn’t care about the integrity of the story. They didn’t care about spoilers. They just wanted to advertise HEY KIDS WE GOT DARK VADER. WE KNOW YOU LIKE DARK VADER AND LIGHT SABERS. COME PRE-ORDER OUR GAME AND GET DARK VADER AND LIGHT SABERS. Vader isn’t here because the story needs him. He’s here because he works for marketing now.
The irony for me is that I never saw any of the trailers, so I had no idea the Darth Vader cameo was a thing. It did indeed surprise me, but for all the wrong reasons.
Come on Shamus, Was it Really THAT Bad?
It’s not “bad” in the sense of being a badly written or designed sequence. The problem isn’t what we got, but what we didn’t get.
Picture the heartfelt and gut-wrenching scene from Return of the Jedi where Luke takes off Vader’s mask and makes peace with his father before he dies. Now imagine if that exchange was cut short when some other Vader-like figure jumped in without warning and attacked Luke. It might be an exciting and fun action sequence, but this is not the time for that sort of thing.
The audience probably won’t realize what they’re missing. They won’t be aware of the other, more emotionally impactful scene that could have existed here. They’d just shrug and say, “Yeah, that fight with Count Menace came out of nowhere, but the fight choreography was pretty good and the bit where they were dueling on top of a TIE fighter looked awesome.” Few people would realize that they’d just been robbed of a powerful moment that resolved the themes of redemption that the rest of the story had been building towards.
I’d have liked to see the “real” resolution to the Cere / Trilla conflict instead of Vader committing resolution interruptus. My guess is that this Trilla scene was supposed to play out so that Trilla forgave Cere before she died. It was less “Trilla is redeemed and now all is forgiven and she’s our friend” and more “Damaged Trilla was able to find peace before she died.”
It was probably supposed to give us closure, but also end on a bittersweet note like Empire Strikes Back because this story is set in the dark years between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope and those are not considered a good time for anyoneExcept for Palpatine. That dude was always having a blast. and it would be weird to end on a bright note when we’ve got 15 more years of Imperial dominance ahead of us.
Damage Control
If I’m right and the designer jammed Vader in here to appease the executive fuckwits, then I think they did a pretty admirable job. Vader doesn’t show up until the very end of the story, and this scene was designed to minimize the damage he’d inflict on the rest of the plot. Trilla got a few brief seconds of peace before Vader cut her down, which does give the Trilla / Cere thread some closure, even if that closure would have benefitted from a few more lines of dialog, a little more breathing room in the script, and perhaps some sort of coda.
Also – unlike some games I could mention – we don’t really fight Vader here. In this scene, Vader is an absolute force of nature. Cere and Cal are basically helpless against him, and we get a set-piece escape sequence where they narrowly wiggle away from him over and over as they struggle to reach the exit.
If you are going to have Vader show up, this is indeed the correct way to do it. Or perhaps it’s the least wrong. I’m very glad Cal didn’t have to “win” a lightsaber fight against him in gameplay and then lose in a cutscene. The chase idea is much more interesting and much more fitting for Vader. And despite my pissing and moaning, I grudgingly admit that this is a cool sequence.
We’ve got one last scene to look at, and then we’re going to wrap up this series.
Footnotes:
[1] That was actually the project name, not the intended title of the game. I don’t think it ever got a proper title before the project was canned.
[2] Or one of a small group of leads.
[3] Except for Palpatine. That dude was always having a blast.
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My favorite part of any Star Wars spinoff is when Darth Vader comes out of nowhere and kills all the main characters at the end.
In all seriousness though, I think Darth Vader appearing could have a purpose in the game, the story was thematically centered around the fall of the Jedi Order and how it affected most of the characters we meet throughout the game so it makes sense that we also meet the guy who helped end the Jedi Order itself.
Of course, it essentially was just an excuse to redo the Darth Vader hallway scene from Rogue One although I see it more as a symptom of a problem spawned from Star Wars’ overhyped reputation where even the most minor characters from the movies are required to be greeted with some fanfare in the EU/side materials.
Roll d20 for random encounters. On 19-20, Darth Vader appears.
No, for tables like these Twenty is reserved for ‘roll again twice’. Just think you could get Darth Vader with 1d4 dire weasels or TWO Darth Vaders.
Or the epic Darth Vader riding a Red Dragon.
19: “Darth Vader”
20: “Darth Vader, and roll again”.
So if you roll a 20 follower by a 19, your encounter is 2 Darth Vaders? (Darths Vader?)
Sounds legit.
Depends. Could be 2 Darth Vaders, one of whom is throwing 1d4 Dire Weasels at you…
Holy crap that comment nearly killed me. Just imagining Vader chucking dire weasels had me laughing for a solid 5 minutes.
Funnily enough, part of Vader’s appearance isn’t a fight but it’s also not a cutscene; he actually force chokes you and it deals in-game damage.
So I finished the Trilla fight with only a sliver of health, Vader appears, kills Trilla, throws Cere off the ledge, then force chokes me and I die. (thankfully it doesn’t make you fight Trilla again after that, but it did completely derail the moment for me)
While I can appreciate that that would be being really annoying for you, it does seem hilarious.
A great example of a game just trolling someone.
For true greatness, this should have been the unlock requirement for the secret ending.
You joke, but he really works as a sort of obvious anticlimax to a post-Order-66 pre-OT Jedi story. Imagine a movie set in Pompeii, and it’s all slice of life stuff about people in the city (like that movie Valentine’s Day but in Latin). You see how everyone is interconnected, you laugh, you cry, and maybe you learn a little something. And then the last scene is the sound of a massive explosion, and a long-take bird’s-eye angle as Darth Vesuvius does its thing, as you knew would happen going in because how else could a movie about Pompeii end? But you forgot, because you’re wrapped up in the lives of these people, and that makes their sudden untimely demise at the hands of something they cannot control and barely understand that much more impactful.
Darth Vader as the religious equivalent of a natural disaster is a great concept.
Or a love story set on a passenger ship and then at the end they hit an iceberg and sink…
A volcano seems less a-door-able.
That’s a great Idea.
You just need to make it 4 hours long and throw in some gratuitous nudity.
It will be the perfect date-movie.
The Pompeii thing is basically what happens in the Cambridge Latin Course, IIRC.
Holy crap, I remember that. What a blast from the past. I was actually surprised by that simply because I thought they were just using Pompeii as a throwaway location and not because the writers of a freaking textbook had a story in mind for their sample Roman family. Alas poor Caecilius.
I prefer the Force and lightsabres side of Star Wars, but Ragtag sounded interesting and had some good people on board. But so did Solo. These things can always go wrong.
I suppose that if you’re an exec type and your job is to stick your nose in, you’re going to stick it in whenever possible. And everyone thinks their ideas are the best ones.
You can read about what Ragtag’s story would have been about had it been made here .
It’s actually quite a wild ride.
Reading the first few paragraphs of that article reminded me of something that bugs me about the Star Wars universe: why would anyone in that setting be afraid of droids or creeped out by them? It’s understandable that people in our time might be, because AI is still a relatively new and poorly-understood technology, but in the Star Wars setting they’ve been commonplace for TWENTY THOUSAND years. It would be like a 21st-century person being afraid of wheels.
Even as a big defender of Neo-Star Wars (I really liked the new trilogy except TRoS), I have to admit there’s a problem with the reliance on connections to the original trilogy. There’s this bit that RedLetterMedia over on YouTube does of “and I clapped!”, where they essentially parody how Star Wars fans get overexcited over any old character showing up, and I really think that’s something that’s dragging the new Disney stuff down. A times they almost feel more like nostalgia and fanservice vehicles for the OT than new stories in and of themselves. The OT was great by standing completely on its own, I wish its successors learned that from it and imitated that.
I mean this was also a problem with the PT, Boba and Chewbacca appeared despite them not really having any business being in the story.
That’s true. The Chewbacca cameo is brief and inconsequential, but the Jango & Boba Fett subplot is unfortunately too big a part of the prequel trilogy to ignore. We didn’t need a big-screen Boba Fett origin story. He’s only a minor character in the original trilogy and his origin is completely irrelevant to the plot of The Empire Strkes Back and Return of the Jedi. I know people like Boba Fett, but, come on, save that stuff for the spinoffs.
I also forgot to add R2-D2 and C3PO, who really have no reason to appear in the PT but they do because hey, it’s Artoo and Threepio.
I forgot them too. R2-D2 I can almost forgive. He’s just an astro-mech droid doing his astro-mech thing. But C3-PO is inexcusable. You know who could use a fancy protocol droid? The queen of a seemingly-wealthy planet like Naboo. You know who couldn’t? A couple of slaves on a miserable, dusty, wretched planet like Tatooine. You know what would be better still, considering just how little the droids do in or contribute to the prequels? Omitting them entirely. Kill your darlings, George. Kill your darlings.
Do you remember the bit in The Force Awakens where C3P0 literally pushes his way into the shot? That one has to be my worst unnecessary cameo.
All the other cameos (Han Solo, the Millenium Falcon etc) in TFA had been mentioned in the marketing, and even worked into the story in some way, but that…that was bad.
Oh, I totally disagree on this one. C-3P0 is exactly the kind of clueless ass to insert himself into the Han-Leia reunion, because he has no idea how to read the room. And of course he’s going to be hanging around Leia, because they’re ‘friends’ (and she needs an interpreter).
I find the idea of a Protocol Droid failing to “read the room” amusing in its irony. But I do agree – C-3P0 had every right to be there.
You know, I’ve never thought about how C-3P0 is bad at his job. But yeah, he kinda is, isn’t he?
I guess that comes from being built by an 8-year-old on a remote desert planet.
Oh sure, it’s in character and It makes sense that he’s there in-universe. But it’s also the ONLY thing I can remember him doing in that movie.
At least in the first movies he occasionally blundered into doing useful things that affected the plot, like bearing messages or triggering ambushes.
Why would that matter? There are plenty of characters in movies who don’t affect the plot. That isn’t a problem; it’s just flavor. The fact that it’s a character we’re familiar with doesn’t change that, really.
From the way Shamus describes it, the problem with Vader in this game isn’t that he’s a cameo, and it isn’t that his presence doesn’t make sense for the time period (because it does make sense); it’s that it comes out of nowhere and completely derails the story. 3P0 doesn’t do that in TFA – it’s just a nice guest appearance.
Yeah. C-3P0 had no business on Tattooine. I don’t mind the idea of his inclusion in the PT, but he should have either been Padme Amidalla or, better, Bail Organa of Alderaan’s Droid, having only a few Senate cameos
“Look, if you’re not going to take this seriously, I’m gonna go.”
I was wondering recently if I’d recommend watching Star Wars for the first time in chronological or release order. Maybe the prequels play better if you don’t already know exactly where they’re going to end up? There’d be actual suspense about whether Anakin would turn to the Dark Side.
But, on the other hand, all those little ‘This is my kid, I call him Boba,’ moments would mean nothing to someone who hadn’t already seen the OT.
Might I interest you in Machete Order?
I’ve tried the Machete order. It was certainly an interesting idea, but in practical terms it means you interrupt a series of three good movies with two rather bad ones that draaaaaag.
There could still be suspense if you view the saga in release order, just it becomes “How will?” rather than “Will he?”.
Heck, his origin story is pretty irrelevant to his role as a member of the ensemble in The Mandalorian.
I feel like this is a problem the Original Trilogy created for itself. There’s a core of characters, and there are times when an awful lot of plot revolves around “use exactly these characters to solve the problem!” rather than recognizing that there’s a whole rebellion full of man power and a universe of droids available maybe allows less risky plans. For example, the whole Jabba/sail barge fight is really cool, but relied heavily on R2’s ability to conceal and then throw a lightsaber, and that Jabba having a multi-lingual crime empire where a translator droid would be super useful but, amazingly, not having one already, etc. There were no other friends you could call on for help? There’s no reason C3PO is on Endor. None. You brought a protocol droid to a gunfight. There are a number of moments where it seems like it would make a lot more sense for there to be a wider range of named characters with interesting personalities who make meaningful contributions.
There are about 8 characters who are central to, and are the ONLY ones central to, not less than three distinct massively important events in a war that spans a literal galaxy.
It’s not really a wonder that recycling those same characters is sort of a required trope of the setting.
I liken it to the one thing I can’t get over about the Jack Ryan books by Tom Clancy. They’re all interesting, meticulously researched, and generally very plausible cold war techno thrillers set in a hyper-realistic world (down to the technical challenges of shaping charges for a nuclear bomb). It’s not that Jack Ryan is central to everything – that’s expected. It’s that there are about 10 side characters who are ALWAYS the side characters that are centrally important to what’s going on, down to the same CIA operatives being the ones on the ground for The Big Mission every time. It’s really striking that, in a very large and highly crafted world, the same small group o’ folks are the only ones who get things done.
It’s hard, IMO, to fault the people who built on that world for sticking to a small core group of characters for Every Single Story, when it’s basically an established trope of the setting.
Very true, I feel this is also visible in The Mandalorian, where depending on how you look at it season 2 is a tug of war between a story that’s trying to stand on its own versus more and more pressure to include fanservice and set up elements not central to the story. Depending on how sensitive you are to this, it’s already definitely also present in the DNA of season one. Plenty of material is lifted from previous/other Star Wars works, but in execution it felt there was at least more craftsmanship in integrating these things into the narrative. In season 2 it feels like what I’ll call the ‘exec’ side is pulling harder and harder and the showrunners are still there and did enough in S2 to maintain something I appreciated. But it does feel like there’s a lot of this tension and if the same progression is made going from 2 to 3, they might jump the shark from my personal threshold and I might lose interest.
The worst part is all those cameos weren’t even there for fanservice, they were there as backdoor pilots for the 20 star wars tv shows that Disney is launching. And it felt like it.
“We finally have a Disney-era Star Wars property everyone likes (or at least no one seems to hate); let’s use it as a launching pad for two dozen spin-offs!”
Yeah. I was a big Ahsoka fan, but the Ahsoka bit in The Mandalorian is basically “the plot stops for one episode until this walking teaser for another series can send the main character chase the next mcguffin”.
At least Bo Katan had some fun interactions with Mando, and showed that there was a wider world beyond the few outlaw bars / cult bunkers he hangs out in. Ahsoka was purely “You found me, unfortunately I cannot help you for bullshit reason, go to this planet instead”, plus some lightsaber fights.
(also I kind of feel her character has been consistently botched ever since Rebels, but that’s another topic)
Bo and Boba fit pretty well into the overall theme, but man I wish they cut luke and gave more time between bo’s faction and boba. That brief bar brawl was super interesting character development, and I wish that could have been explored more verse deus ex jedi
I actually rather liked Luke’s cameo.
The squad of Dark Troopers that seemed like inevitable doom for Mando and friends were just casually obliterated by a single Jedi, and I really liked how it emphatically showed the difference in power levels from the movie protagonists vs the more nitty-gritty series protagonists.
We don’t see that in something like Rogue One, and while we saw Mando struggle he was still seemed like an unstoppable badass. Even with Ahsoka it’s not so clear that Mando and friends are basically small potatoes, since she didn’t utterly dominate the fight against the staff lady and we never saw the latter versus Mando. Sure she mowed down the mooks, but so did Mando.
It also adds a nice cyclical aspect to Luke’s own arc, having him train Baby Yoda. Mainly though, I appreciated putting Mando and his squad’s abilities into perspective. A single squad taking over a capital ship really puts them close to “unstoppable video game protagonists” territory, and this really brings them back down.
That’s because that’s what the majority of Star Wars fans actually want, installments with fanservice tend to get more acclaim from fans as Rogue One and season two of The Mandalorian showed. “Show us the stuff we’ve seen before doing the stuff we’ve seen before”, that’s what “understanding and respecting Star Wars” means to the fandom.
Star Wars has gotten too big for it’s own good, it will forever be cursed as a stagnant cold corporate franchise that can never move forward or even do anything remotely substantial because then the fans react negatively (understatement of the century) otherwise. The first three movies told a story, now most of the rest just jangle our favorite things in front of us like shiny car keys and most of us just accept and even applaud it like babies.
I don’t think that’s fair. Rogue One and Mandalorian were popular primarily because of their original characters. The cameos are just fun bonuses.
The reason Mandalorian gets credit for understanding and respecting Star Wars is because it’s in sharp contrast to the sequel trilogy, it has its own original stories and isn’t just a rehash, and specifically because it doesn’t hate on Luke or the audience.
Fans loved original characters, settings, and time periods in the games, in the comics, and in the novels as well. The main thing that we like is quality, even though cameos are fun sometimes.
No one thinks this, Rogue One is well liked because of Darth Vader hallway scene or because a bunch of characters from both the PT and OT appeared. It’s even a bit of meme that absolutely no one remembers the names of the film’s
original main characters but they do like that one character at the end: “Darth Vader Hallway Scene”!
But ask them what exactly constitutes as being “quality” and the answer you get is pure raw fanservice. The Mandalorian is indeed an original story but at it’s core now, it’s just a platform for popular Star Wars characters to pop in and do something cool.
I’d argue this is probably the most cynical way to approach the franchise, the new original characters are hollow and forgettable stand-ins for the established SW character (whose really just a plot device in the story) to appear and take up all the “memorable” moments of the story. The final nail in the coffin is that the audience applauds it all and calls it good writing.
True enough that I can’t remember any of Rogue One’s characters’ names, but I liked it for the tone of darker factions of the rebellion, and appreciated the retcon of the Death Star’s weakpoint being deliberate.
I disliked the Vader scene because Vader doesn’t do any of that in A New Hope. (And the one before it because of the terrible pun. Darth Vader should not be making puns.)
Nah I think it fits, Vader is a cheeky guy (“Apology accepted Captain Needa”). The snark also tends to demonstrate that he’s still Anakin deep down, even if Vader wants you to think otherwise.
Definitely going to be a matter of taste, but I like snark Vader much more than pun Vader. Imagine Needa getting an “it must have been hard for you to say” sort of line instead.
Hard to pin down exactly what I don’t like about it, but I think puns imply a more passive, observational approach to things. The character is taking in their surroundings and adapting theirselves to them. Vader doesn’t adapt to conditions, Vader alters them.
Jyn Erso (probably spelled wrong)?
That being said, from what I’ve heard this isn’t true. I’ve heard a lot of people be critical of the Darth Vader scene and the other cameos, and most of the people that I’ve heard talk about how much they like the movie tend to praise the darker tone and even the shift AWAY from the original characters.
In general, people do rave about well done inclusions of the OT characters, but that’s not enough to make people think the movie is good. Boba Fett didn’t save AotC, and people never say that they like RotS because Chewbacca made an appearance.
In this very video game series we had a long discussion from Shamus and a long discussion in the comments over what made Star Wars Star Wars and what made for a quality Star Wars work. I don’t recall even one person talking about that sort of fanservice as being any kind of factor, outside of an oblique mention of respecting the franchise. I even recall from various places people making complaints like those above about inserting OT characters where they don’t fit, which is a reflection of a lack of respect for the original works. People like good fanservice, but if the work isn’t good itself that’s not going to save it.
It’s frustrating to hear fanservice described in an exclusively negative way. Etymologically, serving your fans sounds like a sound decision. Obviously it can be done poorly, However moments like Luke Skywalker or Boba Fett in season 2 were excellently done and showed a care for the continuity of the series. Getting to see things like the Dark Troopers realized from literature and video games into high-budget productions like the new Disney products are exciting. That stuff exists in the consciousness of the people inclined to spend money on the IP and pretending it doesn’t sounds a lot like a carpenter deciding not to use a sander because it’s too played out.
I understand and respect the people who don’t want to see any of the old material, Disney and EA haven’t been the best at handing the IP, I just wish the discussion would have some more balance and didn’t sound so much like whether or not to throw the baby out with the bath water.
It’s like The Last Jedi’s theme of having to kill the past has extended to having any connection to any previously existing Star Wars characters, settings, ideas, items, etc. in some people’s minds. Bad fanservice is just that, bad. But not all fanservice can be lumped in “ooh, memberberries” bracket. And even some that can be isn’t automatically done in poor quality. Part of the very blueprint of Star Wars DNA is the cyclical nature of myths. So I heartily agree with you
I’d say that when fanservice is done well, it’s not really fanservice.
The purpose of every element in a story should be to serve the story, to make it the best story possible. If using an existing character or concept is what best serves the story, then it’s not fanservice, it’s a sound artistic decision. Fanservice is using an existing character or concept when an original character or concept would have served the story better or alternatively, shoehorning an existing character or concept into to the story for no purpose except to have them there. Certain fans may like that sort of thing and it may be a sound financial decision for the IP holder–and, honestly, the fact that it makes the IP holder money has to be the least compelling defense of fanservice you could have picked–but it’s nevertheless a bad artistic decision and I think it’s perfectly reasonable to criticize fanservice as a concept on those grounds. I accept that this is all at least a little subjective. Reasonable people can and will disagree about whether or not the appearance of Character A or the use of of Concept B is a sound artistic decision and thus whether or not it constitutes fanservice. Nevertheless, I think that the idea that fanservice is bad is fairly self-evident.
A bit of an expansion; the problem with dropping in a major character like Luke is that Luke brings all the baggage of his previous movies with him. Now we’re left to wonder how much attention Luke has been paying to these new events, and whether anyone else from the OT or PT has been following them, and why they have or haven’t jumped in at any given point.
Then what’s the proper dynamic for these characters? If Luke sides against the Mandalorian, who are the fans going to root for, who wins out there? If the Mandalorian wins, you’re effectively declaring yourself the True Star Wars and trying to replace the originals. If Luke wins, then the Mandalorian stops being his own character and starts being a vessel for sequels of the previous works. Same thing with Vader; Luke’s the one who beats Vader, so anyone else going up against him is either going to lose and run, or going to win and undermine the end of the original movies.
If you can introduce a major character in such a way that none of that comes up, then it works out fine. Typically people do that by giving them big ol’ promotions; the new hero does something cool, and then Prime Minister Luke gives them a bureaucratic pat on the back. Much less exciting, but much less problematic.
A smaller character like Boba Fett or Maul can work because the universe didn’t revolve around them previously; except those guys were pretty definitively written out of the universe, so bringing them back destroys future consequences; nothing holds weight because the writers can just undo everything if they feel like it. But if you used someone like… um… I don’t think anything happened to Lando’s guard captain, so you could make Lando’s guard captain a major part of a new story and it would work fine.
I’m reminded of the Honor Harrington series where the author worked hard to make the conflict between two eminently likeable groups of protagonists felt like the natural progression of a tragedy. A brewing conflict between the Mandalorians and Jedi, with both factions headed by characters the audience quite likes sounds like a compelling story if done well. That said, I do see where people are coming from in expressing concerns for the questions and metanarrative tension those stories create.
What? The Vader cameos were the most grinding part of Rogue One. Rogue One works, mostly, and the Mandalorian does as well, because they take tropes and customs from another genre and make them work within the Star Wars universe. One’s more or less an adventure/war film, the other’s a western show. Solo is technically a heist movie, but it’s not a very good one.
Mando can work outside if SW – just look at Firefly.
Rogue One can work outside of SW – some adjustments would have to be made, but it can work.
Solo….not so much.
“like shiny car keys” — So, did you also watch Nerrel’s latest video? I wish he uploaded more often.
I noticed the quotes too. Nerrell only uploads once a month, considering how much editing is required for his style of content.
To be fair, overreliance on connections to the old trilogy has pretty much defined the Star Wars brand since at least the 90s, it’s hardly a Disney problem. Star Wars properties get loaded down with dumb fanservice because the fanboys do clap. Much as the average blog commenter might complain, it seems like the cameos are serving a real market demand.
That’s not really true either. There are plenty of original characters, settings, and stories throughout.
My metric is that the Gonk droid is Star Wars’ version of Start To Crate, representing the point at which the developers ran out of ideas for Star Wars callbacks.
Most Star Wars properties contain a Gonk droid.
I’m going to be bit more fair to EA as Ragtag suffered from a range of major issues beyond just EA pestering Visceral to put in Jedi and lightsabers.
Like most other game companies, Visceral suffered from management issues, there was even a minor division between employees who were working on Ragtag and employees working on Battlefield Hardline DLC who felt they were getting the short end of the stick. The company was also harder to maintain than most other EA subsidiaries as it was located in San Francisco which has a higher cost of living than most other cities in the U.S. Just like other triple AAA games, Ragtag was too ambitious for it’s own good where it seemed like Amy Hennig wanted to include immersive sim elements but didn’t have a clear vision on how to execute it and make it fit in with the linear Uncharted style level design of the game. You also have progress being stalled because Lucasfilm took too long to respond and approve every story/setting decision so thw game could fit in with the larger Star Wars canon.
Ragtag basically suffered from the same issues that plagued Mass Effect Andromeda during it’s development except no one believed in “Visceral Magic” so it all eventually came apart.
You could argue it either way. Requires quite a lot of reading between the lines and deciding who to believe when there’s opposing viewpoints; doubt we’ll ever get to the bottom of it.
Before EA got the licence, there were dozens and dozens of Star Wars games. Unlike most movie adaptions, they were generally good – the people developing them had a lot of love for Star Wars, I suppose – and a couple of them (Dark Forces, TIE Fighter) are among the best in their genres. But they also generally focussed on action rather than story, so their wasn’t much issue with contradicting the existing lore.
Then EA got their exclusive licence. They don’t always have the best reputation in gaming, fair to say. In eight years, they managed to produce as many Star Wars games total as LucasArts used to knock out every year. Battlefront is a remake, Squadrons is good but extremely short, and there’s this, which is probably the best thing that they’ve made out of their deal, and also has issues. I’d describe that as ‘classic EA’. They’re big enough to have developed a dozen SW games during their opportunity, and they just didn’t.
Like you say, an Amy Hennig game is probably going to be a heavily-scripted cutscene- and quicktime event-fest that would probably have more lore than the rest of the SW games combined. Although if approval decisions were taking far too long to be made, then that sounds like a resourcing issue, and I would point the finger the producers. And yeah, over-ambitious AAA development is the norm, but it hasn’t stopped every other game that’s been released from making it through.
But how many of them actually come out good?
Why, I reckon that a full one-in-twenty of them are in the top 5% of AAA games ever made!
Ah yes, this floor is made of floor
… I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to say that
Okay I had some impressions which turned into a full review of my first two hours of the game. Sorry if this is kind off off-topic but I had to write something, if you’ll indulge my verboseness.
So I finally* played Fallen Order yesterday. I made a bunch of observations in the first two hours and I felt compelled to pen down some notes. I drafted this post after completing what is generously called chapter one, which means the opening junkyard planet Bracca and the follow up which is Bogano, where the vault is located. Before we get into it I’d like to state that I enjoyedTomb Raider (2013) and played a bunch of it, but apparently burnt out my lifetime lust for that kind of game as I could not make it past a couple of hours into Rise of the Tomb Raider. The second note is that I fell into a deep, deep Sekiro hole last year (with previously only some Dark Souls 3 experience). I beat the game a bunch of times and achieved a satisfying level of systems mastery. I suppose on a git gud scale running from 0-10, where 5 is being able to beat the game, I suppose I’m somewhere around a 7 to 8, where I deem 9s and 10s people that master that type of game while making it purposefully harder than the base experience. I started the game on Jedi Master (I think, it was the third option after Story, Default and before the hardest option). While that is a bunch of pre-amble, I’m ready to go into what I noted in the first hours of Fallen Order. It’s slightly ordered but mostly stream of consciousness on a number of points. I do sum up my feelings in the end. Without further ado:
The epic:
– auto climb and QTE toggles. Oh my, we need more of these. I appreciate that across the board it seems that more and more games are trending towards customizing your play experience. Whether it’s in the name of accessibility or not, I love having these options and the second I was asked to mash a button (in the tutorial non-fight versus Second Sister) I turned the QTE toggle off. I have no idea if I have skipped any QTE’s since but I’ll be glad for any I don’t have to engage. Also, while this is more of a standard, thank God for being able to rebind individual keybindings (or in my case, controller). All I wanted to switch was moving the attack to RB on my 360 controller, since I have total ground in muscle memory from Sekiro. Glad I could just do that, rather than not being able to or switch between predetermined profiles.
The good:
– the production values. Especially the opening planet is great. There’s many recognizable Star Wars touches, things look mostly fine in motion. Audio is subtle but doing what it needs to do. It manages to hit the Star Wars feel more often than not, although I wouldn’t say consistently. I won’t elaborate more as this will be a lengthy post as is, refer to Shamus’ earlier posts if you need more examples. As with many games (or any moving image I suppose), stuff definitely looks and feels a lot better in motion than screenshots can convey.
– Characterisation. This one surprised me, but I was drawn in by a number of characters almost immediately. Prauf is immediately likeable and I felt like I wanted to be his friend (and could have been if I was Cal) within minutes. Which is good considering he is immediately offed before you even get to leave the planet. Same goes for Greez, the ship pilot. He was way more charming and funny than I anticipated based on the entries in Shamus’ series. As long as they don’t overuse him (and he won’t be on planets with you so I doubt that), I don’t think I’ll like him less. Even Cal, so far, is inoffensive and works as a bouncing board for me. BD-1 immediately steals the show and again, despite Shamus’ words I was not prepared for how endearing and immediately affecting he is. In fact, it allows Cal to bounce off him and if we’re to give points, Cal gets an 8/10 in BD-1 interactions and anywhere 6 and below in any other interactions. That’s how well BD-1 works. As I put it in my notes, BD-1 gives Cal at least a 1 charisma buff, if not more. Only Cere so far is not doing anything for me (or the Jedi Master, but that’s only been two 30 second scenes so far). I can already see the writing on the wall (also knowing the details of the plot as described by Shamus’), that this is going to be a Mass Effect 2 situation where I adore (some of) the characters and potential relationships, but anything that reeks of the main plot falls flat and Cere will probably suffer as a main plot driver.
– Deflecting blaster bolts.
– Having stim packs as estus flasks (heals) and have them be provided by BD-1 is a great touch and kudos for recognizing a chance to marry narrative (elements) and gameplay.
– Pacing. This mostly goes for the first planet (as I have way more to nag about the follow-up). I think they hit the right beats between introducing the characters, tension and gameplay. You’re not sitting around too long before you can control the action and the game does not yank control from you too often. While I am not at all happy of the ratio of the differing types of gameplay, the pacing between watching your screen and actually playing was satisfying and the developers resisted turning this into a passive rollercoaster
Combat
– I have multiple comments on the combat and these go in both directions, so after dubbing I figured I’d break format and put it in between. I went in hoping for a decent Sekiro clone. I mostly got this and I definitely give some extra mental kudos considering this is the developer’s first attempt. What I’ve played of the combat felt alright, I’ve not really found anything broken with it so far. When I say combat, I’m referring to the swordplay as I only lightly mixed in some force powers and you don’t start with much anyway. The basics are there, parrying blaster bolts which deflects them is so much fun I’ll mention it again. You also feel proper powerful wacking mooks. The second planet showcases more of the flaws unfortunately. Much like Sekiro, beast type mobs are way less interesting fight. Also, while serviceable, the animations are definitely not From Soft level. Again, not something I reasonably expected and I don’t hold it against the game, but anything associated with timing and where things will hit definitely suffers. Also, the parry timing is quite early to my taste, I feel Mr. Former Jedi should be able to react quick and last minute. This is probably a lot of Sekiro experience speaking though, I do notice I’m adapting to it, but really only by consciously telling myself to go early. There’s a good chance that by the time I’m done with this game I’ll be in the reverse situation, where I’ll be late to every parry if I ever go back to Sekiro. As far as I’m concerned, there is nowhere near enough mook fighting in the opening two levels, but I’ll get more into that below. Finally, although this is not strictly combat, while running on the second planet I get stuck on nothing all the time and it’s a definite annoyance although not necessarily an enormous one (yet).
The bad:
– Gameplay balance between exploration and combat. Now I will fully admit that this is informed by my gameplay preferences (see also the prelude), but for the opening levels they definitely have the ratio between exploration and combat completely backwards as far as I’m concerned. I’m sure I’ll write a lot about all the things I don’t like about the exploration, but even presuming I would like it, they have maybe a 4:1 (or even higher) ratio of exploration to combat. I would have much preferred a closer ratio, or even the other way around (as I feel the combat is definitely stronger). It’s hard to judge if this is purely my personal preference, or if the game really would have been better the other way around, but I could have done with much less of the navigational stuff. This is what one of the points I consider an Own Goal on behalf of the developers, something I will use in my summary of these impressions.
– Exploration gameplay and level design. Oh boy, we might as well get into it since this is by far my biggest gripe with this game. Every element in this game that you could say was inspired by Uncharted/Tomb Raider (and a hint of Prince of Persia), is a poorer version of what’s come before it. The exploration consists purely of what I’d dub the ‘find the one path laid out by the developer’ type of exploration. I’m not a huge fan of this in the best of circumstance and the game definitely suffers from me being thoroughly exposed to this before, but wow, it is just so dull. On top of that, I feel there is way too much of it (especially compared to the good stuff). But the most damning part of it is that the design team is just not that good at visually signifying what is interactable and what not. I appreciate this is something that’s very hard to do and if you do it right, the player won’t even notice it. But they don’t do it very well here (both in the industrial style first world as the natural style second world). And on top of that, there is just no justification for some of the things you can and cannot do with regards to how far your jump reaches, what you can hang onto and which surfaces you can wall run on. I feel I could rant on the wall run horseshit itself for hours, but lets keep it at I am not happy with the choices they made here. All of this is compounded by our character being a Jedi and this coming with certain (fair or not) expectations of superhuman athletic abilities. Again, it’s an Own Goal unnecessarily focusing so much on this gameplay aspect and then if you do, not adapting your level design to it, or at least not enough. Lets just say that especially Bogano (the vault level) never once felt like a place and only ever felt like a not very good videogame level. Unfortunate.
– Unskippable tutorial segments. They’re mercifully short for the most part but it’s still an eternal faux-pas as far as I’m concerned. At least the ones involving a flashback are tolerable as they inform the characterisation to an extent.
– Uncharted esque ‘tense’ sequences. I didn’t feel this is necessarily part of the exploration so I mention it here. Anytime you’re sliding, running from explosions etc, there’s 0 tension. I suspect I may have just seen too much of this never amounting to anything (looking at you Tomb Raider). I don’t think Fallen Order does it any worse, it’s just so played out. In one of the sliding sequences on Junkyard planet I let go of the controller and it changed nothing. Oh well.
– Some loose observations: derpy faces. Shamus went into it more, but yes, the expressions are quite silly in this game, especially when there is not enough motion to kind of hide it. A part of this is the eyes, which just don’t look natural on any character and are quite distracting, most so on Cal and Cere. Terrible lip sync. Lip sync is hard and this game is not good at it. Unfortunately it’s compounded by a lot of shots really lingering on the faces and mouth areas. Again, I consider this an Own Goal, if this stuff is not on point, adjust and frame your scenes around it.
In summary: so summing up, I definitely had a mixed experience with the opening. I must admit up front that I definitely want to play more, it did show enough potential for me to want to try more. At the same time, if the experience does not improve I don’t think I’ll make it to the end. I would like better environments and more focus on combat. I still have to do my first proper boss fight so we’ll see what that does to my overall experience. Outside of this playthrough, I’m kind of mixed. It’s an admirable first attempt and despite feeling that everything they do has been done better elsewhere, I also want to be kind considering this is the first time they tried to develop like this. I could complain about all the things that I don’t like about the game plays and feels, but I could also say they have a solid basis here to refine what’s there and really knock it out of the park. Kind of like Assassin’s Creed 2 or if you like the opposite example, the Force Unleashed 2. Outside of the thematic appropriate comparison, the Force Unleashed is to me this franchise where I can’t help but have a soft spot for the janky original and the promise it held. And then the sequel just completely shat the bed. With a too short, ill produced and narratively uninteresting sequel, even for the short while it lasted. Not that the story side of the first one was that great, of course. So ultimately this is my initial impression, the final opinions will be determined by the end of my playthrough, finished or not. And a potential sequel.
*I was considering getting the ultimate tier of Game pass which comes with EA Play as my regular Game Pass had lapsed again a while back. While pondering the 15/month price point and figuring I’d do this later, I booted up Steam and saw I could get EA Play by itself for 90 cents, so I signed up and immediately unsubscribed and will have 30 days to play Fallen Order at a very acceptable price point. Not sure which areas this promotion is active in, but just in case someone wants to know.
Just wanted to say that I love the thought and consideration you put into this comment. I’m not a fan of this genre, or really of Star Wars either, but I was able to see Shamus’ series in a different light based on how you related your experience. Thanks!
Thanks Paul!
Focus testing has no place in the creation of art, you say? Nonsense!
I always thought the Vader cameo would have worked better if you reworked Cal’s backstory to have him and his master be in the jedi temple during Anakin’s assault.
Not a bad idea. Not the original temple scene, because that’s when Hayden Christensen murders a load of children…
…but in a similar-but-unrelated raid from Cal’s backstory, after Vader has gained his iconic armor?
The same chase mechanic, but with Cal as a young apprentice would work pretty well and provide a good contrast to Cal the trained Jedi, who eats stormtroopers for breakfast.
I say that scene in particular because:
A) It has more significance to the audience than just a random location
B) Think it would work well for it to be Anakin rather than Vader, a highly respected jedi, that Cal witnesses cutting his fellow jedi down. Could add more weight to his paranoia over Cere’s ‘betrayal’ of her padawan and Master Hobo’s pitch to make a new, darker order.
C) It’d be interesting to see such a moment from the side Anakin slaughters.
Chase mechanic would be similar, but probably with a lot more of Cal being just short of being able to actually escape (tries and fails to climb, falls short of jumps, can’t land without stumbling over, ect.) and only stays ahead because other jedi get in the way, ending with Cal’s master stepping in. Which is then parallel with Cere, Cal’s new master figure, getting tossed aside by Vader. Hell, maybe go even further and have Cal’s master briefly be tempted to the dark side to fight Anakin, but rejects it for the sake of his student which then has Cal repeating that lessons to Cere when Vader is trying to tempt her.
I don’t know, maybe if they had Trilla sacrifice herself to let Cere escape it would have been a bit better. Meh, I have nothing but apathy for OT cameos at this point. Ever since Rogue One, which I despise for being nothing but fanservice, I’ve been sick to death of the OT being exploited for fanservice. I felt nothing when Luke showed up in The Mandalorian, despite people being all over it. I do admit I had a good time with Boba, but this is because they finally bothered to give him some actual badass scenes rather than merely rely on his inexplicable existent popularity.
Also, at least The Mandalorian mostly does the job of establishing these characters on its own rather than relying on their fame. A few of the characters that showed up in the series were already known, but I have never heard of them before (due to not watching the media they originated on), and I had no problem following them. In contrast, if I only had a passing knowledge of any Star Wars movie, I would have been confused by Vader’s cameo here (and by Luke’s cameo in TM). Like “I know this guy is some kind of honcho in these movies, but what’s his deal?” Cameos are fun and all, but your entire climax’s drama cannot rely on them.
Unless you’re Rogue One, I guess, in which it doesn’t matter how irritatingly idiotic your cameo is people are going to fucking love it anyway. Fuck, this is probably evidence that the executives at EA might actually have a point in listening to random focus groups, because it’s clear that you don’t need good writing or engaging new characters. Just stuff your stupid-ass Star Wars movie full of cameos and people are literally going to call it “the best Star Wars movie since the OT”.
Don’t forget the sentimental reddit posts unironically comparing The Mandalorian to a picture of a bunch of little kids smashing their toys togother with a title saying “This is how you know the people who made this show actually know what Star Wars is about!”
Somebody enthusiastically reported to me that Robert Rodriguez storyboarded his Mandalorian S2 episode with Star Wars action figures, obviously thinking this was really cool.
I immediately knew what my problem with S2 was.
Similar- read an article about how Rodriguez “handled the OT with the proper respect it deserved” and showed up in how it treated Boba Fett as “a legend, a true King”. … and i was “what? Boba Fett was just a cool-looking bounty hunter. He wasn’t some Cosmic Conan!”
I disliked that episode (6, the Boba Fett episode). There was virtually no story. Most of the story had been replaced with excessive violence.
It’s interesting to see so much bile directed toward Rogue One. If for some reason people call it the “best Star Wars movie since the original trilogy”, well, just consider its competition. If for some reason I absolutely had to watch a Star Wars movie other than the original trilogy, I’d definitely pick Rogue One over the prequels, Solo, and especially the sequels. None of which is to say, of course, that Rogue One is a great or even necessarily good movie or that I think you should like it. I don’t even like it all that much myself. I just thought that if there was one Star Wars film that was deeply, stupidly, and pointlessly full of fanservice then that film was obviously Solo.
Honestly, I think I’d take Solo over Rogue One.
Solo was a hobbled horse right out the gate and the film is marred with issues. But I actually felt a pulse running underneath all the debris. At the very least, there were some actual characters and a willingness to have some fun. Comparatively, Rogue One felt insufferably boring and cold throughout its runtime. The entire last third of the film is a giant “meh” that left no impression on me. Everybody feels totally empty and I couldn’t care one bit about any of their fates.
Maybe it’s a matter of context. Solo was a film I didn’t want, but I ended up not judging it as harshly as I thought I would (still a waste). By comparison, Rogue One was a film I did want, and it was executed in the least interesting way possible. Similarly, I think the PT movies are objectively worse on their merits than the ST ones are, but the latter aggressively pisses me off in a way the former doesn’t.
My problem with Rogue 1 is Not Enough Fanservice. Or rather, disrespecting continuity. The climax should have been a desperate holdout on Polis Masa against a small Star Destroyer, with set design based on the Battlefront 2 mission.
I could tolerate Solo if it were just some Han Solo adventure rather than his unnecessary and awkwardly told origin story. When I watched Solo I felt as if the movie were continually elbowing me in the ribs and saying things like “Hey, look, that’s how Han got his last name!” or “Hey, look, it’s Han’s gun!”. I don’t care about those things. I can’t imagine why anyone would. Those things just don’t matter and it’s weird and distracting when the movie interrupts itself to pretend that they do. Also, on top of everything else, the movie is simply not very good. So, despite my love of Star Wars and my love of heist films, watching Solo was an unpleasant experience for me.
I had no expectations at all regarding Rogue One. I thought it was mostly okay. CG Peter Cushing and CG Carrie Fisher were a little weird. The Empire has the worst and stupidest file server I’ve ever seen. There are a lot of little things I’d change if it were up to me, but overall I think the movie did what it set out to do in a way that Solo definitely did not. If Rogue One had a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy entry, I think that entry would be “Mostly harmless.”
That’s funny, because that’s exactly how I felt about Rogue One. I think expectations are key for one’s enjoyment of these films.
On the other hand, being 100% objective, Solo is likely to be more newbie-friendly. At least it has characters and motivations to sift through. Anyone who’s new to Star Wars is likely to only get confused at Maul’s appearance. Meanwhile, anyone who watches Rogue One without being already a fan is not going to understand a thing.
I am not new to Star Wars and I was deeply confused about Maul’s appearance, seeing as Maul is very definitely dead. He not only got bisected horizontally by a lightsaber, he fell down a bottomless pit. There’s no way that doesn’t equal dead. I don’t care if the film never showed the body.
Honestly, being more familiar with the EU doesn’t make Maul’s survival any less surprising, it just changes what media you’re watching when it surprises you. The Clone Wars revealed he was alive, but it kind of just happened, and then it was like “yeah, he somehow survived that, got new legs grafted on and ended up on a different planet despite being a raving lunatic at the moment, now back to the plot”
It’s been a while since I watched those episodes, so there might be a bit more to it than that, but I don’t remember it ever actually making sense how he survived (in-universe, I mean. Out of universe, he survived the same way boba fett survived the sarlaac: fans thought he was cool)
Personally, I’m philosophically opposed to recreating dead actors for the screen. I don’t care if the estate gave the OK, I think it’s disrespectful.
And also, I think it anchors our culture even more in the past, rather than moving on and creating new things. You want Tarkin? Hire a new actor.
And then there’s me, who only discovered several years after watching it that Peter Cushing had passed away years before the filming, and who didn’t even notice he was CGI. I’m starting to wonder if I have some sort of congenital ‘CGI blindness’ or something.
I get that feeling all the time. I see everyone complaining about how bad the CGI for Luke was in the Mandalorian and I’m utterly confused.
I felt like Solo really undermined Han’s character. From his character in the original trilogy I get the impression that this guy’s been around the galaxy a couple times, had a lot of misadventure, etc. He’s older, weathered, and has a lot of experience.
Turns out that almost everything we’d ever heard about him before took place over the course of one few-day plot. He got his name, got his ship, met Chewbacca, made the Kessel run… everything. They strip-mined every line of dialogue OT Han ever said and crammed every reference into like an hour and a half of movie.
They strip-mined every line of dialogue OT Han ever said and crammed every reference in
Strip-mining the Original Trilogy. That’s a fantastic way of putting it. I’ll have to remember it.
It captures my views on modern Star Wars perfectly: prepetually rehashing and reliving the past of the franchise without making almost nothing new…to the point of kind of making the OT worse (or at least, making me like it less).
Vader is there simply because this is his thing during this time period, hunting Jedi. It would be weird if he weren’t in the game somewhere since the inquisitors are supposed to be working for him. I highly doubt that it’s any kind of executive decision, just a “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if…” Everything I’ve heard suggests that it was the highlight of the game for most people.
The game already relies on existing fan knowledge from the very beginning when it shows you the ships from the Clone Wars and expects you to know what those are to get the significance of them being scrapped. It gives some explanations but it’s not necessarily a game for someone brand new to the setting.
How about the Ewok movies?
I didn’t went to Rogue One with any expectations (especially I was disappointed with how TFA was mostly a boring retread of the OT). But unlike some of the cameos from TFA, I didn’t had any issues with those of Rogue One, especially as I didn’t felt it was filled with them, but was otherwise an alright action/adventure movie, with some varied locals, some villainous vilains and some characters lower on the hero-antihero axis than those of the OT. And if you only compare by number of cameos, TFA had way more of them, way more obvious.
I think I would like Rogue One a bit more if The Force Awakens didn’t exist, the former was essentially a celebration movie of A New Hope and I would have been more forgiving of all the callbacks and cameos when I first watched it had The Force Awakens not come out previously with it’s own share of memberberries.
And to continues on the subject of fanservice (aka adding elements from the rest of the franchise just to make fans happy), I find it how it was done in the second season of the Mandalorian worst than how it was done in Rogue One, mostly because I felt there was too much of it; in addition, using Important Characters (TM) made sure they were never really at risk of dying, which drained a lot of the tension of those firefights, since I never felt that the characters were in danger or that the stormtroopers posed any threat.
While I wasn’t a big fan of Rogue One, I will say that the nature of work is such that the cameos aren’t as much of an issue and were done relatively well. The whole point of that is to be an explicit prequel to ANH, setting up things like the Death Star and the mission that got the plans that Leia has in the beginning, as well as that chase. They also decided to show the battle referenced in the opening crawl. Given that, we were going to have to have links to the OT characters, and I think they’re done relatively well. Yes, that makes it less accessible to new viewers, but new viewers really aren’t the audience for that movie.
And again some people liked the fanservice, but what most people like about Rogue One from what I’ve heard is its different tone and showing a different side of the universe. Accusing the people who like it for liking it only for the fanservice is making the same mistake that EA does, assuming that because people talk about how they liked some of the fanservice moments that must be what they want and what they like about the work. If they think the work is terrible, dropping Darth Vader in is not likely to make them any better disposed towards it.
I didn’t mind the ending sequence in the moment, but I agree it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story and robs us of a proper ending.
This might be fixable, along with the “no one is really at fault” problem, by making Vader responsible for Trilla’s conversion by torture – perhaps without revealing his identity until this scene. That way, this fight is our heroes’ confrontation with the source of all the trouble, and their escape (and Cere’s final refusal to turn to the Dark Side) is our victory/redemption. It still feels a bit forced, but if you must put Vader in the story, it would be better to actually put him in the story. And in-universe, I suppose, it could make sense that Vader would be involved with a project like this (he had to be doing something all this time).
The problem, then, is that this game is now about Darth Vader. We’ve already had six movies about Darth Vader (more if you count Kylo Ren’s cult worship of Vader, but I never count the sequels). An actual solution would be to make up a new villain to be the torturer, and use them in the role instead.- but of course, the robot overlords at EA wouldn’t allow that.
The creepy black ball droid with the needle in A New Hope- its purpose was never directly stated (probably in some EU of course), but the scene left a lasting impression. And as I recall, Vader was saying something along lines of “ways of making you talk.” Maybe it’s just supposed to be magic truth potion, but it’s said menacingly enough it sure sounded like torture, and ever after I would be like “why the hell is that in there?” and “Wow, so she just gets up and takes charge after that?”
So, having all the magical conversion torture done by faceless droids, would actually be a reference. And having it turn out that Vader was the one in charge of them, could also be a reference.
If you actually bothered to say so and make it a reference. Considering I’ve got this far down the commends and I’ve seen no mentions, I’m guessing the link was not strong enough for other people to intuit it, so if the plan was for people to realize Vader was sending torture droids to break Jedi, seems it didn’t work.
I’ve seen that sort of thing on a number of occasions in multiple works: toss something in that looks like it could be a reference or could be a plot or character point, but then don’t follow through with it to make it clear that the link or interpretation is what the writer is trying to do. Yes, you don’t always need to spell things out for the audience, but if you don’t make the reference clear then it comes down to trusting the writer that they were smart enough to intentionally try for that, which is difficult to do for a lot of writers. And it also means that people not as familiar with the references might miss it entirely.
I wonder- if we want to give maximum imaginary credit, we could even posit that the explanation was given explicitly, but then cut, because the Focus Groups didn’t like Darth Vader being so callously evil, having never picked up on or pushed out of their minds the scene from the original where he seems to have tortured someone.
Reminds me of when I saw reviews for MMOs like Star Wars Galaxies or Lord of the Rings Online that mentioned stuff like “You get to meet people like Darth Vader/Gandalf!” as a selling point. My thought response was always “….and? Of course you can meet them, it’s a story set in the universe where they’re at. But what other interesting and NEW stories can you experience in this world that’s been established?”
You know, with all the torture stuff. I wonder why palpatine didnt just zap luke until he submitted. Instead of goading him into fighting vader. Someone should make a mock sith cookbook “now force lightning the jedi for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on its size. This creates an ideal sith apprentice, crisp on the outside, but still pink on the inside”.
Don’t forget to add salt. All good Sith are at least a little salty…
“If you’re not careful, your Sith Souffle will have another fall before it can properly Rise.”
It’d be nice if somebody’s teacher in Star Wars didn’t fail them, for once.
I imagine most PhD vivas end in at least three people commuting Seppuku.
Because of this failure, the child in question becomes a feared Sith Lord and the teacher runs away to become a hermit for 20 years.
Eventually, the teacher is recruited (reluctantly) by the Rebellion to hunt down a rare macguffin. It’s the only way to destroy the Empire’s new super-weapon the BLACK HOLE CATAPAULT.
It all ends in a confrontation/lightsaber fight in control room of the Catapault, with the teacher finally confessing to their failure. Darth Glueface realises that actually, the glue on their face dried years ago, and it’s actually their hatred that has kept his hands in place all these decades.
Both of them start arguing about who gets to sacrifice themselves to destroy the Catapault.
Unfortunately that version of “The Farce Awakens” was scrapped. Unfortunately they already shooted some scenes. The actor for Darth Glueface was of the fanatic variety and had his hands actually glued to his face to emerge himself in his character. When the cancellation news came he pulled his hands from his face in despair. And that is the true origin of Snoke.
I’d watch any Star Wars-story that featured a superweapon called The Black Hole Catapult, that thing sounds rad as hell.
Reminds me of a concept I came up with once for a black hole cannon, which relies on the properties of Hawking radiation to fire black holes of low enough mass (I think it worked out to be in the range of a few to tens of tons) that the accelerating evaporation due to Hawking radiation would cause them to evaporate back into a powerful flash of high-energy radiation after a configurable time. Basically, a precisely-timed (by varying the initial mass) timebomb.
I’m wondering if this might have been more of a Lucasfilm/Disney thing than EA, especially as it’s come out that Vince Zampella, head of Respawn, has had a spot on EA’s board that has allowed him to protect the studio from the publisher’s typical bullcrap. Hence why none of their games were forced to move to Frostbyte, for example.
This is also assuming this was a decision made by an executive or meddler. You can find plenty of praise for this “well-kept secret” (I, too, saw that trailer on television after I had beaten the game, and my jaw dropped at how blatant it was. Of course, Terminator 2 and Salvation were both filmed with the intent to misdirect the viewer, and both trailers completely spoiled it (with the former perhaps needing to if you want to show off the special effects of the new Terminator model, and the latter because marketing was counting on the recognition of John Connor rather than the actual protagonist). When it comes to Star Wars, I’m never certain what’s the decision of an executive and the decision of an overzealous fan that can’t let go of the past.
Oddly enough, my feelings towards how the scene should have gone was for no closure between Trilla and Cere. Both Cere and Trilla have been defined by their traumatic past, but Cere chooses to go beyond it. I felt like the most appropriate ending – especially since Lucasfilm probably wanted Trilla gone as she won’t be “a canonical character after this” or some such – would be that Trilla refuses to let go of her past. Whereas Cere was scared of using the Force due to turning to the dark side just once, Trilla has come to wallow in it. Seeing Cere choose to change, to confront her mistakes and move on, would enrage Trilla, who refuses to do so. You can still have your exciting escape, but it’s Trilla losing control, letting the force powers go crazy, until she finally falls victim to the facility crumbling around her due to her own rage. A representation of how self-destructive her behavior and choice could be.
This could also fit in with Cal’s future decision to let go of the Jedi Order’s old way of doing things. About choosing who we are rather than being relegated to a predetermined path. That would have felt far more satisfying.
But on another forum I frequent, the most common response to this assertion was “that wouldn’t be bad, but I loved seeing Darth Vader being awesome, so I liked this better”. Which just further proves that I’m not really a Star Wars brand fan, just a fan of a small fraction of its individual stories.
it was the same thing with Genisys, with the trailers spoiling a major surprise, though I’m not sure it was filmed with the intent to misdirect the viewer
I have nothing to add to what others have already said, except this sounds dumb dumb dumb, dum da-dumb, dumb da-dumb.
Also related: having not played this game, this sequence like it might be a big offender in Failure is Forbidden Until It Is Mandatory…I’m assuming if Vader catches you, Cal dies?
But then he does catch you, meaning Cere has to sacrifice herself to save the day?
Here’s the scene with Vader. It’s not a bad scene, just a bad story choice.
You’ll want to stop around four and a half minutes in if you don’t want to spoil the next entry or two in Shamus’s series.
Excellent rant on Vader’s cameo, sir. Bravo.
I eagerly await your eventual write-up of Mandalorion S2 if this a preview of what’s to come.
He’s making a write-up of The Mandalorian season two? That would be interesting, I don’t remember Shamus ever doing a retrospective series on a TV show.
I’m planting the seed in his brain. He’s not even aware of my manipulations, but he will dance for me nonetheless!
I’ve got two things I want to say, so I’ll start with the least controversial first:
1. Regarding Darth Vader showing up. I am often reminded of an interview made with one of the managers of White Wolf who talked about how hard it was to find good freelance writers for Vampire: The Masquerade. All the writers that applied to do VtM work were VtM fans and they kept saying things like “I can’t wait to have Hardestadt do X” (Hardestadt being one of the major NPCs of the setting) instead of saying “I can’t wait to have the players do X”. These writers were so smitten with the product they got to work on that they totally forgot that they were supposed to make campaigns and inspirations for other people to use and play. Instead they wrote what was essentially their own fan fic and tried to pass that off as supplemental material. The inclusion of Darth Vader here can very much be interpreted as the same, some writer at Respawn suddenly got to do a Star Wars game and could freely use the entire IP. Of course they want to include some cool canon character and Darth Vader is obviously the perfect fit as a cameo to remind the player just how outmatched Cal is. Thematically it kind of works as a reminder that even if Cal can defeat the Numbered Sisters, he can never take on the full might of the Empire, embodied by Vader.
2. EA did nothing wrong! Well, they did but perhaps not when it came to Ragtag. I’ve been listening to the Paradox Podcast, made by two senior managers (business and acquisitions and marketing I believe) from Paradox Interactive. They’ve repeatedly talked about what it takes to make a game, notable acquisition cost and to some degree the sunken cost fallacy. Acquisition cost, essentially that if you do Game X you can’t do Game Y and Z because you’ve committed your financial and human resources to X, is apparently a huge factor in the game industry. A publisher like EA can have to choose between dozens of projects that all have great presentations and concepts. So how does a publisher know what kind of game can be expected to sell? Market research, lots and lots of market research. For those of us in the niche it might sound stupid, but if you’re plowing a hundred million dollars into an AAA game you really want to ensure you get return on investment. Hence Ragtag might sound really cool for the hardcore Star Wars fans, but the market might want more Jedi stuff, especially those that aren’t hardcore SW fans. And if they commit to a game about scoundrels heisting on the Outer Rim, that’s a lot of resources they can’t put towards another game, one that might be a better fit for the AAA market.
Secondly, from all that’s been written about Visceral and Ragtag it seems kind of obvious that Visceral did not manage that development well. Henig is a legend but it is also apparent that she, for whatever reason, did not manage to bring Ragtag along. If all you’ve got after two years of active development is 30 seconds of cutscene without any action or gameplay you’ve got a major problem. EA probably took a long hard look at the expensive recruitment of Amy Henig, the expenses so far in keeping Visceral working on Ragtag and balanced that against what Visceral claimed to be needing to bring Ragtag out the door and decided that it wasn’t worth the cost and risk to invest more in a floundering project that was getting nowhere. It sucks for all of us who wanted to see Ragtag succeed, but you can’t really blame EA for eventually canning Visceral when it wasn’t delivering on cost or time.
“essentially their own fan fic”
Maybe they weren’t being fan-fic enough.
One of the worst traits of fan fic is Mary Sues, when the writer throws a new character into an established setting and makes everything about the new character, while the characters everyone actually likes do little of consequence except for talking to and about the protagonist.
Readers hate that in fiction, but this is pretty much what people seem to want from a videogame where you can create your own character.
Mary Sues suxk to read, but are fun to write because they’re power fantasies.
Ironically, in my reading of fan fic, I’ve seen very few Mary Sues. Now, sure, this is because I’ve followed a chain of recommendations down from quality to quality, but-
I’ve also seen barely any original characters. So the few fics where there are some, I’m kinda fine with them being overpowered if they want (usually they are, but the challenges and/or rest of the cast get powered up to match). Reading half a dozen variations on fannon ideas for expanding this or that character, or versions that completely differ from that, eventually you just wonder why they didn’t make their original character original.
Hell, the most marty-stu-ish of the bunch was Milo from Harry Potter and the Natural 20- and that’s because the entire concept of the thing (a char-op’d DnD 3.5 character with genre-savviness lands in the potterverse, functioning under his own mechanics rather than theirs). (It’s also been abandoned and unfinished for many years).
But wouldn’t it have been better if his eventual appearance was foreshadowed through the whole story? Or are you saying they had to add Vader at the last minute, and didn’t have time to re-do voice lines and stuff?
Going to say no, it wouldn’t. Once Vader’s in the story, all the other villains become secondary. Like in the second Hobbit movie where they spent a bunch of time building up the Battle of the Five Armies, and now Smaug is just in the way of that.
I can see it working with a trivial namedrop earlier in the story. Second Sister catches the heroes, and shouts victoriously to a henchman, “tell Lord Vader, we’ve got them.” Something that just sounds like a fluffy namedrop at the time.
It’s sad that Darth Vader has become the Bowser of Star Wars.
This is literally the first time I’ve encountered anyone who didn’t think Vader’s appearance here was the best part of the game – I seriously did not expect there *was* anyone who disliked it. It’s an absolutely fantastic portrayal of him, it makes total sense that he’s here, and the scene is incredible and makes you fear for everyone’s lives. Everyone I’ve talked to and watched play the game and read articles from has said it’s the best part of the game, this entry really caught me off guard XD
But why does it make “total sense” Vader is here? Shamus is focused on the story, but it sounds like the game has never once mentioned or foreshadowed Vader at all. He’s not part of the game, relying entirely on outside knowledge- I even thought of a reason he could be the actual intended big bad above, but it’s not actually part of the game.
Since you’ve come from a group where everyone thinks it works, you seem the best to explain why.
Does every story (especially a video game story) have to follow cookie cutter, Screenwriting 101 rules like that? Sometimes it’s fun just to have something pop up out of nowhere.
I once watched a B-move horror film with some friends, Feast 3. It was a stupid B-movie, but it still executed its stuff reasonably well, and I had fun. Right up until the end when out of nowhere the last survivors are crushed by a giant robot leg, which had nothing to do with anything, and roll credits. Because lol.
No, it’s not fun to just have shit pop up out of nowhere. Lol random newgrounds “humor” has no place in anything with an actual budget. It shows no respect for itself, or the audience for wasting their time with it. It is an admission that the “writer” cares more about the tiny bit of momentary attention gained from “suddenly, Darth Vader/giant robot foot/or something!” than what they were supposed to be doing.
I can accept alternate reasoning for why sudden Darth Vader is actually good here. I can even accept that to some people, a Star Wars game cannot be expected to stand alone and thus any sudden cameo is always justified. But “sometimes things should just pop out of nowhere” actually offends me.
I’ve somewhat made a habit of watching horror B-movies on my own blog and commenting on them, but have missed that entire series (which may be a good thing). But looking it up, it is a more comedy-horror movie, and so ridiculous things happening would be totally consistent with it, along with the rest of the plot and the character names. It would be an ultimate contrivance if the movie had set up contrivances before that. But it might not have been properly foreshadowed.
By the same token, Vader showing up in a period where he’s actively hunting Jedi isn’t that unexpected, and would be that sort of horrifying moment if you realize that, yes, he’s here and pretty much unstoppable. Again, they might have needed to tie the earlier comments about the Empire tracking down Jedi — that’s why Cal has to find that holocron, after all — directly to Vader, or state it when he appears (either with Vader talking about how he’s finally managed to track them down or with them commenting that the REAL enforcer is here). But I can’t really say either because, again, I haven’t experienced it.
For “pop out of nowhere” moments to work, I think the moments need to be set up in SOME way, either through the nature of the work or subtle hints. But ideally you wouldn’t really notice that set up until AFTER you’ve finished the scene.
Definitely comedy-horror, and plenty of ridiculous things happened- but with consistency. The motorcycle powered catapult is made from a motorcycle from earlier, and it failing miserably is completely expected, for example. The character who’s been dumb-luck randomly surviving things/leaving people to die finally being killed by a dumb-luck random piece of shrapnel, again, fully appropriate. But unless it was on some tiny poster in the background somewhere, no mention of giant bipedal Wild Wild West style robots wandering around. Literally, they make a final escape through the sewers, losing one or two last characters along the way in (consistently) ridiculous fashion. And right after surfacing through the manhole or a cave and rejoicing, splat. The timing and disconnect makes it clearly intentional. That’s why it pissed me off (and helped crystallize the awareness of my hatred for lol-random). Hell, it could have a been a *truck*, and that would have been self-consistent: idiots finally escape but stand in the highway and get run over, sure! But it’s 5 fps robot because someone thought it was funny and no one cared enough to tell them no.
The only situation I find that sort of thing acceptable is intentional sabotage- like when you hear rumors that due to liscencing bs, the writers intentionally killed off everyone in the dumbest way possible (but there’s no mention of such on the wiki page for this one).
Yeah–I wasn’t a fan of this for the same reason I wasn’t a fan of either “hallway” scene in Rogue One or Mandalorian. It just seems like unnecessary fanservice to me. Like sure, I guess, have the character show up–it makes sense for both Vader and Luke to be there. But do we need an extended scene of them being “badass” instead of just telling the dang story? I know its heresy not to like those scenes, but man I don’t.
That was the most annoying thing about the Mandalorian cameos for me. Outside of Bo Katan, the episodes don’t really use the characters they’re cameo-ing. Luke shows up, has an awkward fight scene against special mooks and then asks for the Emotional Yoda Prop. No one recognises him, he doesn’t ask about what the fuck he just walked into, he doesn’t have any actual character moment that you couldn’t have done if he were some new nameless jedi. It’s a moment that soley relies on “Dats Luke Skywalker!”
You put that so much better and succinctly than I did. Thank you.
Vader is there simply because this is his thing during this time period, hunting Jedi. It would be weird if he weren’t in the game somewhere since the inquisitors are supposed to be working for him. I highly doubt that it’s any kind of executive decision, just a “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if…” Everything I’ve heard suggests that it was the highlight of the game for most people.
The game already relies on existing fan knowledge from the very beginning when it shows you the ships from the Clone Wars and expects you to know what those are to get the significance of them being scrapped. It gives some explanations but it’s not necessarily a game for someone brand new to the setting.
Don’t most Star Wars games have a weird cameo though? It seems like the price of doing business in the space and it’s been this way for awhile.
You fight Boba Fett in Dark Forces, Vader is your wingman at one point in TIE Fighter, you do the trench run in X-Wing. KotOR is the only game I can think of where there aren’t any explicit cameos but that’s more likely due to the time period it’s set in. The Jedi Council is on Dantooine and it’s led by a member of Yoda’s race and you go to Kashyyyk with your Wookie friend, so it’s got plenty of fan service to tide you over.
I’m all for shitting on EA, but even back in the LucasArts days the games had these inexplicable cameos of the characters everyone loves for the ads and box art. I forget why Boba Fett is waiting for you at your ship in one Dark Forces level, but he is and you fight him and then you go back to hunting Dark Troopers and never mention that encounter again.
I think there is a direct correlation between the length/intensity of your rants and my dopamine hit. This was glorious to read :p
I had seen Darth Vader in a trailer, completely forgot about it and was genuinely surprised when he appeared. While there certainly could have been a better ending, at the time I was so wowed by just how well they nailed the sheer amount of power and terror radiated by Vader, that I did not mind at all.
P.S.: I want a sequel where you play as Merrin and get to explore her generally neglected aspects of the force/magick/whatever in Star Wars.
I’m Commander Shepard and this is my favorite post on the Citadel.
Vader showing up out of nowhere was incredibly lame but I will concede that I appreciated how he shows up and just wrecks everyone. Like we’re not even pretending that the player character or his friends will be able to hold their own against a character that is supposed to be so powerful, it’s just a matter of trying to escape.
I enjoyed the Vader sequence, for no other reason than because the scene it interrupts is built on such a terrible foundation that I had zero investment in it, and as you mention at the end of the article the Vader sequence is a Vader fight done least-wrong.
Although, I do kinda wonder if maybe the Vader sequence isn’t necessarily solely a result of executive meddling, but maybe also result of The Writer realizing that the whole Trilla thread was all kinds of not-right and not-fixable–maybe due to cuts and/or other compromises–so they shoved Vader in there to try to keep anyone from examining it too closely. Like, what you’re supposed to do is go “Wait, Trilla’s whole conflict makes no sense so what’s even the point of this sc- OMG VADER!” That’s actually what happened to me–I was mid-eye-roll when the Sith Lord slammed into the scene.
“Asking them what to make is nonsensical. If those random people had any skill at narrative or character design, they wouldn’t be working in a fucking focus group.”
A thousand times this. Focus groups are for things like “is this CGI too uncanny-valleyesque?” or “is this surprise actually surprising?” or “is our hidden door too hidden for ANYONE to find it?” or “Can you see the levers with the lighting this way?” or “is the sad moment actually sad?”
They’re really only good for observing how they react. Asking most people what they want is an exercise in futility–most can’t even begin to articulate what they want. The small slice of the population that is actually able to articulate their desires still often aren’t able to articulate WHY they prefer it this way or that way, and of those who can pull off that feat, the WHY is often specious and barely accurate. This is why commentators are valuable (and make money), because they articulate this stuff so that people can agree or disagree or think about the contents of their own mind within a framework of some sort. Many people can’t quite get there on their own but CAN with a little help.
Running a focus group on the premise that you’re hoping to pick up a rogue genius who can provide you with the deep philosophical-level commentary you need to make a product is absurd. You HAVE to do that stuff on your own. That is literally your job as a creator/producer of some kind. You may be wrong, you may not be a genius on your own, but you HAVE to do your own work if you want to have ANYTHING of value to offer people.
It’s not about hunting for “a rogue genius”, it’s the corporate executives assuming that getting the “mass appeal” means asking the masses what they want. Which is a bad idea for all the reasons you outlined.
I’m so sorry.
I hate how the culture of the “badass” has made vader into this indestructible force of nature when the OT made a lot of effort to show how vulnerable and broken he was. Like, cal is ridiculously strong, taking on tons of stormtroopers, killer robots, at st’s etc. all on his own but I’m supposed to believe he is POWERLESS before this child killing cripple? He’s holding back sea pressure, throwing tons of metal, holding up giant door, completely effortlessly beat cal while holding up the giant metal, its absurd. Could you imagine old man kenobi from a new hope having to let this guy win, or luke actually winning against him with his relatively grounded level of strength in ROJ? Wheres the room for themes of relying on technology and state power when the main villain is a one man army who can solo anything.
Power creep in long-running franchises is an old problem*. Everyone’s got to top the guy before him, make it bigger and better and more badass. It gets silly very, very quickly.
Still if it had to be anyone, I’m glad it IS Darth Vader performing this nonsense. As much as I sigh in dissapointment at him being crowbarred into eveything as this unstoppable force, I’ll take a dozen Vader cameos over someone’s Original Character** like Starkiller.
*(As a fan of Warhammer 40,000 since early 3rd edition, I have watched the creation of Grey Knights, Matt Ward’s Ultramarines and Primaris Space Marines with ever-growing despair…)
**(Do Not Steal)
I’m 100% stealing “Darth Torture Face” for my SWRPG game.
Re: Focus Groups
We (over)used focus groups at my previous job. While they tended to start out right, by at least asking both casual and pro users of our and other manufacturers’ gear the questions, the questions weren’t usability questions – they were design questions. I.e., not ‘is this interface intuitive’, but ‘what do you want on this interface’. The predictable result was an endless shopping list of all the features they’d ever found useful on anyone’s products, such that we were ALWAYS tasked with ‘make a product that has all of the competitor’s features (only – nothing new), and is easier to use and cheaper’. Which turns out to be impossible, if your competitors are at all competent. And also boring.
This with a full (sometimes) creative and engineering staff on the payroll. Thanks, management!
I think Vader made sense here, the Inquisitors was sent here by Vader. Once Cal defeated one of them and eluded Trilla several times it’s not surprising Vader took notice. Vader wanted that list of children either to hunt down and kill, or train them to be Inquisitors or maybe for the Emperor.
That he shows up as a unstoppable force of nature also makes sense (considering the movies/future time line). This is more or less Vader in his prime.
I’m also suspicious as to whether Trilla is dead or not.
I’m also gonna guess that Vader (not directly) will be chasing Cal and the ship/crew in the sequel, sending the inquisitors and/or bounty hunters after them. Question is if Cal will cross paths with Star Wars Rebels characters (where a certain character ran into Vader and the Inquisitors).
If all this ties nicely into the “Mandoverse” that would be awesome.
While Trilla felt like a boss character, she did not seem that powerful vs Cal. I kinda liked the wakeup call that there is always someone far more powerful around the corner, that Cal has been “noticed”.
I always was totally floored by the voice performance, and equally the animators, when Trilla says “I’ve carried so much hate for you!” we can see the shiver going down her spine before she/we even hear Vader’s drop down from wherever, and by the time she notices she’s already held in place unable to move. The scary part of the Emperor and Vader and the dark side is the unseen, how the dark side like tendrils digs into your soul and corrupts it.
And to me Trilla relayed those feelings perfectly, if there is a NPC reward Trilla deserves it for that point of the scene for sure.
I also liked how Cere says “it’s him”, no name, stating it as if we and Cal should know who “him” is. I have no idea how notorious Vader is in the timeline at that particular point, but I’m going to guess, very.
When Cere got yeeted I thought it was a tad too easy, and that Vader did a mistake by not checking if she was really dead or not. But it’s possible he knew she survived and got away, but he used the opportunity to let Cal dispair thinking she’s dead. But it’s also not unlike Vader to get tunnel vision and just focus on one goal, so who knows.
I also think that this combined with that particular scene in Star Wars Rogue One really shows how powerful and dangerous Vader was, it always felt like the movie kinda “hid” what the character was capable of, but I guess budget and technology was the limiting factor there.