Disney acquires LucasFilm, new Star Wars Films Starting in 2015.

I may not write as often as I used to, but considering my interests and areas of expertise, now and again a story comes up that absolutely cannot be allowed to pass without comment. This is one such story. The media giant The Walt Disney Company has been snapping up or producing geek-friendly properties for a while, with a recent buyout of Marvel Comics, their publishing of the Percy Jackson teen olympian series through Hyperion and a general increase in science fiction and fantasy on network programming (They own half of A&E and all of ABC Television.) Today, they dropped a bomb on geekdom. They bought out LucasFilm and ILM for just over $4 Billion USD and are getting straight to work on cranking out new Star Wars movies.

"I've got a bad feeling about this" jokes will be EVERYWHERE in a day or two.

Reactions have been immediate and scattered. We're not prepared for this. The automatic knee-jerk reaction to a huge media conglomerate buying a beloved property and making something new out of it is supposed to be fear and disgust, but this is Star Wars. More importantly, this is Star Wars without George Lucas at the helm, which is something geeks have been praying for in the "never gonna happen but wouldn't it be nice if..." category.  Every geek is going to have to face something that we may secretly dread. We're going to have to judge new Star Wars films based on their own merits, and confront the possibility that we might not just be able to blame George Lucas if the franchise moves on past being something we can enjoy, and we just plain... hate the new stuff, trapped in our dreamy memories of the originals. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Lucas will be kept on as creative consultant, but the new films will have LucasFilms' Kathleen Kennedy (I'm calling it now, this is a name that in a few years will be thoroughly idolized or vilified, spat like a curse in geek circles) at the helm. They are in active development for a new trilogy, with Episode VII to release in 2015, and beyond that, Disney plans to continue making a new Star Wars movie every 2-3 years until people stop paying to see them.  They know there is money to be made whether the hardcore Star Wars fans approve or not, and so long as that is true, there will always be a new Star Wars. Maybe, just maybe... that's a GOOD thing.

Hey, even if it turns out bad... an Evil Empire ruining the franchise is TOTALLY Star Wars,
so... there's that.

Hear me out. I am tentatively excited about this announcement.  Maybe the new films will be great, maybe they'll be crap. We know that without George Lucas running the show, even if they are crap, they'll be crap for different reasons, not because one guy decided that his creation wasn't bigger than him after all, and it'd be his way or not at all. Even if the new films are bad, there's an opportunity there for new Expanded Universe fiction, new video games, all sorts of properties that traditionally make the most money by being satisfying to US. Those properties are way more likely to be developed and put in the hands of someone capable of doing them right if there's a new film coming up to tie them into. No matter what they say today, geeks are going to go see every one of these films, and more science fiction is pop culture means one thing for sure...

There is gonna be sexy cosplay in 5 years of characters that don't even exist yet. Nice.

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Blog Gadgets

Star Wars: The Old Republic – News from the Sith Empire

There are few things more frustrating than struggling to find a topic engaging enough to write about with limited free time, while something you'd really like to be able to review is restricted by a Non-Disclosure Agreement. I got into the SW:TOR Beta, but couldn't really talk about it until now that the NDA is lifted. For those who always skip to the end of this sort of article to get the verdict, I'll give your mouse wheel a break - Star Wars: The Old Republic is a very good game that successfully incorporates the Bioware RPG formula into a WoW-like MMORPG. I intend to purchase it several weeks after launch, and I'll certainly play, but I won't raid in it and certainly won't be quitting World of Warcraft in favor of it. My preferred way to play this game is to turn off most of the things that remind me I'm playing with other people until I want to play with those people, and enjoy the story as a single-player experience on a massive scale. When friends are on, doing an instanced encounter with them or trading items is cool, but I don't intend to randomly group with JEDIDOOD just because I can.

I played through the starting areas for two classes, both in the Sith Empire faction. Let me start by explaining something that I thought was fairly common knowledge, but I continue to surprise people with. "Republic" doesn't automatically mean "good guy" and "Sith" doesn't automatically mean "villain." Moral and ethical choices like those found in Mass Effect and Dragon Age will touch on every character's personal story and the starting areas are very reminiscent in some ways of the Origin chapters in the first Dragon Age. I played a Bounty Hunter who gained both Light and Dark Side points as a mercenary who adheres to the terms of his contract regardless of new information, and a Sith Warrior who is lost to the Dark Side. The two starting planets are split between pairs of classes with Hutta given to the Imperial Agent and Bounty Hunter and Korriban for the Sith Inquisitor and Sith Warrior.

Combat options and gear choices are rolled out with completed quests much as they are in any MMORPG, but the quests are anything but typical. First, no quest text. Everything is fully voiced, including your character and every one-off NPC. Second, many quests immediately draw you into some sort of interesting story, and even the "kill 10 blargs and college their whatzits" quests frequently have a twist, where you may find that turning the quest in to the original quest NPC may have consequences you'd prefer to avoid. From the Sith training grounds on Korriban to the streets of Hutta torn apart by a struggle between powerful underworld bosses for control, the environments are gorgeous and logically laid out with "rest/town" areas placed naturally, without seeming like they were spaced out at particular intervals because players need a new quest hub about here. Each classes' abilities are used when trained in different situations, with status conditions like knockdown sometimes being important, or area of effect damage, or a hard, sustained "channeled" attack depending on the foes encountered.

I was surprised to find that the effect your decisions have on NPC party members is retained in the MMO, with every class having an NPC companion with their own outlook and motivations. These characters act like combat pets, and the AI is surprisingly decent on them, with them acting about how you'd hope they would in fights. Conversations have the familiar Bioware "wheel of options" and choosing one over another may affect your companion's opinion of you as well as your personal Light Side/Dark Side points and storyline. I delighted in my evil Sith Warrior's tormenting of his companion, administering painful shocks when she forgot her place or spoke out of turn. People began to react to my tendencies to adhere to a peculiar form of arrogant honor that does not preclude killing those who annoy me with weakness or trivialities. Very quickly, I got to know who my characters were as individuals, which added something to the experience that WoW will never have.

I was less impressed with the stability and capacity on the technical side of things, with login errors, extremely long queues with no way to tell how long a wait for a server was, and no way to back out of a choice poorly made tarnishing the experience. I also found a series of graphical glitches and missing art and animation in some spots that I hope get some additional polish before launch. Aside from the bugs and technical difficulties, I found that the community of players I had access to in the beta detracted most significantly from the experience. Within minutes, I'd turned off the ability to see chat channels and hid the names floating above other players' heads. I suspect that this is a game I will mostly be playing solo or in small groups of friends, trying to interact with the server at large as little as possible. I enjoy the typical MMO experience, but I like my Star Wars gaming to maintain a certain mood, and that doesn't include racism, homophobia or Chuck Norris jokes.

By the end of my last beta weekend, I'd decided to pursue the Sith Warrior class story past the starting areas and I got my first taste of a major faction city as well as the wider world at my disposal. I chose that class because I intend to actually play as a Bounty Hunter come launch, and I'd like to have the rest of that class experience when the full game is released, rather than losing all of what I'd earned after a post-beta wipe. As the feared right hand of a Dark Lord of the Sith, I got into the opening stages of Empire Politics, and I can see the consequences of decisions made earlier already getting ready to come back to haunt me. I look forward to my next upcoming beta weekend, so I can try out the small-group instances and continue my reign of terror. I wield fear as well as a lightsaber in service to the Code: Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through Victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.

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Blog Gadgets

Star Wars On Blu-Ray, Lucas at the Butcher's Block Again.

With the announcement of the Blu-Ray edition of the original Star Wars trilogy, and the latest round of George Lucas' tinkering, a lot of fans who thought they'd exhausted their contempt for the once-loved director are mad again. My instincts, and my inherent desire to play Devil's Advocate, make me look for the upside, I want to find the intellectual defense for his actions, and explain why it isn't such a big deal. After all, geeks hate Peter Molyneux, and I provided the benefit of the doubt in his case, so why not Lucas? At the risk of preaching to the choir, I just can't do it. I can't justify, explain or rationalize what Lucas has done since the prequels and the Special Edition. I cannot defend Greedo shooting first, replacing amazing puppetry with mediocre CGI or inserting Hayden Christiansen where he doesn't belong, which is anywhere on film. As years have passed, many geeks have learned that virtually everything we loved about the original trilogy is, at best, something Lucas had little to do with, and at worst, stuff he actively fought against inclusion in the films. And when he finally asserted complete creative control... Oh, boy.

I won't even type his damn name. Once we saw this character, most of
us suspected the worst about George Lucas, our worst fears confirmed at the mention of "midichlorians."

Compared to sins of the past, the newest changes are fairly minor, adding a bit of CGI so that Ewok eyes can move and blink, instead of clearly being glued to a furry suit, the unfortunate but expected replacement of a puppet-yoda with a CGI equivalent in Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and so on. However, there is one baffling change that demonstrates that Lucas is not only out of touch with, but is perhaps even openly hostile to the fans who have supported his work all these years. In Return of the Jedi, there's a critical moment at the end where Vader looks on as Emperor Palpatine tortures Luke. In silence, the wheels turn as he struggles with what to do, and when he makes his decision, he stalks over and picks up the Emperor, throwing him to his death in a moment of clarity that defines his redemption. In the Blu-Ray, when Luke is attacked, Vader will now scream “NOOOO!!!” just like in the often-mocked scene in Revenge of the Sith when Vader is first fitted with his armor. Either Lucas is ignorant of how this changes the scene, or he just doesn't care, believing that this is an improvement.

I should be numb to this sort of thing by now, incapable of being frustrated or angry and satisfied that I have my DVDs of the original theatrical cut and leave it there. You'd think that after his disrespectful comments toward fans and the backlash over the changes, Lucas could just leave well enough alone. He has shown repeatedly that he has no respect for the characterization established in the version of the films most fans prefer, or he is ignorant of how changing certain scenes fundamentally alters characters that people have loved for decades. Han waiting until Greedo fires makes him a fundamentally less interesting character, and his later growth from criminal to hero is mostly meaningless if he was pretty much a good guy to begin with. Vader screaming like a child when coming to Luke's rescue turns a determined choice to take the right action into an outburst of temper, a crime of passion, and diminishes the power of the character's redemption, which is the focal point of the entire trilogy.

Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Since the success of the first three films, Lucas has behaved like the actor who becomes “undirectable” due to commercial success and begins churning out terrible, terrible films because there is no filmmaker to rein them in (think of the worst of the Mike Myers and Jim Carrey movies.) After finishing Episode One, Lucas screened it and the test audience gave the same criticisms fans have echoed for decades since. George Lucas listened to the critiques, and ignored them, proceeding with his vision. His revisions in the Special Editions included excising the award-winning Max Rebo song “Lapti Nek,” and replacing the scene with the grossly inferior “Jedi Rocks” CGI monstrosity, adding a fuzzy big-mouthed creature to the band for cheap laughs and additional marketing. His reasoning? The original song was “dated.”

Many of the classic moments throughout The Empire Strikes Back, which I re-watch regularly to appreciate the high point in Star Wars film history, were moments Lucas tried to change or cut. I am consistently surprised that Episode V has improved over the years in my estimation, and am disappointed to learn that the creator of the Star Wars Universe fought so hard to ruin it. Harrison Ford told a crowd at a charity event a story about the scene where Leia says goodbye to Han before he is frozen in carbonite. The classic romantic scene where Leia tells Han “I love you,” and his response: “I know.” Lucas hated the scene and actively argued that Han should say “I love you too,” until Ford and director Irvin Kershner fought Lucas over it right up until a test screening proved them right. It amazes me that the original films were any good at all, considering the repeated demonstrations of poor judgment on Lucas' part.

Seriously, search for "Lapti Nek" and then "Jedi Rocks," on YouTube and compare the scenes.

It is all well and good that a chorus of geeks despise George Lucas for his tampering with one of the greatest science fiction properties of all time, but it is his movie, so what's the big deal? I think the best person to answer that particular question must be... George Lucas. At least, the George Lucas from 1988, when he gave a speech to Congress, and made the following statements: "People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians.” These words have new context now, as does this later excerpt, from the same speech: “There is nothing to stop American films, records, books, and paintings from being sold to a foreign entity or egotistical gangsters and having them change our cultural heritage to suit their personal taste.” He later still asserts that “The public interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests,” and asks “Why are films cut up and butchered?”

Why, indeed, you son of a bitch.

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Blog Gadgets

Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG - Bioware at E3 2011, Almost Ready for Launch!

We're closing in on the end of E3 week here, and even a fairly ho-hum show has some gems, even if the best parts aren't surprise announcements. Bioware is closing in on a launch for their long awaited take on the MMORPG genre with Star Wars: The Old Republic. This is all sorts of exciting for me. I love Bioware RPGs, even the ones that disappoint me do so because I want more. My first-ever MMO was Star Wars Galaxies, though I didn't do much in it besides crafting and building structures. I also have a great deal of affection for how Bioware in particular handles the Star Wars setting, and I'm ready to see them make the leap from single-player experience to MMORPG.

A Star Wars MMO, and not a Gungan to be seen. Meesa glad to hear that.

Gaming in the Star Wars Universe is tough even for a developer writing for the single player game. If your game is set in the time of the films, there are all sorts of obstacles. Large-scale epic stories that this setting does best don't lend themselves well to a time period where we all know who is responsible for all of the major events. Add to that the fact that many people want to play a Jedi, but hate the prequels, and there just aren't very many Jedi around during the Rebellion Era. Stories are told in the background of established events, and they are mostly meaningless, or the fact that no mention of this plot worked its way into the films strains plausibility.

Add in the challenges of a persistent multiplayer world, and the challenges are nearly insurmountable. Bioware addressed this problem years ago when they developed Knights of the Old Republic. A gripping story, plenty of Jedi, room to play without disturbing canon, the distant past of the Star Wars Universe is ripe for development. Any character or element that is created new that doesn't have a specific place in canon? No problem, that bit was lost in the shadows of the distant past, the way details often are. Bioware gave their typical treatment to the setting too, with party members with their own attitudes, motivations and stories, and if you treat them right, you get to explore those tales with sidequests of a personal nature to your companions. Tabletop RPG geeks also loved that the combat system was based on the D&D-inspired D20 system.

If the lighting-fast block and parry of lightsaber combat actually is modeled correctly while still
feeling like MMO-style combat, it should be really, really cool.

How can the key elements of this setting be brought into the very different gameplay style of the MMORPG, without losing what makes Bioware games special? The developers have talked about this at length, focusing on a story told for each individual player that is just as important as the group experience. Bioware RPGs focus on individual actions having consequences, and those consequences having a direct impact on the gameplay experience. In Star Wars: The Old Republic, the first choice to be made is whether to play as Sith or Republic, which will also affect choice of classes (more on this in a bit) and starting areas. Though individual characters have the freedom to make “good” or “evil” choices, the morality of the Sith Empire isn't subjective, the developers have said that it won't be a “good guys from a certain perspective” thing, Sith are evil.

In both solo questing and group “dungeons” the impact of individual decision making is built in, with dialogue options (while talking with fully voice-acted NPCs, a first for an MMO) and “choice points” built into missions and quests. It's pretty obvious how this works for a single player quest, but the multiplayer missions and how they've made that work is the turning point that has made me decide to put down World of Warcraft, if only for a little while, when this finally releases. Rather than having a party leader make all the decisions, or making them up to party vote or some such nonsense, the narrative in individual missions provides key points, one for each player, to make a decision that will affect the rest of the mission, with consequences for all. If this can be pulled off without creating too much conflict or arguing with other team members after the fact, it is brilliant.

So, what can you play in Star Wars: The Old Republic? So far, for sure we've seen human, Twi'lek (like the dancing girl in Jabba's Palace) and Zabrak (think Darth Maul) as races in promos, and as I mentioned before, your classes are based on your faction. Both factions have four classes at launch, which doesn't seem like very many as compared to many other games, but the customization of powers and abilities as characters level supposedly will make this a non-issue. (We'll see.) For the Republic, the available classes are Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Trooper and Smuggler. For the Sith, there are Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Imperial Agent and Bounty Hunter. To my way of thinking, that looks like two flavors of Jedi for each, one dull sounding class (Trooper and Agent... really?) and one non-Jedi but still awesome class for each side.

Of course, not everyone will have a lightsaber. With the existence of the Smuggler,
though, expect this guy to be rare on launch day.

I have a lot of hope for this game, though I don't think it is a “WoW Killer,” if such a thing is even possible anymore. I want to see the focus on storytelling change the landscape of a style of gaming where story is secondary currently, players groan as they skip quest text and suffer through cinema scenes so they can kill something else and take its stuff. I really hope that Bioware can tell a story compelling enough to make gamers demand that kind of narrative out of their MMORPG experience. One thing I do know for certain if that I'll be giving it a shot at release. I'll be doing the bidding of those who pay the best for a talented Bounty Hunter... the Sith of Korriban.


One last bit of site-related news, I'm now on Tumblr at unemployedgeek.tumblr.com, posting small updates on topics I've covered here or stories too short for a full article, tidbits about myself, links to these articles and reblogs of interesting tidbits I find around the web that are relevant to my interests. Check me out there, and I encourage tumblr users to reblog anything you find on my tumblr if you like it!  I'm also @DocStout on Twitter, and of course, I have the Facebook link at the side of this very page. Slowly moving into Web2.0 as though I were an actual young person!

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Blog Gadgets

Geek Wars - Our Own Culture Clash

In the geek subculture, there are a few things most of us can agree on.

Han shot first.

Bacon should have its own food group.

There Should Have Been Only One.

It is easier to enjoy Highlander and The Matrix if you insist there were never sequels.

And most of us really, really like The Goddamn Batman, and feel kinda icky about furries.

What about more controversial geek topics? Star Wars, or Star Trek? Consoles or computer gaming? Marvel or DC comics? Piracy: scourge of the struggling game content creator, or customer's (semi)legitimate protest over hyperinflated game prices and substandard content?

Pages and pages of geeks flaming each other have been written in internet forums, blogs, anywhere someone can make their opinions known. Geeks identify themselves by their feelings on these topics, and I think it is almost more about what they dislike, then defending or expressing support for their favorites. Namecalling, insults, and the inevitable decline from "civil discourse" to "invocation of Godwin's Law," it all happens too fast, and in the name of what someone does or does not find entertaining.

In the 1994 movie Witch Hunt, there's a quote that I think sums it up, "Let me tell you about the people... put ten of them in a room, and they may not elect a leader, but I guarantee they'll pick someone to hate." As intelligent men and women, we should be able to rise above needing to despise others for different opinions. We laugh at hardcore sports fans for getting angry at each other over which burly guys wearing what colors the other guy cheers for, but are we really above it all? Hell, in some ways, we're worse.

I'm going to do my part to accept other geeks, even if they don't like what I do.

Except furries. They still creep me out.

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