Star Wars: Force Unleashed (Saga Edition)

[Sketchpad]

True ... but I'd like to see KOTOR before Force Unleashed

 

[Felon]

I wholeheartely agree! I'd love to see a KOTOR book rather than the Force Unleashed

I've always had a big problem with this setting. I never played the KOTOR game, but as I understand it, it takes place a ridiculously long time before the events of the movies--4,000 years--but technology is completely identical. Unless there was some pretty devastating galactic event that threw planets back into the stone age (which I've been told there wasn't by my GM who was running this setting for a while), I find that pretty hard to swallow for some darn reason.

I envision all of the scientists and engineers being summoned to an emergency meeting of the Galactic Council for Technological Advancement for a surprise announcement:

"Attention, everyone. please. After an exhaustive investigation by a subcommittee of the GCTA's top men, we've come to the conclusion that...we've peaked. There's nothing left to invent, no way to improve upon the existing technology. This is as good as it can ever get. Our recommendation is that we all just really good at repairing what exists...but if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I've always had a big problem with this setting. I never played the KOTOR game, but as I understand it, it takes place a ridiculously long time before the events of the movies--4,000 years--but technology is completely identical. Unless there was some pretty devastating galactic event that threw planets back into the stone age (which I've been told there wasn't by my GM who was running this setting for a while), I find that pretty hard to swallow for some darn reason.

I envision all of the scientists and engineers being summoned to an emergency meeting of the Galactic Council for Technological Advancement for a surprise announcement:

"Attention, everyone. please. After an exhaustive investigation by a subcommittee of the GCTA's top men, we've come to the conclusion that...we've peaked. There's nothing left to invent, no way to improve upon the existing technology. This is as good as it can ever get. Our recommendation is that we all just really good at repairing what exists...but if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

That's more a problem with the two KotOR games than with the era, itself. To keep things recognizable, it seems that the designers decided to make the technology almost exactly identical to how things end up 4,000 years later when we get to the movies. This is one of many things that drives me up the wall about the games, because it doesn't make sense at all.

HOWEVER, the origins of the era are in the Tales of the Jedi comics. Those DO show a galaxy with less technology. Everything looks completely different, and half of the galaxy is a huge unknown waiting to be explored. Not only that, but the bad guys are completely alien. The Sith come from who knows where in the galaxy and essentially wield what they consider magic in much more powerful ways than you see anywhere else. Their technology is also completely different from the ancient Republic's and they are even a clearly different species.

At some point, yes there was a sort of galactic stagnation when it comes to technology, but it wasn't nearly that far back. The stagnation really occurred when the Empire grew out of the Old Republic and clamped down.

While the games were fun, they just didn't represent the era as it had been previously shown(note that the first game is barely 50 years, if that, after the last of the original comics). If you take a look at the TotJ representation of the era, though, you get a much more interesting and unique time period to place games in than with what KotOR showed.

 

[drothgery]

At some point, yes there was a sort of galactic stagnation when it comes to technology, but it wasn't nearly that far back. The stagnation really occurred when the Empire grew out of the Old Republic and clamped down.

Without long periods of technological stagnation, it's just not possible for the Star Wars universe to be even vaguely coherrent. Even using the most primitive estimates possible for the first days of the Very Old Republic and the most advanced for the NJO era, it's still not anyone's idea of 25,000 years of constant improvement. But that's okay; it's probably worth noting that extended periods of technological stagnation are pretty normal; the last millenium or so (and particularly the last few centuries) has been highly unusual in that regard. It's not all that reasonable to say that the TotJ-KotOR era was where things stylisticly shifted to something clearly related to the Rebellion/Empire era, and there was a long period of stagnation after that.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Regarding the tech demos

Tech demos like to push the outer envelopes of what's possible to do with an engine as a proof of concept. Actual in-game play will probably be somewhat less powerful than the more extreme stuff from the segment. But still likely ramped up quite a bit from the subtlety of the movies.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Regarding the tech demos

Tech demos like to push the outer envelopes of what's possible to do with an engine as a proof of concept. Actual in-game play will probably be somewhat less powerful than the more extreme stuff from the segment. But still likely ramped up quite a bit from the subtlety of the movies.

However, there is a video interview with designers/developers who explain that they've got the go-ahead from Lucas for this superheroised vision of the force.

I think the demo shows stuff that we're going to see in the final release.

Cheers

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

However, there is a video interview with designers/developers who explain that they've got the go-ahead from Lucas for this superheroised vision of the force.

I think the demo shows stuff that we're going to see in the final release.

Cheers

That I hadn't seen, not some of the tamer stuff seems okay but a lot of what was on the demos I've seen is too big for the SW I'm used to. Throwing a few stormtroopers around by 20 or 30 feet is cools with me, destroying multi-ton pieces of metal and knocking fighters out of the sky is a bit too much.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The online movie I'm thinking of is on the lucasarts site here

http://www.lucasarts.com/games/theforceunleashed/

 

[Kaffis]

That I hadn't seen, not some of the tamer stuff seems okay but a lot of what was on the demos I've seen is too big for the SW I'm used to. Throwing a few stormtroopers around by 20 or 30 feet is cools with me, destroying multi-ton pieces of metal and knocking fighters out of the sky is a bit too much.

Well, you have to remember, this isn't some Jedi who's concerned with moderation and subtlety. This is a dark side user who's been trained to be brutal, effective, and lethal with the Force. He's not concerned a whit with property damage, and he's not hindered by the faults of the other two dark side users we get to see -- Vader is more machine than man anymore, and his serious raw talent with the Force has been curbed by that (which is, after all, basically the only reason he's not replaced Palpatine in the natural Sith order of things twenty years later), and Palpatine is more a manipulator than a brute force (heheh) guy.

When Darth Vader says "You don't know the power of the Dark Side" -- this is what we're being lead to believe he was talking about, and frankly I don't have a problem swallowing it at all.

Hell, Yoda rips a starfighter out of the sucking, squelching swamp while being concerned about the structural integrity of the starfighter after he's through with it... how can you be upset that another guy basically tosses a bunch of debris into the path of an unshielded TIE Fighter and sends it into a fireball?

 

[Randolpho]

Well, you have to remember, this isn't some Jedi who's concerned with moderation and subtlety. This is a dark side user who's been trained to be brutal, effective, and lethal with the Force. He's not concerned a whit with property damage, and he's not hindered by the faults of the other two dark side users we get to see -- Vader is more machine than man anymore, and his serious raw talent with the Force has been curbed by that (which is, after all, basically the only reason he's not replaced Palpatine in the natural Sith order of things twenty years later), and Palpatine is more a manipulator than a brute force (heheh) guy.

When Darth Vader says "You don't know the power of the Dark Side" -- this is what we're being lead to believe he was talking about, and frankly I don't have a problem swallowing it at all.

Hell, Yoda rips a starfighter out of the sucking, squelching swamp while being concerned about the structural integrity of the starfighter after he's through with it... how can you be upset that another guy basically tosses a bunch of debris into the path of an unshielded TIE Fighter and sends it into a fireball?

Exactly.

However, some have said that only the heavy hitters have shown telekinetic abilities like what's in the demo movie.

But if you look at TPM, Obi-wan throws around half a dozen droids every other scene, and they can't be considered, you know, light. Then there's Vader tossing huge chunks of metal at Luke left and right in ESB.

No, I don't see this as inconsistent with the movies. Perhaps a bit cooler in application (especially that last Tie-fighter scene), but not inconsistent. Not at all.