First Person Shooters(Jedi Outcast)
Third Person Shooters (Battlefront)
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| Those ATATs? Yeah you can get in them |
Ship Combat (Rogue Squadron)
RPGs ( Knights of the Old Republic)
Racing (Podracer)
There was even a Dance game that was made of it...
whether its good or not depends on your sense of humor and how you feel about Vader and the Emperor having a dance-off but the mechanics were decent at least (admittedly completely ripped off)
Star Wars used a very classic narrative, the Heroes Journey, but I feel that so much of its success came, not even from the narrative, but from the compelling worlds and characters it created. It made a world you wanted visit, and a world that could be visited from some many different angles from action adventure, to resolving all the problems in the world through dance and it still holds up as a cohesive whole.
On a slightly unrelated note
Warning: Comparing Campbell to non-class Book read at your own risk
One thing that really struck me while reading Campbell was his description of Buddha and his interaction with the tree and how that fit into the Heroes Journey, as the resurrection of the bringing back of the boon. The thing that really struck me about it was that almost an inverse of that same event occurred in one current favorite books The Wise Man's Fear. In the book the main character, after entering the world of the Fae. He has certain... "encounters" in it, but eventually he goes exploring. In his explorations he comes upon a tree and talks to it. And the tree reveals many things that disturb and discomfort him. Later we find out that the tree houses a being that is evil and malevolent known as the Cthaeh. And this being knows everything, including all futures. Because of its knowledge it is able to know what words to say to cause the most devastation and destruction to the world. It is held as responsible for some of the worst tragedies in the world.
I can not say for sure, but it seems likely that the author intentionally modeled the scene and the character after this idea. Both characters are all knowing, both represent truth, to get to both of them requires difficulties, struggle and going into an entirely different world. And both bring back something to the human world, that has the potential to change the world as it changed the hero. The only difference is in the heroic journey the change is positive, good wins out in the end. And in this story the change is decidedly the opposite
There is defiantly something to be said about a work that creates a world as well as a story. I claim no status as a gamer but I did play a lot of Battle Front and it seemed a completely valid stage for other stories completely detached from the original films. Lord of the Rings is equally famous for its world that has produced many other works and stories (though I don’t know of any LOTR dance games). Perhaps will explore this element of pop-culture as we approach Harry Potter.
ReplyDeleteYes, Star Wars was able to sustain itself on truly awesome video game adaptations (though the books were awful, just trash mostly) and the iron will of parents who forced their kids to watch Star Wars incessently. "We had it first, back when we were hip." And yes Campbell plays a significant part in the tale, the shadow puppeteer behind every action taken ever in the original three movies. But, one thing that still urks me about it all is the fact that everyone knew who was bad and who was good from the beginning. Empire/Rebels, the tale is hopelessly yet inexorably in binary opposition. I want shades of grey because yes, they actually exist. Where are my small planet farmers who, instead of dreaming of galactic adventures and Force magic, simply want the almighty sky forces to stop raining debris and targeting their planets. The color scheme, the dialouge, the scene progression all informed us of who was good and who was bad. We didn't even know what Vader did until later and he was still the villain as opposed to the creepy bitch in white sneaking around. Suspect much. Not at all lol.
ReplyDeleteAlso, sidenote, I acutally met Patrick Rothfuss and I have signed copies of both of my books.
I agree. Sometimes it's nice to know who is good and who is evil because we live in a world where it can be confusing about who to trust. But I do think we're missing something in Star Wars because it's so distinct. We miss the stories where things are not good or evil. I've read a Star Wars book (it was probably really awful but I was a kid so I enjoyed it) about The Phantom Menace from Darth Maul's perspective. I felt like that provided a bit of grey area morality wise.
DeleteOne of the greatest gaming-tragedies of the last five years was the death of 1313 - a Star Wars game set to focus on the not-Jedi population and the harsh realities of the setting. The focus would have been on galactic smuggling, and that may or may not have also been supposed to be the origin story for Han Solo.
ReplyDeleteWe all felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of gamer's dollars suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. We feared something terrible had happened. It did.
Disney bought Star Wars.