Star Wars

keolah — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:35:52 -0500

So, who's looking forward to The Old Republic MMORPG? I'm writing Star Wars fanfiction this year for nano, based on Knights of the Old Republic.

Re: Star Wars

Irony_and_gummybears — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:17:12 -0500

OMG, yes! I got to check it out on a weekend beta and it is AWE-some! Got me my pre-order, too. :D

Re: Star Wars

wolfloverapril — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:34:30 -0500

I'd love to play The Old Republic when it comes out. Sadly, I can' afford to pay for the game and for a subscription to the game. *sighs* That's my favorite timeline in Star Wars era too....

Re: Star Wars

keolah — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:41:37 -0500

I just wish I could check it out. I doubt I'll be able to convince my boyfriend, though. Oh well.

Re: Star Wars

TJCory — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:17:39 -0500

I can't wait for TOR to come out, got my pre-order in early and now just counting the days. Loved both KOTOR games (actually just finished playing through the first one again last weekend). Also a big fan of the books. How 'bout it; any other fans of the books out there? Which is your favorite? I think my favorite thus far would have to be the Thrawn Trilogy.

Re: Star Wars

Airdra — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:53:44 -0500

Oh, man, I love Star Wars. Especially the books, heh. The Thrawn Trilogy and the X-Wing books are definitely my favorites. (Can't choose between them.) I really wish Rogue Squadron would get some more love in the more recent EU offerings; I miss that.

Re: Star Wars

JediKnightMuse — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:31:33 -0500

I'm not looking forward to the KOTOR game (mainly because I don't have an X-Box so I have no way of playing it) but I'm a big Star Wars fan (...which should be obvious given my username). XD I currently run a message board Star Wars role play and I love it. :-D

Re: Star Wars

keolah — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:46:03 -0500

What's an X-Box have to do with anything? It's for PC, not console.

Re: Star Wars

dark_phoenix — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:08:43 -0500

I'm so P.O.'ed... my brother got into the SWOR beta, and I didn't. GRRRR!!!! But I'm definitely going to give it a shot once it's released. I'm currently enjoying the "Fate of the Jedi" book series. Also love the Republic Commandos series... it's some of the best work we've seen in SW novels, IMO.

Re: Star Wars

Irony_and_gummybears — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:27:08 -0500

I read a lot of stuff ages ago--the YA stuff and a few of the "Tales From" books. After the Thrawn Trilogy, I'm checking out the Bane trilogy (getting into the Sith frame of mind since all my friends are foaming at the mouth to play that faction) and Deathtroopers.

Re: Star Wars

JediKnightMuse — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:27:33 -0500

o.O Someone told me that you need to have an X-BOX for it. Unless I'm thinking of a different Star Wars game. In that case, I don't really play PC games, honestly. And I have a Mac, which isn't really the best for those types of games.

Re: Star Wars

volcana — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:35:31 -0500

I need a new PC to play SWTOR. But I kinda hate the idea of subscription based MMOs. I've held off for years on not playing WoW because I couldn't really afford it.. but damn, I really do love KOTOR. I'm playing through it a second time right now.. I really need to get my hands on the second game at some point.

Re: Star Wars

keolah — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:04:07 -0500

Yeah, I wish they'd done it more like D&D Online does. The way I tend to play games, I play it obsessively for a few weeks, then ignore it for a few months, then go back to it for a bit, etc. Playing WoW kind of got me burnt out on feeling obligated to play every day because we're paying for this crap.

Re: Star Wars

RebeccaMolloy — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:15:41 -0500

I really like the Star Wars books and graphic novels, but I'm a bit behind as I haven't had the money lately to keep up with them all. I haven't read any of the Fate of the Jedi series yet. Part of it is waiting for them to get into paperback - I have to have all of my SW books in paperback so they will fit into the bookcase that is almost entirely reserved for SW (apart from the bottom shelf which is languages, but they may have to be moved soon as the fifth shelf is almost full up). I'm not so much into the computer games apart from the Lego ones which are ace. I have a number of the SW Lego sets, but like the books I'm running out of space to put them all.

Re: Star Wars

Astrid_Tee — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:20:20 -0500

I am writing Star Wars The Old Republic fanfiction based around my future Twi'lek smuggler.

Re: Star Wars

Wolfengoose — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:13:47 -0500

I, like many of you, am looking forward to the release of the The Old Republic with great excitement. So I decided to make my first NaNo using the Star Wars universe. I didn't want to use familiar characters though and decided to go with a big theme on a small scale of characters no one has heard of, including the heroes and villains of the period. But I do love the "Old Republic" era (3,000 years before Skywalker) and hope to carve out a nice little story. Very little Jedi/Sith involved but their themes are present with the characters.

Re: Star Wars

SilveryBeing — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 21:31:35 -0500

I am such a Star Wars fan! I'm one of the few people I know who gave The Clone Wars series (the cgi one) a chance and am really enjoying it. I'm currently playing the original KOTOR on the Xbox and would love to read some of the novels, but there are so many I'm not sure where to start.

Re: Star Wars

ladyhadhafang — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:38:50 -0600

(Sorry if this isn't making sense; I'm sleep-deprived) Knights of the Old Republic I and II are probably my favorite STAR WARS games ever -- and KOTOR II moreso. True, some people complained about the missing content, and I'll confess it kind of sucks that it got rushed the way it did, but it's still a good game. I think Kreia ultimately makes the game, especially considering that she's not necessarily good or evil. She simply is -- and in a way, she is trying to do the right thing. And her relationship with the Exile...it's sort of twisted yet loving at the same time. Plus, she's really intriguing to write about. :) As for the MMO...I'll admit I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, I've seen some behind the scenes stuff of it and it looks great (and the excerpts I saw of REVAN -- one of the tie-in novels -- looked promising -- the scenes I saw seemed a lot like classic KOTOR, really. :). At the same time, I kind of miss the K1 and the K2 cast and wish they'd got a slightly happier ending. (Then again, I guess we'll have to wait and see. :) As for the STAR WARS books...*sighs* They're good, yes, but let's say I kind of dropped out of the SW EU a long time ago if only because of LOTF -- it wasn't that it was bad, per se, but just because it depressed the heck out of me. Especially Luke's behavior -- it's just...really sad. I mean, in the OT, he was this bright, helpful, idealistic kid who managed to redeem Vader and thus save the galaxy and rebuild the Order and such, and then by the time LOTF rolls around, it's like, "Oh, you poor bastard -- all this hard work and you're back to square one, making Ben and Yoda's mistakes all over again." And poor Jacen/Caedus for that matter -- I know I'm in the minority here, but I can't help but feel sorry for him. Heck, I just pity the entire cast -- I think LOTF was where they really lost themselves. In NJO, at the very least, they were dysfunctional, but they were hanging together. In LOTF, everyone's basically losing their minds, and it's heartbreaking to watch. *Sighs* I do kind of wish the cast got a happier ending. Because...wonderful books, LOTF, but the Skywalker and Solo families, the Fetts, etc...they all deserved better. They really did. (Again, sorry if I'm not making sense; like I said, I'm slightly tired. That, and I have a bit of a problem with rambling, which I'm trying to work on. :)

Re: Star Wars

ladyhadhafang — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:39:15 -0600

I'd love to read that! :D

Re: Star Wars

ladyhadhafang — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:40:14 -0600

Oh, you should! :D It's brilliant. :) (Although you may want to install the Team Gizka patch at one point as well. Just for a bit of a more complete experience. Think of it as "KOTOR II -- The Fan Extended Cut", really. :)

Re: Star Wars

golfgal08 — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:07:31 -0600

I can't even remember the first time I saw the original trilogy, they've always been a part of my life. My mother went to see them all when they were released in the theater, so it's sort of in my blood. I don't play video games, so no comment there. As for the books... I've read most of the X-Wing series (two left). I think they're fantastic, except I've come to the conclusion that Corran is rather whiny; this was further emphasized by I, Jedi which I gave up on about halfway through and returned to the library. I love the Rogues and the Wraiths, though there were some things about both sets of books that bothered me. Mostly, though, I just like the original trilogy--the theatrical edition, which I made my mother buy me on DVD, because I didn't like some of the additions in the extended editions. And the prequel trilogy... well.... Ewan MacGregor was fantastic, so that counts for something, right?

Re: Star Wars

ladyhadhafang — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:17:50 -0600

Yeah, I'm going to freely admit that some of the changes Lucas made were kind of "WTF"y. I think the best way to put it is someone who keeps polishing an apple even though it's already polished -- it gets to the point that you want to yank the apple out of their hands and say, "Look, it's fine! Calm down!" (Okay, bad analogy. I apologize. XD) But I think ultimately, the Special Editions have some cool things in there too -- the old Han Solo footage with Jabba, for instance. (Even if Jabba looked a little off there -- I couldn't help but notice he looked really different in the Special Edition of ANH as opposed to, say, ROTJ) And I can understand *some* of the changes Lucas made, if only to line up with the Prequels. Still, though, I'll admit that the announced changes for the Blu Ray kind of baffled me. Replacing puppet!Yoda with CGI!Yoda, for instance -- I don't have anything against CGI (and I'll admit I get a little annoyed at the whole "CGI is the devil" argument. I mean, yes, it can be overused, but I think that's ultimately Hollywood's fault, not...not the practice itself), but it doesn't exactly feel the same without puppet!Yoda. And then there's the things I was worried about in terms of "will this work/will this not work", e.g. Vader screaming "Noooo!" in the Blu Ray cut of ROTJ (i.e. how are you going to pull it off without it seeming ridiculous?). Although I remember someone on LiveJournal providing a pretty compelling argument for why it would work -- for example, Vader's "Noooo" being a good mirror to ROTS and how Sidious betrayed him -- at least, that's as much as I can recall; my memory's fuzzy ATM. And that besides, Anakin was...not known for really being restrained (when the man feels, he *feels*) in terms of emotions. I'll admit I haven't really seen the Blu Rays, so I can't judge, but from what I've heard in my circle, people seem to like them. Hopefully the whole Blu Ray debacle turned out for the best in the end. I sadly haven't read the X-WING SERIES, although I have read the THRAWN TRILOGY (which I'll admit was difficult for me on first read considering that the day I bought it, I'd just gotten eye drops, which kind of complicates the reading experience -- if you've had eyedrops, you know what I mean) -- which I love, but I find can be horrifically overrated at times, if only because Zahn has a certain style that kind of doesn't gel with me very well -- that and putting Vader down to make his original characters look good: not a good idea. (Then again, I'm kind of an overzealous Anakin/Vader fan -- which I'm trying to work on. The overzealousness, that is. XD) And Mara...let's say this isn't Zahn's fault, but mostly the fault of recent developments in the EU -- the LOTF writers, IMHO, handled her...not very well, to put it gently. Which, combined with Luke's behavior in LOTF and FOTJ, really soured me towards the pairing. *Sighs* It's a shame, really -- it's a great pairing, and Mara's a great character. :) As for the prequels...I'll freely admit, I didn't use to be a STAR WARS fan. But I was always really intrigued by Anakin's story, and while my family and I were at Disneyworld, we went shopping, I saw the prequel trilogy novelizations (all in one book) on the shelf, bought it, brought it to the hotel, started reading...and I fell in love with STAR WARS almost immediately. The movies themselves...I took a while to warm up to them because the Anakin in the movies was pretty different from the Anakin I knew when I first read it (as was Obi-Wan and just about everyone else), and I was frustrated with the Council for being complete morons, and I thought there were bits in TPM that could have been cut out -- for example, the talky scenes and the bathroom humor (I mean, yes, the STAR WARS movies *are* family movies, and the kids love toilet humor -- or so I've heard -- but I think the gags regarding Jar-Jar stepping in bantha poodoo could have been removed without hurting the story), but when I looked deeper into them, I really did appreciate the hard work done on them -- even TPM, which I had issues with (I loved Anakin, Padme, Shmi and Qui-Gon, though. :) And Palpatine -- he's awful, yes, but at the same time, there's something about him where you can't take your eyes off him. And yes, even Jar-Jar. XD) -- let's say when I listened to Lucas' commentary about how everything came together, I started to appreciate it a little bit more. So I've softened towards the movies a bit -- I still have issues in terms of how they could have been presented, but they're still very good movies. And yes, Ewan McGregor was awesome. :3 I can't say I liked Obi-Wan that much (I know him leaving Anakin to burn to death on Mustafar -- even when I read the book version of it, I was shocked at just how *callous* Obi-Wan was in that scene **), but he did a great job. In fact, I think everyone on both trilogies did. :) * Although TBF, that's nothing new. I know I had to fast-forward past the bits of ANH that involved Threepio and Artoo wandering through the desert on occasions I watched the movie. XD ** Which is slightly better in the movie. At least in the movie, Obi-Wan had the decency to feel some remorse for leaving Anakin to die like that. In the book...he pretty much leaves Anakin to die out of spite.

Re: Star Wars

golfgal08 — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:36:41 -0600

I have no problem with a director going back and adding to the original movie; I adore the LOTR extended editions. But Lucas is doing more than just adding, he's going back and making changes to things that don't need to be changed, even for the sake of "continuity". If he wanted continuity with the prequel series, he should have made the changes in the prequel series so things end up where they did in the original trilogy. I've heard a lot of not-so-good things about parts of the EU, so I've mostly just avoided reading the majority of the books. But I had several friends recommend the X-Wing series in particular, and they assured me that they were mostly separate enough that I wouldn't need to get dragged into the rest of the EU. TPM (and the prequel trilogy in general) would be about six million times more tolerable without Jar-Jar. As for what happened with Obi-Wan on Mustafar, I think they did a very poor job of showing how emotionally off-balance Obi-Wan was in that entire sequence. Yes, he's supposed to be the calm and collected Master Jedi, but he just found out the kid he practically raised went evil and killed a bunch of defenseless children and pretty much all of their friends and "family". And then the Council (or what remained of it, which was really just Yoda at that point...) sent Obi-Wan off to deal with Anakin, and it was a situation that Obi-Wan just wasn't prepared to deal with. He didn't know how to deal with his emotions. (I may be just a bit of an Obi-Wan fan girl.....)

Re: Star Wars

ladyhadhafang — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:25:02 -0600

That is a good point. I'll admit I never thought of that. :) #Makes note to pick up the X-WING series sometime. And yeah, regarding the rest of the EU...good choice, I say. :) There are some good books in there (the Clone Wars books, for example), but most of them...I think the problem is the same problem that, say, DC and Marvel comics have -- trying too hard to make things "dark and edgy" and making them borderline intolerable instead. And I'll cut off that ramble at the pass, JIC. And yeah...even thinking about that...poor Obi-Wan. :( *Hugs him* Seriously, the whole situation -- I just feel sorry for just about everyone, really. (Except Sidious -- for obvious reasons. XD)

Re: Star Wars

keolah — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:08:45 -0600

Woo! I finished that KotOR fanfic I mentioned earlier! And it came in at 152k words. Now to start on KotOR 2, hehe.

Re: Star Wars

mattskywalker — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:12:03 -0600

I honestly don't understand why so many people hate the prequel trilogy. I really like all the movies, prequels included! Revenge of the Sith may even be my favorite of the whole series.

Re: Star Wars

Vacillator — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:56:03 -0600

Can anyone explain to me what the point of the Clone Wars series is? Everyone knows that the whole war was a sham orchestrated by Palpatine, and pretty much all the jedi characters depicted in the series will be dead within a few years of the events being shown. When an episode starts with an announcement like "Oh noes, the evil seperatists are taking over some random planet!', I have to wonder, "Who cares?" The seperatists were mere puppets, and regardless of how the episode turns out, the random planet will be under the rule of the Empire in a few years anyway, and both the seperatists and the republic will be defunct. I know Star Wars has always been about "Look at the pretty lasers and don't think too hard", but this takes the biscuit even by those standards. It's impossible to care about anything that happens!

Re: Star Wars

keolah — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:15:24 -0600

Well, you have to remember that the characters can't see the future (barring a few Jedi here and there, and even for them it's not perfect.) But this is kind of like saying that there's no point to anything set in the Old Republic era, because "in a few thousand years, it'll all be under the rule of the Empire anyway!"

Re: Star Wars

Vacillator — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:48:20 -0600

[quote=keolah] But this is kind of like saying that there's no point to anything set in the Old Republic era, because "in a few thousand years, it'll all be under the rule of the Empire anyway!" [/quote] I don't think it is anything like that at all. A few years, and a few thousand years are completely different things. I think you missed my point entirely. I am wondering what is the point of dramatising a conflict which the audience is fully aware is completely futile and pointless (what the characters know or think is irrelevant). The series depicts battles in the clone wars as if the audience should care whether or not the jedi defeat the seperatists, even though the audience already knows it doesn't matter one way or the other because both jedi and seperatists are dancing on puppet strings the entire time and will all be killed off at the end of the war anyway. It's not the same as if it were simply a historical conflict seperated by a gulf of time. Do you not see the difference?

Re: Star Wars

keolah — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:37:22 -0600

I suppose it's more analogous to, say, the first planet in Knights of the Old Republic. You spend all this time going around and helping people and doing good deeds (or hurting people and making credits at people's expense, if that's your thing), and then when you leave the planet... yon Dark Lord of the Sith over there bombards the surface into slag. Why did you even bother with this again? It's supposed to be dramatic and all, I suppose, but it always just makes me wonder "Why am I doing this when these people are all going to be dead in an hour anyway?"

Re: Star Wars

Vacillator — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:00:13 -0600

Surely, (the first time you play it, anyway), you don't know that will happen? I think the main reason Clone Wars feels so hollow is that we already know how it ends, and we already know that everyone involved is being manipulated, and we already know that most of the heroes are about to be ignominiously murdered anyway. I'm not saying that the clone wars era itself is devoid of drama - just the kind of stories they are telling with the series. It seems really misguided to do that kind of heroic adventure/war stories when we already know how it turns out.

Re: Star Wars

larelmian — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:07:35 -0600

And how many people went to see the movie "Titanic"? How many of them had no idea that the boat would sink in the end?

Re: Star Wars

Vacillator — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:57:22 -0600

[quote=larelmian] And how many people went to see the movie "Titanic"? How many of them had no idea that the boat would sink in the end?[/quote] The difference is that Titanic doesn't start with an announcement like "Can the heroic Captain Smith safely navigate the Titanic through the iceberg infested seas!?" The story is about other things, and you don't actually know the fate of all the characters before you even start watching. I don't know how else I can explain it that makes more sense. It's like trying to care who wins a football match when you already know that both teams are going to be executed as soon as the match finishes. In that context, how can it matter who wins?

Re: Star Wars

larelmian — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:23:52 -0600

Well, in that case, there's no point in reading or telling ANY story, since everyone dies eventually. No point. The outcome is certain. Death. Sooner or later, everyone dies. Or is it that people don't care as much about the outcome as they do about the event itself?

Re: Star Wars

Dennis Dunjinman — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:26:02 -0600

You're being mindful of the future. But don't be so at the expense of the moment. Enjoy the stories for what they are in the present.

Re: Star Wars

Vacillator — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 09:42:04 -0600

[quote=larelmian] Well, in that case, there's no point in reading or telling ANY story, since everyone dies eventually. No point. The outcome is certain. Death. Sooner or later, everyone dies.[/quote] I don't think you really understand the point I'm making. The problem isn't that we know they all die eventually, the problem is that we know they all die very soon in a specific way that renders the entire narrative pointless. We know the Clone Wars are a massive fraud, that both sides lose (rendering their small victories depicted in the series entirely meaningless), nothing is really at stake, the seperatists are paper villains, the battles are meaningless, Mace Windu and Kit Fisto and the rest are dead men walking, etc, etc. [quote=larelmian]Or is it that people don't care as much about the outcome as they do about the event itself? [/quote] The problem is that in this case the outcome renders the event itself utterly pointless. Everyone is running around fighting each other because they have all been duped and we know they will never realise until after it's too late. Yet the series presents these events as if that isn't the case, and that there is some real purpose to their actions. It expects a state of cognitive dissonance from the audience to find the conflict meaningful, when they already know what the real state of affairs actually is (i.e. Palpatine is yanking everyone's chains). Maybe I am the only one who senses this persistent overtone of futility hanging about everything that happens in Clone Wars, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

Re: Star Wars

keolah — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 10:59:31 -0600

I think it's a problem with prequels in general, personally. Would you also consider the prequel movies pointless just because we all know how it's going to end up? (Regardless of what anyone's opinion is on their quality.)

Re: Star Wars

Vacillator — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 11:52:09 -0600

[quote=keolah] I think it's a problem with prequels in general, personally. Would you also consider the prequel movies pointless just because we all know how it's going to end up? (Regardless of what anyone's opinion is on their quality.) [/quote] I guess that is a weakness of the prequel trilogy. I think knowing how something ends isn't in itself a bad thing - I can re-watch movies that I've seen several times before, even though I already know how they end. The problem with Clone Wars is that the end kind of makes what went before a bit meaningless. At least with the prequel trilogy, it is actually about the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker, so when he does turn to the dark side, the whole thing has been leading up to that point. I know I'm repeating myself by this point, but the reason I'm going nuts over this is I just can't get over the weirdness of it. What you have is a series of upbeat adventure stories set in an epic space war - where both sides are controlled by the same guy for his own personal gain, and which ends with the good guys being massacred by their own troops. That is where the creepy wrongness of Clone Wars lies. If it was actually framed as a tragedy, that would be one thing. But it isn't, it's all upbeat and heroic and stuff. Does nobody find the whole thing just a bit peculiar?

Re: Star Wars

RobertLent — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:53:56 -0600

The problem with the Clone Wars is not so much that we know where it is going, but that the franchise is spinning its wheels. I'd rather have stories that fill in the backstory, like how the Republic began. Or stories that move things forward after the fall of the Empire. But being stuck in the Clone Wars, no. I think the prequels had potential, but so much was botched.

Re: Star Wars

Vacillator — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:33:50 -0600

[quote=RobertLent] The problem with the Clone Wars is not so much that we know where it is going, but that the franchise is spinning its wheels.[/quote] I think it's fair to say that Clone Wars has more than one problem.