Abadd - There was also “R4”, which was Obi-Wan’s droid in Attack of the Clones, so there did appear to be several similar models to R2-D2. I think there was also another similar droid on the ship in The Phantom Menace which gets blown up (the scene where R2-D2 is first introduced), although my memory could be a bit hazy on that one.
There were thousands of those Trade Federation battle droids created. It wouldn’t surprise me if R2-D2 was mass-produced either.
Leia did not remember her real mother - she simply had “images and feelings”, something that were more likely to formed by Force, than from a one minute encounter with her mother in that hospital. It’s similar to how she “had always known” that Luke was her brother.
Not sure why you think Vader appearing as a force ghost at the end of Return of the Jedi is inconsistant. Can you find me a quote where it explains why some Jedi become ghosts and others don’t? Perhaps it depends on how strong the Jedi was with the Force.
When Obi-Wan talks about Vader hunting down the Jedi in A New Hope, he wasn’t just talking about the events in Revenge of the Sith, but what took place in the twenty years between Revenge and A New Hope (this might be covered in the TV series). By this point it was indeed an Empire, not the Republic, just as Obi-Wan said. The are no facts that prove that prior events happened in anything but recent history. They had to have happened in Darth Vader’s lifetime for the story to work.
I actually like the characters and acting better in the originals, but I’m not going to dismiss the prequels as part of the timeline simply because there were parts of them which I didn’t like (and yet, other parts such as the politics, where much “deeper” than in the OT). I would rather try to look for reasonable answers (where they can be found), even if those answers aren’t exactly how I would have told the story.
Scott ? Yeah, I really liked Revenge and Empire, the ?dark? nature of those chapters is one of the main attractions to Star Wars.
The entire Star Wars series is a joke - it’s bad storytelling all across the board. The only reason why the original trilogy is considering ‘holier than thou’ is because no one had any viewing standards back in 1977-1983, thus effectively capturing the hearts and minds of the children of that generation - luckily, I wasn’t one of them. Please stop talking about this drivel, already!
The second Death Star was (ostensibly) still under construction as well, the endor based shield generator was presumably there to protect the project from the very beginning, as in before there was any Death Star to protect itself at all.
I actually feel very similarly about Empire Strikes Back and Phantom Menace. They are by far the best representatives of their respective trilogy, except that Luke’s punk-ass whining while being trained by Yoda, and Jar-Jar any time he’s on screen, bring each movie way way down…
I’m in a minority for not being at all disappointed by Matrix Reloaded, at the time. But Revolution 100% failed to justify the potential that Reloaded left off with, so by default it was still a failure…
In general I agree with the idea that creative people are susceptible to drinking their own coolaid… the risk is only compounded the more support they have according to the media. For example novelists tend to be a lot more reliable in maintaining integrity and expected standards over the long haul, they are yet far from immune to the unfortunate phenomenon.
Watch Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars series of you actually want to feel good about the prequel trilogy period of Star Wars again.
Sure, astromechs seem as though they were mass produced, but every model they show looks different. (i.e. the red astromech that Luke picks first but short-circuits in Ep4). And they all have different names.
But she actually says, “* just a little bit. She died when I was very young.” And also, “She was… very beautiful. Kind, but sad.”
Those quotes imply that she knew her mother more than through just the Force.
At the end of Ep3, I think Yoda mentions to Obi Wan that Qui Gon had developed the ability to turn into a Force Ghost. This was after Anakin had turned into Vader, so he would not have been privy to that information.
Sure, I’m not dismissing them. I’m just saying that I think they’re extremely flawed.*
The galaxy is huge enough for more than one droid which looks like R2-D2 to exist. R2-D2 appears to be his model number, rather than a personal name that was given to him (in Episode 1, Padme asks what the droids number is).
Even with C3P0 we don’t see any robots that look exactly like him, yet we are introduced to several other models of him throughout the six movies (the others that we see are silver).
It’s also possible that Obi-Wan did recognize R2 after Leia’s message was played back, but by that stage he had bigger things to worry about than the identity of a droid.
[quote=“Abadd”]But she actually says, “* just a little bit. She died when I was very young.” And also, “She was… very beautiful. Kind, but sad.”
Those quotes imply that she knew her mother more than through just the Force.*
This was coming from Leia, who (at that time) was not aware that she was force sensitive.
If someone you knew died when you were very young, at say, five years old, you wouldn’t remember much about them unless you had a very good memory. My interpretation of this is that she knew her mother, just like she “always knew” Luke was her brother. What Leia knew of her mother was from visions that she defined them as memories because that was the only way she could understand them. This is consistent with what Yoda says in TESB about being able to see the past and future through the Force.
Apparently the Episode III DVD has a commentary which explains that this is due to Yoda and Obi-Wan’s spirits helping him, and because of his redemption (if you can call it that) at the end of Return of the Jedi. I don’t think it has anything to do with Qui-Gon’s knowledge. I haven’t actually heard this commentary myself, but it seems likely that there was more than one way for the Jedi to become a Force Ghost.[/quote]
Iizuka NiGHTS Interview
Too many questions are answered with “we will offer amazing fantastic stuff” or similar, but there are still a few nice tidbits of info to be found
Uh… what? He was one of three composers and was responsible for only seven pieces of music in the game. Tomoko Sasaki did the majority of the game’s music, in particular NiGHTS’ distinctive title theme, not to mention wrote the lyrics and composed the music for DREAMS DREAMS, the game’s token theme song and still the best Sonic Team vocal theme to date. I’m kind of disappointed that she’s not onboard, and that Iizuka makes it sound like Hataya was responsible for the game’s amazing score when Sasaki did the majority of the work. Not saying Naofumi Hataya’s a bad composer but… geez.
Takeshi Iizuka: We found that original NiGHTS game was not “user-friendly” as it was often difficult for the player to figure out what to do or where to go next. The sequel is built around a dramatic storyline that will engage the player and guide them intuitively through the adventure.
Hopefully the storyline of this game won’t suck - it’s all well and good adding a story to give purpose to the gameplay, so long as that story isn’t too silly. I didn’t really like the stories in the Sonic games post-Sonic Adventure (Sonic Adventure’s story was decent though IMO).
I particularly liked Suburban Museum by Sasaki - a fantastic piece of music that completely fits the mood of the game.
I so wish games didn’t “need” stories like they do now. It’s no fluke that Burnout 2 and Sky Odyssey are among my top 5 most loved games of the last gen, it’s really rare for games to have a truly refined play system if the story has priority, and games that don’t “need” a story are becoming even more rare… JSRF (numero uno) isn’t heavy handed with the story either, it’s got that cool middle-ground where the ‘story’ is all about the atmosphere rather than trying to pretend the plot matters very much. Hopefully NiGHTS doesn’t try to go past that point…
Now if there were more than a handful of games I’ve ever played that I cared at all about the story, as such, maybe I’d start feeling different. But to me that is the norm, if the story is given priority in a game it generally just means the quality of gameplay is largely sacrificed to a story that sucks ass anyway.
I completely agree - also, it’s not always bad if there’s some form of story, but often there’s no need for extensive cut scenes and dialogue to try and explain everything. Often, you can explain much of the story just by changing the music, the game environment, and what the in-game characters are doing.
Games like Rocket Knight Adventures and Sonic 3 and Knuckles on the Megadrive had no dialogue at all, yet I felt more involved in those stories than many Xbox or PS2 games. The story wasn’t told through dialogue, it was told through events connected directly to the gameplay.
Another World (AKA Out of this World) is one of those handful of games where I really cared. It was clearly inspired by Prince of Persia but while PoP created an archetype and was phenomenal for it’s time the story was still “save the princess”, the way it was presented was cool and served the gameplay but didn’t engage in any particular way, for me. Another World was the first game I ever played- other than some of the old text adventures - to ever transcend the what am I going to see next videogame zone into an I wonder what’s going to happen to Lester next attachment. And all without dialogue as well.
Maybe ICO would have had more impact on me if I hadn’t ever played Another World, ICO is unique and a great game in it’s own right, it just reminded me of AN and also Tomb Raider so much, and it wasn’t quite as engaging as TR on an abstract level nor as AN on an emotional level.
I’m convinced Another World was also very influenced by Arzach… it’s funny there’s this little family of games: PoP, which inspired AN, and very directly influenced the way TR plays; AN clearly inspired ICO, as did TR, and ICO was cited by Jordan Mechner as a game that inspired his direction for PoP:Sands of Time; I also have no doubt that Panzer Dragoon influenced ICO, it may not seem obvious but the game is very much like the PS2’s PD in so many ways; and there’s the Moebius/Arzach connection for both AN and PD…
Anyway, that dramatic storyline for NiGHTS makes me very nervous.
The original version of Another World was for the Amiga, released by Delphine in 1991 and entirely created by one person, Eric Chahi, except for the music. I’ve only ever played the first version, it’s apparently evolved a few times. I’m glad you asked Gehn, cause I’ll probly check out the XP version he’s got available now.
I was just reading it’s Wiki and reminded that I never did play Heart of Darkness, his only game after that, I do have some memory of the name though. It was evidently disappointing to many people.
ADD: I was mixing up my influences there, it’s more of a general Heavy Metal connection. From the first time I ever played AN I noticed the similarity to the scenario for Den, which I only know from the movie myself. But the complete absence of dialogue or narration is still very Arzach like.
