It has been said many times that Lucas approved the story and that he would even make a movie out of it if he knew it back in the day. But is there a source for any of these claims?
You're not alone, there. I believe that came from The Secrets of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, a reference guide to the entire multimedia project.
Did anyone else get a heart attack as soon as they saw this thread title? No? Guess I've been in LACWAC too long...
Lucas actually likes quite a bit of the EU, notable the Dark Empire Trilogy (the Dark Horse Comics counterpart to the Thrawn Trilogy that revitalized Star Wars comics) and Shadows of the Empire, but that still doesn't stop him from completely redoing the Clone Wars for no reason.
It was a fun game. I enjoyed playing it, and enjoy TFU2 even better because of it's Vader mod. But a game is all it should have been. If it were a "what if?" Infinities project, I'd be vastly more in favor of it.
The Wii version was decent. I couldn't stand the 360/PC version. The combat was just clunky, and pulling down that Star Destroyer? Ugh. Nevertheless, I still found the game rather underwhelming, and highly disagree with the changes made to the founding of the Rebellion. I refused to touch the second TFU.
I agree, RC. The Wii version was alright, same goes for TFU II. In fact, except for the graphics the Wii version of TFU2 was better than the others in every way. Even the graphics were great for a Wii game. The graphics of the first one on the Wii, OTOH, . Anyway, did Lucas in fact oversee SOTE, or merely give it the go-ahead/like it after the fact? I tend to think it's one of the latter scenarios. Anyone have that reference book on hand?
Lucas was also more involved in the EU back in the day. Only the Holocron knows what, if anything, Lucas actually contributed.
I know. But that doesn't exactly explain my claims. I thought about that aswell. Does anyone have the book and can confirm it, either with a scan or a full quote? P.S: As for The Force Unleashed, I quite liked the first game (PC version). Not just the game mechanics, but the story aswell. The second game, not so much. It was short, a bad PC port, and I didn't like the idea to clone/revive Starkiller.
I played the first one on Wii and PC, and I thought the ported PC controls were utterly horrendous and awkward. And by Azura, those menus were just the cream of the crap. They made Oblivion's godawful menus look like Morrowind. In terms of visuals and level design the main version (360/PC) had the advantage, but the combat, controls, and general fluidity on the Wii worked better for me (not to mention Wii got better lightsaber color variety). The Wii version also had Kota flee to Nar Shaddaa rather than Cloud City, and had 3 Jedi Temple levels, with was neato.
I found something on page 30 of the 'Secrets' book: Shadows began as a two-page outline of the basic premise and main characters prepared by [Howard] Roffman and Lucy Wilson (with George Lucas approving the project's setting within the flow of the original trilogy.)
Yes, no mouse support on the menus. But that's a minor flaw, in my opinion. And the controls are customizable. But back on topic: Thanks. But is that all it says about Lucas involvement, or are you still looking through it?
That was the first thing I found. Things like lunch became a priority. I might look some more later. It's been awhile since I read that book. It's not bad - worth looking for on Amazon. I got mine from Amazon UK awhile back.
How could you? Ignore such an important matter for something as trivial as lunch? Just kidding. Take your time. I may eventually buy it if I find it at a good price.
Well, so far there is very little mention of GL having direct approvals for this project. It's more 'Lucasfilm approved' or 'Lucasfilm disapproved'. However, on pgs 105-108 (split by a couple of drawings from the comic) Howard Roffman is talking about the story line of Shadows showing organized crime and the underworld. 'The sense is that this powerful crime syndicate [Black Sun] has many branches and that the government and organized crime surreptitiously serve each other's interests. That was the only direction George Lucas gave to this project. He wanted the underworld to be believable and have an antecedent in the real world.' Hopefully I'll finish going through the book tomorrow. I got up to about page 200 today.
Kind of funny of how openly the Black Sun is portrayed in later works: no front companies or branches at all. Hell, they splash their logo over everything now. I think Lucas liked it, since I remember there being some SOTE references in the Special Edition, and Black Sun is going to show up in TCW.
One thing I remember about Black Sun is that in SOTE it's always "the Black Sun" and in every other place they show up that I recall, it's just "Black Sun". I also think SOTE gives Xizor's title within Black Sun (Underlord, I think?) which I don't recall ever being used anywhere else, either.
TOR calls it The Black Sun Althoug it establishes it's name came from the term "Better a Black Sun then none"
