Lit Tales of the Jedi and KOTOR

I wondered how much the KOTOR game draws on the Tales of the Jedi series, seeing as how they're set around the same era?

 

It draws quite a bit from it without feeling the same. The visual styles are different too.

 

It's a direct followup. The galaxy was still fairly trashed from Exar Kun's war, so the Mandalorians took advantage of that to stage a surprise attack against the Republic. A faction of the Jedi splintered off to fight them, won, but went too far in the pursuit of victory and ended up falling to the Dark side and declaring themselves a new Sith Empire. It's a pretty interesting game.

 

both of them are.

Then there is the TOR mmo. Its got its own series of books... Its almost its own era itself.

 

KOTOR is more heavily influenced by the film saga than TOTJ. In TOTJ, we have technology which is designed to look inferior to that of the films, a decentralized Jedi order with no dogmatic restrictions, and an overall very different aesthetic than the films. In KOTOR, we get very similar tech and aesthetic to the films with a carbon copy of the prequel Jedi order.

 

Yeah, this is extremely true. Tales of the Jedi really feels like an older universe, while KOTOR is more of an expansion to the one we know. In-universe, my personal explanation is the rise of the Czerka Corporation in between the end of the Great Sith War and the beginning of the Mandalorian Wars.

 

Didn't they retcon the TOTJ aesthetic to like some kind of fashion trend or something?

 

If they did that they lost my respect

 

I want to say it was in the KOTOR Campaign Guide but I don't read those so idk.

 

I remember there was a claim that the reason the Jedi Order in KOTOR is like that of the prequels is because Nomi Sunrider's Jedi assembly from Redemption basically shifted the Jedi to their movie version, but I don't know whether that was just a fan theory on here or if it got brought up somewhere official.

 

Was it ever explained why they retconned that Taung who becomes Mandalore at the end of TSW into not being Mandalore the Ultimate? It felt like something there would be a story reason behind but then the KOTOR comic ended and I don't think it ever even came up.

 

Did they do that? I don't remember that at all, but then again I tried not to get too bogged down in a lot of the Mandalorian nonsense.

I will say that while I liked the KOTOR comic overall I think a lot of the retcons (deliberate or otherwise) it introduced for the KOTOR games were not really necessary or interesting.

 

I think that also comes from the Campaign Guide, as does the retcon that Sion was just like this really old randomly immortal dude whose superpower had nothing to do with Malachor or the Trayus Academy. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

 

The Campaign Guide is pretty vague:

p199:

"Republic observers differ as to when Mandalore the Ultimate rises to power. Some believe he is the Taung warrior who claimed the mantle at the end of the Great Sith War; others are less sure."

 

I think the intent was that they be different, though, or at least that we wonder if they were.

Idg what the point of either would be, though.

 

Like what?

Personally I dislike the continuity problem created by the use of Ubese wearing their environmental suits and seeking revenge on the jedi and Zeison Sha in the games

 

Off the top of my head, the origins of the Mandalorian Wars, the initial attack, the nature of Revan and Malak's early participation and recruitment, the fact that Revan and Malak weren't their actual names, the Battle of Serrocco not occurring as described, Taris not seeming to be anti-alien and also having a major Jedi Temple, the silly rakghoul origin (and everything to do with the Vector storyline really), all either contradicted or went heavily against the assumptions of the games.

And just like the KOTOR game aesthetic, I also wasn't a fan of how the comic just directly reused Mandalorian designs from the movie era. Or how Miller tried to put his 'stamp' on the movies by renaming the space slugs.

 

Also Malak was too short.

 

Which led to one of my favorite "oh brother..." moments, at the end of the arc where he's introduced where someone mentions that because he got stretched so much when he was tortured, he'd grow taller.

 

oh come on guys, don't we want our Star Wars Expanded Universe to be absolutely homogeneous in art design and setting?

 

I genuinely thought there was going to be a "Alek mutates into a massively tall supersoldier" subplot after that.

Kind of disappointed there wasn't.

 

Easy answer - platforms, massive ones.

 

Out of curiosity, how far did you get?

I thought the beginning (up through Flashpoint) was really good, then a long stretch of really dull stuff combined with a downturn of the art, then it picked up again at the end of the Covenant story, went boring again for ten or so more issues for the crucible side-story, then picked up again for a very solid ending. And then there was War, which is absolutely atrocious and actually devalues the end of the actual comic, IMO.

Actually, typing that out, I just realized my favorite peaks for the comic (the start, the Vindication arc, and then the end of the main comic) are also the parts where KOTOR tied into TOTJ the closest. I don't think that was intentional on my behalf, either - I just think that's because that was when the most stuff was happening in the comic, as opposed to having a couple storylines in a row of whether Jarael would pick Zayne, Malak, or the space slug businessman.