Basilisk War Droids.........and other Ambiguous Changes.

As you probably know, the "Basilisk War Droids" which we all came to love and all, were changed sometime ago for KOTOR 2. Supposedly, it was because the old ones looked "Stupid", quoting the creators. Of course, the new ones weren't exactly smart, since they looked exactly like the Virago.

So this is a question, which is the official Basilisk War Droid version? I'm sure the NEGTD will clear it up in a few days, but for now I ask the question......




And I also ask anyone who has a similar question about which is the "officiaL" version of something that's been changed physically

 

They're probably just different models of Basilisk.

 

The Defender class Star Destroyer changed appearances.

And there are a lot of contradictory physical descriptions in the NJO because of the many authors, although I cant think of an example off the top of my head.

 

Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that Chris Avellone and his team just copied the Virago.

 

I was wondering if anyone else noticed that....

But since Kotor heavily predates the Virago...who copied whom?

I smell a fanfic haha

 

God, I hate KotOR. High quality games, but...they changed that and the ships because they "looked stupid"? It's that kind of blatant, ridiculous disrespect for the established era that peeves me off.

 

That's exactly what I felt. I mean, if at least they had actually taken time to do a new design, rather than just take the virago.

 

The problem with KOTOR was that they wanted to appeal more to the non-comic reading audience than strictly the folks that were familiar with the "era". Hence, they introduced a bunch of things that basically made KOTOR feel like it takes place closer to 40 years before ANH rather than 4000. Two "Darths" at a time, Jedi forbidding emotional attachments, Ships that look like direct predecessors to movie-designs, etc....

Basically they didn't want it to appear "too weird" to people that weren't familiar with "Tales of the Jedi", so instead of the archaic, baroque-looking ships and whatnot, we got "The technology of the Galaxy hasn't changed a lick in 4000 years."

They really should've shifted the timeframe further from the traditional "Tales of the Jedi" and closer to the movies to make it work with less difficulty.

It gets even funnier when you find "Jedi vs. Sith" and things look just as, if not more "antique" than "Tales". A mere 1000 years before the timeframe of the movies.

 

I think people would have understood the whole 4,000 year difference thing.

 

That was because of a new dark age.

 

Still, there is a difference between predecessor and exact copy..

 

That argument works with the decline in Republic-to-Empire technology, since that's only over a span of a few decades. But suddenly de-evolving technology thousands of years is a bit much.

 

That they took it upon themselves to change it because they thought it was "stupid," rather than taking what they were given and doing what they could to make it "not stupid," is pretty disrespectful of continuity. The fact that it IS the Virago is dumb. The fact that they changed the design of the war droids on a whim is disappointing.

I don't exactly follow.

 

Both versions are canon. I agree that it shouldn't have been changed, but its over an done with---all we can do now is complain and retcon.

Point 1: Yes, the KotOR2 version does look like a StarViper. However, the StarVipers were also made by MandalMotors, so its possible that they just dug up an old design, said "This is kewl!", and sold it to Xizor for a crispy credit. Also, I've heard it theorized that the KotOR2 version of the Basilisk is the "stealth Basilisk" variant mentioned in other sources...

Point 2: The TotJ Basilisks aren't out of style just yet. We'll be seeing them soon, in the next Miniatures set:

[image=http://www.rebelscum.com/toys2006/SWMbountyhuntersbox2.jpg]

 

What's the canon Nerf look like? Is it more like the GB version or the Wildlife of SW version?

 

Different breeds?

 

More sources have shown the GBG subspecies than anything else, but both are canon. I'd say that the WoSW version is a "Fancy Nerf" or specialty breed used for shows or some other specific purpose. I mean, there's no way that skinny thing could produce enough meat.

 

The Rand Ecliptic has at least two different appearances, one from XWRS and one from Empire. I'm told there's another version form some RPG sourcebook.

 

Overall, I much prefered the aesthetics of K1 and K2 to TotJ. I have always hated TotJ's archaic look, because I could never think:

"This is taking place 4,000 years before the movies, it makes sense."

I was instead thinking:

"This is taking place 20,000 years since the discovery of hyperspace travel, this is stupid."

The society *should* have been more advanced. So when KotOR rolled in, I was muchos happy with (what I percieved to be) the giant retcon. Hell, it wasn't even just the looks - they even changed the details of the Great Sith War, transforming it into a *huge* galactic conflict in which Kun converted hundreds of Jedi Knights... as opposed to, you know, twenty.

"The Sith War" was always a huge disappointment...

Anyway, that aside, I was *really* disappointed with the basilisk "redesign". I was expecting it to look like a modernised, souped up version of what I'd seen in the comics... instead it was pretty rubbish - and completely contradicted the description Canderous had given in K1.

Oh well.

Side Note:
My general feeling is that Bioware would have benefitted more from setting the story of K1 in 3000 BBY. Hell, maybe even in 2000 BBY (giving Revan the "Darth Ruin" role in the overaching Star Wars history).

That way they could have appeased the TotJ enthusiasts (which is only fair), had a more modern look AND still been free to tell their story how they saw fit.

3000 BBY is much less confining in that regard than 4000 BBY... to my knowledge anyway - and whilst I prefer Revan and Malak, the Mandalorian Wars and the Jedi Civil War (crap name though) to the stuff Exar and Ulic were getting up to (since it's more Star Warsy), I do think that having it crop up forty years after Exar is WAY too soon.

 

I agree to that. Looking at civilization that had hyperdrive technology but had yet to discover things like shoes or "How to build a brick wall that doesn't crumble" seemed odd. The tales stuff was interesting, don't get me wrong, but they tried too hard to make it look ancient. A civilization that is 1000x more advanced than ours had better not resemble Greece, circa 300 B.C.

Carnage

 

Yeah I really don't mind if they modernize the things, like the way people lived and all (which I ignored moslty in TOTJ taking it as "artistic").

But the basilisk change, and how those who changed it explained it, really ...... angered me. It wouldn't have so much if they had actually done something better.

I mean, they might as well have put a Jedi Starfighter and call it a Basilisk War Droid.

 

Yeah, sorry, but I really can't cry too much about KotOR's visual retcons. The TotJ stuff made no sense, was ugly, and was, to be blunt, lame.

 

How many decades exactly did the Mandalorian wars take place after the Great Sith War?

The problem posed by the TOTJ is that the Mandalorians don't seem to be too large a force. We certainly don't seem them operating large capital ships. Yet in KOTOR we see them do so. I'm more incliend to think that they revamped their entire fleet and so forth, and the new basiliks that look like Star Vipers were the new heavy starfighter they used to bolster their huge fleet. The Mandalorians of TOTJ don't seem capable of mounting a war that would even frighten the Republic into submission.

 

I dunno, I always imagined we only saw a little of what was really going on, like in some movies.

My problem is not that they reimagined the tech, but that they copied the virago and called the other BWD "stupid". Talk about hypocrisy.

 

How about all the different depictions of certain species of non-humans? What do Bothans and Selonians really look like anyway? I always thought of Selonians as being Otter-like but Corran had "relations" with one (Ewwwww) and the Selonian in Evasive Action looks like some kind of cat. Are Bothans more like cats or camels?