Shadows of the Empire-----Why?

Remember back in 1996, ten years ago, LFL had a big multi-media project for Shadows of the Empire. They published books, comics books, a soundtrack, a video game, a poster...Hell, when I was a kid, I thought they were making a new movie off it.

Now what I'm asking is....Why? Why did LFL decide to hype up Shadows of the Empire and milk it out like crazy? I'm reading the book now and its not THAT great. I mean, what made them choose THIS to turn into a multi-media project, and why?

Another question is what came first? The novel, video game, the comic, or the soundtrack?

Thanks.

 

To build up interest in SW in the general public for the Special Editions which came out a year later, and the Prequels which came out 3 years later.

And for the money. LFL is, after all, a business.

 

The novel came first, but I'm thinking the idea to really do a major, multimedia project was probably kicking around before the book, and they just rallied behind the concept of the novel.

 

All incarnations were developed concurrently, if I remember right.

Why, though? Who knows why. Well, to make money, obviously, but I've no idea why they designed such an awful story to multimedia about. Lucas Licensing works in mysterious ways.

 

SOTE is one of my favorite novels of the EU. The game and soundtrack aren't too bad either.

Yep..

 

It was all quite average I thought. Although I've never heard the soundtrack. As books go it was ordinary. I liked the Micro-Machines toys and the game wasn't a patch on Dark Forces.

 

Right- the idea was to make "a movie without the movie", so you had the novel, comic, and video game adaptations, the soundtrack, the trading cards, the making of and artwork books, the action figures, etc. Hell, they even made a trailer for SOTE, but ended up not putting it into wide release because they didn't want to confuse the general public into thinking there really was a SOTE movie being made (it was only shown at cons and on QVC specials cohosted by Sansweet).

None of the SOTE sources "came first" (though some may have been released/published earlier, but everything was basicly within the same year), they specificly divided the SOTE story up across the three main mediums- so the main movie characters would be the focus of the novel, while the comics would focus on Boba Fett's story (who was otherwise absent from the novel) and the video game would cover Dash's story. It's also why the novel and comic leads you to believe Dash died, whereas the game reveals he survived.

The soundtrack is quite awesome, though I wish Dash's Theme had it's own separate track- the brief use of it at the end of Beggar's Canyon Chase was awesome, but way too brief.

It's also interesting for the Dha Werda Verda alien poem used for chorus lyrics in The Destruction of Xizor's Palace, which were written by Ben Burtt (and even tied into his character from the Droids cartoon), the story of which now forms the ancient history of the Mandalorians.

 

True, if you beat the game on the higher difficulty setting.

 

Yep.

 

If you are really curious about the behind-the-scenes information on SOTE, check out
this book. It's a good look at what went into creating the whole project.

 

Yep, nice book (and certainly worth the few bucks fo which it now sells!). For me, the best part of SotE was the soundtrack...

 

Whenever somebody looks through my CD collection, they always pause on the Shadows soundtrack, stuck in between my ESB and ROTJ soundtracks. It generally takes severl minutes to explain what it is and then justify my purchase of it. Although normally, "Cuz it's Star Wars" works just fine.

And don't forget the action figure line! They were some of the first EU figures IIRC. Oddly enough, the Dash Rendar figure was the only one I never got.

 

On a board where everyone complains how things aren't "Star Wars Like" enough all the time, I find it odd that Shadows of the Empire isn't that well recieved. I thought it to be very Star Wars like. The Book, the Soundtrack, and the Comic. Havn't played the game, so I do not know. As far as Novels go, I think it's good, especially for being pretty early EU. Challenging to do a "Big Three" story with one of the "Big Three" stuck in Carbonite. At times I thought they captured Leia's thoughts perfectly when she was with Xizor. "Watch your step Princess".

Carnage

 

The book has one of my all time favorite EU scenes - Vader in his meditation chamber focusing the dark side on healing his lungs. He's able to take a couple of breaths and that makes him very happy. But when he gets happy he loses his grip on the dark side and begins coughing and needs his mask again. Pretty much the first time that Vader was painted as a man and not just a killing machine.

 

SOTE, then NJO, then LOTF: this is what you get if you let the marketing managers make up the stories.

 

Wow, that SOTE trailer is bad enough to make the Vector Prime one seem like a masterpiece. I'd still like to see the rumoed JAT commercial, though...

 

It's not a rumor- there was one. But I only ever saw it once, on thanksgiving that year, alas...

 

The real question is SOTE------Why not more multimedia SW events?

Come on! I want Legacy and KOTOR Novels, games, Tales-style-comics, etc. I want Star Wars: CF9 Crossfire Remnant

 

Not to get too far off topic, but this thread inspired me to go off and pursue my geek impulse to look up the lyrics to "Dha Werda Verda" and compare them to the actual soundtrack. I found that none of the lyrics match up to anything the chorus is singing, neither in Xixor's Theme nor in the Destruction of Xizor's Palace.

Did Ben Burtt base the lyrics off the soundtrack, or did he just make something up off the top of his head?

 

And it was a big event because it was between movies and thus could be marketed to people with no EU experience.

 

Wow, this is convenient...

 

We.... are... being.... watched....

 

I remember that Lucas mentioned that if this was around when he was working on the OT, he might have made it.

 

SOTE was the first star wars novel i read, and to this dday it's still a favorite of mine. The way the story was told accross multiple medias was inspired.