Star Wars Battlefront II Missions and Scenarios: It's Impact on the EU and its Canon Status

First off, it's great to be back here. I've been gone for a long time due to internet problems and I've made the time to get back here upon the release of the DVD and Battlefront II. Well, in the past, we've discussed the aspects of Star Wars videogames and their overall impact on the canon the movies and the EU have established. Well, we're at it again with the release of Star Wars Battlefront II that was released four days ago. I've only played a few hours into the game and I'm already very impressed with the game storyline-wise.

With the original Battlefront, there was not much story to it, as it was play as a faction, wipe out all units, win, rinse and repeat. However, with BFII, we follow the infamous 501st division, otherwise known as 'Vader's Fist" from beginning to end of the Empire's rise to the galaxy. I find it intriguing because with the start of every mission, we hear a thoughts from the various clones on the 501st Journal. It really made you undestand the clones even more humanity-wise, as some have viewed them as heartless monsters when they executed Order 66 so relentlessly. The various journals really take that down, as I remember hearing one from whom I guessing is Commander Bly before you fight on Felucia. He recalled Master Aayla Secura telling him and his men "they were the bravest soldiers she ever met" and that he was glad him and his men were wearing their helmets at the time as they couldn't bear to look at her after that...I'm of course assuming they were feeling guilty and shameful, as Order 66 loomed in possibility and did in fact become a reality shortly after.

I'm not posting this to elaborate on the 501st though, as this could then be in the game section. My main topic I'm interested in the events the game reveals and whether or not they really happened. In the first BF, some campaigns were purely fictional, just for the game. However, there was variety of interesting events and scenarios that was the center of missions in this game. I'll name a few examples:

-On Polis Massa, the Empire fought the Alliance for what they thought was the stolen Death Star plans, but wasn't. They did, however, find a holodisc that gave them lead on the true loation of it.

-On Kamino, the Kamionoans used the original Republic clones to fight the Empire's stormtroopers. Literally, you were controlling the regular Imperial Stormtrooper fighting against the oroginal Republic clones wearing their Republic armor. You even saw Republic Gunships which you were instructed to take down as they were attempting to flee. According to the game, this lead Sidious to order the cloning of multiple templates to keep this crisis from ever happening again. Also, Boba Fett was the hited hand for the Empire in this battle as a guide.

-On Mygeeto, Ki-Adi-Mundi is left in the dark as the clones are instructed to capture a Mygeetan power souce for a experimental laser the Chancellor had plans for. (The Death Star anyone?)

-On Mustafar, a rogue Genosian named Gizor Dellso finds a hidden droid factory and activates his own private army. The Empire sends Vader's 501st to eliminate them once and for all.

Ok, those are some examples of the events that happen in this game. I also want to note the 501st again fights all these battles, as they were the elite apparently. Now, some of these make perfect sense. Specifically, the last two events I named, as I checked the databank for the planets and the information supported these events. The rogue Genosian Gizor Dellso event was quite well known for a long time anyway, as I remember it was only months after the theater release that this extra bit of info was revealed.

I'm not sure of the Mygeeto ibformation though, but it's there now, so that's that. So, with all the information and events that take place in them, are they expected to be classified as canon? It seems to be fit in place with other works, but I haven't read every piece of Star Wars EU, so I'm not making any assumptions.

EDIT: Blast it, I'm a grammar fanatic snd I used the wrong form of 'it'. I

 

Anything that is in the Databank is canon. So any level that's mentioned there is more or less canon.

Some of the levels in the game, however, are not. The main character free-for-all isn't, and I doubt the Dagobah level is. The Polis Massa level could be canon, but we haven't had confirmation yet.

 

As I just posted---we must have been thinking the same thing---LucasArts settles the Stormtrooper clone debate and does a craft job at doing it---all Imperial Stormtroopers are clones, period. End of debate. Nice touch, GL.

LucasArts does the EU books, game, comics, etc.----they have a hand in everything that is produced with the STAR WARS label on it. If LucasArts put something in the game, esp. as new as SWBFII, you know Lucas had a say in it and you know it's official.

 

Not exactly. LucasArts only does the videogames. Lucasfilm Licensing does a lot of the rest. And GL doesn't always have to sign off on everything.

 

Opps, your right. However, anything involving Esp. III connecting with the OT (i.e. SWBFII), you know Lucas has a hand in somewhere. This is where, truely, his Star Wars Saga will make or break itself---does the OT make sense with the PT and the other way around in every aspect?

 

And what praytell is the Dagobah scene?

 

Yes, I realized the Mustafar and Mygeeto were most likely canon, as they were indeed mentioned in the databank. I just posted them more as reference.

 

No more than any other EU material.

It doesn't need to be mentioned in the Databank to be canon.

The LFL Canon Policy is such that the guided storylines, characters, locations etc. of the games are "C-canon" or Official. The Non-plot-based portions of games (i.e. "Galactic Conquest" or "Instant Action" in Battlefront II) and game mechnics are not canon, and are apocrypha.

 

That's not much of an argument, since "any other EU material" is canon.

 

As I recall from somewhere, the Databak has some stuff in its movie sections that aren't actually in the movie, but are considered G-canon. For example, the enslavement of the Wookies is mentioned in the movie section of the Database, but isn't mentioned anywhere in the movies.

 

C-canon or Official. It is still subordinate to the films.

My point was only that Battlefront II missions don't need to be corroborated by the Databank to be canon.

 

I wonder if we'll see any of the missions in Battlefront 2 set in between ANH and ROTS in the TV Series?

 

my concern with the game so far is that the 501st, and possibly more squads, were preparing for order 66. based on what has been shown in the movies, which isn't much, and the novels (rots, LoE, shatterpoint, RC:HC), it feels quite poo...

 

Portable retcon: the 501st had some idea of what their purpose was, and Bly had been briefed for some reason just before deployment to Felucia.

 

Yeah, it's not improbable that some of the higher-ranking clones got a heads-up shortly before Order 66 that they should not get too attached to the Jedi

 

Which would've been only eight or nine days before the Battle of Coruscant, and a few more until "Order 66" itself was officially issued. I still slightly prefer the notion of Bly, Cody, and the rest having been O66-vetted early on in the war prior to the end, but there you go.

Now, the rank-and-file grunts, absolutely -- a quick briefing not long before the movie, and they'd follow it without question, due to their naturally-ingrained training compulsions. The older generations of clones (the few first- and second-gens still in service) would've had to have either been hipped to Sidious's order at some point after Geonosis.

Portable Retcon #2:

Around the time when CC-2224, Oddball, and certain others entered Alpha-17's superattenuated training master-classes (several months into the Clone Wars), not only did they gain the personal initiative to take on their own names...they were also brought "into the fold" on the finer points of "Order 66"...so to speak. Cody himself then was placed in command of the 7th Sky Corps, with Obi-Wan Kenobi quite conveniently assigned as his Jedi overgeneral.

Coincidence? I think not.

 

the other thing is though, the Jedi are said to have not sensed the betrayal because they were just 'following orders', but then what the 501st said in BF2, as well as what is being suggested, seems to be contradictory. It's pre-meditated murder, if Jedi of the Old Republic can't detect that, then it's madness!

 

^^"The Darkside clouds everything". "...our ability to use the force has diminished."

 

Well, it's not murder -- look at it from the clones' perspective. They're just following orders. There's no ill-will to pick up on. Nothing out of the ordinary projecting into the Force. Nothing for the Jedi to latch onto and say, "Hey, he wants to kill me!"

 

Does anybody have the PSP version, and if so what are the three campaigns on that like? Storyline, etc.

 

But there WAS regret of what was going to happen, at least for Securra. Wouldn't she have picked up on that?

There's a few other points that seem like they might contradict established EU material in some of these missions.

Why are there Acklay's on Felucia?

Wasn't the Kaminoan cloning facilities wiped out earlier during the Clone Wars by Mandalorian mercenaries?
Plus the mission to Kamino was said to take place "about 20 years after the war", and was lead by Boba Fett. That time placement would be right about the time of ANH. Boba supposed to be all involved in the Bounty Hunter Wars at that time.
Also, I don't know why people want to declare that all storm troopers are clones (just varied clones), when we know that Kyle Katarn was a stormie and so was Kype Durron's brother among others.

At one point the narrating clone says he served with some of the men from the 501st for over 20 years. How are these clones surviving and fit enough to fight long after that with their growth exceleration and all? Supposedly some of them are still serving in the Empire of the hand. They gotta be like 80 years old in clone years!

And of course the top gun on the Y-wing has changed again. Going from a pilot controlled Ion cannon, to a co-pilot controlled blaster turrent, and now a co-pilot controlled machine gun turrent.
Oh, and the Star Destroyers have hangers on the side.
Were Victory 2 SD's an original concept of this game or was that from something else?

 

I think the Databank mentioned that the Boba w/ Stormies vs. clones is 10 years after the Clone Wars, not 20.

Also, I think that the ship is a Victory-2 Frigate, differentiating it from the VicStar. Its still not necessary for LA to make up new ships like this, considering all the ones they already created for X-wing/TIE Fighter, plus those in the RPG.

 

I really liked the story of the 501st through BFII.
Although I'd be amused to see if anyone could find a way to fit the Mos Eisley Hero free-for-all into canon

 

Easy. Its a level in an in-universe game/simulator.