Ponderance

Star Wars: Shifting Media, Saving Franchises?

Daniel Etherington in the BBC News Online asks, has the new Star Wars game, Knights finally redeemed LucasFilm and the Star Wars saga after the extreme low of Episode 1 and the mild success (but really, still kinda crappy) of Episode 2? He reports:

Ewok no-no
The history of the Star Wars movies has a broadly accepted thesis. The game gives players a sense of involvment The first trilogy was a marvel, with The Empire Strikes Back being a high point and the Ewoks a low. The Phantom Menace was a disappointment, its soullessness only mildly compensated for by the spectacular battles of Attack Of The Clones. However, the history of the games is not quite so clear cut. For many, 1983's arcade game Star Wars provides the fondest memories and it certainly has significant iconic value. Since then, over 50 other games have appeared on everything from Sega CD, where you could have a go at galactic chess, to Nintendo GC. The GameCube title Rogue Leader, which came out in 2001, is a good-quality shooter, and highlights the diversity of genres that can be covered by using elements from the films. Another example is Episode I Racer, which recreated the Phantom Menace's pod race sequence, but made it much more interesting by actually giving you a role.
Better story?
But for many, especially those of us who first saw Star Wars as wide-eyed kids, the biggest factor in the whole franchise was the sense of involvement in the adventures of Luke, Han and others in the original films. Despite how good a Star Wars racing or shooting game may be, they can feel shallow, lacking that sense of involvement with a wider universe. This may partly explain the success of the Xbox title Knights Of The Old Republic, a game that has achieved kudos among fans, and which arguably provides a deeper story experience than that offered by the recent films. It eschews simple fighting, shooting or racing in favour of a narrative-driven, role-playing game approach, where the sense of being in a deep adventure is overt. Most importantly of all, however, the game has a vibe that arguably feels closer to that of the pre-Phantom Menace films. More games like this and the Star Wars cultural universe may recover some of its credibility.

So, Star Wars: Knights gives us a better plot and more to work with than the prequels so far? Perhaps not a revelation (the prequel plots have sucked) but interesting in the shifting media or, as some might argue, the remidation of cinema into interactive media. And it shouldn't really surprise that one media can embody the best bits of another: I mean, Pirates of the Caribbean was based on a Disney amusement park ride!