Star Wars: Life Beyond Jedi
Can I admit something here? I really don’t like Jedi that much, and yet I’m a Star Wars fan. I know, I know, that’s something like blasphemy, but to me, Jedi are second-rate superheroes with all of the interesting personalities sucked out of them (if they’re Light Side, at least). Tolerable in small doses, a la the Holy Trilogy, but downright obnoxious and lethargically stupid in great bunches, a la the Prequels-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. I don’t subscribe to their “emotions are the DEVIL” philosophy, because that just got Spock mocked weekly on Star Trek, and it resulted in Darth Vader going from girlfriend-appropriate to Child Murderer. (Don’t get me started on how Lucas took the most feared dude in the galaxy and had to pit him against EIGHT-YEAR-OLDS as some sign of his badassery.)
Anyway. I really think sometime between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace, Lucas started thinking we were only in this series for Jedi, and too many Star Wars fans backed that up. But to me, Star Wars is about so much more — the awesome fighters, the space battles, the bulky technology (which somehow got way sleeker when they went back in time with the prequels), the vast array of robots and aliens, the harrowing escapes, and what basically amounts to Pirates In SPAAAAACE! When BioWare announced that the first class for Star Wars: The Old Republic, I sighed — of course they would, that’s going to be 98% of the players right there. But it’s good to hear they’re branching out beyond magical swordfighters who spend half their time lifting spaceships from swamps with their minds.
In their second video documentary, BioWare oh-so-casually drops the fact that in addition to Sith and Jedi force-users, there will be Bounty Hunters as playable classes. And then they show a Boba Fett-wannabe using a rocket pack and flamethrower.
FLAME ON!
See, this is what gets me excited about playing the game — I don’t want to feel pushed into being a Jedi if I don’t have to. It’s something I didn’t like about KOTOR, because no matter what “class” you started out as, you (spoiler) had to become a Jedi at a certain point in the game. Frankly, I’m with Han here — a good blaster is more welcome than any sword with a four-foot range. Plus, flamethrower. If I can be that little critter that sat on Jabba’s shoulder (true Star Wars geeks are already shouting out that obscure name to nobody in particular as they readthis), with a flamethrower and a license to hunt down people, I’ll be in heaven.
Good stuff. And I’ve got to say, even though the dev personalities don’t really shine through yet, BioWare makes some slick (and sick) looking documentaries. Loving it!
- Posted in: Star Wars: The Old Republic
It’s a relief to hear that it won’t be all jedi. Although, wanna boba fett’s are right below Jedi in popularity. There better be Han and Storm Trooper types.
Very true, I’ll admit.
I completely agree, the Bounty Hunter class will be a very welcome addition indeed. Star Wars has so much more potential than just about Jedi and Sith, and SWTOR looks like it will provide all that.
Wasn’t that Salacious Crumb? And I’m not even a Star Wars geek, I just think the name is cool. Cool names I remember; the names of the other 18 women in my Tai Chi class that I’ve been seeing for 18 months? Not a chance.
Truth be told I think the last three — first three? you know — movies did Jedi (not to mention the entire Star Wars universe and its fans) a disservice. Seeing a gaggle of Jedi being jedi-ish together isn’t nearly as cool as having only one. (Alien > Aliens, for that matter.) But mostly I blame Sam Jackson who, for all that he’s a very cool dude, was a really crap jedi. And Ewan McGregor. And that awful teenager who played Darth to be.
Yeah… not a fan of those movies. I really, really hope SW:TOR will be less smarmy. And better directed.
I grew up on the original trilogy, and I still mostly like Episodes 1-3, most to least being 3-2-1. I actually really liked Ewan McGregor as Obi Wan, and Liam Nealson as Chao Yun (sp?). Once I accepted that the entirety of the first movie was basically to explain how one dumb-ass, goofy alien could be the lynch-pin for an entire galactic civil war that would bring down the millenia-long rule of the established political system, it became far more acceptable.
Also, I like the “emotion is evil” philosophy of the Jedi. It’s got routes in a lot of eastern philosophies that call upon being outside of emotion. “Attachment is suffering” so to speak. The Sith philosophy to me, always seemed like a child’s approach to attaining anything, throw a tantrum and you get it. I think they work great in contrast because of the strong differences between the two.
/geekery_over
yeah, i’m a big fan of the jedi. EP 4-6 didn’t really do much for them other than welcome curiosity into what the jedi actually are.
like in EP 4, when obi-wan mentions the clone wars. that one phrase had my childhood wrapped in imagination: where even though the jedi were a galaxy-wide renowned organisation, they were still secritive, mysterious and only ever in the peripheral vision of the galactic populus.
all that wonder was bastardised with EP 1-3 (even though i still loved them, as default. i’m a freak).
i still contend that the expanded novels paint the jedi/sith very well: i still see them both as secretive monosecrastic (is that the right word/spelling?) societies rife with internal struggle be it challanging the self to understand the force, or gladatorial brutality cloaked in silence.
lucas tried to make the jedi “cool” in the newer trilogy. he fails to understand that the only “cool” thing about his movies was harrison ford’s adaptation of han solo.
i love the myriad of underground crime syndicates in the star wars universe, and that’s is certainly where everything “cool” in star wars comes from.
so, bounty hunters = yay.
my last comment on one of your earlier blogs still stands. jedi should not be starter classes nor should they be grindable. they should take patience and the completion of unguided objectives/exploration, where only a few people on each server would ever come accross the class.
how that would be implememted without an outrage is anyone’s guess, however.
i do have another thought on how to implement jedi starter classes that are tastefull, however it is far too in depth for an input field…
/rabble
“Liam Nealson as Chao Yun (sp?)”
The Star Wars geek in me spewed Mtn. Dew all over my keyboard when I read this.
Jason (resident drunken idiot of Channel Massive who likes to sign his comments because it makes them 10x more valid)
See, my comment is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t multi-task. One of my co-workers was yammering to me about some new Chao Yun Fat movie and so of course that’s what I type instead of Quai Gon.
/sigh
quai gon sporting dual blaster pistols jumping willy nilly over the counters of every cantina in sight…
sounds pretty awesome tbh…
