Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the Official Title of Episode VIII

[hentropy]

The first game was even more of a rehash than The Force Awakens. None of the Star Wars games I've played feel like Star Wars.

I tried to just let this point go, but what?. It's one thing if you don't like RPGs or the general play style of KOTOR, but this seems almost offensive to me. It just kinda seems to me like you're throwing around the word "rehash" without even thinking about what that word means. At the very least, it doesn't even register next to TFA, which was little more than a soft reboot of A New Hope.

I mean, they're nothing alike in characters or story. Malak was the only character that could be called that, but his similarities with Vader are largely cosmetic, I would say he isn't the best villain but on every other point it's quite different. I mean, is Mission a "rehash" of Han Solo because she's standing next to a Wookiee? Is HK a rehash of C-3P0 because they're both droids? The more I think about, there is only one character in KOTOR which can be directly compared to the original trilogy, and that's T3-M4, and he was forgettable in the first KOTOR. Storywise, I guess they go to Tatooine and a planet gets destroyed, that's pretty much it.

I think it may have felt like a rehash precisely because it brought the same tone and charm as the original series. Out every piece of Star Wars media I have consumed, KOTOR was the one I felt actually got it right, blending all the concepts that made the original trilogy good while mixing it up with enough new things. It seemed to "get" why it was good and applied it to different characters and story. JJ Abrams tried to do the same thing by just redoing the exact same story, even though it made no sense if you think about it for more than a minute.

It does make you think what exactly would make a good "new" Star Wars movie. If you want the same exact same feel as the original, then you're going to get nothing but rehashes, because the "feel" of the originals was a result of the way the characters interacted with the circumstances. You change up the characters or the circumstances too much, then it will undoubtedly feel different, and it won't feel like Star Wars, which is what seemed to be so polarizing about Rogue One, it had Star Wars stuff in it but very obviously was not going for the same feel of the original trilogy (not the only reasons some didn't like it, but it was a big one I think).

 

[hentropy]

The first game was even more of a rehash than The Force Awakens. None of the Star Wars games I've played feel like Star Wars.

I tried to just let this point go, but what?. It's one thing if you don't like RPGs or the general play style of KOTOR, but this seems almost offensive to me. It just kinda seems to me like you're throwing around the word "rehash" without even thinking about what that word means. At the very least, it doesn't even register next to TFA, which was little more than a soft reboot of A New Hope.

I mean, they're nothing alike in characters or story. Malak was the only character that could be called that, but his similarities with Vader are largely cosmetic, I would say he isn't the best villain but on every other point it's quite different. I mean, is Mission a "rehash" of Han Solo because she's standing next to a Wookiee? Is HK a rehash of C-3P0 because they're both droids? The more I think about, there is only one character in KOTOR which can be directly compared to the original trilogy, and that's T3-M4, and he was forgettable in the first KOTOR. Storywise, I guess they go to Tatooine and a planet gets destroyed, that's pretty much it.

I think it may have felt like a rehash precisely because it brought the same tone and charm as the original series. Out every piece of Star Wars media I have consumed, KOTOR was the one I felt actually got it right, blending all the concepts that made the original trilogy good while mixing it up with enough new things. It seemed to "get" why it was good and applied it to different characters and story. JJ Abrams tried to do the same thing by just redoing the exact same story, even though it made no sense if you think about it for more than a minute.

It does make you think what exactly would make a good "new" Star Wars movie. If you want the same exact same feel as the original, then you're going to get nothing but rehashes, because the "feel" of the originals was a result of the way the characters interacted with the circumstances. You change up the characters or the circumstances too much, then it will undoubtedly feel different, and it won't feel like Star Wars, which is what seemed to be so polarizing about Rogue One, it had Star Wars stuff in it but very obviously was not going for the same feel of the original trilogy (not the only reasons some didn't like it, but it was a big one I think).

Another member of Yoda's species who looks just like Yoda acting as a wise, old Jedi.
A wookie who looks just like Chewbacca with another life debt to the protagonist.
A city that looks just like Coruscant, despite a 3000 year gap.
Return to Tatooine, with a sand crawler and architecture just like the world 3000 years in the future. All the same inhabitants we've already seen too.
Most of the same creatures, including Vogga the Hutt as a crime lord.
A twist about the hero's identity and the dark side for the sake of being like Empire Strikes Back.
The Ebon Hawk looks very similar to the Millennium Falcon. It's another partially eaten hamburger. The other ships also look very much like the world from 3000 years in the future.
A forest planet similar to Endor, with natives living in the trees.

And other similarities that I'm not gonna remember unless I actually play it again.

If Episode VII were as derivative as KOTOR, people would be far more upset with it.

But again, a lot of those things feel like small, cosmetic differences. Vogga the Hutt is indeed a Hutt, but plays a very different (and smaller) role than Jabba ever did, his personality was even different. For a 30+ hour game with Star Wars in its title, I'm not going to get mad because they put Hutts and Wookiees in it, and that's still missing the point of "rehashing". They do go to Kashyyk, which is the home planet of the Wookiees, which have canonically always lived in trees. Coruscant was introduced in the prequels, and Taris was very different from Coruscant, but again, you have to look beyond simply how they look. Chebacca's backstory was only told in the EU, I believe, never mentioning a life-debt in the original movies.

TFA was not only exactly the same in terms of little crap in the background or cosmetic similarities, it's the same on every big plot point, even when it doesn't make any sense. It's insulting to pretend like Jakku is a different planet from Tatooine. They literally go on the Millenium Falcon again. Harrison Ford does a lazy Han Solo impression, while doing exactly the same thing he was doing before despite being 100. BB-8 is Ball-2D2. They're literally the same character. Imperial Stormtroopers again but making even less sense. Death Star again but BIGGER and making no sense whatsoever.

If you want to claim KOTOR was derivative, that's fair enough, personally I wouldn't want a Star Wars game that only had humans and no droids or species from the original series. I just don't see how it's "more" derivative than TFA, which was a literal remake of ANH with a minority and a lady playing the roles of Luke Skywalker. I just don't get the logic.

 

[hentropy]

Rey isn't like Luke Skywalker and the story isn't the same. It's about two sides trying to find a Jedi master. I'll show you what I said about it on my blog. It's long, so just go down to "IS THE FORCE AWAKENS REALLY A REMAKE OF STAR WARS?"

https://bn43.wordpress.com/2016/12/30/about-rogue-one-and-the-force-awakens/

I know I could have posted the text here, but then I'd have to change all the special characters, which the forum shows as question marks.

I've already used a lot of what I said there in Star Wars topics here, so forgive me for sounding repetitive.

That doesn't really answer my main question, though. You claim that KOTOR is more of a rehash than TFA... even if I accept the premise that KOTOR is a rehash even in the same ballpark as TFA, how is it WORSE than TFA? How is going into a ship that is shaped vaguely like the Millennium Falcon MORE of a rehash than getting into the actual freaking Millennium Falcon? This is what is so bizarre about this argument. It just kinda seems like you want to hate on KOTOR for completely unrelated reasons.

You make a lot of arguments in favor of TFA that have been made my many people, I guess my general critique is not fully understand the difference between cosmetics and substance. Just as dying your hair does not make you a natural blonde, calling your plot device a "Map to Luke" instead of "Death Star Plans" is not substantially different. It serves the exact same purpose in the story. The fact that the Ebon Hawk is shaped like the Millennium Falcon or that there's Hutts in it is what we call a "cosmetic similarity." It's like suggesting that The Iron Lady is substantially similar to Goldeneye because both James Bond and Maggie Thatcher drive high-end British vehicles in it. It would be silly to do so.

What many of us in the "TFA is a remake" camp assert is that once you get beyond those superficial cosmetic differences, you get substantially the same story with a few tweaks. Rey is not the same as Luke, no, she is one half of Luke, the part that was determined and brave, where Finn retained Luke's sense of innocence and his moral anchor. Together, their story arcs are similar to Luke's, both young people leaving their old lives behind to fight for something greater. They go to the Rebel Base and find out about a big planet-killing weapon that they have to go destroy. They do so, but in the process lose an old mentor to evil. This is what the "story structure" that people talk about is, and it's the same between the two movies when you strip away the cosmetic differences. The fact that she stands in front of Luke for the last minute of the movie does not make it that much more substantially different overall, they just moved the "Dagobah System" subplot up to the first movie instead of the second.

My point is that KOTOR may have cosmetic similarities to the original trilogy, but is substantially different in almost every way (things like having the same technology 3000 years before is a different conversation). I enjoyed TFA for what it was, it was a well-made movie that helped reboot the franchise for a new generation. He knows how to build tension and do a real lightsaber fight. But it still comes off as a fanfiction I would have written when I was 12 (though I probably would have put Goku in it), with RO being the fanfiction I might have written when I was 16.

 

[hentropy]

Why do those things I mentioned not matter in a visual medium? Worlds, character designs and ships are of substance. The Millennium Falcon existing with a new dish in a sequel to Return of the Jedi is understandable, especially as the ship is so important to Han Solo. It's practically part of his character. You can't bring Solo back and not feature his beloved ship. It was the most elaborate set on Star Wars '77 and is so iconic. It's a home for the characters and even for us as the viewers as we follow them from world to world through the three movies and over the span of forty years. You can change all the other designs if you want, but why remove that resilient ship when you're trying to bridge the past with the present? I would have brought the Falcon back too.

In Knights of the Old Republic, the inclusion of another partially eaten asymmetrical hamburger named after a bird in a world thousands of years before Star Wars is far more ridiculous and there for nostalgia mining, like so many of the other things in the game. I always found it stupid.

And I would suggest that bringing Han Solo back, still doing the same thing as he did in the original series is far more ridiculous, stupid and an attempt at nostalgia mining. Saying that both him and the Millennium Falcon have to be exactly the same because it's a sequel is silly. The fact that every scene is functionally the same scene as a scene in ANH isn't ridiculous nostalgia mining? It's easy to put Solo and the Falcon in the movie without giving them both the same form and function as in ANH.

Again, you seem to be set on defending TFA, but I'm not looking for a defense of TFA, I'm asking for what the logic is when you claim that KOTOR is MORE of a rehash than TFA. The Ebon Hawk is shaped like the Millennium Falcon, I'm not arguing that. How is that MORE of a rehash/redo/redux/remake than putting the actual Millennium Falcon doing the same thing it did in the first movie?

 

[hentropy]

Because in a sequel it makes some sense. In a distant prequel it's completely fabricated. You say he is STILL doing the same thing, which ignores the fact that the film acknowledges what he did after Return of the Jedi. When you've been doing something for a long time, it's easy to go back to it. Solo left everything when he lost his only son. Some things have to be carried over for the type of experience Star Wars is, and while The Force Awakens does go a bit too far, every scene isn't functionally the same.

Of course I'm going to defend TFA when you try to tell me that KOTOR, with so many of the same designs and entities, is more original. Despite those similarities, the game doesn't even feel quite like Star Wars, because of how the whole story is about a treasure hunt. Maybe it should be called Treasure Planet.

I'm aware of the in-movie explanation for it. It's still silly as hell. Why would Han Solo, one of the saviors of the galaxy not only once but twice (I'm sure there was more than one medal ceremony) who is also married to one of the most powerful women in the galaxy, go back to being an unscrupulous smuggler constantly running from creditors? I would figure him as some sort of businessman or just a retiree, who might be tired of sitting on his ass and wants to go out for one last adventure, especially if it means going out to find a lost friend. That's just a simple, quick way to put him in the story. These stories are fictional and written, they're not accounts of true events. They wrote Han Solo that way because they were shamelessly rehashing his character to mine for nostalgia, so all the greying fanboys can see a grey Harrison Ford do a lazy impression one last time. In the process they wiped out every bit of character development he had in the original series. Then they kill him off because Harrison Ford has been sick of Star Wars since the 80s. Alec Guinness was sick of Star Wars before shooting even ended, so it's a rehash in that way, too.

Also, a treasure hunt? Now I'm questioning if you've even played the game. In KOTOR you find fragments of an ancient star map, but that's not what it's about, you're trying to end a devastating war between a powerful Jedi Order and a powerful Sith Lord. KOTOR is derivative, but derivative of the Expanded Universe. KOTOR wasn't the ones who came up with the setting or the species, or those species roles in the setting. I'm more than comfortable with saying that KOTOR took some things from the original series, but it was in no way a total rehash on the level of TFA. I like TFA and KOTOR for what they were, but it seems like you're intent on hating KOTOR for some reason I'm not going to try to guess.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Rey is by far the least charismatic lead in all of Star Wars, and that's saying something.

Darned if she doesn't have the BRIAN BLESSED of faces when it comes to facial expressions though.

You can almost hear her face gnawing on the scenery.

 

[ToastyMozart]

Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi

Well that didn't last very long