So, for years, we've hung around here and complained about how Evil Uncle George is destroying all that we know and love about an American classic and major shaper of pop culture. Whether it was Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, a thousand Clone Wars comics that basically chronicle every second between the two films... then the original Clone Wars cartoon, or the new one with even more toys and desperate appeals to the preteen and teenaged female audience (that's not me being a cynic or somehow misogynist; that's from George's words) shoehorned in and merrily retconning and overriding whatever doesn't look cool for the kiddies.

Then there's all of the wonderful Expanded Universe books to wreck the simple, light-hearted adventure (or "dumb action" as Lucas called it in an interview with Rod Roddenberry) of the original trilogy. Whether you blame Anderson, McIntyre, Zahn (?!), Denning, the Vong, the Great Superweapon Dick-Measuring Contest, the Zerg--ah Killiks, Legacy... whatever, something's probably pissing you off in the EU. But we also have the "good" stuff. What that is varies from person to person, but there's usually (not always) something they like, which shapes their perception of Star Wars. Rather, shapes their perception of what Star Wars should be.

Now, some of you probably clicked this because of that "RPG Fishing" thing. Since it's not 2003, I'm guessing it's not to rant and rave about another Moff RPG cropping up in SWU. Well, because Star Wars: Unity is on the quiet side (still alive, though... just waiting on Crazed to post, and he's busy with classes and going to the UK ), I've had plenty of time to think about ways to approach a Star Wars game. Mostly trying to think of how to fix what went wrong in my own games... but things are also very different from 2005. I apparently started SWVII the same day that KotORII came out... and I didn't play KotOR until a few years later. ROTS wasn't out yet. We didn't know much about the Clone Wars (the cartoon was fun). And there certainly wasn't a massive effort to fill in all 25,000 years between the founding of the Republic and ANH. There was no massive war with the Sith that the Republic and Jedi lost that no one remembered. There weren't legions of low-key Jedi, running around, saving the Galaxy from Imperial depredations. There was no prophecy about destroying the Sith, nor Vader wringing his hands about Padme and wallowing in misery.

Star Wars--and how I perceived it and its key elements--was very different in 2005. That's why I can't just simply recreate my old SWVII story (with some minor rewrites to improve the quality of the introductory material). Hell, that's why I can't even really abide by a lot of now-canon stuff. Which got me thinking of reboots.

I think most of us have seen the new Star Trek. Some of us are also probably familiar with Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica. Both are rather successful examples of reimaginings/reboots. They're edgier, grittier, more suited to a modern audience's tastes than Roddenberry's happy left-wing utopia or Glen Larson's... uh... well, blatant ripping off of Star Wars for the small screen. And the usual drive in Star Wars fandom is for more grit. I guess Han Solo looks more epic when he has to wipe Greedo's aerosolized fluids and organs off his face. Or it lets the Imperials torture him more graphically, making his handsome and defiant sneering at them all the more heroic or something... without taking into account that, in this darker and grittier setting, they'd be more apt to show him a hologram of restrained Leia surrounded by a squad of Stormtroopers and tell him, "Talk... or watch."

Anyway, simply slapping grit onto the setting, adding more blood splatter to the mental camera lens or inserting a brown light filter isn't going to be enough. No, the key to a reboot or reimagining is that you have to completely shift gears. Star Trek was a cerebral social commentary masquerading as a Western in space. It dealt with racism, war, the Cold War, while also providing some time to develop a few characters. The movie is an action flick with the symbology and look of Star Trek with none of the intellectual baggage. Larson's Galactica was a family-friendly space serial with some Mormon tones. Moore's was a dark and brutal tale of how people would actually react to the end of days, and specialized in showing that humans are utter and complete bastards. But it also kept some aesthetic aspects to bridge the gap.

So, how does one do that to Star Wars without completely turning off people that are interested (you know, like the LotF series)? And should it be done at all? And if so, can it be done?

I guess the first part to answering the question is answering what is Star Wars? What do people look for when they fire up a game, draw up a character, or open a book? So tell me.

[This message has been edited by Moff (edited 12-10-2012 @ 10:44 AM).]