[Narrator] Star Wars is probably the world's premiere intellectual property or IP.
The world of George Lucas has taken over movies, comics, books, theme parks,
conventions and maybe most of all video games.
So much of Star Wars culture
overlaps with that of the video game culture. Unfortunately, I'm mostly out of
the loop when it comes to video games.
That's why I reached out to Chris Baker,
former Lucas Arts studio publicist and all-around video game guru to discuss
not only the prequel roles in Star Wars games, but the overall impact of George
Lucas's saga on the video game industry.
[music playing]
First, I wanted to know how the Star Wars games stacked up from the prequel era.
[Chris] If you're a gamer now versus like in 2002 or whatever games are just more advanced
now and it's harder in general to go back and play a game from the early
PlayStation 2 era or something like that.
But, if you're interested in Jango Fett's backstory or something there's
Star Wars bounty hunter to play there.
[Game Audio]
Some of the games aren't really that
great and are probably best forgotten like Obi-Wan on Xbox not a very good
game even though it was kind of touted as a big Xbox exclusive at the time and
then there's stuff like Lego Star Wars.
The first Lego Star Wars game was
completely a prequel trilogy game and that not only started one of the more
popular Star Wars series and Lego Star Wars you know Lego became a huge juggernaut
for IP related video games so there's definitely good stuff from then, but if
you're just asking like is there a reason to go back and play the prequel
games if you don't like the prequels... I think the answers really no.
[Narrator] Fair enough, but this generalizes to most Star Wars games.
if you don't like any Star Wars movies,
most of the games won't hold up on their own though I quickly learned
whether or not you like Star Wars many of the Star Wars video games had a huge
impact on the game industry.
[Chris] There are genuine innovations in video games
that have come through Star Wars games. Dark Forces, that wasn't by
any means the first first-person shooter or anything but, it did do things like
incorporate story as a big part in the first-person shooter. I think it was the
first game could actually crouch in in a first-person shooter and maybe even jump
I could be wrong there but it was among the very first if that's not the case.
You could look up, you could look up and shoot.
That was a fairly new innovation for first person shooters back then.
Then you have games like X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter
which is one of the very first games that relied very
heavily on online play in fact it was pretty much exclusively an online game
in 1997 when not a lot of people had those capabilities
I don't like call it an innovation but Knights of the Old Republic has one of
the greatest plot twists in the history of video games and it's something that
really only a video game can can do.
[Narrator] Knights of the Old Republic,
I knew eventually we would get into it it's technically a prequel game but to be
clear it has nothing to do with the Lucas trilogy.
Instead, it takes place
thousands of years before the Star Wars films. Not only is it beloved by
Star Wars fans it's widely acclaimed by the video game industry.
if you don't know the story,
just a heads up we are breaching major spoiler territory.
[Chris] So, what happens in Knights of the Old Republic if you haven't played it is you
play probably a good 30 hours or so of this role-playing game getting to know
this character who's lost his memory. He's working with other Jedi
against a sith threat and the whole time you keep hearing about this this awful
Sith Lord named Darth Revan. Thirty hours in you learn the truth about your
identity and you are Darth Revan.
[game music playing]
The thing that makes that so special as a video game is like you literally were
that character for such a long investment in time. It's one thing to see
that in a movie where you come to know and love characters over a couple of
hours but to actually be that character or you know dozens of hours before you
learn this really earth-shattering moment it's it's really amazing storytelling.
[Narrator] The more I discussed star wars games with Chris the more I began
to realize a theme. In many ways, Star Wars is the defining IP of the video
game industry a lot of this has to do with timing as Chris explains.
[Chris] Star Wars as everyone watching this knows was hugely revolutionary in
terms of making the blockbuster a thing, the Hollywood blockbuster.
Making us fall in love with merchandising for example and you know
the game started out as toys basically they were they started out as
merchandising but games also on their own are also about the same age as Star Wars.
The Atari came out in 1977 as well and that I would say that's like
really when gaming hit the map. So, you have like these two like
really cool really revolutionary things kind of coming together in a way that
really no other IP or other property could at the time.
[Narrator] As the young video game industry developed, Star Wars was there every step of the
way you can place major Star Wars releases side by side the history of
gaming and you'll find Star Wars games often serve as milestones in the art.
Sometimes the Star Wars games are part of the video game trend of its time but
more often than not Star Wars games were ahead of the curve.
[Chris] The very first Star Wars game in 1982
was The Empire Strikes Back on Atari 2600.
It adapted the Battle of Hoth into a video game.
Taking an actual iconic scene from a film and letting you
live that you know that's been done time and time again since but, at that point
like 1982 that was a pretty new idea. Like any kind of licensed game
would take an alien from Alien and make him in a Pac-Man maze or something.
It wasn't an iconic scene from Alien it was just
taking that IP and applying it to some other kind of game that it's ripping off
whereas The Empire Strikes Back actually had you controlling a speeder against
AT-ATs coming at you.
In 1983, you had the arcade game where
you just go and blow up the Death Star you could do it within five
minutes most of the time it included clips from the film like "I've lost Artoo."
and "may the force be with you" like it actually included lines from
the film may have been the first game to do that. Most games didn't talk
at all back then like just talking in a game was a pretty amazing thing.
Like Star Wars, the mid 80s were pretty rough for video games too.
Then Nintendo came along and made video games cool again and then by the early 90s when
Star Wars started to get cool again because that's when video games started
picking up for Star Wars again. I think super Star Wars actually made a huge
impact that was like when Star Wars really was starting to come back
there was this huge push behind Super Star Wars and that whole trilogy kind of
came out over the course of three years or so. Really hard, but mostly very
good games most people say that a lot of people won't too.
[game sound playing]
I think Star Wars in terms of games has a very unique advantage that I
really can't think of any other property because you know it is like I said it's
like the the coming-of-age of the most popular entertainment franchise and
the most cutting-edge form of media coming together at once and you can
only do that one time.
[Narrator] Before I let Chris go, I wanted to ask him one last question.
What did he think the future has in store for the Star Wars prequels
in the video game industry.
[Chris] I think the prequels will affect
video games in the future the way they affect everything else.
The newest game coming out right now is Star Wars Battlefront 2 from EA and all of
the Battlefronts from the very beginning have always integrated
both classic and prequel into the whole picture so,
if you're playing the latest and greatest games you're kind of getting it whether you
want it or not. The prequels are Star Wars now whether some fans like it or
not and I think actually a lot of fans have come to accept the mythology of the
prequels like they see a battle droid and they're mostly cool with it now
you know and when I say fans I mean the fans who do
hate the prequels because people like myself at least respect them and
I do enjoy watching them. Will we see another prequel game?
I don't think so.
I don't think we'll see anything like firmly set between
episodes 1 & 3.
[Narrator] And you know what, that's okay. Because either way it's clear
Star Wars has made a major impact on the video game industry as video games
continue to develop into one of cultures primary entertainment and artistic mediums,
the galaxy far, far away is open for all kinds of exciting opportunities.