Battlefront II Mania

Check out video from today’s game play with Darth Maul annihilating pretty much everyone in the Theed palace:

And here’s the spectacular trailer:

Leaked Battlefront II Preview Includes PT/CW Era Stuff

It’s on this site at the bottom of the page.  Watch before it gets yanked.

PT Character Pack DLC From LEGO TFA Game

The prequel trilogy pack DLC for LEGO:  Star Wars The Force Awakens game is now available for those of you who play:

Speaking of games, but this time of the more low-tech variety, I’ve been informed that Fantasy Flight Games finally put in an ARC-170 in one of its campaigns. Given it has avoided the prequels like ebola, this is “progress.” (By the way, if you play tabletop RPGs and the like, start bugging FFG for prequel stuff.)

Short Bits

It’s a holiday weekend in the U.S. and a bank holiday weekend in the UK, so not a heck of a lot is going on.  Snack on these:

A couple of fans tipped off that the Lego TFA game will have three different prequel-themed character packs available for those getting season passes (I assumed if you play these games, you know what this means).   No Ahsoka in the Clone Wars pack, though?

Sarah caught the so-called “Chewbacca Mom” talking prequels in her interview with Star Wars Originals, the new officially-produced online show.

And you can catch this review of the SH Figurarts Mace Windu figure.

Star Wars Battlefront & EA’s Weird Ideas About “Canon”

I don’t play video games so the hype over SW Battlefront didn’t register much on my radar. But I’ve heard a lot of grumbling about limiting the game’s setting to the OT era and its lack of space battles.

Last week there was a quarterly earnings call with Electronic Arts (EA) CFO Blake Jorgensen and Jorgensen apparently said that Battlefront will remain an OT-era game, so if you’re dying to shoot Cad Bane in the face or engage in a battle on Naboo under the Battlefront banner, you can forget about it. While the CFO said that EA is open to games set in other eras, he had this to say about why Battlefront is only sticking with the OT:

“You can’t make a game in Star Wars that violates the canon of Star Wars,” said EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen during a quarterly earnings call yesterday, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. Since Battlefront is explicitly set during the era of the original trilogy, adding events from films set earlier or later than Episodes 4 through 7 would be unfaithful to the franchise, he explained.

I realize this is Polygon summarizing Seeking Alpha (where you have to register to read all of the content) but when I last checked, TFA isn’t part of the OT so I don’t know why he’d include 7 except to explain why there was an add-on to the game that allowed characters to battle away on Jakku. (I have a simpler explanation: Disney made them.) TFA characters aren’t in the add-on but still, if you can go to Jakku then why not Mustafar or Kamino or Utapau?

As some commented in the Polygon post, Battlefront jacks with canon all of the time:

“Hell, the time Boba Fett and the Emperor teamed up to kick the s*** out of Han on Hoth was my favorite part of the movies.”

“So old lady storm troopers running around with their helmets off on Hoth is canon?”

“Yeah, I totally remember watching Darth Sidious, Darth Vader, and Boba Fett ganging up on a green lightsaber, black robed Luke during the battle of Hoth back in Empire Strikes Back.”

So yeah, I’m not buying it. It’s one thing to say you don’t want Watto to battle Admiral Piett with a lightsaber because that illogically mixes up the eras. But this makes it sound like acknowledging any elements of the prequels and Clone Wars is somehow being “unfaithful” to the franchise. If that’s true, then what’s your average episode of “Rebels” doing? My guess is EA didn’t want a game that offended older/geekier prequel haters.

Random Stuff

Funko said a few days ago on Twitter that it is going to “explore the prequel era” in its Smuggler’s Bounty boxes:

 

@bmckniff We’ll probably go back to exploring the prequel-era in our Smuggler’s Bounty boxes!

— Funko (@OriginalFunko) January 30, 2016

Here’s some cool PT art.

For those of you who collect the Timeline game, Asmodee Spain is going to release a prequel edition.

http://www.starwars.com/embed/506bde9e8da55d7197cb0b2c
Star Wars: Galactic Defense Developer Diary – Part 1 on Disney Video

The Star Wars: Galactic Defense game developer diary shows that they are going to use prequel era settings/characters.

And action figure collectors might want to keep an eye out for Jango Fett.

Play Minecraft With The Prequel Characters

Sadly though, not Jar Jar. Hmmm. From IGN:

The Minecraft Star Wars Prequel skin pack adds a number of new character skins to Mojang’s wildly popular sandbox game, including key characters like Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padme Amidala, Darth Maul, Mace Windu, and Count Dooku, among others.

This follows Minecraft skins featuring characters from Eps IV-VI.

First Look At Disney Infinity 3.0 Locales

The Hollywood Reporter has a peek at Coruscant and Tatooine from the upcoming Disney Infinity 3.0.

Flashback Friday: ROTS Video Mods

Anyone else remember MTV2’s “Video Mods?” It was a show that substituted your favorite band or pop star with your favorite video game characters performing those hits in their own “videos.” In 2005, an episode featured characters from the ROTS video game (as long as we’re on the subject) covering Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out.” Of COURSE, Anakin’s the lead singer, with Obi-Wan and Mace on guitars, and Yoda on drums. Plus there are dancing girls and dancing clone troopers. One of them tries to shoot Anakin for some reason then gives up and keeps dancing with his compatriots.

Now why didn’t we see this on Clone Wars??

ROTS Game Alternate Ending

David Collins, who had hosting duties at Celebration Europe, reminisced to Rebel Force Radio about the work he did on the ROTS game. Here’s the alternate ending, where Anakin takes out both Obi-Wan and Palpatine: