There's More to Lucas Than Star Wars, You Know

There's Thrillville. There's Indiana Jones. There's, O.K., there's a load more Star Wars stuff on its way

by Colin Campbell

I have never understood the veneration of artists; of their persons I mean rather than of their art. As individuals, great creators can never compete with their best work. The same goes for the bric-a-brac of art; the dull and dusty easels, pianos and typewriters contemplated with awe by culture’s fan-boy clique.

So for me, a trip to the Lucas complex does not resonate with the heady idea of art pilgrimage, as it seems to for so many of the faithful. Star Wars was a lovely children’s movie followed up by sequels of greater or lesser magnitude. Its importance has always been in the wild reaction of the public, then and now.

Those grown men swooning giddy at the sight of robots, I think, are in need of analysis or maybe some love. A statue of Yoda seems to me absurd rather than venerable. Darth Vader’s costume is magnificently designed, but I fail to be moved to craven fear by it.

So this is a trip to an office, one of many I’ve undertaken in recent days. To be sure, this is an impressive complex. The Presidio is one of the best spots on earth, snug between an incomparably fine city, the world’s largest ocean, and Northern California’s arboreal beauty.

Weird Electronic

LucasArts’ building employs a security system that itself owes something to science fiction. Weird electronic entry points are dotted throughout the building, just the sort of thing sci-fi writers of the past warned us about. Sci-fi writers of the present, particularly those worth billions of dollars, evidently take a more accepting view of Big Brother gadgetry.

But who can blame George his gizmos, particularly when his IP is about the most valuable in the world? Particularly when a horde of people are online every day piecing together the franchise’s next move; its minutiae and trivia as wonderful in their eyes as the revelations of Holy Men.

The videogame incarnations of Star Wars, now the movies are done, represent the cutting edge of this IP, alongside some planned TV enterprises. LucasArts takes the business of releasing information about its games with the utmost seriousness, so when I ask Nancy MacIntyre,  VP of global sales and marketing, about the future of the franchise, I’m not expecting her to say, “Colin, we want to share some really amazing secrets with you.” And it turns out I’m right. But she does talk about how the company is approaching this IP for the future.

“We feel like it’s really important to make each Star Wars game an event, she explains. “Our fans want a logical progression of the Star Wars story line, so we are committed to only two Star Wars experiences a year.”

She adds, “There will be one mega one like Star Wars ’07 and another that might be somewhat more specific, for more of a specific Star Wars audience. So in 2007 our primary goal will be Star Wars ’07 and you will see us do add-ons to our Star Wars Galaxies (MMO) and you will likely see us do some sort of Star Wars handheld game.”

Star Wars ’07 is the game that has been shown in tech demo form at a few conferences and via online clips. It looks great, as one would expect. Star Wars games, nowadays, are almost always good games.

But what of the future, beyond next year? “In 2008 and 2009 we start to run into the Star Wars animated series and potentially the Star Wars live action TV series,” she says. “There’s been a lot of speculation about what we actually have in development and that’s very closely guarded. I would say that if there’s Star Wars television programming out there that we’ll have games.”

KOTOR and Battle Front

MacIntyre continues, “We’ve also got Star Wars franchises like Knights of the Old Republic and Battle Front that we will not leave behind. It’s very important to us that we grow those franchises.” So the future of Str Wars includes new and old game-based IP as well as IP based on other spin-offs.