Star Wars is an extremely popular series of film that was the brainwave of George Lucas. Ever since George Lucas presented the ‘first’ film of the series, Star Wars IV: A New Hope in 1977, it has then gone on to produce 3 more films after, Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes back and Star Wars VI: The Return of the Jedi. Later on, about the turn of the 21st century, George Lucas then came up with 3 more Star Wars film that acts as the prequel to the events that happened before the original Star Wars trilogy. Before these 3 films were produced, the Star Wars series was already rather popular and the introduction of the 3 new Star Wars film; Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones, and Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith further cemented the Star Wars series as a classic film series that spans generations. So great is the fame of the Star Wars series that the mass public wanted more of Star Wars; therefore, many different forms of media were used to appeal to the mass public, such as games, comics, cartoon series, fan websites, etc. However, the topic that I want to present is about the games that were produced in relation to the Star Wars series, in particular, the game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, published and created by LucasArts, a company created by George Lucas; and how it relates to the Star Wars series in many different aspects.
In this game, the entire storyline occurs during the timeline after Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith and before Star Wars IV: A New Hope. It starts off with Anakin Skywalker (now known as Darth Vader) searching for an infant that he believes possesses great power of the Force. Darth Vader than takes that infant under his wings and trains the child to be his apprentice. The game begins with the infant, now a young adult by the name of Starkiller as Darth Vader sends him on a mission to kill the remaining Jedi’s scattered across the galaxy. Through circumstances, Starkiller slowly came to realize the evil behind Darth Vader and the Galactic Empire and begins to turn towards the Path of a Jedi, ultimately leading towards a climatic finale battle between Darth Vader himself and the Emperor Palpatine. In general, this game was created, centered on Darth Vader's secret apprentice in the largely unexplored period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, drawing the two trilogies together. Also, the game intended to explore the relationship between Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine and also on what Vader would want out of and how he would motivate an apprentice.
In short, this game was created to fill in the gap between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, as the mass public wanted to know what actually went on between the gap years. In creating this game, many fans of the Star Wars series had their worries put to rest as the questions of uncertainty of what occurred during the gap years of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope was finally quelled. Also, it could be inferred that from a different aspect, for those people who have NOT watched any either of the Star Wars film series, this game can serve as a tool of promotion of the film series. For example, if there exists a person who has never watched any of the Star Wars films, and if they play this game, they would not know what was actually going on throughout the game’s story, as the game makes references to both the Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Therefore, in order for them to understand the link between the game and the film, they will then be compelled to go and watch both the original and new trilogies. So it can be said that the game can also be seen as a promotional media tool for the film series. All of these mentioned points are considered to be the strengths of this game that attracts not only the fans of the film series, but also a larger variety of people. Of course the realistic 3D graphics and the gameplay are added bonuses that further adds to this game’s strength, but overall, it’s the fact that the story ties the loose ends between the original trilogy and the new trilogy & that it serves as a promotional tool for the 2 trilogies are considered widely to be the main strengths of this game.
Also, in everything in this current media world, there will also be weaknesses of a certain media tool. The game does have its own fair share of weaknesses, but it is much considerably less as compared to its strengths. What can be said of this game’s weakness ties in together with one of the game’s strength, which that the game does not tell the story of what happened in both the original and new trilogies. This game solely focuses on the events between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, without much focus on the events before, during and after Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Therefore, it may cause confusion for people who may not have watched the film trilogies but only played the game. A large majority of people believes that to understand the game, one must watch both of the trilogies, however, they forget to take into consideration that some or a handful of people may not necessarily like the series or have no intention of finding out more information of the events in the game and instead just want to play the game. So, this could be described as the only weakness of this game.
