{"id":158,"date":"2008-09-22T05:00:20","date_gmt":"2008-09-22T09:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/?p=158"},"modified":"2011-11-14T01:45:11","modified_gmt":"2011-11-14T05:45:11","slug":"star-wars-the-force-unleashed-the-art-making-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/2008\/09\/22\/star-wars-the-force-unleashed-the-art-making-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, The Art &#038; Making of"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Over the weekend I bought the book, &#8220;<a title=\"The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed\" href=\"http:\/\/insighteditions.com\/product_info.php?cPath=12&amp;products_id=72\" class=\"broken_link\">The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed<\/a>&#8220;.\u00a0 As you&#8217;ve probably already heard, &#8220;<a title=\"Star Wars: The Force Unleashed\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Star_Wars:_The_Force_Unleashed\">Star Wars: The Force Unleashed<\/a>&#8221; is LucasArts latest multimedia event.\u00a0 While there have been tons of Star Wars products that go beyond the movies, there are rarely items that get the full support of the Lucas-related companies (LucasFilm, LucasArts, LucasToilet, etc).\u00a0 There are only two other events of this scope I can think of, &#8220;<a title=\"Clone Wars\" href=\"http:\/\/starwars.wikia.com\/wiki\/Clone_Wars_multimedia_project\" class=\"broken_link\">Clone Wars<\/a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a title=\"Shadows of the Empire\" href=\"http:\/\/starwars.wikia.com\/wiki\/Shadows_of_the_Empire\" class=\"broken_link\">Shadows of the Empire<\/a>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The story of &#8220;The Force Unleashed&#8221; (TFU) follows Darth Vader&#8217;s Secret Apprentice during the years between\u00a0 the films &#8220;Revenge of the Sith&#8221; and &#8220;A New Hope&#8221;.\u00a0 At the center of <a title=\"The Force Unleashed Video Game\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Star_Wars:_The_Force_Unleashed_(video_game)\">TFU is a new video game<\/a> that took four years to develop and involved substantial collaboration between LucasArts and ILM.\u00a0 While I&#8217;m not a gamer, I&#8217;ve seen some of the game play from the demo and was seriously impressed.\u00a0 Others I know have had issues with the inconsistency of the characters powers during the demo (i.e. He can levitate a TIE fighter but not an AT-ST), but I haven&#8217;t heard any feedback since the full version of the game was released.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In addition to the video game, there is a ton of other related merchandise:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <a title=\"The Force Unleashed Novel\" href=\"http:\/\/www.randomhouse.com\/catalog\/display.pperl?isbn=9780345499028\">novelization of the story from Del Rey Books<\/a> (which I will begin reading this week)<\/li>\n<li>a <a title=\"The Force Unleashed Graphic Novel from Dark Horse\" href=\"http:\/\/www.darkhorse.com\/Books\/14-837\/Star-Wars-The-Force-Unleashed-TPB\" class=\"broken_link\">comic book graphic novel of the story from Dark Horse Comics<\/a> (which I also plan to get)<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Hasbro Action Figures\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rebelscum.com\/story\/front\/TF2007_Hasbro_Force_Unleashed_103528.asp\">Action figures from Hasbro<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Force Unleashed Legos\" href=\"http:\/\/starwars.lego.com\/en-us\/Products\/classic\/7672.aspx\" class=\"broken_link\">A Lego set representing one of the main spaceships from TFU<\/a><\/li>\n<li>The TFU Campaign Guide for Wizards of the Coast&#8217;s Star Wars RPG<\/li>\n<li>A TFU set for the Star Wars Miniatures game<\/li>\n<li>a <a title=\"The Force Unleashed Soundtrack\" href=\"http:\/\/starwars.wikia.com\/wiki\/Star_Wars:_The_Force_Unleashed_(soundtrack)\" class=\"broken_link\">soundtrack that is a promotional release, not available for purchase<\/a><\/li>\n<li>and a <a title=\"The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed\" href=\"http:\/\/insighteditions.com\/product_info.php?cPath=12&amp;products_id=72\" class=\"broken_link\">behind-the-scenes book covering the development of the video game<\/a> (see below).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The book I purchased, &#8220;<a title=\"The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Art-Making-Star-Wars-Unleashed\/dp\/1933784253\">The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed<\/a>&#8220;, is a beautiful 168 page book that covers the development of TFU video game.\u00a0 This includes the original concepts, new characters and settings, developing new Force powers, pitching the ideas to George Lucas himself, a focus on cutting-edge game play, and much more.\u00a0 Also worth mentioning are the unused game concepts and more than 300 pieces of conceptual artwork used during development.\u00a0 We&#8217;re not talking screenshots of the game, these are fully painted images representing the story.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In an effort to enhance the book, the publishers included some fold-out pages as well as two pockets that contain 10 Character Cards covering key figures in the story.\u00a0 Another neat feature of the book is the &#8220;spot varnish&#8221; effect they put on the cover to represent the power &#8220;Force Repulse&#8221;.\u00a0 This is essentially &#8220;Force Push&#8221; but amped up to create a violent radial shockwave of kinetic Force energy.\u00a0 See the two photos below.\u00a0 The first is simply the artwork from the cover.\u00a0 The second was taken in an effort to highlight the really shiny varnish on the cover that gives the &#8220;Force Repulse&#8221; effect. The pictures don&#8217;t do it justice; it looks really cool.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed\" href=\"http:\/\/insighteditions.com\/product_info.php?cPath=12&amp;products_id=72\" class=\"broken_link\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/images\/starwars_force-unleashed1.jpg\" alt=\"The Art and Making of Star Wars Force Unleashed \" width=\"500\" height=\"486\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed\" href=\"http:\/\/insighteditions.com\/product_info.php?cPath=12&amp;products_id=72\" class=\"broken_link\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/images\/starwars_force-unleashed2.jpg\" alt=\"Spot Varnish on the Cover\" width=\"500\" height=\"503\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I mentioned before that I&#8217;m not a gamer, however, I am interested in TFU story and its development.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve read 100 pages of this book and I&#8217;m having a hard time putting it down.\u00a0 So far the book has been less about video games and more about the development of the plot and characters.\u00a0 This is the stuff I find fascinating.\u00a0 My background is in Marketing, so the development process for products is always interesting to me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">They were developing plots for this game back in 2004, before &#8220;Revenge of the Sith&#8221; had even been released.\u00a0 One of the unused original story concepts was &#8220;Star Wars: Underworld&#8221; in which the main character would be a smuggler type dealing with the ugly side of the Star Was universe (think Han Solo before he became a Rebel).\u00a0 Another of the original story concepts was &#8220;Jedi Outlaw&#8221; set in the far future where the Jedi and Sith have formed an alliance, and the last Skywalker is on the run because he was framed for a crime he didn&#8217;t commit (somewhat similar to the &#8220;Star Wars Legacy&#8221; comic which came a few years later).\u00a0 The ideas discussed come to life with the gorgeous concept art throughout the book.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is a great book and I highly recommend it to any Star Wars fans.\u00a0 If you are skeptical, keep in mind this is coming from someone who doesn&#8217;t really like the prequels or video games.\u00a0 If I can enjoy this book, I think anyone could.\u00a0 Be warned, reading this book does reveal several plot points from TFU.\u00a0 So if you are looking to avoid spoilers, come back to this book after you&#8217;ve finished the game, novel, or comic book.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Finally, if you like this book, you might also enjoy, &#8220;<a title=\"The Secrets of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Secrets-Star-Wars-Shadows-Empire\/dp\/0345402367\/\">The Secrets of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire<\/a>&#8220;.\u00a0 While it&#8217;s not as flashy as this book, it does cover the development of the multimedia event &#8220;Shadows of the Empire&#8221;.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a good read.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"The Secrets of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Secrets-Star-Wars-Shadows-Empire\/dp\/0345402367\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/images\/starwars_shadowsoftheempire.jpg\" alt=\"The Secrets of Star Wars Shadows of the Empire\" width=\"300\" height=\"362\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Tell the world about ONCE UPON A GEEK:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-158\" 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class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the weekend I bought the book, &#8220;The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed&#8220;.\u00a0 As you&#8217;ve probably already heard, &#8220;Star Wars: The<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Tell the world about ONCE UPON A GEEK:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-158\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/2008\/09\/22\/star-wars-the-force-unleashed-the-art-making-of\/?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-158\" 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class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[59,3,144,10],"tags":[1651,117,90,246,1655,247],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdwqIt-2y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":64,"url":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/19\/star-wars-the-clone-wars-force-unleashed\/","url_meta":{"origin":158,"position":0},"title":"Star Wars: The Clone Wars &#038; Force Unleashed","date":"May 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It's a big year for the continuing saga of Star Wars.\u00a0 This year will see the new \"The Clone Wars\" cartoon and the new multimedia event \"The Force Unleashed\".\u00a0 Even though I know better, I'm finding myself interested in these items. Click here to view for the\u00a0new \"Star Wars: The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;movies&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Star Wars: The Clone Wars","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.starwars.com\/theclonewars\/news\/img\/20080506_1_bg.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3450,"url":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/2010\/05\/19\/star-wars-poster-gallery\/","url_meta":{"origin":158,"position":1},"title":"Star Wars Poster Gallery &#8211; Theater One-Sheets, Photomosaics, and Propaganda Posters","date":"May 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The past couple days we've featured some DC Comics posters. Well, today we\u2019ll tackle some Star Wars posters!\u00a0 I've owned many more Star Wars posters than just these over the years, but the following are still in my possession.\u00a0 Tomorrow we'll finish up our poster coverage with some other films,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;movies&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Empire Strikes Back Collector's Edition poster by Boris Vallejo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/onceuponageek.com\/images\/poster-empire2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3193,"url":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/20\/star-wars-resume-novels\/","url_meta":{"origin":158,"position":2},"title":"Star Wars Resume &#8211; Novels","date":"April 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing my Star Wars Resume! Today I'm featuring my Star Wars novel collection.\u00a0 I'm excited as I'm about to start the Fate of the Jedi novels (top left hand corner in the photo below).\u00a0 The rest of these I've already read. My love for Star Wars novels started in 1991\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;books&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Star Wars Novels","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/onceuponageek.com\/images\/starwars_resume_books1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3195,"url":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/21\/star-wars-resume-comic-books\/","url_meta":{"origin":158,"position":3},"title":"Star Wars Resume &#8211; Comic Books","date":"April 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing my Star Wars Resume!\u00a0 In the summer of 1981, I discovered Star Wars comic books.\u00a0 Prior to then I'd picked up an issue or two like any kid might have picked up Archie or Sad Sack.\u00a0 When I bought Marvel Comics Star Wars #50 off the shelf, I knew\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;comic books&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Star Wars comic books - Marvel and Dark Horse","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/onceuponageek.com\/images\/starwars_resume_comics1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":536,"url":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/2009\/02\/27\/science-fiction-book-club-rocks\/","url_meta":{"origin":158,"position":4},"title":"Science Fiction Book Club rocks!","date":"February 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) totally rocks!\u00a0 I've been a member for years.\u00a0 Each time I complete my commitment, I rejoin to take advantage of their bargains. Book clubs have a reputation for being overpriced, but the SFBC has a generous introductory offer and frequent bargains that definitely save\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;books&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/onceuponageek.com\/images\/sfbc.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1622,"url":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/18\/star-wars-fate-of-the-jedi-new-novel-out-today\/","url_meta":{"origin":158,"position":5},"title":"&#8216;Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi&#8217; new novel out today","date":"August 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm totally excited for the new Star Wars nine-book series, Fate of the Jedi.\u00a0 The third book comes out today, Abyss.\u00a0 I've really been enjoying the Legacy of the Force series (still have a couple to go on those) and look forward to these next adventures. Here is a description\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;books&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/onceuponageek.com\/images\/fotj_poster.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5059,"href":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/5059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}