Everything live-action?

Rushie · Jul 2, 2019

I've got two visual dictionaries released in the Disney era and something really bugs me about them. I didn't expect the old EU to appear in them and am fine with that, but these books insist on giving the cgi cartoons as much importance or even more than the live-action films. Granted, there are many hours between TCW, Rebels and now Resistance. They include many fan favorite characters and designs and I dig them for the most part. It's just really jarring to see an overview of creatures or combat helmets and notice a blatantly low-detail cartoon model among the live-action and high-grade photo-real cgi. It gets even worse with cases like Bail Organa, who is represented by a TCW screencap instead of RotS or AotC.

Long story short, I don't like this mixture of graphic styles in one work and would prefer to check out media with a coherent realistic style.
Thus, I stumbled upon the live-action cut scenes of the games Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight and Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire. Granted, those use 90's cgi for everything but the humans, but they're still cool to see. The real footage of people helps to get that SW feeling tremendously.

This got me interested in checking out anything else that uses live-action footage for its (human) characters. I know of the following so far:

Episodes I-IX
Solo
Rogue One
The Holiday Special
Ewok Adventures: Caravan of Courage and Battle for Endor
Star Tours and the Adventures Continue
Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire
Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight
(upcoming) The Mandalorian
(upcoming) The Captain Cassian and Kaytoo Show

Honorable mention for games that look close to photo-real (if only in the cut scenes) and base the character models on their voice actors.

The Force Unleashed I & II
The Old Republic intro trailers
Battlefront 1 & 2 (Dice)
Jedi Fallen Order

And another honorable mention for character appearances outside of official SW works, but starring the same actors.

Mark Hammil with the Muppets
Adam Driver and Donald Glover in character at SNL

Am I missing anything?

13977 · Jul 5, 2019

Theres the Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game that actually stared David Prowse as Darth Vader.
I believe the footage is available on Youtube.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Interactive_Video_Board_Game

DarkManX · Jul 6, 2019

13977 said:
Theres the Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game that actually stared David Prowse as Darth Vader.
I believe the footage is available on Youtube.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Interactive_Video_Board_Game

lmao used to play that in the dorms in college

Rushie · Jul 16, 2019

That's cool! The more I explore of the old EU, the more hidden gems are revealed, I especially like much of the stuff released between RotJ and the SEs. It all felt very grounded in the OT, naturally since the PT aesthetic hadn't been seen yet. But somehow it avoids over-referencing the films like lots of more modern OT-era EU did.

maxveers · May 21, 2021

who would u like to play mara jade? i've heard rumors captain marvel brie larson is in talks. not sure how i feel.

Masterfett · May 21, 2021

I keep hearing that come up and TBH I'm against it based solely on her bland performance(IMO) in Captain Marvel. I just don't see her doing a good take on Mara Jade. Now I don't hate her or anything, I'm just not overly impressed with her abilities. She's just okay in my book. That said, considering it would be a new take practically any actress could take on the role and we don't really know who's a good fit until character details are known.

I don't really see anyone taking on the role because it she just doesn't seem feasible in a new era of Star Wars. They'd likely have a far better chance at adapting Aphra simply because she's more relevant to today's audience, versus a character from forgotten era of the EU despite her popularity. Because how exactly do you portray the character now? We know that whatever the execs decide it's not going to be anything like we remember, just look at Thrawn, there's three separate incarnations two if you don't count the old EU. So if they ever decide to go forward with him in live action we have no idea which version will be used, Rebels or the new Book Trilogy.

Rushie · Jun 1, 2021

First time I heard Rebels and new-book Thrawn aren't compatible. I haven't checked out either yet, though I'm currently halfway through the third of the original Thrawn trilogy.

I just love how there's so much contradiction post-2014, the era in which everything is supposedly equally valid. Seems there's still movie/show canon vs book/novel/game canon tiers at least.

Mara Jade doesn't make sense now, even if they work her into the upcoming Ahsoka show as a former Imperial agent. The whole journey to rebel, Jedi and Luke's wife seems impossible given the direction of the sequels, in which Luke never canonically settled with anybody, nor trained any adults besides his sister. She could be rewritten for the Resistance/First Order era, but at that point, there wouldn't be anything recognisably Mara about her, as you know they wouldn't even make her a redhead. Hollywood really seems to hate redheads lately.

Masterfett · Jun 1, 2021

Yeah I really don't see the point in bringing Mara in at this point, as much as I still think it might be cool to see Karen Gillian portray a younger version of her. She just doesn't really make sense unless except to bait people into watching something similar to getting the OT cast for the ST, and that's not warranted considering how little people know of her in general audiences. You might as well just introduce a new character or simply change her background into something else that will fit.

They could always tell a self contained story set immediately after ROTJ and end it with her demise prior to the events of Mandalorian.

General Hoth · Friday at 3:15 PM

Rushie said:
First time I heard Rebels and new-book Thrawn aren't compatible. I haven't checked out either yet, though I'm currently halfway through the third of the original Thrawn trilogy.

I just love how there's so much contradiction post-2014, the era in which everything is supposedly equally valid. Seems there's still movie/show canon vs book/novel/game canon tiers at least.

Mara Jade doesn't make sense now, even if they work her into the upcoming Ahsoka show as a former Imperial agent. The whole journey to rebel, Jedi and Luke's wife seems impossible given the direction of the sequels, in which Luke never canonically settled with anybody, nor trained any adults besides his sister. She could be rewritten for the Resistance/First Order era, but at that point, there wouldn't be anything recognisably Mara about her, as you know they wouldn't even make her a redhead. Hollywood really seems to hate redheads lately.

The biggest difference that I noticed between the EU and the Rebels Thrawn are the eyes. In the EU Thrawn has glowing red eyes whereas in Rebels they just seem to be red. The eyes also seem to have more detail in as much as you can see pupils etc. where in the EU version that was not the case. I think that the difference is significant. His skin seems to be a lighter blue as well.

StarFin · Friday at 3:41 PM

General Hoth said:
The biggest difference that I noticed between the EU and the Rebels Thrawn are the eyes. In the EU Thrawn has glowing red eyes whereas in Rebels they just seem to be red. The eyes also seem to have more detail in as much as you can see pupils etc. where in the EU version that was not the case. I think that the difference is significant.

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Demonic Thrawn vs High as a kite Thrawn lol. Disney probably opted for the lesser of two evils.