Star Wars Battlefront 2 - now with lootbox drama

[Average Manatee]

I don’t know anything about it being in the scripts though, so maybe you’re right. Honestly I always figured George just cast all of the relevant characters as humans because it was a movie, and they didn’t want to make 15 different kinds of Stormtrooper helmets. Then the EU had to come up with an ad-hoc explanation to justify things. Even then it still doesn’t make perfect sense. When Palpatine reorganized the Republic into the Empire, did he also start purging all the aliens that were in government and replacing them with humans? I never read the Zahn books, but isn’t Thrawn an alien too? Or is he exempt because he’s humanoid?

I think the implication of the movies is just that 99% of the universe is humans. Every other race basically just has their home planet, e.g. the Wookie planet, the Geonosian planet, the Bothan planet, or the (half) Gungan planet. These races are all represented as their own unified political force, e.g. characters talk about what the Wookies are doing and so on, and these are clearly subordinate to the overall galactic governing body while humans just make up everything else. Then you've got a few sprinkled aliens in the major city-planets like Coruscant or Nar-Shaddaa (which I think is itself EU-only I think).

But yeah it's obviously that way in the movies because casting aliens is hard.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Yes, I know I've read interviews that Lucas gave around the launch of RotJ (don't ask me to find them, this was pre-internet days) about how they finally had the budget to show the Rebel Alliance as a multi-racial coalition and that that had always been his intention for how they should be portrayed.
To be fair, there was also a huge amount of pushback when ESB released about how they had taken all of the "weird" (read: Mos Eisley cantina) out of Star Wars and made it a straightforward space opera, so I'm sure that was a significant consideration during the filming of RotJ.

 

[Crichton]

I'm not sure what this has to do with the game (which I also got as an epic giveaway, but have not played, like all my other epic giveaways thus far); this thread looks like it belongs in the library; but I agree that the empire was clearly implied to be more homogeneous (and presumably xenophobic) than the rebels given that the rebels have a black guy, guy in fur suit, female officers, etc etc (even before we get into the RotJ diversity parade). However it's worth noting that outside of the one black dude and furry, the rebels in NH and ESB are pretty much all white men too and no imperials espouse explicitly speciesist beliefs in the films (not liking bounty hunters doesn't count; the regular military always looks down on irregulars/mercenaries).

I liked the first three Timothy Zahn books when I was younger and I appreciated his attempts to paper over the various plot holes from the films. I'm not sure the 'Humans First' stuff gelled too well with supreme smurf Thrawn. But to be fair, how good were Hitler's credentials as a German/Aryan? Brown hair, brown eyes and wasn't it Bismark who called Bavarians the missing link between Austrians and humanity?

Back on topic, I liked the original battlefront games, even though they were overly simplistic, just for being star wars games that didn't revolve around hokey religions and ancient weapons.

 

[Comrade Goby]

This is why the Empire has always been the clear good guys

 

[Average Manatee]

Even within the rebel alliance, there's clear "good" aliens and "bad" aliens in the movies and in the EU. Try to find a Rodian or Hutt or Trandoshan in the alliance. Similarly Twilek are pretty much universally evil unless they are female in which case they can be good because they are considered hot (thanks to the one scene with the dancer in RotJ). Male Twilek instead all draw from the guy who was with Jabba.

Also, it strikes me that at least Bothans must have been accepted within the empire in order for Bothan spies to steal the death star plans. Kind of hard to infiltrate a supposed human-supremacist organization as a giant rat man otherwise. Though at the same time I don't recall "Bothan" being mentioned as a separate species in the original trilogy so maybe Lucas considered them just another human colony like Corellia.

 

[Drakron]

Yes, I know I've read interviews that Lucas gave around the launch of RotJ (don't ask me to find them, this was pre-internet days) about how they finally had the budget to show the Rebel Alliance as a multi-racial coalition and that that had always been his intention for how they should be portrayed.
To be fair, there was also a huge amount of pushback when ESB released about how they had taken all of the "weird" (read: Mos Eisley cantina) out of Star Wars and made it a straightforward space opera, so I'm sure that was a significant consideration during the filming of RotJ.

Looking at the prequels, thats likely true since when he could done it he done it and of course in Jedi we see the Mon Calamari and I think more aliens that the previous two movies combined.

Also Return of the Jedi was 83, at the time most special effects were done by makeup so it was people wearing masks and with the prequels we seen very distinct aliens species instead of human wearing mask/hat/painted ... the Jawas were children wearing robes as Ewoks were by people with dwarfism wearing a full suit ... Yoda was a puppet and that one of the most complicated aliens that were in the movies, by the time of the prequels the CGI reached a point were it was possible to make more visual complicated aliens but you still notice the ones the cast have to physical interact are humans in makeup or masks, the Jedi council for example only had one human member even if most were wearing makeup and some type of masks, there is clearly the intent of making then very diverse something that still wasnt easy in the early 80's.

 

[Cael]

basically the only thing that is ever revealed about their ideology in the original films is that they believe in racial purity

When? I don’t remember this ever being mentioned anywhere in the original movies. I’ve heard this brought up before but it seems like something that people have projected onto the Empire just because of the Nazi inspiration, not because there’s actually anything to support this in the films themselves.

Well, it's pretty implicit in that we never see an alien member of the Imperial army (in contrast with the Rebel Alliance). Piett's reaction to Vader bringing bounty hunters on board the Executor in ESB is also indicative of it. I also believe it was made explicit in some of the script treatments of the original Star Wars.

But yes, you're correct that it's not explicit in the theatrical versions of the original trilogy, only heavily implied. I don't think it was made explicit until Thrawn/Zahn.

It was made explicit in the EU only, IIRC...

... Which is what I said in the actual post you are quoting. Reading comprehension: what is it?

Look if you guys want to pretend that the whole racial purity thing wasn’t heavily implied by the original trilogy then that’s your prerogative, but they are called stormtroopers for fuck’s sake.

Confirming your post makes you that defensive? Man, you have self-esteem issues.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Played this game for about an hour and got bored, but wow are the environments pretty. The artists who did the environments deserve recognition.
Definitely wouldn't recommend it, but damn those are pretty environments.

 

[Elwro]

If you're into SW, then the single campaign is surprisingly good.