Star Wars Plagarism?

[Aaron]

Isn't Lucas helming it himself, though?

He's writing and directing the first few episodes I believe. I wouldn't count on him overseeing every episode, plenty of chances for it to go south.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Well, hopefully they'll have a series bible that he writes most of.

[Darth Tanner]

Well, hopefully they'll have a series bible that he writes most of.

With Gungans, Ewoks and buzz droids in it? I wouldn't put it past him. Now get Saxton or one of the good EU authors as a consultant... then there may be a shred of hope.

Twin eye-on engine?

Classic.

Does New Line Cinema not know about this yet? I'm sure they could do with a bit of Lucas' cash to throw at Peter Jackson these days.

[Junghalli]

Initially I was going to point out that a shield wall like that is probably going to be a pretty common strategy anywhere with Midaeval tech, and one will tend to look rather like another, so it's not that bad. Then I saw Bounty's pic and it changed my mind. The armor is identicle, and they even copied the positions of the shields! It might not be enough to convict in court, but it's a really obvious rip-off.

And yeah, LOL at the concept of a civilization that's still using pikemen and war elephants (well, OK, war dinosaurs) but can build lightsabers. I can only assume those are two Jedi who got stranded on a primitive planet somehow.

[Invictus ChiKen]

Twin eye-on engine?

That is worthy of a young Jacen Solo himself.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Where do you even get somebody fucking retarded enough to come up with a war setting like that? They have the technology to build spaceships and death rays, but they still fight in shield wall formation with swords and spears? One would think that at some stage of the creative process, a person would say, "Hey, it doesn't really make any sense for people who can build ray-guns to carry metal swords, because firearms are an obvious invention and would be trivially easy to build for a space-faring civilization."

My guess is that the Dark Horse people who were tasked with creating this offal just said, "Hey who gives a shit, it's a comic book, and Star Wars fans will buy it even if it doesn't make any sense."

[Vympel]

You're talking about people who reaffirm that Splinter of the Mind's Eye happened constantly, no matter how fucking impossible it is.

[Ford Prefect]

You're talking about people who reaffirm that Splinter of the Mind's Eye happened constantly, no matter how fucking impossible it is.

Could I get you to explain? I'm not up with all the jazz here, and I'd like to know.

[Sidewinder]

Hopefully, the resulting lawsuit will make George Lucas & Co. crack down on all the unoriginal shit that certain people are marketing as 'Star Wars' merchandise.

[Darth Wong]

Frankly, Curtis is the only person involved with SW publications in the last few years who has demonstrated any interest in maintaining the intellectual integrity of the franchise. The rest of them view it as a mere artistic fashion rather than a cumulative work of literature which should maintain some internal intellectual integrity. They think of it in terms of maintaining a certain subjective "feel" without being "constrained" by pesky logical concerns, which would add to their workload without giving the individual writers any perceived benefit.

[The Yosemite Bear]

mind you when I first saw the pic my thoughts were "THIS IS SPAR-erm I mean THIS IS STARWARS!"

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Not sure about the war elephant.

The triceratops are mounted by witches

Silly nitpick, but the thing in the picture is obviously a giant styracosaurus, not a triceratops or an elephant. Styracosaurs have a single horn on the nose and a frill topped with long horns, triceratops have a horn on the nose, one above each eye, and a frill topped with short, blunt horns.

...on closer examination, though, it is a little hard to tell. I mean wow, it's really poorly done. The nose-horn looks like it's coming out of the thing's right nostril, and there's a shadowy thing in the background that looks vaguely horn-shaped, but is nearly as big as the damn creature.

[Connor MacLeod]

The picture is probably representing one of the Sith creatures, which is some giant mutated Darkside monstrosity created by Evil Sith Alchemy (its maaaaagiiccckk) As I recall, there were quite alot of evil Sith Magic Monsters deployed against hte Republic.

And the picture is actually in the New Essential Chronology, which just goes to show you that despite the Holocron, alot of continuity in Star Wars can be downright shitty. It must be noted that the Republic side in that war (to my knowledge) did not make much if any use of spears, shields, or whatnot - everyone in that era was still using guns/pistols and rifles. Moreover, the Jedi weren't using lightsabers anything like they were depicted in the NEC, they had these funny cables running from the saber to a powerpack.

The Sith forcecs did use melee weapons IIRC (mainly blades, but made of magic Sith Crystal IIRC) but they were also insane magically mutated creatures as I recall, being further bolstered/aided by more Evil Sith Magic. (They used alot more of that stuff back then I recall.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Frankly, Curtis is the only person involved with SW publications in the last few years who has demonstrated any interest in maintaining the intellectual integrity of the franchise. The rest of them view it as a mere artistic fashion rather than a cumulative work of literature which should maintain some internal intellectual integrity. They think of it in terms of maintaining a certain subjective "feel" without being "constrained" by pesky logical concerns, which would add to their workload without giving the individual writers any perceived benefit.

Actually I believe there probably are, as the recent Death STar novel proves. And you have people like Troy Denning and Allston, or James Luceno. Unfortuntely, I suspect they're in the minority (along with Curtis.)

The real problem isn't so much with the authors of literature (although some of them CAN be a problem) its more all the other aspects of the franchise, particularily the toys and games where the real problems crop up. Case in point woudl be things like Wizards of the Coast and Sarli (nevermind the WEG wankers) or things like that. Or goofball artists of any stripe. They probably outnumber the authors many times, and the medium they operate in is probably more prevalent.

Then again, when you throw in stupid shit like the Ewoks and Endor in ROTJ (nevermind the rationalizations presented by other sources like the novel itself) or the Gungans in TPM (or even, to some extent, the wookiees) I can kind of see why this stupidity perpetuates. Well that and the "its not sci fi its fantasy and fantasy doesn't have to make sense" idiocy.

[Junghalli]

Where do you even get somebody fucking retarded enough to come up with a war setting like that? They have the technology to build spaceships and death rays, but they still fight in shield wall formation with swords and spears? One would think that at some stage of the creative process, a person would say, "Hey, it doesn't really make any sense for people who can build ray-guns to carry metal swords, because firearms are an obvious invention and would be trivially easy to build for a space-faring civilization."

On SB some people were trying to rationalize it by saying SW humans got their tech from the Rakata, so there may be a lot of gaps in their tech base.

It's still bullshit though. Even if that's true, there are tons of high tech tools necessary to build starships that could easily be adapted into weapons much more effective than spears. If you can manufacture a pnuematic nail gun you can make a personal side arm (a very sucky one, but still better than a spear FFS). There's just no way a battle between spacefaring factions would look anything like that short of pure authorial fiat. Even somebody whose entire knowledge of military affairs came out of James Bond could tell it was totally retarded.

It would make much more sense and be much cooler as a battle on ancient Coruscant, before it had its industrial revolution (aside from the lightsabers and blatant LOTR rip-off, of course).

Silly nitpick, but the thing in the picture is obviously a giant styracosaurus, not a triceratops or an elephant. Styracosaurs have a single horn on the nose and a frill topped with long horns, triceratops have a horn on the nose, one above each eye, and a frill topped with short, blunt horns.

Well, if you really want to get technical about it it's an extraterrestrial organism from a planet in another galaxy that just happens to have a coincidental resemblance to a styracosaur.

[Sea Skimmer]

He's writing and directing the first few episodes I believe. I wouldn't count on him overseeing every episode, plenty of chances for it to go south.

Given what episode 1 and 2 amounted too, I see direct Lucas involvement as little defense against pure crap being churned out. I fully expect the storylines will utterly fuck with even more of the decent parts of the EU too.

[ray245]

Hmm...will anyone hear be evil enough to notify new line about this??

[Dooey Jo]

Guys, have you considered the possibility that LFL actually asked permission from New Line Cinema to use a few still frames to make this silly homage/abomination? The uniform on that Jedi in the back looks eerily familiar, too.

Silly nitpick, but the thing in the picture is obviously a giant styracosaurus, not a triceratops or an elephant. Styracosaurs have a single horn on the nose and a frill topped with long horns, triceratops have a horn on the nose, one above each eye, and a frill topped with short, blunt horns.

...on closer examination, though, it is a little hard to tell. I mean wow, it's really poorly done. The nose-horn looks like it's coming out of the thing's right nostril, and there's a shadowy thing in the background that looks vaguely horn-shaped, but is nearly as big as the damn creature.

It has five facial horns; one from the dinosaur head and four from the oliphaunt he pasted it on

[Ghost Rider]

The picture is probably representing one of the Sith creatures, which is some giant mutated Darkside monstrosity created by Evil Sith Alchemy (its maaaaagiiccckk) As I recall, there were quite alot of evil Sith Magic Monsters deployed against hte Republic.

And the picture is actually in the New Essential Chronology, which just goes to show you that despite the Holocron, alot of continuity in Star Wars can be downright shitty. It must be noted that the Republic side in that war (to my knowledge) did not make much if any use of spears, shields, or whatnot - everyone in that era was still using guns/pistols and rifles. Moreover, the Jedi weren't using lightsabers anything like they were depicted in the NEC, they had these funny cables running from the saber to a powerpack.

The Sith forcecs did use melee weapons IIRC (mainly blades, but made of magic Sith Crystal IIRC) but they were also insane magically mutated creatures as I recall, being further bolstered/aided by more Evil Sith Magic. (They used alot more of that stuff back then I recall.)

Sadly on the constant of Sith Alchemy and Maaaaaagic, you're likely more right then not. It's rather funny when you think about that it's supposed to be Sith Genetic Manipulation is explained as a magical thing.

And yeah, they're blades were supposed to be SUPAH BLADES, that are just like lightsabers, but metal.

What's funnier is when you look at a picture like this you think "Sure, why not...3000-4000 years ago, we were similar!", then one looks at SW history and realizes they had FTL and everything else...some 25,000 years before Yavin/Death Star and it just doesn't make any fucking sense with the sword and board affair.

[Darth Wong]

Well, the shields are actually somewhat tolerable; if modern soldiers could carry an ultra-lightweight shield that could protect against virtually any man-portable weaponry, they might consider it. It's the spears that are totally intolerable as anything but a ceremonial weapon. Jabba had palace guards armed with spears, but when the fighting broke out, they immediately grabbed real weapons.

[Master_Baerne]

I can't believe this is the state of the EU now. Not only does it have this imbecilic high fantasy right alongside high technology, it's published plagiarism. How much lower can the Star Wars franchise sink?

Well, it could sink to Star Trek levels of stupidity...oh wait.

[Ghost Rider]

Well, the shields are actually somewhat tolerable; if modern soldiers could carry an ultra-lightweight shield that could protect against virtually any man-portable weaponry, they might consider it. It's the spears that are totally intolerable as anything but a ceremonial weapon. Jabba had palace guards armed with spears, but when the fighting broke out, they immediately grabbed real weapons.

That's thinking logically . The disgust I have is likely the same as most. They are using medieval weapons because it's long time ago, but never considering how far advanced the SW universe is.

I still find it sad that even way back then SW had loads of blasters, but nay...must go for melee(which only works for advanced Force users who can use them as deflection weapons).

[Darth Wong]

Who was it who said that the SW EU is "cloudier" the farther away you get from the movies? I think we have to chalk up virtually everything from the EU's pre-Republic era as in-universe mythology rather than actual events. Like Homer's Trojan War in real-life.

[Drooling Iguana]

I have the death penalty in twelve Provinces (of Japan)-Yojimbo

very bad part is that the scenes are almost perfectly framed identically

it's called inspiration dudes.

If the artist had drawn a scene similar to one in Lord of the Rings then your comparison would be valid, but he didn't.

This is more like if Lucas took a clip from Yojimbo, doctored Toshiro Mifune up to look like Mark Hamill and passed it off as his own work.

[Rye]

Holy shit that styracosaurus/mumakil hybrid is awful, I mean, so are the spears and LotR soldiers, but that monster is just nasty. Look at the tusks it has underneath its jaw in a bizarre "beard", they look so cumbersome and out of place. Urgh. Shocking, absolutely shocking.