Mountain Surfing

More and more the lines between entertainment media are blurring. The overlaps among movies, television, literature, music, video games and the Internet have become so widespread, it's hard to know where one ends and the others begin. And perhaps no one has done more to intertwine mediums than George Lucas, whose LucasArts released the video game "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" this past Tuesday.

Since the release of the movie "Star Wars" in 1977, the franchise has become an unparalleled marketing phenomenon. Along with film sequels (and prequels), there have been action figures, cartoons, spinoffs, a score commonly performed by orchestras and played at sporting events, multiple book series, video game after video game, a tour at Disneyland, a plethora of fan web sites and pop-culture references in everything from "Clerks" to "The Family Guy". Of course, all that is familiar by now. What's not as familiar is the way "Star Wars" has bled across mediums in telling its vast and seemingly unending narrative. Just this past summer, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars", continued the story that began over 30 years ago - this time in CGI-animated format (the movie itself was a continuation of the TV series of the same name). Now, with Tuesday's game release, more of the "Star Wars" story is being told in an entirely different medium altogether.

Available for Xbox360, Wii, Nintendo DS, PLAYSTATION3 and PSP, Lucas Arts states that the new game is the first to be considered by Lucas an actual chapter in the overall storyline of "Star Wars", "unveiling new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy". That, in a way, makes "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" as much a movie as a game. The plot of the game introduces a new character, Darth Vader's onetime apprentice (played in the game by the actor Sam Witwer), and focuses on his struggle to free himself from the dark side. Along with the monumental inclusion of crucial storyline information, "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" also incorporates two new video-game technologies. One technology, called Euphoria, assures that things always happen differently each time the game is played. The other technology, referred to as "digital molecular matter", works to make the consequences of character actions more realistic. So, for example, if a character blows something up, debris from the explosion is intended to scatter and hit more "truthfully" than it would in most games.

Despite such innovations, reactions to the game thus far have been mixed. A Wired Blog review of the game was tagged with the headline "Force Unleashed Explores the Dark Side, But It's No Fun". Worse than such game reviews though were critiques of this past summer's "The Clone Wars" movie, which critic Richard Roeper called "one of the most mediocre entries in the entire Star Wars catalogue". Add those comments to the scathing opinions many had about Lucas's trilogy of prequels, and one has to wonder whether stretching the storyline across mediums hasn't somehow diluted it. Like adding water to liquor, barraging consumers with diverse content may have taken some of the potency out of the epic story. Still, Lucas and his collaborators should be applauded for their progressive approach to intermingling media. It's a practice that points to the future of entertainment - a future that may eventually see the masses going into theaters and creating their own conclusions video-game style. But hopefully, before taking us there, Lucas and his buddies will find a new story to tell first.

Shad Connelly,

Executive Editor -

Invention & Technology News http://news.inventhelp.com

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