Before you play the Force Unleashed II pick up a copy of Dark Horse's new Force Unleashed II graphic novel. Here's Star Wars writer Haden Blackman with a very special Star Wars Friday post!
It’s rare that I remember exactly where, when or how an idea starts, especially ideas related to the games I’ve worked on. Game development is a highly-collaborative process: An idea flies out of someone’s mouth, then is built upon and added to, reshaped and re-envisioned by everyone else in the room, until we all forget exactly what sparked the idea in the first place. It doesn’t really matter because after the process runs its course, the idea belongs to everyone.
But, I remember exactly how Boba Fett ended up in The Force Unleashed II. We had already decided on the themes for the game and hammered out the basic story – Starkiller’s resurrection after his apparent death in the first game, his reunion with Jedi Master Kota, and his quest to find his love interest Juno Eclipse. We also knew that Vader would be the story’s primary antagonist, and that he would go to great extremes to regain control of his former apprentice. But we still had some holes and missing characters; most importantly, we hadn’t identified who would be leading an Imperial strike-team tasked with luring Starkiller out of hiding.
As I was walked the floor one day, checking out concept art, exploring new levels, approving storyboards for our cinematics, and playing with our revamped targeting system, Ian Dominguez sought me out. Ian is a designer who worked on both Force Unleashed games. He knows Star Wars as well – probably even better – than I do, and he has the Darth Vader tattoo to prove it. Ian marched over to me and said:
“What about Boba Fett?”
“What about Boba Fett?”
“What if Boba Fett leads the Imperials searching for Starkiller?”
Honestly, I wasn’t a big fan of including Boba Fett. With both Force Unleashed games, we wanted to make fans happy and give nods to the expanded universe (and therefore we included Bail, Mon Mothma, and Garm Bel Iblis in scenes depicting the formation of the Rebel Alliance), but we also promised never to shoe-horn characters into the story just because we could. My other big concern was that the “Imperial strike-team leader” was a small (albeit pivotal) part of the story. I kept worrying that we wouldn’t be able to get the most out of Fett in that role.
But a little ground swell developed behind the idea – team members came forward to back it up, explaining how it made sense from a Star Wars standpoint (“Vader hires Boba Fett to do stuff all the time!”). And eventually, they won me over, or wore me down, or maybe a little of both… And for that, I am very grateful, because the meeting between Vader and Fett was for me one of the most enjoyable scenes to write in the entire game script. And it rekindled my fascination with the character, who is so very different from either Starkiller or Vader.
When it came time to plot the comic book companion for TFUII, I presented Randy Stradley with three options: a straight adaptation, as we had done for the original game; the game story told by Starkiller personally; and a parallel story that follows Fett’s efforts to lure Starkiller back to Vader. The straight adaptation would have been the easiest option, since the game’s “shooting script” for cinematics was already complete and approved.
But I saw a greater challenge in the “Fett Option” – could we provide enough connections to the game to make the story worthwhile to fans of the TFU franchise, but make the story strong enough on its own that folks who haven’t played the games will still enjoy the comic? And, maybe more importantly, could I find an interesting character arc for Boba Fett, a character who already seems so well-defined. In order to tackle this second challenge, I went full circle – back to the themes of the game. Starkiller is on a very personal quest in the game – he wants to be reunited with the woman he loves, a woman he can’t stop thinking about and he believes will help him sort out his identity crisis. To me, the belief that love can fix anything wouldn’t sit well with a cynic like Boba Fett, and presenting him with quarry that might actually believe this stuff would challenge him on multiple levels.
At the end of it all, I feel like we managed to slip in some more of Fett’s backstory, show why Vader relies on him later in the saga. But most importantly, I think we’ve managed to put Fett up against threats – both internal and external – that test him and force him to make real, meaningful decisions that go well beyond the scope of his small but important role in the video game.
And he gets to fight a big monster, gun down a mad scientist, and set a lot of stuff on fire.
--Haden Blackman
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