Dining With Developers, Vol. 2: Haden Blackman, Part 2
4/17/2009 5:16 PM | 10 Comments | Page 6 of 9
Scott Jones
Status: Coffee makes me feel 4-percent sexier.
And I said, "I don't know! Maybe he could pull a Star Destroyer out of the sky." And there was a concept artist in the room. She went away and painted that image. And before I knew it, everybody had seen that image, including the president at the time. And he had it blown up and had it put on the wall of his office, because to him that captured
The Force Unleashed. And I was like, "Hey, I don't know how we're going to do that in-game."
And the Star Destoyer battle? That changed four times during development. And the version we have in at the end, we didn't actually start working on until we'd hit alpha. So, you know, that version is the best version we came up with in development. But do I think that we could have done a better job with it? Probably. Yeah.
Kahn: We should never have given that all away at that press conference.
[Blackman and Kahn look at each other.] At the time, we thought people wouldn't believe that we had a story that they would actually care about. We didn't think anyone would buy it. Looking back now, we really shouldn't have done that.
Jones: Speaking of things you shouldn't have done.
Soulcalibur. Yoda. Vader. Was that weird at all for you guys?
Blackman: It was actually really exciting for us. A bunch of guys on the team are Soulcalibur fans. So [the Soulcalibur team] came out to see us. We met with them for two days, and the animators were over the moon, because the Soulcalibur people were asking, "OK, so how would Vader fight? Describe it. Act it out. Is he more like this or this?" So, from a development standpoint, these guys were meeting some of their idols, and they're treating us like with great reverence and respect.
Jones: Do you feel that it cheapens the franchise? I mean, who's next? The Burger King?
Blackman: If we felt it cheapened either franchise, I don't think we would have done it. [The Soulcalibur thing] wasn't a money thing, all right? We saw it as an opportunity to work with guys we like and respect, and to maybe get Star Wars into an area where it hasn't been seen before.
Jones: Are there any in-jokes around the office about Kyle Katarn?
Blackman: What about Kyle Katarn?
Lucas: [Looks at Jones] Some people really like him.
Jones: He's got that terrible beard.
Blackman: I've never heard anyone make a joke about Kyle Katarn. We get letters all the time from fans bring back Kyle Katarn. All the time.
Jones: Are you kidding me? No one has less gravity, to my mind, in the Star Wars universe, than Kyle Katarn.
Lucas: I want to talk about voiceover work again for a second. When are we going to get Harrison Ford playing Han Solo? Doesn't a game like
The Force Unleashed prove that this is a viable way to bring these characters back to life? We saw Sean Connery as James Bond again. And Clint Eastwood was working on some voiceover work for Dirty Harry. I want to see Harrison Ford as a young Han Solo. I want to hear Mark Hamill in that world again. Is it tougher to get older actors to see the light here?
