Stars' End

I'd like to be playing Old Republic right now, but for various reasons I'm not, while my computer is cycling through some processes that take up probably too much power for me to feel like it's a good idea (namely, backing up my wife's old hard drive, and transferring it to a solid state drive so I can put it on the new desktop that I got for her.) I've also got my dumb sporadic internet issues worked out, but it required changing our "box" which also made my wife very sad, because she had a good 100+ hours of stuff saved on the DVR that's now lost. It's pretty much all hers, too. She's the only one who watches any TV. I was trying to start two shows with her this season: La Brea and Ghosts, but at most we missed an episode or two, so we'll probably just keep going with those two.

Anyway, while waiting for all the gigs of files to transfer, I started up the Mandolorian soundtrack in the background, and finished reading Han Solo at Stars' End. I have it in the Han Solo Adventures omnibus, but it was first published in early '79. I think, other than Splinter of the Mind's Eye, that it's the very first Star Wars expansion project; the very second novel published, and the first prequel (since it takes place earlier than Star Wars the movie.) I've actually had this for some time, but after reading only a couple of chapters, I got distracted and set it aside for months. I finally—belatedly, I admit—blasted through it fairly quickly.

It's an interesting piece. Along with Splinter, it's a small view into what the Star Wars galaxy might have looked like had it remained truer to its roots in "traditional" space opera rather than becoming more ponderous and "mythic" as the critics like to say, mostly so that they can sound like they're saying something important at all. I think the direction that ultimately Empire went with the whole vs. Darth Vader stuff was the right direction for the franchise, in the end, but sometimes I miss the lighter, breezier, swashbuckling Star Wars, and in my opinion, the franchise needs to do frequent roots checks to make sure that it hasn't deviated too far in its diversity from its roots. 

The other interesting thing about the Han Solo novels is that they are a view into a galaxy that has more going on in it than just the Empire and the Rebellion. Han Solo as a scoundrel, rascal and pseudo-privateer against the Corporate Authority has a very different vibe then the fight against the Empire. It also has a very different vibe than the Jedi as Superheroes vibe that ended up becoming especially prominent in the prequel and sequel trilogy eras. 

While there are many things I could complain about with regards to the execution of a lot of things in The Old Republic, I also have to give them credit for remembering this most crucial of details about the franchise, and digging into a lot of classic space opera vibes and recreate or emulate them in the game, when possible. The entire Old Republic franchise; all three games (although the third is, of course, an order of magnitude bigger than any of the stuff that preceded it) are really among the best Star Wars content that the franchise has done in decades. Along with The Clone Wars, The Mandalorian, and a few other video games and novels, it's the only thing that even comes close to being as good as the original trilogy was. 

And as I've pointed out before, although we didn't know it because it's fantastic visual presentation was so much better than novels written in the 30s, 40s 50s and 60s, the reality is that Star Wars from a plot and characterization standpoint, is really a fairly pale imitation of those classic space operas. Oh, sure... it was always cooler looking, because it was a movie with good special effects, even in the 70s. But that's not everything. To be honest, the Old Republic doesn't really look that great for a video game. I mean, it certainly does the job, but I've played Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Ghost of Tsushima, fer cryin' out loud. Compared to those, Old Republic looks positively primitive. And honestly, even though you've obviously got to give it a handicap, if you will, considering that it's ten years old now, the reality is that even at the time the Old Republic wasn't necessarily the best looking game that ever came out.

Now, that said, it does have some great visual design. It's just that technically, it's not a super graphically sophisticated game. Which, I think, is actually fine, because by being less graphically sophisticated, it manages to be a lot more instead. The game is absolutely freakin' huge, for instance, and offers more content than any ten games of its predecessors' caliber. Given that, it can be forgiven, in my opinion, its occasional awkward steps.