FGC #075 Super Star Wars

Recently, there’s been a lot of hype about some sort of Star Wars movie, apparently the seventh one, as I understand it. So, being the inquisitive sort, and, understanding that many of you out there in the blogosphere have no time to see the original Star Wars, (titled, simply, Super Star Wars) I have taken it upon myself to write a detailed summary of the events that occur in this first Star Wars.

Our story begins in a galaxy far, far away, where a beautiful princess is apparently getting her hands dirty and working with some terrorists to bring down a gigantic empire headed by some black guy. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound racist, but I didn’t catch his name. Anyway, Dark Darkley apparently captures Princess Leia and…

Meet Luke Skywalker, as played by a young Guybrush Threepwood. Luke leads a difficult, desert-based life hunting pterodactyls and scorpions. He uses his mighty zapper gun to bring down these creatures, and then collects their pelts, (they look very similar to Valentine’s Day hearts) which can be traded for goods and services. Occasionally, a desert dweller will explode into a new gun, but that is very unusual, as scorpion digestive tracts very rarely process food into weapon upgrades. Eventually, Luke meets a Sarlacc Pit Monster, a monster that would be deadly to only the weakest of hunters, and is very upset when the sandworm completely explodes, leaving not a scrap of precious… anything behind. Sadly, Luke’s family will go hungry tonight.

But there is a new hope! Luke finds a golden robot calling himself C-3PO. C-3PO asks Luke to find his “partner” that has been captured by jawas. So they hop in C-3PO’s hover convertible and roam the desert beating the partner’s whereabouts out of the various jawas running about. Luke must kill 12 jawas before gaining information about the captured ‘bot. Oh, and the jawas? They’re like little teddy bears in cloaks. They make the most adorable little squeal as Luke mows them down, and, frankly, I think there is no partner droid for C-3PO. I think the machine-man is programmed to hate and murder furry creatures, and is using Luke as the trigger man. I can’t blame him, but still, seems kinda weird for a kid’s movie.

Eventually, Luke and C-3PO find the Technodrome, which is apparently the jawa home base. Luke infiltrates the teddy bear tank, and leaps across the spike-filled, instantly fatal pits inside on his way to rescue a soulless automaton. And there’s lasers friggen everywhere. If there’s one thing these miniature fur balls know how to do, it’s build laser death traps. I’m not sure how advanced the jawa culture is supposed to be, but they apparently got too many design ideas from Quick Man. At the bottom of the tank is C-3PO’s partner, (I apologize for my earlier distrust of the killer robot) but it is being guarded by Lava Beast Jawenko. LBJ is slightly unusual in that he is rising from desert sand and calling himself a “lava beast”. I know special effects haven’t always been up to the standards we have today, but if Izzy’s Quest for the Olympic Rings can have legitimate lava monsters, then Lucasarts can spring for them too.

LBJ succumbs to Luke’s master death ray skills after some time, and C-3PO’s pitifully named partner, R2-D2, is rescued from certain standing there all day. To move the plot along, R2-D2 demands to be taken to Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is, as best I can tell, some sort of desert dude like Luke. Maybe he’s his dad or something? Anyway, Luke knows the way to Old Man Ben’s place, so the trio takes the quickest route possible, which contains a great deal of levitating rocks. And falling rocks. And exploding rocks. There’s a whole big rock thing going on.

Luke survives Super Rock Wars and finds Obi-Wan, who, as it turns out, knows Leia’s dad, and demands Luke go off and rescue the blue woman. Speaking of blue, Obi-Wan also grants Luke a blue sword that he claims is the weapon of a “jedi knight”; however, Obi never explains what a “jedi knight” is, but I suppose that’s something that comes up in the sequels. In the meanwhile, it appears the best Jedi Knight Luke can do is club buffalo banthas over and over again and watch them explode. There are a surprising number of volatile desert creatures in this picture.

Oh, and for approximately 5 minutes, it’s back to hover-car jawa killin’ with everyone’s favorite furry frying contraption, C-3PO. Luckily, this is the last we see of him for the rest of the movie, so thank your lucky stars at will. While it’s never explained why he goes missing until the very final shot, I would assume there is some sort of censorship on my copy, and he most likely dies an unnecessarily gruesome death, maybe at the hands of the adorable jawas. Hey, it’s karma.

Mos Eisly (some sort of barrel factory) is the next stop, where a new, explodable enemy appears. The storm trooper, a white clad flunky of the dark clad flunky, now attacks Luke en masse. While the troops aren’t too good at shooting, their greatest ability appears to be falling directly on top of our hero. Perhaps they were trained in the Mushroom Kingdom.

Luke then meets Chewbacca, a large hairy fellow, that, surprisingly enough, MS Word recognizes as a properly spelled noun. I think Chewbacca is a grown up jawa, but this, like many things in Super Star Wars, is completely unexplained. Guess that’s why there are sequels.

Chewbacca and Luke then take on an entire bar of crazy monsters that are never seen again, all set to the most exasperating fight music ever conceived. I think I’d heard it before on a Lego commercial, but definitely not by choice. At the far right of the bar is a creature calling himself Kalhar Boss Monster, who gets shot a couple of times, and then explodes. He must have been an evolutionary offshoot of those desert creatures.

Han Solo then decides to join up, and he’s got a ship! Yay! Finally these morons can get off this blasted desert planet. Come to think of it, a planet is a very big place, so likely the entire planet isn’t desert, it’s just the area that Luke lives in that happens to be a desert. After all, it would pretty short-sighted and childish for there to be a “desert planet” and then maybe an “ice planet”, “swamp planet”, or “lava planet”, because we have all of those environments on our limited planet, and we’re not even the biggest planet in our solar system. I’m sure the creator of this series took that into account, and didn’t just think up a new planet every time he needed a new environment.

Anyway, after a brief detour through a factory followed by a battle with the terrifying Maintenance Droid; Luke, Chewie, and Solo reach their ship and are immediately captured in the dreaded Death Star’s tractor beam. Their combined rescuing skills are subpar at best.

The Death Star is aptly named. First of all, there are giant open holes all over the place. I, personally, have never been to space, but I have seen a great deal of filmstrips on the subject, and, as I understand it, if you have a structure in space with giant holes in it, said structure will kill everyone and everything in it, and possibly destroy the universe. But Luke need only leap over said pits to save his own skin, while those storm troopers, still anxious to use their amazing landing abilities, fall straight to a spacey death. At least instant, horribly painful annihilation is what happens in our universe, maybe in the Lucasverse, now sponsored by Disney, empty space is filled with delicious candy. The Death Star also contains the Imperial Defense Droid, which is a giant metal frog. This empire is corrupt, and possibly in love with reptiles. Somebody call Bucky O’Hare.

Luke, finally, rescues the princess, who, luckily, is not in another Death Star. Meanwhile, the rarely seen Obi Wan battles the even more rarely seen, but at least now named, Darth Vader. And then nothing happens. We get one scene of Obi Wan and Darth Vader with lightsabers drawn, and then nothing. It’s either sloppy editing or more censorship, but I still can’t believe they clipped the climatic duel between two characters that appear in maybe one scene each. Oh well, I assume Obi Wan wins, because wizened old mentors are invincible forces of immortality.

And it’s time for Luke to destroy the Death Star! Apparently the planet-sized space station has some teeny tiny shaft that will blow the whole thing sky high… or… something. So Luke pilots his Red-5, which is a space jet that controls like an underwater tank, and shoots an awful lot of things. He’s told “May the Force be with you,” but this “Force” thing was never explained, and it turns out to be “the R button”. It’s odd. But Luke hits that R button and launches missiles right into the Death Star’s giant gaping weakness. And the universe is saved! Great shot, kid!

But as the credits roll, an ominous message scrolls by… The Empire may strike back. Will it? I don’t know, this Super Star Wars kind of took a while, and I’m none too interested in getting toasted by another “lava” monster. But I hope this synopsis has helped you to better understand the events in Star Wars VII. I hear this time Darth Vader is a woman? I don’t know. But may the force be with you! I think!

FGC #75 Super Star Wars

• System: Super Nintendo, and then Wii, and now Playstation 4 and Vita out of nowhere.
• Number of Players: One, but depending on the level, you have your choice of Luke, Han, or Chewie. Come to think of it, this game would be just right for a 2-Player Co-Op Remake.
• Maybe actually talk about the game for a second: I’m really curious about the intention of the designers on this one, because the game is difficult. Like, “never going to see the fourth level” difficult. You’d think that a game themed after Star Wars, generally considered a “fun kids’ movie” for a decade or so, would be a little lighter on the challenge, but, nope, prepare to die over and over again, Vader rules the universe forever. I realize this may have been an outgrowth of that pervasive thinking that a “difficult” or “hard to beat” game was more likely to be purchased (and not just rented), but, come on, guys, at least let Luke survive long enough to get a lightsaber.
• Further Spell Check Woes: MS Word can deal with “Chewbacca”, but not “lightsaber”, apparently.
• Choices, Choices: Is there any reason to play as Han or Chewie? Luke’s lightsaber is amazing (he made spinning lightsword attacks cool before Yoda or Zero), and he can resort to a blaster whenever he wants. Han gets… the ability to roll around? Chewie… smells terrible?
• How memory works: I blame Nintendo Power, but Kalhar Boss Monster’s sprite is burned into my brain for some reason. I think I recognize that thing on sight more quickly than Jar Jar.
• Did you know? The Debug Code (which you better believe I abused as a kid) that allows you to skip levels and be invincible also allows you to choose whichever character you’d like for whichever stage you’d like… except the stage where you meet Han Solo at the end, where, despite being able to use Han in every stage prior, he is unavailable. I guess more than one Han in the same place would cause a universe far, far away to buckle under too much awesomeness.
• Would I play again: Unlikely. If I want the Star Wars experience, I’m going to play a game that isn’t so actively against me. Or, ya know, just watch the movie.

What’s Next? Random ROB has chosen… Star Wars Arcade for the 32X. Fair warning? It’s going to be another article where I use the “Maybe actually talk about the game for a second” bullet point, because you better believe I have other things to talk about in this franchise. Please look forward to it!