Category Archives: General Star Wars

While it is still fresh in my mind, I thought I’d share some thoughts about the recently concluded Disney+ Star Wars series The Acolyte. Beware there shall be spoilers ahead!

Overall, I thought it was very good and very interesting to watch, especially as a long time Star Wars fan. If Andor and Rogue One are the Star Wars stories for people tired of the Jedi, The Acolyte is the complete opposite; it dives deeper into the questions around the Jedi than any other live action or animated Star Wars story. It poses questions I’ve asked myself, and it goes to places about which I’ve long wondered.

The Acolyte was created by Leslye Headland whose last show Russian Doll I really enjoyed, so I was prepared to give The Acolyte as much space as it needed to tell its story. The cast is very strong, with a diverse group of actors bringing to life an era of Star Wars previously unexplored in live action. Amandla Stenberg does a good job in her dual role and I really like how you can tell Mae and Osha apart without difficulty, until, of course, you can’t. Lee Jung-jae is terrific as Master Sol. The entire show would fall apart if all of Sol’s strengths and weaknesses aren’t given an empathic and relatable face, and he expresses the flawed, beating heart that holds all these contradictions together until it breaks. The cast is rounded out by faces familiar from Russian Doll and other popular media, but I want to single out Dafne Keen who makes Jecki instantly likeable and wise beyond her years and Manny Jacinto who is clearly reveling in the role of the sneering villain and chewing just the right amount of scenery.

Many of the Disney+ Star Wars series have been rightly criticized for their smaller and confined settings, but I think The Acolyte, and Ahsoka just before it, show that they are working to broaden the scope of their environments in post-lockdown Hollywood. Neither show quite matches the reach of Andor, but it feels much more expansive than the recent Mandalorian seasons.

Otherwise the costumes, special effects and set design is as excellent as you’d expect from a modern production. I’m always happy to see another Wookiee, and Bazil the Tracker feels right at home in the Star Wars universe. Something about the prequels that always disappointed me was that the Jedi’s costumes embraced the brown bathrobe aesthetic a bit too much, depicting the Jedi in their prime as rather more drab than I’d always hoped to see. The Acolyte’s Jedi garb follows the tone set by other High Republic stories and the characters’ costumes display more color with vivid gold accents, bright white cloaks and individual expression.

I’ll go into more depth below about the things I found interesting about The Acolyte, but it’s not perfect. There are moments that the show just races by that I wish it had lingered on more: Mae’s arrival on the Stranger’s planet at the end of the first episode feels abrupt, and I wish young Osha’s interactions with the Jedi on Brendok were explored more fully, for example the scene in which she meet Kelnacca the Wookiee feels like it needed at least one more beat to show the characters actually connecting.

Some of the action of the first episode feels unnecessary; the prison-ship sequence shows Osha’s resourcefulness and kind heart I suppose, but it also feels like it just serves to delay the reunion of Osha and Sol, which is when the show’s story really gets into gear.

I also found the season’s ending in which Osha and Mae are separated again somewhat contrived. That Osha would choose to go with the Stranger and leave her sister behind didn’t quite work for me. Clearly the story is not over yet, but splitting them up feels like an awkward reset of their journeys, even if they have swapped their relative places.

Cinematic Influences

The Acolyte has a whole raft of influences many of which are familiar to Star Wars fans. The Acolyte fully engages with the messy practices of the Jedi as seen in the prequels and the history of the Jedi from both the High Republic and the Old Republic eras.

The Acolyte draws on a wealth of Star Wars lore, but in a way that feels unobtrusive to me. As a Star Wars nerd, I had many moments of recognition. “Hey, did he just quote the Sith code?” “Wait, is that Cortosis?” “Ooh, I bet I know who that creepy dude in the shadows is!” But here’s the thing, you do not need to be in on the jokes to understand the show’s meanings. The Stranger’s identity was not meant to be a surprise. You don’t need to read a decades old novel to understand how the metal helmet works; it’s clearly communicated in the action of the show. And, look, the creepy dude lurking in the shadows is just some creepy dude lurking in the shadows. You should be able to draw your own conclusions on what he is without having someone on the internet explain it to you.

Star Wars traditionally has been inspired by samurai movies, but The Acolyte also draws on influences from Chinese action cinema and “Wuxia” stories of fantastic martial artists. I’m sure it’s no accident that Carrie-Anne Moss, the star of The Matrix, the most famous American film influenced by Chinese martial arts movies, was cast as Master Indara. Moreover, The Acolyte’s very first action scene was a loving tribute to the teahouse battle from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The Acolyte‘s young protagonists being torn between and forced to account for the mistakes of the older generation is a theme very similar to Ang Lee’s movie.

These influences mean that The Acolyte‘s action choreography is very good, especially for a TV show. If you’ve always wanted more Kung Fu in your Star Wars, you’ll enjoy the fight scenes in The Acolyte. The centerpiece of the series is the battle in the woods on Khofar in the episode Night; it is as absolutely thrilling, tense and heartbreaking a set piece as any similar sequence you might find on any TV series or even in most action movies.

Some of the influences go even deeper and farther back. Twins and siblings, both literal and metaphorical, are important in other Star Wars stories, most famously Luke and Leia, but also the Dyad of Ben and Rey in the sequels or Arcann and Thexan from SWTOR. But the exploration of twins and the strength of their bonds goes back thousands of years into the myths of our cultures including Castor and Pollux ancient Greek heroes with divine parentage and a bond that transcended death, or Romulus and Remus, the contentious twins central to the stories of Rome’s founding.

Likewise the stories of twins from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to the modern classic The Parent Trap also play with twins and mistaken identity. The Acolyte embraces this whole-heartedly. Both Osha and Mae pretend to be the other sister, but the theme of opposites and dualities as reflections are baked into every aspect of the show from the titles of the episodes: Lost/Found, Revenge/Justice, Teach/Corrupt, Day and Night, Destiny and Choice to Osha’s tattoo, which I interpret to be a simplified and abstracted depiction of the butterfly from the girl’s favorite tree on Brendok, but it is split in two with the wing shapes reflecting their opposite sides. The metaphor is very much on the nose.

Likewise the Stranger and Master Sol are reflections of each other, they both have two faces, one of which they struggle mightily to keep hidden. The story reaches its climaxes when their masks come off, and their roles are reversed. Master Sol’s two faces aren’t quite as obvious as the Stranger’s, but the show does suggest that he is not quite the flawless hero you might assume he is. Several times during the season, The Acolyte alludes to key moments from the original trilogy, and in each case Sol is cast in the part of Darth Vader. On Carlac, Sol reaches out to catch a falling Osha as Vader reaches out to a falling Luke Skywalker on Bespin. During Sol’s duel with Mae on Olega, he can sense that Mae’s thoughts turn to her sister; Vader sensed the exact same thing from Luke during their duel over Endor. Back on Brendok, both Mae and Osha’s final confrontations with Sol directly echoes the climax of Return of the Jedi with Luke, Vader and the Emperor. Heck, even Sol’s hair flares out around his head to give a similar silhouette to Vader’s helmet. None of this strikes me as accidental. The Acolyte suggests almost from the get-go, that Sol is tinged by darkness. He’s not a Dark Lord of the Sith, but he’s hardly pure of heart either.

As for Osha and Mae, they are more than just twins; Sol argues they are one person split in two through the power of their mothers and the Vergence in the Force on Brendok. While they briefly exchange identities early in the story, they completely swap their positions relative to the light and the dark sides of the Force during the finale. This is overtly foreshadowed through the poem the two have shared with each other since childhood, and made explicit when Osha’s droid companion Pip and the tracker Bazil begin treating Mae as they would Osha. In the finale, Mae abandons her quest for revenge which kicked off the story, only to have Osha turn to the dark side before our eyes and complete her sister’s mission.

What is it with the Jedi, Anyway?

I’m certain I’m not the only Star Wars fan that has wondered about the practices of the Jedi when it comes to how and when they recruit new members. I remember being confused that Anakin, a nine year old, was considered too old to join the Jedi in The Phantom Menace.  “How young are they taking these kids?” and “What about their parents?” were common questions that came up in conversations around the prequels. And for the most part, Star Wars stories since then typically steer clear of those issues, because it is weird no matter how you answer those questions.

When thinking about them and wondering about the emotionally stunted upbring most Jedi seem to have experienced, I’ve often been amazed that the Jedi weren’t producing Darth Vaders at a record pace. As we’ve seen in Star Wars over the years, they kind of were. Fallen, disgraced and expelled Jedi are all over the place, from Count Dooku and Baylan Skoll in live action to the corrupted Inquisitors of the Dark Times and Revan of the Old Republic.

The Acolyte dives head first into the murky waters around those questions. How can any child possibly have the understanding and experience to make the life altering decision to become a Jedi at such a young age? And what if the parents disagree? What if one parent disagrees with the other? What if the Jedi disagrees with any of the involved parties?

These are tough questions. The Acolyte asks them all, and the answers are messy, unsatisfying and tragic.

It’s not cut and dried. The coven on Brendok is not identified as being Dathormir Witches, but they are coded in such a way as to cause viewers familiar with the villains of The Clone Wars and Ahsoka to make that association. The leaders of the coven, Mothers Aniseya and Koril act to protect their family and their community, but they are very, very aggressive in their reactions to the Jedi.

The Jedi are hardly without sin. Even given the benefit of the doubt, they are presumptuous, and they trespass and intrude uninvited. Moreover, I think The Acolyte argues that the Jedi are raised in a way that they simply cannot properly process their feelings or soothe them in others. Torbin is homesick. Who can’t relate to that? Apparently, the Jedi can’t. Sol is worried about Osha. That’s a good thing. But he isn’t able to step back and see the big picture before he draws his lightsaber.

The tragedy is that the Coven and the Jedi were drawn to Brendok for the exact same reason. Something miraculous happened there and instead of seeking common ground, the Jedi over-reached and the Coven over-reacted.

The Jedi compound tragedy with obfuscation and arrogance. The show draws a bold, straight line from the events on Brendok to their self-inflicted fall in the prequels. Ki-Adi Mundi appears on The Acolyte not to break continuity but to be as wrong about things here as he was in The Phantom Menace. Vernestra is hiding things from the Senate in exactly the same way Yoda did in Revenge of the Sith. In the finale Senator Rayencourt lays it out in no uncertain terms for anyone who missed it the first time.

As a long time fan, I find this interesting. Not many Star Wars stories choose to fully engage with the strangeness of the prequels, perhaps for good reason. But I always like it when Star Wars is strange. Strange creatures, alien planets, and space-magic, I dig it all. I don’t think The Acolyte fully succeeds, but I appreciate that it tries to embrace the weird and uncomfortable aspects of the lore. So many Star Wars stories take themselves too seriously and to my tastes, they come across as dry and lifeless. The Acolyte is messy and alive, and I’ll take that any day.

Old Republic Influences

I’m not saying Leslye Headland mains a Consular in Star Wars: The Old Republic, but it kind of feels that way. My favorite SWTOR character is my Consular, and maybe my bias is showing, but there were many aspects of The Acolyte that I recognized from SWTOR. Both Osha’s and the Consular’s stories are set in motion by their masters’ expeditions to mysterious Force-shrouded worlds that end in death and tragedy. In both cases the Jedi conspire to keep the truth of what happened secret and years later the next generation must face the consequences of those actions. There are significant differences, of course, but the similarities don’t end there.

On Tython, the Consular witnessed an apparition turn to smoke and vanish in a manner not unlike the Mothers demonstrated on Brendok. Likewise, Kelnacca is controlled by the Coven and made to attack his allies; while it probably wasn’t caused by Terrak Morrhage’s dark plague, Master Indara does use the Force to free Kelnacca of the domination in a way that to me specifically recalls the Consular’s shielding technique that is central to Act One of their story. And that suddenly breaking the connection has violent and tragic implications recalls a certain infamous Dark Side choice players can make after their confrontation with Lord Vivicar.

It doesn’t stop there. both Revan in Knights of the Old Republic and Mae in the finale seem to have their memories erased in similar ways. And finally, after the disasters that turned Brendok and Nathema into wastelands, mysterious Force empowered explosions of life has somehow rejuvenated both worlds. These are just the similiarities I noticed, but I suspect there are more.

I’ve seen some fans react negatively to the Jedi in The Acolyte being portrayed as flawed and imperfect. But as a SWTOR veteran, that’s old hat to me. Jedi doing the wrong things for the right reasons or the right things for the wrong reasons are all over the game. My Consular has great fondness for Yuon Par, but if she’d told someone, anyone, what happened on Malachor Three, so many lives would’ve been saved. On Hutta, the Sith Warrior can shatter Jedi Master Nomen Karr’s facade of self-righteousness with just a few words. And anyone who’s played the Bounty Hunter story knows that Jedi Jun Seros is just as vengeful and violent as any Sith.

And I’m not even considering the choices players make for their own characters. SWTOR is all about exploring shades of grey in the Star Wars universe.

But SWTOR is not just about falling into darkness. It’s also about the struggle to make it back to the light. Tau Adair is haunted by her actions in wartime, but grapples every day with her demons to find a new path. Darth Marr, one of the most powerful Dark Lords of the Sith in the game’s canon, turned to the light in his last moments and his spirit persists as a Force ghost. Sol, for all of his faults, explains it simply to the Padawans he teaches on Coruscant: the Force is as powerful and raging as fire, you find balance in the Force not when you quench or control the flame, but when you respect its power, weight and uncertainty. Sol claims he made his peace with what happened on Brendok, but his fear of the spark he lit there never left him, and in the end it consumed him.

The Acolyte‘s ending is a bit of a bummer, but clearly its story is not over. A second season has not been announced, but I feel like it’s bound to happen. Will Osha and Mae’s split spirits unite into a single whole like Revan’s did in SWTOR‘s Shadows of Revan expansion? Probably not, but I do hope they find their balance. Their journey is just beginning and I’m very curious to see where it takes them.

This week, I’d like to take a deep dive into the iconography of the All Worlds Ultimate Swoop Rally, one of Star Wars: The Old Republic’s recurring events which is active in the game as I post this article. The Swoop Event remains a favorite of mine; I appreciate that characters of most levels regardless of their gear can fully participate in the event. Completing the races is not especially challenging at their most basic level, but finishing off a course and all of its bonus objectives does require extra attention, and I still cheer when I manage to beat the Horizon Razor’s course bonus timer objective on Dantooine.

The Swoop Event consists of completing rally courses on three planets for three different swoop teams. The courses each have their own objectives and obstacles and each team’s speeder has their own special abilities for players to use on the course.

Likewise each team has their own personality and flavor, and this is best embodied in their team logos which can be seen emblazoned on their banners, jackets and speeders. So let’s take a moment to look at these logos and explore their connections both inside and outside the Star Wars universe. Even though there is no text to translate, I have also attempted to re-contextualize these symbols in a way that might make them more familiar to people from our own galaxy.

The Blatant Beks

Although apparently not directly connected to their namesakes “The Hidden Beks” with whom Revan teamed up during Knights of the Old Republic, the Blatant Beks were perhaps named by their founder Bangcap with aspirations that this team would be as famous as the one from ages past, but with even more explosive power. Clearly subtlety was not one of his goals.

The most prominent feature of the Bek’s logo is the targeting reticle, and, during their rallies, the objective is to detonate as many eplosives as possible along the way. The crosshairs are framed by a roughly triangular shape. Within SWTOR this shape has at least two meanings that spring to mind.

First and perhaps most obviously to myself and regular readers of this blog, the triangular shape closely resembles the Aurebesh letter “X”. I don’t know if it was meant to be taken this way, but overlaying crosshairs with an X marking the spot feels like a neat connection. However, this shape is more commonly seen in the game as part of warning signs and holographic indicators for explosive devices or spots for players to place explosives during their adventures around the galaxy. In this case, I definitely think the association is intended.

Finally, the Bek’s shield-like shape might also remind us of one of the most iconic super-hero logos in pop-culture. To bring home this comparison, I thought I’d add Superman’s colors to the Bek’s symbol, and I think it works quite nicely.

The Pit Screamers

Next up we have the Pit Screamers, a team focused on coming out of pit stops with sound and fury to show off their skill as they maneuver through slalom-like courses filled with hoops and gates and huge jumps. The Pit Screamers logo is the most abstract of all three team’s symbols. At first glance I thought the hook shaped curves that make up their logo shared more than a passing resemblance to the letters of the Huttese or Outer Rim Basic “language”, and it makes sense that the Pit Screamers’ logo would share a design aesthetic with text and glyphs used by the podracing teams first seen during the Boonta Eve Classic in The Phantom Menace.

But I don’t think these shapes are meant to be taken literally or can be translated. Rather, I think we can look at the symbol in a context more familiar to us as players. All it takes is a dash of fiery colors or some gleaming chrome and this symbol would look right at home on the hood and side panels of a hot rod from American Graffiti or a souped up street racer from any of The Fast and the Furious movies. I am certain the Pit Screamers would appreciate either association.

The Horizon Razors

Finally, let’s take a look at the logo of the Horizon Razor’s whose name tells you everything you need to know about them: they want to slash across the sky. The strength of their logo is that it can be interpreted in many ways, any of which feel appropriate to the team.

The symbol could be the wings of a bird in flight, it could be streaks of clouds moving quickly across a wide open sky, it could be the contrails of dust and exhaust left in the wake of their swoops, it could be the tails of a rider’s scarf fluttering in the wind behind them as they race across the landscape, or it could be quite literally a zoomed in view of a pair of razor blades. It’s cool to me that such a simple shape can be credibly read in so many different ways.

In addition the Horizon Razor’s symbol shares similarities that I believe are intentional to a pair of logos from both within the lore of the Star Wars universe and around the people who bring it to life.

To me, the pair of sweeping speed-lines recalls the logo used by Skywalker Sound, the division of Lucasfilm responsible for sound and music effects and design and recording. Iconic sounds from the hum of lightsabers, the howls of TIE Fighters to the sonic booms of Seismic Charges to BB-8’s beeps and chirps all came to life thanks to the talented artists at Skywalker sound.

Although the Skywalker Sound logo seen here has since been updated, I think it’s fair to say that the Horizon Razor’s icon takes some inspiration from it. However, the symbol within Star Wars lore that shares the most DNA with the Skywalker Sound logo is the one seen on the back of Ezra Bridger’s jacket in the early seasons of Star Wars: Rebels. The wing shapes and bounding arc from the original are clearly transposed onto Ezra’s version.

That said, I’ve never quite been able to interpret Ezra’s logo. Is it a bird lifting off to the left or a ram leaning down and charging to the right or something else altogether? I really can’t say. In my research, I’ve seen it most commonly referred to as a “starbird” which is vague enough to not really mean anything if you ask me. If you know what this logo symbolizes, please let me know in the comments below. I’d love to see this mystery solved!

Blazing out of the Gate!

If you have not yet tried out the All World Ultimate Swoop Rally event, I encourage you to give it a shot. To make it worth your time, there are many fun rewards including decorations, mounts and SWTOR’s only non-combat Tactical items usable by characters of any level.

I hope that the Broadsword team expands this event one day. There is room in the pits for another team, maybe one inspired by the Mods from The Book of Boba Fett or perhaps the teams could establish rally courses on other planets around the galaxy: Taris seems like an historically appropriate choice, but I can also imagine it might be fun to race over the shark infested waters of Manaan or leap across Ruhnuc’s yawning canyons. The sky’s the limit!

Within Star Wars lore, SWTOR is something of an outlier. It seems to exist within a liminal space between Legends and Canon, based on the lore of the former but still influencing the latter. Mostly, however, SWTOR has been off in it’s own corner of the Star Wars universe doing it’s own thing, and speaking only for myself, I kind of like it that way. But that also means that SWTOR rarely if ever crosses over into other aspects of Star Wars fandom that I enjoy, but when it does, it’s a special event. A few years ago I wrote about how I still enjoy collecting Star Wars action figures and that remains true. Star Wars figures can be found in many scales and styles, but my focus is mostly on Hasbro’s “Black Series” line which features characters in the 1/12^th scale, whose figures are roughly 6 inches tall. This week, the first character in the Black Series specifically inspired by SWTOR arrived on my doorstep: Darth Malgus.

And, boy howdy, is he terrific. Hasbro’s Black Series line is nearly as old as SWTOR, and without going into nerdy detail, Hasbro has been refining and updating the design of their figures, and all of the best hallmarks of the modern Black Series are on display here. Malgus is an entirely new sculpt with a good range of articulation; his joins are pinless, minimal and mostly unobtrusive, which means  I am able to pose him dynamically enough that he looks cool standing on my desk, and I can almost believe he jumped right out of the game!

In addition, Hasbro is now able to digitally apply paint to their figures allowing for a remarkable level of detail on Malgus’s scarred face. This extends under his breath mask which can be removed if you are willing to yank the head off its peg. Malgus is also one of the biggest, broadest Black Series figures, taller even than Darth Vader, and he towers over Revan, his fellow Darth from the Old Republic era.

The question of whether this Darth Malgus action figure is a toy or an “adult collectible” is a fair one to ask. Hasbro, I’m certain, would like to have it both ways. While I wish these figures came with a few more accessories (every Jedi and Sith should include swappable Force wielding hands, for example) and a little extra punch of paint details in the costumes, I still feel like the Black Series figures I get are worth the price, even Malgus who is a few extra bucks more than a standard figure. When it comes right down to it, similar, actual “adult collectibles” cost anywhere between four and ten times as much as a standard Black Series release; so I can’t blame Hasbro for cutting corners here and there.

I may be wrong, but I think this Black Series Darth Malgus might be the first all new bit of SWTOR merchandise we’ve seen in years. And while I know it’s not up to Broadsword, I do hope this is only the beginning. At the very least, Hasbro can’t just leave it here. If they’re gonna do Malgus, they have to do Satele Shan so we can recreate their duel on Alderaan. Hasbro recently re-released the Republic Trooper and Shae Vizla figures from the “Vintage Collection” line of 3 ¾ inch figures, and you can’t tell me that they wouldn’t also look great in the 6 inch scale next to Malgus.

To do these characters justice in plastic form, all of the figures would require original sculpts from head to toe, so whether Hasbro is able to keep producing figures based on SWTOR may depend on how well Malgus sells. As I write this, Malgus is still available in the United States from Hasbro, Entertainment Earth and Big Bad Toy Store. It’s not for me to tell you how to spend your money. As I said in my original post, these “toys” are not cheap and when deciding whether I want to get one, I have two criteria: I have to like the character, and I have to like the figure they made of it. Sometimes I’ll fudge one of those, but Malgus easily checks off both boxes, and seeing him on my shelf makes me smile.

This week I’d like to explore a different topic, something that has been causing a big stir in nearly every sector of the internet: the explosion of increasingly powerful Artificial Intelligence tools that create words, pictures, sounds, music, voices and movies.

Machine learning or AI has been around for quite a while already. It helps our cars stay under control in bad weather, it helps ATMs read the handwriting on our checks, and helps rice cookers maintain the right consistency of our rice. But in the last year, the power and ease of use of many AI tools has exploded, and it has becomes this year’s corporate buzz-word. I don’t think AI art is better than what a human can make, but it is certainly faster and cheaper. Ready or not, I’m certain the effect AI will have on all of us will be impossible to measure. At the very least, we all know that if these tools can be used to cut costs, they absolutely will be used, whether it is for the good of consumers or not.

While this blog is still being written by a human, I thought I’d explore how it might affect Star Wars: The Old Republic in the months and years to come. Again, AI is already a part of graphics programs and functions as a powerful tool for writing code. It is almost certainly already being used in SWTOR in ways invisible to players.

So let’s think about how AI might change one of SWTOR’s most popular and defining features: its voice acting. I’ve often heard that the voice acting is the game’s largest single expense, and I believe it. Every time our characters speak a line, forty-eight different actors across two genders, three languages and 8 class stories have been hired to speak that line or variations of it. And that’s not including all the supporting characters and companions and villains and background characters. Let’s not forget the writers, translators, audio engineers and editors and every member of the team who also are instrumental in bringing these voices to life in the game.

Alien dialogue has been used as a short-cut throughout the lifetime of the game, but it’s become more obvious with companions unlocked by the Galactic Seasons rewards track. So far, each of the four companions introduced during the seasons talk using languages from SWTOR’s library of pre-recorded alien languages, and we find out to varying degrees of plausibility why those characters speak that way. Of course it’s cheaper and easier to use pre-recorded alien languages for these interactions. I can’t blame Bioware for saving the fully-voiced characters for major story beats.

However, I think it’s fair to say that players have an easier time connecting to characters when they understand the language they are hearing. In my own case, I tend to zone out after long interactions with aliens. Unlike a foreign movie with subtitles, there isn’t a performance of the dialogue that I can relate to even if I don’t understand the meaning of the words being spoken. For example, I can’t honestly say the secondary Manaan storylines made a strong impression on me. After a certain point, I just started skimming the subtitles and space-barring through the alien speech. But I engaged more with Ruhnuc’s secondary story because, while my characters’ side of the conversations were not voiced, at least Lane Vizla and Kur Ha’rangir were.

There is a fan-made add-on for World of Warcraft that uses AI to give full voice acting to the dialogue boxes with quest text in the Classic version of the game. Although there is narrative associated with all of WOW’s quests, the vast majority of the game’s player base has long simply ignored the boxed text that quest givers deliver in order to get on with the game. The add-on does an impressive job delivering WOW’s exposition. The performances created by this add-on are not perfect, and the range of voices is limited, but it’s been stunning to see what a single add-on developer has been able to accomplish.

What if this technology could be used to make our interactions with Fen Zeil, PH4-LNX and Amity in English (and French and German) as well? If there simply isn’t enough in the budget to hire voice actors for one-off companions, wouldn’t that be a better, more player friendly option?

Let’s not stop there! SWTOR already has a vast library of recordings that could be used to train an AI to deliver realistic performances of existing characters. This is how Darth’s Vader’s dialogue was generated for the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi now that James Earl Jones has retired from the role. Similarly there are members of SWTOR‘s cast that have passed away since the game’s release. I imagine AI could be used to help bring Tanno Vik and Xalek back to the game in meaningful ways.

Let’s keep going and get rid of those “KOTOR-style” interactions and have an AI replicate the voice of the main cast for every side quest and companion recruitment mission. And how great would it be to have more companion interactions as well? Don’t worry, they won’t need to hire Laura Bailey and Troy Baker, when they already have years of recordings to use as datasets for the AI, and we’ll get to hang out with Kira and Theron whenever we want!

Look, I know these think pieces all have to have a Terminator reference, but the danger of AI doesn’t come from killer robots from the future, but from the corporations that want to cut every corner and squeeze every little guy on the way to greater quarterly profits. I don’t know the legality of this. I don’t know what’s in the fine print of the contracts the SWTOR cast signed well over a decade ago. Would it shock me (or anyone) that some suit at EA would just love to remove voice actors from SWTOR’s budget? Of course not.

Legal or not, I would not feel good about playing a game in which a computer program simulated the voice of someone without the original actor’s consent.

Hey friends, I know AI technology is exciting, but if you see my voice or any of the characters that I voice offered on any of those sites, please know that I have not given my permission, and never will. This is highly unethical. We all appreciate your support. Thank you.

— Steve Blum (@blumspew) February 11, 2023

All I can say is this: even as the technology gets more impressive and the results so very nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, I am increasingly of the opinion that I’d rather see Luke Skywalker played by a person and not a special effect. Isn’t Star Wars better off with Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan and Donald Glover’s Lando despite the fact that they did not originate the roles?

More than a decade ago, I connected with my Consular in a way that made me love the character and love the game. It is in large part because of the performance Athena Karkanis delivered. It is in large part because of the writers and artists and developers, all the people at Bioware, who created the stories and brought SWTOR to life.

Artificial Intelligence tools are already powerful, but right now (and I suspect into the near term) still require knowledgeable and skilled human guidance to get the most out of them. Nonetheless I do believe that they will have a huge impact on how games, movies, music, books and shows will be made. Maybe one day soon we won’t be able to tell the difference between something created by a human and something generated by code, but Art at its core is about people communicating through time and media whether it is the outline of a hand traced on a cave wall tens of thousands of years ago or a video game about wizards and cowboys in space, and I think there needs to be people on both sides of that interaction for it to really be Art.