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CREATIVE DIFFERENCES
In 2006, LucasArts teamed with Day 1
Studios to bring a new intellectual property to market. The vision for
this new title was a first-person shooter that allowed the player to
shape a battlefield’s terrain by using various science-fiction weapons.
That ambitious design became Fracture, a game that was announced on May
3, 2007.
“The plan [for Fracture] was turned completely upside down in
a
meeting,” a LucasArts dev who worked on the title says. Although the
team was far into development, a decision was made by LucasArts’
executives to turn it into a third-person shooter. “We were told to
‘pull the camera out.’ We had to make a character model, create
animations, plot the levels differently, stream it differently. It was a
nightmare for everyone involved.”
When Fracture was revealed to the public, its protagonist was a
character named Mason Briggs. By the time the game launched, his name
was changed to Jet Brody. A person who helped give this gun-toting rebel
his original name recalls going through weeks of naming conventions.
“Literally, whole teams sitting together, brainstorming what looks good –
the first name, the last name, etc. Done, good to go.”
But then a phantom menace struck. George Lucas would periodically
check in on the status of the games his company was making, lending
creative input and advice. The developer I talked to sighs, and
agitatedly says, “In one viewing of Fracture, [Lucas] said it looked
really good, but he didn’t like [Mason Briggs’] name. We’re like, ‘What
do you mean, George?’ He responded to the effect of, ‘It doesn’t really
fit. When he jumps on stuff, he moves pretty fast. I like B.J. Dart.’
“So everybody’s like, ‘No, he’s gotta be f---ing with us.’ He’s
absolutely not. So when something like that happened – in the middle of
the campaign, mind you – we have to go back through that entire naming
convention again… from scratch.” From that second session, Jet Brody was
born. Coincidentally. Jett is the name of Lucas’ son.
A similar situation arose with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed’s
protagonist, Starkiller. “[That name] was only supposed to be a nickname
or call sign, not a proper name from the beginning,” a former LucasArts
employee says. The development team hoped that Lucas would give Vader’s
apprentice a Darth moniker, which at the time, was something that
didn’t happen often.
“The team threw a Hail Mary to George, saying the game would have
more credibility if the apprentice had a ‘Darth’ title,” a Force
Unleashed team member says. Lucas agreed that this situation made sense
for Sith royalty, and offered up two Darth titles for the team to choose
from. “He threw out ‘Darth Icky’ and ‘Darth Insanius.’ There was a
pregnant pause in the room after that. People waiting for George to say
‘just kidding,’ but it never comes, and he just moved on to another
point.”
Team members involved in the decision to not use these ridiculous
Darth titles could not be reached for comment, but three LucasArts
employees believe an excuse was made to push the Darth title to the
sequel. By the time development on that title commenced, the names were
long forgotten by Lucas and weren’t muttered by the development team
again. Starkiller remained Starkiller in the games, but was also named
Galen Marek in the greater Expanded Universe fiction.
“These name problems may sound like funny stories, but the quality of
these games suffered from these curveballs thrown by people not
directly tied to the development process,” another employee angrily
adds. “It got to a point that it became difficult to hire new talent
because these stories got out there. People thought we were running a
madhouse.”
