Aug 26, 2008 12:59 PM
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Tue Feb 9
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The new Star Wars video game, The Force Unleashed, could have been one messed up experience, judging from some early concept art that appears in the new making-of book. Especially the Corpse Droid, who must have come from a delightfully deranged mind. Originally thought of as the buddy-bot to the Secret Apprentice, the droid's obsession with becoming organic causes him to do a lot of unsightly things to slain stromtroopers. Also,get a glimpse at Admiral Ozzik Sturn, who's out to give Grand Moff Tarkin a run for his money in the creepy sweepstakes. Find out below why Corpsey didn't make it into the final game.
According the behind-the-scenes guidebook, The Art And Making Of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the Corpse Droid was a "reverse cyborg." This droid was so obsessed with becoming organic, he would either hack off the parts of the people the Secret Apprentice killed, or resort to "cold-blooded murder" himself. As he acquired the human parts he needed, his look would change through the video game, as you can see in the concept art from Greg Knight.
The idea bounced around from the Corpse Droid being his own villain, to a member of the Apprentice's team as the funny sidekick. But in the end as the Secret Apprentice's team took shape they, "realized that the Corpse Droid was too outlandish and would not fit the group dynamic," and that it would be "too dark."
The Corpse Droid is an awesome idea as a bad guy, but way too dark for this video game. Still it would have been funny to try and watch them pass a murdering, body harvesting robot off as the comedy relief, "uh-oh, the droid murdered the pilot again. What are we gonna do, gang?"
The Art And Making Of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a revealing look into how bizarre the video game could have been — but also a glimpse of how dark it still is.
Case in point: another dark character, Admiral Ozzik Sturn, did make it into the game. Ozzik went through many different generations as a character. But the creators knew all along, they had to include another scary face in the Empire. Originally the artists toyed with they idea of making him a shape shifter, so artist Amy Beth Christenson has a lot of Predator-esque and Phantom of The Opera concept art for Sturn.
But in the end Sturn became a big game hunter, who was stationed at Kashyyyk (the Wookie home planet). His love for the hunt is shown in Wooke pelts and a sash that he dons in the video game. Yikes — he kills Wookies, skins them, then walks around the planet displaying their hides.
Send an email to Meredith, the author of this post, at meredith@io9.com.
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