Disney's planning a movie based on Xbox classic Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic
Aux Features Film
For being one of the most potent brands on the planet—right alongside its corporately owned buddies over in the MCU—the Star Wars films are currently at something of a crossroads. Sure, The Rise Of Skywalker is going to make a billion dollars (at least) when it arrives in theaters this December, ending the three-movie miniseries that kicked off with The Force Awakens back in 2015. But after that, the franchise as a whole is going on a three-year theatrical hiatus, as Disney seeks to repair whatever burnout ended up afflicting movies like Rogue One and Solo. (Which, it should be noted, performed perfectly well as enjoyable sci-fi action films, and only really “failed” when asked to perform in the context of capital letter Events demanding the fevered attention of a worshipful monoculture.)
So far, we know a bit what will happen at the end of this particular stellar interregnum, with Game Of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss helming a trilogy of their own—at least, until The Petitioners come for them at last. (Ditto, supposedly, The Last Jedi’s Rian Johnson, who’s been quiet of late about his future Star Wars plans.) Now we’ve got some more info today about the franchise’s future, courtesy of Buzzfeed, and it turns out that Disney is putting its faith for this massive blockbuster franchise moving forward into…a video game adaptation? Wait, really?
Apparently: Buzzfeed confirmed today that screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis—whose credits include Alita: Battle Angel and Shutter Island—has been tapped to write a script based on the 2003 Xbox game Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic. From a representation point of view, this is obviously great news, in so far as Kalogridis is the first woman to pen a cinematic Star Wars story since Leigh Brackett co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back way back in 1980. (Who knows: They might even find a woman to direct one of these things some day!)
It’s slightly less of a thrill for long-term fans of Star Wars as a whole, though, in so far as “The Old Republic”—i.e., the period roughly 4,000 years before the start of A New Hope—is a bizarrely unexciting setting, being almost indistinguishable from the world depicted in the prequel trilogy. (Once you’ve reached the “sentient robots and laser swords” level, technology doesn’t have much further to develop, apparently.) The original KOTOR was a bestseller at the time mostly because it refused to re-invent the landspeeder, instead letting people run around on Tatooine, whack Sith Lords left and right, and choose whether to go down the light side or dark side path. It ended up spawning two other games—a highly buggy direct sequel that’s one of the most blatantly subversive entries in the entire history of the franchise, having been written by someone generally skeptical of the Jedi’s “obvious” moral superiority in their regular religious civil wars; and a much more traditional massively multiplayer game released a few more years down the line.
The first KOTOR is mostly notable for a fairly well-executed late-story twist—so have fun with that, spoilerphobes—that will presumably make its way into Kalogridis’ script as she brings the project to life. Despite a lot of effort in recent years, the video game cinematic adaptation is still a pretty rough prospect, with studios having more luck capturing the “feeling” of a game—as with the Jumanji sequel—than repeating the beats of a particular digital plot. Still, none of those adaptations have had the advantage of also being Star Wars movies; it’ll be interesting to see which normally decisive box-office-determining factor will be the one that ultimately wins out.
54 Comments
I really wished they had finished KOTOR 2 properly, and gone for KOTOR3 instead of online. Oh how i loved those games.
kotor 2 is 2/3rds a brilliant game, with some of the best writing in the medium. that being said it’s fucking criminal they released the game as they did.
You can’t get a nearly complete version of KotOR II on Steam for like $5. It’s widescreen and includes the two fan projects to restore cut content. On top of that, there’s a handful of HD graphics mods that make the game look pretty decent for a 15-year old game. It still plays like a 15-year old game though, but it’s still great.
My favourite part of KOTOR is seeing Bastila Shan turn from one of the most respected Jedi Masters in the universe into a fucking evil sexy female Sith Lord.I hope something like that happens in the film.
Yeah here’s hoping a woman writing the screenplay will do Bastila a little more justice. And here’s hoping it’s still somehow Jennifer Hale’s voice coming out of whatever actress (Tatiana Maslany) plays her.
And if we’re lucky, we’ll get a sequel starring the best damn character in the Star Wars cannon, the Jedi Exile.
KOTOR remains the best, and most original, Star Wars story told over the last 30 years.Makes sense that Plumberduck is ineffectually trying to crap on it in the same article where he claims that Rogue One “underperformed.”
Yeah, he’s definitely underestimating the amount of excitement the average Star Wars nerd will have for this movie. At the very worst, it will probably be the best video game adaptation ever made.
It’s actually kind of startling how badly the writer of this article has read the room.“It’s a Star Wars movie…based on a Star Wars property that people have really enjoyed for a long time…eVeRyOnE wIlL hAtE tHiS tHiNg!!!!!!!!”
If they can translate HK-47 to the screen the entire project would be worth it.
Original? Wasn’t KotOR a blatant ripoff — er, retelling — of the first trilogy?
This is excellent news, meatbag!So hopefully people won’t think HK-47 is a ripoff of K-2S0. And hopefully they manage to preserve the surprise and power of… that twist. Which won’t be nearly as awesome in a movie as it was in the game, for the reason that is obvious if you’ve played the game.
… holy shit I can’t wait to see HK in mainstream pop culture. He and Jolee Bindo and Mission could be so great if they do them right (or ya know, at all).
“Rosebud” was the name of K’ayn’s childhood landspeeder!
Oh the fun they could have with HK-47. It is a shame Alan Tudyk has already played a Star Wars droid.
Also: “Xbox classic”? It was released on numerous platforms, including PC and Mac.
In the mind of console gamers, if it only shows up on one of the big three consoles of its day, it’s forever a [THAT SYSTEM] Game. PC and Mac ports don’t count.
Like I said in another comment. It was an Xbox timed exclusive. It was also a big get for the Microsoft console at the time.It very much was the Xbox’s games in a lot of ways and the platform most associated with the game
IIRC it was also a de facto tech demo for the Xbox’s physics engine and overall horsepower. Which were the mains things Xbox had going for it.
You can say a multi-platform game is an Xbox game, but that doesn’t change the reality that it was a multi-platform game, even if the platform release was staggered for said multi-platform game.
So, in summary, multi-platform.
Quick question. Is Halo an Xbox game?
Oh, you;-)Microsoft owned Bungie though and Halo was published by Microsoft Studios. It later came to PC but Windows only, if I’m not mistaken, also Microsoft.
Very true, my point was that the initial place the game came out usually is where it gets most associated with it. KOTOR was a big deal for Microsoft and was heavily pushed as an XBox exclusive(even if it was a timed one). And for a lot of games, coming out on one console and the PC was common. The original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 are very much considered Playstation games but they both got PC releases(long before remakes and re releases and all that stuff)
Aalways thought of it as a PC game , didn’t realise it was on the Xbox
It was a Xbox exclusive first. Went to PC like 6 months later
Yep. This made me unreasonably angry.
it’s important to latch onto things like that and leave a comment about it, just as it’s important for me to comment on your comment about it.
I believe it was a big moment for console RPG fans. Or at least for the ones who finally got an RPG without the anime bullshit.
So is it specifically based on KOTOR or just on the KOTOR era? Because there’s a whole MMO of stuff to pull from that more or less confirms the era was “Star Wars but Browner.”
To be honest, I’m not all that excited about the prospect of porting the plot of KOTOR to the big screen. I think it would be much more interesting to do something in that world where there’s less pressure to have to tie things into the existing movies.
Sure fuck it, why not
I hope they go with KotoR 2’s interpretation of Revan, and HK-47.
“Whatever burnout ended up afflicting movies like Rogue One and Solo.” Um, what burnout afflicting Rogue One? It had no A-list stars, no major established characters on the hero side, and made $1.056 bn worldwide, which is 80% of what The Last Jedi made, and that was an Episode movie featuring the first substantial return of Luke Skywalker. If anything, The Last Jedi got burnout from Rogue One, not the other way around.Mr. Hughes, you do know there’s such thing as Wikipedia around, yes?
And it’s a sweet-ass movie, to boot.
Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie since the Disney takeover. It’s the only one that made me feel like I was watching something that captured the magic and feel of the original trilogy.
I think it was one of the best since the original trilogy. Solid film.
Id say even more than the original trilogy, it captured the magic I felt as a kid playing the Rogue Squadron games. It planted you so firmly in the battles and gave you a much better sense of scale of the world than the original trilogy really ever could.
Agreed, I felt like I was watching a Star Wars movie when I saw Rogue One. It’s both a shame and a blessing that it didn’t introduce any memorable characters since, (is it ok to Spoil it now?) everybody dies anyway.
Two words: Jolee Motherfucking Bindo.
I don’t care if it’s only “inspired by” KOTOR – HK-47 had damned well better be in the film. And if Keith David doesn’t play Jolee, there is no god.
It’s about time they went further back than just the bloody Skywalker family.KOTOR is a good start, but I think a pre-Jedi Order story would be brilliant. Discovery of the force, building the first lightsaber, the first guy to realise you could use it for evil.
if you don’t think they’re gonna shoehorn in some ancient skywalker relative…
Hi Disney execs, please ignore the above reply. Nothing to see here…
It’s slightly less of a thrill for long-term fans of Star Wars as a whole, though, in so far as “The Old Republic”—i.e., the period roughly 4,000 years before the start of A New Hope—is a bizarrely unexciting setting, being almost indistinguishable from the world depicted in the prequel trilogy.
Well what the fuck did you expect, a medieval fantasy setting? I’m sorry that a de facto full-blown galactic war between well estabilished Jedi and Sith empires isn’t exciting enough for you.
Is it a straight adaption or a story based on that time period and inspired by the game? KOTOR was actually based off a 90’s comic series called Tales of the Jedi, so there’s plenty of expanded universe material for them to pull from.
i hope two things (both from kotor 2):that they actually play up the subversive jedi angle that was the absolute best part of the game and the 70s pornstar looking jedi is a major character.
“whose credits include Alita: Battle Angel and Shutter Island”Oh dear.
Wow there are a lot of shitty hot takes in this article. Also my bet is the idiots over at Buzzfeed are confusing with the KOTOR game with the KOTOR era of Star Wars. I doubt this movie will be a direct adaption of the game story but will take place in the KOTOR(aka Takes of the Jedi) era. Which is cool. It would be cool to see more then one Jedi in when the order was established and training people correctly again, especially when it’s not George shitting out prequels.
is a bizarrely unexciting setting, Impressive. Every word in that sentence was wrong.
They should also remaster all the KOTOR games for the new consoles. Perfect marketing exercise for the upcoming movie. Just don’t make us wait too long.
“This is not my KOTOR!” is going to get tiring to read after more production details are released.
I’ll pass. It still annoys me that they made a canon version of the main character (and it annoys me that it happened with KOTOR2 as well). I know it was a successful property so of course it needs to be milked for all it’s worth, but doing that with a game where you can create your own character just seems wrong to me.At least Mass Effect had its “iconic” male Shepard front and center from the start.
Knights Of The Old RepublicShouldn’t it be Knights of the Old Republic? Or at the very least, Knights of The Old Republic, assuming we take the entire phrase “The Old Republic” collectively as a proper noun?
Although even that makes no sense, as I’m pretty sure it’s “the United States of America,” not “The United States of America” unless beginning a sentence.
The Selkath alone are going to be worth it. Are they going to de-age Bill Pullman to play Carth?
Do we know who is playing the lead meatbag?