Interview: LucasArts VP Bihr Talks Going Beyond Star Wars
June 30, 2010
LucasArts vice president of global publishing Mary Bihr tells Gamasutra that the company continues to be “committed to having an internal studio” and is “not opposed to looking in new directions”, despite a Star Wars-centric E3 showing.
The company’s lineup at the show included BioWare-developed MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, Star Wars action sequel The Force Unleashed 2, and digitally-distributed remake Monkey Island 2: Special Edition.
Bihr’s career with the company stretches back to the point-and-click days — which are seeing a bit of a resurgence at the company with the reawakening of its Monkey Island franchise. “We will, when appropriate, support sequels that have strong sales potential, but we have moved in other directions as well, as you see with Monkey Island 2,” she commented while talking to us during the recent trade show.
When it comes to the publisher’s San Francisco studio, which has gone through some upheavals in recent years, she says, “We’re committed to having an internal studio.” She also praised the company’s Singapore game studio, which began operations in 2007, as “starting to really demonstrate their strength as a studio.”
“We see ourselves definitely supporting our sequels and blockbuster titles,” Bihr continues. “We have a number of strong franchises… But we’re not opposed to looking in new directions, digital initiatives.”
Social gaming? “It’s still an open question,” she says. “I can’t tell you anything specific… but we are looking at all viable options. We’re not constrained by one specific direction.”
When it comes to the company’s self-image, she says, “We see ourselves as continuing a longstanding tradition we’ve had of being storytellers… Both original stories and original franchises, and then how we’ve even evolved Star Wars with story, through the games we’ve created.”
“We’re a company that is always looking for innovations as well,” Bihr continues. “I think that’s a hallmark going back to the old point-and-click days… all the way to today with the technology we’re using in The Force Unleashed 2, both internally-produced and other technologies… I see us continuing along our tent pole strengths of storytelling and innovation.”
E3 also marked the big announcement of a Star Wars game for Kinect. “I can’t tell you specifically of details of our relationship [with Microsoft] or the evolution that occurred,” says Bihr. “But I think the reaction of the crowd and the press reaffirms a game that we think will do well in the marketplace, where the core fantasy of swinging a lightsaber and being a Jedi, and being able to do that in a controller-free environment, will be successful.”
Interview w/ Carrie Fisher: I wish I’d turned down ‘Star Wars’
December 11, 2008
There are no skeletons in Carrie Fisher’s closet. She’s dragged them out and scattered them around the house for all to see, and she’ll tell you hilarious stories about every one of them — whether you ask her or not.
Most of those skeletons appear in her fifth book, “Wishful Drinking,” which is based on her one-woman stage show of the same name. On Wednesday, she came early to the TODAY show and stayed late, regaling both Matt Lauer and Al Roker with stories from a life as chaotic as any Hollywood has ever produced — on-screen or off.
Among her revelations: If she’d known “Star Wars” was going to be such a giga-hit, she never would have signed on for the role of Princess Leia; she’s a bipolar-disorder sufferer who found relief in electroconvulsive therapy; and when she started doing LSD and other drugs, her parents got Cary Grant to counsel her to stop.
“I make light of stuff,” the 52-year-old actress and author told Lauer. “It’s better to get funny fast, or it’s just going to haunt you.”
She’s got a lot of stuff to make light of. Fisher’s parents were singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds, the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston of their day. When Fisher was just a toddler, her father left Reynolds to become one of Elizabeth Taylor’s (the Angelina Jolie of her day) serial husbands. Thus she grew up with a firsthand view of what celebrity can do to people, and the tawdry side of Hollywood that fans rarely see.
“It doesn’t look that good, show business, when you’re around it,” she told Roker. “It’s like, ‘Don’t look at the man behind that curtain, the great and powerful Oz.’ I was always privy to the curtain stuff.”
“I saw the heartbreak of celebrity,” she told Lauer. And what she saw convinced her she didn’t want it: “Get me away from that.”
Too fat for Leia?
At the age of 19, Fisher was offered the role of Princess Leia, even though at 5-foot-1 and 105 pounds she was told she was too fat for the part. She took the role, but, she told Lauer, had she known how big the movie would be, “I would never have done it. All I did when I was really famous was wait for it to end.”
She had one marriage, to singer Paul Simon. After they divorced, she had a relationship with agent Brian Lourd, by whom she had a daughter in 1992. But then Lourd left her — not for another woman, but for another man.
For solace Fisher turned to her mother, who cheered her up by saying, “We have all sorts of men in our family. We have horse thieves. We have one-man bands. This is our first homosexual!”
Lauer asked her to talk about when she started experimenting with drugs, and Fisher laughed at the image that conjured. “ ‘Experiment with drugs’ is hilarious,” she said. “I ran out of the lab with beakers.”
When she started doing LSD, Debbie Reynolds called a friend who had tried LSD under a doctor’s supervision. The man was Hollywood icon Cary Grant, who dutifully called Fisher.
“What did he say?” Lauer asked.
“Don’t eat acid,” Fisher said dryly.
When her father, Eddie Fisher later learned about his daughter’s drug use, he, too, called Grant, who called her a second time with the same advice.
Bipolar disorder
Fisher was equally funny talking about her manic depression, or bipolar disorder. When word of her condition got out, her mother objected, calling Fisher to tell her, “You’re not mentally ill, you’re manic-depressive.”
Fisher said her disorder resisted all drugs and therapy, and she finally found relief through electroconvulsive therapy, commonly known as electroshock, which applies an electric current to the brain. Decades ago the therapy carried a lot of negative implications, but Fisher said psychiatrists have dialed the voltage down and patients don’t really go into convulsions. “I loved it because it worked,” she said.
However, getting treatments three days a week for several weeks, she added, leaves the patient with gaps in memory. As the brain recalibrates, everything comes back except for about four months, she explained.
When Lauer expressed amazement at her assertion that losing four months wasn’t a big deal, Fisher was blase. “What’s going to happen in four months at my age that’s not going to happen in another four months?”
Roker asked Fisher about the many child stars whose lives become train wrecks as they grow older.
“It’s hard, especially at a young age,” Fisher said. “They’re going through their adolescence in front of all of us — without their underwear on.”
Fisher said she is performing her stage show and planning another book, which will be her sixth. She said the only thing about aging that bothers her are the wrinkles she’s getting on her neck, which she covers with a scarf.
The problem, she explained to Roker, is that women’s bodies come with more fat than men’s. “We have two fat cells to your one to keep fetuses warm,” she said. “I say give us a blanket.”
Source: Today Show
Interview – George Lucas on Star Wars 3-D & More!!
December 5, 2008
George Lucas ventured down to Hollywood from his empire at Skywalker Ranch to present the American Cinematheque’s 23rd annual award to one of his favorite Jedis, Samuel L. Jackson, and ComingSoon.net intercepted the man behind some of pop culture’s most iconic mythologies. Lucas gave up a handful of plans that were not quite as secret as the plans to the Death Star, including his intentions for a fifth “Indiana Jones” adventure, and 3-D-ifying the classic “Star Wars” films.
ComingSoon.net: You had huge success this summer with “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Are you seriously thinking about another one? Harrison Ford’s said there may be plans afoot.
George Lucas: Yes – we’re looking for a “MacGuffin,” which is an object that he goes after. They’re very hard to come by!
CS: Would you want to keep the whole family together for a film – Indy, Marion and Mutt?
Lucas: It really depends on what it is Indy goes looking for and then how the story falls out of that, and then how convenient or inconvenient to have the group there.
CS: A while back when we spoke you were planning to take the six “Star Wars” films and put them into a 3D format. Is that still something you’re working towards?
Lucas: Oh yeah. The technology is very difficult. It exists – it’s just extremely expensive, and so what we’re trying to do is figure out a more practical way of pulling it off.
CS: And what about “Red Tails,” the project with the Tuskegee Airmen that you’ve been wanting to do for some time now – there’s progress there?
Lucas: We’re casting that right now and we’re shooting in the spring.
CS: Do you have a director lined up?
Lucas: Yes, we have Anthony Hemingway directing.
CS: Do you think you’ll be directing a film again any time soon?
Lucas: Not for a while. I’m getting rid of all my development. Everything that I’ve ever developed is going to be finished in about a year, a year and a half or two, and then I’m going to go do my own films.
CS: You’re here in L.A. to pay tribute to Samuel L. Jackson. Of all the actors in Hollywood who would’ve killed to lobby you for a part in the “Star Wars” prequels, why was Sam an actor that you felt fit your plans enough to bring into “Star Wars”?
Lucas: To be honest, he’s the only one who asked, actually. He didn’t really lobby for it. He was on a talk show and someone asked him what movie he would’ve liked to be in or that he would like to be in that he hadn’t been in and he said “Star Wars.” So I called him up and said “Is that true? Do you really want to be in ‘Star Wars’?” He said “Yeah – as long as I’m a Jedi,” and I said “Well, I have a little tiny role, but it grows if you’re willing to do the three movies.” He said “I’m in.” It was just like that. He didn’t look at it like “This is a chance to make a whole bunch of money, a chance to do a big thing.” He just did what was asked of him and tried to make it as good as he possibly could.
Source: comingsoon.Net
Will the wii edition of The Force Unleashed use the same engine and AI as the xbox 360 or animations?
June 29, 2008
the normal editions use that engine that is so realistic, with real materials not just animations, and real-life AI, with enemies trying to save their hides. Is the wii edition having the same advantages, with a little less success because of lower specs, or will it have traditional animations and brick AI?
Anyone know the release date of the game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for Singapore?
June 28, 2008
I know that N. America will be getting it on 16th Sept and Aussie and Europe’ll get it a day or two after. I can’t find the release date for Singapore if it will get released here.
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