TV: Disney Plus Adapting Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic into Series

[PALE PWNR]

Will this be awesome or a disaster?

Will the writers stick with the story, or try to 'make it their own' and make it terrible?

https://x.com/i/web/status/1792635374256205930

Click to read more...

 

[Bounces R Way]

Might be cool. I barely remember the games other than thinking they were well done and the story was good.
I thought I remembered seeing that they were doing a remaster of them but maybe that never materialized.

 

[MadDevil]

Could be good. Could be awful. It's hard to predict with the way their series have gone lately. Are they going to go more the serious Andor route or the more adventury route of a Mandalorian or Ahsoka?

 

[Scandale du Jour]

I have waited for a KOTOR TV show/movie for two decades... I can only be disappointed I guess

 

[Holden Caulfield]

KOTOR games (1-2, I HATE MMO's so I never played the follow up MMO) are probably my favourite video games of all time, with only maybe Mass Effect even coming close for me. So my hype level will be through the roof.

It would be interesting to see how they do this. The first game was obviously just a masterpiece in storytelling with a fantastic twist at the end. How do you translate that though? Can you get through the entire first game in 1 season? How do you reset for future seasons? It's quite a bit harder for a TV series to reset the main cast compared to a video game, so how do you continue into game 2? And game 2 was also fantastic in terms of storytelling, even if the messaging got a little muddy since the game was rushed out and many parts that would have helped to further flush out the characters ended up scrapped. But basically a completely new cast and characters.

Or are they going for a lose adaptation? Obviously even in the strictest recreations there's alterations such as Last of Us, but is the plan here to go like Last of Us (real close to games, hitting the same notes) or is the plan to go Fallout/Halo and make it a very loose adaptation? Both strategies can work, with Last of Us and Fallout being excellent adaptations in different respects. However ones like a fairly accurate at times Warcraft movie that never really hit the right notes or a loose adaptation like Halo which is just not Halo anymore.

My hopes will be high. Expectations will be low. Hopefully it's good. The Taris section at the start of KOTOR 1 is one of the best opening areas in gaming history, IMO. It really sucks you into the action quickly and helps establish the stakes and characters fantastically before you depart into the wider galaxy, hopefully some of that can be retained anyways.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

KOTOR games (1-2, I HATE MMO's so I never played the follow up MMO) are probably my favourite video games of all time, with only maybe Mass Effect even coming close for me. So my hype level will be through the roof.

It would be interesting to see how they do this. The first game was obviously just a masterpiece in storytelling with a fantastic twist at the end. How do you translate that though? Can you get through the entire first game in 1 season? How do you reset for future seasons? It's quite a bit harder for a TV series to reset the main cast compared to a video game, so how do you continue into game 2? And game 2 was also fantastic in terms of storytelling, even if the messaging got a little muddy since the game was rushed out and many parts that would have helped to further flush out the characters ended up scrapped. But basically a completely new cast and characters.

Or are they going for a lose adaptation? Obviously even in the strictest recreations there's alterations such as Last of Us, but is the plan here to go like Last of Us (real close to games, hitting the same notes) or is the plan to go Fallout/Halo and make it a very loose adaptation? Both strategies can work, with Last of Us and Fallout being excellent adaptations in different respects. However ones like a fairly accurate at times Warcraft movie that never really hit the right notes or a loose adaptation like Halo which is just not Halo anymore.

My hopes will be high. Expectations will be low. Hopefully it's good. The Taris section at the start of KOTOR 1 is one of the best opening areas in gaming history, IMO. It really sucks you into the action quickly and helps establish the stakes and characters fantastically before you depart into the wider galaxy, hopefully some of that can be retained anyways.

To me, it should be:

Season 1: Build up to the Mandalorian Wars
Season 2-3: Mandalorian Wars
Season 4: Revan + Malak in the Unkown Region
Season 5-6: Jedi Civil War
Season 7-8: KOTOR 2
Season 9: Revan + Metra in the Unknown Regions

That's always how I mapped it in my head.

If you want to go further, you can use the MMORPG material.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

To me, it should be:

Season 1: Build up to the Mandalorian Wars
Season 2-3: Mandalorian Wars
Season 4: Revan + Malak in the Unkown Region
Season 5-6: Jedi Civil War
Season 7-8: KOTOR 2
Season 9: Revan + Metra in the Unknown Regions

That's always how I mapped it in my head.

If you want to go further, you can use the MMORPG material.

Love the enthusiam but no matter what ends up happening, I think 9 seasons is a bit ambitious.

I also think that shows that have kind of followed this philosophy have struggled to really find their footing in time. Specifically this reminds me of The Witcher and Halo. Both shows that decided to start before the main entries of the source material with the Witcher starting with the pre-quel short story collection and Halo starting very loosely well before the action Halo 1 into the novels even though Halo is at best a loose adaptation. In both cases I think generating and maintaining that fanbase early before the moments from the main source material turned off some people. Fans were excited for what they wanted to see most and with that not happening, the properties failed to really take off in the way they were hoping.

Now can we dismiss this as poor execution rather than poor planning in both those cases? At least somewhat, for sure. There's a myriad of reasons those ones haven't really found their footing. However I would argue that the games/books/etc that these were based on started where they did for a reason. As it's the most fulfulling story. The rest of the stuff, pre-quels, tie-in novels, general background lore, is super interesting...once your invested in the story. Problem with opening with "tie-in stuff" is that you are kind of putting the cart before the horse and it just makes it harder to attract bigger audiences, IMO.

So in summary, I think something like this would be FANTASTIC for superfans like us. IMO the better business and long term strategy would be to be closer to the games in starting right with the biggest most exciting parts. You can fill in background stuff as you go, and if it explodes you can go back and add whatever you want to things. But if you mess it up out of the gate without giving your best stuff a chance first, it's harder to get to the most exciting stuff and you may just end up snuffed out before getting there.

 

[PALE PWNR]

KOTOR games (1-2, I HATE MMO's so I never played the follow up MMO) are probably my favourite video games of all time, with only maybe Mass Effect even coming close for me. So my hype level will be through the roof.

It would be interesting to see how they do this. The first game was obviously just a masterpiece in storytelling with a fantastic twist at the end. How do you translate that though? Can you get through the entire first game in 1 season? How do you reset for future seasons? It's quite a bit harder for a TV series to reset the main cast compared to a video game, so how do you continue into game 2? And game 2 was also fantastic in terms of storytelling, even if the messaging got a little muddy since the game was rushed out and many parts that would have helped to further flush out the characters ended up scrapped. But basically a completely new cast and characters.

Or are they going for a lose adaptation? Obviously even in the strictest recreations there's alterations such as Last of Us, but is the plan here to go like Last of Us (real close to games, hitting the same notes) or is the plan to go Fallout/Halo and make it a very loose adaptation? Both strategies can work, with Last of Us and Fallout being excellent adaptations in different respects. However ones like a fairly accurate at times Warcraft movie that never really hit the right notes or a loose adaptation like Halo which is just not Halo anymore.

My hopes will be high. Expectations will be low. Hopefully it's good. The Taris section at the start of KOTOR 1 is one of the best opening areas in gaming history, IMO. It really sucks you into the action quickly and helps establish the stakes and characters fantastically before you depart into the wider galaxy, hopefully some of that can be retained anyways.

I would almost love a whole first season of JUST Taris

 

[Scandale du Jour]

Love the enthusiam but no matter what ends up happening, I think 9 seasons is a bit ambitious.

I also think that shows that have kind of followed this philosophy have struggled to really find their footing in time. Specifically this reminds me of The Witcher and Halo. Both shows that decided to start before the main entries of the source material with the Witcher starting with the pre-quel short story collection and Halo starting very loosely well before the action Halo 1 into the novels even though Halo is at best a loose adaptation. In both cases I think generating and maintaining that fanbase early before the moments from the main source material turned off some people. Fans were excited for what they wanted to see most and with that not happening, the properties failed to really take off in the way they were hoping.

Now can we dismiss this as poor execution rather than poor planning in both those cases? At least somewhat, for sure. There's a myriad of reasons those ones haven't really found their footing. However I would argue that the games/books/etc that these were based on started where they did for a reason. As it's the most fulfulling story. The rest of the stuff, pre-quels, tie-in novels, general background lore, is super interesting...once your invested in the story. Problem with opening with "tie-in stuff" is that you are kind of putting the cart before the horse and it just makes it harder to attract bigger audiences, IMO.

So in summary, I think something like this would be FANTASTIC for superfans like us. IMO the better business and long term strategy would be to be closer to the games in starting right with the biggest most exciting parts. You can fill in background stuff as you go, and if it explodes you can go back and add whatever you want to things. But if you mess it up out of the gate without giving your best stuff a chance first, it's harder to get to the most exciting stuff and you may just end up snuffed out before getting there.

Honestly, the info we get about the Mandalorian Wars in both games is probably what excites me the most. Imagine a live action Malachor V

 

[wedge]

it looks fake. I don't see news anywhere besides that X post. Heck, if I type "Knights of the old republic Disney plus" on google, the first thing that appears is this HFboards thread.

In fact, this "remake" is a remake of the game and not a TV show.

 

[MadDevil]

it looks fake. I don't see news anywhere besides that X post. Heck, if I type "Knights of the old republic Disney plus" on google, the first thing that appears is this HFboards thread.

In fact, this "remake" is a remake of the game and not a TV show.

The game has been "in development" since like 2021 and considering Star Wars games are just as likely to be canceled as actually go somewhere I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Holden Caulfield]

it looks fake. I don't see news anywhere besides that X post. Heck, if I type "Knights of the old republic Disney plus" on google, the first thing that appears is this HFboards thread.

In fact, this "remake" is a remake of the game and not a TV show.

You might be right. Who knows.

I'm seeing alot of articles saying Disney plus is using The Acolyte as a testing ground for moving Star Wars away from Empire/Skywalker into the "High Republic Era". Could be this is right now just something being tossed around in boardrooms.

 

[trojansoilers]

The biggest difference in an Old Republic movie versus the Skywalker Saga movies is that we will finally see large groups of Jedi fighting large groups of Sith. And they all had cool armor as well

 

[Jovavic]

There's some High Republic in the Jedi Survivor game that came out last year, they dress snazzy.