“It seems straight forward: You define the cut line, separate the pieces, add some visual effects and done. According to Rdzany, it’s not easy to program. Flying Wild Hog developed Shadow Warrior 2-a first person shooter with dynamic dismemberment, a feature that let players lop off the limbs of their opponents. “It’s quite complex,” Grzegorz Rdzany, head of technology at studio Flying Wild Hog, told me over email. Imagine if they did his for a racial or ethnic group, as was done historically? Representation and casting, everything could use improvement.”įor a film series that often makes a point of showing lightsabers severing the limbs of heroes and villains alike, Star Wars games have traditionally been light on gross bodily harm. “I really hope people realize that this trope is very not okay… it's extremely counter-productive. “It's just about a majority in movies I'd say,” James Young-a double amputee gamer who helped create a cybernetic prosthetic based on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain-told me in an email. The trauma isn’t always a defining characteristic, especially when prosthetics are a source of empowerment rather than pain. Losing a limb is a traumatic event, one that people react to in ways as varied as the individual. Star Wars has long used physical disfigurement to signal corruption of the soul, it's a way for the movies to say that a character is turning to the "dark side," which is obviously not the case for anyone who actually lost a limb. When he attacks Darth Vader, he decapitates him only to discover the face under the helmet is his own. In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke battles the dark side of the force in a cave on Dagobah. One moment Obi Wan is a kindly old man, and in the next he is a deadly warrior who will coldly maim anyone who gets in his way, a defining duality of the Jedi. I would argue that the lightsaber made an impact on popular culture because of how effective that scene is. The first time we see a lightsaber’s power in A New Hope, Obi Wan Kenobi lops the arm off a rude cantina patron. It’s used to punctuate weighty moments and give characters backstories. Since Respawn Entertainment is apparently following this formula in Fallen Order, fans’ disappointment over the lack of flying limbs is an opportunity to examine how Star Wars has handled the topic, and why.ĭismemberment is a big deal in the Star Wars universe. The treatment of dismemberment and prosthetics in the Star Wars films is often ham-fisted and problematic, and it’s in the franchise’s DNA to use it as a narrative crutch that punctuates various characters’ arcs. Saw Gerrera, Cere Junda, and Cal Kestis from Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order.
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