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Old 06-26-2018, 04:37 PM
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Arilou Arilou is offline
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So there's a new-ish trailer for Stargate: Origins. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-EnCjcxsJE And bloody hell that opening bit is dumb.


For those who don't know, Star Control III was made without the involvement of its original creators. The creative team brought in nevertheless attempted to resolve plot lines setup in SCII and one of their bright ideas was to turn the Precursors into what fans have derisively labeled "space cows." In short, there was someone more powerful than them who went around gobbling up intelligent races, so they hid themselves by devolving into a non-sentient, grazing species. And, okay, I can see a bit of Fred and Paul's whimsy within the idea itself, but the execution missed their flare for satirizing the genre or their penchant for using the zany to generate humor. Thus, it fell flat, whereas people would've loved the "space cows" if presented by Fred and Paul.



Now, according to this trailer, Star Control: Origins has given their version of the Precursors a name and decided that they're from Earth. That's a really dumb, tired origin that yet again overemphasizes the importance of humanity. It's one thing when that happens on TV because TV shows rely primarily on human actors due to budgetary reasons, so they have to make them more of a focus than they should be, but one of the things I loved about the first Star Control is that humans were just one of fourteen races and a weak, unimportant one at that. Sure, they became more important in the sequel and there was a hint that the Precursors had been to and left technology on Earth, but they left technology all throughout the galaxy, so it didn't mean anything significant for humans. What Stardock has done with this story element is overkill.


Anyway, here's another fun nugget. I was scrolling through the comments and Brad (the Stardock guy I keep referencing) decided to randomly reply to someone claiming that Stardock owned everything:


Quote:
Brad Wardell
1 day ago
Jordan C Stardock has the trademarks, the music, and the aliens.

He also said that some of the original aliens would make initial appearances in the game with more to follow. Apparently, they've been amping up their efforts to steal Fred and Paul's IP of late which includes releasing images of the Arilou and art designs of the Melnorme. They've also been trying to trademark the names of all the original races.


That is a retaliatory tactic on their part, which goes against their earlier repeated admissions that they do not own Fred and Paul's intellectual property and thus did not have the right to use the original races, storylines, etc. They have no legal basis to make this claim as they legitimately do not own the IP, only the trademark. What Brad has been going around saying elsewhere is that the trademark gives them access to, not just the name, but the "feel" of the work that is associated with it. Basically, he thinks that because people associate the Arilou, Melnorme, Ur-quan, etc., with the name "Star Control," which he owns, he must therefore be able to use those things because it would not otherwise be Star Control.


Obviously, that's complete and utter nonsense, but that is where we are.
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