The answer came once Disney Imagineering began realizing a planet called Batuu for the next expansion of Disney Parks.
“When you step in and you look around, I am here,” he says.
“I’m not seeing a bunch of Disneyland stuff.
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I’m in a world inStar Wars” an experience that naturally lends itself to the medium of VR.
It was as if each small detail of the park attraction came with its own tale to tell.
“What’s up with the droid that’s crashed in this bush over here?
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Who owns this Droid Depot?
There’s all these crazy stories.”
In EW’s exclusive first-look concept art, some of those stories are starting to be told.
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Sorry about that," she explains.
That name should ring bells.
The Guavian Death Gang previously appeared on screen inStar Wars: The Force Awakens.
InTales, actressDebra Wilsondelivers an animated performance as Tara Rashin, leader of one of the gang’s cells.
Now, as Tara, she embodies a power-hungry space pirate.
Wilson “was so pumped up” for the role, he recalls.
‘Oh, the Guavian Death Gang would be cool!’
And then we bounce it around.
We have weekly meetings, if not more often, sometimes with the story group.
How can these stories collide?
What could bring Tara to Batuu?
What could she want?
Why would she go to a place like Batuu to get it?
And then you work through that."
With the dark also comes the light.
It’s about balance, as is everything in the world ofStar Wars.
Enter Seezelslak, voiced bySaturday Night Live’sBobby Moynihan who, too, already has roots inStar Wars.
“We were at Star Wars Celebration doing aVader Immortalthing,” Perez says.
“We had a bunch of booths there and Bobby came through.
He’s like, ‘Just let me know how I can play with you guys.
Just let me in somehow.’
It’s not just all jokes.
There’s a fully realized character there, and Bobby just had all the right things.”
Moynihan also came equipped with bartending experience.
“He immediately was talking about little bartender tricks.
He may have this coaster thing.
I can’t even do it,” Perez says.
“It was some weird flip.
Venturing beyond Black Spire Outpost
Talesholds a lot of potential for Disney Parks.
At the same time, Perez doesn’t see their project asGalaxy’s Edge, the game adaptation.
We don’t want to just replicate something that it’s possible for you to get in real life.
We want to build on it and make something that’s new and unique.”
“Obviously, we’re saying [the protagonist] plays a droid repair technician.
So, many great ideas spun out of that space alone.
I think it’s going to be really cool to see how it plays in [Tales].”
“you could’t get more authentic.”
Executing those ideas, however, presented new challenges none of them were anticipating.
Completing a game that required motion-capture and facial-capture under these conditions initially felt crippling.
“When we intellectually considered it, it always seemed like that’d be way too hard.
“I think what happened is the necessity of doing it got past the intellectual objections.
It’s like going into the pool in the deep end.
The situation proved to be a creative problem-solving exercise.
Moynihan needs to record a facial performance as Seezelslak?
The team needs to log a full-body motion-capture performance?
What about the animation process?
“The Quest is a huge advantage,” Finley remarks of their Oculus gaming system.
“you’re free to carry it with you wherever you go.”
“It was one of those things where we were just going to have to make it work.
And it did,” Perez adds.
“We were definitely a little worried about it.
[Since] we started working with the technology, it’s working pretty well.”
That would be the point of fine-tuning.
“We’ve got the experience built out,” she says.
This isn’t working.
More of that.'”
Until that happens, we’ll have to put a bookmark in thisStar Warstale.
