The Epic Begins: Warlord Wednesday!

The new ongoing series and my recent post on DC Comic's Warlord, have led to my decision to revisit creator Mike Grell's run on the original series.  So at least from now until issue 71 (or until I get tired of it), I'm going to be looking at the Lost World of the Warlord, issue by issue.

First up,  of course, is the try-out before the series started...

"Land of Fear"
1st Issue Special #8 (November 1975)

Written and Illustrated by Mike Grell

Synopsis:
Colonel Travis Morgan, USAF, is forced to ditch his plane after taking fire during a spy mission over the Soviet Union. Expecting to come down in the arctic, he's surprised to find himself in a lush jungle. Finding a woman, Tara, in combat with a dinosaur he rushes to her aid. No sooner have they overcome that danger, then they are captured by soldiers and taken to the city of Thera. Morgan quickly earns the enmity of the high priest, Deimos, though use of his pistol convinces the rest of the Theran court that he's a god. While guests of the Theran king, Morgan pieces together the remarkable truth of his situation--he's in the hollow earth! Ultimately, treachery by Deimos leads Morgan and Tara to flee Thera.

Things to Notice:

• The story begins on a specific date: June 16, 1969. Though time is strange in Skartaris, stories will often give reference to the passage of "real time" on earth--something very different from most comic series. This also dates Morgan, allowing us, as more information is given, to construct a timeline of his life.
• Morgan has a .38 special in this issue and only 12 rounds of ammo, all of which he uses here.
• The women of Thera seem go in for the colorful, raccoon-patch, eye shadow which is also styled by some female members of the disco-era Legion of Super-Heroes, Marionette of the Micronauts, and Dazzzler, among others.

Where It Comes From:
The portrayal of the hollow earth in both fiction and purported fact has a rich history going back to Sir Edmund Haley (of comet fame) and possibly before. The primary inspiration for Grell’s version seems to be Pellucidar, a savage land debuting in At the Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs, serialized (as “The Inner World”) over 4 issues in All-Story beginning on April 4, 1914. A novel version was published in 1922, and in 1976 there was a move adaptation with Doug McClure, Peter Cushing, and bond-girl-to-be Caroline Munro.

In the introduction to the collection Savage Empire (1991), Grell cites the Burroughs influence on Warlord and calls the Pellucidar series "the best of the [Earth's core] genre."  In a later interview, he seems to downplay this influence, emphasizing instead Jules Vernes' Journey to the Center of the Earth, and The Smokey God by Willis George Emerson.  Certainly a case could be made for the primacy of these works in Skartaris' conception.  Verne's work has prehistoric survivors in his underground world, while Emerson's novel has a central sun (the titular Smokey God).

Still, Burroughs' work has those similarities to Skartaris, too.  It also shares one feature not found in any other "hollow earth" fiction with which I'm aware: time is strange there.  The odd timelessness of Skartaris is also found in Pellucidar--despite neither ever giving a good explanation as to why things should be that way.

An interesting parallel to Burroughs, though probably not a direct reference, is this issue's title.  Burroughs' sixth novel of Pellucidar is called Land of Terror.

One thing clearly does come from Verne, and that's the name of The Warlord's hollow world.  In Journey to the Center of the Earth, "Scartaris" is a mountain whose shadow marks the entrance to the center of the earth in the crater of Snæfellsjökull.

The dinosaur gracing the cover and appearing in the issue is identified as a deinonychus, which is a species related to the velociraptor family.  Unlike its depiction in this issue, deinonychus apparently had feathers.

The character of Travis Morgan got his first name from Grell's nephew, and his surname from the privateer and rum bottle spokesmodel, Henry Morgan.  Morgan got the facial hair that Grell himself had at the time, and also Grell's experiences in the air force.

Grell has said that the appearance of Tara was inspired by Raquel Welch.  Presumably he was thinking of her in One Million Years B.C.  The name "Tara" was a popular one in the United States in the 70s, probably due to the enduring popularity of the film version of Gone With The Wind.  In this context, the name Tara derives from the Hill of Tara in Ireland. The hill is also known as Teamhair na Rí (“The Hill of Kings”) because of its association with ancient kingship rituals. Tara also means "shining" in Sanskrit and is the name of a Hindu goddess.

Grell tells us he got "Deimos" from the name of Mars' smaller moon, the larger being Phobos.  These names derive from Greek mythology where Deimos ("dread") and Phobos ("fear") are sons of Ares.  Again, the title of the issue seems to have unintended connections.

The name of the city where Deimos is high priest, Thera, is also Greek in origin.  Thera is part of what is now the Santorini Archipelago and the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history.  This eruption, some 3600 years ago, led to the decline of Minoan civilization, and popular theory holds that this event may be the ultimate source of the Atlantis legend.

Something Wicked: The Drow

"The tiers and dungeons of Erelhei-Cinlu reek of debauchery and decadence...Unspeakable things transpire where the evil and jaded creatures seek pleasure, pain, excitement, or arcane knowledge, and sometimes these seekers find they are victims."

- Gary Gygax, Vault of the Drow

Like regular elves, drow provoke ambivalence in the collecitve gamer heart. Thanks mostly to R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt do'Urden books, and an enduring viusal appeal (at least the drow females), they have a prominent place in tabletop and computer rpgs. On the other hand, charges of implicit racism and sexism, and general blacklash against overexposure, fan flames in many a message board thread.

Having never read a Drizzt novel (and never intending to, honestly), my appreciation of the drow comes mainly from the AD&D D and Q modules that dealt with them. There, they were exotic and powerful adversaries. Then came Unearthed Arcana, which gave us drow as a (somewhat overpowered) player character race. Players always like more options--particularly "cool" ones--but there the seeds were sown for over-familiarity and the contempt which usually follows.

So in trying to do a little re-imagining of the drow for my current campaign world, I wanted to chart a course between the purely villainous drow of the early D&D modules, and the posing, voluptuous viragos and emo-Elric wannabes of today. Since I've conceived the world's "high elves" as posthuman, glam anarcho-capitalists, and the "gray elves" as alien beings partaking of the melancholic sense of "passing" found in Tolkien's elves and Yag-kosha in Howard's "Tower of the Elephant," it seems proper to me that the dark elves should have pulp roots growing though Lovecraft's K'n-yan, and Clark Ashton Smithian decadence, which break the surface in the vicinity of Hellraiser, along the Left Hand Path, posted with fuzzy LaVey philosophy.

"Do what thou wilt" shall be the whole of Drow law, I think.

"free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy...all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom."

- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Like all the aethyr, the elves of the world of Arn, the drau, or "drow," are beings aligned to extraplanar chaos. Unlike the other elves, who are general beneficent, and aligned to the extraplanar power of "good," drow have chosen the path of egotism without concern for concepts like morality, and have aligned themselves with "evil."

These philosophical differences long ago caused a schism among the elves, and led to the drow being driven underground. There, they nurse their ancient enmities and plan for a chance at revenge.  They past the time until that day in strange pleasures--byzantine intrigues, arcane drugs, elaborate assassinations, and baroque orgies. 

The primary goddess of the drow is Lolth, the Demon Queen of Spiders. Like all demons, Lolth seeks the destruction of all matter and form, the dissolution of the multiverse, and a return to a state of pure chaos--but she wishes to enjoy every sensation and fulfill every other desire prior to that end. She offers her faithful the same reward, and finds her chosen people enthusiastic followers.

There are legends that hold that Lolth was once an elven sorceress in a time before there were drow. In the pursuit of knowledge and experience beyond what she could find on this plane, Lolth trafficked with demons from the Abyss. Tricked by a demon lord and cast into the abyssal depths, Lolth was forced to live through a myriad of lives, deaths, and physical forms, experiencing all the inhuman horrors and pleasures that fiendish minds older than the earth can conceive. After lifetimes, she arrived at the realm of the demon lord, who she thanked--and then slew. At that moment, a new demon queen was born.

Drow are often as ambitious as their goddess. Implicit in her teachings is the opportunity for any drow to ascend and claim her power for their own.

Lolth sits at the center of her demonweb and waits, nourishing herself on the partially dissolved souls of those who have challenged her before.

A Fist Full of Fantasy

Looking for some weekend reading? In no particular order, here are five fantastic (in both senses of the word) stories well worth seeking out:

"Lean Times in Lankhmar" by Fritz Leiber
"How the lack of money leads to a lack of love, even among sworn comrades." When Fafhrd and Gray Mouser are the sworn comrades in question, what happens next certainly isn't dull. Mouser goes to work for an unusual extortionist, and Fafhrd gets religion! A clever, colorful, and genuinely funny tale. One of Leiber's best tales of the twain--and that's high praise, indeed.
Find it in: Swords Against Death: The Adventures of Fafhrd & Gray Mouser Book 2

"Worms of the Earth" by Robert E. Howard
Bran Mak Morn, last king of the Picts, wants revenge against the hated Roman invaders, and he's willing to bargain with an ancient, inhuman enemy to get it. This is one of Howard's best stories--combining action and horror, in one effective package.
Find it in: Bran Mak Morn: The Last King

"Queen of the Martian Catacombs" by Leigh Brackett
This was technically science fiction when it was written, but advancing knowledge of the solar system has rendered Brackett's pulp view quaint. Too bad for us in the real world. Eric John Stark, Brackett's hard-boiled, outlaw hero, is an earth-man raised by primitives on Mercury like an interplanetary Tarzan. Stark is forced to cut a deal with authorities to infiltrate and disrupt a plot by Martian desert tribesmen and criminal elements to ferment a rebellion against the Terran colonial powers. In the process, Stark will uncover a startling secret, surviving from ancient Mars.
Find it in: expanded form as the novel, The Secret of Sinharat.

"Undertow" by Karl Edward Wagner
This story features Kane, Wagner's version of the Biblical first murderer, cursed by a mad god to wander a sword & sorcery pre-history, knowing only violence. Kane's often more of anti-hero--a trait this story well illustrates. A ship's captain falls for a beautiful woman kept by a powerful sorcerer, and at her urging, hatches a dangerous plot to free her. But all is not what it seems. The sorcerer is Kane, and this whole drama of doomed love, manipulation, and death, may have played out before.
Find it in: The Midnight Sun: The Complete Stories of Kane, or Night Winds (both unfortunately out of print--and probably pricey).

"The Seven Geases" by Clark Ashton Smith
In fabled Hyperborea, Ralibar Vooz, high magistrate of Commoriom, is having one seriously bad day. He has magical compulsions, seven in all, laid upon him by a succession of ever more dire supernatural entities. All the while, Smith will "wow" you with his ceaseless invention, ironic humor, and lush prose.
Find it in: The Return of the Sorcerer: The Best of Clark Ashton Smith or here--for free--on the Eldritch Dark website.


Find and enjoy!

See Their Faces in Golden Rays: Elves Unveiled

"You gotta make way for the homo superior."

- David Bowie, "Oh! You Pretty Things"

Elves, in just about any D&D-inspired game, are smarter, more graceful, and better looking than--well, everybody. Ever wonder how they got that way?

Western fantasy literature has long contained the thematic element of "the fall"--the idea that beings were once closer to perfection than they are now. Tolkien's work has this element, certainly, but he's not the only one. It no doubt comes from Christianity, but its not an uncommon feature of many religious, mythological, and occult systems.

So in other words, in many fantasy worlds elves were, at one time, even better--because the gods or whoever made them that way.

Science fiction--from the Golden Age through modern trans- and post-humanist works--has presented another, competing idea. Progress. Maybe beings are evolving to a higher state. As the trope goes, future man is better than modern man in a lot of ways. Often, in a lot of the same ways that elves are better than man.

Jürgen Hubert explored this idea in his Pyramid Magazine article "Elves: A Case Study of Transhumanism in Fantasy Worlds." Hubert provides a lot of interesting ideas for a gamemaster wanting to explore this angle.

In the thinking about rethinking the elves for my current campaign, I revisited Hubert's article. I also found inspiration in the human variants in John C. Wright's The Golden Age trilogy, which is far future science fiction, and doesn't have any elves, but it feels like fantasy in places (in a Vancian sort of way). Greg Egan is probably in there somewhere, too.

"They seem a bit above my likes and dislikes, so to speak," answered Sam slowly. "It don't seem to matter what I think about them. They are quite different from what I expected — so old and young, and so gay and sad, as it were."

- J.R.R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring

On the earth that contains the ruin-haunted continent of Arn, the beings known as elves call themselves aethyr in their own language. Visually, they may be differentiated from humans by their slim builds, pointed ears, and large, slanted eyes with ovoid pupils. Their eyes give an almost feline impression. They tend to have less sexual dimorphism than humans.

The aethyr keep to themselves, living in enclaves distant from human settlements. Little is known about them really, though it would be hard to call such gregarious and social beings as the elves most commonly encountered, secretive. Somehow, they manage to talk a lot while saying very little about themselves. This is even more remarkable, given the centuries that measure their lives.

These elves, the ones most commonly interacted with by humans, are known as the "bright" or "high" aethyr. They pursue pleasure, in whatever idiosyncratic form that might take. Some are artists or aesthetes, some are scholars, some warriors, some mages. They tend to live in small, fluid communities where they may indulge these interests with a minimum of interference. Their advanced magical arts make these lifestyles possible without the toil that is the lot of most intelligent species. They live better than wealthy humans in habitations that may easily be hidden in the wilderness.

As highly individualistic beings, allied to extraplanar chaos, the aethyr shun government and law. Authority may come to rest in certain personages, but only as far as their charisma and persuasive powers take them. Conclaves are called at appointed times which seem random to other species, where any elf can be heard. All decisions made at a conclave are voluntary. Elves who violate their community's sense of propriety are ostracized, nothing more, though vengeance may be taken by individual parties.

There are other elves. We might think of these as tribes, or clades, or even political parties. In a sense, they are all three. There are the wild elves, who seek unity with nature and spend much of their time in animalistic mental states which they know as the red dream. There are the aquatic elves, who breath in water as well as air, and live nomadic lives in the seas. There are the gray, the most aloof of elven races, who live in hidden mountain enclaves. And then, there are the dark ones--ancient enemies of the others--who dedicated their long existences to the ideal of transgression.

Its the gray aethyr, though, that hold the most secrets of the elven past. This group is the least human looking of all the elves. They are tall and thin--almost like beings adapted to lower gravity. They have pale skins and even larger eyes than their brethren.

To humans, the gray seem formal, distracted and melancholy. To bright elves, they're slightly embarrassing relatives. The gray would say they're in mourning, if they ever deigned to explain themselves.

What the gray are mourning remains the secret. They alone remember what the other elves have purposefully forgotten. This was their task, though none of the others can even recall it being given to them. When elves awoke from reverie which had kept them safe and sane through their journey, and emerged from the giant, bronze, rune-inscribed ova that had borne them, they forced themselves to forget what had come before. All but the gray. And so they alone mourn.

Where did the elves come from? The future, perhaps? Maybe they're man's descendants from a distant age? Or maybe they're the creation of an ancient Immortal? Another relic from the age of the God Makers?

No one knows. Maybe not even the elves themselves.

Getting Lost

This post can be read as a tacit admission that watching the final season premiere of Lost last night kept me from finishing my planned essay for today.  It also serendipitously gives me an opportunity to formalize some thoughts I've had about the show and its relationship--unplanned, I believe--to the "lost world" genre.

A brief warning: some spoilers for the TV series Lost, and for various works of fiction written over the past hundred years or more may follow.

Anyway, the "lost world" genre is based around the idea that certain civilizations, cultures, or races have been hidden, forgotten or, well--lost. Typically, these are located in out-of-the-way places like underground regions (or the hollow earth), undersea realms, hidden valleys, remote plateaus, or unknown islands. Though the origins of the genre lie in myths and legends from many cultures, its modern progenitor is often considered to be H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1885), relating the search for the fabled lost wealth of Biblical Ophir. In the 1887 sequel, Allan Quartermain, Haggard's protagonist, stumbled upon Zu-Vendis, another hidden African realm.

Haggard revealed yet another lost world, Kor, in the apparently crowded heart of Africa in She: A History of Adventure and its sequels. Kor was ruled by an incarnation of a goddess, Ayesha, the She of the title. She was played by Ursula Andress in the 1965 Hammer film version--who coincidentally played another goddess in the original Clash of the Titans.

Haggard had found adventure fiction gold in King Solomon's Mines, and other writers soon sent intrepid explorers out to their own lost worlds. Arthur Conan Doyle gave us the dinosaur-infested Maple White Land in The Lost World (1912), and an undersea city of Atlantis in The Maracot Deep (1929). Rudyard Kipling sent The Man Who Would Be King (1888) to a remote (and fictional) part of Afghanistan to get his kingdom.

Some writers managed to uncover a lot of lost worlds. Abraham Merritt wrote several lost world novels, as did Edgar Rice Burroughs. In The Moon Maid (1926), Burroughs places a lost world inside the earth's hollow moon, but his most inventive lost land must the barbaric, future Europe of The Lost Continent (1915) which is rediscovered by explorers from the Americas.

Original lost worlds have appeared in other media, too. Kong's Skull Island is one, whichever of the film versions you prefer. Sid and Marty Krofft's Land of the Lost gives itself away in the title. Others include the lost valley that Hanna-Barbera's Dino-Boy winds up in, DC's Skartaris, the Lost World of the Warlord; and the world James Scully found through the Bermuda Triangle in Marvel's Skull the Slayer (1975).

So you can see where this is going. Lost spends a lot of time with character drama (and flashbacks and flashfowards that help elucidate those characters), but let's not ever forget it's a story about an island with mysterious inhabitants, ancient ruins--and a monster. Lost is completely a lost world story, just told in a slightly different style, emphasizing things (at least initially) to play to the widest possible TV audience.

Besides the storytelling style, Lost also brings an innovation in its assemble cast. Older works in the lost world genre typically have one main protagonist, one or two companions, and maybe some largely nameless hirelings--typically having a lifespan approximating that of a newly introduced, redshirted member of a Star Trek landing party. Some Lost characters get more screen time than others, but there is no one protagonist.  At least not one that's apparent so far.

It strikes me that Lost provides an interesting way to approach a lost world game. It could initially appear more like a castaway or survivor story, until the weirdness begins to show. It's assemble cast also probably better replicates a gaming group.

Now that I think about it, the same sort of innovations could be applied to a related genre, the planetary romance. Instead of one John Carter, we get a whole airliner--or maybe just a private jet--coming down (somehow) on the lichen-beds in one of the dead, sea bottoms of Mars.

Middle-Earth the Mighty Marvel Way: Weirdworld

"For those who thrilled to J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings"--An All New Adventure into Epic Fantasy!"


So cried the cover blurb on Marvel Premiere #38, the second appearance--first in color--of Marvel's decidedly un-Sword & Sorcery fantasy series. As such, it stands as an interesting artifact in comics history, fitting neither with the pulp inspired fantasies of earlier comics, or the D&D-influenced ones that were to follow.

The titular "Weirdworld" is a fantasy land inhabited by dwarves, elves, and goblins, and perpetually under threat from wicked sorcerers and other magical menaces. Its protagonists are two elves--Tyndall and Velanna--who are outcasts with mysterious (even to themselves) pasts. Their obligatory companion and comedy relief is Mud-Butt, an irascible dwarf.

Tyndall starts out solo and in black and white in Marvel Super Action #1, where he good-naturedly undertakes a quest for prejudicial dwarvish villagers in "An Ugly Mirror on Weirdworld" (1976). Velanna joins him by that story's end, and they run afoul of a rejuvenation-seeking sorcerer in Marvel Premiere #38 (1977). Their next appearance, publication wise, would see them travelling with Mud-Butt to the City of Seven Dark Delights and crossing paths with the sorcerous Dark Riders, who were seeking to resurrect their fallen god, Darklens. The defeat of Darklens and the discovery of other elves, were related in the three part epic, "Warriors of the Shadow Realm" in Marvel Super Special #11-13 (1979). Epic Illustrated #9, and #11-13, in 1981 and '82, featured the "Dragonmaster of Klarn" storyline, that revealed more about the mysterious elves and their relationship with dragons. Finally, in 1986, Marvel Fanfare vol. 1 #24-26 saw a lost tale of Weirdworld--the first meeting of Mudd-Butt and the two elves, and vanquishing of yet another evil sorcerer. Work on this story had actually began back in the seventies, but it had been left unfinished.

Weirdworld was the creation of Doug Moench, and artistically designed, at least initially, by Mike Ploog. "Warriors of the Shadow Realm" had art by John Buscema, and featured a redesigned Mud-Butt--though no one knew it, sense Ploog's original design didn't see print until nearly a decade later. Pat Roderick provided the pencils for the last two Marvel Fanfare issues.

I would have thought Weirdworld bore the influences of Bakshi's animated fantasy features Wizards and The Lord of the Rings--but it actually predates both of them. Any artistic resemblance may be due to Ploog's reported involvement in those two projects, or it may be coincidental. Tolkien would seem to be a likely source, but Moench maintained in that he had never read The Lord of the Rings in his essay on Weirdworld's origins in Marvel Super Special #11. He did admit to having read The Hobbit in high school, but denied remembering much about it.

Despite the overt "Tolkienian" elements, I think we see in Weirdworld as an artifact of a time when The Lord of the Rings-style portrayals of elves and dwarves (by way of D&D) were not taken as standard. The dwarves of Weirdworld bear more resemblance to the Munchikins of Oz than the ones from the Mines of Moria. Buscema's artwork in particular gives most of Weirdworld a kind of fairy-tale-ish look (inspired by Arthur Rackham, among others) that reminds me a little of later works by Brian Froud. The elves are likewise not wise and puissant beings superior to men in every way. Instead, their short and maybe more like non-Tolkien, pop-culture elves--like the sort that sell cookies or work for Santa. Their probably part of the pre-Tolkien lineage that influenced early D&D art (as James Maliszewski outlined here) and certainly seem to be kin of hapless Indel in the 80s D&D comic book ads.

In this area, examination of the Weirdworld tales offers something to the gamer, particularly perhaps ones interested in the "old school." Weirdworld offers a portrayal of stock rpg elements refreshingly free from the influence of the rising cultural familiarity with The Lord of the Rings, and the ouroboros-like D&D-ization of fantasy. Nothing in it is new, but their might be something there worth revisiting.

The City of Seven Dark Delights and the floating land of Klarn await.

What Star Wars Got Right

Still working my way through Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season One, delayed by the arrival January and the return of network TV from the holiday doldrums.

I've had many discussions over the years with various friends about what is "wrong" with the Star Wars films--and there are a lot of things. Mainly though, they boil down to bad writing. Well more completely stated it's: Lucas isn't a good writer compounded by the fact that Lucas isn't a good director of actors.

It's no accident that the best of the Star Wars Saga, The Empire Strikes Back, was at least partially written by Leigh Brackett--someone who surely knew how to write.

But anyway, that's a topic for another blog, maybe.  I'm not interested in revisitng the hate, but in accentuating the positive, to wit: What's good about Star Wars? And what's good that might be applicable to gaming?

To me, the core "good thing" is that Star Wars melds together two predominant forms of sci-fi adventure media (I specify this as it has very little to do with science fiction as a literary genre--even the science fiction sub-genre space opera only shares a few similarities with Star Wars until after Star Wars enters the public Zeitgeist).

The two types are:

• Euro-style daring-do: This is sword-fights, castles, and princess-kidnapping villains. Like John Carter or Flash Gordon. The action and plots resemble The Prisoner of Zenda, and the latter-day stories can be seen as sort of allegories for young America interacting with the Old (decadent) World (Burroughs' The Mad King, comes to mind)..
• "the flyboy" or square-jawed aviator tale: This is rockets and jetpacks, leather helmets and robots. This is like Buck Rogers, and Burroughs' Beyond the Farthest Star, and any number of serials--and both aviation and science fiction pulps at times. A purer modern example would be Sky Captain.

Star Wars eliminates the problem of having to give up jetpacks for swashbuckling by putting them both together! And this is not a bad idea. The incoherence that would be created by aviators wearing swords is resolved by giving the swords only to a select group (the jedi)--this was an innovation discovered by accident, it seems. Lucas' early drafts had "laserswords" being more commonly used.

But this still isn't all of Star Wars. Lucas lacquered it with Japanese exoticism by cribbing design, plot elements, and character from Kurosawa. Shooting in Tunisia, and having an expert in African languages provide him with Greedo's lingo and Jabba's Huttese further lathered on the exoticism. So another element of Star Wars is what we might think of as a sort of chinoiserie (if I can be allowed to somewhat misappropriate a term, when a better one doesn't exist). This is probably the element of Star Wars that I most think about playing up when I've though "How could Star Wars be better?"  This would lead to a Star Wars more like Dune, or most likely, more like a Heavy Metal story (or the Star Wars (and Dune) inspired Metabarons).

We're not done yet. The last piece, is latter century Americana. The original trilogy can't escape its 70s vibe, in some ways. Some of that is accidental no doubt--an artifact of when it was made. Other parts--primarily cut scenes of Luke and his teen friends--transplant American Graffiti car-culture to Tattooine. Episode II even gives us a 50s style diner! These elements are wholly Star Wars and not found in really any of its progenitors or imitators that I'm aware of (One Han Solo novel in the late seventies gives us an explicit disco, as well!).

So how might this be used in gaming? Well, I know that if I was looking to create my own Star War-ish space opera/science fantasy campaign, I'd look to these elements to make sure I got it right. Also, I think these can kind of be used like dials--one could turn down the elements one didn't like in Star Wars, while cranking others to eleven. If you want more Dune, play up the "exoticness," and chunk the Americana; more Sky Captain, means more swooping spaceships and fewer swords or Samurai movie borrowings.  If one wanted Star Wars that didn't feel like Star Wars, eliminating two, or perhaps even just one, of the elements above would probably do it.