is launching a new series that combines two of pop culture’s hottest properties: “ : The Freemaker Adventures,” an animated adventure comedy scheduled to debut this summer. The series, set between “Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back” and “Episode VI – Return of the Jedi,” centers around new characters the Freemakers, a family of scavengers who build and sell starships from the scoured debris of space battles strewn throughout the galaxy. When their youngest discovers a natural connection with the Force through an ancient artifact — the Kyber Saber — his world is turned upside down, and he and his family are thrown into an epic struggle against the Empire to restore peace and freedom to the galaxy. Throughout their adventures, the Freemakers explore new worlds, meet new and familiar characters, and learn the true value of what it means to be a family. “We are very excited to launch for the first time a TV series with Disney XD,” said Jill Wilfert, vice president, licensing & entertainment at the Lego Group.
“The creative team behind ‘The Freemaker Adventures’ is extremely talented, and the series is a great testament to our longstanding and successful partnership with Lucasfilm and Disney. The show masterfully combines the rich heritage of storytelling, great characters, action and adventure in a galaxy far, far away with the creativity, imagination and humor that only ‘Lego Star Wars’ can deliver. We are sure fans young and old are going to love the show.” “With ‘The Freemaker Adventures’ we are thrilled to bring all new stories to life that could only be realized in the ‘Lego Star Wars’ universe,” said Carrie Beck, vice president, animation development at Lucasfilm. “We are embarking on an unprecedented collaboration that will allow us to extend the narrative experience of the ‘Star Wars’ saga with the same playful spirit that’s always made ‘Lego Star Wars’ so much fun to watch. We are so thankful to have such great partners in the Lego Group, Disney XD and series developers Bill Motz and Bob Roth.”
Disney XD and Lego previously collaborated on miniseries “Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales.” Disney XD is also the home of hit animated series “Star Wars Rebels,” which takes place between Revenge of the Sith” and “A New Hope.” The latest in a long line of video game collaborations between Lego and Lucasfilm, “Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” will be released this June. “Lego Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures” hails from Wil Film, the Lego Group and Lucasfilm. Developed for television by Bill Motz and Bob Roth, they join Wilfert and Torsten Jacobson as executive producers alongside producers Carrie Beck, Jason Cosler, Jake Blais and John McCormack. Check out the key art for the new series below.The requested URL /showthread.php?t=1129329&page=17 was not found on this server. PS3, PS4, Xbox One, 360, Wii U, PS Vita, Win, 3DS No forum activity yet. Start a discussion about Lego Star Wars: The Force AwakensLego Star Wars: The Force Awakens Developed by: Traveller’s Tales, TT Fusion Published by: WBIE Available on: Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Wii U, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One At this point, most sane humans have had enough of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” but big corporations like Lego and Warner Bros. think you want more BB-8
, Rey and the whole intergalactic gang. So with no less than 13 promotional trailers targeting kids and families on YouTube, the onslaught of “Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has begun. Beyond Nintendo’s Mario and “The Legend of Zelda” games, one could argue that the sweetest of the long-running series of family-oriented games is the Lego franchise. There are times when I actually enjoy the Lego games more than those lauded Nintendo games. This is one of those times. Lego games have been published since 1997’s “Lego Island,” an odd offering that had the frowning, stubble-faced Brickster using the mere smell of pizza to disintegrate the lock on his prison cell. The Lego releases became more admirably complex when England’s Traveller’s Tales took over in 2005 (with, you guessed it, a Star Wars game). At that time, the characters didn’t even talk. They just made silly, quirky noises full of emotion (which somehow worked if you believed, as I did, you were playing inside an almost-silent movie).
Compared to other Lego games, “The Force Awakens” is a larger, more open world offering, expansive in the way some games for adults are. But there’s a tried and true formula — sometimes magic, sometimes banal — to the Lego games catalog. “The Force Awakens” doesn’t stray far from this blueprint, but those who believe playing is like downing candy are trying too hard to be pretentious. The blocky characters exude humor, from signature winks to the ardent-but-lunking way they pad about. Add some nifty, Pixar-style satire for adults, and you have a Lego game. There was pressure to get this one right because last year’s “Disney Infinity 3.0 Star Wars The Force Awakens,” also made for kids and families, was generally awesome. (And it’s a complete shame that Disney recently shuttered the studio that made these toys-to-life games.) Traveller’s Tales and TT Fusion have shown their research chops by going back to the source. Lego toys, the ingenious Danish invention which means ‘play well’ in English, are about building things.
So in Lego games, you collect pieces called studs, you find piles of things to construct which, when they are released through controller button taps, turn from pieces into machinery or vehicles. These help you solve puzzles and move from one level to the next. With “Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” you can play 200 characters from the film in a game that follows, in close approximation, the movie’s plot. All of the actors involved in the movie, including Harrison Ford, recorded lines for the game (although Daisy Ridley sounds as if she recorded her muddled Rey bits on a cell phone). Once inside, I enjoyed seeing two Ewoks on a tree limb, tuning up on a trumpet and horn, readying to play the Star Wars theme. Happily, I figured out how to employ a band of Ewoks to help me push logs onto a pesky Walker below. I had a choice of two or three things to build and I constructed a turret gun and a ladder in the right order to move ahead in the verdant forests of Endor. Then, just as Han Solo tossed an enemy one-handed from a vehicle, something awful happened, something that had never has happened to me in my history of playing Lego games.
It was worse than that moment in Lego Jurassic Park when a character was eternally stuck jumping, trying to leap out of a crevasse. This time, the game crashed. I lost all of my progress — along with much of my good will, and had to start the game all over again. Had I stopped out of frustration (and I was indeed annoyed), I would have missed an emotional Darth Vader, sniffling and shedding tears when presented with Luke Skywalker’s childhood drawing of daddy Darth as a stick figure. I would’ve missed BB-8 playing soccer and basketball during a blazing battle. And I would have missed rubber ducks appearing for no reason whatsoever. Seeing them on Jakku was pleasurable in a weird way. “The Force Awakens” is the biggest of the Lego games, and while that hugeness can add to its epic, space opera nature, the narrative sometimes loses the pace needed to sustain an action adventure. During long battles there’s a distinct lack of that signature humor making it, at times, feel more like Halo or Gears of War with Lego characters.
And, if you want to replay levels to find the gold blocks you missed, it takes even more time. But, if you’re patient, you’re rewarded with the momentary joy of esteemed actor Harrison Ford asking for “Wookiee cookies for Chewie.” If you’re an enduring Star Wars fan, you’ll uncover the heartrending story which explains why C3PO has a red arm. And the curious fan will find out how Han and Chewbacca got those creepy Rathar monsters with octopus-like tentacles, giant maw and razor-sharp teeth onto the Millennium Falcon. Despite the amount of original content, there is too much leaning on past successes. The Lego recipe hasn’t changed much, so the collecting of studs and gold bricks — searching high and low in every nook and cranny in this vast world to find them — becomes repetitive. And since so many around the world already know “The Force Awakens” story through the movie (and last year’s Disney game), you wish the developers had gone the extra mile with even more levels and plot points that move beyond the theatrical offering into the vast treasure trove of Star Wars lore.
Ultimately, it’s a beautifully animated action-adventure game with occasionally spectacular views from space and of magnificent landscapes on various planets. When the humor is present, it’s even better. But there should be far more of it. And what’s there certainly isn’t irreverent enough. It’s one thing to respect the source material. It’s another altogether to honor it as if it were a religion. In this Lego game, there’s just enough comedy to get you by. Harold Goldberg has written for the New York Times, Playboy, Vanity Fair, Boys’ Life and elsewhere. His narrative history of games is “All Your Base Are Belong to Us (How 50 Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture)” Random House. He’s the founder of the New York Video Game Critics Circle. Follow him on Twitter @haroldgoldberg. ‘Asemblance’ is a puzzle within a puzzle within a puzzle For Oculus Rift gaming, a promising start but a long way to go ‘Mirror’s Edge Catalyst’ is a flawed but effective take on parkour ‘Doom’is a thrilling, remorseless adventure ‘Battleborn’ review: A mashup of genres that falls short ‘Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End’ review: This four-part series should have ended after Part One