soteTCredemptionfrWelcome to the end of our parody of Shadows of the Empire. It seems that Shadows of the Empire was a missed opportunity when you think about the potential for it to have crossed over into the Babylon 5 universe.

For those unfamiliar with B5, today’s strip refers to the Shadows, the big bad antagonists of the show for most of its duration. Leanne and I have been watching the series together over the last couple of months and have tried to think of ways to do a crossover. I think we found the perfect solution with this concluding strip.

Babylon 5 may not have been perfect, but it had the scariest looking spaceships in any sci-fi work I’ve ever seen. Living spaceships that sound like Peter Jackson’s Nazgul with megaphones.

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Next week, Return of the Jedi will begin. The final chapter in our plan to parody the original trilogy. Shadows was a fun diversion, though it was challenging at times. A lot of new art had to be created. For the most part we were gung ho about bringing all the ideas to life no matter how demanding they were visually. My final thoughts on the actual story of Shadows of the Empire are that it is a disappointment. The original LucasFilm project felt a bit too much like a bunch of people throwing ideas onto a dart board and trying to make a story out of it. I’m relieved to finally be at the end of the Shadows of the Empire parody, but at the same time, I’m proud of most of the strips and think a few cool ideas emerged in the process.

And what happened to Dash Rendar, I hear no one ask… Dash was killed off during the final space battle, only to reveal to the reader, moments later, that he faked his death to avoid the bounty on his head. He later goes on to hook up with Guri as his new “hotter” droid sidechick. Yeah. Best thing about Shadows? Boba Fett screwing around. When the Mandalorian merc takes his sweet time to get to Tatooine we get to see those bounty hunters from the brief scene in Empire Strikes Back, but they actually have good movie-canon motivations to create conflict with one another. The rest of the characters and story though? Meh. That’s Shadows.

SOTE6-FCFear ye not! Return of the Jedi is finally around the corner. It feels weird announcing that it will debut next week. It always feels a little daunting knowing that a lot of new art lies ahead. Although Return ranks below Star Wars and Empire for me, I have strong nostalgia toward the film and the playthings it offers for our BMS sandbox are truly enticing. I’ve had some really cool BMS storyarcs planned for our ROTJ parody since we began this webcomic back in February 2009. At last Jabba, Bib Fortuna, Ackbar, Mon Mothma and Nien Nunb can make their long awaited splash in our parody.

One important note: Unfortunately, changes in our lives and the fact that BMS remains a hobby, have forced us to get serious about our life priorities. We will be updating ROTJ on an unscheduled basis for the foreseeable future. Our goal will be to publish at least 1-2 strips per week. One of the reasons we updated with 3 strips per week for a period during Shadows of the Empire was simply to get through it and back to the more familiar territory of the original trilogy films. Shadows is a tough beast to parody in the form of a webcomic due the limitations of our format and the epic and confusing scope of the Return of the Jedi prequel. I think it probably put off a few readers. Now we’re returning to steadier ground, we are more comfortable pacing ourselves again and hope you will stick with us to the end!

We should be back next Monday with our first strip for ROTJ. In the meantime, here’s another poll. Since last week’s Boba Fett Underpants poll was such an amazing success (733 votes in five days!), here’s a new one for you all to weigh in on…

What’s scarier?
  
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