A Long Time Ago

How Knights of the old Republic stayed true to the Star Wars ‘used universe’.

- Alex Kane

What makes a movie, comic book, or video game feel like Star Wars? This is the question every creator has to wrestle with when they’re approached to work on a story set in that universe.

When George Lucas began working on the original Star Wars in the 1970s, his aim was to make a film that looked timeless—never mind the endless budgetary and technical limitations he had to contend with. Production designer John Barry and set decorator Roger Christian proposed the notion of a “used universe”, a term that’s come to be associated with Lucas and the success of the classic trilogy over the years. The idea was to avoid the polished chrome and utopian vistas of earlier science fiction movies in favor of something a bit more tangible: The grimy, kitbashed, lived-in aesthetic of the Mos Eisley cantina or the Millennium Falcon. Props and sets could be assembled from existing parts, and in turn the whole production would be less expensive.

BioWare insisted on following these same design principles during the making of Knights of the Old Republic. One look at the game’s cover is all it takes to spot the similarities—the rusty flying-saucer pirate ship, the hero brandishing her laser sword, the R2-D2 and C-3PO analogs, the Universal-monster-movie villain.

“The reason I draw pictures, what galvanized me as a ten-year-old boy, was Star Wars on the big screen,” says John Gallagher, who designed most of the game’s characters and costumes. “It changed my life.”