Star Wars Bits: 'Star Wars 1313' Game Would Have Starred Boba Fett; Plus ILM Layoffs And 'Clone Wars'

When Disney shut down the Lucasfilm gaming division Lucasarts, the fans wondered about the fate of Star Wars 1313. The third person game, for which we'd seen gorgeous trailers, has been indefinitely postponed thanks to the corporate decision. If that wasn't bad enough, turns out that in recent months it had been altered to star not a random character, but Boba Fett himself. Star Wars 1313 was going to be a Boba Fett game.

Below, read more about that as well as the following Star Wars Bits:

The news of the Boba Fett focus for 1313 comes from Kotaku, whose report states that George Lucas looked in on the game's development and made the call. The game, which looked like a blend of the Empire Strikes Back and Uncharted 3, was highly anticipated by fans. Though odds are we will never get to see it, there is a sliver of hope as Lucasfilm acknowledged the game might be outsourced to a third party developer for completion. It's unlikely, but possible. Losing the game hurts enough, but, knowing that it had recently been modded to Boba Fett makes it that much worse.

[Random thought: If Lucasfilm was developing an official, pre-original trilogy Boba Fett game in Star Wars 1313, who is to say some of that story couldn't be used for a Boba Fett spin-off movie? Maybe half the film's animatics are already done..and playable.]

As if to rub salt in the wound, Kotaku also published two pieces of concept art. Check those out below.

Continuing the negative news of the Disney takeover of Lucasfilm, Variety reports that the effects arm of the company, Industrial Light and Magic, has laid off a number of staffers. They didn't say how many people were let go, just that it was mostly support staff and was a result of the Lucasarts news and Lucasfilm Animation cutbacks. Those two divisions took up a lot of time at ILM.

Speaking of Lucasfilm Animation cutbacks, one of the biggest disappointments was news that Star Wars: The Clone Wars would be coming to an end. That show's main ringleader, Dave Filoni, recently revealed that he might soon be off that show, but that he will carry on at Lucasfilm. He's been asked to develop the brand new animated Star Wars cartoon series. He said the following on RebelForceRadio via ScreenCrush

At this point, I am involved in some early production discussions and exploration of what we'll be doing with Star Wars animation in the future, which is really exciting for me and I have some friendly faces around me, of course, that are helping me on the project. So it's a transition time, as I've said before, and I think it will lead to an exciting time and hopefully I'll see things grow again.

One project that is moving forward in the Star Wars universe is George Lucas' original script, The Star Wars, becoming a Dark Horse Comic. The script is radically different from the film, making it kind of legendary in the Star Wars mythos and Hollywood.com has a great piece breaking down a lot of its intricacies. Head there to check it out.

Finally, as almost an F-U to Disney for disbanding Lucasarts, Raven Software, who developed Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy for the company, published the source codes to those two games on their website. That means modders can grab the code and go crazy doing all those wacky things modders do. Thanks to Gamma Squad for the heads up.