Neurotoxic Productions Presents
A Documentary Series by Adder McBannon
Project: Architect
The Making of Star Fox: Contact
Episode 1
Foundations
Alright, we're live. Project: Architect is go. Now, you're probably wondering what the hell is Adder up to? The story's over, right?
Right?
Well, no, since there's a sequel. But anyways, that's not what this is for. Project: Architect is the equivalent of the little "making-of" sequences in the Star Wars original trilogy movies. In essence, I'm going to be writing about the story behind the story.
With that out of the way, we're ready to start getting into the details- the making of the first installment of the Contact Saga, Star Fox: Contact. Now…I'm gonna start with the foundations of the story. In other words, I'll start with the founding concepts behind the story, as well as how the story itself came to be. And before you people review, please note that this is a documentary, not a work of fiction or anything. Don't critique it as one.
For starters, I'll tell you people how I came to fall in love with Star Fox. It was a long time ago, probably when I was five or six. My mom took me to an indoor playground, and they had a small video game arcade room there. There, I saw this one game involving spaceships. Back then, I was a total Star Wars nut, so I decided to give it a try to see if I liked it. Now that I think back, "like" was putting it lightly.
I LOVED the game.
Granted, I did not know how to play so I accidentally kept on charging lasers without firing them and frequently crashed into objects (and got teammates killed).
But I LOVED the game. I loved the starfighters. I loved the anthropomorphic animals, which I thought was a cool idea.
I actually stayed there in that arcade for much longer than my mom and I intended to stay. I only was able to play for a short time, yet I was hooked. Unfortunately, that indoor playground is no longer there today, but the time I had with that game- Star Fox 64- will forever be etched into my memory. It wasn't until I was able to play Super Smash Bros. Melee that I ever saw a hint of Fox McCloud again, but when I did, I really wanted to get into the Star Fox universe. Thoughts of Fox and company started to occupy my daydreams and fill my absent, abstract thoughts.
Therefore, I tried my hand at fan fiction one day, called it a night, and then went to bed.
When I got up the next day and took a look at it, I thought, …Yeah…No way that's gonna fly.
My first attempt (it didn't even have a title) was TERRIBLE. It ripped off of Halo and Medal of Honor so blatantly, and the dialogue was just plain repugnant. I gave up.
Second attempt started later, maybe two years after. It was better, but it ended up in the same way. Too unoriginal, too stupid. I actually decided to abandon the notion of creating a fanfic altogether.
And during that time, I received my first non-handheld video game console, the GameCube. So I got Star Fox: Adventures and later Star Fox: Assault. I liked Adventures, but it strayed a little far from the series' roots and some aspects were just plain cheesy (Bufomdad? What the hell?). Meanwhile, Assault…good flying, bad for everything else. Including story. And the enemies (A "ferocious, relentless" enemy the size of a car should not die from a single uncharged blaster shot, nor repeatedly run into walls.).
Command…was the ignition to the powder keg. I don't feel I need to state why because I don't want to get started and go off on a tangent.
But, before I started trying to type again like a chicken with its head cut off, I decided that I didn't want it to fall flat like the first two attempts. I wanted something… something that I could call my own. I wanted something original, something that hadn't been done before (or at least to my knowledge).
So I took some time to look into various science fiction novels, especially those from Michael Crichton. I revisited Star Wars in particular, trying to garner inspiration from the iconic series.
Then it clicked to me.
In every single book, every single movie I saw involving extraterrestrials, the aliens were always the highly advanced, powerful, aggressive, invading race while we humans played as the cannon fodder. That is, comparatively low-tech, weak, cowering cannon fodder.
So I thought this: Why not swap roles? Why not go for a complete reversal and turn that stereotype on its head? What would happen if the humans were the superior, aggressive expansionists and the extraterrestrials were the ones who were the inferior, the comparatively weak?
More importantly, what would happen if the said invasion took place in the Star Fox universe?
Finally, five years since I ever conceived the notion of even attempting to write a Star Fox fanfic, I had a good idea. In my belief, a really good idea.
If I went with that, though, then I obviously couldn't have a goody-goody, lighthearted story. Let's face it- movies involving alien invasions are usually quite violent. I needed this story to be dark, gritty, bloody, gory. All of that unwanted stuff (or in some people's cases, the WANTED stuff).
A little interjection here- I learned from a very young age that the world wasn't- isn't- perfect. When I was five, six years old, I turned on my TV one Saturday morning and tuned into my favorite cartoon channel. Expecting Pokemon to be playing…what I got was something completely different.
A newscast involving Nigeria.
At first, as I looked at the injustice and poverty and the plain disgusting nature of it all, I wanted to look away from the kid no older than me, a kid without arms and only a single leg. I wanted to shield myself from the people who were so starved they were potbellied and almost skeletal. I wanted to change to a different channel and watch something else, anything else.
But I couldn't. I was transfixed. My little microcosm, my perfect view of the world was shattered. Strangely, I wasn't repulsed. Rather, I was intrigued. I began to tune into that channel more often, later learning that it was the BBC News channel. I learned of those much less fortunate than me. I learned of the censored horrors of war.
And several years later, I was thinking back to that and all the new truths that I had uncovered since…and was incorporating it into my story.
So there. Those are the foundations of this construct. Those are the founding concepts. Those are the founding original concepts.
However, I still wanted to go further in this originality. I still wanted good ol' Team Star Fox, with Fox, Falco, Slippy, Peppy, and Krystal. Nevertheless, I wanted to take this further. I wanted to keep those characters, but change them to suit my needs. Furthermore, I also wanted my own cast of original characters, some of which I had already brainstormed during my fantasies of the Star Fox team as a younger kid.
So…stay tuned for all of that. Next time, we're gonna get into some good meat- the characters.