LEGO Star Wars Interview With Jonathan Smith, The Development Director of LSW1!

[MUCINEXSWEEP]

Hi, 

 

As I was looking for developers of LSW1, I found Mr. Smith on a website and contacted him. 

 

Here's the interview!

 

Me: First, when did the development start?

 

Mr. Smith: In 2003.

 

Me: How many unfinished stuff was made in the development process?

 

Mr. Smith: There were several characters and levels sketched into the game plan at the start of the project which were dropped during development for various reasons.

 

Me: Do you still have the sketches? If you do, would you ever release them into the internet?

 

Mr. Smith: Yes, somewhere deep in archive; maybe one day.

 

Me: Why was the unfinished levels deleted in the first place?

 

Mr. Smith: To enable the team to focus on the best and most important levels as they worked to finish the game.

 

Me: How many levels were deleted?

 

Mr. Smith: I think four.

 

Me: In the files, I found some cutscenes for the deleted levels. Which includes, the start cutscene and the ending cutscene of Bounty Hunter Pursuit, Anakin's Flight, Boga Chase, a level involving Obi-Wan and Jango Fett in space. Why was this in the files?

 

Mr. Smith: There’s a lot of data produced during development of a game, and it can be difficult to strip out absolutely everything that isn’t totally necessary at the end.

 

Me: Was online co-op considered?

 

Mr. Smith: The original Xbox Live launched as we were conceiving the game; so it crossed our minds - but we wanted to focus strongly and distinctively on local co-op.

 

Me: When the development started, how many ideas were considered?

 

Mr. Smith: Many ideas!

 

Me: How many characters were planned to be in the game?

 

Mr. Smith: Only a few more than eventually made it in...

 

Me: How many hubs for the game was considered? In the video that I sent to you in the last mail, uncovered a deleted hub for the game. When was the hub deleted?

 

Mr. Smith: I honestly can't remember exactly, sorry. I think we only ever planned one actual hub.

 

Me: Were there any early builds for the game, that includes the deleted levels?

 

Mr Smith: Yep, it's possible to access all areas of the game data in the dev builds, which were created on a very regular basis.

 

Me: And the last question, how did the deleted levels look like and what was the gameplay?

 

Mr. Smith: You can see Bounty Hunter Pursuit and Anakin's Flight in The Complete Saga. The Boga Chase was conceived to match the movie, but never really got off the ground.

-

Me: Thanks for your attention! 

 

Mr. Smith: Thanks!

 

- 

If you want, just write some ideas into this topic, and I'll send it to him.

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

[Yajmo]

Wow its pretty lucky you were able to interview him not just once but 4 times! 

 

Edit: Seriously though, this is actually really cool. Thanks for posting it.

[MUCINEXSWEEP]

 

9 minutes ago, Yajmo said:

 

Edit: Seriously though, this is actually really cool. Thanks for posting it.

Thanks! I really appreciate it!

[Yajmo]

Lego Star Wars actually came out before Star Wars Episode III. I remember it kinda spoiling episode III for me before I saw it in theaters.  I wonder if in 2003 when development started they knew all the secrets about Episode III. 

[MUCINEXSWEEP]

1 minute ago, Yajmo said:

 I wonder if in 2003 when development started they knew all the secrets about Episode III. 

Maybe? Who knows? The world may never know.