McCubbin Reports (February 3, 1999)

Chris McCubbin was kind enough to drop me a line to explain some things about the Confederation Handbook -- everything he says makes a lot of sense for those of you who care about continuity with the games and such. Let me just mention that I realized a lot of the below, and apologize if I made it seem as though I thought he'd actually forgotten things. Here's the note...

Just read your review on the CIC. Thanks for the kind things.

I must take exception to one of the main points you made - that I disregarded, forgot or altered continuity in the book. It's not the Confed Handbook that changed continuity, it's the movie itself. Everything in the Confed Handbook follows RELIGIOUSLY from the continuity of the MOVIE. However, that continuity is deliberately, extensively and consistantly DIFFERENT from the continuity of the games.

I like to explain it by reference to Batman. Batman has a comics series, a series of movies and an animated series. Each one uses the same characters, basically the same motivations, and all have certain benchmark events in common. However, things fit together differently - they are different, although related -- realities. That's the way it is with the movie and the games (and the animated cartoon too, for that matter). They are not part of the same story, they are different stories about the same people.

If you can find anything in the book that contradicts the script, then I'll humbly apologize for my inattention, but if things are different between the game and the handbook, that's because of choices the moviemakers made, not choices I made.

For example, take the ship stats. Now, Peter was working without having seen even an early draft of the movie, and with very limited photo reference, so he pulled some things from the games. I was working a bit behind him, and had some better information, particularly about special effects and design. Therefore, my ship stats are MORE accurate - to the movie continuity - than the novels.

Anyway, sorry if I seem to be carping. I do appreciate your opionion.

Feel free to repost the above however you might think appropriate (as long as it's used as a whole, of course)

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