It’s an ordinary Wednesday evening for Jeremy, Paul and the others. These Star Wars fans get together once a week to play Star Wars Legion. On the table, ultra-realistic models recreate the setting of a battle from the saga: Mace Windu and his clones against Grievous and his droids clash on a swampy terrain. Except that this battle has never been shown in the movies… With their figurines (and the very precise rules of the game), the players imagine with passion the unfolding of the battles. The dice roll, the cries of despair resound, the clones prevail…
However, that evening, most Star Wars fans are in front of a screen to discover the new Disney+ series, Andor. “We’re going to watch it,” reassures Paul. But Wednesday night’s Star Wars Legion is sacred. The evening is over, the players carefully put away their figurines, which they have spent many hours painting. “It’s a hobby that costs time and money,” explains Jérémy. But the game gives us a lot. In the end, the films and series show very little of the battles of this Star wars. This game allows you to live, to tell it, and even to invent it…”
“The fans are very demanding on the quality of the figurines”
At Asmodée, publisher of the game Star Wars Legion, we are well aware that this dimension allows the success of game boxes. really took over the game and we left them the keys, explains José Chaves, Influence Manager at Asmodée. When launching the game, there were quite a few glitches and errors. The game system did not match the narrative. The fans still invested it because they were expecting it a lot and told us “leave it, we’ll take care of it, because that’s not going well.” And they reworked it in their own way, to not only be able to play but also to tell battles, to feed the universe. As with Napoleonic or World War II battle wargames, the miniatures and battles are “realistic”. In any case consistent with the saga. This is why the fans are very demanding on the quality of the figurines. We have to be up to it. »
“Most players come to Star Wars Legion because they love the universe and to collect figurines,” says Mickaël Diot, who holds the Univers Kids store in Troyeswhere meet regularly Dawn Awakening club members, specializing in this game. “They have brought together a small community that is growing quite quickly. Me, I sell a lot of boxes of the game, the success has been quite dazzling for a year. And the more new players there are, the more the game has interest and allows combinations, challenges. »
Today, Star Wars Legion count dozens of boxes allowing to play all the armies, from the three trilogies (or almost, the First order is still missing), and all the heroes, including those less known before being presented in the series The Mandalorian. “This series brought together all generations of fans, notes José Chaves. The oldest, who knew the original trilogy and who read the comics. These knew the cult characters of the extended universe, the smallest details… And the youngest who discovered Star Wars with Disney. If Disney and Asmodée know very well how to rely on these different generations to sell games, films or series, fans also know how to divert official products to fuel their passion and satisfy their creativity.
The lightsaber that hides the forest of stories
“Star Wars fans have always appropriated their universe through many different forms,” says Loïc Quinet, of the association Les Héritiers de la Forceorganizer of the Star Wars Generations convention, in Cusset. There are wargames and role-playing games, for example, but also cosplayers, even the practice of the lightsaber… “In recent years, the lightsaber has become a martial art in its own right, with clubs and associations, competitions, demonstrations…” Of course, these are not “real” lightsabers. But above all, the practice goes beyond hitting each other with pieces of wood painted red, blue or green.
“In some lightsaber fights, it’s not just a choreographed fight,” explains Loïc Quinet. There is often a story, a background between the opponents, a Jedi against a Sith. Likewise, not all cosplayers dress up as Darth Vader or Princess Leia. There are plenty of them who make costumes of imperial pilots or Mandalorians, “anonymous”, and who imagine a past, an identity, a story, for their characters. »
The great connoisseur of Star Wars fan practices also cites Lego collectors who recreate, or imagine, scenes with their Lego Star Wars minifigures : “We call these MOCs, my own creation. They are dioramas of scenes imagined from Star Wars, but which require less time, and skill, than models built from scratch. »
Nobody really knows why Star Wars has aroused such creative enthusiasm among fans, but Loïc Quinet has an idea: “Star Wars is a saga and a universe that leaves a lot of room for imagination. The story takes place over a fairly short time and on a limited number of planets, but the galaxy is huge and many distant eras are unknown. There are plenty of things to tell. »
“We don’t really know how Padmé got pregnant…”
To fill these holes in the narrative, many fans did not wait for Disney series like Obi-Wan Kenobi and write, since the beginnings of the saga in the cinema, fanfictions, unofficial alternative narratives. “But all of Star Wars is huge fanfiction, according to Maréva, author and translator. Comics are fanfiction that has become official. The whole Expanded Universe is great fanfiction, but written by people who are paid for it. Besides, there are people like me who do it for fun…” The 28-year-old authora follower of the prelogy period (“but not only!”), namely episodes I to III, chose to write romances in the Star Wars universe.
“We write fanfiction to extend the work we love or fill a gap we feel. Me, I find that Star Wars is hesitant about love stories. There are a few suggested stories but it’s missing. There is the story between Padmé and Anakin but that’s it. Besides, there’s no sex in Star Wars either. Anakin is from an immaculate conception… And we don’t really know how Padmé got pregnant… It’s not about correcting the original work that is Star Wars but about taking it to new territories. »
“I also want to tell my own story. »
The torch of fan fiction is not about to go out. Under the nickname Aux 4 coins du LORE, an 18-year-old young man prepares a story taking place after episode IX. “I’ve always been a passive fan, ever since I was a kid. It’s the first time I’ve embarked on something like this… My story takes place after the latest films. I wanted to imagine new challenges, new enemies…” While many fans like to fill in the gaps in the story between episodes I and IX, our young author has gone into the unknown. “I think the more answers we provide, the more questions we actually ask. It’s endless…”
However, like Maréva, Star Wars Legion players and cosplayers, the endorsement of his own story by other fans is essential for the young man: “We have to find a balance between original creation and homage to the saga. I’m going to keep the Jedi in my story, for example, but for me, the Skywalker story is over. I’m a Star Wars fan so I want to please other fans but I also want to tell my own story. »