Jump to content
IGNORED

Arcadia 2001 Star Wars Art Rip-Off!


Recommended Posts

Space Mission / Star Wars Art Comparison

While I was visiting Ward Shrake last week, we found the source art for the Arcadia 2001's Space Mission game. As suspected, it's a complete copy of pre-production Star Wars artwork by Ralph McQuarrie. The original artwork shows a Tie Fighter attacking the Millennium Falcon, as the Death Star Looms.

I made a side-by-side comparison of both pieces of artwork. See for yourself!

post-4925-0-42199300-1521744632_thumb.jpg

How much other Arcadia 2001 art uses another source for "reference?"

Adam

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wasn't there another game package of the Millennium Falcon chasing a Cylon fighter?

 

Missile War for the Arcadia 2001 uses pictures of a Cylon Raider and the Viper Mark II, which are both ships from the 1978 TV show Battlestar Galactica. Here is the artwork for that game:

 

post-4925-0-31694600-1521754589.jpg

 

post-4925-0-07017300-1521754590.jpg

 

Most of the overseas releases of the Arcadia-family games use completely different artwork. He is how Missile War appears on the MPT-03:

 

post-4925-0-04904100-1521754693_thumb.jpg

post-4925-0-07217700-1521754694_thumb.jpg

post-4925-0-11308300-1521754695_thumb.jpg

 

There are some other Arcadia games that seem to rip-off other TV shows/movies are just standard Battlestar Galactica uses staples, but I didn't realize until a few days ago that Space Mission copies an exact piece of artwork. It's hard to believe that this was done at all!

 

Adam

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Almost every game involving space draws liberally from Star Wars for the box art. Red Clash, for example, has what are obviously TIE Fighters flying underneath a Star Destroyer hull.

 

The Red Clash artwork is, like most (all?) of the artwork for the Arcadia 2001 family, done rather poorly. I often wonder what the rush to create this artwork was back in 1981/1982.

 

"Blazing Lazers" posted his sealed Arcadia 2001 Red Clash box on Tuesday, July 23, 2013 in the AtariAge forums:

 

post-4925-0-10336300-1521755906_thumb.jpg

Here is a direct link to the forum that contains many more pictures:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/214774-interest-check-emerson-arcadia-2001-red-clash-sealed/

 

He was looking to trade his copy of the Red Clash for some other rare Arcadia title.

 

Here is a good quality picture of Red Clash for, I think, the Hanimex Home Arcade:

 

post-4925-0-60504500-1521755619_thumb.jpg

 

It appears that the Red Clash artwork also was "inspired" by the snow speeder. It might be easier to find Arcadia 2001 artwork that doesn't steal (uh, I mean is inspired) from Star Wars.

 

It's notable that no MPT-03 of Red Clash exists (hey, I'd love to be proved wrong on this).

 

Adam

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cartridge #2, Space Attack, for the Emerson Arcadia 2001 also is highly inspired by Star Wars. Space Attack features artwork with a TIE Fighter (mostly hidden on the box, but plainly visible on the long-style cartridge), Millennium Falcon, and possibly some ships based on the Star Destroyer:

 

post-4925-0-18706100-1521756508.jpg

 

post-4925-0-20169800-1521756509_thumb.jpg

 

The artist(s) for Arcadia didn't even try to hide their inspiration. Still, as far as I can tell, only Space Mission's artwork bases its cover art on one particular picture from the Star Wars universe. However, it would be really neat to find out that the Arcadia boxes and cartridges use other Star Wars pre-production artwork as "inspiration." Could it be that the snow speeder was originally designed for use in space...?

 

Adam

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I ordered some Star Wars postcards, which includes the "TIE Fighter Pilot" painting, version 3 (the one shown above). This version of "TIE Fighter Pilot" is from early 1976. Wait. Version 3 on the painting? This made me curious, so I investigated this a little bit.

There is a great article by John Scoleri, published in January 14, 2014, called "An Annotated Guide to The Star Wars Portfolio by Ralph McQuarrie" on StarWars.com that features additional versions of McQuarrie's art. You can read the full article here:

http://www.starwars.com/news/an-annotated-guide-to-the-star-wars-portfolio-by-ralph-mcquarrie

Here are the three different versions of "TIE Fighter Pilot," with some descriptive text below them:

 

post-4925-0-89472300-1522082388_thumb.png

post-4925-0-07523400-1522082406_thumb.png

post-4925-0-09945000-1522082418_thumb.png

John Scoleri says about these paintings: "Another one of Ralph’s earliest paintings, the view from inside the Imperial ship would also go through the greatest number of known revisions. Originally conceived with the early Death Star concept and the Y-wing attacking head on, at some point the Death Star was changed to a planet (Yavin?). In this form, the piece was reproduced (in black and white) in a 1976 Fox Exhibitor’s manual. And finally, sometime after the change of the Millennium Falcon concept, it was repainted once more with the final version of the Death Star, and the Falcon replacing the Colin Cantwell Y-Wing."

 

The history of Star Wars, and its weird association with the Arcadia 2001, is very interesting, don't you think?

 

Adam

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Mark, on the Arcadia 2001 Yahoo group, scanned in the long Red Clash cartridge, which reveals more artwork than what's available on the Red Clash box. Here is a a 300dpi jpeg version of Mark's original BMP scan.

 

post-4925-0-65296300-1530725127_thumb.jpg

I still can't believe how blatant these games rip-off art from Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica.

 

Adam

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I still can't believe how blatant these games rip-off art from Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica.

 

I can't believe how sloppy the art style is in general. Every piece of Arcadia game art is like a rough concept sketch with some Magic Marker slopped over it. :P

 

Part of the system's charm, I guess. :-D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...