Star Flops: Curse of the Medium Side

Star Flops: Curse of the Medium Side is a short DSHW Machinomic made with The Sims 2 for Dozerfleet Comics in late November of 2005. A spoof / fanfic taking place more-or-less in the Star Wars universe, it takes inspiration from an old joke between the Dozerfleet founder and his brother, one that spoofed classic horror movie tropes. It was later remade in May of 2022, using The Sims 4: Star Wars: Journey to Batuu.

Backstory
The galaxy felt a great disturbance when it was revealed there had been a glitch in the Force. A new man appeared out of nowhere. His skills didn't seem normal for a Jedi. Yet, he wasn't quite a Sith either. He didn't desire peace like a Jedi. He didn't let his anger move him like a Sith. He...laughed a lot! He was violent...but not for any discernible reason! He single-handedly began decimating the Sith's new recruits. But he also dealt the Jedi a few blows now and then. He could teleport. He could turn invisible. He could be everywhere and nowhere. He could save a bus full of children, only to blow up a library because it amused him. He was the coin's edge. He was...the Medium Side!

Comic itself
As a young female Jedi named Kana Habola goes out in search of her archenemy, Darth Vixen, Tiemess the Jithy Knord shows up and attacks both of them. A battle ensues immediately; but Kana is unprepared for the fact that lighsaws make lightsaber blades shorter! Tiemess pulls a disappearing act, then appears from behind and saws her guts. As she falls to the floor dying, she remembers her Jedi mentor warning her: "ESPECIALLY beware of the Medium Side!"

Darth Vixen arrives, afraid of what would happen with her if she tried battling Tiemess. She tries to flirt with him instead, and make him truly part of the Dark Side. He laughs off her suggestions, and then slices her head off with a lightsaw before leaving to spread more chaos elsewhere. Storm Troopers chase him, but are all easily annihilated by his manic brutality.

Heroes

 * Jedi Order Remnants
 * Kana Habola
 * Kana's old master

Villains

 * Galactic Empire
 * Vicky / Darth Vixen
 * Emperor Palpatine
 * Darth Vader
 * Imperial Storm Troopers

Wildcards

 * Tiemess the Jithy Knord

Supporting characters

 * Kana's brother

Development
In 1999, as a response to The Phantom Menace, the Dozerfleet founder and his brother J came up with the idea to spoof it with a character simply called "The Medium Side." Lightsaws were developed later on in 2000, going through various design ideas before the current one was accepted. As Tiemess progressed, his look became that of a stereotype of various slasher film monsters. However, his manic, sadistic attitude was a direct rip off of the Joker and Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal.

Screen capture
Using similar processes as Lo-Mun's Cooking Adventure, the "C" button was used in The Sims 2 in order to acquire shots. Minimal effort was put into shot editing, as there was a need to produce the DSHW quickly. This didn't result in as drastic an issue with screenshot quality in the remake, as The Sims 4 saves files as PNGs by default.

By utilizing the graphics standards already available in Journey to Batuu, the remake was able to inform Photoshop effects. Angles for Tiemess were carefully chosen to avoid excessive parallax between his use of the modified Lollipop Chainsaw mod by Astya96, and his use of a Mace Windu-style purple lightsaber; so as to ensure that the illusion of his lightsaw was never too broken.

Effects
Most effects in The Sims 2 involved moving characters into places they wouldn't normally go, as well as utilizing third-party downloads. Lightsabers from Mod The Sims were primary modifications. Tiemess' body hair was part of a skin mod. His mask was facepaint, with the eyes obscured in editing. His hair was a lot shorter than in original artwork depictions of the character, as little was done to edit his hair length in the original.

The lightsaw was supposed to be two lightsaws, per the character's default design. However, the closest mod available only allowed for one saw. His saw was actually a recolor of the shotgun-and-saw set at RoseSims. The gun was supposed to render as invisible, but became black instead. Minimal effort was made to obscure it.

In the remake in The Sims 4, much more effort was put into hiding the fact that lightsabers and the modified Lollipop Chainsaw were separate things. XxBlackSims modders like Ebonix and DevCurls had their work imported into the game, with a cornrow tall fro for men mesh applies to Tiemess. This created a base for Tiemess' tall hair, which was then painted over in Photoshop Elements 2019 to make straighter and even taller. The physics-defying height and sturdiness of Tiemess' "Marge Simpson"-like hair is never explained.

His mask was modified from a Studio K mask. His body hair was by Luumia, as were the lighting tweaks. Positioning issues that were previously resolved in The Sims 2 with the moveObjects cheat, required TwistedMexi's T.O.O.L. mod to correct in The Sims 4. SnaitF is credited for "landscaping," even though very little of the final product happens in outdoor settings. Most other effects were created mostly by exploitation of game effects already available in Journey to Batuu, or else approximated in Photoshop Elements.

While Tiemess was cleaned up to have his look be sharpened, Darth Vixen remains relatively unchanged from her original form. Her dialogue is cleaned up a bit, to make her flirtatious speech less overtly sexual. Perhaps the character to undergo the most change, is Kana Habola. She is given a straighter, cleaner, more Star Wars-like haircut in the remake than the curly hairdo she sported in the original. She also has a more modest, Jedi-typical outfit. Her skimpier outfit in the original was due to the fact that it was the most Jedi-like female costume available in The Sims 2 at the time of her story's release.

Distribution
The original comic was completed at the end of November of 2005. It was included as part of a bundle with Ciem 3 in the following December. In March of 2006, it was briefly to be added to the Cormorant Entertainment website as a separate entity. However, that website and all of Cormorant went offline in May of 2006; and was replaced with Dozerfleet Productions. Star Flops lingered in the archives until 2008, when a video adaptation was briefly pursued following the mild success of When Bikes Argue 2 receiving a film adaptation. However, work on 3-13 got in the way. After there was free time, it was ruled that the original jokes in Star Flops had aged too poorly for a video adaptation to be justified.

With a new script, a remake was finally created in May of 2022. The book version was going to be released in 6.5" x 10" comic book format, but technical difficulties with Microsoft Publisher resulted in it instead being released in 8.5" x 11" format, exported as an Adobe PDF. It was uploaded around 3:41 EDT on May 10th of 2022 to MediaFire, and then linked to its official page on Dozerfleet Comics. While the new book features only a tiny handful of words from the original script, and has otherwise abandoned the original script, there are two pages dedicated to explaining away the original Sims 2 artwork from the original DSHW.

Reception
Most readers of the story were ambivalent, finding it neither inspiring nor particularly a turn-off. Mediocre response for the comic was one of two reasons the video was canceled. The other was that too much work was happening on 3-13 at the time for the video adaptation of this piece to be done justice. All such work was then sent into Ivan's Vault. In 2022, a remake was authorized, to give the story another chance. The hope were that a cleaner script and improved visuals could turn the story around with readers.

Tie-ins
The story was originally bundled with Ciem 3: Curse of the Millipede in December of 2005, but was later made a standalone in 2006. It was promoted via DzMD with a Tiemess download for The Sims 2, though that upload was later vaulted due to its issues with custom content attribution. A version of him for Sims 3, and another for Sims 4, were later made available for download.