title: A Rose for Emily

text: The story explores themes of death and resistance to change. Also, it reflects the decaying of the societal tenets of the South in the 1930s. Emily Grierson had been controlled by her overbearing father for the first 30 years of her life and she had never questioned it. Once her father had passed, Emily, in denial, refused to give his corpse up for burial—this shows her inability to functionally adapt to change. When the present mayor and aldermen insist Miss Emily pay the taxes which she had been exempted from, she refuses and continues to live in her house. Miss Emily's stubborn insistence that she "pays no taxes in Jefferson" and her mistaking the new mayor for Colonel Sartoris brings into question whether her acts of resistance are a conscious act of defiance or a result of decayed mental stability. The reader is only shown Emily from an external perspective, we can not ascertain whether she acts rationally or not. The death of Homer, if interpreted as having been a murder, can be seen in the context of the north–south clash. Homer, notably a northerner, is not one for the tradition of marriage. In the framework that his death was not an accident, but a murder on the part of Emily, Homer's rejection of the marriage can be seen as the North's rejection of Southern tradition. The South ends its relations with the North in retaliation. Emily continuing to sleep next to Homer's body can be seen as the south holding on to an ideal that is no longer feasible.


title: A Rose for Emily

text: Control and its repercussions are a persistent theme throughout the story. Emily's father was an intimidating and manipulative figure, keeping her from experiencing life on her terms. She was never able to grow, learn, live her life, start a family, and marry the one she truly loved. Even after Emily's father died, his presence and impact on his daughter were still apparent. Discussing Emily and her father, the townspeople said "We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door". Emily is portrayed as small and powerless, placed behind the overbearing frame of her father. She wears white, a symbol of innocence and purity. Emily falls victim to the ruling hand of her father and her place in the society: she has to uphold the noblesse oblige into which she was born. In this way, her father's influence remains after he has passed. This control leads to Emily's isolation, both externally and internally imposed. Emily is alone, yet always being watched by the townspeople; she is both apart from and a part of the community. Her position prevents her from ever finding happiness.


title: A Rose for Emily

text: The power of death is a consistent theme throughout the story. Emily herself is portrayed as a "skeleton" that is both "small and spare" which is representative of the fact that she emanates death. When it comes to death itself Emily is in denial, most of that feeling has to do with her loneliness. After her father dies, she keeps his corpse for three days and refuses to admit that he is dead before surrendering his body for burial. The reader also sees this with the corpse of Homer Barron, except she is the one who inflicts death upon him. She poisons him and keeps him locked away in her room; she did not want to lose the only other person she had ever loved, so she made his stay permanent. These examples show that the power of death triumphs over everything, including "poor Emily", herself.


title: A Rose for Emily

text: Due to this inevitability in the portrayal of death, "A Rose for Emily" is seen as a tale based on determinism, making the short story part of the naturalism literary movement. Here, a character's fate is already determined no matter how much the individual struggles to change it. There are impersonal forces of nature that prevent him or her from taking control. As the very universe itself appears indifferent, this character descends into an inevitable death and decay. The case of Emily is the same. Insanity ran in her family and it is possible her father's motives for keeping her from marrying were to end this genetic blight. This is a more charitable interpretation of Mr. Grierson (and his actions) than is normally imputed to him. No matter what she did, there was the implication that she would ultimately go mad. There was also the depiction of a cursed land due to slavery and the class structure based upon it. No matter how those who clung to the glorious past soldiered on, it was a tarnished way of life that led to ruin to those who clung to it.


title: A Rose for Emily

text: Floyd C. Watkins wrote about the structure of "A Rose for Emily" in "Modern Language Notes". Faulkner had to carefully dissect his sections, bringing importance to every aspect of Emily's life. Watkins sees this as a "structural problem" but later praises the symmetry of this short story. Watkins enjoys this story in its entirety, and is impressed by Faulkner's ordering, as building suspense was an important aspect in the response.


title: A Rose for Emily

text: The critical response by John Skinner explores the interpretations of Faulkner's short story in detail while reviewing the importance of over-analyzing a piece of literary work. Faulkner published this story in the 1930s. Skinner had published his critical response in 1985. The characters and theme of this tale have been scrutinized by many. Some scholars, including S.W. M. Johnson, posit that “Emily represented a refusal to submit to, or even concede, to the inevitability of change”. Whereas, William Going pictures Emily as a rose, “the treasured memory of the Confederate veterans”. The point of view according to Skinner is of immediate relevance to the story as the chief character, the narrator tells the chronology of the story. This narrator gives approximately “round figures” for the important events of the accounts. Jack Scherting, in "Studies in Short Fiction", discusses that point of view and points out that the story is "related by an anonymous narrator in the first person plural."


title: A Rose for Emily

text: Alice Petry introduces a different type of critical response that is not focused on the usual subjects. Rather, she focuses on complex and provocative language. For example, Hall discusses how the sentence, ""Thus she passed from generation to generation - dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil and perverse" has been considered misleading, but is in fact strategically placed to provide foreshadowing and unification of plot. The five descriptive words used in the sentence each correspond to one of the five parts in the order they are seen. For example, the adjective "inescapable" corresponds to Part II, to the incident of the strange smell coming from Miss Emily's home. Faulkner's placement of these adjectives at the end of Part IV serves as an important unifying sentence that connects all five parts to each other.


title: A Rose for Emily

text: Jim Barloon of the University of St. Thomas wrote about an idea introduced to him by his students, that Homer was homosexual, possibly providing another reason for his murder. He proposes that Emily did not kill Homer because of her own insecurities, but also because he did not reciprocate her romantic feelings. As Barloon states in his article, “Positing that Homer Barron is gay not only raises a new set of questions but transforms [the story], or at least our perspective of it.”


title: A Rose for Emily

text: The psychology of Emily Grierson has been analyzed countless times, with many people concluding that she was mentally ill, and from that point, the reasons why. Though many different diagnoses have been made, the most common can be summarized as follows by Nicole Smith in her psychological analysis of the character: “It is reasonable to propose that Miss Emily developed [schizophrenia] as a response to the demanding conditions in which she was living as a Southern woman from an aristocratic family.”


title: A Rose for Emily

text: Tuncay Tezcan in his analysis of the story states, “It represents the numerous conflicts in the main character's life, illustrating the effect of social change on the individual.” Jack Sherting believes Emily suffers from an Oedipus complex. He claims that Emily and her father had an incestuous relationship and she was never able to move past it. Sherting believes Emily used Homer as a replacement for her father and never truly loved him, only used him for her own benefit.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Our Friends in the North is a British television drama serial produced by the BBC. It was originally broadcast in nine episodes on BBC2 in early 1996. Written by Peter Flannery, it tells the story of four friends from Newcastle upon Tyne over a period of 31 years, from 1964 to 1995. The story makes reference to certain political and social events which occurred during the era portrayed, some specific to Newcastle and others which affected Britain as a whole. These include general elections, police and local government corruption, the UK miners' strike (1984–85), and the Great Storm of 1987.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: The serial is commonly regarded as one of the most successful BBC television dramas of the 1990s, described by "The Daily Telegraph" as "a production where all ... worked to serve a writer's vision. We are not likely to look upon its like again". It has been named by the British Film Institute as one of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century, by "The Guardian" as the third greatest television drama of all time and by "Radio Times" as one of the 40 greatest television programmes. It was awarded three British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs), two Royal Television Society Awards, four Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, and a Certificate of Merit from the San Francisco International Film Festival.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: "Our Friends in the North" helped to establish the careers of its four lead actors, Daniel Craig, Christopher Eccleston, Gina McKee and Mark Strong. Daniel Craig's part in particular has been referred to as his breakthrough role. It was also a controversial production, as its stories were partly based on real people and events. Several years passed before it was adapted from a play, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, to a television drama, due in part to the BBC's fear of legal action.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: In February 2022, it was announced that Flannery had rewritten "Our Friends in the North" for BBC Radio 4 and that it would feature a new, tenth episode written by Adam Usden that was set in Newcastle in 2020. It features James Baxter, Norah Lopez Holden, Philip Correia and Luke MacGregor in the respective roles of Nicky, Mary, Tosker and Geordie, and began 17 March 2022.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: In 1964, twenty-year-old university student Nicky Hutchinson (Christopher Eccleston) returns to Newcastle after volunteering for the summer in the U.S. civil rights movement. His friends Geordie (Daniel Craig) and Tosker (Mark Strong) are eager to start a band but Nicky rebuffs them as he is occupied with his volunteering work.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Nicky's girlfriend Mary (Gina McKee) is also unhappy with his lack of attention and they drift apart. Tosker takes advantage of the situation and successfully woos Mary, getting her pregnant. Nicky is offered a job working for Austin Donohue (Alun Armstrong), a former council leader who is starting a PR and lobbying firm.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Nicky is impressed by Austin's apparent passion for change and he drops out of university to accept the job, to the dismay of his working-class father, Felix (Peter Vaughan). Geordie gets into a fight with his abusive, alcoholic father and runs away from home, abandoning his pregnant fiancée.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Now living in London, Geordie accepts a job offer from sleazy crime boss Benny Barratt (Malcolm McDowell) and begins working as his assistant in the Soho sex industry. Meanwhile, Mary and Tosker struggle to adapt to their new married life. Their high-rise council flat, despite being brand new, is plagued by structural issues including rampant damp. Nicky is dismayed that Austin's firm is representing John Edwards, the owner of the company responsible for the sub-standard flats. After discovering records of the extensive bribery that took place in the project's development, Nicky quits in protest. Austin later receives four years in prison for his involvement and Edwards is declared bankrupt. Tosker's dreams of becoming a professional musician rapidly fade after a brutal audition with a local talent scout. Dejected, he continues to work menial jobs to make ends meet. After visiting Geordie in London, he is given a loan from Benny and starts his own grocery business. Around this time, Geordie starts an affair with Benny's girlfriend Julia.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Working as a photo journalist in London, Nicky's ideologies become extreme to the point he joins an anarchist terrorist cell. While laying-low in Newcastle, he is confronted by his parents and family friend Eddie Wells (David Bradley) after his mother Florrie (Freda Dowie) finds a submachine gun in his room. Despite his insistence he is in the right, his anarchist activities are brought to a sudden halt regardless as the cell's hideout is raided by the police and everyone but him is arrested. Later, Eddie asks for Felix's help in his campaign to run as an independent Labour candidate in an upcoming by-election, Felix eventually agreeing. Nicky also offers his support, but Eddie refuses due to Nicky's past ties to extremism. Despite turning down Nicky's help, Eddie narrowly wins the seat. Nicky eventually returns to mainstream politics in Newcastle and becomes a Labour parliamentary candidate himself. However, despite running in a safe Labour constituency and receiving an endorsement from Eddie, he manages to hand the seat to the Conservatives after a smear campaign depicts him as an IRA sympathiser.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: In London, the situation gets progressively more difficult for Benny's businesses as continued pressure from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Colin Blamire (Peter Jeffrey) forces the heavily corrupt vice ("dirty") squad to reluctantly act. Meanwhile, tired of being repeatedly blackmailed by the dirty squad, one of Benny's men takes evidence of Met corruption to the Sunday papers and the resulting scandal forces the government to hold an independent inquiry. Roy Johnson (Tony Haygarth) is brought in from Newcastle as an outsider to run the investigation but is obstructed at every turn by Blamire, dirty squad Commander Harry Chapple (Donald Sumpter) and his henchman John Salway (David Schofield). Despite the setbacks, Johnson is able to present a report to the Home Secretary detailing extensive Met corruption. Blamire, however, is able to leverage a separate investigation into the Home Secretary's past business dealings to blackmail him into suppressing the inquiry findings. A disheartened Johnson returns to Newcastle to take early retirement. With the inquiry behind them, Benny and the dirty squad are free to reach new lucrative arrangements. Benny also has Geordie framed and imprisoned in revenge for the affair with Julia years before. Subsequent police investigations eventually bring down Chapple, Salway and many other corrupt Met officers.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Some years later, Tosker is now a moderately successful businessman and Mary is occupied with her advocacy work. After Tosker's repeated infidelity, their marriage breaks down and he moves out to live with his new girlfriend, Elaine (Tracey Wilkinson). Nicky and Mary briefly reunite, but she is hesitant to resume their relationship out of concern for her young children. Out of prison and back living in Newcastle, Geordie is devastated to learn that Julia has been killed in an apparent accident. He aggressively questions Benny over her death, but accepts Benny's argument that he had no motive to kill her. Eventually Geordie's casual drug dealing gets him in trouble with the law again and he departs for London a second time.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: In 1984, Nicky is covering the ongoing miners' strike. After being injured in a brawl between the police and the miners, he rekindles his relationship with Mary. Tosker meanwhile has made his fortune as a slum landlord, straining his marriage with Elaine. At her urging, he sells the properties and invests heavily in stocks, which are subsequently wiped out in a later market crash. Three years later, Nicky is struggling with his marriage to Mary and also with his father Felix who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. While in London, he needlessly picks a fight with Eddie Wells and starts an affair with a young student, Alice. He eventually separates with Mary to pursue Alice but by then she is not interested in a serious relationship. Geordie, who is now an alcoholic and living at a homeless shelter, sets fire to his bed in a moment of madness. Quickly apprehended, he is deemed a danger to society and is stunned when the judge sentences him to life in prison. Nicky reconciles with Eddie after he discovers Eddie's assistant is a mole for a PR company. Eddie resigns in embarrassment but as he is leaving Westminster is caught up in a storm and dies of a heart attack. The same storm also presents Geordie an opportunity to escape his prison transport but he chooses not to take it. In Newcastle, Mary initially refuses to run in the by-election for Eddie's seat but eventually changes her mind and is subsequently elected. Exasperated at Felix's increasingly outlandish behaviour, Florrie can no longer cope and she sends him to a care home.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Seven years later in 1995, Nicky has been living in Italy and returns to Newcastle to attend Florrie's funeral. Tosker and Elaine have slowly rebuilt their business and are on the eve of opening a new floating nightclub. Geordie has escaped from prison and approaches the club looking for work, where he is recognised by Elaine. Although Tosker and Elaine privately do not believe his story that he is out on parole, they take him in and give him a job playing keyboard for the opening night band. Nicky desperately tries to convince Felix that his life was not a failure, but Felix's mind is too far gone to understand. Geordie tries to attend the club launch event but is refused entry due to a miscommunication with the bouncers. Tosker fills in for the band at the last minute and finally achieves his dream of musical stardom, albeit on a small scale. The four friends finally reunite at Florrie's funeral for the first time in 31 years. Afterwards, Tosker spends time with his grandchildren, Nicky decides to try and patch things up with Mary, and Geordie walks off to an unknown fate.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: "Our Friends in the North" was originally written by the playwright Peter Flannery for the theatre, while he was a writer in residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). The idea came to Flannery while he was watching the rehearsals for the company's production of "Henry IV, Part 1" and "Part 2" at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1980; the scale of the plays inspired him to come up with his own historical epic. The original three-hour long theatre version of "Our Friends in the North", directed by John Caird and featuring Jim Broadbent and Roger Allam among the cast, was produced by the RSC in 1982. It initially ran for a week at The Other Place in Stratford before touring to the city in which it was set, Newcastle upon Tyne, and then playing at The Pit, a studio theatre in the Barbican Centre in London.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: In its original form, the story went up only to the 1979 general election and the coming to power of the new Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher. The play also contained a significant number of scenes set in Rhodesia, chronicling UDI, the oil embargo and the emergence of armed resistance to white supremacy. This plot strand was dropped from the televised version, although the title "Our Friends in the North", a reference to how staff at BP in South Africa referred to the Rhodesian government of Ian Smith, remained.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Flannery was heavily influenced not only by his own political viewpoints and life experiences, but also by the actual history of his home city of Newcastle during the 1960s and 1970s. Characters such as Austin Donohue and John Edwards were directly based on the real-life scandals of T. Dan Smith and John Poulson. Flannery contacted Smith and explained that he was going to write a play based on the events of the scandal, to which Smith replied, "There is a play here of Shakespearean proportions."


title: Our Friends in the North

text: The stage version of "Our Friends in the North" was seen by BBC television drama producer Michael Wearing in Newcastle in 1982, and he was immediately keen on producing a television adaptation. At that time, Wearing was based at the BBC English Regions Drama Department at BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham, which had a specific remit for making "regional drama". Wearing initially approached Flannery to adapt his play into a four-part television serial for BBC2, with each episode being 50 minutes long and the Rhodesian strand dropped for practical reasons. A change of executives meant that the project was not produced, although Wearing persisted in trying to get it commissioned. Flannery extended the serial to six episodes, one for each United Kingdom general election from 1964 to 1979. However, by this point in the mid-1980s, Michael Grade was Director of Programmes for BBC Television, and he had no interest in the project.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: By 1989, Wearing had been recalled to the central BBC drama department in London where he was made Head of Serials. This new seniority eventually allowed him to further the cause of "Our Friends in the North". Flannery wrote to the BBC's then managing director of television, Will Wyatt, "accusing him of cowardice for not approving it." The BBC was concerned not only with the budget and resources that would be required to produce the serial, but also with potential legal issues. Much of the background story was based on real-life events and people, such as Smith and Poulson and former Home Secretary Reginald Maudling, upon whom another character, Claud Seabrook, was based. According to "The Observer" newspaper, one senior BBC lawyer, Glen Del Medico, even threatened to resign if the production was made. Others tried to persuade Flannery to reset the piece "in a fictional country called Albion rather than Britain." Both Smith and Poulson died before the programme aired. The character of Benny Barratt was based on the pornographer James Humphreys.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: In 1992, Wearing was able to persuade the controller of BBC Two, Alan Yentob, to commission Peter Flannery to write scripts for a new version of the project. Yentob had no great enthusiasm for "Our Friends in the North", as he remembered a meeting with Flannery in 1988, when the writer had left him unimpressed by stating that "Our Friends in the North" was about "post-war social housing policy". As Wearing was now a head of department at the BBC, he was too busy overseeing other projects to produce "Our Friends in the North". George Faber was briefly attached to the project as producer before he moved on to become Head of Single Drama at the BBC. Faber was succeeded by a young producer with great enthusiasm for the project, Charles Pattinson.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: When Yentob was succeeded as controller of BBC Two by Michael Jackson, Pattinson was able to persuade him to commission full production on the series. This was in spite of the fact that Jackson and Wearing were not close and did not get on; Pattinson took to dealing with Jackson directly. Jackson had agreed to nine one-hour episodes but Flannery protested that each episode should be as long as it needed to be, to which Jackson agreed. The long delay in production did have the advantage of allowing Flannery to extend the story and instead of ending in 1979, it carried on into the 1990s, bringing the four central characters into middle age. Flannery later commented that: "The project has undoubtedly benefited from the delay. I'm not sure I have". The series encountered more legal problems, when some references to the fictional businessman Alan Roe were removed, because of a perceived similarity to Sir John Hall, a Newcastle businessman who had a number of things in common. The drama had originally shown Roe as taking advantage of tax subsidies to build a large shopping centre.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: The scale of "Our Friends in the North" required BBC Two controller Michael Jackson to devote a budget of £8 million to the production, which was half of his channel's drama serials budget for the entire year. Producer Charles Pattinson attempted to gain co-production funding from overseas broadcasters, but met with a lack of interest. Pattinson believed it was because the story was so much about Britain and had limited appeal to other countries. BBC Worldwide, the corporation's commercial arm which sells its programmes overseas, offered only £20,000 of funding towards the production. The speaking cast of "Our Friends in the North" numbered 160; more than 3,000 extras were used, and filming took place across 40 weeks, from November 1994 until September 1995.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: The first director approached to helm the production by Michael Wearing was Danny Boyle. Boyle was keen to direct all nine episodes, but Pattinson believed that one director taking charge of the entire serial would be too punishing a schedule for whoever was chosen. Boyle had recently completed work on the feature film "Shallow Grave" and wanted to see how that film was received before committing to "Our Friends in the North". When "Shallow Grave" proved to be a critical success, Boyle was able to enter pre-production on "Trainspotting". He withdrew from "Our Friends in the North". Sir Peter Hall was also briefly considered, but he too had other production commitments.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Two directors were finally chosen to helm the project. Stuart Urban was assigned the first five episodes and Simon Cellan Jones the final four. However, after completing the first two episodes and some of the shooting for the third, Urban left the project after disagreements with the production team. Peter Flannery was concerned that Urban's directorial style was not suited to the material that he had written. Christopher Eccleston's viewpoint is that Urban was "only interested in painting pretty pictures." Pattinson agreed that a change was needed, and Michael Jackson agreed to a change of director mid-way through production, which was unusual for a British television drama of this type so far into proceedings. Director Pedr James, who had recently directed an adaptation of "Martin Chuzzlewit" for Michael Wearing's department, was hired to shoot the remainder of what were to have been Urban's episodes.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Of the actors cast in the four leading roles, only Gina McKee was a native of North East England, and she was from Sunderland rather than from Newcastle. McKee related strongly to many of the characters and story elements in the scripts and was very keen to play Mary, but the production team was initially uncertain whether it would be possible to age her up convincingly enough to portray the character in her 50s. McKee was concerned that she would not be given the part after an unsuccessful makeup test where efforts to make her appear to be in her 50s resulted in her resembling a drag queen.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Christopher Eccleston was the only one of the four lead actors who was already an established television face, having previously co-starred in the ITV crime drama series "Cracker". Eccleston first heard about the project while working with Danny Boyle on the film "Shallow Grave" in the autumn of 1993. Initially, Eccleston had been considered by the production team as a candidate to play Geordie, but he was more interested in playing Nicky, who he saw as a more emotionally complex character. Eccleston was particularly concerned about being able to perform with the Newcastle Geordie accent. He did not even attempt the accent at his audition, concentrating instead on characterisation. He drew inspiration for his performance as the older Nicky from Peter Flannery, basing aspects of his characterisation on Flannery's personality. He even wore some of the writer's colourful shirts.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Daniel Craig was a late auditionee for the role of Geordie. At the audition, he performed the Geordie accent very poorly but he won the part and it came to be regarded as his breakthrough role. Mark Strong worked on the Geordie accent by studying episodes of the 1980s comedy series "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet", which featured lead characters from Newcastle. Strong later claimed that Christopher Eccleston took a dislike to him and outside of their scenes together, the pair did not speak while "Our Friends in the North" was filming.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Among the supporting roles, one of the highest-profile pieces of casting was Malcolm McDowell as Soho porn baron Benny Barratt. Barratt appears in scenes in episodes from "1966" to "1979" but the production could only afford him for three weeks. This was because McDowell was then a resident in the United States. All of McDowell's scenes were shot by Stuart Urban as part of the first block of filming; the rest of the production which was filmed roughly chronologically. This was considered more than worthwhile, however, for the prestige of being able to use an actor such as McDowell, predominantly a film actor who seldom did television work.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: It was Daniel Craig's performance in "Our Friends in the North" that first brought him to the attention of producer Barbara Broccoli, who later cast him in the role of secret agent James Bond in the long-running film series. Christopher Eccleston went on to achieve success in a screen role when he appeared as the Ninth Doctor in the BBC science-fiction series "Doctor Who" in 2005. Since then various media articles have noted the coincidence of the future James Bond and "Doctor Who" leads having co-starred in the same production earlier in their careers.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: After Stuart Urban left the production and the decision had been made to re-shoot some of the material that he had completed with Pedr James directing, producer Charles Pattinson suggested to Peter Flannery that the first episode should not simply be remade, but also rewritten. Flannery took the opportunity to completely change the opening storyline, introducing the love story element between Nicky and Mary earlier. This was introduced in later episodes of the television version, but had not been part of the original play. Other storyline and character changes were made with the new version of the first episode because it was the script that had most closely resembled the original stage play. Michael Wearing felt that the story could be expanded to a greater degree for television.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Production of the new version of the opening episode took place in what was to have been a three-week break for the cast between production blocks. Gina McKee was initially very concerned about having her character's early life story changed when she had already based elements of her later performance on the previously established version. Eccleston was also unhappy about the sudden changes. However, McKee felt that the new version of episode one eventually made for a much stronger opening to the story.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Due to budgetary constraints, it was not possible to re-shoot some scenes of episode one in the north-east, and they instead had to be filmed in and around Watford. Beach-set scenes were shot at Folkestone rather than Whitley Bay, which was obvious to locals on screen due to the presence of pebbles on the beach, which are not present at Whitley Bay. This led to some critics mockingly referring to the production as "Our Friends in the South".


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Contemporary popular music was used throughout the production to evoke the feel of the year in which each episode was set. The BBC's existing agreements with various music publishers and record labels meant that the production team was easily able to obtain the rights to use most of the desired songs. A particular piece of synchronicity occurred in the final episode, "1995", which Cellan Jones had decided to close with the song "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis from the album "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?". While "Our Friends in the North" was airing, it was released as a single and was at the top of the UK Singles Chart in the week of the final episode's transmission.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: "Our Friends in the North" was broadcast in nine episodes on BBC2 at 9pm on Monday nights, from 15 January to 11 March 1996. The episode lengths varied, with "1966" being the shortest at 63 minutes, 48 seconds and "1987" the longest at 74 minutes, 40 seconds. The total running time of the serial is 623 minutes.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: The first episode of "Our Friends in the North" gained 5.1 million viewers on its original transmission. In terms of viewing figures, the series became BBC2's most successful weekly drama for five years.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Both during and after its original transmission on BBC2, the serial was generally praised by the critics. Reviewing the first episode in "The Observer" newspaper, Ian Bell wrote: "Flannery's script is faultless; funny, chilling, evocative, spare, linguistically precise. The four young friends about to share 31 hellish years in the life of modern Britain are excellently played."


title: Our Friends in the North

text: The conclusion of the serial in March brought similar praise. ""Our Friends in the North" confounded the gloomier predictions about its content and proved that there was an audience for political material, provided that it found its way to the screen through lives imagined in emotional detail ... It will be remembered for an intimate sense of character, powerful enough to make you forgive its faults and stay loyal to the end," was the verdict of "The Independent" on the final episode. Writing in the same newspaper the following day, Jeffrey Richards added that "Monday night's final episode of "Our Friends in the North" has left many people bereft. The serial captivated much of the country, sketching a panoramic view of life in Britain from the sixties to the nineties ... At once sweeping and intimate, both moving and angry, simultaneously historical and contemporary, it has followed in the distinguished footsteps of BBC series such as "Boys from the Blackstuff"."


title: Our Friends in the North

text: However, the response was not exclusively positive. In "The Independent on Sunday", columnist Lucy Ellmann criticised both what she saw as the unchanging nature of the characters and Flannery's concentration on friendship rather than family. "What's in the water there anyway? These are the youngest grandparents ever seen! Nothing has changed about them since "1964" except a few grey hairs ... It's quite impressive that anything emotional could be salvaged from this nine-part hop, skip and jump through the years. In fact we still hardly know these people – zooming from one decade to the next has a distancing effect," she wrote of the former point. And of the latter, "Peter Flannery seems to want to suggest that friendships are the only cure for a life blighted by deficient parents. But all that links this ill-matched foursome in the end is history and sentimentality. The emotional centre of the writing is still in family ties."


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Michael Jackson, the BBC2 controller who had finally commissioned production of the serial, felt that even though it was successful, its social realist form was outdated. The academic Georgina Born, writing in 2004, also felt that although the serial had its strengths, it also contained "involuntary marks of pastiche" in its treatment of social realism. In contrast, the British Film Institute's Screenonline website praises the serial for its realistic and un-clichéd depiction of life in the North East, stating that: "Unlike many depictions of the North-East, it has fully rounded characters with authentic regional accents. It's clearly a real place, not a generic 'up North'."


title: Our Friends in the North

text: At the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs) in 1997, "Our Friends in the North" won the award for Best Drama Serial, ahead of other nominees "The Crow Road", "The Fragile Heart" and "Gulliver's Travels". At the same ceremony, Gina McKee won the Best Actress category. Both Christopher Eccleston and Peter Vaughan (who played Nicky's father, Felix) were nominated for the Best Actor award for their performances in "Our Friends in the North", but they lost to Nigel Hawthorne for his role in "The Fragile Heart". Also at the 1997 BAFTAs, Peter Flannery was presented with the honorary Dennis Potter Award for his work on the serial. "Our Friends in the North" also gained BAFTA nominations for costume design, sound, and photography and lighting.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: The Royal Television Society Awards covering the year 1996 saw "Our Friends in the North" win the Best Drama Serial category, and Peter Flannery was given the Writer's Award. Peter Vaughan also gained another Best Actor nomination for his role as Felix. At the 1997 Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, "Our Friends in the North" won the categories for Best Drama Series or Serial, Best Actor (Eccleston), Best Actress (McKee) and the Writer's Award for Peter Flannery.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: In the United States, "Our Friends in the North" was awarded a Certificate of Merit in the Television Drama Miniseries category at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1997.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: In 2000, the British Film Institute conducted a poll of industry professionals to find the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century, with "Our Friends in the North" finishing in twenty-fifth position, eighth position out of the dramas featured on the list. The commentary for the "Our Friends in the North" entry on the BFI website described it as a "powerful and evocative drama series ... The series impressed with its ambition, humanity and willingness to see the ambiguities beyond the rhetoric." The serial was also included in an alphabetical list of the 40 greatest TV shows published by the "Radio Times" magazine in August 2003, chosen by their television editor Alison Graham. In January 2010, the website of "The Guardian" newspaper produced a list of "The top 50 TV dramas of all time," in which "Our Friends in the North" was ranked in third position.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Following the success of "Our Friends in the North", Flannery proposed a "kind of prequel" to the serial under the title of "Our Friends in the South". This would have told the story of the Jarrow March. Although the BBC initially took up the project, it did not progress to script stage and was eventually abandoned.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: "Our Friends in the North" was given a repeat run on BBC2 the year following its original broadcast, running on Saturday evenings from 19 July to 13 September 1997. It received a second repeat run on the BBC ten years after its original broadcast, running on BBC Four from 8 February to 29 March 2006. In the early 2000s, the serial was also repeated on the UK Drama channel.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: In April 1997, the serial was released on VHS by BMG Video in two sets, "1964 – 1974" and "1979 – 1995". In 2002, BMG released the series on DVD, which along with the original episodes contained several extra features, including a retrospective discussion of the series by Wearing, Pattinson, Flannery, James and Cellan Jones, and specially shot interviews with Eccleston and McKee. Simply Media brought out a second DVD release of the serial in September 2010, although on this occasion there were no extra features. This edition contained an edit not present on the 2002 BMG release; most of the song "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis is removed at the end of the final episode, fading out early and the credits instead running in silence.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: "Our Friends in the North" has been invoked on several occasions as a comparison when similar drama programmes have been screened on British television. The year following "Our Friends in the North"s broadcast, Tony Marchant's drama serial "Holding On" was promoted by the BBC as being an ""Our Friends in the South"," after Marchant made the comparison when discussing it with executives. The 2001 BBC Two drama serial "In a Land of Plenty" was previewed by "The Observer" newspaper as being "the most ambitious television drama since "Our Friends in the North"." The writer Paula Milne drew inspiration from "Our Friends in the North" for her own "White Heat" (2012); she felt that "Our Friends in the North" had been too centred on white, male, heterosexual characters and she deliberately wanted to counter that focus. The original stage version of "Our Friends in the North" was revived in Newcastle by Northern Stage in 2007, with 14 cast members playing 40 characters. In August 2016, Flannery was interviewed for an event, part of the Whitley Bay Film Festival, that celebrated the 20th anniversary of the series being broadcast.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: In February 2022, it was announced that Peter Flannery had revived and rewritten "Our Friends in the North" for BBC Radio 4, with a tenth episode, written by Adam Usden, set in Newcastle in 2020.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: Produced and directed by Melanie Harris, and with lead sound design by Eloise Whitmore, it features James Baxter, Norah Lopez Holden, Philip Correia and Luke MacGregor as, respectively, Nicky, Mary, Tosker and Geordie, Bryony Corrigan as Amy and with Tracey Wilkinson and Trevor Fox reappearing from the TV series but in new roles.


title: Our Friends in the North

text: The cast also includes Tom Goodman-Hill, Eve Shotton, James Gaddas, Tony Hirst, Des Yankson and Maanuv Thiara; weekly broadcasts began 17 March 2022.


title: Derek Prince

text: Peter Derek Vaughan Prince (14 August 1915 – 24 September 2003) was a Bible teacher whose daily radio programme, "Derek Prince Legacy Radio", is broadcast around the world in various languages.


title: Derek Prince

text: Derek Prince worked at the Faith Tabernacle in Chicago, and then moved to Good News Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. In May 1971 Derek Prince Publications opened offices in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Derek Prince Publications became Derek Prince Ministries in December 1990.


title: Derek Prince

text: The Princes traveled extensively in ministry until his wife Ruth died on 29 December 1998. The following list of countries covers their ministry from 1993 to 1998. Some of these countries were visited more than once: Russia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Hungary, South Africa, Kenya, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey, Poland, Bahrain, Cuba, Colombia, Switzerland, France, Portugal, India and England.


title: Derek Prince

text: He is the author of 51 books, 600 audio and 100 videos, many of which has been translated and published in more than 60 languages. Some of the subjects that are covered in his teachings are prayer and fasting, foundations of the Christian faith, spiritual warfare, God's love and marriage and family. His daily radio is translated into Arabic, Chinese (Amoy, Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghainese, Swatow), Croatian, German, Malagasy, Mongolian, Russian, Tamil, Samoan, Spanish, Bahasa Indonesia, Tongan, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi and many other languages. The radio program continues to reach many people around the world.


title: Derek Prince

text: Derek Prince Ministries continued for the rest of his life to distribute his teachings and to train missionaries, church leaders, and congregations.


title: Derek Prince

text: As a Pentecostal, Prince believed in the reality of spiritual forces operating in the world, and of the power of demons to cause illness and psychological problems. While in Seattle, he was asked to perform an exorcism on a woman, and he came to believe that Christians could be "demonized" (normally described as "possessed" by demons - Prince avoided this term which implies 'ownership'). This was at odds with the more usual Pentecostal view that demons could "possess" unbelievers, but could only "oppress" Christians. Prince believed that his deliverance ministry used the power of God to defeat demons.


title: Derek Prince

text: Prince strongly opposed replacement theology. His book "The Destiny of Israel and the Church" argues that the Church has not replaced Israel and that the covenant that God made with the nation of Israel still stands today. Prince also believed that the creation of the state of Israel was the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Derek states in his book "Promised Land", "The central theme of biblical prophecy, as it is being unfolded in our time, revolves around the land and the people of Israel. God is carrying out His predetermined plan to regather the Jewish people from their worldwide dispersion and restore them to their ancient homeland."


title: Derek Prince

text: Prince created the Shepherding Movement with fellow ministers Don Basham, Bob Mumford, Charles Simpson and Ern Baxter, who became known as the 'Fort Lauderdale Five.' They sought to counter what were seen as excesses within the Charismatic Movement, by emphasizing discipleship and pastoral care. The practice of 'personal submission to spiritual authorities' was considered controversial. Prince's association with the Shepherding Movement provided international exposure. After leaving the movement, he focused on his own international ministry.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: Gears of War is a 2006 third-person shooter video game, the first installment of the "Gears of War" series. It was developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios, initially as an exclusive title for the Xbox 360 in November 2006, before a Microsoft Windows version of the game, developed in conjunction with People Can Fly, was released in 2007. The game's main story, which can be played in single or co-operative play, focuses on a squad of troops who assist in completing a desperate, last-ditch attempt to end a war against a genocidal subterranean enemy, the Locust, and save the remaining human inhabitants of their planet Sera. The game's multiplayer mode allows up to eight players to control characters from one of the two factions in a variety of online game modes. Gameplay features players using cover and strategic fire in order to win battles.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The game was a commercial success, selling over three million copies within ten weeks of its launch. It became the fastest selling video game of 2006, the second-most played game over Xbox Live during 2007, and the 6th best selling Xbox 360 game. Considered to be one of the greatest video games ever made, the game received universal acclaim for its gameplay and detailed visuals, with it winning over 30 "Game of the Year" awards in 2006. A remastered version, "", was developed primarily by The Coalition. "Ultimate Edition" was released for the Xbox One in August 2015, and for Microsoft Windows in March 2016.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: "Gears of War"'s success led to the development of a franchise, including four sequels ("Gears of War 2" in 2008, "Gears of War 3" in 2011, "Gears of War 4" in 2016, and "Gears 5" in 2019) and two prequels, "", which was released in 2013 and "Gears Tactics" which was released in 2020. In addition, it has also spawned adaptations for books and comics, and a film based on the series is currently in development.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: "Gears of War" is a third-person shooter that places emphasis on using cover to avoid taking damage while moving towards enemy forces. The game uses a number of weapons, but predominately featured is the Lancer Assault Rifle, which has a mounted chainsaw bayonet that can deal melee damage at close range. Playable characters can carry two primary weapons, grenades, and a smaller, secondary weapon such as the Snub Pistol. Weapons are reloaded with a tap of the RB button, and a second tap within a given time (active reload) rewards the player with a damage bonus. However, failing to perform the "Active Reload" correctly will cause the gun to become momentarily jammed while the player's character fixes it. When the player takes damage, the "Crimson Omen", a red cog representing the player's health gauge, will fade into the screen, becoming more defined with larger amounts of damage. The player can seek cover to recover their health, but if they take too much damage, they will become incapacitated. Once this occurs, a skull will fill the center void of the omen. The player can then be revived by a teammate, executed by an enemy, or remain incapacitated until they "bleed out", dying from blood loss.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The game features a five-act campaign that can be played alone or cooperatively with another player. The campaign focuses on COG Army soldiers Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago and their efforts in the Delta Squad to wipe out the Locust forces on their planet Sera. The player is joined by AI teammates that will help fight the Locust. Certain sections of the campaign feature two paths that can be taken as selected by the first player. If there is a second player, their character will automatically take the other. The campaign can be played at three difficulty settings in the first game. From easiest to hardest, these are "Casual", "Hardcore" and "Insane". The "Insane" difficulty is unlocked once the game is beaten on either the "Casual" or "Hardcore" difficulty.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: Multiplayer "Gears of War" features up to four-on-four competitive gameplay, with teams representing the Gears or the Locust. Players must execute downed foes, otherwise these will revive after a time. In Assassination matches, the team's leader is the only one that can track the other team's leader and pick up new weapons, after which teammates can pick them up, with the goal to eliminate the foe's leader. An Xbox 360 patch added the "Annex" mode, which is similar to "King of the Hill", in which players must try to control a shifting control point for a certain amount of time to win. The PC version of "Gears" introduced "King of the Hill", a mode not present in the Xbox 360 version, which uses a fixed control point but varies the conditions on which it is controlled.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: "Gears of War" takes place on the planet Sera. A liquid called Imulsion became a highly valued power source after a scientist discovered how to use it, and the economic shockwave led to several wars between nations. The Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) originally existed only as an obscure world-government philosophy, but it evolved into a legitimate, though minor, political party during the 79-year-long Pendulum Wars. The soldiers of the COG are called "Gears". After "Emergence Day" (E-Day), when the Locust began their attack on humanity, the COG were the ones who took the necessary steps to ensure the survival of human civilization, instituting martial law and taking charge of the effort against the Locust. Fourteen years later, the COG is the only human government left on Sera. One year after E-Day, after losing multiple military battles to the Locust, the COG launched a Pyrrhic tactical and strategic campaign using the satellite-based weapon of mass destruction known as the "Hammer of Dawn" on human cities with extremely destructive results. The result gave the citizens of Sera three days to evacuate to the Jacinto Plateau, the only place Locust could not dig through, before going through with the attack.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The game primarily focuses on Marcus Fenix (John DiMaggio) and his comrades in Delta Squad: Dominic "Dom" Santiago (Carlos Ferro), Augustus Cole (Lester Speight), and Damon Baird (Fred Tatasciore). Side characters, such as Colonel Victor Hoffman, Private Anthony Carmine, Lieutenant Minh Young Kim, Lieutenant Anya Stroud, and an elderly Stranded man known as Chaps, also aid Delta Squad throughout the narrative. The game's main antagonist is General RAAM, a powerful leader of the Locust Horde's armed forces.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: Players take control of Fenix in the campaign; while in co-op mode, the second player controls Santiago. All four Delta squad members are available for play during multiplayer games, along with Carmine, Kim, and Hoffman, in addition to various Locust characters.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The game's plot begins fourteen years after Emergence Day (E-Day), when the Locust Horde overran and killed many COG soldiers and civilians, declaring war against humanity. Marcus Fenix, a former COG soldier, is reinstated into the military after spending four years in prison for abandoning his military post in order to make a vain attempt to save his father, Adam Fenix. Dominic "Dom" Santiago, Marcus' best friend and fellow COG, successfully extracts Fenix from the prison, and takes him to meet Delta Squad. The group seeks to obtain the "resonator", a device that will map "The Hollow", the caverns which the Locust inhabit and later deploy the "Lightmass Bomb", which will destroy the heart of the Locust forces inside the Hollow. Fenix and his allies recover the device, but suffer multiple casualties in the process including Anthony Carmine and Squad leader Kim. Fleeing RAAM's forces, Fenix leads the remaining soldiers through the ruins of Ephyra to claim a "Junker" APC, drive to a mining facility, and finally into the planet's depths.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: Delta Squad successfully detonates the resonator, but the device fails to map enough of the tunnel network. They discover a larger map of the network that originates from Fenix's old home, specifically his father's laboratory. The group ventures to the Fenix estate at East Barricade Academy, where Fenix originally attempted to rescue his father. When they arrive, Delta encounters heavy Locust resistance. After collecting the data, the group fights their way past Locust forces and boards a train carrying the Lightmass Bomb. Fenix and Santiago battle their way through the train, and are able to kill General RAAM, before uploading the data. Fully activated, the Lightmass Bomb launches into the Hollow, and eradicates the Locust tunnel networks. In the game's final sequence, Hoffman delivers a victory speech as the tunnels collapse and explode, whereupon the voice of the Locust Queen promises that the Locust will continue to fight onward, despite their losses.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The first concept for the game was conceived around the years 2000 and 2001 as "Unreal Warfare", which was much closer to the multiplayer-driven "Unreal" series than the game that would eventually become "Gears of War". The original concept for the game featured character classes and mechs, being played in a closed arena against other players or bots. The game was put on standby as Epic focused on the "Unreal Tournament" series, and when the team went back to it, the industry had shifted towards single-player games and the aim of the game was changed.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: According to Rod Fergusson, the game was at one point intended to be a horror game influenced by "Band of Brothers", "Resident Evil 4" and "Kill Switch". A romance subplot was considered for the game but was eventually dropped. In an interview with Cliff Bleszinski, lead developer for Epic Games, he cites three games that were the primary influences in the game's design, including the pacing and over-the-shoulder third-person perspective from "Resident Evil 4" and the tactical-cover system from "Kill Switch"; Bleszinski also cited "Bionic Commando"s influence on the cover system, equating the actions of moving from cover to cover as similar to the action of swinging from platform to platform in the latter game. These design choices reflect themselves in the gameplay, as "Gears of War" focuses mainly on squad team-based and cover-dependent tactics with limited weapons rather than brute force. Bleszinski also cited the influence of "The Legend of Zelda", including its storytelling and world-building elements, acquiring and mastering of tools, and underground environments. The game's title itself is a homage to "Metal Gear", an early formative influence on Bleszinski. The total cost of development was $10 million, according to Epic's Mark Rein, and 20 to 30 people were involved with the development at any time. However, these figures do not include the proprietary Unreal Engine 3.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: "Gears of War" was first shown as an unnamed exclusive for the Xbox 360 in a behind-closed-doors presentation by Epic Games at the 2005 Game Developers Conference. The demo was presented as a technology showcase for Unreal Engine 3 that would run on the Xenon processor at the center of the new Xbox. It showcased a group of human soldiers patrolling a city at night that fell under ambush. The demo was noted for its overall realism, suspense, and visual clarity, helping to reinforce the argument advanced by Epic Games' founder Tim Sweeney for Microsoft to double the memory in the Xbox 360 from the planned 256 MB to 512 MB. This decision that would ultimately cost Microsoft tens of millions of dollars and restrict the number of Xbox 360 consoles available at launch, but allowed "Gears of War" and many other Xbox 360 games to run at 720p resolution.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: "Gears of War" lead designer Cliff Bleszinski said he hoped for the game to expand into graphic novels and eventually film. On November 21, 2006, Microsoft Corporate VP of Global Marketing and Interactive Entertainment Business Jeff Bell stated "Gears of War" is the first in a trilogy, through sequences on E-Day and the battle of Jacinto Plateau, as well as information on Adam Fenix and his research. Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein posted a message on the official "Gears of War" Internet forums, stating "It's not over until it is not fun anymore", and, in his view, "Gears of War" may become the next "Halo" series in terms of popularity.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The ending to "Gears of War" heavily suggested a sequel, and at the 2007 Game Developers Conference, Bleszinkski confirmed that Epic Games did "intend to do a sequel" to "Gears of War". The game's sequel, "Gears of War 2" was officially confirmed on February 20, 2008, and was released at midnight on November 7, 2008. On January 27, 2014 Microsoft announced that they have acquired all rights to the franchise from Epic Games and that Rod Fergusson had rejoined Microsoft Studios to lead development on future "Gears of War" games.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: News of the franchise's future has emerged multiple times since the game's release. "PC Gamer" accidentally released an image in its 2006 holiday issue where "Gears of War" can be seen in a Games for Windows display, which led to suspicion that "Gears of War" would be released for the PC; however, the image was later stated to be a mock-up. Possible leaked pictures were released on February 13, 2007, leading to more suspicion of "Gears" on the PC. In an interview with Xbox fan site TeamXbox, Mark Rein stated that the game would eventually come to the PC; Epic was not currently ready to release it on that format, but the upcoming release of "Unreal Tournament 3" was "helping (Epic) get optimization on the PC".


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: On July 11, 2007 at the E3 conference, it was revealed that "Gears of War" would indeed be released for Windows. New features include three new multi-player maps, an extension of five new single-player chapters to act five which describes events of Delta Squad escaping a giant Brumak between acts four and five (which Mark Rein claims is "about 20 percent extra" over the existing Xbox 360 content), new game modes, a game editor, and Games for Windows – Live support integrated into Unreal Engine 3. When asked about bringing the additional content to the Xbox 360 version, Mark Rein of Epic Games stated that "it is unlikely we will bring that content to 360". He then states, "Unfortunately the version it's built on is not really compatible with the 360 and so it would involve a massive patch, a patch larger than all five we've done so far, to "Gears of War" to do that." Additionally, the PC and Xbox 360 versions will not allow for cross-platform play; Cliff Bleszinski stated that "while this feature does add value, it just wasn't that desired nor worth the extra months of design and development time. We want "Gears of War" to be out this holiday on PC." This news angered many owners of "Gears of War" on the Xbox 360 due to the game no longer living up to its "Exclusively for the Xbox 360" title and not receiving the additional content. Mark Rein noted that despite their original label of the game as an Xbox 360 exclusive, Microsoft allowed them to develop the game as part of the Games for Windows moniker, as has been done previously with "Halo 2".


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: A patch was released on November 28 to fix performance issues and also the Games for Windows – Live update issue. The patch was only released for American and Western European versions of the game; legitimate purchasers of the Eastern European and Russian versions were informed that "the game would continue to function without the patch" and never issued a corresponding version.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: A macOS version was confirmed by Mark Rein at the end of E3, on the "Game Head" television program on July 14, 2007, along with "Unreal Tournament 3", but no release time frame was specified. As of August 2014, nothing more has been mentioned.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: In early 2009, an issue with a digital certificate, used to sign certain game-critical files as part of the anti-cheat mechanism, which expired on January 28, 2009, rendered the game unplayable without a temporary workaround of resetting the system clock to before the certificate expired. Initial information from sources led people to believe the issue was related to DRM within the game. Epic later acknowledged the problem, claiming it was not in relation to a form of DRM but instead to a form of Anti-Cheat, and notified end users that they "[were] working with Microsoft to get it resolved." This issue was corrected as of February 6, 2009 with a downloadable patch.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The music was composed by Kevin Riepl who has previously worked with Epic Games on the soundtracks for "Unreal Tournament 2004" and "". Riepl began receiving early builds and cinematics about halfway through the development process, closely collaborating with the development team on the influence the music should have on the player and the story. The theme of 'Destroyed Beauty' that had inspired the game's visuals guided the music too, creating mood suited to a beautiful city in ruins and the emotional desperation of its inhabitants.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The score includes many mechanical percussive elements, altered samples of explosions, hits and impacts, and electric guitar stingers that punctuate the game's combat encounters. To complete the score these elements were combined with the organic sounds of a live orchestra. The orchestral score was orchestrated and conducted by Corey Status and performed by the Northwest Sinfonia orchestra. The title track was written and performed by thrash metal band Megadeth, with an instrumental version of the song being used for the soundtrack; a revised version with lyrics was featured on the band's 2007 album "United Abominations". Megadeth performed the track live as headliners of Gigantour, a twenty-five stop metal tour sponsored by Microsoft as part of the promotion for the game.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: During a press conference at E3 2015, Microsoft announced a remaster of "Gears of War" entitled "". It brought about a number of improvements, including updates to the gameplay from later titles and enhanced graphics featuring remodeled characters, environmental assets and other stylistic changes. It was subsequently released worldwide for the Xbox One in North America and Asian-Pacific countries on August 25, 2015, and in Europe on August 28, and Microsoft Windows on March 1, 2016.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: Microsoft produced a thirty-minute documentary, titled "Gears of War: The Race to E3", that aired on MTV2 on May 19, 2006 to promote the game. The program was produced in a reality TV style and featured Cliff Bleszinski, Epic Games president Mike Capps, and producer Rod Fergusson in the weeks leading up to the "Gears of War" gameplay reveal at the Xbox Media Briefing at E3 2006.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The program captures several stressful moments including Xbox executive Peter Moore's desire to remove the chainsaw rifle from the E3 demo days before the show. The chainsaw remained and after the demo was given Bill Gates confided to Cliff "I love that chainsaw."


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The "Gears of War" television ad reveals Marcus Fenix alone in the ruined streets of Sera as he moves to avoid threats that appear throughout a dark and deserted city. The spot was widely praised and has been described as one of the most iconic game trailers of the last decade. The spot, set to the Gary Jules' cover of "Mad World" and directed by Joseph Kosinski, is melancholy and reflective in tone and was a significant departure for videogame advertising at the time, especially a fast-paced shooter game. According to Kosinski, David Fincher was slated to direct the ad but had to drop out from a scheduling conflict, leading to Kosinski being brought on to direct. Visual effects company Digital Domain created the visuals inside the Unreal Engine 3 game engine, the same engine that powered "Gears of War" on the Xbox 360. While the spot was pre-rendered, the production method gave consumers an accurate preview of the game's textures and subtle facial expressions.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The popularity of the commercial built a bigger audience for "Mad World" which would reach the #1 spot on iTunes five years after it was initially recorded. The melody remains heavily associated with the "Gears of War" franchise and was later adopted into the soundtrack of "Gears of War 3." Bleszinski said in 2015 that he chose the song as it was his "anthem" at the time to cope with the failure of his first marriage.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: At the game's release, Epic Games released a "Limited Collectors Edition". Some of the notable differences are a steel case instead of the regular plastic case and an extra disc which contains artworks of environments and stages including Locust that did not made it to the game, and extra content and behind-the-scenes footage of the making of "Gears of War". The disc also contains a time-lapse on the creation of the "Emergence" mural. The game's disc and case has a different cover and instead features the "Omen" background. Another of the Collector's Edition extras is a book titled "Destroyed Beauty" which illustrates the game's back-story and includes concepts, sketches, and descriptions of the game's characters. The Collector's Edition also includes the same instruction manual and 48-hour Xbox Live Gold trial as the regular game does.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: Epic Games began working on new content for "Gears of War" in August 2006. The updates would remain free according to Epic Games president Mike Capps. The first of these updates was released over Xbox Live on January 9, 2007, with two new maps released the following day on January 10, 2007. The two maps reflected background scenes from the game's storyline, known as "Raven Down" and "Old Bones", which depict Gears fighting Locust amidst the crash site of a "King Raven" chopper and a museum. Another update was released for "Gears of War" on January 22, 2007, which, according to Epic Games' Marc Rein, is said to fix some compatibility issues with the release of "Gears of War" in Japan, and that no game play or functionality features were changed.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: On April 9, 2007, Epic Games released their third update, containing a new game mode titled "Annex", which requires teams to capture and hold certain areas of each map, as well as additional gameplay tweaks and fixing up some glitches, bugs and exploits. The update was free of charge.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: Epic Games initially said that four new maps would be released in conjunction with the third patch. However, due to disagreements between Microsoft and Epic Games, Epic decided instead to "put these maps on sale at a reasonable price then make them free a few months later," according to Mark Rein of Epic Games. The map pack, titled "Hidden Fronts", was released on Xbox Live Marketplace on May 3, 2007, and included the maps "Bullet Marsh", "Garden", "Process", and "Subway". Free downloads of these maps were made available on September 3, 2007, four months after their initial release.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: A fourth update on June 14, 2007 added 250 additional Achievement points (bringing the total possible achievement points to 1250), in eight Achievements related to Annex mode and the maps from "Hidden Fronts". Additionally, the update includes improvement of roadie run to keep the player from sticking to cover areas, and a patch to prevent the Annex clock from counting during connection errors. Other "housekeeping" issues were also addressed.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: Upon its release, "Gears of War" received universal acclaim from critics, maintaining an average review score of 93.97% at GameRankings and 94/100 at Metacritic. It was the second highest rated game of 2006 on both sites. Most reviewers praised the game for its concept visuals, presentation and sound. IGN's review of the game called it "the most gorgeous looking game on the Xbox 360" and that "the sound design is worthy of awards."


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: While the game received high praise, reviewers did point out that "Gears of War" did not offer anything significantly new in its core gameplay. Eurogamer's review of the game states: "let's not pretend that we're wallowing in the future of entertainment. What we have here is an extremely competent action game that's as polished and refined as it could be, and is therefore very enjoyable. But if Epic had applied the same widescreen scope and ambition to the gameplay as it did to the engine we'd be much more excited than we are." The game's story was noted for not being very deep, as GameSpot's review states "The lack of exposition feels like a missed opportunity to make the characters and the setting even more compelling."


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The PC release of the game received similar praise as the 360 version, with reviewers noting various differences between the two versions. IGN commented that "The mouse and keyboard allow for more precise control, and the graphics have been improved as well;" however, 1UP stated that "the control scheme's a very central obstacle" to the game. GameSpot noted that the additional chapter felt out of place as "it changes things up a bit in ways that betray the difficulty progression of the game." "Hyper"s Cam Shea commends the game for its "visual, solid gameplay, killer multiplayer and reload mechanics". However, he criticised it for "potential frustration, pointless squad commands and chainsaw mechanics".


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: The Lancer weapon was later featured in an "Electronic Gaming Monthly" article that discusses its practicality and historical precedents. Keirsey criticized this weapon by noting that in real life, "chainsaws are heavy." He noted that the closest historical precedents are "medieval bludgeoning weapons".


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: Leading up to the game's release, "Gears of War" was one of the most anticipated games of 2006. The game premiered during the 2005 E3 show, and won, among others, several "Best 360 Game" awards, including from IGN, 1UP, and GameSpy. The game continued to win several awards at following 2006 E3 show prior to the game's release. These included the Game Critics Awards for "Best Console Game" and "Best Action Game", IGN's "Best 360 Action Game", "Best 360 Multiplayer Game", and "Best Overall Multiplayer Experience", and GameSpy's "Best Console Multiplayer", "Best Action Game", and "Xbox 360 Game of Show".


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: Upon release, "Gears of War" received numerous awards from many publications. IGN named "Gears of War" as the "Xbox 360 Game of the Year" among other awards. GameSpot named the game its "Game of the Year" as well as "Best Xbox 360 Game", among other accolades. "Official Xbox Magazine" named "Gears of War" as their "Xbox 360 Game of the Year". G4 TV during the 2007 G-Phoria awards, named "Gears of War" its "Game of the Year" in addition to other awards.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: "Gears of War" won several awards at the 10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards) at the D.I.C.E. Summit, including "Overall Game of the Year", "Console Game of the Year", "Action/Adventure Game of the Year", and "Outstanding Achievements" in Animation, Art Direction, Visual Engineering, and Online Gameplay. The game received the awards of "Ultimate Game of the Year" and "Xbox Game of the Year" at the 2007 Golden Joystick Awards.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: In addition, the characters within the game received additional awards. GameSpot gave their 2006 "Best New Character(s)" award to the Delta Squad of "Gears of War". G4 TV named Marcus Fenix the "Best New Character" and gave Lester Speight's performance for "Augustus 'Cole Train' Cole" the award for "Best Voiceover". The game was given the Interactive Achievement Award for "Outstanding Character Performance – Male" for its voicework. The Berserkers were named as "Official Xbox Magazine"s "Enemy of the Year".


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: Guinness World Records awarded "Gears of War" with 5 world records in the "Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008". These records include, "First Console Game to Use the Unreal 3 Engine", "Fastest Selling Original Xbox 360 Game", and "First Music Single to Top the Chart After Promoting a Video Game" for the Gary Jules version of "Mad World", which was originally released in 2003, but topped the download charts in November 2006 after it was used as background music during the TV commercial for "Gears of War".


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: "Gears of War" was a hit upon its release. On November 7, 2006—the day that it was released—it became the most popular game on the Xbox Live service, until the release of "Halo 3", overtaking "Halo 2" which had held the spot since its launch in November 2004. "Gears" was the second most-played game on the Xbox Live service throughout 2007. "Gears of War" sold one million copies in its first two weeks on sale making it the fastest-selling Xbox 360 game to date. By January 19, 2007, just ten weeks after its debut, over three million units of the game had been sold. It received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom. As of November 7, 2008, the game has sold 5.88 million copies worldwide. "Gears of War" was also the first Xbox or Xbox 360 game to sell out and reach the top ten charts in Japan.


title: Gears of War (video game)

text: In March 2007, New Line Cinema bought the rights to make a film adaptation, with Stuart Beattie writing the script along with Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey. In June 2008, Len Wiseman was confirmed to direct before dropping out in 2010. On October 5, 2016, The Coalition, the franchise's current developer, announced that the film rights shifted to Universal Studios and a new film was in development, unrelated to the previous New Line Cinema project.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The Galactic Republic, often referred to as simply the Republic, is a fictional galactic polity depicted in the "Star Wars" universe, where it existed prior to the establishment of the Galactic Empire. The Republic is most prominently portrayed in the prequel trilogy of films in the "Star Wars" franchise. In the original trilogy, set later in time, it is referred to as the Old Republic.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The Republic is portrayed as a democratic republic that has sustained itself peacefully for over twenty-five thousand years, but was tied up in layers of bureaucracy. It was mainly overseen by the Senate, a body in the Legislative Branch of the Republic government. It was protected by the Jedi Order, the guardians of peace and justice throughout the Star Wars galaxy. After the end of the Galactic Empire, the New Republic was founded. It was enforced by the original Rebellion, eventually known as the New Republic Military. The consolidation of the New Republic is depicted in "The Mandalorian" as it sought to wipe out remnants of the Imperial forces, and was eventually destroyed by the First Order, under Supreme Leader Snoke's direction, in "".


title: Galactic Republic

text: All "Star Wars" chronology takes the destruction of the first Death Star during the Battle of Yavin, portrayed in the first film "Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope" (1977), as the basis of counting standard years. The conventional calendar era notation is "BBY" ("Before the Battle of Yavin") and "ABY" ("After the Battle of Yavin"). Alternatively, newer literature may use the notation "BSW4" ("Before Star Wars Episode 4") and "ASW4" ("After Star Wars Episode 4").


title: Galactic Republic

text: Little is said to be known of the earliest history of the Star Wars galaxy before the Republic, but several species that evolved in the Core Worlds, including humans, later came to dominate the galaxy. It is hypothesised that humans originally came from Coruscant, later settled other Core Worlds such as Alderaan, and went on to colonise other planets from there. Smith (1996) claimed that '[i]t is unknown whether hyperdrive was invented by the humans of the Core Worlds or introduced by alien traders from far off in the Unknown Regions', but there is agreement that the introduction of hyperspace travel predated the Republic, and allowed the formation of a 'galactic civilization' and central governments over multiple planetary systems, and thus the rise of the Republic.


title: Galactic Republic

text: According to the large body of films and other fiction that belong to the "Star Wars" franchise, the Old Republic was formed 25,000 years before the events of "Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope" (1977) when the first "Galactic Constitution" was signed on Coruscant, after hyperdrive connected many worlds in the Core and enabled the establishment of an interstellar central government. Coruscant became the capital planet of the Old Republic, the Galactic Empire, and the New Republic, and the entire surface evolved into one big city, with skyscrapers reaching more than 5,000 levels. The Republic was made up of several hundred thousands of worlds, and each planet or system had representation in the Republic Senate, which comprised most of the Republic Legislative Branch and the government itself. It started off merely as an economic and protective alliance, mainly among the Core worlds. It eventually expanded to the Colonies and other outlying worlds and regions, becoming a superpower rather than an alliance, and it became the central government for the galaxy. The Core Worlds such as Coruscant and Alderaan were notable for their prosperity, which was later matched by the Colonies, while the Inner Rim and Expansion Region were a bit less secure and wealthy; the Mid Rim was an unsafe region that saw much of the fighting Galactic Civil War on planets such as Naboo and Kashyyyk, as it was far from the Republic's military concentrated in the Core. The Outer Rim was the most unsafe place in the galaxy, where neither the Republic nor the Empire ever gained much "de facto" hold, leading to lawlessness, widespread violence and crime syndicates; many key battles of the Clone Wars took place here. A large part of the Outer Rim including Tatooine was traditionally ruled by the Hutts and therefore called the Hutt Space.


title: Galactic Republic

text: As the Republic expanded, it came into contact with the slave empire of Zygerria. Because slavery was disallowed in the Republic, it disliked the Zygerria Empire, as slavery was central to the Empire's political and economic system; conversely, the Empire refused to become part of the Republic. The Republic and Jedi declared war on the Empire and won. The Empire was reduced to a small harmless alliance on Zygerria.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The Sith (which formed in the Republic's early years) return to their original strength and invaded Malachor. The first Sith War began, which led to the demise of the first Republic. The power of the new Sith Empire increased as the Republic's decreased. The Republic and Jedi forces failed to keep the Empire's Forces out of Republic Space. Soon, the Sith became a second superpower. Around this time, an ancestor of Pre Vizsla stole the Darksaber from the Jedi Temple. Around 1000 years prior to "Star Wars", the Dark Age began and the Old Republic was brought to the brink of collapse, but with the Liberation of Coruscant, the Sith Empire collapsed first. After the Sith Empire was defeated in c. 1032 BBY, the Republic (now known as the Galactic Republic) reformed and became a democracy. It demilitarized at the Ruusan Reformation, shortly after the Seventh Battle of Ruusan.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The Republic began to diplomatically influence its neighboring worlds rather than conquering them by force. This meant the Republic expanded slowly. The Republic finally took control of the Mid Rim.


title: Galactic Republic

text: Power blocs formed out of the Republic, but the Jedi kept order. The Republic became peaceful but corrupt, and a Core-Rim distrust formed. After Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum came to power, a standoff between the Trade Federation and the Republic led to the Invasion of Naboo (32 BBY), depicted in "".


title: Galactic Republic

text: Several trade organizations represented in the Senate, such as the and Commerce Guild, kept armies of droids to protect their profits and occasionally took advantage of this, such as when the Trade Federation invaded and occupied Naboo. Individual sectors also maintained their own security forces, such as Naboo Security Force or the CorSec from Corellia, and these were sometimes used to combat small threats. However, there was no centralized and official military of the Republic. The Trade Federation and other cartels within the Republic desired that the Republic government lack significant central military power so that it could not enforce any legal regulations on their business.


title: Galactic Republic

text: Dissatisfied with several problems in the Republic, such as ineffectual government, heavy taxes, and perceived favoritism of the Core Worlds over the Outer Rim planets, the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS) was formed in 24 BBY: several systems seceded from the Republic and formed a new state, thus triggering the Separatist Crisis. The CIS was ostensibly headed by former Jedi Master Count Dooku (although Palpatine was actually in command of both sides), who gained much popularity amongst critics of the Republic after his scathing Raxus Address outlining the problems of the Republic, leading many systems to side with him and form the Confederacy. The Separatists became a huge threat to the Republic after some of the galaxy's megacorporations allied with the CIS, as they possessed vast resources and private armies of battle droids. A Military Creation Act was proposed in the Republic Senate, strongly opposed by many of the Republic's pacifist leaders, such as Padmé Amidala, the Queen of Naboo, who feared the possibility of war. But most of the Senate advocated a permanent, official, and central military to oppose the Separatist threat. Supporters of the Act include Orn Free Taa of Ryloth and Ask Aak of Malastare.


title: Galactic Republic

text: However, a Clone Army had already been created in secret on the planet Kamino on the edge of the galaxy ten years earlier, commissioned without authorization by Master Sifo-Dyas, a former Jedi perceiving chaos in the galaxy. When it became clear the Confederacy had no intention of negotiating, the Republic quickly accepted the Army made for them, and it was dubbed the Grand Army of the Republic.


title: Galactic Republic

text: Despite the high quality of its armaments and cloned troops, the Republic's war effort was initially hindered because most of the major industrial companies in the Galaxy had, under the aegis of the Techno Union, sided with the Confederacy. Eventually, though, the Republic became a humongous superpower not only economically but also militarily. The rapid militarization of the Republic during the Clone Wars, overseen by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, had far-reaching effects. The Confederacy won most battles in the first year of the Clone Wars. During the second and middle year of the Clone Wars however, the Republic defended itself from Confederate attacks and retaliated with its own assaults, many of which were successful. During the third and final year of the Clone Wars, the Republic won many offensive battles in the Mid Rim and pushed the Confederate forces back to the Outer Rim with its "Outer Rim Sieges" campaign.


title: Galactic Republic

text: During the Clone Wars, the Senate increasingly grants enormous amounts of power to Palpatine, who is the Commander-in-Chief. Such actions are justified in the name of security and are considered a perfectly reasonable way to increase the wartime government's efficiency. Eventually, Palpatine gains enough political power that he and his office are equal to the Senate.


title: Galactic Republic

text: Tension between Palpatine and the Jedi grow as the war progresses. Many members of the Jedi Council remain skeptical of Palpatine's growing power. In time, the Jedi believe that Palpatine will not surrender his emergency powers and his long overdue position by the end of the war. This suspicion is also shared by some senators, including Padmé Amidala of Naboo, Bail Organa of Alderaan, and Mon Mothma of Chandrila.


title: Galactic Republic

text: After the death of Separatist leaders Count Dooku, who was the Head of State, and General Grievous, who was the Commander of the Separatist Army, and the discovery that Palpatine is actually Darth Sidious, the Sith Lord behind the war, the Jedi activate their contingency plans.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The Sith are the ancient enemy of the Jedi and were thought to have been destroyed many years ago. A small group of experienced Jedi led by Mace Windu fail to arrest Palpatine for treason when Anakin Skywalker pledges himself to the dark side. Shortly afterwards, Palpatine secretly orders the clones to exterminate the Jedi Order. Because of control chips implanted inside the clones' heads, the clones are forced to slaughter the Jedi leaders in what would later become known as the Great Jedi Purge. The Jedi Padawans remaining on Coruscant are eliminated by Darth Vader, formerly known as Anakin Skywalker, and his personal legion. The clones, at the same time, start a war against the Confederacy and the droids.


title: Galactic Republic

text: Before the conclusion of the Clone Wars, Palpatine addressed the Senate. He related the story of an unsuccessful "assassination attempt" on his life by the Jedi. Claiming that it was a "rebellion" and that their next move would be to kill all the Senators, he declared the Jedi Order to be enemies of the Republic. Palpatine announced that the Galactic Republic should be reorganized into the Galactic Empire, and he should be the emperor for life. Deluded by Palpatine's charisma and skill (and perhaps also by his considerable dark side power), the majority of the Senate cheered him on loudly in approval. The official continuation of the Galactic Republic was the Galactic Empire, which was fueled by cruelty and fear.


title: Galactic Republic

text: As the Clone Wars entered their final year, Palpatine's once near-unanimous support had begun to falter. As depicted in the "" novelization and deleted scenes from the film itself, a bloc of senators began to emerge, even before the Clone Wars end, who opposed Palpatine's authoritarian rule and resented his treatment of the Jedi and other opponents. This bloc, originally led by influential politicians such as Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, and later by Bail's adopted daughter Princess Leia Organa, eventually became the political voice of the emerging Rebel Alliance.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The New Republic was a restoration of the Galactic Republic after Palpatine's Galactic Empire was crushed following Palpatine's death and the destruction of the second Death Star in the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY. After the fall of the Emperor, remnants of the Empire were ordered to initiate "Operation: Cinder", a contingency plan created by Palpatine to annihilate both its organization, its followers and its enemies as an act of punishment for failing to prevent his demise, including the planets they have controlled. The Rebels however prevented the Empire's self-destruction in the Battle of Jakku, finally ending Palpatine's reign over the galaxy. In 28 ABY, part of the New Republic, concerned about corruption emerging in the Senate and its unwillingness to see the First Order as a major threat, created the Resistance to fight the First Order. The New Republic is first portrayed onscreen in "" (2015), where it is depicted as the ruling government of the galaxy and primary target of the First Order, a neo-Imperialist military junta that sought to reclaim the Empire’s legacy. 30 years after the events portrayed in "Return of the Jedi" (1983), the New Republic effectively collapsed when the First Order's Starkiller Base destroyed Hosnian Prime and the New Republic fleet and Senate with its phantom energy beam. In "" (2019), after the Battle of Exegol, Rey, a reformed Ben Solo and the Resistance have successfully put a end of both the First Order, the Sith Eternal, and the resurrected Palpatine, making way for the Republic to be reborn anew.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The successor government to the Empire was explored as early as Marvel Comics' self-titled "Star Wars" series, which ran until 1986. The New Republic "per se" debuted in the 1991 "Star Wars Legends" novel, "Heir to the Empire", by author Timothy Zahn.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The Republic begins as a mutual protection and economic alliance among a number of planets in the Core. Each member world or system chooses a Senator to represent them in the Galactic Senate, the main body of the legislative branch of the government. Senators are ambassadors of their homeworlds or systems. Member worlds and systems maintain their governments and societies as long as it does not defy any central and core Republican laws. There are a wide variety of different local governments along the political spectrum: from monarchies to republics to hive-like communes.


title: Galactic Republic

text: When the Republic's power and influence expand, many new areas of the galaxy are incorporated into the Republic. The Core and Colonies are the base of the Galactic Republic. A reorganization of senatorial representation occurs 1,000 years prior to "Star Wars" during the Ruusan Reformation. The most common organization for these new territories is to group regions into Sectors of about 50 inhabited worlds. Each sector is represented by a Senatorial Delegation. When the number of sectors becomes too large, sectors are organized into roughly a thousand regions, each represented by one delegation to the Senate.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The Senate serves as the unicameral main body of the legislative branch, but has immense power over the entire Galactic Republic. The capital of the Republic, which contains the most political power and wealth, is Coruscant.


title: Galactic Republic

text: Inside the Senate Building, there is an area in which the Senate debates, casts votes, and makes or passes bills. It contains 1,024 floating platforms, each of which contain a senator and his or her aides. Each platform in the senate represents a "sector" of the galaxy. A few platforms represent individual worlds of high importance, or worlds bringing special pleas to the Senate. Some represent special interest groups such as the Trade Federation, and other companies, corporations, and industries. Each senatorial delegation has one vote.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The members of the Senate elect a Supreme Chancellor from among their ranks who serves as the Senate's presiding officer and as the Republic's de facto leader. The Chancellor is assisted by the Vice Chair, who is presumably elected in the same manner as the Chancellor; the same Vice Chair is present throughout the entire prequel trilogy. The Senate follows pseudo-parliamentary rules. Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum was forced out of office by the Senate in a motion of no confidence, introduced by Queen Padmé Amidala of Naboo, for example.


title: Galactic Republic

text: Senators receive one vote in all matters, procedural and substantive. The Chancellor is elected from within the Senate for a set term. The Senate gives the Chancellor emergency powers in times of crisis and removes him from office when necessary. The assembly is in turn divided into individual committees, each specializing in specific fields of government administration, and which were responsible for creating legislation to be reviewed by the full assembly. The Senate has some form of judicial power as well, although the Republic has a judicial branch, in which the Supreme Court was the main body.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The main functions of the Senate are to mediate disputes between members, provide for the common defense, create and pass laws into effect that would benefit most of the Republic, and regulate inter-system trade. The Jedi Order, although technically not officially part of the Republic, are considered the defenders of the general Republic. The Republic often orders the Jedi to specific areas that require assistance. In this way, they are eventually the unofficial police force of the Republic. They become representatives of the Senate as well, to some extent.


title: Galactic Republic

text: Despite the seemingly organized structure of the Republic, the waning years of the Republic are a time of corruption and great social injustice. The Senate becomes divided between those who genuinely wish to uphold the values and ideals of the Republic and those who wish to further their own goals. Following a series of weak and ineffectual Chancellors, there is a crisis involving the invasion of Naboo by the Trade Federation over a tariff passed by the Senate.


title: Galactic Republic

text: After Senator Palpatine of Naboo becomes Chancellor, he increases the power of the office, from acting as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, or the Republic Military, to the institution of his personal bodyguard organization, the Red Guard. The Office of the Supreme Chancellor is given power equaling that of the Senate. The Galactic Senate also meets less often, as the Chancellor is voted more emergency powers to act on his own during the time of crisis.


title: Galactic Republic

text: Eventually, many Outer Rim planets and companies leave the Republic due to the amount of corruption and unfair treatment to Outer Rim worlds. Together, they form a rebellion known as the Confederacy of Independent Systems, almost exclusively referred to in the films as the Separatists. Some large industrial companies, including the Trade Federation, side with the Separatists, providing them with their military and its resources.


title: Galactic Republic

text: Politicians include Senators, the Supreme Chancellor, the Vice Chair of the Senate, the Administrative Aide, various Representatives from systems, and to an unofficial extent, the members of the Jedi Council. Jedi Council members hold special status as they appear to have the ability to watch Senate meetings and advise such Senators on various matters. The Jedi order protects these people.


title: Galactic Republic

text: While the Republic had an Army and Navy for thousands of years, after the Rusaan Reformations, the Republic does not maintain a military except for a small force known as the Judicial Forces.


title: Galactic Republic

text: The Jedi with the most authority served on the Jedi High Council, among whom Yoda and Mace Windu act as leaders at the height of the Republic. Although the Senate holds some degree of political authority over the Jedi, very little pressure was ever put on the Council before Palpatine took office and demanded that Anakin Skywalker become a member of the Council in "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith", despite the misgivings of the Jedi. While the Council allowed Anakin to sit among them, they did not grant him the status of Jedi Master.