Michael Kirkbride

Michael Kirkbride is a concept artist, writer, and game designer credited as "Special Thanks" in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. He was part of the design team that came up with the game's plot. Along with Kurt Kuhlmann, Steve Gilbert, and Ken Rolston, he also wrote the fan screenplay for a twelve-episode Star Wars series titled Star Wars: Rebellion in 1999. The series was set shortly after the events of the prequel trilogy and centered around the formation of the Rebel Alliance. The script was publicly released on on March 4th of 2014 as a tribute to Kirkbride's friend and fellow Star Wars writer Aaron Allston, who had passed away only a few days prior.

His contributions were writing lines for Darth Vader and coming up with the idea that he was the unknowing catalyst for what would become the Rebellion, with irony his plan would prove to be his final undoing. He also made sure that Galen Marek died as defeating the Emperor and redeeming Vader was the work of a new hope, an innocent.

Text and facts from the “Michael Kirkbride” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.