#tr legend

🎀Goth lace Lara🎀 (loose hair)

This was one of my favourite features TR Legend brought! Same goes for the Biker, Snowsuit and Winter no coat 💅

MY COMMISSIONS INFO

A look at some of the concepts and proposed locations that didn't make it into the finished version of Tomb Raider: Legend.

It is directly false that Toby Gard left Core Design because of the marketing of the character, and when he stated it was because of it during Legend times, he was utterly lying. As we know per ex-Core Design’s members statements like Richard Morton, the reason Toby Gard left Core Design was because he had plans to expand his career by working for other studios and he wanted to grab the chance, which the rest of Core members respected despite asking him not to leave the studio. 

The sexualization marketing had NOTHING to do with this and it’s an utter lie Core Design had anything to do with it, as it’s proven by the statements of several ex-Core members during the years and information you can find picked up, contrasted and collected in Serel’s book. It was Eidos the ones marketing Lara as a sexy icon, not Core, as it’s proven by several statements against it coming from the level designers which even designed the last cutscene of Tomb Raider II, in Home Sweet Home, to remind the player “you’ve seen enough” and has no right to look through Lara’s bathing robe.

Another proof of Toby Gard not caring at all about the sexualization of his character was that in his sketches of Lara - or even when she still was Laura Cruz - depicts obviously a sexualized character with big breasts and partially revealing clothing, as it was typical in the 90s:

Then, as you say, he came back with Legend, and he had no qualms in lying about the reasons with which he left Core Design, a place were he was given plenty of creativity freedom and the team stuck with him when refusing Lara’s nude patch. 

He says it’s about the sexualization of the character and then goes with working on a game, Legend, in which Lara gets sorts of bikinis to be used as outfits, uses a more than revealing night dress in the Tokyo sequences that ends up ragged until uncovering her panties, and has also some curious renders like this one

(there’s a version without the torn cloth, revealing all her back) which hardly has anything to do with characterization and the inside game’s plot. But surely, Core Design had to be shot dead for some TR3 marketing renders EIDOS made - not them! - and of course no one blinked an eye - Gard and the fandom included - when these things were showed in Legend and even were encouraged and praised because it was “fun” and “badass”. A typical Hollywood-esque cliché and attitude, as you well say.

It is unfair and upsetting to find still so many lies and misinformation about the origins of the era. I remember Toby Gard being praised like a god when he returned in 2006, but turns out his contribution to the game was far less determinant and impressive than it was back in 1996, and after this he just vanishes into thin air and never goes back again. Well.

Yes, he’s a textbook hypocrite and a liar, and I don’t get why he had to damage the team with which he worked by saying lies and slanders about the reasons why he left Core Design. We must insist that it was Eidos, not Core, who was in charge of the marketing campaign. And that seeing what was done later with Legend, the TR3 sexy renders fall flat and unimportant since they had nothing to do with what you could find IN the game. While in Legend, you get to use bikinis, rags and behold Lara’s deep cleavage, almost totally exposed tits and exposed panties. But yeah, let’s burn Core at the stake for no goddamm reason.

In any case, after the scarce sympathy I had for Gard left vanished long ago, it’s important to remark it makes no sense to worship him like a god, since yeah, he created Lara, he worked at TR1, and later, at Legend. But that’s all. What about the rest of the saga we love and cherish? He wasn’t the one behind ALL of it, right?

I’ve answered before when being asked about my opinion on LAU’s trilogy - I just can’t find the ask now, but it should show up eventually in the “my answers” tag - and why Legend is the one I most dislike from that trilogy; in fact, I’d say it’s the TR I most dislike ever. I don’t see the resemblance with TR1; if at all, Crystal was trying to go for TR1 resonances when making Anniversary… which they upright stole from Core Design’s, btw. But Legend? I can’t really see the similarity at all.

Just to summarize what I’ve said before, in other asks, for me Legend is an abomination and so it’s their Lara’s portrayal - which is not Lara but actually LAUra to me, they are different characters. But I guess you don’t want to hear again about changed bio, canon divergences, mommy issues and so. You ask me about the rest. Will try to syntethize it.

Even if I forget LAUra is just raiding tombs to find her disappeared mother and has deep family issues, a big amnesia concerning everything that has happened to her before - since she’s been rewritten, revamped, rebooted and erased of all her character arc in Core’s era - I still think Crystal did a very poor job with her portrayal. Crystal Dynamics’ version of Lara is James Bond-esque. She looks and acts more like a secret agent or an action soldier than a tomb raider, or a pseudo-archaeologist, which was her real nature.

She has forgotten her politeness and delicacy to act towards her enemies with rudeness and passive-aggressiveness, justified with her damaged soul because she lost her mom and needs to find her. Her lines and dialogues are very cliché, she just throws narcissistic and pre-cooked sentences that sound very inflated (”every breath of yours is gonna be a gift from me”, “repeat that thing again when you were begging for your life”. “this is a tomb I’m gonna make them feel at home”) that are good for a bombastic Hollywood blockbuster but don’t portray the real spirit of Lara, who talked little but very effectively. LAUra is all jabbing and jabbing. She just says things to see the effect they cause, but are void of any meaning.

Furthermore, LAUra has no moral guidelines. She uses the artefacts she finds as weapons against her enemies, something that Classic Lara would have never done. She’s just focused on the goal, which is to find her mother, and releases very dangerous powers on her enemies just to crush them if it suits her. Classic Lara never used an artefact in this sense. In fact, all the Tomb Raider arc was based in taking ancient artefacts to be stored away from power hungry and genocidal sociopaths because they’re too dangerous to be handled. LAUra uses the Excalibur sword mercilessly against soldiers only armed with mere firearms, not on equal footing. And does it again in Underworld when assessing herself the right to handle Thor’s belt, gloves and hammer. Which is directly immoral and a barrier Classic Lara never dared to cross.

When Crystal Dynamics portrayed LAUra in the LAU trilogy they were only wanting to appeal to the crowd fans’ mass who only had a superficial grasp of the character, and contented themselves with viewing a supposed Tomb Raider who in fact managed herself more than a villain, or a James Bond, and of course based more their work in the movies than in the classic games.

The movies should not be considered canon since the directors never played a real Tomb Raider and only elaborated about the idea they had of Lara. Same with the comic series artists and writers. And to these people who never bothered to play a real Tomb Raider, turned Crystal Dynamics to when elaborating LAUra and LAU trilogy. Of course, they had never cared for Core Design’s canon in the first place, so why bother to do so.

There you’ll have EXPLOSIONS!!!! And DEEP CLEAVAGES!!! AND LOUIS VUITTON PANTIEES!!! And very very snarky PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE REMARKS no one asked for because YOU ROCK!!! And interminable BATTLES with lots of ENEMIES and eternal BOSS FIGHTS with talking bosses and inconsistent difficulty!!! AND A VERY EPIC SOUNDTRACK WITHOUT LARA’S THEME!!!! And now rescue your POC DAMSEL IN DISTRESS because you’re the hero and must save HERRR!! And KILL ALL THE GUYS!!! And now use the EXCALIBURRRRRR BECAUSE THEY STAND BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR MOMMA!!!! And now threaten your old friend but now villain enemy who doesn’t give a shit about your personal goals BECAUSE SHE HAS TO PAY!!! SOMEONE HAS TO PAY!!! MY MOTHER DISAPPEARED YOU OBVIOUSLY STOLE HER!!!! I’m gonna shoot and yell and threaten and go berserker in a mindless rampage because you want to know WHERE!!! IS!!! YOUR!!! MOTHEEEEEEEEERRRR!!!

But in the meantime you also need a high-tech specialist to guide you through the adventure and he’s constantly telling you what to do because you will get lost surely and a PhD lecturer to teach you about History and Archeology because you aparently have no idea about it. Welp.

Oh yes, she still wears pants and top, she still has dual pistols, she still uses medipacks, and vehicles, and raids tombs, sorta, because the puzzles are an insult to intelligence. Does that make her Lara again? For me it doesn’t. Lara Croft went of adventures because it was fun and had a very strict moral code about it. LAUra probably would have stabbed herself with the Dagger of Xian and become THE DRAGON!!!! And then DRACARYS!!!! Or use the meteorite artefacts to mutate herself and become A POWERFUL ABHORRENT BADASS MUTANT!!! Or stick Amulet of Horus in Seth’s face BECAUSE I AM GONNA BATTLE YOU ANYWAY AND KEEP THIS SHIT BECAUSE MINE!!! And of course, accept Karel’s offer in TRAOD as long as he can bring your Mom back.

I am sorry but context is everything. If Lara Croft is just a girl with shorts and tank and dual pistols, then anyone can do Lara Croft. The thing is that she was something else. And for that, I have not the least sympathy for this Hollywood-esque, James Bond female agent who is all the time looking too cool and too angry to mind anything but find the absent mother.