 (Click to Enlarge) | Star Wars Dark EmpireAuthors: John Cygan, Tom Veitch, Ann Patricio, Joe HackerFeatures: Abridged Average Customer Rating: 3.58/5.00 Amazon Sales Rank: 202,772 Audio Cassette Release Date: August, 1997 Manufacturer: HighBridge Company View on Amazon (ISBN: 1565112008) Number of Audio Cassettes: 2 Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours List Price: $16.95, Amazon Price: $11.87 |
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Amazon Customer Reviews of this item: (Average Rating is 3.58/5.00)
Rating: 2 [ Premise Sounds Good, But Actual Book Falls Short ]The premise of this trade paperback sounds pretty decent: the Emperor is reborn and Luke Skywalker dabbles with the dark side. Being an avid Star Wars book reader, I figured I had to read this for continuity's sake. Besides, who could miss seeing Luke fall to the dark side, right? Believe me, you could miss this and not feel a bit disappointed!Coruscant has been retaken by the Empire, lead by the Emperor Reborn - or should I say the Emperor Cloned. That's right, fans, the Emperor's body was the only thing that died in the second Death Star. He found a way to transfer his spiritual self into clones of his former self. Knowing that the dark side was ravaging his present body, the Emperor took it upon himself to be cloned several times over to further his existence. Luke Skywalker stumbles upon the Emperor Reborn and, seeking to know all there is to know about the Force, becomes his apprentice. He tells his sister not to worry - he'll learn about the dark side from within, but he'll never fall to it. Wrong! It's up to Leia to help bring him back.
Sounds cool, huh? Well, the idea of Luke being naive enough to think that he can learn about the dark side by being the Emperor's apprentice is pretty silly, considering how many times he was warned about the dark side by Yoda and Ben. Also, the artwork is absolutely horrible! The main characters are barely recognizable. And Leia, pregnant in this trade paperback with her future son, Anakin, looks particularly bad. I found the story to be flat and boring. The only thing that could have saved this for me was the artwork and that was also disappointing. If you don't feel an absolute need to read this trade paperback, don't bother!
Rating: 5 [ Just to clarify... ]
Ok, first off, I really enjoyed this book. I've been searching for the Dark Empire series for awhile now and I can't believe I finally found it.Some people may not like this book, seeing as how I've already seen people saying that Anakin is the chosen one and it's stupid how after all he did Palpatine can just come back. Well, what you may not be aware of is that Luke is the chosen one, not Anakin. Luke is the one that destroyed the Daeth Star, redeemed his father from the Dark side, and reestablished the Jedi Order, and ultimately brought balance to the Force.
Anyway, the book has a great plot, great description, and it's awesome to see how Luke develops/ I personally loved it. If you're Star Wars fan and you're looking for some new material, Dark Empire is worth it.
Rating: 5 [ Hold the phone! Let's look at the facts here! ]
Ok, this isn't a review of Dark Empire, but rather a counterpoint to the people who are blasting a very good peice of Star Wars expanded literature. Quite frankly, the Dark Empire trilogy is not the shipwreck that many people are making it out to be. Ok, the "Galaxy Gun" wasn't a very good name for a superweapon (cannon would have been better), but for the sake of Starwars fans everywhere, I'll just deal with the two biggest problems people seem to be having, the return of the Emperor and Luke's supposed switch to the Darkside. Considering you scrolled down this far, you already know the basic plot.Yes, Vader's killing of Palpatine was a great ending to Lucas' saga. But the idea in Dark Empire is Palpatine and his empire were an evil so great that no one person could destroy them. It took Vader and his children, Luke and Leia, to finally put an end to Palpatine reign. Eventhough Han, in typical fashion, blows away the emperor's last (weak and genetically unstable) clone in Empire's End, it was stated that by Palpatine's doctor that he would die forever very soon unless he found a jedi to posses after his defeat and loss of aceptable clones in Dark Empire and Dark Empire II. So technically, it was Luke and Leia who "defeated" Palpatine. Luke also does the impossible by defeating the Emperor himself in physical combat (Which I felt was lacking even in the movie trilogy), something no jedi had ever done, and destroyed Palpatines best clones (with a little help from a revolting warrior or two). All these grafical novels do is expand the confict with Palpatine from Vader, down to the next generation, Luke and Leia, which is quite appropreate if one is familer with the Star Wars universe.
There is also a crystal clear explanation which is stated several times why Luke "turned" to the darkside. It was stated that Luke was trying to learn all of Palpatines dark secrets and then use them to destroy him and his empire once and for all. Come on! If Luke really turned to the darkside immediately why would he give the New Republic the codes to beat the invincible world devastators? Later on though, Luke does go too far into the darkside and Leia has to save him, like Luke did with Vader. Luke also did it to understand his father better, he needed to know why his father became Darth Vader. There's also a dozen pages in the back of Dark Empire which runs through the whole plot again! For crying out loud! Did these critics even read the book! Anyway, don't be put off by a few naysayers, the Dark Empire trilogy is better than bad, its great!