Reviews

Star Wars: Dark Empire Trilogy by Tom Veitch, Cam Kennedy, Todd Klein

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skyladoragono's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Dark Empire has been one of my favorite Star Wars stories, though now it's starting to show its age. It's extremely cheesy and undoes the good, happy ending of the original trilogy. The second part is worse, forcing pointless relationships for the sake of man pain. The third is blissfully short, wrapping up everything in a neat, if ham fisted, little bow.

The audio drama is worth listening to the most. The voice cast is very good, and even has Billy Dee Williams in the first part.

ghostmeat47's review against another edition

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1.0

Not great!

librarimans's review against another edition

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3.0

Dark Empire I is very good, the rest, not so much...

sharki1998's review against another edition

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1.0

This was really bad. It's grossly overwritten with description in almost every panel instead of letting the visuals tell the story. The plot is dopey, even for a Star Wars movie and the art is weird and ugly. Don't bother.

hstapp's review against another edition

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3.0

The Legendary Dark Empire trilogy. I've been wanting to read this graphic novel for around 12 years now. This was a very influential piece. Most Star Wars Novels written after this series reference the events of this book in some way. It has interesting sets of events, but the story moves along rather fast over a considerable period of time. It is hard to orient yourself on the time frame, and events seem a bit hollow. I enjoy the artwork, it has a kind of water color effect with many panels being in shades of a single color. with white and black. This effect does mean that images are not as crisp as we would like sometimes. Details on equipment being hard to make out at times. The character likenesses are also not very accurate. Luke looks very little like himself. The elder Palpatine resembles himself fat more, but the younger Palpatine resembles him not at all. Over all I get the feeling this could make an excellent novel if it were to be rewritten that way, but the pace of the story is just to rapid, and contains to few details of what is happening outside the main story line.

marpesea's review against another edition

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1.0

This was not for me. Someone looking for a continuation of the beloved films might enjoy it more.

Aside from one or two bright points (Han in the last few pages, the occasionally gorgeous page, and Vima), this was a slog.

Luke's stilted romance ends quickly (she's fridged) and it serves no real purpose. Towards the end Leia- one of four trained Jedi IN THE UNIVERSE- winds up pushed aside to care for the babies (Luke: don't help-- you have to watch/protect your babies! Han: I get this "battle meditation" stuff is cool, but the spaceship is about to land. You should probably mind the kids.) The only busty character (drawn in a flowing dress ) is the one person fooled by Emperor Palpatine-- she leads him right to the Jedi babies.

The art is occasionally gorgeous- watercolor planets and looming, evil spaceships, but at other times it is line drawings on top of puce (seriously, everyone and everything is vomit-colored), or striped gray and red clouds (clouds don't work that way-- it is distracting).

Nobody dies. Palpatine comes back and then isn't dead, again. Boba Fett is resurrected nearly as often. The original characters are far more interesting, but feature far less frequently.

Overall, it was derivative and uninspired.