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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
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.
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.
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
slow-paced
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I loved Dark Empire as a kid, and read it so often that the pages began to fall out. The story doesn't really stand the test of time, but it's still an interesting piece of Expanded Universe lore. The art...is pretty bad. The weird use of color often makes one face indistinguishable from another. The poor art continues into Dark Empire II, which is definitely the worst story of the trilogy. It is boring and repetitive, and has Force users popping up everywhere. Empire's End feels rushed, but it's a decent end to the trilogy. Overall, the collection was dangerously close to a 2-star rating, but for nostalgia's sake, I'm bumping it up to 3 stars.
This was a pretty cool STAR WARS story. I've learned to avoid being concerned by the continuity issues that are omnipresent in the universe, so I was able to appreciate the idea that Darth Vader would build a giant Sith castle on a remote Dark Side world just because it's awesome.
The artwork and its pseudo-monochromatic stylings were kind of interesting, as well. I liked the way that the color shading on the panels made it always seem like dawn or dusk, which added a kind of urgency to the story that words couldn't. The fact that the lightsabers were all blue or white irked me though, in the same way that the movies couldn't line up the right sound with the right color lightsaber. Nitpicking.
In the end, as EPISODE VII approaches, it'll be interesting to see exactly how much of the STAR WARS EU gets kicked in lieu of new film-canon. There's a lot here that will probably get ousted, but DARK EMPIRE is still a cool way to extend the Rebel-Empire conflict, and to imagine how it might have continued.
The artwork and its pseudo-monochromatic stylings were kind of interesting, as well. I liked the way that the color shading on the panels made it always seem like dawn or dusk, which added a kind of urgency to the story that words couldn't. The fact that the lightsabers were all blue or white irked me though, in the same way that the movies couldn't line up the right sound with the right color lightsaber. Nitpicking.
In the end, as EPISODE VII approaches, it'll be interesting to see exactly how much of the STAR WARS EU gets kicked in lieu of new film-canon. There's a lot here that will probably get ousted, but DARK EMPIRE is still a cool way to extend the Rebel-Empire conflict, and to imagine how it might have continued.