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Topic:
What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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Ulicus
Registered:
Jul '05
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Date Posted:
6/19 6:47pm
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
- Date Edited:
6/19 6:51pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Ulicus
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Adam_Bosman posted:
Dark Nest makes a disclaimer (don't remember which book or page), that the clone emperor was merely a shell of the true Palpatine...not the true Palpatine. A shadow is how I like to think of him. We know the clones were sabotaged, and the reborn Emperor was probably significantly weaker than the real Emperor.
It was Betrayal, IIRC, and what Lumiya said was absolute nonsense.
"The Clone Emperor" was THE Emperor in a Clone Body. That seems to have escaped LFL as of late. It wasn't the Emperor's memories and skills that were "downloaded", it was the Emperor himself. His Immortal spirit.
The "clone" was a vessel for the One True Emperor.
Now, certainly, I'm of the mind that he wasn't as powerful as he had been prior to his death... but to say he's not the "true Palpatine" is absolute poppycock. In the actual material itself there is no room for debate.
None.
_Catherine_ posted:
I can't decide how I feel about this part of the story. There's not really any reason for him to lie to Luke about having died before, and some parts of canon (that one Missions book and I think one of Abel's articles... The Emperor's Pawns?) actually work better if that is the case... but a small part of me still wants his first death to have been at Vader's hands on the Death Star.
I guess it could go either way and I wouldn't be particularly bothered.
I absolutely agree that there's no reason for Palpatine to lie to Luke there. IMO, RotJ was not the first time the Emperor's body had died... but it was the first time he had been killed/destroyed.
I imagine that was a somewhat different experience, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it cost him a fair amount of power.
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rumsmuggler
Registered:
Aug '00
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Date Posted:
6/19 7:04pm
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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Adam_Bosman posted:
Also, Luke did not turn to the dark side, and was well aware of what was going on. He chose to learn the dark side to defeat Palpatine, and realized by the end that the method wouldn't work.
Nope. Luke was in too deep and didn't realize that he slipped and fell. Leia was the one who made Luke realize how far gone he was and pulled him back to the light.
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ChildOfWinds
Registered:
Apr '01
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Date Posted:
6/19 8:04pm
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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rumsmuggler
Leia was the one who made Luke realize how far gone he was and pulled him back to the light.
All Leia seemed to do was tell Luke that she had foreseen that he would train her children and then Luke regained his his hope and confidence that he could defeat the Emperor, and then he was fine and he and Leia defeated Palpatine with Light.
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rumsmuggler
Registered:
Aug '00
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Date Posted:
6/19 8:07pm
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
- Date Edited:
6/19 8:11pm (2 edits total)
Edited By:
rumsmuggler
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Whatever she did or didn't do, it did the trick.  Luke came back to the good side and they worked Palps over.
I haven't read DE in a while but I got my point across.
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ChildOfWinds
Registered:
Apr '01
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Date Posted:
6/19 8:13pm
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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rumsmuggler
Whatever she did or didn't do, it did the trick. Luke came back to the good side and they worked Palps over.
Well, I don't think Luke ever really left the "good side", but I agree with everything else. 
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rumsmuggler
Registered:
Aug '00
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Date Posted:
6/19 8:19pm
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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ChildOfWinds posted:
rumsmuggler
Whatever she did or didn't do, it did the trick. Luke came back to the good side and they worked Palps over.
Well, I don't think Luke ever really left the "good side", but I agree with everything else.
You are more than welcome to think what you want. The way I see it, he was still good, but was pretty much surrounded by the dark side and couldn't or didn't realize it.
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blackmyron
Registered:
Oct '05
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Date Posted:
6/19 8:55pm
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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The Emperor's spirit was possessing a series of clone bodies; putting aside the fact (which is never really gotten into) that he's repeatedly killing himself to inhabit these bodies, I think it's clear that this isn't like a "transference" from one living body to the next - Vader clearly killed him by throwing him down the shaft, and his Force ghost is limply trying to hang on to existence. Empire's End alludes to this by basically saying that he can only really "live" again by entering the body of a newborn with Force sensitivity - otherwise, why not just keep hopping from person to person?
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SuperWatto
Registered:
Sep '00
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Date Posted:
6/20 6:20am
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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Ulicus posted:
How so? The main point is that Vader turned good at the end. The Emperor returning to life doesn't change that.
Vader sacrificed his life to overthrow the Emperor. If the Emperor comes back cackling a coupla years later, I'd call that sacrifice largely in vain; prophecy or no prophecy...
rumsmuggler posted:
Folks trying to downplay Dark Empire annoy me sometimes
Oh, come on man. I mostly like the comic. But we don't have to all enjoy the same aspects of everything evenly, do we?
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rumsmuggler
Registered:
Aug '00
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Date Posted:
6/20 6:33am
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
- Date Edited:
6/20 6:39am (2 edits total)
Edited By:
rumsmuggler
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SuperWatto posted:
rumsmuggler posted:
Folks trying to downplay Dark Empire annoy me sometimes
Oh, come on man. I mostly like the comic. But we don't have to all enjoy the same aspects of everything evenly, do we?
My comment wasn't directed to you or to anyone in particular. I do find it kinda funny that you sorta hopped to the defensive though.
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W.W.L.D. What Would Lando Do
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Retcons = making the dumb stuff look even dumber.
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Ulicus
Registered:
Jul '05
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Date Posted:
6/20 6:35am
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
- Date Edited:
6/20 6:36am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Ulicus
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SuperWatto posted:
Ulicus posted:
How so? The main point is that Vader turned good at the end. The Emperor returning to life doesn't change that.
Vader sacrificed his life to overthrow the Emperor. If the Emperor comes back cackling a coupla years later, I'd call that sacrifice largely in vain; prophecy or no prophecy...
That was one aspect. You declared the "whole Vader arc rather pointless". He turned good and saved his son and, I suppose, the Rebel Alliance too. All of that stands even with Palpatine's return.
Does Palpatine's return detract from Vader's sacrifice? Yes, it does. It doesn't, however, even begin to make it "pointless".
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SuperWatto
Registered:
Sep '00
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Date Posted:
6/20 8:54am
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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Okay. I took a ride, turned it over and over in my head... And I cannot but give you that one. You're right. It wasn't completely pointless.
I'm really trying very hard to remember exactly what I thought when I first read DE. I'm-a-flow-walking!
1. Finally! New Star Wars comics!
2. Finally! New Star Wars comics!!
3. Finally! New Star Wars comics!!!
4. The Empire's back? (I hadn't read no TTT yet)
5. Wait a minute... What about the Marvels?
6. Cool droids.
7. Tense battle. I think I like the fact that the Empire's back and that the Tofs seem to have been an illusion. It may hamper the victory feeling of ROTJ, but the fact that we can look forward to more empire makes up for it.
(Note that last line; it's a stayer)
8. More cool droids.
9. The likeliness of the characters is still as bas as with the Marvels. Where's Al Williamson when you need him?
10. The Emperor? He's back, himself? Waaaaait a minute. That's too easy. And also... then what did we watch that trilogy for?
11. His likeliness is good, though. And his lines are so him.
12. Is that a Hoojib there at Pinnacle Base?
... and so on.
Point of the story: I guess it wasn't down to Vader at all. It was the basic fact that the Emperor was back - which, to me, felt like an easy way to get people engaged in the story, and it diminished the victorious end to the saga we knew.
Since then, the Empire's kept returning. 
I've gotten used to it - "it may hamper the victory feeling of ROTJ, but the fact that we can look forward to more empire makes up for it".
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Jedi Ben
Registered:
Jul '99
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Date Posted:
6/20 3:38pm
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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SuperWatto posted:
Nonetheless, Ben, it rendered the whole Vader arc rather pointless.
That whole prophecy stuff might give this sentiment a focal point, but the sentiment sure existed before the prequels.
That may well be so, but I want a better standard of argument than 'it ignores an idea introduced in a film that came out 9 years after it was written'. I have a similar response to the criticism that Zahn got the Clone Wars wrong - duh! He was writing in 1991-1992! Surely we can do better in terms of critique?
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SuperWatto
Registered:
Sep '00
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Date Posted:
6/20 4:37pm
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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Indeed, look above. 
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Dawud786
Registered:
Dec '06
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Date Posted:
6/21 1:34pm
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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Jedi Ben posted:
SuperWatto posted:
Nonetheless, Ben, it rendered the whole Vader arc rather pointless.
That whole prophecy stuff might give this sentiment a focal point, but the sentiment sure existed before the prequels.
That may well be so, but I want a better standard of argument than 'it ignores an idea introduced in a film that came out 9 years after it was written'. I have a similar response to the criticism that Zahn got the Clone Wars wrong - duh! He was writing in 1991-1992! Surely we can do better in terms of critique?
You know... I'm not sure that Anakin Skywalker killing Palpatine on the DSII and thus shifting the Force back into balance(or at least really dramtically getting the ball running to the point of inevitability) can be rendered "pointless" or even "lessened" by the re-emergence of Palpatine 6 years later in a clone body. He was mostly on the losing end this time around versus the entire film saga where he's winning the whole time until ROTJ really. He had minor victories. Won some battles, but lost the war.
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Sinrebirth
Title: Hierarch and Chancellor of EUCity
Registered:
Nov '04
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Date Posted:
6/21 1:47pm
Subject:
RE: What are your thoughts on Dark Empire?
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Arguably, no. The Empire held a quarter of the Galaxy before the Emperor became a pushing force in the galaxy. By his final death, they conquered more than half of it, and even then, after Byss and Onderon, the Empire held a third of the galaxy. But that's not the point - such military and logical points can be countered by the Empire not having hardly any Star Destroyers left (probably less than 500), or the NR being severely reduced, etc, etc, etc.
The Chosen One was the only thing which could counter the Ultimate Sith.
Without Anakin Skywalker, Darth Sidious would have come about and crushed all democracy. It's that simple. Without Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi would never have had Luke and Leia to save the Galaxy from Sidious Reborn. Without Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi would never have had the opportunity to learn from a thousand years of arrogance. Without Anakin Skywalker, the New Jedi Order would never have had the foresight to prepare a Hidden Jedi Temple and survive the One Sith.
Because they would never have survived Darth Sidious.
Yoda, the culmination of the Jedi Order after a millennium, lost. Darth Sidious, the culmination of the Sith Order after a millennium, won. Was there another Jedi in the galaxy - or even on the horizon - who could have made a difference to that?
Darth Sidious survived death.
And was beaten by Anakin Skywalker's children.
The Sith survived Endor.
And have been soundly beaten by Luke, Leia and Jaina.
The Sith may last forever.
But they will never get as close as they did under Sidious.
The Jedi will always win, and by various margins, yes, but the One Sith are never going to be as dangerous as Sidious. Their means for taking over the galaxy were incredibly unsubtle - they conquered it. Sidious was given it.
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