Reviews Books The JC Lit Reviews Special: THE FORCE UNLEASHED II (Spoilers)

Average score: 137.55/22 = 6.25

 

To be fair, this is a significant improvement over Williams's original TFU novelization, which was a third-rate transcript of the gameplay. Williams steps it up here, cutting the novelized-gameplay sequences and adding actual value by fleshing out the bare-bones story. The additional stuff is the best part, addressing the early struggles of the Rebel Alliance as its leadership struggles to get on the same page about tactics and strategy. That's fascinating material, and some of it is done very well, capturing a very cool, unique early-Rebellion tone. But Williams isn't really the author for that storyline; he doesn't do the material justice, reducing the debate too awkwardly to "Mon Mothma doesn't want to do things and everyone else does," and his plotting for his all-new Juno sections is weak. The Dac mission is, in addition to stupid (Bail Organa and a random captain decide that they're going to free Dac all on their own by joining up with half a dozen locals and blowing up a fighter wing? How is this logical? How does this reflect reality? It appears absurdly easy throughout this novel for worlds to just throw off Imperial rule at will), completely incomprehensible. They're on a half-assed mission and then they're caught by Tarkin out nowhere and then the guy who was a traitor turns out to be a traitor but then there's a distraction and the traitor un-traits and Tarkin and the stormtroopers run away because apparently soldiers with advanced technology and leaders with the ability to call of more than a handful of stormtroopers just abandon their captives at the first sign of any kind of trouble but wait PROXY was Tarkin running away except Tarkin was really there apparently so where did he go and what was gained by having the stormtroopers run away in a different direction than Tarkin was running away and Ackbar decides that the traitor who un-traited only because Tarkin traited him back is now a trustworthy companion but nobody even comments on his traiting what the hell is even happening.

So basically, even in the original stuff, Williams writes down to the stupidity of Blackman's game plot. And boy, is the game plot stupid. Starkiller's clone who maybe is him metaphysically but nobody's interested in taking an actual position or even floating a single idea about how the concept might be explained escapes from Kamino, and wanders around looking for Juno because he's in love an insane obsessive (they're the same thing in this book . . . see the next paragraph), and eventually stumbles on her and there's action no one cares about and then they attack Kamino instantly because, and they destroy Vader's Starkiller-clone factory and capture Vader which was we hope part of Vader's genius secret plan to lose an insanely valuable asset in which he had invested countless amounts of time and money so that he could get carted into a Rebel base and lightsaber it to death. It certainly has the fiendish, complex, all-controlling evil mastery you expect from Vader . . . it just doesn't have the sinister genius you'd like to see.

And it's not just the stupid, boring plot that refuses to do anything meaningful with its central identity issue -- just mope on about it a bunch. It's the characters that are a problem, too. Williams writes his central lovers, StarkillerclonewhoisStarkilleranywaymaybewe'reassumingbutdon'treallyknowandevenhedoesn'thinksoeventhoughheactslikeitalot and Juno, as completely and totally obsessive. Starkiller at least has the excuse that he's potentially actually insane, explaining his absurd level of fixation on Juno, to the point that he acts like nothing matters to him in the world but getting to Juno as instantly as possible and then staying in her physical presence for as long as possible, preferably eternity, so that the purity of their one-kiss "love" shall remain forever. It's hard to read the clone as anything other than completely insane. But Juno is an actual person who's supposed to be sane. Yet, a full year after his death, she's still obsessively in "love" with the guy she flew around for a few months before he kissed her once and then kicked the bucket, to the point where she can't stop thinking about him moment to moment and literally states that she will never love anyone else ever again because this guy she kissed once was so perfect. She obsesses over how if he were just there, every problem the Rebellion has would be solved instantly. It's utterly pathetic. And Kota, who has turned into just some a-hole who's perpetually furious and bloody-minded but apparently is still a Jedi because this book has no idea whatsoever what the light side actually means (apparently it's just fighting Vader. Throw all the Force-lightning around you can and obsess about revenge as much as you want; as long as you're fighting Vader, you're a swell human being on the side of justice), is fixated on how Starkiller will solve all their problems, too. The whole book is basically a masturbatory ode to how perfect and crucial to the Rebellion and amazing Starkiller is (and how perfect and eternal his one-kiss children's-storybook love with Juno is), despite the actual Starkillercloneguyperson cutting such an incredibly unimpressive figure.

There are some really cool ideas here about the early Rebellion and Vader's mastermind status, and it is an improvement from the first, and there are some passages that are good -- but for the most part, it's just another really stupid, boring, badly-written book (it really is badly written -- multiple times I noticed Williams using completely the wrong word instead of the one he meant). It earns a few points but generally it's just bad. 4/10

 

Average score: 141.55/23 = 6.15

 

2 of 10 and those 2 points only because there was one very epic Garm Bel Iblis scene and the utter insanity of the Imperial Baron (though he is actually more fun in the game)

 

Average score: 143.55/24 = 5.98

 

The parts about the early days of the Rebel Alliance and it's struggle to find an identity are great topics... that were handled at best in a mediocre manner. On the face of it, there were a lot of little interesting nuggets that Williams touched on:

• Tensions between Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis
• The critical role that Bail Organa played in the Rebellion (plus a foreshadowing of what his death would do to the upper command of the Alliance)
• The planned but vacant role of Supreme Commander for the embryonic Alliance Navy, which nicely foreshadowed Ackbar's eventual selection
• The rarity of true combat capital ships in the Alliance, specifically the new MC80 Solidarity being extremely rare at this point (note to self, the vessel is an excellent candidate for one of the seven confirmed Home One-type cruisers)
• Mon Mothma's efforts to convince the Calamarian Council to join the Rebellion
• The notion of quasi-affiliated planetary militias like Rahm Kota's being somewhat of a thorn in the High Command's side
• Reference to the rarely seen Corellian Resistance, plus introducing a Rodian Commodore that was part of it

The problem, as you point out, is that this was the wrong book and potentially the wrong author to tell this story. The 2 BBY - 0 ABY period of the Alliance is really neat and truly deserves some focus. Hell, a trilogy of books that starts 5 BBY and ends prior to ANH that details the founding of the Rebellion and it's early struggles would be awesome. Alas, the odds of this are probably slim to none.

--Adm. Nick

 

In a way, we sort of did get this with Crispin's Han Solo trilogy.

Empire completely blew their chance, though.