The Official The Force Unleashed (Novel & Graphic Novel) Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Plus the Dark Side ending did a great job of making that "Sith Stalker" design go from "Badass!" to "Oh my god that's horrific...."

He ends up even more inhuman than Vader ever was.

BTW: When it comes to "Vader Beater" characters...I'm only counting one. He's had a couple close calls, but few, if any, actual defeats. It's hardly the epidemic that some people seem to be claiming it is.

 

True, true.

You're right. It's better to say... "people who do better against Vader than they should".

To be honest, I think one of the biggest reasons Vader gets a raw deal is because he's a cyborg and folks are addicted to "battle damage". When people want to create opponents for Vader, they should - for the most part - do it the way Perry did in SotE.

Vader being "defeated" isn't an epidemic... but the "wussification" was, at least in the pre-Coruscant Nights days, definitely on the rise.

As a side note: I REALLY want some Post-Dark Side ending campaign missions on DLC.

Chaos, I'd like them to slap "Infinities" across TFU II and make that the game.

 

Did anyone else feel that the conflict between Vader and Starkiller was eclipsed by the one between Starkiller and the Emperor? I'm not referring to just "their battles." But in the end, (especially if you read the comic) it seems like Palpatine was identified to be the true source of Starkiller's woes and the one whom he hated the most. Even more than the psuedo-father figure who betrayed him multiple times.

 

I sort of felt that too.

I'm still a unsure how we are meant to interpret the final revelations. Did Palpatine know about Starkiller from day one on Kashyyyk, and the whole thing was a lie? Or did Vader just change his plans after Palpatine found out and made him "kill" him?

I still prefer the idea Palpatine didn't know, or at least Vader didn't know Palpatine knew, since I'd rather have genuinely witnessed the largely unexplored dynamic of Vader-as-Master. The way I ended up taking Starkiller's line, was that even though Vader had kept him hidden, Vader was still doing it because of Palpatine, he still fell to the dark side because of what Vader was doing because of his desire to kill Palpatine.

Palpatine, in that sense, was the force of evil that made caused Starkiller's life to be one of suffering, whereas Vader still had good in him, so was not the ultimate source of his pain. If Palpatine was not there, Vader would not be Vader, Vader would not have needed to seduce Starkiller to help kill Palpatine, and so on.

At least, I prefer to see it that way, than to think the whole Vader-"killing"-Starkiller scene was faked, as it waters down the emotion behind those scenes far too much otherwise.

 

I haven?t read any other post about the book (staying away from spoilers) but I just wanted to say I really enjoyed the book. I really like how the rebellion was born and how they got the rebellion symbol. I know the book is based a game where in theory the force has been ?unleashed? but I didn?t like how Starkiller/Galan was portrayed as one of the most powerful force users ever while the Jedi and Vader seem to have more normal force traits. Didn?t seem very fair

I wonder if we?ll see Maris Brood, Juno or Kota ever again?

 

Count on seeing all of them in TFU 2.

 

They should just bite the bullet and make TFU2 the long-awaited, often-rumored but never realized "Vader Game" and let Vader kill all of the above over the course of said game. Then you could have a character swap with the "Sith Stalker" and basically be playing the same game Uli described.

Sadly, they'll never manage to pull off something quite so awesome.

 

Why must you come up with something that awesome?

 

I played the dark side ending recently. Palpatine just friggin' dropping the Rogue Shadow on Starkiller is all manner of twisted. There's this brief moment when it arrives of "Oh, he's saved", and then Palpatine rips it out of the sky and kills Juno in the same blow as wrecking Starkiller. It's totally messed up, and totally awesome.

And then he just rubs the salt in the wound. So very Palpatine.

 

I am really anticipating the game and the book sounds sweet! Can't wait for it!!!

 

I thought the Dark Side ending was really creepy. When I first saw the Sith Stalker armor, I thought "totally badass!!" but after watching the ending cinematic, it just puts chills down my spine. And yeah I agree Lord Hydronium, hurling the Rogue Shadow at Starkiller was definitely very twisted. I love how Starkiller is the only one who survives in the DS ending, whereas in the LS ending he is the only one who dies.

And that line by Palpatine at the end was just chilling:

"You had such promise. You might have been my successor, my equal. But now...but I may still have some small use for you. I still have enemies to find and destroy. You will do my bidding until I find a new apprentice. And then, like Vader, you will be cast aside.

Finish him. [screams of agony]"

 

What does the ROTJ novel say about it?

 

Luke wins legit and Vader is utterly outclassed to the point of humiliation, IIRC.

 

I checked the book, and it does describe Luke bludgeoning Vader into submission, but Kahn's narrator is mostly with Luke during that part of the duel and it doesn't comment one way or the other on Vader's intentions or his comparative skill, so I'm fine with it. I think the most relevant part is:

And that's basically true.

On a TFU note, what the hell is the deal with the Shadow Guards? Couldn't we have just fought Sovereign Protectors?

It was like they were trying to "unleash" everything we saw in the movies. Remember Jabba's rancor? Well the Rancor Unleashed is BLUE and has SIXTEEN-FOOT SPIKES GROWING OUT OF ITS FACE! Did you think the Sarlacc was big? The Sarlacc Unleashed is so damn huge you don't even realize you're standing on a living creature until you check the mission objectives to see what the hell you're supposed to be doing and they tell you to rescue Bail Organa from a Sarlacc's stomach! WTK LOL! Remember how the Emperor's Royal Guard stood around and did nothing in the movies? Well in this game you get to fight the EMPEROR'S SHADOW GUARD, who are like the Royal Guard except they use LIGHTSABER STAFFS instead of metal sticks and the colors of their armor and visor are switched! And if you thought the AT-STs in Return of the Jedi were bad news, just wait until you see the AT-ST UNLEASHED, which is a normal AT-ST with TEN THOUSAND GUNS ATTACHED TO ITS HEAD! waheeee~!

 

Whatever did we do before you got here?

TC

 

And that line by Palpatine at the end was just chilling:

"You had such promise. You might have been my successor, my equal. But now...but I may still have some small use for you. I still have enemies to find and destroy. You will do my bidding until I find a new apprentice. And then, like Vader, you will be cast aside.

Finish him. [screams of agony]"[/quote]

Just a thought - Starkiller could have been Palpatines equal, Anakin could have been more powerful.

 

Well, we knew that already from ROTS.

"Lord Vader will become more powerful than either of us!"

That said, I take "You could have been my equal" with a grain of salt. Personally, I felt Palps was just mocking Starkiller and rubbing his failure in. Its possible he may well have been able to become his equal, but I tend to feel Palpatine himself never really believed it.

I've always figured once Palps had the Chosen One locked away in a cage that he stopped believing anyone could stop him. "Your overconfidence is your weakness" and all that. "I am the God of the Dark Side! Fear me!"

Yeah, I always figured from the film that Luke whooped Vader's ass--no reason why not, he's got Anakin's full potential, without any of the suit drawbacks (be they only psychological or not). As soon as Vader mentioned Leia, wham, Luke goes nuts. I never had any problem with him flat out beating Vader without Vader needing a "holding back" handicap or whatever.

 

Starkiller was more than likely more powerfull than Palpatine. We see that he's more powerful than his father at infancy, and that means he can only get more powerful. Also in the novel Starkiller feels the force flow through him like never before after Vader rescues him.

 

of course Luke beat him fair and square. Didn't you hear the battle hymn music? you don't get music like that for a rigged battle.

 

The official databank says otherwise.

 

So why doesn't Anakin demolish Dooku in AotC? It's exactly the same thing going on there, and Skywalker Snr. has had a far greater amount of training than RotJ Luke at that point. Thematically, that duel parallels the ESB one - granted - but as far as the mechanics of the universe are concerned, if Angry!Luke can defeat Darth Vader, Angry!Anakin should defeat Dooku.

Luke defeating Vader-on-his-game makes perfect sense when you take the OT standalone, but once you plug in the PT, there are too many questions raised. I find it easier to go with the explanation: "Luke wins because Vader cannot bring the full force of his powers against his son". Whether it's becuase he doesn't want to, or is simply incapable of drawing upon the dark side as well as normally, doesn't really matter.

@ Catherine, my main concern with the novel was the stuff about Vader feeling humilation and anger earlier on in the duel becuase Luke was kicking his arse so badly. Or something. As you say, the quoted part doesn't really matter because we don't see what's going on in Vader's mind... but earlier? It's annoying.

I don't think the novel takes the conflict raging within Vader into account. The film hammers it home constantly.

Of course, since Obi-Wan is explicitly referred to as the brother of Owen Lars in the RotJ novel, it doesn't count.

 

Personally, I just figure that the Shadow Guard eventually became the Sovereign Protectors anyhow. Even if I kinda like the "rumored" origin for the Shadow Guard (brainwashed and "broken" Jedi).

Truth be told, between that rumored origin for the Shadow Guard, The Empirical and the Dark Side ending, what I -really- liked were the subtle (and not-so-subtle) hints that Vader and Palpatine were playing around with a lot more Sith Alchemy type stuff than has previously been seen outside of (sort of) Dark Empire.

This game's gonna have all kinds of good stuff for National Retcon Week.

 

Well, I got the TFU CG yesterday, and its confirmed that the Royal Guard, Sovereign Protectors, and Shadow Guard are three separate things which all exist at the same time.

However, after reading the descriptions and thinking about it, I'm not that bothered. Sure, it still doesn't answer "Why haven't we seen them before?" but I figure that's the same as anything--why did we never see Acclamators before, why did we never see AT-TEs before, etc.

Now, if the Shadow Guard were an elite branch of the Royal Guard, then we'd have a problem: but fortunately they are not. According to the CG, they are a totally different thing: they just happen to wear similar armour. They aren't senior to the Sovereign Protectors, or anything like that, instead they seem to be agents sent off on missions. That sounds distinctly different to the Royal Guard/Sovereign Protectors who are guards.

The RG and SP protect people. The SG appear to be assassins--more like Emperor's Hands. When you think about it, TFU even supports this in having Palpatine and Vader still just have red guards following them around--if they really had wanted to make Shadow Guards the new uber unleashed members of the Royal Guard, they'd probably have had them guarding Palpatine on the Death Star. But no, he had his usual red guards; all we saw the SGs do was hunt Starkiller.

My personal wish, is that the only reason they are similar is because the Shadow Guards are trained on Yinchorr along with the Royal Guards and Sovereign Protectors (this is fanon, just to be clear). Maybe the Shadow Guards are the rejects? The green dude who Vader kicked down the hole in Crimson Empire: maybe it isn't a hole, maybe they get carted off to a secret facility and turned into mindless servants?

Anyway, that's just my idea. Why waste well trained Royal Guards when you can just rebuild them a la Vader and send them out to kill stuff for you? I think it'd be absolutely karked up if after getting stabbed through the midsection, that dude Kir Kanos fought in front of Palpatine was wheeled off to the medical wing and rebuilt a la the dark side ending into a mindless killing machine to do his bidding.

The Royal Guard and Sovereign Protector descriptions just tell us what we already know: the RG are guards and the SP the best of the best of the RG, with some Force training thrown in.

 

Well, there's also the distinct possibility that there weren't many Shadow Guards to begin with, and Starkiller killed them all in the course of his adventure.

 

considering there are MILLIONs of SW planets, the argument "Why havent we seen them before" has never bothered me about anything much. I mean, stink, the only movie Imp capital ships we see are ISDs and Executor (and maybe Tector????), yet the EU shows the Imp Fleet with dozens of designs.