Lit The 181st Imperial Discussion Group: Dark Empire!

I can easily believe Luke as the last of the Jedi feeling that it's his burden to deal with Palpatine himself, and trying to protect Leia by not allowing her to get involved. After all, it is what he did on Endor, and Leia's welfare being threatened by Vader is what set Luke off.

Edit: I'm just going to say, to each their own. I can certainly understand why people dislike Dark Empire. I think Palpatine is definitely a dealbreaker for some people and that's understandable. But I think Luke's arc is a believable continuation from the films.

 

I haven't got much time right now, so just one thought (more later): Luke doesn't fall completely in DE, Palpatine is still in the process of seducing him; Luke would still have his "murdering Padawans" and "losing limbs" moments. If he hadn't been saved by the power of love - a power Anakin's "family" only used once he lay burning in a river of lava. Obi-Wan and Yoda didn't really try to keep Anakin around with love, because that's not really a Jedi Order thing. But Luke brought Anakin back through unconditional love. And Leia did the same for Luke here while Palpatine wasn't yet finished with corrupting Luke. Luke didn't "pretend" or "not really fall because mad clone not Emperor duh". He simply got out in time. Just like LOTF had Jacen being the parallel Palpatine, mowed down in time. As I said, more later.

 

I still like the idea that DE proposes, which we've now seen in the PT too, that the key to turning a Jedi to the dark side lies in isolating them - despite using a massive amount of dark side coercion on Luke, it still counts for next to sweet frack all as soon as Leia boards Eclipse, as soon as that happens Luke's aware of her as a strand he can perhaps grasp onto to get himself out of the abyss his soul's ensnared in. If he wasn't, they'd have duelled without hesitancy on his part instead it plays out differently, much to Sidious' rage.

And no, I don't see Luke falling in DE, because it is SW' rendition of the descend to hell story, the point is the hero walks into and out of hell, not gives in and stays in hell. In this respect DE is akin to the superhero story that has a villain wielding satanic cosmic powers that will destroy the universe, but gets stopped by the heroes. Then people complain the marketing made it seem like the universe would be destroyed, but it wasn't - so that's a cheating tease! Yup, DE's marketing is: Luke Skywalker has turned to the Dark Side! DUH-DUH-cue Imperial March.... But it's a massive tease, yet one loads of people have fallen for.

 

First of all, DE starts during the fallout of a big battle, which is awesome. We truly did miss an Episode before it. It's akin to HTTE starting with the Bilbringi battle. The last time we saw Lando, he was leading the rebel starfighter squadrons into the Death Star. If the next thing we saw of him was commanding a capital republic starship. There's a bit of thinking involved (otherwise, he would have had him sitting next to Nien Nunb in some fighting freighter). Also, if you're truly saying commanding a fleet is for those who have "no real role", I'm counting down to AdmiralNick22 hyperjumping into this thread. But honestly, Lando had no real role in ROTJ and did fine in that one anyway, didn't he.

[best Alec Guiness imitation]You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

Well, that's probably it. I love both HTTE and DE, while seeing a lot of flaws in both. But hey, this is Star Wars - I don't like it because it's perfect, but because my brain got primed on it by my older brothers' toys. But I think HTTE has a good approach for a novel building onto the SW movies, and DE has a good approach to just pull out the stops and get yourself steamrolled by SW action. And strangeness, thanks to Cam Kennedy's great art.[/quote]

 

@GGrey1

I have arrived.



In defense of Dark Empire and fleet commanders, my forces stand ready.

--Adm. Nick

 

In a bit of a divergence from Dark Empire proper, I think the Dark Empire Handbook that DH put out in 2000 was one of the first works to combine stuff from TPM in with the Bantam-era EU (by having the Duros Sector on Nar Shaddaa be built by the Trade Federation, and linking the Neimoidians to the Duros) as well as one of (maybe the?) first SW works that Jan Duursema illustrated.

 

I actually enjoyed the zaniness and OTT plots of Dark Empire, but I simply cannot condone that artwork...

 

Other than him feeling responsible for Han's incarceration or wanting to get back at the Empire for closing down Bespin? There is more than enough explainable motivation there for him to have the role he did in ROTJ.

What I'm questioning is him having that exact same motivation for a decade. Of course we don't know thats what was intended because Dark Empire doesn't tell us, Lando is just there, period.

Oh and Lando was basically commanding the fleet at Endor. He gets the fleet to hang around when the shield isn't down, he again gets the fleet to stay when the Death Star opens fire by telling Ackbar to engage the fleet of Star Destroyers. He offers up as much strategy, if not more than Ackbar does. It took next to no thinking to put him in command.

 

She did Marvel, actually. But the DEHB came out the same year she started working on Republic and doing other DH work.

Grey: Yeah, Luke's motivation for having a bunch of throne room scenes with Palpatine is slightly different, and Darth Vader isn't there and Leia ends up there instead. But it's a bit ridiculous to define the bar as "exactly the same as ROTJ." Yeah, Veitch didn't make a shot-for-shot remake of ROTJ. Duh. But he did grab all the beats and just slap a different coat of paint on them. Luke battles a new darksider for his soul? No, too original. Luke battles the Emperor for his soul. Again. Yeah, his reason for being there is slightly different because there's a limit to how blatantly you can just do the same thing over again, but it's still the same thing (and I have a hard time giving Veitch too much credit for creativity there when he creates a legitimately intriguing premise in Luke's desire to understand his father's experience, and then just does absolutely nothing with it. He just leaves it there, like "Luke is curious" is all the exploration that concept can sustain. Veitch is kind of terrible at actually following up on the premises he creates and getting anything out of them). Just like KJA's endless superweapons. Is the Sun Crusher a triumph of originality because it's tiny and blows up stars instead of planets? Or is it a boring, uncreative attempt to simply rip off the films' playbook with a slightly different presentation of the same fundamental idea? Can you call the Darksaber a new idea with a straight face?

I mean, "Luke is lured into the Emperor's clutches because he wants to redeem his father," and "Luke is lured into the Emperor's clutches because he wants to understand his father" are concepts with a little space between them but not a great deal, the concept isn't executed with any of the depth you want to give it credit for, and even if "Luke on the inside" is an interesting twist on the formula, why isn't it surrounded by any original ideas? Why is it still surrounded by Wedge and Lando fighting a superweapon and Han getting chased by Boba Fett because Hutts? Why did this guy just repeat his own plot points for two sequels if he's so much more creative than I'm accusing him of being? The simple fact is that Veitch was not blazing his own trail here. He was pulling in an incredibly simplistic way directly from the films' playbook, and while he inadvertently put an interesting twist on an element or two, his work is not meaningfully original. It makes KJA look like L. Neil Smith.

I have no problem if someone wants to say, "I enjoyed DE because of the art and the cool ideas buried within it, whether it was original or not." But I just don't get this urge to nitpick the difference between the Death Star and the World Devastators to say that it isn't a hopelessly imitative work.

 

I kept thinking how Luke knows crazy when he meets C'baoth, yet somehow thinks hanging out with Palpatine is a phenomenal idea. Different writers, different paths, but still... I can't help but wonder what Veitch and Zahn thought about eachother's takes on the "Luke apprentices to megalomaniac" concept, since they were privy to outlines as both were written together.

 

Luke is motivated in the plot by more than one thing. Understanding his father is his personal motive, but his arc also included overcoming his tendency to shoulder the burden of the Jedi by himself, and he does that in this story by trying to conquer the dark side from within, both metaphysically and practically -- looking for a means to permanently kill Palpatine and acquiring the command codes for the Imperial fleet and putting them in Artoo.

 

See, if he hadn't done this and there'd been a long, gruelling struggle to destroy the Devastators, then assault Byss and take out the Galaxy Gun and then Sidious, then it's guaranteed some smartarse character, probably Mara Jade or Leia, would have then quipped all it could have been avoided if Luke had infiltrated Byss by pretending to turn to the dark side and isn't a bastard for not being willing to risk it!

 

It is treated as a mistake afterward, but if Luke didn't do it they really would be clueless about what was going on. Luke didn't even know Palpatine was back until he was standing in front of him and at that point his options are limited. The NR didn't know who was leading the Empire from the deep core or even where Byss was, though it is possible that some of Han's allies could have clued them in. But so much of the essential intelligence came from Luke and they were fighting blind before that. And Palpatine likely never would have died.

 

Which irks as deeming it mistake infers there were other, better options but none are easily apparent.

 

That's like saying to win the War on Drugs, we must take military-grade heroin. After Vader and his own struggles, Luke should know the Dark Side is not a toy. I don't know any options, but its Star Wars, and there's usually another plot device five feet away that doesn't involve selling your soul. Quinlan Vos's arc was similiar, but worked because A) He was a trained Jedi Master so its a logical assumption he could handle himself and B) He had no idea what he was getting into with Dooku. Luke knows exactly what Palpatine is capable of, and knows he is simply not equipped. And yet he goes through with it.

Again, I enjoyed this series, and Sith Luke is a neat concept, just have iisues with the execution.

 

Quin and Luke have more in common than you're allowing for - Quin's quest was driven by his outrage at over 200 Jedi being killed at Geonosis and more dying every day in the Clone Wars, Luke's was due to the fleet of World Devastators annihilating Mon Calamari. Saying there should have been another way ignores that there wasn't. As to not being equipped, that didn't stop him facing Vader and winning so being outgunned by Sidious isn't going to stop Luke taking him on.

 

Well, yes, SW is a story about a few against overwhelming forces, and admittedly, Veitch was working without a safety net, so I can't really blame him for choosing the interesting over the logical.

 

Logical as a term suggests an alternative option, what was it? Save for changing the story structure and conditions.

 

How did Luke use the dark side like a toy? Why are we talking about an abstraction as though it isn't? What did Luke do? Kill a bunch of kids? Blow up a planet?

I'm confused by people acting like Luke did something wrong in those comics.

 

This is an edited post that I also made on another website:

Love Dark Empire I & II. I'm a first generation SW fan (was a kid when the OOT films came out). So, I was in college when DE I was released, after a long hiatus of years with no new SW material. I remember getting DE I #1 in very early 1992 and being amazed. Really liked the plot, the superb water-color like artwork, etc. It was tough waiting two months between issues, and with no Internet at the time, we didn't know anything about the comics prior to their release.

I liked the literal & figurative darkness in the story, and also enjoyed the return of Boba Fett, which I felt was almost a continuation to Marvel SW #81 (when he escaped from the Sarlaac Pit the first time). Also liked the Emperor's non-human guards in DE I, which I later realized were concept drawings of the Royal Guards from ROTJ (based on the artwork in the Art of Return of the Jedi book from 1983).

As has been said, DE I & Tim Zahn's Heir to the Empire book series were what brought Star Wars back to the public eye in the early '90's.

(Did not really like the 2-part Empire's End, thought I would have if Cam Kennedy had come back to draw this - I thought the art here was off, and wasn't really feeling this...)

To answer one of the questions in the OP, I have 0 interest in seeing a novelization of DE. The story was designed as an illustrated comic, and IMHO the excellent & moody water-color artwork is just as important to the story as the writing.

 

Because unlike the Knights of old, Jedi Luke Skywalker...
You are not afraid of the dark.

 

How do people think Dark Empire would have worked if it was set a year or a few years after Return of the Jedi, as was originally intended? From an interview with Zahn in SWAS #1:

Q: Was it difficult to work with a well-known universe which was already created by George Lucas, Brian Daley's Han Solo books, West End Games, the syndicated comic strips and others?

A: Not really. I did have some complaints with what had been done by other people. I had some problems with the Dark Horse Comics series, and persuaded them to let me not have to reference anything there.



Dark Empire was originally supposed to be set somewhere between Return of the Jedi and Heir to the Empire, and as we see was moved, apparently at Zahn's request. I'd always heard one year after Endor, though this ad for a Marvel published version from 1990 suggests it could be a few years after though the language is ambiguous. Curious that it was originally only three issues and it seems to more or less spoil both Fett and Palps in the ad.

I always thought that Luke's prowess in the book might be a bit unbelievable only a year after Return of the Jedi, though knowing what we know now about him being the son of the Chosen One this exponential increase in power would probably be more believable. The plot itself does seem designed to be something set before the Thrawn trilogy because Luke, Lando, and Wedge were trying to liberate Coruscant from the Empire since it had been retaken -- presumably they were trying to liberate it for the first time originally. Palpatine sitting on his hands for several years also makes less sense than him coming back relatively quickly, but I guess the DESB handwaved that and I suppose with the prequels taken into account he was going back to what made him successful originally and playing puppet master.

I think the story could work being set six months to a year after Shadows of Mindor.

 

I understand your take on this, but as much as TTT is memorable for being a bit different and ESB being one of the best sequel movies ever made because it dared to be different, SW is about recurring themes. ROTJ ending up with "Death Star II" is the most obvious one, but there's also stuff like Vader way too obviously surviving ANH to come back in the sequel. The prequels show the Fett family and look into Kashyykk and Chewie's past. You might find most of these instances ill-conceived and yes, ESB was better than ROTJ because it didn't rely on a recognizeable action cue - but even then Luke is dueling Vader, which is what Ben did in the first one. Beyond that, you have lots of visual cues that form connections but are ultimately repitition. But let's just agree to disagree on this one, even though I think that calling this "creative bankruptcy" when there's an obvious element of personal preference involved is a bit harsh.

But what do you think, if the reborn Emperor - and the return of Boba Fett - had occured later on in the EU, would that have been more acceptable because it wouldn't have been an idea for the definitive continuation to the movie trilogy?

I think it's always good to remind everyone that the EU's mega cool continuity was already victim to personal preference, comfortable ignoring of other works, and authors having "problems" with other sources in its very beginning.

I wouldn't really see Luke's progress out of the ordinary; these stories move at the pace of plot, and so does the development. Maybe he was too strong, but maybe he was too strong for the level of power shown in the movies anyway. And if not, once he's a fully tested Jedi, why not have him grow in power? Seeing how quickly he moves through his training in the movies, being Jedi is more of a mindset anyway - both the basic ethics and the general mode of perception (the latter allowing you to do "the impossible"). As for all the other stuff - I'm still not convinced I'd really accept the story as much if it weren't for the relatively big gap between ROTJ and this. Palpatine returning after a certain amount of time - regrouping, scheming, but most of all recovering, because his death at Anakin Skywalker's hands wasn't a small deal (but maybe his first actual death) - allows the original story to have more weight. Fett being undercover for six years is pretty strange, though, but thinking about it, I can reconcile it with young Boba not running around in Mandalorian armour immediately after his father's death or in the formative years of his career.

 

Grey1 Is the Death Star 2 meant to be a reccurring theme or merely Lucas running out of ideas
As for Fett, inserting him into the prequels seemed, again less about Theme but to quote Robot Chicken "Thats what happens when you sell the most action figures"

While the Zahn quote is nothing new, he's well known for ignoring or retconing anything he didn't like. (He's even called other authors liars for gods sake) including DE. Though I agree it's good in this case.

The thing is with Luke turning to the Dark Side or pretending too, seems to completely negate his journey in RTJ. Everything from him dressing in black to his mechanical hand, where all meant to show him on his Fathers road but then him turning round and saying no. Luke chucking away his Lightsaber was argubly more powerful than him beating the bad guy and DE trying to semi-recreate it, will not work.

As for greatest sequel ever. Yes I think ESB might be. As a film it had everything. The only other film that could be compared would have to be Godfather pt2.

 

Almost losing to some previously unknown Star Destroyer commander who deduces his battle plans from paintings might also be seen as negating the decisive victory the rebel alliance had on Endor, and the metaphysical culmination that was a part of that struggle. Why would defeating the Emperor have been an important event if the Empire continues to exist, has again and again the opportunity to be a big problem for the republic, and apparently does well under other people's command? And on the other hand, if it weren't a big problem, how boring would the EU be?

See, the thing with all of this is not that I love DE or that I think it's the best or only way to continue the movie saga. I simply don't see the problem in one work reusing elements and themes. The heroes get reused, too - how much of a bankrupt cash-in is that? They should have invented new characters all the time, like Ulic et al in TOTJ, because Luke's story was told, his struggle was finished. Reusing stuff from ROTJ isn't necessarily showing that you don't have ideas - it's showing that you acknowledge that you're writing a follow-up to a certain story, and that you acknowledge that there are themes and characters in place that you can find interesting ideas for. As much as Fett is a joke these days thanks to Mandalorian Revisionism, it was nice for me and for a lot of people to still have him around. Roughly two decades before Robot Chicken made the joke you cite, people loved seeing him.

And was Lucas out of ideas when he wrote ROTJ? Maybe. Still, he creatively milks this cash-in for all it's worth - the Death Star itself isn't the problem since it's not operational, it's more of a trap for the Emperor. Only that it's a trap the other way round, too. It's more menacing than ever before since it's got that skeleton look. And the climax isn't another trench run but a pretty exciting cave flight showing different designs leading up all the way to the core. It's also clear that while ANH made this into a tense "slay the dragon" or whatever mythical moment, this here is something else. The mythical stuff happens in the throne room, this Death Star is destroyed in a b-plot to show how the rebellion has a mixed bag of underdogs (are A- and B-Wings also sellout cash-in material?) working as a team, including that one traitor guy who we can be glad they picked up along the way. It's the same thing, yes, but it's used in a totally different way. An attack on the Imperial center (Coruscant, or Has Abaddon's lava throne room from back then) would have been an even better way to round out the saga, especially with the prequels now around, to show that the Empire truly loses; but this way, it's a nice callback to the big setpiece and central story element that dominated the first movie of the trilogy.

Bottom line, I loved ROTJ for decades before the internet told me that it's probably rubbish. And as soon as EU tries something that's not close enough to what's in the movies (most likely "no Empire! no star destroyers! no stormtroopers!"), it gets shot down, too, because you can't be too creative in this franchise. I actually wonder why DE is creating such huge reactions and seriously consider to put The New Rebellion on the schedule pretty soon.

By the way, using existing characters has the advantage of avoiding creating your own personal pet character that defines the story. I don't think Veitch's Emperor in itself is as controversial as Zahn's whitewashing of Thrawn.