MY RATING:

In case you've been under a rock, LucasArts is about to release a new video game called The Force Unleashed. This game takes place between Episode III and Episode IV, about 2 years before A New Hope. As you might expect from the Lucas, the marketing juggernaut is out in full force with both a novelization and comic adaptation of the game. Yes, a novelization based on a video game based on a movie franchise. Sort of a media-tie-in of a media-tie-in.

Having never been a big comic guy, I decided to go ahead and get the graphic novel and give it a run through. Maybe my lack if comic experience is coming into play here, but I had some issues with the story, as presented in comic form.

First things first. The cover as depicted by the Amazon picture above is incorrect. The cover is actually a version of the splash screen you get when you to the game's website and is quite similar to the novelization's cover. Not that this had much of an effect on my rating, but I really like the incorrect cover much more than the actual cover. Call me crazy, but a Star Destroyer crashing into a planet while the 'hero' tries to survive the impact is just plain cool. The other cover shows us Force lightning, which we've seen many times before.

So, on to the story. There seems to be an interesting story laid out here, with a few twists and turns, plus a big reveal about the genesis of the Rebellion. I suspect that story behind the Rebellion will split fans into competing 'love it'/'hate it' camps. Put me down more on the 'love it' side. And remember kids, this is 'canon'. But on the whole, I liked the direction of the story, if not the execution.

Which leads me to my main gripe. Even at 126 pages, the story being told is too big for this size graphic novel. I felt like I was reading the 10,000 ft. overview of the story, or a storyboard session for a movie, rather than a full fledged story. Things happen very quickly here, as you might imagine. With so much to cover, the comic has to hit all the high points and skips over the intervening details. This is most evident in the combat scenes. Even though they run 5 - 6 pages in length, it still feels like you're missing out on most of the action, leaving you to infer the cool parts, before skipping off to the next story point, then the next fight. I realize this is a limitation of the format, but it was off putting. I wanted more detail.

Second, the characters also come across as very shallow. Starkiller, the main character, does go through quite a bit of development from being Darth Vader's apprentice to something more, but everyone else exits as 2D characters. Although, if Darth Vader was as bad @$$ in the movies as he is here, I'm not sure the Rebellion would have succeeded. Starkiller's pilot, Juno Eclipse, is a good example. She is the 'love' interest in the story, but in the comic, she's mainly just there to ferry Starkiller around and, later, to pin the last line on. Despite being a highly trained Imperial pilot, her main job is to stand around, waiting for Starkiller to notice her. As I said, not much room of character development when you have to get the story out of the way first.

Of course, being a graphic novel, one of the selling points is the art. I found the panels to be, for the most part, lively and interesting. They're drawn and inked well, with a couple of stand out pages: one where the Star Destroyer is crashing and one near the end where Starkiller is remembering his life to that point. I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge whether the art here is standout or not (having not read many comics), but I will say that, for the most part, it does the job nicely. However, there were a couple of times where the character designs weren't different enough for me to immediately tell who was who and what was going on. On closer inspection I figured it out, but it was a bit bothersome to have to do that. This, after all, isn't Steampunk.

So, all in all, as far as the story goes, I felt The Force Unleashed was a decent book, not great, but decent. The story is intriguing and I'd really like to know more about what was going on, which is why I'm now reading the novelization. As a taste of the story in the game, I think the book gins up a fair bit of interest in the game.

But where it really piques my interest in the game is in the way that Force powers are used by Starkiller. We see him use the Force to do things like pick up a Stormtrooper, hold him in the air, then telekinetically throw his lightsaber through the poor sap. Why you'd do that instead of using a Force choke, I don't know, but it sure is cool. Starkiller also use the Force to pickup a variety of objects which he then hurls at all who get in his way. I'm thinking this will be a very fun game mechanic, and I'm looking forward to trying it out in game.

Overall, as a book, not great, but not bad. The Force Unleashed, however, succeeds much better in generating interest in the game. And after all, isn't that what this is about?

Updated: Here is the trailer talked about in the comments:

Comments (7) | PermaLink | Category: Book Review
Posted by JP Frantz at Saturday September 06, 2008 at 12:10 AM
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