Book Review: Star Wars - The Force Unleashed II

Source: Amazon.com

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, by Sean Williams

From the book’s cover:

The dark side could not seduce him.
The Empire could not control him.
Death could not defeat him.
And now, nothing can stop him from seizing his destiny.

As apprentice to Darth Vader, Starkiller was mercilessly schooled in the ways of the dark side and groomed for the ultimate Sith power play: assassination of the Emperor. He served without question, killed without remorse, and lost his heart without warning to beautiful Imperial fighter pilot Juno Eclipse, never suspecting that he was just a tool in the schemes of his masters—until it was too late to escape their lethal betrayal.

Juno mourned Starkiller as dead, but now he is back, purged of all memories and programmed to kill—and this time, Darth Vader is determined not to lose his assassin. As fate brings Juno and Starkiller closer to reuniting, they will both have to make a stand. The prize could be freedom. The punishment for failing will be eternal enslavement to the dark side of the Force.

The review:

 Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is proof that Sean Williams is as good as I thought he was.  The novel is much better than the first one.  Sure, it's still not perfect, but much better, in my opinion.

I like the whole dispute about Starkiller being a clone or another one of his "back from the dead"-type tricks.  The author handles this balance fairly skillfully.  See, when the book opened and Starkiller showed up, I said "Nah."  After all, in the first book, he died.  So I thought immediately that this was going to be a bad book, because all through the Star Wars Extended Universe materials, clones can't use the Force.  It messes them up.  As I recall, this was set by the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn, back in the '90s, when Star Wars re-emerged from a bit of late-'80s obscurity.  I remember there was a Jedi master in that one who was evil, of a sort, and it was found out that it was because he was a clone, and because of that, he had been driven mad.  The Force and cloning don't work.  It's a well-established plot point that keeps us from having endless Sith or Jedi running around and - most likely - tearing the Galaxy Far, Far Away to shreds  The regular Jedi and Sith do enough of that by themselves, let alone cloned versions to make their numbers so much higher.

The author, Sean Williams. / Source: fantasticfiction.co.uk

 

Williams handles the clone question by basically saying to his audience: "yeah, all that is true.  So is he a clone or is he the real thing?  You decide, audience."  Then you get to see more of the effects of this, which are pretty good, and make you believe he is actually the real Starkiller.  And then the book throws us a twist and uses cloning in a semi-reasonable manner to fix a villain's evil doings.  It's the sort of thing you think of pointing out whenever a convenient technology could have fixed something in a story, but for some reason the author walks around it.  This time, Williams actually uses it to fix the problem.  I'm not saying I totally believed it - too easy - but it was nice not to tap dance around the white technological elephant in the room by using some technical loophole.  It's like the whole argument of: "We can go back in time and kill Lord Voldemort before he ever became truly evil, using a Time-Turner?  Let's do it then!" in Harry Potter  Like that.

I especially like how Unleashed II touches on the issue of surviving Order 66 and turning to the Dark Side.  For instance, Shak Ti's former padawan drops out of the Light Side due to the loss of her Master, and then slowly falls to the Dark Side.  Besides the implication that the Jedi are almost totally wiped out by the Emperor's machinations, which - between you and me - seems not to hang very well together since every book out there has a Jedi that survived it, it is interesting to think about what would happen to the scattered remnants of Jedi when they lose everything they previously knew.  In this instance, weaker Jedi might just fall to the Dark Side due to its allure and the ease of the way it offers (supposedly).

The trailer of The Force Unleashed 2.  Most of it is just Starkiller whipping Imperial Stormtrooper butt, so if that qualifies as "cinematic," I guess we have different definitions of the term.  Although I will say, I haven't played a truly "modern" video game in years, and the graphics from this video, if at all close to actual gameplay and not just pre-rendered...  wow.  As the Dark Lord would say: "Impressive."

I liked that the novel addresses capital ships in more depth than other Star Wars novels I can remember reading.  Other books use them, but - other than the ubiquitous Star Destroyer type - we spend little time on ships much bigger than the Millennium Falcon.  Specifically, I mean the Nebulon B frigate "Salvation," which gets a fair amount of attention in this novel.

I also liked the use of Force visions to highlight alternate possibilities.  Not having played the game myself, I can only guess that some of the Force visions which Starkiller sees are other paths that the character may have taken, based on their choices.  Readers who have not gone through my other review (Star Wars: The Force Unleashed) should note that this is something the first novel actually did alright with as well.

Jedi Master Shaak Ti's wayward padawan, Marris Brood, who falls to the dark side of the Force.  The thing in the background doesn't have a given name, as far as I am aware of.  The original photo just calls it a "Dark Felucian."  I call it nightmare-inducing, myself.  / Source: starwars.wikia.com

 

It was also nice that the novel stayed closer to the mythos of "staying close to the Light Side."  The first of these books had Starkiller doing everything and anything and there seemed to be no consequences, but in this book, he is routinely reminded to avoid the pitfalls of the Dark Side.

Unleashed II had a few decent quotes.  The first I really noticed and appreciated was "Doesn't anyone stay dead anymore? which the female love interest quips when she sees that Starkiller isn't deceased, as she had previously supposed.  I had to chuckle at the comment, as I thought something similar when the book began and we "zoomed" back in on a character that seemed to be thoroughly (and finally) dead in the concluding moments of the last book.

There was never a real addressing of the whole "Love/Passion" leads to the Dark Side-thing.  In fact, the book seemed to blatantly thumb its nose at this long-time plot issue in the Star Wars universe.  I found this a little annoying, to be honest.  Toss off conventions at your pleasure, huh book?

The whole "attachment leads to suffering"-thing in Episode II was given the bum's rush in The Force Unleashed II. / Source: scenebyscene.net

 

It was nice that the book did a good job of making it so that when the video game side of the story had a "boss fight," you could tell, but it wasn't so scripted and thin as in the first book.  It didn't feel so much like a "gee-whiz, a boss!" moment.  More organic to the story.  And another "Ooh cool!" moment in the novel I'll mention.  Here is a bad guy getting sucked out of a spaceship while it is in hyperspace.  I don't know that this has ever been done before.  Interesting subject to cover.

Another good use of humor in dialogue, which the original trilogy of the Star Wars films usually handled with such skill and dexterity: "It's OK, I'm one of the good guys."  This was Starkiller's quip to a reactor tech guy after just beating the big robot that Boba Fett used to distract Starkiller while the notorious bounty hunter made good his escape.  The timing and use here were excellent.

It was also good that the author kept giving little nuanced touches to Vader's perspective.  Like the mention by the robot character Prox-C, who says that he doesn't think Vader likes being Vader, after he (the robot) "becomes him" for a holo transmission.  The book is full of little touches like this, with short asides on Vader.  It feels like we get some good perspective on the Dark Lord of the Sith.

On the downside, the "his perspective/her perspective" for Starkiller and Juno gets old.  It's the switching back and forth that is the annoying part.  The story pushes on to an exciting moment, and then the author backtracks and tells it again from the other person's point of view.  This kills the tension and the excitement of what is going on.  Williams could have kept it more exciting by doing it in a much trimmer manner.  Sure, backtrack a little if you must, but don't rehash it so much.  It gets tiring.

The first cameo mention of Wedge Antilles was good, and brought a smile to my face.  But then the whole "riding the Y-Wing" thing felt like "jumping the shark," It was very much a silly video game "gee-whiz" gimmick.

I never really thought about that.  Good point. / Source: vovatia.wordpress.com

 

The book was almost entirely better in regards to the "telling a video game plot" issue that the first book suffered from.  In fact, until Starkiller wakes up in the crater that the explosion of the Salvation creates, it managed to avoid much of that problem.  But from there on, there is a long sequence where the novel felt very much like the author got stuck in "here's what the player sees and does."  It doesn't get much better until we finally face off with Vader, and even then, the story is a bit clunky.

The long-running duel between Vadar and his clone apprentice (Starkiller) does go a bit long, in my opinion.  You keep getting drawn into climactic moments, and it starts to get old after awhile.  Also, the suspense would have been better on the whole "is he a clone/he is for real?" question if they hadn't spoiled it by having the main love interest see the clones of Starkiller before he actually does.  You know they're coming along into the middle of the plot, sooner or later, after that.  But if they'd just popped up when the time was right?  That's have been better, I think.

The end was both interesting and also a bit unsatisfying.  I don't plan to spoil it, so I'm gonna talk in generalities.  And yes, since I'm not giving it all away, I do think it is worth reading, if you are into this sort of genre.

What's this?  Darth Vader, brought to bay?  I wouldn't hold my breath, if I were you. / Source: starwars.wikia.com

 

Where was I?  Oh yes, the ending.  The Force Unleashed 2 ends with something you'd never expect: a happy ending that you know won't last.  The seeds of the ending's undoing are there, but the author decides not to give us a real "horrific tragedy" moment and instead leaves things on a light note.  This may have something to do with the story's basis in a video game, and the need for the game to end happily (though I think this is a weakness of video games, and media in general - though I admit an ambivalent.  So much so that so-called "bad" ending is often not as pleasant to endure for me, as an audience member).  Anyway, the author even throws in that moment where you think: "oh yeah, here's what we knew was going to happen," but it turns out to be a fake-out.  I applaud this method, and this is the "interesting" side of the coin I spoke of when I said the ending was two things for me.

On the other hand, the book ends with things that, as a long-time fan of the genre, I think are a bit far-fetched.  Sure, they are nice to speculate on, but too far out to be taken seriously.  Some of the folks who survive, along with the way the story gets all nicely wrapped up (except for that one bad part I mentioned above that you know will happen, even though the author only foreshadows it), and even an opening left if they wanted to add another sequel?  It strains credulity.  I don't think this is Williams's fault, but as said about the first book - and this one too to a certain extent - the story is stuck in its video game roots.  Not much you can do with that, unless you want to tear it far enough from its soil-bed as to almost completely displace it from the source material.  Price you pay, I guess.

So in a nutshell, I recommend Unleashed II over Unleashed, though you kind of have to read the first one to appreciate the second one.  And that's too bad.  Both novels could have been better, in my opinion.

Learn more about Star Wars - The Force Unleashed II, by Sean Williams, on Amazon.com

The parting comment:

Now that Episode 7 is officially official, via a teaser trailer (until I saw actual film footage, I was ready to give it up as an elaborate hoax...  and we'll see if I still feel the same once I've seen the movie in December of 2015), some clever souls have Lego-ized it.  Pretty cool.