Project logo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a multimedia project developed by Twentieth Century Fox, LucasArts along with Dark Horse Comics, Lego, Hasbro, and Del Rey Books. Four years after the (then thought to be) final Star Wars film, and with no future plans for new projects, it was decided by FOX Executives to try another multimedia project like Shadows of the Empire with again all supplemental material, and only a film lacking.
Granger came up with the name and made early suggestions, asking for a video game that involved Jedi. Then he stepped back into a supervisory role.
The Force Unleashed project consists of a video game released in September 2008, a second video game released in October 2010, a tie-in novel, action figures, a comic book, a reference book, a role-playing game supplement, and a book on the making of the game.
Story[]
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed tells the story of Darth Vader's secret apprentice, code-named "Starkiller" but born Galen Marek, as he hunts down the remaining Jedi after Emperor Palpatine orders them killed. Set between Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars, the story explores the aftermath of the Great Jedi Purge as well as the rise of Darth Vader.
The events of The Force Unleashed are "pivotal" in Darth Vader's history and development as a character and offer illumination into other characters from Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Ultimately, Starkiller sacrifices his life to save the leaders of the new Rebel Alliance; they honor him by adopting his family's crest as their symbol.
Novel[]
Sean Williams' novelization was released in the United States on August 19, 2008. It spent one week as #1 on both Publishers Weekly's and The New York Timess hardcover fiction bestsellers lists, slipping to #7 respectively, the following week. It also reached #15 on USA Todays bestsellers list. Williams took on the writing project in part because of the "catchy description" of The Force Unleashed being "Episode 3.5" of the Star Wars saga.
The novel focuses on the dark side of the Force and its practitioners; Williams found it "interesting" to portray the Jedi as "bad guys." The author most enjoyed developing the character of Juno Eclipse, exploring the "feminine" side of The Force Unleashed in a way the video game does not. Williams also said that while the game allows the player to "do" Starkiller's actions, the novel allows readers to experience Starkiller's thoughts about those actions, adding another dimension to the story.
Other products and critical response[]
The Force Unleashed game was released in North America on September 16, 2008, and in Australia and Southeast Asia on September 17, 2008, and was released in Europe on September 19, 2008. The Apprentice was licensed to Namco Bandai Games to be a playable character in both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Soulcalibur IV.
An assortment of Hasbro's Force Unleashed action figure line
At Toy Fair 2007, Hasbro showed seven figures from their action figure line based on the game. Lego released a model of the main character's ship, the Rogue Shadow.
Dark Horse's The Force Unleashed graphic novel was published August 18, 2008. Newsarama called the graphic novel a "solid story" that matches the video game source material in both structure and plot.
IGN gave the graphic novel a score of 6.9/10 (6.4/10 for art, 7.5/10 for the writing), praising the overall story but faulting inconsistency in the art and questioning whether the comic medium was the best way to convey the story.