that changing the future was a major part of the storyline. Going form a dark future to a bright one, when the Legacy comic fits perfectly for a dark future.

Blah. Not a fan of this one.

The first half was non-stop action and it had me really tired out. In Mockingjay or Saving Private Ryan, I felt "battle fatigue" because war was handled so realistically and it made me feel nauseous in a very good way. This just made me tired. It was complete slaughter on the Jedi's side (though, of course, they were really beat up at the end) and honestly it was boring.

The second half was more interesting. There were some good character moments. Boba Fett was handled much better here than he was in Invincible. Tahiri might just be one of my favourite Legacy characters right now. The Big 3 were all good, though nothing amazing, and I liked the nods to the OT.

The Force philosophy thing really got me thinking, but probably not in the way Denning had in mind. It made me think about where Star Wars is headed and honestly made me question starting the post-RotJ EU in the first place. There is a bunch of things that don't add up about the Force, not just in Apocalypse, but in new Star Wars books, TV shows etc. in general:

1) How could the Ones be killed? Seriously. What are they exactly? Son seems to be the personification of the dark side and Daughter of the light side, but their deaths didn't seem to impact much. Does the galaxy even need the Ones? That was the one of the things that really struck me as absurd in the Mortis trilogy. They killed Daughter? Does that mean the light side is kaput now? Oh, Son and Father are killed now too. Does this mean the Force will implode or something? Apparently not. It's like in Greek mythology if someone decided to kill Poseiden. Does this mean it's the end of storms? Actually, a better example would be in Avatar: The Last Airbender when the moon spirit is killed and the moon went dark. That made sense! In Star Wars we can apparently kill the Dark Side, the Light Side, and "Balance" and walk away whistling. I'm rambling, but I don't know how else to articulate this.

2) What does the Chosen One prophecy even mean? What did Anakin do that was so amazing, when you view it in light of the EU and TCW. If you watch the OT in isolation (which by the way is becoming more and more appealing), it's a story about good defeating evil and everyone living in peace. Then the PT comes and we get a prophecy that Anakin will "bring balance to the Force", which I always assumed meant he was going to destroy the Sith and that the dark side was the disturbance in the Force. Once the dark side was defeated, "balance" would be brought. The films are now complete and I don't see any other way of looking at it. Then the Sith return again. And again. And again. The Chosen One didn't come to much. The galaxy's in the same state it's always been. But of course, the idea of "balance" seems to have changed...

3) Which brings me to my final gripe. I don't like the idea of "balance" meaning that the galaxy has an equal part of good and evil. First of all, if that's the definition, Anakin set the Force way out of balance by destroying the Sith in RotJ. The light has kicked the dark's backside, but apparently that's a bad thing because now the galaxy is full of good and we need more evil for balance. Let me say right now my personal beliefs are not my reason for disliking this new direction. I love Greek and Roman mythology and it makes for really good story-telling. I'm sorry, but yin and yang just makes for bad story-telling. If the hero wants to defeat evil, I'm with him all the way. If the hero wants to make good and evil play nice, I can't connect. I get goosebumps thinking about heroes kicking evil into the trash bin where it belongs, not balancing it out with good. Maybe I'm missing a puzzle piece, but right now it seems like Star Wars is trying to be something it never was.

I remember saying earlier that I thought FotJ felt like the authors were making up the story as they went along. Now it turns out my sarcasm was once again right on the money. At least partially. The Mortis connection was clearly shoe-horned in to the ending. I enjoyed much of the individual scenes and some of the plot threads, but when I take a step back I can see that this series had no sense of direction and it didn't know what it wanted to be up until the very end.

*sigh* Between this, Darth Plagueis and TCW (esp Mortis and Maul's return) my excitement for Star Wars is at an all-time low. I think I need to re-watch the OT to remind myself why I like Star Wars.

The books and comics had already developed other dark side users, so if bringing balance to the Force was getting rid of the darksiders then it failed. Plus with the introduction of the Lost Tribe and The One Sith, he didn't even get rid of the Sith.

I guess one could look at it as Anakin brought balance to the Force by allowing the light to rise by removing the one man, The Emperor, that was preventing the Jedi from returning. Plus by helping The Emperor destroy the old order, he allowed the numbers to move even out.

But then even as I wrote that, I know it's a bunch of BS and I'm playing devil's advocate.

I'm not going to go into an epicly long review, but first let me fuss at every last one of you for freaking me out for no reason! From the non-spoilery comments I'd read, I was certain that the Big Three had died or something. I kept waiting for someone important to bite the dust. *ahem*

On to the Mortis thing....I wasn't a huge fan of it when it was done in TCW, but I'm not particularly upset about it here. I prefer to look at the Ones as avatars that have characteristics of the Force rather than literal embodiments of the Dark and Light. My main gripe goes back to something I think Reep brought up. Where does this whole concept leave Anakin Skywalker and the Chosen One prophecy? They made it sound like this whole thing should have been prevented because Anakin should have become the Father instead of being all selfish and junk. Excuse me, but what? This make zero sense to me. If they want to go in new directions, that's fine, but stuff like this seems like they're actually trying to render the messages of the films invalid. Just meh. We'll see what they do with it.

Moving on, I had hoped that Vestara would be killed, but kind of suspected we'd get the ending we got. I'm all right with it, as long as they don't have Ben pine over her for the next 20 years and spend books ans books trying to redeem her. Settle down with a a chick who's not evil, dude. Really. As for Ben himself, I really love how far he's come. He's actually becoming a character I would be comfortable inheriting the Jedi mantle, which is something I haven't said since Anakin Solo.

Han and Leia were great in the page time they had. I actually feared for a moment that Han would actually be killed. Stupid Del Rey, making me paranoid. Allana's also becoming more fleshed out, which I appreciated. She's finally moving past the "precocious child" characterization.

And THANK HEAVENS that Jaina and Jag got married. Just....thank goodness.

That's all that comes to mind right now. I may chime in with more later.

Oh, yeah. Jacen's still a jerkface and the Killiks are still creepy.