Review: The Empire Striketh Back | In Which I Squirm Awkwardly

The Empire Striketh Back by Ian Doescher
Narrated by Daniel Davis, Jonathan Davis, January LaVoy, Jeff Gurner, Marc Thompson, and Ian Doescher 
Published by Random House Audio
Format Reviewed: Audiobook 
Publication Date: March 18th, 2014
Genre: Science Fiction
Time: 3 hrs, 25 min
Reviewed by: Stephanie
My Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Buy It

Hot on the heels of the New York Times best seller William Shakespeare’s Star Wars comes the next two installments of the original trilogy: William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back and William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return. Return to the star-crossed galaxy far, far away as the brooding young hero, a power-mad emperor, and their jesting droids match wits, struggle for power, and soliloquize in elegant and impeccable iambic pentameter. Illustrated with beautiful black-and-white Elizabethan-style artwork, these two plays offer essential reading for all ages. Something Wookiee this way comes!

To begin, The Empire Strikes Back is my least favorite movie out of the Star Wars movie trilogies, so it came as no surprise that The Empire Striketh Back turned out to be my least favorite of Doescher's works from the first trilogy.

The narration was just has impressive as it was in Verily, A New Hope. I honestly didn't expect anything new in this audiobook, which isn't necessarily be a bad thing since I really enjoyed the first one. I was wrong to have this expectation (or lack thereof). The narration had an extremely surprising change, something I couldn't have predicted.

Chewbacca sang.

No, I'm not even kidding. Chewbacca sang as did some of the other characters. It was actually quite awkward and slightly embarrassing when they did. (I'm not that comfortable with my nerdiness. My first instinct was to turn it down so no one could hear it.) The singing doesn't necessarily take away from anything but it doesn't really add anything either. It seems like it was sort of thrown in there to mix things up, but it oddly works with the style of the play. Otherwise, there isn't much to note about The Empire Striketh Back. If you're looking for something short, entertaining, and extremely nerdy go ahead and pick this one up.

To recap: I wasn't blown away by The Empire Striketh Back. It left much of the same impression on me as Episode V always has: awkward at moments but all made worth it by the appearance of Darth Vader himself.

Follow