Star Wars: Swarm War (film)

"The Skywalker Saga Has Come in Full Circle...."

- Tagline

Star Wars: Swarm War (also known as Star Wars: Dark Nest III - The Swarm War) is an American 2D-animated epic space opera film, developed by, and set in the universal franchise by. Based on 's, it is the third and final installment of the standalone film series, Star Wars: The Dark Nest Trilogy, and the novel-inspired traditional-animation film. It features the voices of, , , , , , , , and.

The film follows where Unseen Queen ends, and involves a three way war between the Chiss, the Killik, and the Galactic Alliance. Luke Skywalker declares himself Grand Master of the Jedi, and succeeds in unifying them to an extent, and leads an assault on the Dark Nest. Lomi Plo meets her death at Skywalker's hand, and UnuThul is defeated by Luke as well after losing an arm. Thul is taken in by the Jedi for psychological treatment as the Killik revert to their naturally peaceful state, no longer unified by the Hive Mind or driven by the ambitions of the Dark Nest.

Produced by and Lucasfilm Feature Animation in association with  and, Star Wars: Swarm War was released in the United States theatrically by  on December 14, 2007, while it was distributed by  via Buena Vista International in the United Kingdom, Argentina and Spain. Often described as a novel technique of hand-drawn 2D animation, similar to the microseries, the motion of the spaceships was computer enhanced 3D animation. Like, the film is citing that George Lucas wanted the end of the trilogy to have similar aspects to a romantic tragedy, thus building into Darth Vader's state at the beginning of the original trilogy. It received positive reviews and has been deemed an improvement over the first two standalone films by many, with praise for its action sequences, mature themes, score, visual effects, darker tone, and the voice performances of Ford, Fisher, Daniels, and ; criticism largely focused on the film's dialogue and aspects of Hamill's voice performance.

Plot
On Snevu, during the Swarm War, the Chiss launch a bomb on the planet that doesn't go off, and Jaina Solo, Zekk (Mark Bazeley), Tesar Sebatyne , Lowbacca , Tahiri Veila and Jacen Solo  all go to the bomb to stop its activation, but they have to dodge through Chiss fire raining from orbit. They race to the bomb against a Chiss shuttle craft, which has Jagged Fel aboard. This stirs up emotions in Jaina, which makes Zekk jealous in their Force-meld. The shuttle craft dismounts a Chiss commando squadron which the Jedi Knights fight against, and during the battle, the shuttle with Jag aboard is destroyed. Jag survives thanks to some Force manipulation by Jacen, who has Jag activate the bomb when the Chiss commandos have failed. The bomb's effects would kill the Killiks on the planet. Jaina holds it against Jacen for going against them.

On the New Jedi Temple of Ossus, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker has called for an audience from all of the Jedi in the galaxy. Because of the Dark Nest Crisis and the concurrent Swarm War, Luke has found that the New Jedi Order and its ideals from the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War are insufficent in this crisis—considering their separate viewpoints and how they had been manipulated by the likes of politicians such as Galactic Alliance Chief of State Cal Omas. Therefore, he makes this announcement: He will become the Grand Master of the New Jedi Order, taking total control of it like his late Master Yoda did with the previous Jedi Order. Also, those who cannot place their Jedi duties above all else must resign. Though Leia Organa Solo finds Luke's action to be brash, she understands why he had to do it. And from Luke's actions, Jedi like Danni Quee and Tenel Ka Djo  resign because of Danni's studying of Zonama Sekot and Tenel Ka's duties as Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium and her daughter, Allana. Concerning Allana, neither Jacen nor Tenel Ka have revealed to anyone, not even Jacen's own family, that Jacen is Allana's father.

Following Luke's crowning of himself as the ruler of the New Jedi Order, he moves on to other business with the Jedi Masters, Han Solo, Leia, and Jacen. With Tahiri, Tesar and Lowbacca returning with Jacen, the Masters have noted Jaina and Zekk's absence, officially declaring their knowledge that they have become Joiners, fighting alongside UnuThul and the Killiks against the Chiss. Jacen offers a suggestion that can end the war by destroying the Colony—killing UnuThul along with Lomi Plo. This disconcerts Tahiri, Tesar, and Lowbacca, who are just barely Joiners. Luke considers that they would indeed have to somehow remove UnuThul from leadership of the Killiks alongside killing Lomi Plo. Luke and his wife Mara Jade are invited by Madame Aryn Dro Thul  and her brother-in-law, Tyko, to dinner, which leads to the discussion that Luke and Jacen had which suggested eliminating Raynar to end the Swarm War. Luke has discussed that killing Raynar will only be a last resort and that if he can, he can help him become Human again. Despite the emotional unsteadiness that she is going through that the only possible way to end the war would be to kill her son, especially since she lost her husband years earlier, Aryn gives Luke an R2-0 unit which contains the necessary part needed to open up more of Artoo's memory banks in order to fully reveal Luke's parents' past.

Han, Leia, C-3PO, Saba Sebatyne , Meewalh, and Cakhmaim travel to a Lizil nest in disguise of being weapons merchants seeking to profit from the Swarm War. Their mission is to find out where Jaina and Zekk are now in the war, and Han and Leia get their information from the Squibs trio, Emala, Sligh , and Grees , who they have met years earlier on Tatooine and Pavo Prime. Though the trio reveals that Jaina and Zekk are fighting the Chiss on Tenupe, they later try to have Han and Leia killed aboard the disguised Millennium Falcon by sending over their (the Squibs') younger relatives. However, Captain Jae Juun and Tarfang, now intelligence agents under the employ of Admiral Nek Bwua'tu, tell Han and Leia about this. With help from Leia's Noghri bodyguards, they defeat the Squibs, who reveal that they have sent assassin Squibs onto Tenupe to kill Jaina in revenge for Han and Leia meddling in their affairs on Tatooine and Pavo Prime.

And the conversation has also led to revealing that Tesar and Lowbacca have divulged the information of possibly killing Raynar to Aryn. When Luke and Mara confront them about this, along with Tahiri, who didn't know that Tesar and Lowie revealed the information when she brought them to Aryn, they defend their position by saying that it's wrong to kill Raynar, another Jedi Knight, in order to end the Swarm War. This conversation leads to the three confronted Jedi arguing that Luke confides too often in Jacen on matters of the Killiks. They then accidentally reveal that they believe that Jacen had mind-wiped Ben when they got back from Endor (in reality, Hapes) to prevent him from remembering something. Luke exiles Tahiri, Tesar and Lowbacca to Dagobah in order to reaffirm their allegiance to the New Jedi Order. Then Luke and Mara confront Jacen about mind-wiping Ben, and Jacen lies by saying that he mind-wiped him in order to protect him from a traumatic memory when a monster attacked an Ewok village, when really, he mind-wiped him so that he wouldn't reveal that he was the father of Tenel Ka's daughter. Later, Zakarisz Ghent makes another breakthrough in R2-D2's memory banks concerning Luke's parents, Darth Vader  and Padmé Amidala. The scene shown is when Vader returns to Padmé's residence on Coruscant after he returned from the old Jedi Temple in order to fulfill Order 66.

Luke and Mara look fondly on Jacen again without suspicion from the lie, and they also successfully launch a mission that results in the Battle of Nickel One. Though they succeed in the mission, they get the bad news on a comm channel from Supreme Commander Gilad Pellaeon that the Killiks have captured Thyferra and have taken hold of the Galactic Alliance's bacta supply. Later, Luke, Mara, and Jacen watch another holovid from R2-D2's memory banks that reveals Vader and Padmé's last time together on Mustafar. Just after the Sith Lord Force-threw Padmé away, the recording ends on an incomplete bit, causes Luke heartbroken from a shocking revelation. Though Mara gets increasingly angry at Artoo for mixing up her involvement with the death of Luke’s mother, Luke feels ready to kill Lomi Plo despite his own grief that his father would do something like this to his own wife. Along with several other Jedi, Luke, Mara, and Jacen launch a mission on the Gorog nest ship at Sarm, launching the battle in the attempt to kill Lomi Plo. Luke duels Plo inside the nest ship while Mara and Jacen battle off against her Dark Nest forces. The fight ends up with both Mara and Jacen receiving grievous wounds from Plo herself that would have been fatal had the Gorog nest ship not been falling apart by the Jedi's attack. Plo escapes, and so do the surviving Jedi, including Luke, Mara, and Jacen.

Returning to the Galactic Alliance, with Mara and Jacen having to spend weeks in a medcenter for recovery because of the decrease of bacta supplies since the Killiks captured Thyferra, Luke decides that he will kill Lomi Plo himself the next time they meet. Then Jacen tells him that in order to be fully invulnerable to Plo's influences whenever they fight is to disparage those fears—that way, Plo wouldn't have anything to use in the Force against Luke. In order to fully rid himself of his grief over his mother, Luke watches the rest of the holovid that started out from Vader throwing Padmé on the Mustafar platform. While Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi duel, C-3PO and Artoo take Padmé's unconscious form aboard her starship, where Obi-Wan later returns after he has finished his duel to fly Padmé to the Polis Massan medical facility. There, he, along with Yoda and Bail Organa, witness Luke and Leia's birth just as Padmé dies in childbirth. While his grief over his mother's death hasn't been lifted, Luke could at least disparage of the horrible notion that his father killed his mother before she birthed him and Leia. Regardless, Luke refuses to give into his own will with the Force in his final battle with Lomi Plo, as was the late Vergere's philosophy. Alone and halfhearted, R2-D2 is found, his mind restored, and tearfully apologizes informs Mara that he no longer recalls his primary function, even for lying to Luke, but she apologizes in return for staying mad at her friend, and the loss of malfunctioning glitches worked in her favor.

At Tenupe, where the battle there between the Killik Colony and Chiss Ascendancy, led by Chaf'orm'bintrano "Formbi", is raging, Jaina defeats the Squibs trying to kill her and joins Zekk in their StealthX X-wing starfighters to combat the Chiss in the air. Meanwhile, the latter species capture the Millennium Falcon and interrogate Han and Leia to reveal their intentions. Interrogating Leia, they trick her into believing that they are torturing Han so as to get the sufficient information out of her. However, before she is set free by her escaping companions, Leia manages to find out that the Chiss plan to release a bioweapon on Tenupe that can wipe out all of the Killiks. When the Solo company escape in the Falcon, Leia warns Jaina and Zekk through the Force that the Chiss are going to drop their bioweapon soon on Tenupe. Alema Rar then arrives on the scene with her own StealthX and manipulates Jaina and Zekk through their connection as Joiners to act as decoys while Alema herself will destroy the Chiss ships containing the bioweapons. One ship is destroyed, while the other falls onto the surface of the planet, damaged, and lost to both Chiss and Killik parties. They both decide to search for the bomb for completely different reasons; the Killiks wanting to destroy the weapon, the Chiss wanting to activate it. Jaina and Zekk are also shot down, but survive, leading to Han looking for his daughter and her friend. And beforehand, Leia shoots down Jagged Fel, stranding him somewhere on the planet. Leia and Saba then search for the bioweapon bomb, which leads to Leia and Alema's final duel. Leia defeats Alema by having one of Tenupe's jungle beasts, a spidersloth, attack the Twi'lek, and they both disappear into the dark reaches of the jungle, with Alema presumed dead. Leia and Saba successfully find the bomb, and they have it detonate under a river where it can't take any affect on any of the Killiks or the planet. In space above Tenupe, Luke launches a YVH squadron to attack the Admiral Ackbar to confront UnuThul. Luke and UnuThul fight while the YVH bugcrunchers combat the Killiks. Luke, after defeating UnuThul by cutting his arm off, convinces Raynar to return as a Human and revoke all control of the Colony to reduce the Killiks back into the disorganized civilization they were before he Joined them. Lomi Plo enters, and Luke, having dispensed with his emotional weaknesses, easily chops Plo into pieces and kills her. The Dark Nest dies off, along with the Colony's organization. Raynar returns to the Galactic Alliance for intense psychological treatment under the Jedi's eye.

The Swarm War is now over, with the Killiks back as a mindless species and the Chiss agreeing to back off from trying to exterminate the insects. Leia being declared a full-fledged Jedi Knight for her actions during the Swarm War. Leia then asks Luke what will happen to the New Jedi Order if he were to ever be absent again, now that he's in complete control of the Order. He answers, "I don't know. I wish I knew the answers." Back home on Ossus, R2-D2 finds a secret frame of Anakin's and Padme's wedding from the closet, and glances the moonlit night.

Voice cast

 * Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker
 * Harrison Ford as Han Solo
 * Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa Solo
 * Misty Lee as Mara Jade Skywalker
 * Rino Romano as Jacen Solo
 * Kira Buckland as Jaina Solo
 * Mark Bazeley as Zekk
 * Julie Ann Taylor as Tenel Ka
 * Michelle Ruff as Ben Skywalker
 * Lucille Bliss as Saba Sebatyne
 * Scott McNeil as Jae Juun
 * Peter Dinklage as Tarfang
 * Anthony Daniels as C-3PO
 * as
 * as Kyp Durron
 * as Corran Horn
 * as Cilghal
 * as Kenth Hamner
 * as Tresina Lobi
 * as Kyle Katarn
 * as Kam Solusar
 * as Tionne Solusar
 * Evan Rachel Wood as Danni Quee
 * Peter Mayhew as Lowbacca
 * Cassandra Lee Morris as Tahiri Veila
 * Steve Blum as Tesar Sebatyne
 * as Tekli
 * Ed Anser as Chief Cal Omas
 * Jim Cummings as Gilad Pellaeon
 * Seth Green as Zakarsiz Ghent
 * Rachael Leigh Cook as Aryn Dro Thul
 * Chuck Huber as Tyko Thul
 * David Hayter as Jagged Fel
 * Travis Willingham as Chaf'orm'bintrano "Formbi"
 * Kate Higgins as Lomi Plo
 * Michael Kopsa as Raynar Thul/UnuThul
 * Chloe Hollings as Alema Rar
 * as Killiks
 * Eric Jacobson as Emala
 * Rob Paulsen as Sligh
 * Bradley Copper as Grees
 * Frank Oz as Yoda
 * Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa
 * Grey Delisie as Padmé Amidala
 * James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi
 * Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker

Sound Effects
Star Wars: Swarm War (film)/Sound Effects