Rise of Nobility
A Review by Jay Mustered

Rise of Nobility (RON) is perhaps the most reviewed piece of fan audio work that is around today. The running time is about 45 minutes.

The story is focused on an incident in Queen Amidala's past, which helps to shape her future character. The story uses the period of time in The Phantom Menace after the fixing of the podracer as a bracketing device, for Padme to tell the story of the queen's experience.

RON is one of the first generation (along with Second Strike and Smuggler's Run) audio dramas. This is also one of the best fan audio dramas around; the sound is very crisp and professional, although occasionally there are slight drop-offs in the voice levels, especially during sound effects. The music is used to good effect, and the foley work is excellent. During the imprisonment scene with the queen and the Gungan (running from about 25:25 to 30:08; 31:05 to 31:43; and occasionally from then on in both the 64 kbps and 256 kbps copies), there is a notable buzzing sound in the background, during the vocals. I am not sure if this is just inherent with my copy.

The voice acting is pretty good. Elizabeth Ascott deserves all the praise she has received for her portrayal of Padme. The only one that really seemed off was the Qui-Gon Jinn impersonation; the acting is not bad, but it does not sound like Qui-Gon. My one serious qualm with the script is that it is implied that Amidala may have force sensitivity, something that is out of line with accepted canon.

I would highly recommend Rise of Nobility to anyone interested in Star Wars fan audio dramas. From a technical standpoint it is one of the best productions to date.