AUTHOR: George Lucas (but likely ghost-written)
COPYRIGHT: 1976
SERIES: movie novelization
TIME FRAME: Rebellion -- up to and including Battle of Yavin
To my knowledge this is the very first Star Wars book. While attributed to George Lucas, it is likely to have been ghostwritten by a science-fiction writer from a draft of Lucas' script. Similiarly, the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture was attributed to Gene Roddenberry. Who is the true author of this novelization? A possible culprit is Alan Dean Foster, who went on to write the Star Wars novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Much of the vocabulary, especially toward the beginning, is rather verbose. The author uses words like "loquacity," perhaps to make the story feel more like a serious science-fiction tale.
This book is unlike other novelizations that have come in recent years. It contains photos from the movie, like many novelizations do. In fact, I seem to recall the paperback edition having different pictures, but perhaps my memory is faulty. This book dates back to an earlier version of the script, and obviously predates the "Episode IV: A New Hope" title. There is no opening crawl, though we are given a prologue which explains the state of galactic civil war. Unlike the film, it does not tell us about the stolen Death Star plans right away; we learn this from dialogue later. Much of the dialogue in the book differs from the final version onscreen. Sometimes explanations are much longer. For example, Kenobi explains to Luke that Jedi scientists have determined the Force to be some sort of energy field, but that science has not been able to fully explain it. For those who complain about midichlorians in the prequels, it's clear the Lucas always intended there to be an extent of scientific knowledge about the Force, but that the rest is taken on faith. At times the dialogue is a bit more expository. For example, we learn that Darth Vader explicitly allowed the Falcon to leave the Death Star because he deduced the droids they were tracking on Tatooine must be aboard. When Luke suggests that Han Solo help the princess because she's rich, Solo counters that her planet just blew up and all her riches with her. Luke then suggests that she still has powerful friends. Some of this is unnecessary, but an interesting look into how much the dialogue in the film was pared down to its basics. The now-familiar Leia transmission to Ben Kenobi is almost entirely different.
What makes the book valuable are the details which the movie's visual medium just can't convey. We are told more about moisture farming and life on Tatooine. We learn some about the Jawas and the Tusken Raiders (who were never identified as such on film until The Phantom Menace). There are even descriptions of how the blaster fire melts through people's heads and such. Some of the visceral descriptions are quite fascinating. Though these descriptions only lead me to further wonder why anyone in this universe wears armor if it does nothing. Ever think about that? Why do the stormtroopers wear those uniforms if they cannot protect them against blaster fire?
As it's based on an earlier draft, the book's description of the final Death Star run differs. Luke is in Blue Squadron, not Red, and the Red group is basically what the Gold Squadron is in the film. Actually, the book mentions four groups: red, blue, gold and green, but we never really hear from the other two. One failing of the book, but this is perhaps a flaw in the medium, is that space-bound action sequences generally read as boring. Luke and Han shooting down the TIE fighters is great onscreen, but in print is limited to descriptions of colors and readouts and explosions.
A benefit to the novel is its inclusion of scenes which would ultimately be deleted from the final film. For thirty years, before the Special Edition, the appearance of Jabba the Hutt at Mos Eisley could only be read about here. There are those who argue it's redundant in the film and they are correct. The movie scene essentially reiterates information we already got in the Greedo scene. But in the book, half of that information is saved for the Jabba scene. So Greedo doesn't go into Solo dropping his cargo; he just shows up ready to kill or take Solo's ship. It's so refreshing to read that exchange without any hint of Greedo firing. The other significant portions of deleted material deal with Luke and his friend Biggs. Lucas has said he always wanted to follow the droids until they get to Luke, and that the scenes with Biggs were insisted upon by the studio. Which is why the scenes on Tatooine were not reincorporated into the Special Edition or subsequent releases. They are still fascinating to read, however, and have a sense of nostalgia for teen hangouts and fast cars that clearly comes from the same mind that gave us American Graffiti.
Lucas has said that Star Wars was heavily influenced by Kurosawa's film The Hidden Fortress. This connection is made much more explicit in the novel, as the secret Rebel base is referred to over and over as their "hidden fortress". Perhaps Lucas ultimately decided this was too on-the-nose, as the final film uses simply "Rebel base" almost exclusively.
Some of the divergent elements are fascinating as well. Chewie is described as having "glowing yellow eyes". The description of Jabba seems intentionally vague. It mostly seems to work as applied to his eventual form, but it seems to also refer to the actor the scene was originally shot with. "A great mobile tub of muscle and suet" sounds about right, but then it's said to be "topped by a shaggy scarred skull." So Jabba has hair? Also of note is that Hutt has only one T in this book. The opening prologue is said to be taken from The Journal of the Whills, From the First Saga. The notion of the Whills is something I wish had not been abandoned from the early screenplay; I'm curious what Lucas had in mind. I like that it contributes to the sense of the story as an ancient tale being told. The prologue describes many things that eventually play out in the prequels, showing just how much Lucas had in mind this far back. We learn of the rise of Senator Palpatine who elects himself President of the Republic (ultimately Lucas would change the title to Chancellor) aided by "the massive organs of commerce". This explains why Episode I deals with matters of taxation and trade routes. We are then told that he declared himself Emperor and had the Jedi wiped out "through treachery and deception". The strangest thing about all this is that the prologue strongly implies Palpatine as the only Emperor, but later dialogue between Luke and Obi-Wan suggest there have been multiple Emperors. In discussing Anakin Skywalker, Kenobi says, "Vader used the training I gave him and the force within him [the Force is never capitalized in the novel] for evil, to help the later corrupt Emperors." This is the only suggestion of there being more than one, and it's clear Lucas quickly abandoned the idea, if it was even his to begin with. It does seem very inconsistent. Also of note is that Vader is described as "a boy I was training," perhaps suggesting even then that Lucas believed Jedi training began at a very young age. In the movie all we get is that he was "a pupil of mine."
While this early novelization of Star Wars is not without its flaws, it is a remarkable time capsule and overall a good read. The extent of Lucas' imagination regarding the world of the film is seen more clearly than even the film can show at times. The subtitle From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, with it's use of a plural suggests there are more stories to come, which indeed there were. But perhaps my favorite element of this book is that the prologue closes with a quote attributed to Princess Leia:
"They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally they became heroes."
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