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Star Wars Trilogy

by George Lucas et al, 1976, 1980, 1983

Review is copyright © 2019 by Wil C. Fry. All Rights Reserved.

Published: 2019.05.03

Home > Book Reviews > Star Wars > Trilogy

 

Copyright © 2017 by Wil C. Fry. Some rights reserved.

★★★★ (of 5)

 

Summary (Warning: SPOILERS)

Perhaps a summary here is pointless; the story of Star Wars has permeated our popular culture most of my life and is much more well-known by most people than a list of, say, U.S. Secretaries of Defense or leading physicists. Still, for the few who missed the memo:

This book contains the novelizations of the first three Star Wars films, A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return Of The Jedi. The first, written by noted sci-fi author Alan Dean Foster (but credited to George Lucas), follows Senator Leia Organa as she is captured by the Empire, and farmboy Luke Skywalker who collects a strange coterie of fellow misfits. Skywalker and his merry band rescue Leia from the clutches of the Empire and destroy the Death Star — a moon-sized battlestation. The second book skips forward in time three years, and has the Rebels on the run from the Empire. It includes a tense battle on the ice planet Hoth, Luke’s Jedi training under the wizened Yoda, Han’s betrayal by old friend Lando, and the huge revelation to Luke that Darth Vader is his father. The third begins with Luke and his friends rescuing Han from nasty gangster Jabba The Hutt, moves on to finish Luke’s Jedi training, sees the heroes ally with the furry Ewoks, and concludes with the destruction of yet another Death Star battlestation.

(I include spoilers here because, darn it, you should know all this by now.)

 

What I Liked Least About It

I realize I can’t impartially critique either the stories or the films. I saw the first movie when I was a child (six or seven) and have rewatched it at least 20 times since then. Each subsequent movie, I watched upon its initial theatrical release and later upon purchasing home video versions. I read these novelizations in my pre-teen and teen years. Like anyone, I could point out a few well-known plot holes, but by now those are part of the tradition and mystique of the Star Wars legend.

I will say that one thing I never liked was the initial (potential) love story between Luke and Leia in the first novel/film, due to the subsequent revelation (in Return Of The Jedi) that Luke and Leia are siblings, twins in fact. It’s been claimed that Lucas knew of this relationship all along, but he certainly didn’t make it clear to Foster, who wrote the initial novelization of the first screenplay. (Foster also wrote a sequel, called Splinter In The Mind’s Eye, in which Luke and Leia adventure together, continuing to flirt with the idea of a relationship.) I don’t know what caused Lucas to insert the sibling/twin twist into the story in the 1980s, but it’s always rankled me that he did.

One specific thing I noticed in the book (not in the films) is that Foster mentioned several Earth-originated animals. For example, Ben Kenobi mentions a duck at one point; Luke, who has been raised on a desert planet, asks “What’s a duck?” There were a couple of others too, mentioned by Foster as the narrator. If the movie is “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away”, and the book is in “Another galaxy, another time”, I suspect they wouldn’t be seeing ducks or other animals that originated on Earth. On the other hand, they have humans in their galaxy, so...

Which brings up one final complaint, about the entire Star Wars universe, both canonical and not-so-canonical: the non-human species are referred to as “aliens”. (There was even a book, published in 2001, called Star Wars: The Essential Guide To Alien Species.) The word alien is directional, in that it refers to “someone who’s not from here”. In other words, if Chewbacca shows up on Earth, then he’s an alien. But if I show up on Chewbacca’s planet, then I’m the alien. Since none of these books or films mention the planet of origin for humans (some think Coruscant is their home world), it doesn’t make sense to refer to non-humans as “aliens”, since in many (most?) cases, humans and non-humans occupy the same planets simultaneously.

 

What I Liked Most About It

There is plenty to like about these three initial Star Wars stories, as evidenced by the global audience and billions of dollars in income over the decades.

Despite my usual predilection for “hard” sci-fi over fantasy, I think Star Wars is a great example of blending the two genres. While many of the storylines focus on “the Force”, destiny, and mythology, the entire backdrop is a sciency-type universe, filled with technology created by sentient biological beings and run by believable governments populated by believable characters — each driven by standard human motivators like greed, a lust for power, empathy, duty, and honor. A writer could take this universe, remove the Force, and it would still be an excellent universe in which to tell stories.

I think one reason the franchise still maintains such a large fan base is that it’s relatable. The human elements are very strong in these stories: curiosity, fear, anger, love, devotion, hate, overconfidence, worry, concern, jealousy, and so on. When I first saw Luke on Tatooine, gazing through powerful binoculars at a distant space battle, I felt his frustration at being trapped in his home life and unable to connect to larger, more exciting things. When Han first showed up with his cockiness, I disliked it but I could tell it was how he compensated for what he felt were his shortcomings. And the way he later downplayed his good deeds or felt uncomfortable being recognized for heroics was all too real. I could list a hundred of these instances. And they come through in the books too. And, Leia, well... She has always been many things to me, not the least of which was her bravery in staring down Darth Vader before any other character had the courage to try it.

Another grand theme throughout is that of the underdog. The Rebel Alliance would never get good odds in a betting scheme; the Empire holds all the cards. Most of the characters are the same way — Leia with her privileged background is an exception — coming from poor, out-of-the-way places and trying to survive against all odds.

 

Conclusion

I only read these again because I found the book at a library sale for fifty cents, and it was in very good condition. But I’m really glad I did. It was fun, if a little lazy on my part (to read a story I already know very well). The novelizations will never be considered great literature, I’m certain, but they tell the stories well enough, and the stories are captivating.

 

Note: I’ve published a much shorter version of this review on Goodreads.

 





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