Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

A wonderful Ralph McQuarrie piece graces
the cover of the first edition.

Formerly titled Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker

by George Lucas

ghostwriten by
Alan Dean Foster

Ballantine Books

December 1976

Published six months prior to the debut of the film Star Wars, this book was the first Star Wars product released to the public. While it was credited to George Lucas as author, it’s now well-known that Alan Dean Foster in fact ghostwrote the book. The first edition of the novelization features an original Ralph McQuarrie painting as the cover.

The book opens with a prologue, which itself opens with the line, “Another galaxy, another time.” (The precursor to “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.”) The prologue contains two epigraphs. The first is an excerpt from the Journal of the Whills, which briefly summarizes the events that now pertain to Episodes I−III. It is mostly accurate to what we know today (except for the fact that no mention of the Clone Wars is made, and the Emperor is made to seem as if he became a puppet ruler over time). The second epigraph is a great quotation regarding Luke and Han: “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally they became heroes.” –Leia Organa of Alderaan, Senator

The book follows the timeline of the film to a tee. It begins with the Star Destroyer chasing the Rebel blockade runner, and ends with the heroes receiving medals of honor at the grand ceremony on Yavin. In between, there is very little deviation from the film. Nearly all of the scenes from the film are represented in the novelization, and are, for the most part, faithful to their film counterpart. The notable exceptions to this are the destruction of Alderaan and Obi-Wan feeling the “great disturbance in the Force.” While Alderaan’s destruction occurs of course, neither of these scenes are presented in the novelization. This is a shame, really, as we never experience Princess Leia’s agony over the destruction of her planet, which not only lessens the impact of its destruction, but it could have been a great opportunity to flesh out her character more. Another small difference is that Grand Moff Tarkin is present during Leia’s interrogation.

There are numerous instances of dialogue that is different from the film version, although this is to be expected, as a result of evolution of the screenplay and Foster’s own interpretation of the scene. Occasionally I found the changes to be for the better, but for the most part I found them lacking. Cases in point: after Obi-Wan is cut down by Vader, and Han and Leia are shouting for Luke to hurry aboard the Falcon, Obi-Wan’s postmortem Force suggestion to Luke is “Luke . . . listen!” (As opposed to, “Run Luke, run!”) Or Princess Leia’s best known line, “Obi-Wan Kenobi, help me! You’re my only remaining hope.” Or try, “Not a more wretched collection of villainy and disreputable types exists anywhere on Tatooine.” I’m not sure even Sir Alec Guinness could have pulled that line off. Luke has “a very strange feeling about this.” TK-421 in the novelization is THX-1138. (While Lucas inserted a THX-1138 reference into American Graffiti, this is certainly the earliest such reference to his first film in a Star Wars work.) While stupefied over Alderaan’s apparent destruction, Han says, “Although, according to the atlas, Alderaan had no moons.” I don’t know what atlas he’s referring to or where he got it, but my Essential Atlas says Alderaan had one moon. Get with it, Han.

A few deleted and extended scenes from the film are presented in this book. Notably, the Tatooine scenes with Luke, Biggs Darklighter, and their shiftless Anchorhead friends are presented here, spanning ten pages. A handful of scenes also benefit from the breathing room a novelization can afford them, such as when we realize that Tarkin wasn’t privy to Darth Vader’s activities prior to the Death Star scenes: “Mos Eisley? Tatooine? What is this? What’s this all about, Vader?” Also, the pre-battle briefing by General Dodonna to the Rebel pilots is more detailed and helped make more sense of the upcoming battle. A brief passage in the Lars’ garage while Luke is cleaning the droids has him getting angry and frustrated in a way very similar (and in an identical location) to Anakin in Episode II: Attack of the Clones: With atypical violence he threw a power wrench across a work-table nearby. “It just isn’t fair!” he declared to no one in particular. This occurs shortly before Luke informs Threepio that this world is called Tatooine. In the novelization, we get Luke actually answering Threepio’s query with a helpful answer, we get Leia being called by her full name (Leia Organa), and we get Darth Vader being referred to as a Sith. None of these occur in the film, which is actually an interesting “Lucasism.” (Such as, even though they were never once referred to as such in Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, most people with even a passing knowledge of Star Wars knew and knows that the fuzzy little teddy bears that inhabit Endor are called Ewoks. Even the word “Sith” is not once used in the entire original trilogy.) And R2-D2 suffers the same exact fate as he later would in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back when he plugs his computer probe into a power socket and nearly short circuits.

All of the characters we’re so familiar with are written faithfully in the novelization. Foster did not deviate from the screenplay in any significant fashion enough to produce aberrant characterizations. However, one gets the feeling reading this book that Sir Alec Guinness brought so much to the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi that a screenplay-to-novel interpretation was not sufficient to truly capture the old Jedi Master introduced to film audiences six months later. Darth Vader is also not quite as effective here as in the film. While he is sometimes presented as a frightening, imposing figure, he also tends to have longer sentences of dialogue in the book than in the film, which really isn’t a good look for Vader. A good novelization, however, does allow the reader to get into the heads of the characters in a way that a film cannot, and Foster is a good enough novelizer to take advantage of this disparity.

For example, I enjoyed Luke’s landspeeder twice being used as a means of showing Luke’s growth and development. After Obi-Wan informs Luke that he’ll have to sell the speeder, Luke “let his gaze rove over the landspeeder, but the thrill it had once given him was gone—gone along with other things best not dwelt on.” Upon departing after selling the speeder, Luke “strained for a forlorn glimpse of the old landspeeder—his last link with his former life. Then there was no more time for looking back.” Another powerful example is Darth Vader mentally sizing up his colleagues aboard the Death Star. Lamenting the fact that, while Grand Moff Tarkin and Admiral Motti were “talented and ambitious,” they lacked the scope of vision that Vader had: “Still, neither man was a Dark Lord. As such, little more could be expected of them . . . And while he would have preferred the company of equals, he had to admit reluctantly that at this point, he had no equals.”

Alan Dean Foster should be commended for presenting the Star Wars Universe to audiences for the very first time as well as he did. The book reads like Star Wars. Of special note is the Battle of Yavin. The battle is well-written while sticking fairly close to the film version. (Although in the novelization, Red Squadron is Blue Squadron and Gold Squadron is Red Squadron, the battle plan is slightly altered from the film version, and Luke actually makes a second pass down the trench after missing his shot the first time.) It takes up a significant amount of pages (almost thirty) while remaining almost as tense as the filmed battle. However, the reader does not get a very good sense of many of the locals featured in the story. Mos Eisley, for example, is briefly and poorly described, and we miss the ‘grandeur’ of it in the book. Honestly, however, the same applies to most of the story’s settings. 

There are also a few curiosities present in Foster’s writing, which is rife with similes and strange references, many of which are quite clunky:

     “[Biggs] stood out in the room like an Oriental poppy in a sea of oats.”

     “Luke's mind was as muddy as a pond laced with petroleum."

     “Oddly, Luke was thinking of a dog he had once owned when an immensely powerful something wrenched at the ship's hull with the strength of a fallen angel."

     “Artoo emitted a few wilted beeps, successfully giving the impression of a human who had expected a glass of mild wine and instead unwittingly downed several gulps of something 180 proof.”

Another oddity in Foster’s writing (evident in the examples above) is the use of several Earth-centric references. Ducks, dogs, cats, ferrets, Doppler, Tantalus, Oriental poppies . . . it’s probably not enough to pull the reader entirely out of the story, but it is a touch distracting. There are also some “alternate” spellings in this book, such as “Jabba the Hut,” “Wookie,” “Obi-wan Kenobi,” and “‘droid.” (Although droids are mostly referred to here as “robots.” A Star Wars no-no . . . although one that Foster can't be blamed for.) “The Force” is mostly left lowercase, and oddly, the name “Death Star” is only used once in the whole book—every other time it is simply referred to as “station” or “battle station.” Foster really can’t be blamed for any of these either, as he was working from a work-in-progress to begin with.

Conclusion

It’s a story we all (presumably) love and the novelization mostly does it justice. The characters in the book feel familiar and are mostly consistent with their film counterparts. And while Foster’s writing style could at times be described as “awkward,” and doesn’t do much to expand on what we already know from watching the film, he did an overall admirable job conveying the story of Star Wars to audiences for the very first time.

The trouble here is that the film is a more rewarding experience in every way. A good novelization expands the reader’s knowledge and understanding of the source material and gives the characterizations more room to breathe. Unfortunately, Foster’s novelization of A New Hope mostly fails in those respects. While this is a quick, light, fairly entertaining read, the reader gains very little above and beyond what the film has to offer, and the film has so much more to offer than this book.  

5.75 / 10