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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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 Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2018 9:50 pm Post subject: Star Wars The Force Awakens Novelization |
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Novelization by Alan Dean Foster
So, here's how my brain works. I was in the mood for Star Wars, and TLJ wasn't quite yet out on DVD, so I decided to listen to TLJ novelization audiobook. Then, I decided that I should listen to TFA audiobook first.
I went to buy the book, and changed my mind. I had listened to the original trilogy radio shows a while back (sometime last year), which is the closest you can get to novelizations of the original trilogy (that's not quite true--there are re-imagined original trilogy audiobooks), so I decided that I wanted to listen to the prequel trilogy novelizations. I have heard that they are both fantastic listens and tell a better story than the prequel films.
OK, I was in. I bought those. Started listening to Episode I. Liking it.
Then...
I got my DVD copy of TLJ, watched it, and now I want...the novelizations to the new films!
I mean, I loved--LOVED--the novelization for RO.
So, I went back and bought the audio versions of TLJ and TFA, and I began listening to the latter tonight.
That is how my brain works. Screwed up, ain't it?
(Actually not screwed up--it just looks that way from the outside  . In reality, it's a touch of hedonism.  )
I haven't been able to listen to much. In fact, when I get back in the car, I'm starting it all over again. I'll get into it more on Monday, when I go back to work.
But...
What I've heard so far is FANTASTIC!
The narrator is one of the best Star Wars narrators. There's the John Williams score in parts. And, other parts have sound effects from the films. It's great!
Interesting tid-bits so far....
The book starts with a passage from the Journal of the Whills. And it says...
| Quote: | "First comes the day
Then comes the night.
After the darkness
Shines through the light.
The difference, they say,
Is only made right
By the resolving of gray
Through refined Jedi sight."
―Journal of the Whills, 7:477 |
What do you get out of that? Is that talking about balance? "By the resolving of gray through refined Jedi sight."
In a line, isn't that what the entire middle film is about--TLJ?
Isn't that what Yoda was trying to teach Luke in that next film?
Maybe there's more planning about the overall arc of the three films than we were all thinking.
It is interesting to ponder.
Another interesting point that is very clear at the start of the book but not at all clear in TFA film is that the New Republic is already teetering. It's having a hard time taking hold. The First Order is not really "secret" as it seems to be in TFA. Instead, the First Order has "risen from the ashes of the Empire" and is posed, already, before the film begins, to take over the galaxy.
I thought the balance was tipped once Starkiller base took out Hosnian Prime, but the book makes it look like the galaxy is already heading that way.
Only Leia's under funded Resistance To The First Order stands in outright defiance of the overwhelming influence of the First Order.
The rest of the galaxy, the government of the New Republic included, either deny that the sky is falling or have already concluded that the victor will be the First Order.
I'll say this. Like the new films or not, they certainly have given us a lot to think about. Here it is almost three years after TFA hit movie screens, and I'm still puzzling out the details of the film.
...Which is a lot like the original trilogy when it first came out. Plus, the details were a lot harder to obtain back then--no internet!
I'M LOVING IT!
And, the new story is growing on me A LOT. |
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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| Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2018 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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I was looking at that Whills reference: 7477. July 4th, 1977?
I wonder what that means. I checked, and ANH first hit the theaters in December of '77. The novelization, that Alan Dean Foster ghost wrote for Lucas, was published in 1976.
So...what could that date mean?
Also...
I've always liked the idea of the "Journal of the Whills". It was a plot device that Lucas was going to use in the films, and you can see it in some sources like ADF's novelization of ANH. But, until RO came out, we didn't know much about it as the idea was dropped.
And so was the title style of "Luke Skywalker and the blah, blah, blah", which was used by Matthew Stover on his book, Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor. Kinda like Indiana Jones. That old plup-hero feel.
Or, as with ADF's original novelization of ANH that says, From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker.
I miss that stuff. Glad to see use of the Whills back. Would like to see more. |
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Whill
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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| Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2018 10:38 pm Post subject: |
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| The first Marvel Star Wars comic came out in July, 1977. |
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Falconer
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| Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2018 11:33 pm Post subject: |
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I thought this was interesting (quoted from Wookieepedia):
| Quote: | | In the book The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, George Lucas remarks that R2-D2 recounts the story of Star Wars to a Shaman of the Whills one hundred years after the Battle of Endor. |
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Falconer
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| Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2018 11:35 pm Post subject: |
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| I didn’t get far with the TFA audiobook the last time I tried. I’ll have to try again. It seems like ADF hews very closely to the script. |
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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| Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2018 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Falconer wrote: | | I didn’t get far with the TFA audiobook the last time I tried. I’ll have to try again. It seems like ADF hews very closely to the script. |
He's not known for that. In fact, he's known for the opposite.
Maybe Disney was lurking over his shoulder on this one and didn't give him any breathing room--with this being one of the first new SW novels.
I'm barely into it. I like what I've heard so far, but I'm not far enough in to make a good judgement about the overall book. |
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Whill
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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| Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2018 1:19 am Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote: | | The first Marvel Star Wars comic came out in July, 1977. |
Hey, you answered your own question. Nice! |
What's that got to do with ADF, or the Journal of the Whills? Is ADF a fan of the comics or something? |
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 7:52 pm Post subject: |
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I got into listening today, on my commute. I've made it to Jakku. Kylo Ren has just appeared.
So far, I'd say that the book is close on the overall story but somewhat different in the details. That is to say that the story is pretty much, so far, what you see in the movie, but there are lots of little detail changes. Poe's X-Wing is under a cliff face, for example, and he has to fly it out. Stormtroopers approach from the front, not the back, and blow the heck out of the front part of the engines.
The scene on Jakku has a different pace, with the troopers taking longer to get to the settlement.
Dialogue scenes have more dialogue.
FN 2187 has never seen Kylo Ren before he came out of the shuttle.
When FN 2187's friend dies, he splatters on Finn's helmet--didn't use his hand to streak lines with his fingers.
Stuff like that.
Enjoying it, though. Great production. |
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Solo4114
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| Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 2:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | It's an interesting question but I'm not sure that 7477 is meant to represent a real world date. If it is, I'm not sure what it refers to other than Independence Day while ANH was still in theaters. By the way, Star Wars came out in the theater on May 25th 1977, not December 77. |
Which is why "Star Wars Day" in my house is May 25th, not May 4th. May 4th is just based on a pun. May 25th is the "orthodox" day to observe.  |
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Whill
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:25 pm Post subject: |
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I'm at the scene in the Novelization where Unkar Plutt tried to buy BB-8 off of Rey. The scene in the book is quite different. Rey even turns the droid "off" at one point to finish the negotiation.
In the movie, I felt Rey felt a bit sorry for the droid, and that's why she didn't sell it. It kept "looking" at her like a stray puppy not wanting to be left at the pound. That's personification on my part, I'm sure. Maybe some of you felt that way.
In the book, Rey flips off the droid, realizes that Plutt does't want the droid for himself. Plutt tells her that somebody else wants it, and that he doesn't care what they do with it for the price that they're paying.
And, Rey, on her own, decides to not sell the droid, with a lot less influence from the BB-8, as we saw in the movie.
I like the movie version better.
But...that's not why I'm bringing this up.
During the scene, Plutt says that Rey is breaking a deal, and Rey spouts a along speech about how she is an independent, with no debt, not beholden to anybody.
Now, think to what we found in in TLJ. Ben says, and Rey agrees as if she's always known, that her parents sold her.
In TFA, we saw a flashback with a ship taking off and a young Rey watching, crying, with Unkar Plutt's arm holding her in place.
So...if Rey was sold, who bought her? Where are they? What happened to them?
It's obviously not Unkar Plutt who bought her because of that "independent" speech in the book which is shown in TFA. |
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Falconer
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Kylo Ren was lying. |
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Whill
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| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:14 am Post subject: |
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Spoiler Alert Wajeb, TFA novelization has the first meeting of Rey and Poe at the Resistance base before she leave to find Luke. That was contradicted by TLJ film. The novelizations are not canon where they contradict the films, and there was no overarching plan for this film trilogy where they just make one film at a time, so Rey's statement in TFA novelization doesn't necessarily mean much to TLJ and Episode IX films. It is suggested by the films that Rey's parents sold her to Unkar Plutt.
Also, if Rey's novelization statement about being independent is in the present tense, that doesn't mean she wasn't sold to him in the past. In the film she is obviously not beholden to Unkar Plutt to anymore, but that doesn't mean she wasn't when she was younger.
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