D. B. Guin's Reviews > Star Wars: A New Hope

The old yellow edition I had of this (with Pages Of Full Color Stills From The Movie!) ripped in half right down the spine while I was reading it. Bummer.

I don't really know how to rate this. It's pretty much just A New Hope, but with the deleted scenes included and some weird details changed.

What does stand out is how consistently... over-the-top this book is. I saw some reviews praising the sophisticated vocabulary. Maybe it's just a change in norms between now and 1976, since I don't know much about old school scifi, but I found a lot of the language to be overly flowery and tryhard, rather than sophisticated. For instance, in a descriptive passage, he says that Uncle Owen's hair is "like gypsum helicites."

First of all... is this at all useful for anything other than highlighting the author's knowledge of geology? Will this give most people a good mental picture? Was the average layman much more geologically-inclined back in 1976 than he tends to be in 2017? We just don't know. Second of all, google tells me that this should be spelled "helictites," but in the book it is definitely written as "helicites." The confusion multiplies.

Obi-Wan says, "In my experience there is no such thing as luck, my young friend -- only highly favorable adjustments of multiple factors to incline events in one's favor." Like, jeez. Calm down, Kenobi. r/iamverysmart much?

I was perfectly content to blame George Lucas for this, but turns out A New Hope was actually ghostwritten by ADF. Since this novelization came out actually before the ANH movie, part of me suspects that this kind of thing was included in the script George Lucas gave ADF to work from, and the script itself underwent some refining and proofreading afterward. Makes me want to read ADF's TFA novelization and see how his modern prose compares to his earlier prose.

A lot of the most iconic ANH quotes get this same treatment. Novelization Han says, "hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons" instead of the more punchy, familiar version. Leia says, "You must help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are my last hope." It's just very padded with extra fluff for some reason, whether it's because ADF was free-wheeling on this, or whether George Lucas's script hadn't been fully pared down yet.

Conversely, there are some moments in the novelization that aren't in the movie and seem almost jarringly casual. For instance, Obi-Wan says to Luke, "Even a duck must be taught to swim." Luke's response is, "What's a duck?" I spent a solid 4 minutes unable to continue reading because I was laughing at this. Oh my gosh. I'm adopting this as canon now. Also, there's a point where Luke says, "General Kenobi, you fought in the Clone Wars? But... that was so long ago." Obi-Wan replies, "Um, yes. I guess it was a while back."

Um, yes. I guess it was a while back.

Can you picture Alec Guiness saying that? I'm screaming. CANON.

Other notable details:

• Leia bites her nails when nervous.

• Luke flies as Blue Five for some reason (?????)

• Obi-Wan KILLS TWO PEOPLE in Mos Eisley cantina as well as slicing off one (1) arm

• Luke's useless friends call him "Wormy" apparently. I had read this fact in a trivia book previously, but wow. A lot of the fleshed-out deleted scenes really show that Luke was NOT a particularly popular fellow at Tosche Station.

• Chewbacca got a medal!

• There are SO many more explicitly narrated moments of Luke lusting after Leia. In the movie you can kind of ignore it even though Luke's crush is obvious subtext, but. It's impossible to ignore in this book.

• Leia says "You served the Old Republic in the Clone Wars" instead of "You served my father in the Clone Wars." OF ALL THE THINGS THAT CONTRADICT THE PREQUELS BACKSTORY... THIS DETAIL IS ACTUALLY MORE CORRECT.

• The constant spelling of "Artoo Detoo" and "See Threepio," while I acknowledge it is..... classic.... is also horrific and annoying .. . . . and should stop . . .

• Similarly, writing 'droid instead of just droid. Why? Nobody is thinking, "Ah, droid, the common vernacular shortening of ANDROID -- I was confused there for a second." There was even a time where the narration referred to Darth Vader's targeting 'putor. 'PUTOR. I....... . . .. . . . am disgusted.

• All the talk heavily implying that Anakin grew up on Tatooine with Owen Lars and they disagreed about the importance of farming. What if Anakin had grown up on Tatooine with Owen Lars? Would they have disagreed about the importance of farming? Where's the AU.

• Obi-Wan STRONGLY implies that Owen kept the truth about Anakin from Luke because he was afraid it might influence Luke to leave Tatooine. When like... it seems that Owen might have reasonably had some slightly better reasons. Like maybe the fact that he loved Luke and wanted to protect him from the many galactic evils that would be VERY interested in killing him. I know that these discrepancies exist because it's pre-prequels canon... but I am honestly deeply tempted to interpret them as Obi-Wan being a huge liar.

• The foreword tells us that Palpatine became the first emperor, but apparently there were supposed to be many subsequent emperors? Who were powerless pawns of the bureaucracy and not Sith Lords? Interesting.

• Somebody is very speciesist against Jawas.

• Um, yes. I guess it was a while back. I'm never going to get over this.