Customer Reviews

Star Wars Trilogy

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The original Star Wars trilogy hit the movie industry like a sack of gold falling from the sky, and has become a modern classic in the years since then. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the novelizations. One is lackluster, two are okay, with occasional moments of brilliance.

"A New Hope" is technically not so great, but the energy and exuberance of Lucas's first huge film just seeps out of the edges. It makes up for its writing shortcomings by not trying too hard, since this was before the immense success of the movie trilogy. Not very detailed, but not too spare either.

Ironically, the best film of the trilogy, "Empire Strikes Back," is rather dull as a novelization, coming across as fragmented and forced; Donald F. Glut seems to have been feeling the pressure. The flavor returns somewhat in "Return of the Jedi"'s novelization, which has more energy and spark than its predecessor. It feels like James Kahn was able to move past the overwhelming expectations and turn out something pretty good.

Not much has been changed in the years since these novelizations were first published. The first one, ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster, was originally published as "Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker," which accounts for the slightly space-serial-esque flavor of the first book. The second and third are less laid-back, and more intense.

Since the novelizations were crafted from scripts, it often reads like the writers just inserted some detail here and there, along with "he said" or "she shouted." But there are some scenes and lines that aren't in the final films. These make for some very interesting reading, especially when they add dimension to already existing characters. One example is Luke and Ben having a peculiar conversation about ducks; another is Luke and Briggs chatting on Tattooine.

The "Star Wars" novelization trilogy is something of a mixed bag, but it's worth checking out for fans of Lucas's classic movies. It isn't too different from the scripts, but revisiting it in print is a pleasant diversion.

This book grabs your attention over and over again. When I'm at school all I want to do is go home and read this book again. As most Star Wars fans know it's about Luke Skywalker and his journey towards becoming a jedi. This book features all three star wars, A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return Of The Jedi. If you must know this book is just as good as the movie but it's even more fun to find out what the characters are thinking during lightsaber fights, empier encounters, and all scenes with Darth Vader and The Emporer. This book deserves the title of star wars and a great book reveiw!

I've been a Star Wars fan my entire life, and have read several of the Expanded Universe books. I'd never wanted to read the novelization of the original trilogy, however, until recently. On a lark, more than anything, I decided to pick it up.

There are slight continuity issues between the story presented in this book, and the prequel trilogy, but they are not so looming that they would detract from your enjoyment of the book. It's a quick read, especially if you are a lifetime fan of the movies. Your imagination has to do little work, in terms of conjuring up images of characters or settings, as most of it is engrained in your head already. The dialogue is almost verbatim from the films, and there is little detail added in any of the first two stories.

The best part of this book, to me, was James Kahn's telling of `Return of the Jedi'. His descriptions and narrative added new layers of enjoyment to the story. I really think his work did the film a great justice by its presentation, and in my opinion, he is the most talented writer of the three represented here. Of the three movies from the original trilogy, ROTJ is my least favorite, but of the stories in this book, it's my favorite.

Overall, I wouldn't label this book as a must-read for fans, but I certainly enjoyed it, and think most Star Wars fans would, as well.

I read this before the Special Edition came out, and was amazed at how much the movies left out...but then, I saw that Special Edition added scenes that were originally in the book (I am referring to Star Wars: A New Hope). But still, the stories just captured the setting and thoughts of all those characters perfectly, better than any movie can. I've read it again and again and never gotten tired of it!

I love the Star Wars Trilogy and I think anyone else who reads it will love it too. The characters are described so well that I can visulise them and everything about them on my mind's eye. My favorite book out of the three is Return of the Jedi, but Star Wars, (A New Hope,) and The Empire Strikes Back make it very hard to choose. I also love the movies. If you like the book, it is a pretty good bet you'll like the movie too.

George Lucas weaves awesome tales of realistic science fiction. These 3 stories are the best science fiction pieces I have ever read. They are witty, charming, and humurous. The creativity in these stories is astounding! The characters are great! George Lucas combines romance with action, and danger, for the Star Wars triliogy. Anyone who likes science fiction, I highly recommend these books. The movies are just as great, so see them too!

This book is great for all you Star Wars Trilogy fans! This book has all the original novelizations(The original novelizations are Based closely or by George Lucas) in one volume! Somethings differ from the movies, though. For example, in the novelizations in the battle of Yavin, Luke is Blue 5. In the movie, he is red five. There are also some added scenes that are GREAT! It also explains stuff, for example, if you didn't know who was talking or talking to, this book would definetly tell you. There is a prologue that tells you about How the Republic collapsed and how Senator Palpatine became Emperor. So buy this book as soon as you can!!!

Three novels in a single book is a good bargain. But this edition is faulted. I mean, the first book I received lacked the last chapters (not that I didn't know the ending). BTW, thank you Amazon for replacing it so fast.
Star Wars is a reasonable novelization of the movie. I liked it pretty much.
The Empire Strikes Back's novelization doesn`t follow the movie in many parts, specially the famous freezing chamber scene. But, is very entertaining anyway.
The Return of the Jedi is mostly a rough transcription of the movie, not adding a bit of information to it. Except for the last confrontation between Luke and Vader, which is pretty well written.
As I said in the title, only for Star Wars fans.

You can't miss this book if you're a real SW fan. It summarizes the first three books of the saga in one.
You can easily distinguish the different styles of authors: Gorge Lucas (the book is as good as the movie), Donald Glut (in my opinion he just copied the plot and added nothing more) and James Kahn (good storyteller).
I really liked it and I strongly reccommend it.

The first thing that will strike you when you begin reading "A New Hope," will be the level of skill with which George Lucas writes. He truly is an artist in the highest sense of the word. "The Empire Strikes Back," is nothing more than a simple literary translation of the script. But both "Star Wars" and "Return of the Jedi" are very well written, both having some truly stunning poetic breakthroughs in the prose. The biggest beef is that Obi-Wan is referred to as finding and training young Anakin and that Yoda trained Obi-Wan. Of course, now in 2002, we know about Qui-Gon Jinn and all that. I hope Omnibus has the sense to correct these obvious errors in ultimate plot. Other than that, it is well-written and deserves to be read by yourselves and by children.