Star Wars Books Thread

[Hound of UIster]

Anyone here has read The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski? What a great book. Seriously, great insights into the creation of the Saga. The parts with sequel trilogy are incredible. I wonder if some of it may turn out to be turn. I hope and wish Kaminski releases an updated book after the Saga ends. Thoughts anyone?

I think the best thing about Secret History is how he is able to gleam so many details using publicly available sources such as news articles and interviews. I think something like this for the ST is certainly doable even if current day LFL seems to want to discourage tell all BTS books (like the canned the Making of TFA book). There is enough public material generated by the directors/writers as well as the details in Artbooks that it's certainly repeatable.

Also if you are interested in the BTS also try all the Making of SW... books by JW Rinzler. He has access to a lot of internal LFL material that Kaminski never had. For example he had transcripts between Lucas and Kasdan for ROTJ that showed the world building for the GFFA was kind of in flux during the OT period.

 

[JD]

Yeah, they're probably releasing them after so they're more accurate to the final movie. So we don't get scenes that didn't make the final cut of the film.

I think it's less to do with that and more to do with minimising spoilers getting out into the wild.

I'm thinking it's probably about spoilers, they can't be too worried about the novels not matching the movies since one of their big selling points is that they actually do include scenes not in the movies. They're pretty much the only novelizations left that are allowed to include new scenes.

 

[Tuskin38]

Well TLJ ignored a deleted scene that made it into the TFA novelization, where Rey met Poe.
The movie will always be the the definitive version of events.

 

[JD]

Star Wars.com has posted an interview with George Mann, the author of Star Wars: Myths and Fables, which is a collection of stories which are meant to be stories the characters tell in the Star Wars universe.

 

[JD]

Earlier today they announced The Secrets of the Jedi, a new reference book about the history of the Jedi, written in universe by Luke Skywalker. The real world writer is Marc Sumerak, and it is being released by Insight Editions on November 19.

 

[fireproof78]

Earlier today they announced The Secrets of the Jedi, a new reference book about the history of the Jedi, written in universe by Luke Skywalker. The real world writer is Marc Sumerak, and it is being released by Insight Editions on November 19.

I think this will be a buy.

 

[Set Harth]

Either that or a bye.

As in "bye Felicia".

 

[Koric]

@Hound of UIster thank you for the suggestions.

I have all three Making of SW books. They are beyond incredible. Im hoping some day Rinzler can or will do Making of books for The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith.

Im also hoping for a making of books for TFA, TLJ, and ROS. My only criticism is I wish in all the Making of Books to have full and complete versions of each drafts of the scripts of the movies, instead of excerpts.

Kaminski's book is incredible in the sense of how he explain the evolution of certain storylines, how and why other storylines were discarded or used. It's amazing the concepts that are described for the Sequel Trilogy. He really should update his book.

Also I agree Star Wars, Empire , and Jedi underwent major changes over time. As a Star Wars fan, I highly recommend reading Kaminski's book too.

@Tuskin38 TLJ's novelization and the dream with Camie may up a big reveal in the end. To me there is more than a passing resemblance to Rey and Camie (Koo Stark) honestly. Plus Skywalker's realization of the arrogance of the Jedi, the blaming of Kenobi for Vader, Sidious rise. I think there is a connection to Rey's realization of needing the rise of Jedi, and Yoda realizing that the brighter the light of the Force doesnt defeat or destroy the Sith in the middle of the Yoda/Sidiious fight in the Revenge of the Sith novel.

I am willing to bet that everyone will be flocking to the Rise of Skywalker novel for more in depth answers to ROS's questions.
-Koric

 

[Set Harth]

I have all three Making of SW books. They are beyond incredible. Im hoping some day Rinzler can or will do Making of books for The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith.

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Star-Wars-Episode-III/dp/0345431391

Im also hoping for a making of books for TFA, TLJ, and ROS.

Rinzler was supposed to do one for TFA but Kathleen Kennedy killed it.

 

[Tuskin38]

The name Korriban is canon again. It was hinted that it could have been an ancient name for Moraband in Behind the Scenes material, but I believe this is the first time officially published material has stated it as such.

Also the first thing he mentions,

Spoiler

sounds a lot the Tatooine quest line in KOTOR 1.

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[WebLurker]

I agree @WebLurker. Freed did a great job with Rogue One, and Fry with the TLJ was incredible too.

But no on Matthew Stover? Stover really took the story of Revenge of the Sith to an awesome place with his adaptation. But dont forget Alan Dean Foster is the master of movie novelizations hands down. He did Star Wars 1977, I also read Alien and even The Black Hole all by Foster. Each book was incredible and had even more depth on the movie. Foster knows his stuff period. I think with TFA he was restricted either by Disney or Lucasfilm in some way as far as going too deep with the story. It could have led to complications or contradictions or revealed too much for the sequels. I'm not entirely sure. But ADF is a master though. Without Foster movie novelizations I believe wouldnt be as good or as successful at all. The same with Vonda McIntyre and 1980's Trek II, IIi, IV. But Foster did it first.

Times have changed and movie novels need to have depth and insight in them, after all we can have the movie now in 6 months or less. It would be almost full circle to have ADF write the beginning and end, hopefully with Lucas's insight on the story too.
But honestly, Stover just nailed Sith though.
Just my opinions everyone.
-Koric

Fair enough. You do a good job explaining your opinion.

I guess the thing with me is that I found both of Foster's Star Wars novelizations to not add much depth in the movies and rely too much purple prose. Some it is genuinely funny, but I find it takes me out of the story. Personally, I think that Michael Kogge's junior novelization of TFA added more depth to the story then Foster's.

In the case of Stover, I think he's a good writer. He has a poetic style that works well (basically, I think he does what Foster does, but better). I won't deny that his ROTS novelization isn't well written, because it is. Thing is, though, I found the poetic style to really distance me from the story, make it really abstract. If the movie was a photo gallery, the novelization was a gallery of impressionist paintings on the same subject, if that makes any sense. Nice for the sake of art, but it didn't work for me in regards to experiencing the story. The novel is also so different from the movie that I found that off-putting. Novelizations do have differences and extra material, which is part of the experiences, but it was so much, I had a hard time reconciling it with movie version, which was the reason I was reading it, to re-experience the story.

Just how I see it.

 

[Tuskin38]

Cover for Rebel Starfighters

 

[Prax]

Foster's A New Hope novelization is almost a word for word adaption of the screenplay. If Stover's novelization is the most expansive, then Foster's is the most restrictive and conforming. The other two OT novelizations are more less the same. The other two PT novelizations are also expansive. TPM is a little dry, but enjoyable, and I think the AOTC novelization strikes the best balance. It follows the movie + deleted scenes pretty closely, but adds a little extra insight into scene. Everyone feels intelligent. The dialogue is good, and the conflict feels real, and urgent. Even the romance is handled quite well in the book. R.A. Salvatore did an excellent, if underrated job.
Alan Dean Foster actually wrote a prelude novel to Attack of the Clones that was pretty decent. His TFA novelization was very much like his ANH novelization, almost straight from the script.

 

[Mysterion]

Cover for Rebel Starfighters

Amazon gives a release date for this of 12 November.
Based on the previous books in the series, am really looking forward to getting this one. Hoping for decent coverage of the Y-wing which is my favorite amongst the rebel forces and has been, IMO, much overlooked and neglected.

 

[fireproof78]

Hoping for decent coverage of the Y-wing which is my favorite amongst the rebel forces and has been, IMO, much overlooked and neglected.

Completely agree.

 

[Unicron]

They did a fine job with the TIE Fighter Manual, so I hope it's on the same level. I was honestly quite impressed with the range of TIE models that book covers, and it'd be great to see the Alliance units in the same detail.

 

[Set Harth]

Foster's A New Hope novelization is almost a word for word adaption of the screenplay.

Not exactly... there's a lot of non-dialogue stuff in there that isn't in the screenplay.

 

[Prax]

Maybe I read an abridged version

 

[JD]

I've never read the A New Hope novel, but from what I've read online there is a lot of backstory stuff in there that wasn't in the movie. I think at least some of it was totally being totally different from what we ended up getting in the later. I think I read an excerpt from the prologue where it's talking about how the Emperor is just a figure head with no real power, and it's actually his advisors who are running. I don't think there was any mention of him being a Sith, or Vader's Master.

 

[Prax]

There is some stuff that is in the novelization not found in the movie, but is in the screenplay.