Many Returns of Many Jedi, and an interesting novelization: A Star Wars (retrospective) Story, Part 21

There are so many Return of the Jedi adaptations into so many kinds of media. I am overwhelmed

Yes, that's right, it's my big adaptation roundup post for the last movie in the original trilogy. It's got some hits, some misses, and a lot of print media. We're actually going to hit a relatively quiet patch in terms of new Star Wars releases now, mostly because though the franchise had a good chunk of serialized properties, the lack of new movies made for a relatively quiet period. This will really take a turn when we hit the 90s, with the release of one novel.

The novelization of this movie is actually something I find supremely interesting. I'm going to be discussing that at length, because I think it makes some bold choices to tell a story that isn't entirely the same in theme to the movie. And this is something that I actually like. Whether or not it's good is perhaps a different question.

If you want substance from this post, skip to where I talk about the novelization! I'm a lot lighter on the stuff with less to dig into. So I don't clog your feed, I'm going to put the "read more" thing here because this is a Large Post. If you want to look at another post in this series, CLICK HERE FOR THE MASTERPOST

Onto the show! Starting with...

Return of the Jedi (1983): A Star Wars (retrospective) Story, Part 20

For some old people, this is where Star Wars ended! For me? Oh baby we're only getting started here. Oh it's real sicko hours. But for serious, this is the close of the original trilogy. Did Lucas plan this to be The End?

Well no! But he was burned the fuck out! Yeah, that's right, burned the fuck out by the THIRD MOVIE he made.

How many did he plan? Twelve.

Yes. Twelve. In the late 70s, Lucas was fully convinced that it would be twelve films. We love an ambitious queen. To the point that he told Mark Hamill he'd have a cameo for episode 9 in 2011 (I love the timeline). By the time they hit Empire Strikes Back in filming, Lucas had cut that down to nine movies. Probably because the thought of doing 12 movies of one sequential storyline sounds like a NIGHTMARE. By the time we hit Return of the Jedi's release, it's pretty clear to George that what he wants is to maybe possibly do the prequels, for which he has a lot of detailed notes, and significantly less about whatever happens after the original trilogy. (Though he would eventually mention that he'd hoped to do some midichlorian adventures. Oh yeah baby! He LOVES the force bugs!)

Please keep that in mind when we discuss the other properties that'll get published after this one. Especially with reference to one Mr. Timothy Zahn. And also with reference to the sequels. Oh boy! (Yes ik the read more thing is annoying but this is a long post and I don't want to clog yer feed) (There's a digression about fascism among other things)

Radio DRAMAS (1981 and beyond): A Star Wars (retrospective) Story, Part 15

TL;DR: I'm going through all of the Star Wars media I can get my hands on in order of its initial publication. I shall discuss it all. Maybe someday I'll even finish it! CLICK HERE FOR THE MASTERPOST

Or: How millions of dollars of debt, Ronald Reagan, and Anthony Daniels put Mara Jade into Return of the Jedi

Readers unfamiliar with the history of the National Public Radio may be wondering how on earth the checkbook of a public radio organization is supposed to relate back to a retrospective on the evolution of Star Wars.

Readers familiar with the history of NPR, however, may be immediately familiar with the name Frank Mankiewicz, erstwhile president of the organization known for, among other things, resigning in 1983 after NPR accrued a colossal debt due to truly spectacular financial mismanagement. Spectacular financial mismanagement to the tune of 7 million dollars, necessitating a bailout from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and a switch to a subscription model from local stations.

Frank Mankiewicz's time with NPR, though ending dramatically and in dire straits financially, can be characterized largely by his push to diversify income and content for the organization. An expansionist approach to the radio. This, however, coincided with Reagan cutting public funding. So when Richard Toscan, a USC associate dean involved with the college radio, pitched a revitalization of the radio drama for the 1980s, Mankiewicz agreed in an effort to bring interest to NPR Playhouse, their radio drama umbrella. NPR would fight the budget cuts with an expanded audience! And, really, what gets the people going more than Star Wars?

How did a public radio get the rights to broadcast an adaptation of a massive blockbuster hit? Well George Lucas just happened to be a USC alumnus, so he sold the rights off for a symbolic dollar.

To be clear, this venture was a resounding success for the radio in 1981, for the radio drama, and for everyone involved. Brian Daley wrote some genuinely compelling original material to extend the content of the 1977 movie enough for several episodes, Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels both gave great reprise performances of their roles from the movie, and the youth interest in NPR's broadcasting spiked massively. The radio drama adaptation for the first film did exactly what it set out to do: bring intrigue back to the radio drama. I'd like to especially highlight how fantastic Brock Peters is as Darth Vader, and point out that though I did not care for Daley's Han Solo trilogy, his writing is very well suited for this medium, and he expands on the content of the first film in a way that really complements the story. The second installation came out in 1983 was perhaps less shockingly good, but still a very creditable production, and worth a listen.

But what goes up must also go down. Down over six million dollars, in fact. Due to astonishing mismanagement of funds that Mankiewicz could never explain satisfactorily. And down too went funding for NPR under Reagan, after a decade of expansion in the 1970s. So thanks to Reagan stripping public broadcasting funding coinciding with a financial clusterfuck, the planned adaptation of Return of the Jedi was shelved, a time further exacerbated by disagreements between the radio station producing it and Lucasfilm.

Still though, recordings of the original two radio dramas sold so well that over a decade later they would convince the company that distributed them to come back and adapt the final installment of the trilogy.

Naturally, there was over a decade more Star Wars to adapt! The radio drama relies upon expanding upon the film material to fill out a broader timeframe (and that's why we learn that once upon a time Leia's father was named Prestor Organa, and not Bail), and Brian Daley would flesh out the story with additional scenes. Though Return of the Jedi had fewer of these scenes due to its shorter run than the other two, it nonetheless saw its opportunity to highlight the other Star Wars properties outside of the films.

One of these scenes was intended to have C-3PO conversing with Boba Fett. Anthony Daniels, the resident Threepio in every iteration of the character, felt that his character would never be so congenial with Boba, and so in a moment of cross-promotional savvy, they wrote in fan-favorite Mara Jade from Timothy Zahn's books into the script, but in disguise! It is perhaps less expansive of an adaptation and less interesting to revisit as a result, but it still retains the great performances, the brilliant sound design, and it retains a similar tone to the first two in spite of its decade plus removal from their production, which is a credit to everyone involved.

Brian Daley unfortunately passed away from cancer the day the Return of the Jedi radio drama finished recording. But these radio dramas are treasures, and a real testament to his strengths as a writer. Genuinely worth a listen on a road trip or long flight, they're all available on the Internet Archive.

Three cheers to radio. Video may have killed the radio star in the 1980s, but before it could do that, radio Star Wars was a rousing triumph.

Myriad Adaptations of the Empire Strikes Back: A Star Wars (retrospective) Story, Part 13

TL;DR: I'm going through all of the Star Wars media I can get my hands on in order of its initial publication. I shall discuss it all. Maybe someday I'll even finish it! CLICK HERE FOR THE MASTERPOST

So remember how I said last post I would be lumping all of these together for this one? I'm regretting that BIG TIME now because oh boy. There's... so many of them. And you know what. This movie deserves it. It's a banger. It's elite. I already gushed about that always and FOREVER. BUT. Please keep in mind. This was a lot of stuff to go through. And find! And holy fuck some of these need a lot of thought put into them.

SO. Without further ado and handwringing, I have arranged all of these for you into a list in terms of investment required of ME to review em

The Novelization

Sadly for all of us enjoyers of the purplest cheese in the universe, this is not an Alan Dean Foster novelization. I have much less to say about this novel compared to the first one, which, as you may remember, I find hilarious. Donald Glut does pretty much as direct of a novelization from the movie as you possibly could (though Yoda being blue is really one of the funniest bits. SO glad they didn't retroactively change that in the edition that I have. Blue Yoda existing somewhere out there is cursed and wonderful to me), with very little license taken for inner monologues or character detail.

It's... fine. It's just that the movie being as good as it is makes translating it to a novel... hard. SO much of the strength of the movie is visual.

And... well... the prose is often extremely and emphatically a slog to read.

You've heard of show don't tell, but have you heard of Tell Em Twice?! Just watch the movie. The novelization isn't really worth your time. I guess it's nice to have it all in writing but what works as a film won't necessarily work as a novel and this is one of the best examples of that.

The Story of the Empire Strikes Back

Hey, you know how the first movie had that audio adaptation? This one too! It's got pretty much the same strengths as the adaptation of the first movie. Here's a bit of foreshadowing: though the visual component of the films is obviously a huge strength, the sound design, music, and dialogue are able to carry extremely well. It's almost like you could make a radio drama of these and have it play extremely well (we'll get to that I promise).

You can find this on youtube! Or in my big box of cassette tapes I've collected for fun over the years. Kind of a gem for a road trip, I've found.

The Empire Strikes Back Book-and-Record (and Junior Novelization)

There's a JUNIOR novelization! And I actually think it's... better than the official novelization? At least at what it aims to achieve. It's a book for young readers (not THAT young, but it is definitely geared to people just starting to read whole novels) that doesn't dumb things down too much. It's direct, it's a quick and snappy read, and though it pretty much goes through the movie in the same way the official novelization does, I think it's got a much better grasp on how to translate the visual to the page.

Is it great? I mean not really. It's not a gem of a young reader's novel in the way that the Phantom Tollbooth is. But it's not bad, and it might be a good way to entice a kid that's reluctant to read into reading. The accompanying record is just fine too. It's okay! And it's just... yknow... less clumsy than the official novelization which just really misses for me.

The Empire Strikes Back Storybook

HEY! I like this one a lot. It's a young reader adaptation (and I mean young) with actual gorgeous printed still images from the movie. Anything where I get to look at the pretty pretty pictures is a win in my book! It's not remarkable outside of that but, look, the visual component of this movie is so good. Any use of it is a win in my book.

Marvel Comics' Empire Strikes Back

Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson grabbed me by the throat and said "You will love the things we make." I know I've already talked about the Marvel Comics run at Star Wars ad how much I love Goodwin/Williamson's take on Star Wars, but I wanted to just. Love on this a little more. Please :)

The movement, the colors, everything about this FUCKS. It's so worth your time to check these out. (also, in SOME versions of this publication, Yoda is PURPLE) (I love multicolored Yoda)

Beautiful beautiful beautiful art. I love it so much. It's gorgeous. Check this adaptation out. It's so worth it.

Empire Strikes Back Pop-Up Book

Dude I love pop-up books. I feel like I just don't see them as much anymore but they're SO COOL. Anyway I wasn't able to find a physical copy of this one anywhere near me which is supremely disappointing to me because every image I see of it online makes me Want One. I'll withhold judgment. But I would like it to be known that I do strictly covet it.

Mix-And-Match Storybook of Empire Strikes Back

I want one so bad. Oh my god. I NEED one of these for my Star Wars Bingo Cards. The art is also super cool, Wayne Douglas Barlowe did a great job on it.

Super pretty and yet still very distinct from the other art available at the time. This is one of those lil mix-and-match the flaps type of book where you can change up the story as many times as you want, it's for little kids. However, I propose it is also... for me :) Because it's pretty to look at and funny to make very cursed stories. I'm just proposing that I get my hands on one. Please. I beg :)

The Panorama Book

Yet another style of book that I desperately want more of in my collection of books. Fun fact I used to make my own versions of these (much less successfully) (but ig my siblings have cool storybooks now!) and I had so much fun with them. The art is whimsical, the story is exactly what you expect, and I would like to have one physically to page through and enjoy the details.

And so this has been a thorough roundup of ALL of the immediate adaptations of this story to other mediums. Very fun. Very interesting to see the differences in license taken (not much on the whole) and ofc I enjoyed every single second I got to look at the art.

One thing I do think is worth noting– though there is a lot of freedom taken with the stories outside of the movie continuum (the ongoing comics, the side novels, the stories) there is a real hesitance to allow anything pertaining to the films themselves to branch very greatly from what is shown.

We'll later get into the Many Layers Of Canon that were developed for the Star Wars Extended Universe (or Legends now, lol) but I think it i very clear that the one immutable part of Star Wars, even from the outset, is what is stated in the films. Ofc that doesn't help when the films contradict themselves, but it is key to me that that precedent was set so early. Splinter of the Mind's Eye isn't really affecting the comics at all, but neither property is allowed to infringe upon the movies (though characterizations vary WILDLY regardless).

Yoda is... ofc... the most mutable. He is purple he is blue he is green he is a wizened old acetic he is an eccentric he is... everything. And I'll touch on this more a lot later but he is a character that will just fundamentally be a different person in every single thing he's in. Easy, his speech is, to imitate, but HARD, is his character, to capture.

Good stuff!

The Empire Strikes Back: A Star Wars (retrospective) Story, Part 12

TL;DR: I'm going through all of the Star Wars media I can get my hands on in order of its initial publication. I shall discuss it all. Maybe someday I'll even finish it! CLICK HERE FOR THE MASTERPOST

Welcome the the 1980s, where big hair reigns supreme and we have lycra. Punk is dead, MTV is almost born, and I am about to have a genuine nightmare trying to keep track of EVERYTHING that followed Empire. But don't worry, today we're just going to look back on the movie itself. I guess I could tackle the novelization first, like I did for the first film, but I think that's a little less true to the experience on the whole compared to tackling the film before its myriad adaptations to other mediums.

Enough beating around the bush. This is the best one. It's not close in my opinion. An extremely mild take from me, I know.

This is such a non-controversial opinion. And there's nothing I can really say about this movie that hasn't already been said, so I'm just going to double down on it. This movie is genuinely the best that it gets from Star Wars. It's so good. Dude. It's so fucking good. It almost pisses me off how beautifully made and considered this film is.

Let's start right from the jump: We open the movie with Luke injured, Han trying to get the hell out, and Leia and her rebellion on the defensive when the Empire finds them. We close the movie on Luke gravely injured, Han forcibly removed from his friends, and Leia and her rebellion fully on the run. The end of the movie is almost a more extreme and dire reflection of the start. And the opening action sequence is fucking INCREDIBLE. I know I said it about New Hope (which, yes, it WAS called a New Hope by this point because that was its subtitle upon rerelease to bring it in line with this one), but the miniatures and practical effects just hold up so well. They feel so tangible, everything feels lived-in (and the Falcon being in an utter state of disrepair and falling apart for most of the movie helps a ton).

And guys. I love puppets. I love puppets so much. Frank Oz thank you for EVERYTHING oh my god. Yoda looks amazing, the bait and switch with him as the wise and wonderful Jedi master as an acetic in a swamp planet waiting to trick unsuspecting visitors, every interaction he has with R2 in this movie, I am so fond. It's hard to not just say everything about this movie is perfect. I am just so in awe and amazed at how artful and gorgeous every scene is, but especially when he pulls the ship out of the swamp. And the score is the most BEAUTIFUL swelling magic John Williams could give you. God.

And Luke's constant pull to the dark just running all the way through the movie. And Alec Guinness showing up as a lil ghostie. And Vader absolutely being an insanely unsettling threat throughout this movie as we see Luke's understanding of where his power comes from grows.

And and and also also also I can just list the ways in which this movie is both more ambitious and as a result more impactful than the first, which in no way diminishes the technical achievements of the first, this movie is just that good. I suppose the romance between Han and Leia doesn't really do much for me, largely because Leia doesn't really get to do a lot this movie which I think is a real shame given how active she was as a character in the first movie. That. aside though, man what a great movie. All timer for me. Genuinely something that is wholly unironically good OUTSIDE of being a Star Wars thing. It was a gamechanger for the genre for good reason.

Here's a list of my particular favorite things ever in no particular order, because I just want to gush about this movie forever. It's so. Wonderful.

I did, however, want to take a moment to complain. If you want to watch this movie in high definition, the only version available to you is the special edition. And... yeah now is as good a time as any to bring that up. The theatrical cuts of these movies are so good. I have been rewatching versions that predate the special edition George Lucas re-edits, and... it's hard to overstate how much I prefer them. I know some changes are supposed to add, but at a certain point the tinkering just... detracts

I especially feel it for this movie and New Hope, where the practical effects have all aged very well and the later additions just feel very jarring. Jabba in New Hope, the CG cloud city here, it just... takes you out.

Aesthetically speaking it just is so visually apparent what was added later. The movement feels different, it feels so much less tactile and grounded, and though I understand that maybe there was something in terms of story that George Lucas wanted to achieve by adding it I feel the break in the visual continuity of the movies just undermines the whole thing.

I can understand wanting to go back and edit and edit and edit in perpetuity. I feel like that about some of my own work. But at a certain point you have to let it go, preferably before you start overcorrecting for "mistakes" that an audience wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't tried to fix them.

These movies were made in the 70s and 80s! They were groundbreaking technical achievements! Let's not undermine those efforts by trying to "fix" them. And admittedly, for some aspects of the story, it detracts from that too. Han shooting first has become a real nuisance to me because I hate the demographic of fan that insists that all New Star Wars is Bad compared to Old Star Wars (which it isn't. We'll get to that, but as I believe my blog has tried to point out by now... there's plenty of Bad in Old Star Wars too, lol) (The second ever Star Wars movie shown to people was the fucking Holiday Special dawg there's really no way that all new stuff is worse than THAT), but ultimately Han NOT shooting first is... a disservice to the character growth he has to go through in these movies. Showing us Jabba in New Hope undercuts the big reveal in Return of the Jedi. There's just little things that undermine just how strong these earlier movies can be.

So uh... this is my petition to Disney to please bully George Lucas into letting us have an officially released high quality upload of the theatrical cuts for the modern day. Yes you can track down other remasters and the VHS rips, but it would really be lovely to have the original cuts be more broadly available to new fans, because YES they are obviously products of their time but that is honestly what makes them so spectacular, so groundbreaking, and so special to so many people– every trilogy is like a little time capsule of what the cutting edge of special effects looked like. And the first two movies that ever came out are little time capsules of what genuinely fantastic space movies could really look like.

This movie just holds up so well. Because it is thematically consistent, it's bold, it's visually stunning, and it has the courage to really depart from the first movie while still being willing to interact with and play with the established characterizations and elements of the first movie. It's a wonderful sequel– it doesn't maintain the status quo, it takes the ending of the first movie and explodes from there. It challenges you, and it does so successfully.

Do, or do not, there is no try. And man, these filmmakers did. Everyone involved in this movie deserves so much praise for all of the work they did to make something that is so cohesive and thematically resonant.

Enough effusive praise. This might be the last time you see this kind of unreserved glee about anything. (it won't be. There's a few other things that make me feel the way Empire made me feel) (But make no mistake this is the most groundbreaking thing Star Wars has probably ever done)

So anyway... buckle up because this is the peak! There's nowhere to go but down from now on! Then up a little and back down and up again and down and so on. But these highs are so hard to match.

Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978): A Star Wars (retrospective) Story, Part 5

TL;DR: I'm going through all of the Star Wars media I can get my hands on in order of its initial publication. I shall discuss it all. Maybe someday I'll even finish it! CLICK HERE FOR THE MASTERPOST

BRIEF INITIAL DIVERSION, feel free to skip this if you dgaf about my Star Wars opinions: SO the Maul Shadow Lord trailer dropped and. Ok dude. I guess we'll get into it if I ever reach the 2000s and beyond, but... Man there really is a sameyness to modern Star Wars, isn't there? I'm tired of this grandpa. I will ofc watch it. But. Yknow. Will I enjoy it? Probably about the same amount as every other story about a gruff guy and his kid in Star Wars. Which is a lot of em rn. The animation looked gorgeous though and I wouldn't mind if it took a more noir-style approach (it probably won't)

I'll withhold more judgment until we get more of a sense of the plot, but I do kind of fear that this time period is very saturated for TV purposes, that the themes are going to feel very similar in nature to a lot of similar existing content, and the character is... played out. I guess. Idk I feel a bit sacrilegious saying I would've preferred Maul to never come back to life because he was such a beloved part of other content, but.... it just feels like he's back to life because it's Cool and not because there's a real story to tell there with him.

With that out of the way, I must needs talk about the actual purpose of this post. A recap of the novel that was supposed to become the low-budget sequel to the 1977 smash hit Star Wars, in the event that it hadn't been a smash hit.

She Splinter of my Mind Till I Eye

Look man, everything George Lucas said about his masterplan for all the movies that were going to happen is, shall I say, lightly exaggerative. There may have been a plan. Inklings of a plan. That changed at any given moment. Which in that sense is like me saying I have a plan for my day-to-day interactions.

This novel is like. Pure cheese. It hits like crack to me. I love it. To very briefly summarize the premise, Luke and Leia (Han is Sir Not Appearing In This Book because they weren't sure if Harrison Ford was coming back lol) along with the droids (sorry, 'droids!) get stuck on a planet (there was supposed to be a dogfight, George nixed that idea because it would've been expensive). To get off the planet, they have to find pieces of a kaiburr (YES THE FIRST SPELLING OF KYBER WAS LIKE THAT. IT'S AMAZING) crystal and bring them to a force-sensitive shopkeep. They get captured by imperials, hijinks ensue.

Remember how I said the first novel is charmingly a product of its time? This one is even better insofar as pure cheese goes. This place? Has everything: drunk fuzzy aliens, a collection of magical crystal shards with healing powers, The Specter Of Twincest (Leia was... super not planned to be Luke's sister lol), using spily pads (space lily pads) as a boat, a bigass worm, Luke doing Theft much to Leia's disapproval, Leia using a lightsaber, and Vader falling in a hole.

That last bit is not innuendo he deadass falls down a hole. A good and noble Star Wars deathn't trope, in its early iteration.

Look, you can probably guess that the prose in this novel is similarly hokey and purple to the first one, you can probably guess from my featured list of plot points that it is a very silly story, but I do just have such a fondness for this book and its ilk. A product of its time to a fault, but a real gem among em.

I will... soon be talking about my feelings on the "Star Wars Has Problems With Women" elephant in the room (we'll get to that with Return of the Jedi, though I do actually think this book having Leia fighting with a lightsaber is kinda baller, especially for how early it was), but did want to briefly touch on another issue that Star Wars has that they generally (with some exceptions) inch right up to but never commit to– the empire is a massive colonial affair. The book touches on the Empire being awful to native inhabitants, doesn't really say anything about any rebels being specific to these causes, and doesn't really engage with what that does to a society. Is that what the book is about? Nope! It's a MacGuffin plot that has Luke and Leia inching around each other and hoodwinking the empire. But it is worth noting that this is an established fact of the universe (much like a prejudice against droids) that is Mentioned But Not Played With.

Should you read this? It's not exactly an enduring classic of the science fantasy world. The writing is just okay at best, the plot is a bit formulaic, the entire thing is just the right amount of hokey to make a low-budget movie (how convenient it's entirely located on one planet! Well done getting what you asked for there, George). But like... I kind of love that? I am the person that buys the $1 pulp sci fi novels at the used bookstore and this fits RIGHT IN. This is FIRMLY my niche and wheelhouse. And if that's yours too then I am very gleeful to introduce this book to you.

AND, AS EVER: We must take a moment to appreciate the Ralph McQuarrie cover. Oh Ralph McQuarrie take my entire soul. Thank you for your service. This is so good. This is everything to me. I love Ralph McQuarrie the most