Star Wars: Trilogy (25th Anniversary Collector's Edition) [Hardcover]

The 25th Anniversary edition of The Star Wars Trilogy breaks no new ground or make any editorial changes to the three movie tie-in novels based on the screenplays for Star Wars (now known as A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. There are no adjustments or rewrites to make the novels match the Special Edition re-releases of 1997. It isn't even the first time all three novels are collected in one volume...there are mass-market and trade paperback three-in-one editions. The only new features are the cover art by Ralph McQuarrie, the conceptual artist whose paintings "sold" George Lucas' "out of this world" ideas to leery 20th Century Fox executives and short intros to each novelization by Lucas himself. Whether or not those were written for the 25th Anniversary Edition or if they appeared in other reissues of the novels isn't important; what is important is that the 25th Anniversary Edition's elegant package recaptures the magic of reading the Classic Trilogy....

Like most novelizations of popular movies, the authors (Alan Dean Foster being the ghostwriter for George Lucas, Donald F. Glut, and James Kahn) have adapted the screenplays to Episodes IV, V and VI with a certain sense of unity, yet each writer has a distinctive style of his own. On the whole, the best writer is Foster, who had, before Star Wars, adapted the Star Trek animated series into the Star Trek Logs series. Very few Star Wars authors, with the exception of Timothy Zahn and a few others, capture the essence of the characters and situations of the movies as well as Foster. Glut is almost as good a writer, and his style is not all that different from Foster's. Kahn's style is minimalist. I like the Jedi novelization, but there is a strange sense of connect-the-dots permeating it all the same.

All right, so we aren't talking great literature here, and I do know that the writers work from drafts of the screenplay that are different from the final shooting script. That's why Luke Skywalker's comm sign in the novel of A New Hope is Blue Five; in the movie the callsign is Red Five. And the novels do expand the storyline and "restore" deleted scenes....the literary equivalent of a DVD extra features disc, you might say.

I rate this book 5 stars not because it is brilliantly written or philosophically meaningful, but rather because it recaptures the magic of reading those dog-eared paperbacks, but with a bit more class.

This hardcover edition of the books is definitely way better than having the pocket editions, it is a commemorative edition of the 25th anniversary of the saga with a special introduction to each novel written by no other than George Lucas himself.

The first part of the book is a prologue of two pages length that basically explains the events we have seen in the new prequels, how the Republic once existed and how a corrupt politician named Palpatine made his way to become the galactic Emperor.

The three novels are basically the same stuff we have already seen in the movies, there are however, a couple of details that add up to the story from the films.

In the episode IV we get to read more of Luke and his friends in Tatooine as they watch what seems to be a battle above the surface of the planet; in episode V there is this little difference in which Yoda's skin was blue and in episode VI, after seeing Yoda die and confirming that Vader is Luke's father, Ben Kenobi confesses to Luke the truth about his father and describes the final duel we recently saw in episode III, adding the interesting fact that Owen Lars is Kenobi's brother!

A piece of collection if you are a Star Wars fan and in a very fancy presentation; Besides getting the three books into one, don't look for another added value because there are none, get ready to read line by line the same dialogues seen on the original films if you buy it.

It was really interesting to read these novels again now that I've seen the prequels. The first thing I noticed - the prequels don't match up to the back story in this book. In fact, the back story from the novels was much more interesting than Episodes I, II, and/or III.

Let's start with Star Wars Episode IV and it's more awesome back story.
Obi-wan says, "Vader used the training I gave him and the force for evil, to help the later corrupt Emperors. With the Jedi Knights disbanded, disorganized, or dead, there were few to oppose him. Today they are all but extinct."

How much better would the prequels have been if Vader was just power hungry and hung out with the wrong crowd? And why are there EMPERORS plural? Again, it sounds like a good guy got in with a bunch of strange politicians and used his Jedi powers for evil.

Then it says the Jedi Knights are disbanded and disorganized. There's not many details, but wouldn't it have been more interesting if Vader had just demonized or belittled their religion while ironically still holding on to that very same religion? Or slowly started to blame them, then label them, introduce prejudice and then systematically exterminate them? Sound familiar? Star Wars is, after all, an allusion to Nazism.

On to Episode V.

This is in the movie too, but Luke talks about having been to Degobah before. I think he has and George Lucas forgot.

Episode VI.

This book has back story in it that is the most blatant drift away from the prequels. Too bad it didn't make it into the movie. It's AWESOME.

Obi-Wan says, "When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant. Your mother and I knew he would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep you both as safe as possible for as long as possible. So I took you to live with my brother Owen, on Tatooine...and your mother took Leia to live as the daughter of Senator Organa, on Alderaan."
What a great story! Secret pregnancies, Padme surviving and hiding her children from her crazy husband, and Owen wasn't even Luke's real uncle! Why couldn't this have been the plot of the prequels?

Later on in the book, talking about Leia it says, "She almost never thought of her real mother - that was like a dream. Yet now Luke's question made her start. Flashes from her infancy assaulted her - distorted visions of running...a beautiful woman...hiding in a trunk." I want to hear the rest of that story.
In the movie, it implies that Leia is talking about her adopted mother. But in the book it's clear she remembers her adopted mother and her real mother.

Reading this book just made me mad at George Lucas. I couldn't put it any better than Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.

"I prefer to be disappointed in the order George Lucas intended."

As far as the writing in the novels goes, it was good for Episodes IV and V. Episode VI, Return of the Jedi, got on my nerves a little with his literal translations of everything Artoo and Chewie had to say. Grawrrrr and beepeiodoo lost their charm really fast.