If this is an intentional homage to the style of A New Hope, it’s endearing, but ultimately only hurts the book as a whole. Perspectives change abruptly, making it difficult to feel immersed in the world through the eyes of any particular character. She fares all right elsewhere, with an interesting brush with the Dark Side, but as a whole the book flits over its characters. The young reader book Before the Awakening told the reader about the culture of the Teedo, the alien that catches BB-8 in a net, but the novelization doesn’t explain what Rey is saying when she speaks the Teedo’s language, even when the scene is in her perspective. We still don’t know who Finn’s fellow trooper is who dies early in the raid on Jakku. Perhaps the book’s greatest weakness is its disinterest in explaining things that seemed to invite additions. I judged the novelization of The Force Awakens mostly on the prose itself and whether it further illuminated the characters, something it doesn’t necessarily have to do, but for which Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith set a high bar. The reader’s prior knowledge of the characters can make scenes work or fail.
The novel cannot be judged on the strengths and weaknesses of the film-the plot, the world-but can contribute to characterizations or include deleted scenes. Reviewing a novelization is considerably different from reviewing an original story, though, even one that is part of a franchise. And the novelization doesn’t allow these scenes to sink in, either. The scenes don’t really engage with the emotion within them, although, at times, neither does any other part of Star Wars-Luke’s grief for Obi-Wan is brief, and Leia’s sadness for Alderaan is almost nonexistent on screen.
In A New Hope, Obi-Wan’s death is quick, and switches from Obi-Wan’s perspective to Vader’s at the moment of his death. The Force Awakens has a pedigree: prolific author Alan Dean Foster ghostwrote the novelization of A New Hope and Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, the first EU novel, as well as scores of other franchise fiction and original novels. Flipping through, I realize that a lot of the same stylistic choices that bothered me in Foster’s version of The Force Awakens are present in the A New Hope novelization, too. But it also fails to capture any of the lived-in, jaunty atmosphere of the movie, flitting from one point of view to another without ever really landing, and it rushes some critical scenes.Īnd that, among other things, makes it difficult to review.
Yes, the novelization of Star Wars: The Force Awakens adds some scenes and information to the newest chapter in the Star Wars saga, including some hugely emotional moments for the characters.
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