THE CONVOLUTED FATES OF THE SNOWSPEEDER PILOTSĭid Wedge, Janson and Hobbie survive the Battle of Hoth? Well, Wedge clearly does, as he’s in “Return of the Jedi.” As for the other two, it depends on who you ask. Most of the things that caught my attention as being “wrong” are because of changes made as the Expanded Universe went forward. There’s not much he got “wrong” in 1980, other than having the ion cannon blow away a Star Destroyer rather than merely immobilizing it (page 50 of the Illustrated Edition) and having an astonishing “twenty Imperial battleship commanders” as part of the Falcon pursuit group (page 95).
“Star Wars” had become a more tangible thing by 1980 than it was in 1976, so the “Empire” novelization is cleaner than “A New Hope.” That works against it when re-reading it today Foster’s pulpy sci-fi style makes for a fun almost-alternate take on the material, whereas Glut’s adaptation is straightforward. The prose is Glut’s, but he was working from the most up-to-date script of the movie, and scripts of course include dialog, character behavior and location descriptions.
Glut, whose only other “Star Wars” credit is Marvel Issue 10 - and partly the work of the screenwriter, in this case primarily George Lucas (even though he officially gave credit to Lawrence Kasdan, plus an honorary credit to the late Leigh Brackett). “The Empire Strikes Back” novelization (1980), on the other hand, came out just six weeks before the movie, so there aren’t as many differences here.Īgain, I contend that a novelization is partly the work of the author - in this case, Donald F. Alan Dean Foster’s “A New Hope” novel came out six months before the film, so it serves up a treasure trove of differences from the celluloid version. As I noted in my review of the “Star Wars” novelization, adaptations of movies give insight not only into the authors’ interpretation of the material, but also into the filmmakers’ vision months before the movie hits screens.
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