Star Wars: Trilogy 25th Anniversary Collector's Edition: Amazon.ca: George Lucas, James Kahn: Books

Product Description

From Library Journal

The three novelizations of the original Star Wars trilogy each sold millions of copies. In honor of Star Wars'-or technically Episode IV: A New Hope-silver anniversary, Ballantine has released this handsome three-in-one hardcover edition sporting a cover by conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie, who greatly influenced the look of the films, e.g., Vader's mask was his idea. Though Star Wars might seem like geek fan boy stuff, creator Lucas (all the novels are based on his initial treatments for the scripts) does use proven literary motifs: a coming-of-age story as well as a search for a father figure, with a talisman (daddy Darth's lightsaber) linking the generations, it is most importantly about redemption. Each of the novels also includes an introduction by Lucas. A quarter-century later, millions of fans worldwide remain ravenous for all things from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away; the new films rake in zillions, and print titles in the "expanded universe" (characters/plots not covered on-screen) are widely read. This volume should do well.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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4.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Great, Feb 29 2004

By

Captain Trips - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Wars: Trilogy (25th Anniversary Collector's Edition) (Hardcover)

These books are great after you experienced the movies, its like playing the movie in your head. You should definately check the book out.

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5.0 out of 5 stars From Tatooine to Endor......, April 14 2003

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Alex Diaz-Granados "fardreaming writer" (Miami, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: 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.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Mediocre film adaptations, Aug 21 2002

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Doc Savage - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Wars: Trilogy (25th Anniversary Collector's Edition) (Hardcover)

Pretty much the only people who should read these books are those that can't enough "Star Wars." If you've seen the original three films there's really no reason to read these. They aren't particularly bad, and there are some interesting bits that weren't in the films, but all in all "Star Wars" is a visual adventure that can't be conveyed as well in pure purple prose.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Not the greatest novels in the world
but for movie novelizations they are acceptable. A must read if you enjoyed the movies -- and frankly, who does not? Read more

Published on Aug 19 2002 by jay kenyon

5.0 out of 5 stars Not the greatest novels in the word
but for movie novelizations they are acceptable. A must read if you enjoyed the movies -- and frankly, who does not? Read more

Published on Aug 19 2002 by jay kenyon