Before the internet age, knowing that Alan Dean Foster ghost-wrote the “Star Wars: A New Hope” novelization (December 1976) for George Lucas was the mark of a true “Star Wars” fan. Today, it’s not unusual for fans to know this tidbit. In fact, I think the pendulum has swung the other way and now there’s a bias toward the idea that the book is ALL Foster’s.
An article in Star Wars Insider Issue 156 (April 2015) notes that “George Lucas let Foster write ‘Star Wars’ without interference and provided only minimal editorial feedback.” Foster says in the interview: “(Lucas) had no time for the novelization.”
I haven’t seen reports of whether Lucas read Foster’s novelization before publication, but the general assumption is that he did not, and therefore anything that doesn’t ring true in the prose can be attributed to Foster not quite getting “Star Wars.” But considering how hands-on and protective Lucas was about “Star Wars” back then – and the fact that his name was on the cover (and has continued to be on the cover in all the reprints) – does it really make sense that he did not read this brisk, 183-page book? And if he had problems with the details, does it make sense that the man who kept putting out special editions of the films would never release a corrected version?
Even if he didn’t read it … Lucas still wrote it, in a way. Foster wrote the prose, sure, but the dialog and descriptions of the action come from Lucas’ fourth draft (essentially the last draft before the shooting script), and descriptions of visual elements were enhanced by Foster’s access to the set as Lucas directed the film. Also, if you read the earliest drafts of “Star Wars” (the most pleasant way to do so is via Dark Horse’s “The Star Wars” comic), you’ll see that Lucas was regularly fine-tuning his ideas; it’s entirely possible that Foster’s novel is a fair representation of Lucas’ ideas about the GFFA in 1976.
I contend that this wonderfully quirky time capsule that predates the movie’s release by six months isn’t merely an example of how Foster didn’t quite understand what “Star Wars” would become, it’s also an example of how Lucas didn’t quite know what “Star Wars” would become. So as I highlight some interesting parts of the book later in this post, I’ll be granting co-credit (or equal blame, as it were) to Foster and Lucas.
I won’t be highlighting the things that used to be fascinating but have now become familiar: the prologue that serves as a prequel outline (we now have the prequels themselves), the Biggs scenes (available on the 2011 Blu-ray) and the Jabba the Hutt scene (finished for in the 1997 Special Edition).
Even with those tidbits becoming passé, die-hard fans of “Star Wars” – particularly the EU novels – will have fun revisiting this book so long as they don’t approach it like they would any other “Star Wars” novel. It’s the official novelization, and it’s even canonical in the Disney timeline, yet in many instances it’s a bit off-base. It’s a treasure trove of paths that weren’t quite taken, and it’s also fun to discover the paths that WERE taken.
Here are some highlights from this legendary yet unusual piece of “Star Wars” lore:
THE EMPEROR’S (OR EMPERORS’) ROLE
Lucas and Foster made Palpatine less omnipotent than his later prequel portrayal. Rather than a puppet-master, he’s portrayed as a puppet: “Imperial Governors and bureaucrats prepared to institute a reign of terror,” Foster writes in the prologue. “Many used Imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor to further their own ambitions.”
Even though Palpatine is mentioned by name in the prologue, it’s possible Lucas and Foster had in mind a series of puppet emperors, and that Palpatine would no longer be the emperor by the time of “Episode IV”: “Vader used the training I gave him and the force within him for evil, to help the later corrupt Emperors,” Obi-Wan tells Luke on page 67 of the hardcover.
Or perhaps they had in mind that some of the early emperors were benign, sort of like Supreme Chancellor Valorum, and that Palpatine was one of those “later, corrupt” ones. Biggs tells Luke on page 25: “The Empire may have been great and beautiful once, but the people in charge now — It’s rotten, Luke, rotten.”
At any rate, it’s clear that Lucas had not yet decided that Palpatine was a Sith; according to Foster’s prose, Vader is the most powerful Dark Lord in existence. On page 32, Vader sarcastically says “As the Emperor wills it, so shall it be,” further emphasizing that Palpatine is a mere figurehead. And on page 108, Foster writes: “(Vader) had to admit reluctantly that at this point, he had no equals.” There’s no doubt that Foster sees Vader as the Big Bad of the saga.
PREQUEL POLITICS DECADES BEFORE THE PREQUELS
As a film, “A New Hope” is a black-and-white, good vs. evil story that kids can enjoy without understanding politics or governmental systems. That’s how many of us got into “Star Wars.” The prequels then emphasized those elements on film.
But in the written world of the GFFA, politics and warnings about oppressive government were there from the beginning. Ben tells Luke on page 69:
Distances are irrelevant to injustice. If not stopped soon enough, evil eventually reaches out to engulf all men, whether they have opposed or ignored it.
Luke quickly picks up on Ben’s way of thinking. As he tells Han on page 116:
If (Leia) is being held here and is scheduled to be executed, that means she must be dangerous in some way to whoever destroyed Alderaan, to whoever had this station built. You can bet it had something to do with the Empire instituting a reign of full repression.
ROBOT SENTIENCE AND DROIDS’ RIGHTS
Droid sentience and the question of whether they should have equal rights permeates the EU, certainly. Indeed, in the very first original Marvel yarn (Issue 7), Han and Chewie take a dangerous assignment of burying a cyborg in a droid-hating community. Later, we meet Valance (Issue 16), who hates himself for being a cyborg, and Kligson (Issue 47), a cyborg who loves droids and loathes humans. These ideas are present in the movie – see the bartender’s “no droids” policy and the fact that C-3PO has such as human-like personality – but what’s remarkable about Foster’s novel is how these ideas are presented with a sledgehammer.
Threepio behaves in a more bluntly human fashion here than in later portrayals. On page 131, the golden droid says the rather un-Threepio line “I’m not sanguine about my old age.” Luke “clicked off (the comlink), smiling suddenly at Threepio’s reference to his ‘old age.’ Sometimes the tall ‘droid was more human than people.” Earlier, on page 35, the droid pitches himself to Owen Lars as “See Vee Threepio – Vee for versatility.” This is very much something he would say in the “Droids” cartoon, where his “humanity” is played up for young viewers.
Droid discrimination seems to be baked into the fabric of galactic culture, according to this novelization. On page 149, Luke sees the technicians handling Artoo, who holds the Death Star plans: “This was the first, and probably the last time he would ever see a robot being carried respectfully by men,” Foster writes.
But at the same time, Foster suggests droids are gradually gaining more acceptance in society. Perhaps the idea is that Artoo’s Battle of Yavin heroism marks a breakthrough for how humans – at least those of a Rebel persuasion — see droids. On page 181, the author writes:
Between robots and the humans who repaired them there existed a very special relationship. Each partook a little of the other and sometimes the dividing line between man and machine was more blurred than many would admit.
EARTH CREATURES AND CULTURE
Today, we accept that the GFFA features humans and chocolate — Timothy Zahn responded to criticism of his inclusion of chocolate in “Heir to the Empire” by stating that the idea of a galaxy without chocolate was unfathomable. But otherwise, animals, vegetables and minerals tend to not come directly from Earth culture (although there are obvious similarities, such as topatoes instead of potatoes, and caf instead of coffee).
Although Foster acknowledges that the story takes place in “another galaxy, another time,” the prose includes dogs (pages 10, 15 and 96) – including Luke thinking of his former pet – sparrows (35), dinosaurs (54), pandas (56), ducks (64), baboons (81) and anteaters (89). At the same time, most species in the “Star Wars” universe don’t get named, with the notable exception that Chewbacca is identified as a “Wookie” (sic).
Additionally, Foster’s “Star Wars” somehow includes Oriental culture (16) and Olympian tradition (140). At least no one references baseball, as happened in Dark Horse’s “Dark Forces” illustrated novels.
THE ORIGINAL PURPOSE OF REPURPOSED SCENES
Here are some fun moments to look out for: Foster’s novelization includes three scenes that were repurposed elsewhere in the saga – one in each film of the original trilogy — when it came to the actual filmmaking.
On page 6, “The force of the twin blast tumbled Threepio into the shredded cables, where a dozen different currents turned him into a jerking, twisting display.” This scene was indeed shot, but in the movie, it is transposed onto the Millennium Falcon’s escape from the Death Star.
On page 131, Artoo accesses a power outlet instead of an information terminal on the Death Star. This gag – which ended up not being shot for “A New Hope” — was later used during the heroes’ escape from Cloud City in “The Empire Strikes Back.”
On page 160:
Inside (the Death Star), troopers, mechanicals, and equipment were blown in all directions by subsidiary explosions as the effects of the blast traveled back down various conduits and cables.
This scene was filmed but cut from “A New Hope.” But luckily Lucas never throws anything away; it was placed into the second Death Star battle in “Return of the Jedi.”
MORE MISSED CONNECTIONS
This book includes many little things that don’t quite jibe with later portrayals in the EU.
We generally think of the Lars homestead as being a moisture farm, but it also includes a traditional garden in Foster’s telling: “Soon, those sands would blossom with food plants. This former wasteland would see an eruption of green,” Luke thinks on page 48 as he looks at the twin sunset. Interestingly, Tatooine is portrayed as a lush world in “Dawn of the Jedi,” set 25,000 years before “A New Hope.” But during its time as a desert planet, this is the only reference to greenery growing from the soil.
On page 29, Foster tells us that the Death Star conference room includes not only military men, but also eight Imperial Senators, which is bizarre considering that Tarkin announces later in the scene that the Senate has been disbanded. Even more bizarre, we aren’t privy to the reaction of those eight senators.
Foster’s book includes two characters who could have become household names if they weren’t victims of screenplay rewrites:
On page 29, a man named Romodi has Motti’s “Dangerous to your starfleet, not to this battle station” line. Romodi is a character in that scene – he’s the old bald guy – but he doesn’t speak in the movie.
Similarly, Threepio tells Luke on page 43 that “Our last master was Captain Colton,” but in the finished film, that was changed to Captain Antilles – the man who is strangled by Vader on the Tantive IV. Still, Captain Colton is an actual character, too, and he’s played by Boba Fett actor Jeremy Bulloch in “Revenge of the Sith.”
It’s hard to imagine how this one would’ve ever worked on film: On page 80, Ben converses with Chewbacca in the Wookiee language. Later stories took a consistent approach that non-Wookiees couldn’t speak Wookiee (on the other hand, one Wookiee, Ralrracheen, could speak Basic thanks to a speech impediment, as we learned in “Heir to the Empire”). And rightly so – if Han can’t speak Wookiee, why would Obi-Wan be able to? And can you imagine Alec Guinness performing that scene?
SUCCESSFUL CONNECTIONS TO LATER STORIES
The “A New Hope” novelization doesn’t only consist of paths not taken. It also features the start of several paths that WERE taken. Foster – and Lucas by extension, in some cases – deserves credit for introducing these tidbits to the lore:
Foster shows curiosity about what faces lie under the hoods of jawas and Tusken Raiders: “If, as anthropologists hypothesized, (jawas) had ever been human, they had long since degenerated past anything resembling the human race,” he writes on page 27.
While the mystery of jawas’ origins aren’t robustly revisited in later stories, the Tusken Raider mystery certainly is, and Foster launches it on page 53:
Those eyes were not organic, but then, they weren’t wholly mechanical, either. No one could say for certain, because no one had ever made that intimate a study of the Tusken Raiders.
Russ Manning, in an unfinished and unpublished newspaper strip, had Luke preparing to unmask an unconscious Tusken Raider in the final panel and noting “I’m going to be the first human in 200 years to see what a Tusken Raider looks like … under his mask!” Unfortunately, Manning is deceased, and no one asked him about his plans for the next panel.
But eventually, the EU would reveal that Tusken Raiders are primarily non-humans indigenous to Tatooine (and perhaps sharing a common ancestor with jawas), and also that they sometimes adopt humans into their culture, notably A’Sharad Hett in the “Republic” comics and Tahiri in the “Junior Jedi Knights” books.
Here’s a roundabout connection for you: One of the X-wing pilots is named Piggy (page 157). Perhaps this is a nickname for Porkins. But another Piggy – a scientifically enhanced Gamorrean – would become an X-wing pilot in the “Wraith Squadron” novels.
Although Han’s one-time acquaintance Tocneppil (a nod to Lucasfilm PR man Charlie Lippencott, on page 137) didn’t catch on, Foster’s invention of the planet Commenor (116) certainly did. Commenor appears or is mentioned in more than 40 EU yarns.
On page 146, Foster notes that three of Yavin’s moons are habitable. Indeed, the EU would pick up on this and confirm that Yavin 8 and 13 are habitable in addition to Yavin 4, site of the Rebel base.
And here’s perhaps the coolest bit of continuity inspired by Foster’s prose: On page 19, Vader tells Leia:
“When we traced those transmissions back to the individuals with whom they originated, they had the poor grace to kill themselves before they could be questioned.”
A.C. Crispin’s “Han Solo Trilogy” would later place those rebels on Toprawa under the command of Han’s ex-girlfriend, Bria Tharen. And indeed, it’s implied that they commit suicide via pills called “lullabies.”
CHEWIE GETS HIS MEDAL!
Usually it’s Foster who looks a bit silly when his ideas weren’t embraced by later storytellers, but in one case it’s the rest of the saga that missed the boat. Although there was controversy for many years about Chewie not getting a medal in the movie, he actually did get one six months before the movie came out — in Foster’s 1976 novelization.
On the last page, Leia “placed something heavy and golden around Solo’s neck, then Chewbacca’s – having to strain to do so – and finally around Luke’s.” Since Chewie would later get a medal in the comics and on the “MTV Movie Awards” as a form of recompense for the movie snub, he actually has three medals now. So don’t feel bad for him.