Why One of many Best ‘Star Wars’ Novels Ever Made Was Written Like a Greek Tragedy

When it got here to penning the novelization of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the planning all got here earlier than the aftermath of the movie’s eventual polarizing launch. And by likelihood, Matthew Stover’s model of the occasions of the movie ended up being one of many saving graces of George Lucas’ closing chapter in his saga, at the very least to the previous guard of fanboys. We all know that the generation who grew up on it and the animated shows ended up being extra embracing of the maker’s closing contributions to the Star Wars universe.

In an unique with Entertainment Weekly, Stover shared his new creator’s word, now added to the ebook’s twentieth anniversary re-release. In it he discusses his distinctive method to writing the movie as a novel with George’s Lucas’ blessing and inspiration from Greek myths.

What units the ebook other than the movie is that it allowed Stover to develop on Anakin’s perspective throughout his fall from the sunshine facet. And it’s one thing that made him nervous from the beginning. “It had come to me throughout the panic assault I’d suffered after signing the contract to write down this novelization, which had ignited as a result of I’d foolishly dedicated to write down the keystone within the arch of the Skywalker saga for the largest viewers of my profession—and the complete Star Wars-loving universe can be hoping for an exciting house opera, regardless of the plain truth that each foremost plot level had been spoiled for many years.”

Stover continued, “Add the problem of writing a novelization with out ever seeing the ultimate film, as a result of the film wasn’t carried out and wouldn’t be out earlier than the ebook went to the printer. I might be armed with solely the script and the collective Lucasfilm information of Star Wars. What saved me then was my early coaching,” he defined, describing how the guardrails of basic theater mythology got here in useful for the author.

“Greater than 20 years earlier than I signed that contract, I’d had the great fortune to check theater historical past beneath a professor who was an authority on historic Greek drama. Each single one of many nice Greek tragedians had confronted precisely my hassle—their viewers knew the story getting in—and so they had some methods they’d pull to make their performs dramatic anyway. I figured I may steal a few these for this ebook.”

“The extra I thought of Greek tragedy, the higher it appeared to suit. The classical tragedies had been drawn from Greek mythology and legend, proper? Additionally—if I wanted any additional excuse—historic Greek tragedies had been historically carried out as single acts with out intermissions, like trendy films, and so they had been often introduced in precise, no kidding, anticipate it . . . trilogies.”

“I hoped to current the story explicitly as a tragic fantasy, with language and elegance extra formalized and darker in tone than individuals usually count on from Star Wars fiction. In spite of everything, I meant to argue that this story is particular. It’s completely different from another Star Wars story—not solely as a result of it’s the ultimate movie (or so we thought on the time), however as a result of this story is the true basis that underlies all the remainder, and it ought to really feel completely different from the very first web page.”

Moreover, his method would be told by how fantasy served as a template for a lot Star Wars media to start with inside its Expanded Universe (earlier than getting decanonized). “However evoking the Greek tragedies was solely a part of my thought, and I anticipated that half to be a simple elevate, for the explanations I sketched above. The remainder, nevertheless, was gnawing holes in my abdomen lining, as a result of I wished to fold in parts of the bigger Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU).”

“I desperately wanted EU materials to make this story work. Not as a result of the EU had been a part of my life ever since Splinter of the Thoughts’s Eye, and undoubtedly not as a result of it’d be extraordinarily cool to include parts of these tales into this novelization … I genuinely believed that I wanted the EU to make this story work as a novel. It might give the story heft and texture. It might let me contact on the place these individuals come from and the place most of them are going to finish up, and it might let me weave this particular narrative and its implications into the broader ‘historic’ context of the entire galaxy far, far-off.”

The perfect anecdote of the word was how all of this work, how he’d gone out of his method to plan and pitch to George Lucas, was met with a shocking reply when he requested the dwelling legend how a lot he ought to stick with the script. Lucas liberated him from perceiving the film script as a constraint. “Don’t fear about that stuff. So long as you don’t violate the story, do no matter you need,” Lucas stated to Stover. “Simply make it good.”

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