Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I have a real soft spot for books associated with movies and TV shows. I like to read novels made into film (usually before seeing the film). I like novelizations of films. I like tie-in books. This goes back at least as far as 1977 when, after going to the theatre to see Star Wars the first two times, I bought, devoured and enjoyed the novelization of it, attributed to George Lucas, but actually written by Alan Dean Foster.

Flash forward (mumble) years and there's a new Star Wars movie and a new novelization by Mr. Foster. I had to read it. I had to get it as soon as it came out. But something's wrong here. Everything from the screen is on the page, but not much more. And it's written so clumsily and sloppily that it's almost a chore to show more get through. Granted, the author was not working from the final cut of the movie and probably didn't have a lot of time. But he has some experience with tie-in novels of all sorts. I expected much more.

I also expected a bit more editing. Consider this gem, which is definitely not even the most egregious: "Hurrying to the cockpit as BB-8 rolled into the copiloting position, he hurriedly activated the controls." That's a lot of hurrying. There's also a lot of "as so-and-so does this, such-and-such does the other thing." Also, a lot of fancified language used for both narrative and dialog that does nothing to enhance the story, but often knocks the reader out of it. Why "aural receptors" or "bipedal shapes"? Is "raptorish" a word?

But the biggest gripe I have with the writing is the uninhibited head-hopping and viewpoint jumping that takes place. This is third-person omniscient at its worst. We are inside Finn's head, even when he is supposed to be the anonymous "trooper". In the next sentence, we are inside Kylo Ren's head, behind "preternaturally intense" eyes (hidden by the mask) considering "the trooper". It's just too much.

All in all, I am disappointed. If you've seen the film, skip the book. You already know everything. The one, tiny tidbit that I got from the book that was hinted at even more lightly in the film is the barest insinuation that other characters begin to recognize that Rei might be someone they have heard of before. Consider, '"It is you" Ren murmured.' (when Rei takes up the light saber). Otherwise, you have been warned. 3 stars. Because… Star Wars. show less

Great movie, horrible novelization. Could barely stand to finish this. I listened to an audio book version and could only listen for about 30 minutes at a time.

The book took a snappy, enjoyable two hour movie and bogged it down with over eight hours of useless, uninteresting filler.

Another major problem is that the writer suffered from "thesaurus-itis". He never heard a short word that he couldn't replace with a longer word.

Here's one of the worst offenders, taken directly from the text:

"Alone in the room, Kylo Ren—saturnine of aspect, lithe of build, tortured of mien, and troubled of eye—gazed at the silent recipient of his confession."

Holy tauntauns that's some bad writing.

I couldn't rate this book, because I keep oscillating between giving it 1 star and 5 stars, and averaging at 3 is just too wrong. I want to give it a 1 for the writing style which was clunky and weird, and a 5 for how hilarious I found some of the clunky, weird descriptions of characters ("Alone in the room, Kylo Ren - saturnine of aspect, lithe of build, tortured of mien, and troubled of eye -gazed at the silent recipient of his confession" - I MEAN HOW PERFECTLY HILARIOUS IS THAT), and so much of the dialogue that I was hella pleased didn't make it into the movie.

I really couldn't get used to BB-8 being spelled "Beebee-Ate" whenever a character said it out loud, and I wish I'd started counting how many times the author uses the word show more "countenance" from the beginning because it's FAR TOO MANY. That is a word I used when I wrote poetry in high school after looking up a synonym for "face". AND I ONLY USED IT ONCE. There's also a lot of referring to Rey as "the girl". Also a lot of getting inside the minds of the droids, weirdly: "Capable of comprehending the causes of nausea, the droid was fortunate it was not a condition his kind were subject to, but his internal gyros were being forced to work overtime." "While he was in his own way equally disappointed, C-3PO was not programmed to display it. Instead, he merely expressed a rational regret."

And this long and basically useless description: "Only on very rare occasions did C-3PO encounter a need for forward speed. This was one of them, but his ambulatory programming restricted him to a gait that was less than satisfactory. If only, he mused, he could move as fast as he could talk. Despite his motive infirmity he eventually found General Organa deep in intense conversation with a tactical specialist."
I can give C-3PO "musing" a pass because he seems like a droid who might muse, though I'm more likely to believe that he never thinks anything that he doesn't also say out loud - but that is a lot of words for saying that he walks slow and none of those words were "walk" or "slow". I'm not saying that all writing needs to be simple and to the point, but if I'm going to read something with so many synonyms in it, I really need for it to roll off the tongue a bit better.

Basically - the way this book was written reminds me of what my writing looks like when I write fiction, and I am bad at writing fiction. But, I read the whole thing and I didn't rate it because it legitimately amused me! show less

I have never read a novelization before; if this is a typical example, I don't expect to read any again.

In short, this book reads like a loquacious friend's in-depth recounting of the movie: Some parts are severely devoid of detail and would be inscrutable had I not already seen the movie, while in other places you're like, "Naw, bro, that's not the way it happened." And then there's the stuff that the friend just makes up, like added dialogue or theories about how Starkiller Base might work scientifically....

Also, Alan Dean Foster writes prose like he's procrastinating from doing something else. It's filled with nonsequiturs like, "Despite lack of any training with a lightsaber, Finn was athletic and courageous." Because one can't be show more athletic and courageous without lightsaber training?

Ultimately, this book lacks from a severe round of editing, both for continuity with the movie (somehow both of these stories are considered canon, even given the discrepancies) and on a line-editing level.

It deserves 2.5 stars. I gave it 3 because Goodreads doesn't allow half-stars. The generosity notwithstanding, I did like a few of the additional bits, such as Poe's recovery on Jakku and his ability to find a ride. Unkar Plutt's encounter with Chewie was fun, too, if extraneous. show less

So...that was kind of dramatic. I mean, I enjoyed it, but between the melodramatic writing and the melodramatic narration, it was super dramatic. I would recommend the movie over this novelization, because good lord. It was entertaining, but not always in a good way.

Also, it just goes to show how different people can interpret things differently, because in the book it seems like Rey and Finn have budding romantic feelings for each other, and I didn’t get that at all from the movie.

Before I go too far, I'm a Star Wars fanatic, one since 1977, saw ANH 77 times (!) in a theater, ESB 18 times, even RotJ 6 times, and TPM, well around 20, so don't tell me I don't know my Star Wars. Played the CCG fanatically, had a decent number of the better toys. However, at the same time, I'm a fan of quality. I've read several SW books that were just plain bad and I'm not such a fanatic that I'm obsessed with the entire SW expanded universe, the bit I know well only coming from the CCG. So basically it's the septilogy (is that a word?) of films and beyond that the bits and pieces that grabbed my interest for other reasons that interest me. Others know I am a bit of a literary snob at times, a sort of greaseball intellectual, and show more overall rather geeky too. Enough preface.

I bought this strictly because I thought, IMHO if you will, the The Force Awakens is finally the film Star Wars disciples deserved. It sits firmly behind ESB and ANH for me and far above AotCl etc. Where I'm going is I only bought this because the quality of the reboot piqued my interest in gleaning a little more detail about this fascinating reboot and the fact that the movie is quite a gem in itself. That said, for giving me more of a good thing, a one star boost. On the other hand, I have to say, the writing is only about pre-YA level and the metaphor about worthy of C grade pulp. Knowing a little about [a:Alan Dean Foster|11735|Alan Dean Foster|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1207233026p2/11735.jpg] this didn't really surprise me.

I know they want to keep this accessible for the kiddies too, but as little as I'm enamored with Harry Potter, the level of writing there is pretty good and still accessible to, and enchanting to, children. I've read [b:Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace|34941|Star Wars, Episode I The Phantom Menace (Star Wars, #1)|Terry Brooks|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349115978s/34941.jpg|3304766] by [a:Terry Brooks|9629|Terry Brooks|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1280785812p2/9629.jpg] and this is a much better book with much weaker source material to work with. So only two stars for the writing here.

Space opera with pre-set dopey dialogue can be tough to work with but other authors have done a better job and certainly a few of the SW books where the requirement wasn't the slavish subordination to a pre-existing film have risen above the rabble. Not here though. A shaky three stars.

But still, hey it's Star Wars, how can that be all bad? show less

The novelization of the first film of the Disney sequel trilogy The Force Awakens hit the shelves a few weeks after the film’s premiere in theaters to avoid spoilers, written by fantasy-science fiction writer Alan Dean Foster based on the script by J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Michael Arndt.

Foster followed the film script faithfully, so faithfully that he barely was in any of the characters heads giving them personality or extra scenes to flesh out the story. But even sticking with the script, Foster’s writing was lackluster and his transition from character to character in the same scene was near confusing at times. What makes it worse is that Foster’s short story, “Bait”, had better writing and characters in ten pages show more than 300 pages of the primary story of the book. Of the few extra scenes or focus on characters, Foster did address how Rey knew the workings of the Millennium Falcon which helped the narrative as did how Poe Dameron survived but Rey’s use of the Force like the film came off lame. The other and lengthier short story, “The Perfect Weapon”, by Delilah S. Dawson is fantastic and the best reason to pick up this book.

The Force Awakens is a novelization that exists, honestly the two bonus short stories that take up the last quarter of the 400 pages were better reads and earned the second star of this rating. show less