My Star Wars Experience: Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (1976)

Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. I took last week off because it was a busy week and I just didn't have the time to sit down and write three blog posts during the week. It was also a really rough week for me, so I just chose not to do any blog posts last week. I'm back today though with a change in series format for the Star Wars Discussions/My Star Wars Experience series. I was first just gonna go through every random Star Wars topic I could think of. Then I was just gonna go through all the movies and TV shows of the franchise that came out between 1977 and 2005. But, recently I've decided to do a full watch through of all the Star Wars shows and movies, and a read through of all of the Star Wars books and comics that I own in my collection. Including reference books. I also decided I wanted to document my progress through the franchise. So, today, we're starting with the very first piece of Star Wars media to ever be produced. That is the novelization of the original 1977 movie, Star Wars. These will just be my quick thoughts on what I read or watched.

It's not going to be a daily thing. But, whenever I finish a book, watch a movie, or finish a TV show, I'm going to write about it here. So get ready for this to become a Star Wars centric blog for the next however long it takes me to get through the Star Wars franchise. Let's get into it!

 I love this book. I first got my copy, which is the 6th printing of the book, which was published in June, 1977. The original edition was released on November 12th, 1976, a full six months before the movie was released. Now, normally, movie novelizations don't get published until a month before the movie's release, but Star Wars was originally supposed to be released on Christmas Day in 1976, and the novel was published a little over a month before that original release date. But when the movie got pushed back to May, 1977, the novelization's release wasn't pushed back to coincide with the movie's new release date.

One of the things I love about this book is how raw it is. Today Star Wars is such a vast franchise that is well known all around the world. But, back in 1976 all there was was this novel, which was based on a movie nobody had seen yet, nor had anyone even heard of the movie yet. But, it's also raw in that it contains storylines that weren't in the final film, including the one where we're introduced to Luke Skywalker much earlier in the movie, and we see him hanging around Tosche Station with his friends, including Biggs Darklighter, a character we wouldn't see in the movie until the battle against the Death Star in the final act of the movie.

I also like that everything that became the Prequel Trilogy, began in the prologue of this movie novelization. Including the first mention of Senator Palpatine. In fact, this prologue as well as the novelization of Return of the Jedi (as well as possibly the one for The Empire Strikes Back) are the only time we ever get any mention of the Emperor's name outside of the Expanded Universe, until Episode I came out in 1999. George Lucas never refers to the Emperor as Emperor Palpatine in the original three movies.

It's also the first time that Darth Vader is ever referred to as a Dark Lord of the Sith. He's always referred to as Lord Vader, but the word, Sith, is never mentioned in dialogue in any of the movies of the Original Trilogy.

I don't know how many people read this book when it first came out in 1976. Like I said, when it was originally published, nobody knew what Star Wars was, and even fewer people even cared about it. But, it had to have had sold relatively well in order for it to get more printings. I figure that one of the things that helped it get additional printings was the popularity of the movie when it was finally released in 1977. Movie novelizations tend not to get more than one printing unless the movie was really popular. And even then, it's rare. I'm pretty sure this book helped get people excited for the movie though, given that the book was part of Lucasfilm's marketing for the movie.

Those are my thoughts on Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker. I'll be back tomorrow with my look at Star Wars, the movie that started it all. I began with this book because it was released before the movie ever came out, which makes it the very first piece of Star Wars media to come out, even before the movie itself had come out. Take care everyone and may the Force be with you!