A New Hope Review

ALL TIMELINES


	Click for larger image	STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE A novel by Alan Dean Foster (1976, 1995, Ballantine Books) Book 1 of the Star Wars Trilogy Year Zero A farm boy and a rogue smuggler rescue a princess from the evil Empire, and go face to face against its super-weapon -the Death Star.

		Read January 24th to 31st, 1997 for the second time
		The writing style made it feel like I was watching a movie -which, I guess, I was. All in all, it was a good book; the action scenes at the end were almost as exciting as the movie! Unfortunately, there was no depth to it. The characters that we see in the movie are what we get. There are no thoughts to let us know who the characters are. All they do, really, is react to situations. But I guess this is a novelization to a movie, while the other books used a lot more background to make independant books.

		GRAPHICAL ADAPTATION A graphic novel by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin (1995, Dark Horse Comics)
	+	Read April 26th to 28th, 1997
		I realize the authors had to work from a pre-script, but even the graphics and drawings weren't all that good. The story was not enhanced in any way by this rendition. In fact, the differences were so great between what's on these pages and what's in the movie or even the novelization, that it was really distracting.

		A NEW HOPE SPECIAL EDITION GRAPHICAL ADAPTATION A graphic novel by Bruce Jones and Al Williamson (1997, Dark Horse Comics)
		Read May 14th to 16th, 1997
		This rendition was much better. The artwork was, in fact, incredible! Full of detail. The script was taken from the movie, with only some few omissions. Well done. I realize these guys had twenty years to figure out how they would make this graphic novel, and it shows.

		NPR RADIO DRAMATIZATION A radio adaptation by Brian Daley (1994, Ballantine Books)
		Read January 5th to 12th, 1995
		No review available.