Favorite novelization line

We know the movies, we love the movies, but sometimes, there's a beauty to the novelizations that just can't be expressed.

Mine is from ROTJ, when Vader saves Luke and the Emperor's dead--"too weak to move, too moved to speak."

 

Anything from the ROTJ novelization. So beautiful, so eloquent, so poetic... so OVER-THE-TOP!

Particularly the stuff involving the Emperor... how 'bout the bit "He WAS the Empire, he WAS the universe." ... and Vader waiting, knowing that to wait on the Emperor was "an honor, and a noble activity".

EDIT:

Or how 'bout "He could defeat Vader, he could BECOME Vader", and how the thought taunts him "like a broken clown"...

Or how Luke knows "when you are attacked, fall" to let the enemy's force buffet him...

Or Luke thinking that knowledge is like "an addictive drug"...

Or his description of how Salacious Crumb "effectively doubles" the wait of his friend's (Ephant or Ree, I forget) argument.

Or how he SPELLS OUT everything Artoo says!


James Kahn = the man. No arguments. They don't make SW novels like this any more.



Rick McCallum loves you!

 

Undoubtedly.

I don't much care for most novelizations of any stripe, but they should've bluidie welle FILMED James Kahn's version of the story. It's the gold-standard of all Star Wars adaptations.

And, of course...

[image=http://www1.kingston.net/~mcgaw/irn-bru.gif]

 

Interesting...

I was just thinking of this a few days ago and found this in ANH.

"Remember, Luke, the suffering of one man is the suffering of all. Distances are irrelevant to injustice. If not stopped soon enough, evil eventually reaches out to engulf all men, whether they have opposed it or ignored it."-ANH, Obi-Wan Kenobi

 

I'd have to say its from RotJ when Anakin takes off his Vader mask:

But then this brought him to mind of the way he used to look-striking, and grand, with a wry tilt to his brow that hinted of invincibility and took in all life with a wink. Yes, that's how he'd looked once...

 

From ROTJ:

When the Executor crashes into the DSII= For the first time the Death Star rocked.

The very last line in the novel= The Empire was dead. Long live the Alliance.

Anything from the opening page of ROTJ. It really is to me the best written of the novelizations.

 

I love the bit from the RotJ novelization where Vader is contemplating the future just before the shuttle Tydirium arrives at Endor. The description of the roiling paths before him is so beautiful.

I don't have the novel with me now, but I can type it in some other time.

 

'They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally, they became heroes.'

From the Star Wars novelisation by Alan Dean Foster.

 

Yay, I love that one. I've used it about fifteen different ways in stories, some of them challenges.

 

From ROTJ, when Luke, Han, and Chewie are being taken to the Sarlacc:

Luke wanted to burn Jabba.

I love that line. I think of it whenever I watch ROTJ.

Not that he actually wanted to light him on fire, but he wanted to take him down.

There is another one from ANH.

Han and Chewie are running through the Death Star, Chewie asks Han if he knows where they are, or something. Han replies that Corellians can't get lost, and Chewie is not exactly thrilled and asks Han something. Han replies:

Toppecil(sp?) doesn't count. He's not Corellian. Besides, I was drunk.

I think that's how it went. I am posting from work, so I can't run and check my books for the quotes.

 

Mine is in ANH, when Ben tells Luke that "even a duck must be taught to swim". Luke then asks "What´s a duck?", upon which Ben realizes that he has taken the conversation to a domain that´s out of reach for Luke´s comprehension.
So he just says "Nevermind."

Too bad TPM showed us that there are ducks in their galaxy....

 

I love the duck's line too.

And the fact that there's ducks in their galaxy, don't means that Luke has seen a duck in his life...

It seems that I need read again the ROTJ novelization...

 

"Damn you and the Force!" -Luke Skywalker to Ben Kenobi,ANH novelization

 

i love the ducks line too! i was going to write that!

i can't remember the exact line but it's in ANH when ben discovers all the imperials every where on the death star and he thinks luke and han are doing something stupid as they can't be all out looking for him

 

My favorite is the duck line.

I'll try to find something else that can be my second favorite line. The only one I remember off bat is the duck one.

 

I think that the ESB and ANH books arn't as good as viewing the films. I read the ROTJ novel, then watched the movie some time later, the movie by itself was great, but the book seemed to reinforce the movie, and I enjoyed watching it that time more then I had ever enjoyed it.
Note to all those who bash ROTJ: Read the novel first, then watch the movie. Makes the movie EVEN BETTER than it already was.

 

Toppecil(sp?) doesn't count. He's not Corellian. Besides, I was drunk.

The exact line is, "Tocneppil doesn't count; he wasn't a Corellian. Besides, I was drunk".

Either way, brilliant line.

And I frankly don't care if the ROTJ novelization can be considered over-the-top, it's still one of my top five favorite books. James Kahn saw a lot in the characters that most other writers have tended to miss, and in terms of SW fiction, I think his interpretation comes the closest to portraying their characters accurately.

That's why it would be difficult for me to pick out one favorite line...but a favorite passage would be his description of Luke's state of consciousness just before he enters Jabba's palace. Among other lines, "Wiser, like a man-older more from loss than from years. Loss of illusions, loss of dependency. Loss of friends, to war. Loss of sleep, to stress. Loss of laughter. Loss of his hand".

Very simple, yet stark.

And it was that duck line which inspired me to create a whole fanfic where Obi-Wan was from Earth...because, naturally, of course Luke would be confused about what a duck was, because no one in that galaxy would ever have seen one. This was long before TPM's inclusion of ducks in the GFFA.

 

James Kahn = the man. No arguments. They don't make SW novels like this any more.

w00t!

I, too, think that the ROTJ novelization is the best of the bunch, especially every scene with the Emperor and the entirety of Vader's death.

 

Hey, great topic.
And nice to see so much praise for Kahn's novelization, I've always thought it was the best by far.

One of my fave lines is from when an un-masked Anakin is remembering how he used to be:

"But then this brought him to mind of the way he used to look - striking and grand, with a wry tilt to his brow that hinted of invincibility and took in all of life with a wink. Yes, that was how he looked once."

Sounds like a character I'd like to see more of....

g

 

In the ANH novel, refering to the scene when they are on the Death Star, and they turn a corner and are confronted by a squad of stormtroopers. Han charges them, followed by Chewie. Something to the effect of, "Han acted naturally, which is to say, without thinking..."

 

When ROTJ came out, I DID read the book first. I just couldn't help it, the first page sucked me in and I could nt put it down. Honestly, it did not ruin a thing, it made me want to see the film even more.

 

I like in ANH when Luke, Ben, and company take off of Tatooine it says that Luke for some reason thought of a dog he once had.
*chokes up*
I love that line.

 

That´s a great reference to Lucas! He was called Luke as a kid and he also had a dog, which inspired him when he created Chewbacca.
I wonder if it was Lucas or Foster who came up with that for the novel....

 

I always loved this ROTJ verse.

"But of sll his losses, the greatest was that which came from knowledge, and from the deep recongization that he could never un-know what he knew. so many things he wished he'd never learned. He had aged with the weight of this knowledge.

Knowledge brought benefits, of course. He was less impulsive now. Manhood had given him perpsective, a framework in which fit the events of his life- that is, a lattice of space and time coordinates spanning his existence, back to the earliest memories ahead to a hundred alternative futures. A lattice of depths, and conundrums, and interstices, thorugh which Luke could peer at any new event in his life, peer at it with perspective. A lattive of shades and corners, rolling back to the vanishing point on the horizon of Luke's mind. And all these shadow boxes that lent such perspective to things... well, this lattice gave his life a certain darkness."


Edit: And the most funniest line, coming from Lando when he's reaching for Han's arm by the Sarlacc.

He sure hoped Solo wasn't still holding that silly business back on Bespin against him.

 

I quoted some of the passage mentioned in the previous post, but I do have to agree that I love the whole passage. It's a fitting description of Luke and how he stands at that point in time, how he thinks, etc. The use of language to describe the situation could almost be called hyperbolic, but it's really useful to describe a character who in actuality, is far more complex than many might think. A luscious use of words...

Was anyone else struck by Kahn's description of Han's state of mind during his time in carbonite, and what his first thoughts were after he was decarbonized? Amazing imagery, there, and to date, the only real concrete examples of what it was like for him. Scary, scary stuff, if you deign to think about it.