Lit Star Wars Episode VII novelization

He's good at description and world-building. For example, he describes Vader and Tarkin as "as different in appearance as they were united in objective."

 

Tarkin is also:

"a thin, hatchet-faced man with hair and form borrowed from an old broom and the expression of a quiescent piranha."

 

This is about as much a Disney film as The Insider.

 

LOL...this novelization is going to be fun.

Thanks for posting that...

 

Episode VII? Are we still talking about Star Wars or did I miss something?

 

Yeah, TFA. Disney, by all appearances are just acting the parent company. There's been none of their branding on the trailers or posters.

Walt Disney Studios has been producing/releasing an extremely broad range of films for a long time though. After all, they released Pulp Fiction. It's a bit unfair to suggest there will be tangible signs that Disney have imposed their supposed "mark" on the product, especially to the degree that someone like Stover would be vetoed.

 

I mean, c'mon people, let Alan Dean Foster have the gig to at least get his name on the cover of at least ONE Star Wars novelization. He's written two of 'em!

 

I'm not sure if I get what you mean -- Disney's name's all over the place on this. Every news item or announcement has mentioned Disney this-and-that, and the Disney channel's advertising Star Wars all over the place.

Unrelated, I agree with you that Stover will have a shot at writing a novel someday. I just didn't think it would be the first novelization, because they're trying to make the movie family-friendly. Not like The Insider or Pulp Fiction. That's all I meant.

 

The trailer, notably, only uses the LFL logo and I'd put money on the film doing likewise and only having the Disney castle at the end. The poster doesn't, as some speculated, have "Disney's" over the banner, and the one Disney person who was working on this has had his work jettisoned.

 

I'm sorry 4Dot my man -- I'm not sure what you're getting at. Star Wars is Disney's and my original point was that why would they use Stover's talents at writing dark/gritty-inner-turmoil-etc (which he's great at) on a film like TFA, which they've been marketing with a much lighter tone? Clearly Abrams/Kennedy/etc are trying to bring back the OT vibe, and someone like ADF is a good fit for that position, and so I don't think it's a surprise that Stover didn't get the gig. But that doesn't mean he won't get something else down the line.

 

I'm not disagreeing. I just bristle at the suggestion that Disney purchasing LFL will have some immediate, dramatic and tangible on what the films themselves feel like any more than if Warners or whoever had done the same thing. If anything LFL look to have been left largely to their own devices. As for the tone of the piece... it's got some interesting elements like...

*actual legitimate TFA spoilers of actual actualness*

*I'm not kidding*

Spoiler

Finn suffering from the trauma of having to kill civilians and seeing a comrade bite the dust (and having a chunder as a result), Luke's students being massacred, etc. Not entirely sunshine/lolipops/rainbows contingent.

But yeah, I get the feeling that we're hung up on a technicality.



Play on.

 

Yeah, it was a joke. I'm not a big fan of the show, despite (because of?) watching it to the end. But I can't point to any particularly objectionable work of his on the show.

Note that that was before Mindor was finished. I'm pretty sure he swore off Star Wars at that point.

 

Why do people keep saying this? He's written three Star Wars books: Star Wars, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, and The Approaching Storm. Out of those, the only one that's a novelization is the only one he's ghost written. George Lucas didn't put his name on any other novels. Am I missing something? I even double checked on the Wook.

 

I like that this thread has a tangential Stover discussion running in the background.

 

At any rate, being credited with the story for Star Trek: The Motion Picture probably trumps the ignominy of losing credit for the Star Wars book.

I'm going to pitch a coffee table book: Alan Dean Foster's Credits and How to Interpret Them

 

Yes, he does have two non-novelization Star Wars novels (Splinter & Storm) under his belt but he wrote the original "Star Wars" novelization and he doesn't have a credit for it, so I think it's nice that he'll get to do a bona-fide novelization for "Force Awakens" and have his name on the cover this time.

 

It's interesting to me that later editions of the first Star Wars novelization still list George Lucas as the author, even though if you open to the first page of the introduction by Lucas and he says himself in the second sentence that Alan Dean Foster actually wrote the novel. Not that it really matters, but it is odd to me.

I'm a fan of Foster. I haven't read The Approaching Storm but I've read Star Wars (or "A New Hope," or "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker." This book has too many titles) and Splinter of the Mind's Eye and I thoroughly enjoyed both books, continuity errors and creepy brother-sister romantic feelings and all.

 

I liked The Approaching Storm and I'm joined by literally no-one else in the known universe on that front.

 

Up until I read this thread I had only heard good things about The Approaching Storm...

 

Dig around a bit - you'll find a few other fans of it here. I certainly think it doesn't deserve the amount of dislike heaped on it.

 

The Approaching Storm is almost universally disliked from what I have heard, at least around here. I wouldn't know, because I haven't ever tried to read it.

 

. . . where?

 

I'm okay with Alan Dean Foster doing this, you know Splinter of the Minds Eye was a good little book there, and his movie novelization was not bad. Approaching Storm was different, as a tie in novel and alleged prequel to AOTC it could have been a bit better, when compared to Luceno's LOE novel. Still, I'm glad that at least we get a movie novelization. I would hate for tradition to be broken and have an empty adult movie book for TFA. Now to the other point that Bariss made, the fact is no matter what, Disney own Lucasfilm, and everything since the purchase of the property has been about returning back to the OT. You can argue what you want here on the PT, but, from different interviews and comments made, it is like everyone is moving way from the prequels. No pun intended, but that is what they are advertising. This has been the main strategy and on the book side of things, with the exception of Luceno, JJM, and the new Kemp book, it doesn't look like we are going to see Zahn, Stover, or some of the others. Christie Golden landed the clone wars novel gig and I pray that one is good or we will never hear the end of it. Even the first season of Rebels has music from the OT mixed in, but nothing on the PT.

 

Other than Luceno, JJM, and Kemp we are getting no Zahn, Stover, Luceno, JJM, or Kemp? Am I missing something or is the complaint that Zahn and Stover are not amongst the first seven authors announced?