Books A/V The Force Awakens Novelization Thread (TFA SPOILERS)

Saw the movie yesterday and just started the book today and wanted to start discussing it.

I didn't see a thread, and I get the Mods may prefer to start their own.

But anyway, here's a place to park your thoughts about the TFA novelization... for now, anyway.

Spoilers must be tagged!

Very early in, but initial impression of the book...

Spoiler

...is that it's a bit bland, whereas the movie was so fun from start to finish. But as a Star Wars fan, there all already some back story holes being filled in. Hopefully, the narrative starts to deliver more.

 

Glad that the Journal of the Whills is still canon

 

Yay journal of the Whilis .................what was the journal of the Whilis?

 

In Canon, we don't really know. In Legends, it was a book with all the history of galactic events in it, maintained by a 'Mysterious Order' The Whills. It goes back to the early drafts of the original movie..

 

Nice poem from that journal, I'll wait for opinions and also if the book gives more insight about the movie events.

 

I'm waiting for the hardcover. I refuse to contribute to the downfall of real books

 

I also posted this in the main movie discussion thread since the opening post indicated it was also for the novelization, but I'll post it here too since it is about the novelization. These are obviously spoilers for both the movie and book.

Some added scenes:

Spoiler

-The opening is Leia wondering where Luke is and trying to call out to him that she needs him.

-Snoke mentions having seen the Empire rise and fall. If that was in the movie then I missed it.

-Leia is informed of the FO's attack on Jakku and Poe's assumed death. She is upset and does not want the FO to find Luke before they do. She knows that BB-8 is still missing so she asks 3PO to activate his tracker to find him. She then sends her envoy to the Senate in the Hosnian system to ask for help, explaining that she cannot go herself because while she still has friends there she would likely have an unfortunate "accident" because many there do not like her.

-There is a scene with 3PO talking to the low power R2 where he is basically talking to himself but asking what R2 would do, because he forgot to activate BB-8's tracker before he left on the mission. He decides to send a message to all active Resistance droids to be on the lookout for BB-8.

-We get a scene of Poe waking up after the crash. He has a concussion and it turns out that he got out of the TIE after crash landing it and wandered away before collapsing and it's just bad luck that Finn didn't find him. There's a whole sequence where he meets a scavenger who decides to help him and then they are attacked by other scavengers and Poe pilots a speeder showing off his skills again to get away.

-Unkar Plutt finds Rey at Maz's Castle. He found them because he had a homing device on the Falcon. Rey tries to use her blaster on him but the safety is on. Chewie intervenes and tears Plutt's arm off. It's at this point that a droid sees BB-8 and sends a message to the Resistance.

-Then there's a quick scene with 3PO receiving the message and informing Leia of BB-8's whereabouts. These 3PO scenes are both good but I think I prefer his first appearance in the movie.

-A scene of Leia being informed of the the destruction of the Hosnian system and feeling the deaths of all the people in the Force. And she thinks about how no one should be subjected to the death of an entire world but she had been subjected to two and she would not allow it to happen again.

-Also, it's not as easily seen in the sky above the Castle. That was one of my problems with the movie was that it made it appear that they were in the same system.

-Confirmed Han and Leia are husband and wife.

-General Hux launches something called seekers to take out the attacking X-Wings on Starkiller Base. He's warned that they will take down TIEs too but he claims that collateral damage will be necessary to win.

-There's a chase sequence involving the stolen snow speeder that Rey and Finn use to get to the oscillator.

-Kylo Ren removing his mask for Han is the first time Han has seen his son as a grown man. Also, Han debated leaving without confronting him but didn't because he wanted to fulfill Leia's request.

-Poe does not fly into the oscillator and there is no "trench run". His pilots simply bomb the hole that the detonators exposed.

-Hux rescues Kylo Ren and could have taken Finn and Rey but there was no time and his instructions from Snoke took precedence. He assumed they would die there anyways.

-The doctor tells Rey that Finn will be fine although he is in a medically induced coma and nothing is certain until he fully recovers.

-R2 has the rest of the map because he catalogued the Imperial archives. He overheard a discussion of how Kylo Ren had said that they held the rest of the map because it was in the archives. He then powers up and displays the map.

-Rey has a conversation with Leia before she leaves where Leia promises her that she will not share the fate of her son.

-Rey extends the lightsaber towards Luke as an offer and a plea because he's the galaxy's only hope. She wonders what will happen next.

 

I am wrong in thinking Lost Stars should form part of the timeline listed in the front of the book? Or is it because that book spans so many years it doesn't fit into one set place?


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Might not have been included because it is Young Reader.

 

Lost Stars was not published by Del Rey. That is Del Rey''s timeline.

 

Thanks for the details. So apparently there are some minor contradictions with the movie. I guess the "it's canon where it fits" rule applies to this novelization as well, not just Ep I-VI

 

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I wonder if Maz is a Whill.

 

Where are the contradictions?

 

Differences in the way events play out,

Spoiler

such as Poe's trench run being in the movie but not the novel.

 

So is the novelisation good and worth reading? Does it go into some more detail on the backstory behind any of the characters or the state of the galaxy?

 

I think it's worth reading. There is some more fleshed out motivations and a little more fleshed out backgrounds. I enjoyed it. If you want to wait for the physical copy I wouldn't say it is necessarily that important that you read it now but in the long run I say read it at some point.

 

Can't wait to see the things that get expanded upon. How long is it?

 

My Kindle version had 4198 locations. Not sure what that translates to in page counts, but for comparison Lost Stars was 4997. It took me a little over two hours to read but I'm a pretty fast reader.

 

I'm reading the novel, the writing is great and I love the new main characters, but I have one major issue, I don't care about the overall story, especially since I feel it derailed from the search for Luke Skywalker. I love the character interactions, but I don't feel any urgency to find Luke as much as the story's trying to play up the First Order, they don't impress me. I love all the characters except Kylo Ren, can't wait to see Rey, Finn, Poe and BB-8 on screen, he's adorable, we also need more Poe. The new characters are definitely great.

But the story being told to me, is is just so...uninteresting, it has it's exciting moments, but it just feels "okay" and like J.J. (not Alan Dean Foster because the novel is based off J.J.'s script) went to fanfiction.net and looked at too many fanfics where OCs become part of the Star Wars episodes. Finn, Poe and Rey and Kylo are not "OCs" in the fanfic way, but the story sure feels like a fanfic, a good one, but still, very much a fanfic.

 

More like a fanfic than the EU where everyone lives in apartments and has family dinners at the Solos? I love those scenes, but really...

 

Spoiler

Does he lead blue squadron in the novel?

 

Spoiler

Kind of. He's Black Leader, and it appears that he is leading both Blue and Red squadrons. I'm not sure if there is a separate Blue Leader or Red Leader since the only other pilot the novel identified by number is Blue Three, which is Jess Pava.

 

Did they simultaneously hit

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FIVE worlds like in the movie?

And if so what were the other worlds hit?

Pretty please?

 

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Kind of. The weapon works pretty different in the novel than what we see on screen. It basically shoots a blast of energy through a rip in space (like a hyperspace wormhole). It collides with the planet in the Hosnian system (I actually don't think it gives a name to the planet, although the name of the city is Republic City), and ignites the core of the planet and turns it into what the novel calls a pocket nova. The nova then sends out a massive heat wave searing all the other planets in the system wiping out all lives and settlements in the system. The novel closes the section by describing the Hosnian system as now a binary system completely devoid of life.

 

The 'One Canon' thing didn't last long.


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