The novelization of Revenge of the Sith

About a week or so ago I finally got finished listening to the book on tape of Revenge of the Sith (after having it for about a year I finally got around to finsishing it up).

And to be honest I was rather dissapointed with it. We seemed to go through an entire paragraph describing just one little rather insignificant action by the characters. But I didn't give up on it because I thought the last part of the book might be pretty interesting in describing how Anakin finally succumbs to the darkside and also his final battle with Obi Wan.

But to my surprise the book really just rushes right through what is probably the most intrigual part of the entire prequel trilogy. They skip many scenes of the movie after Anakin's fall and even change his character abit.

In the movie Darth Vader is not completely evil. He just is overemotional and has bad judgement (and that he even feels guilty about some of the things he is doing). But the book seems to try to portray him as a complete villian who has no remorse for what he is doing at all.

So was the book written off of an earlier copy of Revenge of the Sith and later Lucas went and revised some things to make it better before the movie came out. And that is why Vader's character seemed abit different and they didn't have as much description at the end.

 

it's funny that the end of the book and its portrayal of vader is much clsoer to the classic icon that vader is instead of the sympathetic victim Lucas attempted to turn him into.

the book 1000 times better than the movie, it's actually a good story not a slide show of major plot points like RotS.

i wonder how long till this is directed to another thread or if it will stay open, i can't say just wondering.

 

You should probably make your way over to the literature forum, but I had to pitch my two cents in and say that I am shocked that you feel that way about the Novel. I thought the Novel was Superb. It is hard to write action so the Author tried to just get into the heads of the characters and write it that way, discussing how the characters thought. It was absolutely key to the understanding of Dooku's character and actually gives a little more motivation behind the turn of Anakin. Mace & posse vs. Palpatine is actually better on paper, as is Obi-Wan and Anakin vs. Dooku. The Novel did go pretty fast from Anakin's turn to the end, but I'm pretty sure that it is roughly proportional to the movie as far as this is concerned. I guess there are a few people that really really hated the novel, but for the most part I think people were pleased with it. I personally think it was the best piece of Star Wars literature ever written.

Carnage

 

I like it more in some ways and in others I hate it. The fact that they included so much about Mace's shatterpoint bull annoyed me. Then theres the fact that I got to the final disk of the audiobook and Mace wasn't even dead yet. They definitely sped up the ending a bit.

 

Prolly better if you post it here.

 

First, book on tape doesn't have the same impact as reading it yourself. Second, the book was written specifically by Stover to be the way it is, because he didn't want to do a straight up adaptation. He wanted something that was more of an original story. Lucas was cool with that, but he took out certain scenes to keep in the film as a surprise. Other scenes were explored in ways designed to help fans to understand what the dark side can offer.

 

I do agree, Audiobooks just don't do it for me. I don't understand why they are so popular. When reading, I feel deeply immersed in a story. My mind is taking in the words and building a world. Did I miss something, my eyes flick a few sentences back. When someone else is talking to me, I can sit and hold attention for Maybe 30 Minutes. (Take this with a grain of salt because I cannot give a source, but I have read about studies that show the average time that a person can focus on a lecturer or other speaker talking non stop is 18 minutes.) With an autoformat, it is just too easy to drift away a bit and miss things. Unless you simply skip a page, you do not drift like this with a normal book. I've adapated to enjoying Ebooks, even though they lack that certain "Reading in the park under a tree on a sunny day" romantic idea. Audio books? Highly doubt that I ever will. To each his own of course! I know a pretty smart guy that couldn't read 100 pages in less than 10 hours. He reads some books, but the amount of time it takes him is astounding. He would probably be better with audios

Carnage

 

For now, I think I'll let this stay here, so long as you're talking about it in relation to the film. If you're just talking about the book as a seaprate entity from the film and it's connection to the eu, then it needs to go to Literature.

 

I have to agree with you, sony12. I read the book before I watched the film, and I have to confess that I was so Relieved that they were only superficially similar.

 

Malikail
the book 1000 times better than the movie, it's actually a good story not a slide show of major plot points like RotS.

I beg to differ!

but, having not read the books myself, I'll take your word for it.

 

feel free to differ after you read it if you do.

I and probably I alone think RotS is by far the worst film in the saga because it doesn't tell a story of characters i care about, instead half way through the movie it becomes a slide show of plot points that have to be covered to get us to episode 4.

The difference is that in the book stover had more time and spent a little more of it on the characters so i thought it was a lot better than the film.

I will tell you how bad my oppinion of RotS is, i went to see it a second time and walked out of it after about a half hour because i was bored and didn't care to see anymore.

 

I find you lack of faith disturbing Malikail

ROTS has to be my favoe of the film novelisations as (as Sinister pointed out) Stover refuses to do a straight-up adaptation which would have been done by any old author. If you have read any of Stover's other SW novels you would know how they are all rather unlike each other. Shatterpoint is focused on Mace and it gets inside his head along with a lot of action Traitor is one of the pivotal books in the NJO and for once they got the right author to write it.

Stover excelled in three areas IMHO.

1. He got INSIDE the character's minds in a way that no other author can, especially with the "This is what it is to be like to be ----- ------" passages. My favourite of these was the Padme one as for such a little-documented and often misunderstood character he managed to get a bullseye with nailing her.
2. The banter between characters, especially Obi-Wan and Anakin which is IMHO of the best parts of the novel. Obi: Go high and right. Anakin: I'm going low and left. Anyone who reads the novel has to put aside the views that Anakin was evil before he became Vader.
3. Showing rather than telling. This is perhaps one of the most critical apsects of his novel, particularly in quite central scenes such as Vader finding out of Padme's death, the birth of the twins, Obi-Wan finding out about what happened at the Temple, Yoda vs Sidious and THE DUEL, the best lightsaber fight EVER and he managed to make it BETTER (and it is very hard to polish a gold statue and REALLY make it shine).

I salute you Matt Stover, I really do and I hope you got that letter I wrote to you (the only fan letter I have written to an author) for a real job well-done.

 

I loved the novel. The dialogue was outstanding. I loved the Count Dooku/Sidious conversation prior to the arrival of Anakin and Obiwan. I loved the fact that Stover elimated unneccessary plot points and stuck strictly to the core of what ROTS was supposed to be about: the conversion of Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader. I loved how Stover made it completely obvious about the whole Mace/Sidious duel. I read the novel a long time ago so I don't remember everything great about it but it is truely an outstanding read. Those who have not read it are missing out.

Also to the author of this thread, what are you doing listening to the novelization on tape? This is the only I can think of why you didn't like it. You also say it showed Vader as completely evil. Well what about at the very end? It goes on about how there was no 'dragon' it was only Anakin and when he could have been with Padme he blew it by thinking about himself.

 

I have to chime in here and state that I absolutely adored this novelisation by Stover. It has such character insights that I had hoped for and never dreamed would be delivered, and yet, here in this book, they were fulfilled. I thought he did justice to the Anakin character, gave him real complexity and somehow, Stover managed to also show the transition from Anakin to Vaderkin and give hints of OT Vader to come; marvellous!

The book also does wonders for the Anakin/Obi-Wan partnership as well, for which I am most grateful. I loved the way that you could see that though they had one of those tumultous, difficult relationships at times, the love and esteem was there too, which kept them together and so much the crack Jedi Team that they were.

And finally, the Anakin and Palpatine scenes are wonderfully written too. Palpatine comes off as such the grandfather at times and at others a tough but reassuring and understanding mentor. And then there's the scene between them, one of my favourites, when Palpatine demonstrates to Anakin just how powerful and influential he already is when he offers him all sorts of material gifts, apartment blocks, star systems, etc. There's so much in that scene that bodes ill for the future and speaks to their dominant/submissive roles that in some respects, never changes, even when they become Vader and Sidious.

All round, a great read, and the final page with Vaderkin's thoughts, so poignant and sad and awful.

 

That scene os funny when he asks Anakin what does he want.

"A glass of water? Yours. A bag of Corusca gems? Yours." Anakin then asks for the most insanely expensive thing he can think of. then "What if I wanted the war to end?" Palpatine: "Would tomorrow be too soon?"

And the ultimate: "Do you know what I would do if this Darth Sidious of your walked into this office--and I could stop you from killing him on the spot? I would ask him if there was anything he could do in his power to stop the war and if he said 'Yes' I would offer him a brandy and talk it out."

 

Well, if you really think about it, at that point in time, Palpatine could've given Anakin anything

 

It probably did have abit to do with the fact that I was listening to somebody else read the lines (as the guy reading it was pretty anoying to listen to at times (especially when he tried to do a Padme voice( and even more-so when I had to listen to that same voice read Padme's thoughts when she was lusting after Anakin))).

But I still feel that the last part of it ruined the entire book. He absolutely just breezed right through the rest of the story once Anakin finally pledged himself to the darkside teachings. There was no mention of him going to the Jedi Temple and killing the kids until Obi-Wan saw him on the security camera. There was no mention of any of the guilt he was feeling after he killed the Trade Federation leaders. The conversation between Padme and Anakin on Mustafar was off in comparison to the movie. In the movie they make it evident that there is still good in Anakin during that conversation and that he still considers Obi Wan a good friend and does not want to harm him. But that he is emotionally pushed over the edge when he begins thinking that Padme and Obi Wan betrayed him (which leads to the battle). While during that conversation in the book they make it seem as though Anakin wants to kill Obi Wan from the get-go. They just very briefly skimmed over the Sidious Yoda battle. And after Obi Wan cut off Anakin's limbs Obi Wan called him his brother and said he loved him before Anakin yelled out 'I hate you'. While in the movie Obi Wan didn't say those things until after Anakin yelled out that line (which made those remarks much more emotional than they would have been other wise.

And the audio novelization basically ends right after Anakin gets that mask on while the movie still had a few more scenes left.


So because of those reasons I thought the last part really brought down the entire book.

 

As I said, some scenes were left out of the book intentionally. Such as the Temple massacare. Lucas wanted the impact of those scenes to be seen in the theater and not in the pages of the book, or it's audio adaptation. Really, the massacare works better from a visual standpoint. It's both tragic and epic.

When you read the book, as opposed to listen to it, you are immersed into a world of your own making. You can make the characters walk, talk, shoot, **** any way you want them to. You even visualize it in your head. It even helps to have done this before seeing the film, that way you don't have to feel that the book is inferior. You might, but then you might not.

 

More thoughts...

My biggest problew with the book was Stover's fanboy portrayal of Kenobi, a mis-characterization that bled into the rest of the cast. e.g. The scene where Padmé realizes that Obi-Wan, not Anakin, is the one Jedi she can trust is not only Stover's clear bias against A/P, it's also a fallacy. The DVD commentary by Lucas clearly nullifies Stover's take.

 

The movie is obviousley more visually stunning, simply because it's actually visual and you get to see it and experience it.

The novel is the more complete version of the story, it has a lot more info and a lot more hidden jokes, and as an aside, everyone in it acts as well as you can imagine them acting

 

I haven't read the book since it first came out. I read the novel first then watched the movie. The book was better IMO. It's often the way that novel's turn out better than movies and I see no difference here. The development was better, the dialogue (although more or less accurate) contained some great stuff and some scenes panned out slightly different and slightly better as an overall.

 

Two things.

1. Lucas did approve of that part of the book, when he line edited it.

2. Lucas probably didn't remember that part of the book, when he made the commentary.

 

I find it very hard to believe that Lucas who's quite possessive of Padmé's character would forget something as controversial as that.

 

Stover said at C3 that that was one of the liberties that he took himself. Lucas didn't edit the book with a magnifying glass. His line by line was a general statement that he "read" the draft, offered comments, told them things they couldn't do (the Mace/Anakin/Sidious' piece was changed pretty heavily from what I hear against Stover's wishes) and then it was published. Lucas' commentary about Anakin being the Jedi she could trust fits along with the rest of the movie and story.

 

I love this book, it took me back to when I read the ROTJ novelization. The one big difference I found interesting was Yoda's defeat. In the film, Yoda runs after taking a really nasty fall, and after standing his ground very well against Palpatine. From the film you get the feeling that Yoda could have really won if not for the fall and possibly from overexhausting himself deflecting the lightning. In the book he never had a chance, and there is no head-to-head moment on a pod, Palpatine times his blast against Yoda leaping from one pod to another and catches Yoda in mid-leap.


"Even stars burn out." = Classic.