What If... SW books before the movies...

[Crossroads Inc.]

So What if...

For those that have read the SW Novelizations, Imagine a world were Lucas wrote those, before pursuing SW as a movie idea...
Yes Yes, I know Lucas was not exactly an Author, Lets just say in this Universe he was, and the Novelizations, as you currently know them were released around the time that New Hope was initially released...

How do you think the fandom of Star Wars would change?
Would it have become nearly as popular?
would the movies have ever been made? And, How do you think movies based upon the novelizations would have been different from the ones we know? And most important... How it would have changed the great SWvST debate!

[Ralin]

I've only read the Return of the Jedi novelization (possibly before seeing the actual movie. It's kind of hazy). It's been awhile since I was in elementary school at the time, but if I remember right it doesn't really differ from the movie much beyond some fairly minor changes and bits of exposition.

The original Star Wars novelization is from what I understand a different story, what with having Jabba as a human bounty hunter and (going off of stuff Wong has mentioned) adding in things like how Jedi constantly use the Force to box in their enemies and limit their movements, with that being why the fight between Obi-wan and Vader mostly just looks like them tapping their light sticks against each other.

So...kinda hard to know what would be the same from the real-life novelizations. Lucas probably wouldn't have turned Jabba into a Hutt two books later, and there are probably other knock on effects in the second and third that would lead to things having to be different

Has anyone read Splinter in the Mind's Eye? It's been on my reading list literally since I was a kid and somehow never got around to it.

[NecronLord]

I actually came to the series through the novellizations first; my family was far from rich as a kid, and what money there was for me was spent chiefly on educating me, and novels were both available in public libraries and second hand books, then as now, cost buttons.

I was aware that the films existed but it took me a while to actually get to buy the VHS-es.

It changes nothing meaningful for the individual reader; or at least, it didn't in my case.

[Simon_Jester]

A big part of what has made Star Wars so huge is the overwhelming visual-effects spectacle of the films and the picture-worth-a-thousand-words effect of its actors. Even if Lucas were a literary genius, recreating the backdrop of something like the Mos Eisley cantina or Jabba's palace would be a formidable task.

Without the movies, the mass appeal to children would be less (so no enormous production of Star Wars toys and merchandise)

One might compare the impact of our hypothetical novels-only Star Wars to other fairly successful SF novel series of the '70s, '80s, and '90s. The examples popping into my head are somewhat more recent (Bujold's Vorkosigan series and Weber's Honor Harrington series), but they give you a benchmark for the level of cultural impact the series would be likely to have. Well known among science fiction fandom, with quite a lot of readers overall, but nearly no mass market penetration.

And of course, there would be endless debate over how or if they'd handle movie rights. What, the destruction of the Death Star? As a movie? It'd never work!

Unfortunately, based on historical precedents there's a good chance the movie would never actually get made.

...

Another thought, we'd probably have seen all nine 'episodes' novelized by 1990 at the latest, and the other novels would be... interestingly different... from the plots we actually have for Episodes 1-3 and 7-9. Especially 7-9; we may never find out what Lucas originally had planned for those.

[K. A. Pital]

The Vorkosigan saga is not even popular enough to get a TV series like "The Expanse" or BSG. I think that would've been a situation where Star Wars never become a mass meme source, and "Darth Vader" would not be instantly recognized by 70% of people you meet.

On the othe hand this would have kept Disney's dirty fingers away from this franchise and it could have had its "rest in peace" moment. Eh.

[Simon_Jester]

The Vorkosigan saga is not even popular enough to get a TV series like "The Expanse" or BSG.

If you think about it, SF television tends to be original fiction rather than drawing from a book or a series of books. That's not uniformly true but it is frequently true. Probably because television show creators like to have creative control over their own works.

Fantasy settings seem to get made into TV more frequently (e.g. Game of Thrones, which has in turn created a lot of openings and opportunities for other fantasy novels).

And making a movie out of a science fiction novel is always problematic because you have to decide what to cut. Much easier to novelize a movie than to movify a novel.

Now, if Lucas had actually worked on a script for the movie version of his novel (depending on what balance of skill as a novelist and as a movie-maker he possessed, he might), there's at least a chance it would actually get aired in some form some day. But it wouldn't be particularly likely.

In the modern era most nerds would have heard of The Skywalker Saga or whatever we'd be calling it, but yeah, it'd be very obscure by pop culture standards.



On the othe hand this would have kept Disney's dirty fingers away from this franchise and it could have had its "rest in peace" moment. Eh.[/quote]

[Ralin]

I actually came to the series through the novellizations first; my family was far from rich as a kid, and what money there was for me was spent chiefly on educating me, and novels were both available in public libraries and second hand books, then as now, cost buttons.

Wait, I'm not the only one who did that? Because I'm pretty sure I went from Return of the Jedi novelization to I think Dark Force Rising to other EU stuff.

I mean, even at the beginning I knew things about the general plot because come on, it's goddamn Star Wars, and I probably saw bits of it on TV or whatever, but yeah. Same deal.

Actually, even before that I think my very first exposure was through these really trimmed down storybook versions of the movies with screenshots from the films that were on the bookshelf in my elementary school home room.

In the modern era most nerds would have heard of The Skywalker Saga or whatever we'd be calling it, but yeah, it'd be very obscure by pop culture standards.

You know all those arguments that Star Wars is more science fantasy than science fiction? Whether you buy into them or not Star Wars is different enough from, say, Star Trek and what I remember of Honor Harrington

[Simon_Jester]

[Blinks]

...Well yes, it's different. And Honor Harrington is different from Star Trek, which is different from Battlestar Galactica, which is different from the Vorkosigan series, which is different from Babylon 5... All science fiction is different and every major setting is different from every other one.

That doesn't change the basic point that if Star Wars were a series of novels, then like just about every other high-grade series of SF novels on the market, it would be well known among science fiction fans, but relatively obscure among the general public.

[Ralin]

I was thinking more that it might make more sense to compare it to fantasy novels like Lord of the Rings, Song of Ice and Fire, etc. For these purposes anyway.

Or maybe not. Who knows? It's speculation. I'm not actually a big sci-fi reader.

[Tychu]

Well the "A New Hope" novelization came out in 1976. So the whole premise of the thread is void!!!!

But seriously, if Lucas had plans to make it a movie, it would have happened. Dune got made in the 80s why not the Journal of the Whills? Maybe it would appear as a TV series if he waited till the 90s. There was a resurgence in Sci-Fi in the 90s, The Journal of the Whills could be billed as "George R. Lukas' (sic) Fantasy series in Space is coming to Sci-Fi in March as a mini series!"

[U.P. Cinnabar]

If the novels had come first, any movie based off those novels would be stuck in development hell for years(e.g. Starship Troopers), and then, when it did come out, no matter how faithful to the printed material it was(and, it can never be 100% faithful, especially when you have a creative team whose interpretation differs from the orignial author's), fans would bitch and moan about it not being faithful to the novel(s).

And, the novel(s) would be a separate canon from any movies made from them, which would cause any Wars vs. Trek to degenerate into even more of a pissing and nit-picking contest than it already is, as there would be two sets of canon to choose from to compare technologies, firepower, and the like.

And, yes, there would still be a debate, simply because Trekkies were hell-bent and determined in their opposition to any SF that was not Trek, even before Star Wars was a thing, as David Gerrold pointed out in his book The World Of Star Trek back in the 70s. I mean, Hell, there are some Trekevangelists who insist the Feds can beat the freakin' Culture, with one hand tied behind their backs.

By the way, wasn't there an Honorverse movie that was trapped in development hell or something like that?!

[Elheru Aran]

By the way, wasn't there an Honorverse movie that was trapped in development hell or something like that?!

There's a *lot* of movies in development hell. One major reason, at least with SF movies, is simple lack of money for effects. That's being remedied now, which has led to such gems as John Carter.

Yeah, that's a pretty good argument right there...

[Batman]

John Carter wasn't so bad. Not brilliant by any stretch of the imagination and only marginally resembling the source material, but a fun enough movie.

[Simon_Jester]

I was thinking more that it might make more sense to compare it to fantasy novels like Lord of the Rings, Song of Ice and Fire, etc. For these purposes anyway.

As noted, fantasy typically has much lower budgets than science fiction when it comes to special effects. You can do considerably more of it with practical effects (people riding horses) and relatively cheap CGI (overlaying demon horns on the face of a human actress).

With science fiction you need lots of stuff that is entirely CGI, like spaceships zooming around, because people just won't accept movies where the spaceships are models anymore. At least, not without ample CGI touch-up.