Because watching the six episodic “Star Wars” films for the ump-hundredth time isn’t always appealing, it’s fun to approach those familiar stories from less-notable angles every now and then: The novelizations, the comic adaptations, the “Tales” short stories, the Star Comics “Droids” perspective on “A New Hope” and – a particularly good choice for a road trip — the radio dramas. Brian Daley’s 6 ½-hour “A New Hope” radio drama (1981) is a glorious piece of nostalgia and entertainment. The radio drama works due to the novelty value of a medium that has died out (after the classic trilogy was recorded, no installments were made for the prequels, nor was there much demand for them) and also because it significantly enhances the character arcs and the nature of the galactic conflict.
Of the three radio plays, “A New Hope” is the best because it has the most room for bonus material. It’s no accident that the “Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” radio plays are shorter. Daley’s script is front-loaded with new material, so much so that Luke and Han gun down the last of the sentry TIE fighters while escaping the Death Star – a sequence that caps the second of the film’s three acts — in the 11th of the 13th episodes.
The performances are mostly polished and professional, but their accuracy (in relation to the movie portrayals) ranges all over the place. Luke and C-3PO translate best, naturally because they are voiced by Mark Hamill (presaging his post-“Star Wars” career as a voice actor) and Anthony Daniels, but also because it seems like those characters would tend to be talky. Han (Perry King), Obi-Wan (Bernard Behrens) and Darth Vader (Brock Vader) seem too talky, but I had little problem adjusting to these slightly different takes on the characters. As Leia, Ann Sachs gives the best performance by a non-movie actor – her voice isn’t as husky as Carrie Fisher’s, but she gets the attitude right. The most off-point characters luckily don’t get much airtime: Wedge (Meshach Taylor, giving the straight-laced pilot a hip-hop attitude) and Tarkin (Keene Curtis, playing the conniving power monger too blandly).
Daley isn’t as good of a dialogue writer in this format as in his “Han Solo Adventures” books. Too often, he writes interruptions into the dialogue in an awkward attempt at conversational rhythm, and Luke calls the image of the princess “beautiful” a hilarious amount of times. And there are errors peppered in, like when the garbage compactor number is wrong and when C-3PO says creatures are approaching from the “southwest” instead of “southeast.” These are details only a “Star Wars” geek would notice, but let’s face it, only “Star Wars” geeks are listening to the “Star Wars” radio drama.
The author’s choices for additional material are excellent, although the bonus material has had mixed luck in terms of being adapted by the wider universe. For example, C-3PO notes that he’s grown fond of R2-D2 after a short time. It’s a setup for Leia to note “It’s possible to care for … someone … very much after only a short time.” But it doesn’t fit with the prequels’ revelation that Threepio has known Artoo his whole life. In another example, Tarkin expresses remorse to Vader over the deaths of the sentry TIE pilots, which is completely out of character.
Here are the highlights among the bonus materials:
Episode One: “A Wind to Shake the Stars” – We meet all of Luke’s Tatooine friends, and Adam Arkin is excellent as Fixer, the classic “big noise in a small room,” as Biggs describes him. Daley incorporates those classic “Biggs scenes” that were left on the cutting-room floor but included in the novel, comic and Bluray bonus materials. Biggs (Kale Brown, in good interplay with Hamill) tells Luke he plans to join the Rebellion.
Episode Two: “Points of Origin” – Leia’s expository material comes in two parts. First, she cleverly talks her way out of an encounter with Imperial Lord Tion on Ralltiir while slyly helping a Rebel spy, an adventure that was later adapted by Randy Stradley for Dark Horse Comics’ “Empire” Issue 5. Then she and her dad, Bail Organa (for some reason called “Prestor,” which was later retconned to be his middle name), dine with Tion on Alderaan in an attempt to learn more about the Death Star. When Leia lets the code name slip, Tion intends to arrest them, but he accidentally shoots himself in the resulting struggle; Bail plans to stage Tion’s death as a hunting mishap.
Episode Three: “Black Knight, White Princess, and Pawns” – We learn about the Tantive VI’s mission from right before the start of the movie: Receiving the Death Star plans from another Rebel ship above Toprawa as the Devastator pursues. In 1998, A.C. Crispin’s “Rebel Dawn” revealed that those Toprawa rebels included Han’s ex-girlfriend, Bria Tharen.
Episode Seven: “The Han Solo Solution” – Daley adapts the deleted Jabba scene, which had appeared in the novelization and comic adaptation (featuring the humanoid “Jabba,” later retconned as Mosep Binneed). But Daley gives all the Jabba lines to a character named Heater. In the 1990s, Heater appeared in “The Essential Guide to Characters” and Timothy Zahn’s “Tale of Mara Jade” in “Tales from Jabba’s Palace” (under the name Fat Man). The “Essential Guide” drawing was based on Declan Mulholland’s portrayal of Jabba as seen in the 1983 documentary “From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga.” Since Daley probably hadn’t seen that footage, it’s odd that he changes the character from Jabba to Heater. Perhaps he got word that Jabba was to be reimagined as a sluglike creature for “Return of the Jedi” and therefore felt Jabba could no longer be in the docking bay scene. But, of course, the 1997 Special Edition, with the CGI Jabba pasted atop Mulholland, made the Heater scene redundant and non-canonical. Interestingly, just as the Special Edition added Boba Fett to the scene, Daley has Heater threaten to send Fett after Han.
Episode Eight: “Death Star’s Transit” – When I think of characters being tortured by Vader on film, I think of Han’s scream in “The Empire Strikes Back,” because Leia’s torture in “A New Hope” is entirely off-screen, and therefore easy to forget. But in the radio drama, it’s memorably harrowing. Sachs does some of her best work as Leia experiences the physical sensation of her skin burning off and fights off Vader’s psychological trick of pretending to be on Leia’s side. It’s creepy to hear Vader tell Leia he’s her “friend.”
Episode Eleven: “The Jedi Nexus” – “Family Guy’s” “Blue Harvest” parodied the absurdity of Leia comforting Luke about the death of Obi-Wan, a man he had just met, when just hours before that, she had lost her entire family (and planet!). And Luke had also lost the only parents he had ever known, for that matter. Daley addressed this back in 1981 with a nice expansion of the “Leia comforts Luke” scene where they reflect on all their losses. Luke specifically (and appropriately) pins his hatred on Vader, as Daley retroactively plays up the characters’ connection in advance of the big reveal in “The Empire Strikes Back.” (By the way, that’s the English word “nexus” in the episode title, not the plural of the “Star Wars” creature “nexu.”)
Episode Twelve: “The Case for Rebellion” – Daley beefs up Han’s desire for the reward and Leia’s, Luke’s and even Chewbacca’s disgust that he plans to turn his back on the Rebellion. The Chewie angle is particularly interesting since our favorite Wookiee’s tendency to side with the good guys in a galactic conflict would be established in “Revenge of the Sith” in 2005 and “The Clone Wars” a few years after that.
Episode Thirteen: “Force and Counterforce” – Motti pitches to Tarkin the idea of using the Death Star to carve out a spot as the Emperor’s second-in-command – with Motti therefore as the third most powerful person in the galaxy. It’s a nice continuation from the politically charged conference room scene earlier in the story, something that couldn’t be followed up on in the film, which was a full-on actioner by this point.
I recommend the entire radio drama, as these 6 ½ hours fly by pretty fast for a “Star Wars” geek, but particularly the bonus scenes mentioned above. While it’s breezy enough to entertain you on a long drive or while doing mindless tasks, it also encourages you to examine the galactic landscape and the central characters more deeply.
Comments
These were, thanks to my dad’s cassette tape recordings, my introduction to Star Wars (ironically missing, for most of my childhood, the first three episodes of expanded material). They formed my impression of the films in advance of the movies, and I was thrilled when ROTJ completed the saga years later.
I’m a little more generous toward the latter two than you are; while they don’t expand the story as much, they expand the characters more. I like the ritualistic feel added to Force usage (more akin to the meditation-then-action style of the OT rather than the lamentable ‘always on-call superpowers’ feel of PT Jedi) inherent in the ‘The Jedi and the lightsaber; the lightsaber and the Jedi- the two are one. The Force calls my lightsaber to me…’-type bits. And I find Brock Peters’ portrayal of Vader- a much angrier character indeed- the more compelling of the two (even if James Earl Jones’ sound is the more classic). To me, no moment in Star Wars gives me chills like the radio drama’s climactic “Darth Vader’s master- but NOT ANAKIN SKYWALKER’S!”
I always figured Heater was just Jabba’s right-hand man, the rep he’d send out to do his dirty work, since he’d never sully his hands with action (much as Yoda would never dirty his hands with a lightsaber fight, as he was powerful enough to overcome without one. Thanks, George, for mucking up both those characterizations…)
In conclusion… do I grow senile? Do I enter second grubhood? To fall prey so easily to a pair of… humans?# Posted By Andrew Gilbertson | 12/17/15 10:28 AM
Thanks for opening my eyes (or ears) to a new way of looking at the radio dramas. Indeed, if one isn’t caught up on how the story is “supposed to be,” one can appreciate the alternate take on, for example, Darth Vader’s characterization by Brock Peters. It’s interesting how I tended to adjust to the “correct” portrayals based on George Lucas’ alterations. I, too, always felt Yoda would be too “above it all” to fight with a lightsaber. That having been said, I did adjust to the idea of him fighting with a lightsaber. It fits with the concept of the saber being a way for a Jedi to focus the Force. I also used to like the idea that Jabba had lackeys to do all of his work for him. I got somewhat distracted by the “coolness factor” of seeing Jabba in the Special Edition, but in the back of my mind, I knew it did diminish his character somewhat to get his hands dirty. On the other hand, we could interpret it as a case where he really wants to keep Han Solo on a short leash because he has been a valuable tool for Jabba through the years. So he gives him the “courtesy” of a face-to-face meeting. For all the value of the ESB and ROTJ dramas, though, it’s still somewhat of a shame that they don’t have a bevy of bonus scenes like ANH does. Unless Daley just didn’t have anything in mind; I wouldn’t have wanted the stories to be forced. But it does sound like the story length on ESB and ROTJ was determined by the budget, not the story.# Posted By John Hansen | 12/17/15 12:04 PM