William Shakespeare's Star Wars Review

By: Ian Doescher
Cost: Kindle: 8.97 Nook: 10.49 Hardcover: 14.95
Age group: High school and up. You need to have seen Star Wars and read at least two of Shakespeare's plays to properly enjoy this book.
Rating: 3.5 stars (ish).

This book was... clever. If you're a plot person, it's probably not for you-- just watch the movie. If you're a die-hard Shakespeare fanatic, you might want to think carefully before picking it up, because you might have to step back and take a few deep breaths to control yourself before carefully putting the book down and backing away.

On the other hand, if you're a moderate Shakespeare fan, a Star Wars junkie, or just a mildly nerdy person who's looking for a few laughs, you'll like it. So make sure you know yourself before you pick up the book.

On the whole, the book is very well executed. The language was just Elizabethan enough that the average reader feels the tone, but not so dense as to make those of us who are reading this to get a break from our literary studies (oh hi, homework. I didn't see you there. Let me just finish here and I'll get back to you.) feel like we're being tortured. He divides the play into five acts, which average about seven scenes each. The script is as accurate a translation of the screenplay as possible, as far as I could tell (I actually understood it better than the movie); and to top it off, he doesn't even add any stage directions. For that, I give him kudos. He certainly did his research.

Honestly, my favorite part was the Easter eggs. The man throws them in everywhere. There are lines that are twisted from other plays that are actually by Shakespeare, and even a few that have their roots very obviously in things like Star Trek. In fact, for most of the book, I felt like the author was sort of looking at me slyly and winking. The jokes are just obvious enough that someone who's been immersed in American culture will get them, but not so in-your face that you feel like he's talking down to you, saying "Look, I threw in a reference to Macbeth! Do you get it?"

I also liked the addition of the chorus. It both is the perfect translation of the opening setup from the movie and a great way to get around the fact that yes, this is a play, and no, unless it's on Broadway, it is not going to have the budget to make the sets the movie had, or even half the props and costumes. So the chorus basically tells us what the movie got to do through cut scenes of planets and outer space. And this could have gone wrong and been as boring as Oedipus Rex's chorus, but here he pulls it off.

So why only three and a half stars, you ask?

There are a few reasons.

The first few are purely my personal preferences. Star Wars is great, and this idea is great, but of all the cultural icons I want turned into Shakespearean blank verse, it's not my first choice. (I'd have gone with Harry Potter-- can't you just see him with pages upon pages of angsty soliloquies? Just like Hamlet.) The second reason is that you can tell Mr. Doescher doesn't like C-3PO. And I get that. The droid's a bit of a goofball. But I like him, and it makes me sad that all the other characters are looking down on him constantly.

And here's the big thing that threw me: R2-D2 talks. But not to everybody. Just to himself. He gets as many asides (there are a lot of asides-- you can tell the man was really taking advantage of the form) as Luke does.

I mean, he could have made that work. If he'd taken that and rolled with it as far as he could-- maybe R2's got a broken voice box of some kind, or he's been programmed not to talk in case he gave away something important. But we don't get any explanation. It's just suddenly everyone's gone and R2-D2 is giving a soliloquy.

So. Other than my totally subjective problems with the book, it's just... not stellar. It's a lot of fun, and it's good for a one-time read (in fact, I would recommend reading it at least one time through), and the cover is just perfect, but it's not excellent. I wasn't excited reading it, and I wasn't sucked in so I couldn't put it down. It's like ice cream. I like moose tracks well enough, but it will never, ever be coffee gelato. It's not its fault, but I've had better and now I'm a bit jaded.

To sum it up: I really want to see this as a campy school play. I'm glad I got my copy for free, though, because I don't want to pay fifteen bucks for it. And if he decides to make the rest, I'll definitely pick them up somewhere.