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A review by gapagrin
A New Hope: The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy by Alexandra Bracken
4.0
This is by far one of the best novelisations of a film I've ever read. While it does follow the plot of Star Wars: Episode IV, beginning with Darth Vader's attack on the Tantive IV and subsequent capture of Princess Leia, it's so much more than that. As the title suggests, the book is divided into three sections, one from the point of view of each of the main characters. It opens with Princess Leia's point of view, which makes sense, as she's the first of the major characters we meet.
I really liked Leia in this book. She's an idealist, wanting to save the galaxy. She was raised as a princess but wants to do something so much more than what's expected of her. Her crusade for a better galaxy is in part wanting to escape the 'princess' label she's been raised under. She so desperately wants to make a difference at the same time she wants to show everyone she's not just a figurehead. Fortunately, both of those goals can be met through her involvement and leadership role in the Rebellion. It was nice to see Leia have a more selfish reason for her fight against the Empire, even while she does want to save people. It made her more relatable, I found.
Han gets the same treatment a third of the way into the book. We see that his brash, cocky behaviour is covering up a desire to not get close to anyone, to not care about anyone, because people die and he doesn't want to risk the emotional attachment. Only Chewbacca has managed to get past his barriers, and there's not a lot anyone can do to stop a Wookiee with a life-debt. Only Luke didn't really get a lot of additional backstory, but that's understandable. We saw all that in the film.
While this technically is a novelisation of the film, it takes advantage of the fact that we already know what happened in A New Hope and gives us a lot more character development and more of what happens to our main characters when they're not on-screen. We see more of Han's thought process when he goes tearing off after the stormtroopers on the Death Star, only to come sprinting back the way he had come when it turns out there are more of them than he thought. We see Leia imprisoned and resisting interrogation. We see Luke actually learning to fly an X-Wing from Wedge Antilles before being allowed to take one up against the Death Star. It fills in a lot of gaps that I hadn't even notised were there.
I really liked Leia in this book. She's an idealist, wanting to save the galaxy. She was raised as a princess but wants to do something so much more than what's expected of her. Her crusade for a better galaxy is in part wanting to escape the 'princess' label she's been raised under. She so desperately wants to make a difference at the same time she wants to show everyone she's not just a figurehead. Fortunately, both of those goals can be met through her involvement and leadership role in the Rebellion. It was nice to see Leia have a more selfish reason for her fight against the Empire, even while she does want to save people. It made her more relatable, I found.
Han gets the same treatment a third of the way into the book. We see that his brash, cocky behaviour is covering up a desire to not get close to anyone, to not care about anyone, because people die and he doesn't want to risk the emotional attachment. Only Chewbacca has managed to get past his barriers, and there's not a lot anyone can do to stop a Wookiee with a life-debt. Only Luke didn't really get a lot of additional backstory, but that's understandable. We saw all that in the film.
While this technically is a novelisation of the film, it takes advantage of the fact that we already know what happened in A New Hope and gives us a lot more character development and more of what happens to our main characters when they're not on-screen. We see more of Han's thought process when he goes tearing off after the stormtroopers on the Death Star, only to come sprinting back the way he had come when it turns out there are more of them than he thought. We see Leia imprisoned and resisting interrogation. We see Luke actually learning to fly an X-Wing from Wedge Antilles before being allowed to take one up against the Death Star. It fills in a lot of gaps that I hadn't even notised were there.