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A review by oz617
William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher
5.0
I don’t like Star Wars, and I don’t like Shakespeare, but I absolutely loved this script! It’s so full of heart, and the blending of archaic modern English with science fiction terms works brilliantly. Actually, the language adds to the concept of Star Wars having happened long ago, even when riddled with modern pop culture references (I laughed out loud at a Star Trek quote). The asides really added to the story, showcasing characters’ internal beliefs, hopes, and fears. Emphasis on the hopes. Those tied the dialogue to the title and the themes brilliantly. I especially loved R2-D2’s iambic pentameter beeps – especially with the later reveal that he could speak English the whole time, but chose to hide that for his own purposes.
My one, painfully nerdy, criticism is that I’d have liked to see some Shakespearean class consciousness in the text. Everyone speaks iambic pentameter in this script, perfectly hitting the rhythms of that every time. It’s skilfully done, but Shakespeare’s characters spoke in plain prose when they were of lower class, and I’d be interested in a version of this text where there was some attention given to the place of farmers, droids, and soldiers within the social fabric of Star Wars.
My one, painfully nerdy, criticism is that I’d have liked to see some Shakespearean class consciousness in the text. Everyone speaks iambic pentameter in this script, perfectly hitting the rhythms of that every time. It’s skilfully done, but Shakespeare’s characters spoke in plain prose when they were of lower class, and I’d be interested in a version of this text where there was some attention given to the place of farmers, droids, and soldiers within the social fabric of Star Wars.