- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
@jspit2.0
Story, introspective character thoughts, narrative and emotional development, and character-driven drama are all an entirely different matter, however. Film is not the "be-all end-all" medium to effectively do any of those things...and in fact, there are advantages that a novel has over film, simply for not being bound by audio-visual limitations. I hear you ask: "How could audios and visuals be a limitation?" Simple. Because when those are your only means of conveying aspects of character and story, you're now bound with how much you decide to dump that on the audience, and the means in which you do so without breaking immersion.
Now, let me be clear: this does not apply to every kind of story told in the Star Wars universe. Short, pulpy-action laden storylines about dogfighting or bounty hunting certainly move faster and benefit more from visual aide. But lengthy, labyrinthine story arcs like New Jedi Order or Legacy of the Force?
Those are the exact kinds of stories that work better as books. It's why I will always prefer New Jedi Order as nineteen books instead of three bloated movies or seasons of television...because the writers have the breathing room, prose, and slow pacing to explore every nook and cranny of this galactic four-year conflict.
No compromises for audio-visual communication, no mangling of slower or contemplative elements to account for faster pacing, no compromises to account for film budget or special effects, no dilution of world-building or slow-burn development to appease the impatience of a film-going audience....
...Just the story, in all of its epic scale, unbound by anything short of the author's imagination, unfettered by the production concerns that would stymy a film.
Now, could you do a Godather II-style flashback shift, in a myriad of different points in Han's life, when he's nineteen, to his mid-twenties, to his thirties, and then back again? Sure. And that would make the film really long and intricate (which is part of the reason Godfather II has the runtime it does). I'd certainly like that...but that kind of format and runtime would be seen as out of the question for a Star Wars film, let alone one sold as depicting the swashbuckling adventure origins of Han Solo.
Again, with a film, the budget and storytelling sensibilities shackle you to catering to the needs of a movie-going audience, to gloss over things that would be too slow, or omit things that would affect the pacing. Books aren't bound by those limitations.
Although a TV or miniseries could have pulled this off easily, especially in the 90's. If they'd have gotten River Phoenix or Sean Patrick Flannery onboard, I think it could've worked. You'd still have to omit things mainstream audiences would consider "too slow and boring", but you'd have a better chance preserving the time flow of Crispin's books.
Han gets his DL-44, meets Chewbacca, meets Lando, meets his "mentor", enlists and defects from the Empire, gets his first heist, pulls the Kessell Run, falls in love and is backstabbed by Qi'Ra, and wins the Millennium Falcon in a sabacc game all in the same movie.
All of this should have been distributed organically over the long course of his life, but Solo's inept writers had to invent contrived scenarios and eye-rollingly telegraphed situations for him to gain each and every one of these things before the film's end. Could you make this work in a trilogy of films? Barely. Is it better and more digestible as books, or even a TV Series? Absolutely.
That's just my stance, however. I think brute-forcing everything into the film format is a mistake, and overlooks the narrative benefits that novels, comics and video games have over cinema.
Which the Expanded Universe proved a lot, over the course of twenty years.
When it comes to depicting action, you certainly have a point. Things like lightsaber duels and ship chases certainly benefit from a visual medium, as those things take more skill to convey and more imagination on behalf of the reader to come together.
Story, introspective character thoughts, narrative and emotional development, and character-driven drama are all an entirely different matter, however. Film is not the "be-all end-all" medium to effectively do any of those things...and in fact, there are advantages that a novel has over film, simply for not being bound by audio-visual limitations. I hear you ask: "How could audios and visuals be a limitation?" Simple. Because when those are your only means of conveying aspects of character and story, you're now bound with how much you decide to dump that on the audience, and the means in which you do so without breaking immersion.
One of the reasons so many of the EU's greatest stories work is because they written with the intention to be read, not watched. Take Fate of the Jedi, for example: one of the best aspects of that series is the turbulent internal growth and shifting loyalties of Vestara Khai, who was in many ways the breakout character of that story arc. Throughout the books, we're repeatedly treated to her wavering commitment to the Lost Tribe of the Sith, and how her interactions with Ben are causing her to doubt everything she's ever known. This is an extremely guarded aspect of her character, one she's too afraid to voice, and repeatedly relegates to thoughts and internal monologue. The prose conveys several times how Vestara is starting to question her own culture, her own allegiances, and whether or not the familial ties she has is rooted in real love, and not indoctrination...thoughts and feelings you'd have to spell out in a film, as the character verbalizes it for the audience to understand, rather than us getting insight on her feelings through something organic and less tacky. In the story, her conflict is heightened further as Vestara both begins to give into actions punishable as treason by her tribe, to where she spends many chapters internally panicking and weighing out all her options, planning her next move...all while providing a static poker face to her Jedi allies. Again, we know what she's thinking, and we get excellent insight into it...things you'd lose in a film, unless you had some disembodied voice representing Vestara's thoughts to spell it out for the audience.
And then of course, you have the long, heartbreaking letters she would write throughout the books, addressed to a fictional version of her father that actually cares about her, which she writes as a means of coping with the extreme jealousy and envy of watching a genuine parent-child relationship between Ben and his father. Could you narrate these in a film in Vestara's voice? Certainly, but not without dedicating significant chunks of the runtime in order to preserve the length and verbiage of those letters in a film...and certainly not in an audio-visual fashion that wouldn't be better accomplished by simply reading these journal entries in an actual book.
This can be applied to several aspects of the EU novels; the entire pages dedicated to meticulous world-building and logistic military explanations. The in-depth description of cultures like the Yuuzhan Vong and the Lost Tribe of the Sith, and the expository info regarding their history and culture as well. And of course, cerebral or internal elements like the Solo Twin Bond, which again, aside from literal disembodied voices talking to each other for the audience to hear, would be very difficult to communicate tastefully and seriously to an audience. You would have to verbalize or visualize all of this, all things that are so much more effectively and snappily digested through prose, all to strong-arm them into working in a tangible audio-visual format would present difficulties in allowing the audience to digest them in a fast-paced space adventure movie...to say nothing of the compromises you'd have to make to account for runtime, pacing, speed of dialogue, density of dialogue, etc.
And then of course, you have the long, heartbreaking letters she would write throughout the books, addressed to a fictional version of her father that actually cares about her, which she writes as a means of coping with the extreme jealousy and envy of watching a genuine parent-child relationship between Ben and his father. Could you narrate these in a film in Vestara's voice? Certainly, but not without dedicating significant chunks of the runtime in order to preserve the length and verbiage of those letters in a film...and certainly not in an audio-visual fashion that wouldn't be better accomplished by simply reading these journal entries in an actual book.
This can be applied to several aspects of the EU novels; the entire pages dedicated to meticulous world-building and logistic military explanations. The in-depth description of cultures like the Yuuzhan Vong and the Lost Tribe of the Sith, and the expository info regarding their history and culture as well. And of course, cerebral or internal elements like the Solo Twin Bond, which again, aside from literal disembodied voices talking to each other for the audience to hear, would be very difficult to communicate tastefully and seriously to an audience. You would have to verbalize or visualize all of this, all things that are so much more effectively and snappily digested through prose, all to strong-arm them into working in a tangible audio-visual format would present difficulties in allowing the audience to digest them in a fast-paced space adventure movie...to say nothing of the compromises you'd have to make to account for runtime, pacing, speed of dialogue, density of dialogue, etc.
Now, let me be clear: this does not apply to every kind of story told in the Star Wars universe. Short, pulpy-action laden storylines about dogfighting or bounty hunting certainly move faster and benefit more from visual aide. But lengthy, labyrinthine story arcs like New Jedi Order or Legacy of the Force?
Those are the exact kinds of stories that work better as books. It's why I will always prefer New Jedi Order as nineteen books instead of three bloated movies or seasons of television...because the writers have the breathing room, prose, and slow pacing to explore every nook and cranny of this galactic four-year conflict.
No compromises for audio-visual communication, no mangling of slower or contemplative elements to account for faster pacing, no compromises to account for film budget or special effects, no dilution of world-building or slow-burn development to appease the impatience of a film-going audience....
...Just the story, in all of its epic scale, unbound by anything short of the author's imagination, unfettered by the production concerns that would stymy a film.
I'm not so sure. One of the reasons why the Crispin books work as well as they do is because they jump around the timeline of Han's life quite a bit...from 10 BBY, then to 5-4 BBY, then to 2-0.5 ABY, up to the Cantina scene in ANH. And those kinds of time jumps sometimes occur back and forth in the same novel, just to explore very minor things that modern movie-goers would consider boring minutia, and would likely seen as disruptive for the flow of modern blockbuster pacing.
Now, could you do a Godather II-style flashback shift, in a myriad of different points in Han's life, when he's nineteen, to his mid-twenties, to his thirties, and then back again? Sure. And that would make the film really long and intricate (which is part of the reason Godfather II has the runtime it does). I'd certainly like that...but that kind of format and runtime would be seen as out of the question for a Star Wars film, let alone one sold as depicting the swashbuckling adventure origins of Han Solo.
Again, with a film, the budget and storytelling sensibilities shackle you to catering to the needs of a movie-going audience, to gloss over things that would be too slow, or omit things that would affect the pacing. Books aren't bound by those limitations.
Although a TV or miniseries could have pulled this off easily, especially in the 90's. If they'd have gotten River Phoenix or Sean Patrick Flannery onboard, I think it could've worked. You'd still have to omit things mainstream audiences would consider "too slow and boring", but you'd have a better chance preserving the time flow of Crispin's books.
For clarification, the contrivance of Solo that I speak of comes from them TRYING to fit all this shit in a 2-hour runtime. Because the film has zero breathing room to allow a long span of time where we see Han grow over the course of several years, things that would've fallen into place organically over the course of several novels now have to happen in one film.
Han gets his DL-44, meets Chewbacca, meets Lando, meets his "mentor", enlists and defects from the Empire, gets his first heist, pulls the Kessell Run, falls in love and is backstabbed by Qi'Ra, and wins the Millennium Falcon in a sabacc game all in the same movie.
All of this should have been distributed organically over the long course of his life, but Solo's inept writers had to invent contrived scenarios and eye-rollingly telegraphed situations for him to gain each and every one of these things before the film's end. Could you make this work in a trilogy of films? Barely. Is it better and more digestible as books, or even a TV Series? Absolutely.
That's just my stance, however. I think brute-forcing everything into the film format is a mistake, and overlooks the narrative benefits that novels, comics and video games have over cinema.
Which the Expanded Universe proved a lot, over the course of twenty years.
