Star Wars Part The First
by Ian Doescher
I've had this book on my shelf for a number of years. I picked up The Phantom of Menace back in 2016 as a bargain buy at Joseph-Beth bookstores. It was shortly after this that I listened to the first William Shakespeare's Star Wars (Episode IV) via my Audible subscription and knew that I enjoyed the combination of Shakespearean drama and language with the story of Star Wars.
I thought about starting to read Episode I, but felt that I would be missing something if I didn't have the rest of the prequel trilogy handy. In the years since I hadn't found others on-sale, so it had languished on my shelf until late in 2019.
I'd started watching through the Star Wars movies with my six-year old and I decided that I'd pick this book off the shelf and see if it was more enjoyable with the film fresh in my mind. It did in fact make a difference and I think really helped with the enjoyment of the artfully crafted work. In addition I decided to postpone re-watching Episode II myself (not with the kid--she isn't old enough for it yet) until I'd watched through all of the Clone Wars on Disney+. Of course little did I know that would take a while if only because I want to watch through in the correct chronological order. But enough about other parts of Star Wars, this review is supposed to be about William Shakespeare's version of the tale.
I've had a passing familiarity with William Shakespeare since my days in high school (when I read Hamlet) and college (when I acted in Hamlet and was crew for a production of Much Ado About Nothing). While it takes some work to translate some of what is written the stores are well done and entertaining to read even today hundreds of years after they were first written. While I wouldn't consider Star Wars normal science-fiction, they're definitely engaging space opera and I think the match up of Star Wars and William Shakespeare was a genius inspiration. Doescher does a great job translating the story of the film into the format of a play. I found the final product quite compelling. It takes a good bit of talent to take a story produced by someone else and render it into a format developed by yet another person and ensure that people will want to read it today.
A number of illustrations were also sprinkled throughout the text, not only headings for each act, but images of several characters and scenes.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Summary: A dramatic rendition of Star Wars Episode I in Shakespearean language and five acts.
Technical: Hardcover with dust jacket, 173 pages
~Matt
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