Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Matthew Stover

This is the novelisation of the third starwars prequel, as with the second one I have read the novel before seeing the film. I found that reading the book before the film was better than reading it after as I did with the novelisation of episode 1.

One of the first things that struck me about this book is the style that it has been written in, its written like it would sound if someone was telling the story to a bunch of people sitting around a campfire or something. This is a totally different approach to how the other two were written.

I am fairly sure that the screenplay was an earlier version than what ended up being in the film, the little preview bits recently and the costume/props book seem to go into the Wookies a fair bit, there are named wookie characters (including Chewbacca) where as in the novel, Yoda goes to the planet, and then later leaves the planet, but there are no real details of what takes place there, other than there is a battle going on there and it is a strategically important world.

Other than this I am sure there are other things added or subtracted, but the bulk should be the same, and this is a fun little game in itself to try and pick what is different when you get to the cinema to see it.

I won't go into the plot so much, as this one is mostly about how things happen not what happens. We already know that Anakin needs to become Darth Vader at some point, probably after Obi Wan kicks the crap out of him, Padme has to pop out Luke an Leia at some point, All the Jedi Except Obi Wan and Yoda need to be killed off and the old republic also needs to disintegrate and become the Empire with Palpatine becoming Emperor, so that the rebellion can start. One would also assume that someone needs to take out Dooku and the rest of the separatists for the clonewar to end.

So knowing basically what is going to happen the more interesting points are the details, this novel goes into naming individual light saber styles, what Jedi have mastered what styles etc, this becomes important in selecting Jedi to do certain jobs, this is the sort of detail one reads the novels for, I don't know if this will be dropped for the movie or if it will stay in, but it does seem important.

But over all the most interesting part and what was has been bugging me since episode one, why do force wielding individuals in the Prequel movies not ascend and go all ghostly like Yoda and Obi-wan did in the original trilogy. In the book this is finally answered.

However this probably has been bugging so many people that it will be in the movie, if it is not you will just need to have a read of the book to find out.

At any rate the film should be the best of the Prequels, with lots of good action scenes in it, and nicely tie everything together for the audience.