Q&As About 'Star Wars': Are the 'Star Wars' Movies Based on Books?

Although the novelization was published in advance of Star Wars' May 25, 1977 release, George Lucas's film is not based on a pre-existing novel or short story. Poster © 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. 

Are the Star Wars movies based on books?

No. None of the nine Skywalker Saga films or either of the two Star Wars Anthology films is based on any pre-existing novel or short story.

To recap, the Skywalker Saga films consist of:

• The 1999–2005 Prequel Trilogy (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith)
• The 1977–1983 Original Trilogy (Star Wars or A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi)
• The 2015–2019 Sequel Trilogy (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker)

The two stand-alone Anthology films are 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which is a direct prequel to A New Hope (and is based on that film’s title crawl), and Solo: A Star Wars Story, which is the origin story of Han Solo.

When George Lucas decided to make a space-fantasy film that bucked the 1970s trend of dystopian science fiction, his first choice was to make a full-on adaptation of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon comic strip. Unfortunately, he could not acquire the rights, so he decided to create his own adventure, which he initially called The Star Wars. Lucas still desired to give his movie the same “thrill-a-minute, what-happens-next?” vibe of the 1930s Saturday matinee serials, so he borrowed many of the conventions of the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials, including title crawls that set up the story, fast-paced action, and simple good-versus-evil narratives that all ages could easily follow.

From 1973 on, Lucas worked on the screenplay for the film that was eventually released as Star Wars. All of the different versions are based on original story treatments Lucas wrote and not on any pre-existing novel or comic book which featured Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia Organa, Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi, Han Solo, Chewbacca the Wookiee, Artoo-Detoo, See-Threepio, Grand Moff Tarkin, or Darth Vader.

John Berkey's dust jacket art for the Book Club hardcover edition of the 1976 novelization. © 1976 Del Rey Books and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation

But, I hear you beginning to protest, didn’t a book titled Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker come out in November of 1976, nearly six months before Star Wars was released in theaters?

While it is true that Del Rey Books, an imprint of Ballantine Books of New York, published a paperback novel with that title and credited to George Lucas, that does not mean that Star Wars (or, since 1981, Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope) was based on that. Quite the contrary, the 1976 book is a novelization of the fourth draft of the screenplay, which Lucasfilm handed over to Alan Dean Foster, along with some notes on the back story written by Lucas. Under the terms of the contract, Foster would write two Star Wars books, one credited to Lucas, the other (Splinter of the Mind’s Eye) under his own byline, between 1976 and 1978.

Because Star Wars was still in production when Foster began working on the manuscript for Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, there are some discrepancies between the movie and the novelization. Some, like the squadron designator of the X-wing fighter unit in which Luke serves during the Battle of Yavin (Blue in the novel, Red in the finished film) were in the draft of the script given to Foster but changed while Lucas and his crew were in Elstree Studios in London. Other differences, such as the novel’s offhand remark that Emperor Palpatine was just the first of several rulers of the Galactic Empire, were speculations on Foster’s part because Lucas had not yet fleshed out the backstory for what later became the Prequel Trilogy.

So no. Even though both the novelization and Issue #1 of the Marvel Comics adaptation were published before May 25, 1977, Star Wars is not based on any pre-existing Star Wars book.

And, for that matter, neither are any of the other Star Wars films.