'William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back: Star Wars Part the Fifth' book review

(C) 2014 Quirk Books/Lucas Books/Lucasfilm Ltd.

Scene 1.

The Ice world of Hoth.

Enter LUKE SKYWALKER.

LUKE: If flurries be the food of quests, snow on.

Belike upon this Hoth, this barren rock,

My next adventure waits. 'Tis time shall tell.

And yet, is it adventure that I seek?

Shall danger, fear, and action fill my days?

Shall all my life be spent in keen pursuit

Of great adventure and her fickle fame?

What if William Shakespeare had written Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back in the Elizabethan era? Could George Lucas’s epic space saga have been told by the Bard of Avon on a 17th Century stage with actors, props, and a script written in iambic pentameter?

To many Shakespeare fans (or, for that matter, Star Wars fans), such a mashup seems silly and (gasp) sacrilegious. Shakespeare and Lucas are, after all, separated from each other by several centuries and their distinct narrative styles.

In 2013, first-time author Ian Doescher successfully bridged the vast gulf of time, space, and media with William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope, a reimagined version of Lucas’s 1977 blockbuster and its 1997 Special Edition.

Doescher, who was born 45 days after Star Wars’ premiere in 1977 and became a Shakespeare fan in eighth grade, takes familiar lines from Lucas’s 20th Century films and transforms them into Shakespearean verse inspired by such works as Henry V, Macbeth, and Hamlet:

“[Luke, holding stormtrooper helmet.] Alas, poor stormtrooper, I knew ye not,/ yet have I taken both uniform and life/ From thee. What manner of a man wert thou?/ A man of inf'nite jest or cruelty?/ A man with helpmate and with children too?/ A man who hath his Empire serv'd with pride?/ A man, perhaps, who wish'd for perfect peace?/ What'er thou wert, goodman, thy pardon grant/ Unto the one who took thy place: e'en me.”  

Doescher’s Verily, A New Hope got rave reviews (Timothy Zahn wrote: “The Bard at his finest, with all the depth of character, insightful soliloquies, and clever wordplay that we’ve come to expect from the master.”) and became a New York Times best-seller.

Doescher continues the William Shakespeare’s Star Wars saga in The Empire Striketh Back - Star Wars Part the Fifth.

In his second delightful reimagining of the Galactic Civil War, Doescher adapts Lawrence Kasdan’s screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back by using Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing as his main sources for inspiration. As he does in Verily, A New Hope and The Jedi Doth Return, Doescher uses Shakespeare’s five-act structure and narrative devices (asides, soliloquies, and a chorus to describe some of the action) used in Elizabethan drama.

The Empire Striketh Back follows the plot of Star Wars - Episode V closely. To transform the film’s Saturday matinee-like crawl into a 17th Century-style Prologue, Doescher uses the Chorus thusly:

Chorus: O, ‘tis for the rebellion a dark time.

For though they have the Death Star all destroy’d,

Imperi’l troops did from the ashes climb

And push the rebels closer to the void.

Across the galaxy pursu’d with speed,

The rebels flee th’Imperi’l Starfleet vast.

A group with Luke Skywalker in the lead

Hath to the ice world known as Hoth flown fast.

Meanwhile, the cruel Darth Vader is obsess’d

With finding young Skywalker. Thus he hath

Through ev’ry point of space begun his quest

By sending robot probes to aid his wrath.

In time so long ago begins our play,

In war-torn galaxy far, far away.  

As in the 1980 movie (and its updated for DVD and Blu-ray versions) The Empire Striketh Back follows Luke Skywalker’s trials and tribulations as he leaves his friends in the Rebel Alliance to continue his training as a Jedi Knight with a Jedi Master named Yoda. Meanwhile, the evil Sith Lord Darth Vader devises a plan to capture Han Solo and Princess Leia to set a trap for young Skywalker.

My Take

What light through Yoda's window breaks? Methinks you'll find out in the pages of The Empire Striketh Back!

Ian Doescher’s William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back is a clever, funny, and highly joyable Star Wars parody that works on many levels.

Star Wars fans, of course, will recognize the familiar characters and situations from the movie right away. Director Irvin Kershner’s film has been part of postmodern culture for 35 years, so it’s not hard for even casual fans (or non-fans) of the Star Wars saga to find lines such as I’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee or No, Luke, I am your father even in their pseudo-Elizabethan disguises.

But Star Wars fans are not the only ones who will enjoy The Empire Striketh Back; avid Shakespeare aficionados and, dare I say it, even high school  English teachers are likely to find humor and inspiration in Doescher’s Star Wars works. The author’s use of Shakespeare’s style and narrative devices (including the use of prose in lines spoken by “lower classes), as well as his choice to adapt one of the most popular films of all time, makes William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back a useful resource to get students interested in the Bard of Avon’s works.

The book itself is nicely done. The slim hardcover books, sans dust jackets, look slightly aged and worn, as if they have been in one’s bookshelves for several decades. The Empire Striketh Back features 20 illustrations by Nicholas Delort; these are mashups of iconic Star Wars characters or scenes from the film done in a way that evokes the visual sensibilities of the late 1500s and early 1600s. (The scene where the Millennium Falcon barely escapes from a giant slug shows Han Solo’s battered spaceship as a wooden mockup suspended from a pole!) Delort also adds Elizabethan touches to the cover art: The Empire Striketh Back features Yoda in an English nobleman’s outfit, complete with a ruff around his neck.

So if you’re a frequent visitor to that galaxy far, far away or are a fan of well-crafted parodies,chances are that you’ll enjoy Doescher’s creative take on the works of George Lucas and William Shakespeare. The verse is strong with The Empire Striketh Back!

• Book Details:
• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Quirk Books; First Edition edition (March 18, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594747156
• ISBN-13: 978-1594747151
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches