A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

In Star Wars: The Radio Drama, there are episodes that tell how the Death Star plans were stolen in detail. Why weren’t these ideas used in Rogue One? © 1981 National Public Radio and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) There are several reasons why the Brian Daley-created bits of  Star Wars: The Radio Drama  were ignored when John Knoll, Lucasfilm’s VP for Creative Affairs and former special effects head at the studio pitched his idea for   Rogue One: A Star Wars Story  to his boss, Kathy Kennedy. One of them is purely conjectural on my part, but the others are based on the movie industry reality. Daley’s expository material for  Star Wars’  Princess Leia was not cinematic enough: Sure, the Imperial invasion of Raltiir, Leia’s initial encounters with Vader and Lord Tion, and Tion’s subsequent (and fatal) visit to Alderaan work well as a radio story, but it’s hard to see Lucasfilm shelling out a huge budget for a film with not that many action scenes. ...

Have you listened to 'Star Wars: The Radio Drama'?  Does its subplot about the Death Star plans impact 'Legends'? If you’re referring to 1981’s  Star Wars: The Radio Drama,  of course I have! Brian Daley (1947-1996) Photo Credit: Beauregard Simmons, www.briandaley.com So have many other  Star Wars  fans, both at the time that Brian Daley’s 13-part adaptation aired on National Public Radio and later, when Highbridge Audio (a subsidiary of Minnesota Public Radio) released it on audiocassette and compact disc in the early 1990s. In fact, I have two box sets of the  Star Wars: The Radio Dramas.  One is the “as heard on NPR” edition that most people own on tape, CD, or MP3 audio files; the other is the pricier  Limited Collector’s Edition  set that presents the Radio Dramas as they were originally recorded, without the edits asked for by NPR stations for station identification breaks and other industry-related issues. In ca...

(C) 1997 Bantam Spectra and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.... It is a period of turmoil in the galaxy. Three years after the deaths of Emperor Palpatine and Lord Darth Vader at the Battle of Endor, the recently declared New Republic is locked in a life-or-death struggle with the remnants of the evil Galactic Empire. Although Ysanne Isard, the Empire's new leader, has been forced to flee from the capital world, Coruscant, she and her sinister agents have unleashed the Krytos Virus, a bio-weapon engineered to specifically harm non-humans in a bid to divide the Rebellion by sowing fear, anger and mistrust in what she perceives to be a fragile coalition between humans and aliens. With her Super Star Destroyer and strong Imperial fleet units, Isard has made her way to the planet Thyferra and manipulated events to take control of that world and its precious supply of bacta, the "miracle fluid" used throughout the galaxy to treat var...

(C) 1997 Del Rey Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Pros:  The novels capture the essence of Han and Chewbacca in their pre-Rebellion days Cons:  No Darth Vader, no Empire, no Princess Leia or Luke One of the first things I noticed the first time I listened to National Public Radio's  Star Wars: The Radio Drama  was how Brian Daley had fleshed out the role of Han Solo; starting with the episode titled  The Millennium Falcon Deal , the Corellian with a starship for hire not only was faithful to the character played on-screen by Harrison Ford, but he was more intense and conflicted, especially in his dealings with the galactic underworld. Indeed, Han seemed to be Daley's favorite character to write for, since the writer often gave him some of the best lines in the 13-part adaptation of  Star Wars  (a.k.a. Episode IV:  A New Hope ). That Han and his Wookiee co-pilot/first mate got such a cornucopia of good material in the three Daley-scrip...

(C) 1997 HighBridge Audio and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)   S o Turns a Galaxy, So Turns a Wheel Cast Luke Skywalker (Joshua Fardon)  Emperor Palpatine (Paul Hecht) Lord Darth Vader (Brock Peters) Han Solo (Perry King) See-Threepio (Anthony Daniels) Princess Leia Organa (Ann Sachs) Imperial Commander Imperial Scout #1 Imperial Scout #2 Major Derlin (Tom Virtue) Narrator: Ken Hiller Sound / FX Roles Artoo-Detoo Chewbacca Ewoks Teebo Vine Ewok Logray Cub Ewok Wicket  Paploo Reviewer's Note: All quoted material is from the 1996 Del Rey book Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - The National Public Radio Dramatization.  This edition contains Brian Daley's complete radio play, which differs slightly from the version of the Radio Drama which aired on National Public Radio in 1996 and the original 1990s HighBridge Audio cassette and compact disc editions. The version in Daley's script  was  recorded, but as wi...