Review: The Secret History of Star Wars

The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The book reminds one of the high school student who needs to write a 10-page paper but only has three pages of material - so he looks for ways to stretch out his material. Kaminski's method was to present the same facts and arguments over and over again. I'm not sure why he needed the book to be so long but it could have been just as effective in half the number of pages.

But Star Wars fans, especially those of the original trilogy, should nevertheless enjoy this work. My favorite part of the book was the 1978-1983 time period, which explored the development of The Empire Strikes Back and the decision to wrap up the trilogy with Return of the Jedi rather than continue on to episodes seven, eight, and nine during the 1980's.

Some of the quotes the author uncovered during his research are absolute gems. George Lucas was absolutely frustrated by the time and expense Irvin Kershner spent on ESB. "It looks pretty because Kersh took a lot of time to do it. It's a great luxury that we really couldn't afford. And ultimately it doesn't make that much difference. . . It was just a lot better than I wanted to make it."

In my opinion, ESB is pretty much a masterpiece. But all Lucas really wanted out of it was a cheap moneymaker that would fund his other projects. Thankfully, we still have the film despite Lucas.

Another favorite quote from the development of ESB came when Lawrence Kasdan criticized Lucas for his habit of glossing over the emotional content of a scene because he was in a hurry to get to the next one. Lucas responded, "Well, if we have enough action, nobody will notice."

That quote, of course, perfectly explains the prequel trilogy.

I could go on and on, but I won't. A good deal of the book is spent proving that Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were separate beings up until about 1978 when Lucas was revising the first draft of the screenplay which was written by Leigh Brackett. Of course, anyone who is a longtime fan of the series realizes this, although George Lucas is hard at work trying to convince us that he had the entire thing laid out as the story of Darth Vader from the very beginning.

Of course, every fan of Star Wars has his own ideas of what George Lucas should have done here or there, and I'm no different. At the end of the day, the whole thing is his brainchild, created with his money, so he has the right to do to the story as he wishes. The movies which we treasured as children came at an enormous non-financial cost (his marriage) and maybe we don't recognize that as much as we should.

There is enough good information and thought-provoking ideas in this book that I can forgive the author for his not-quite-professional writing.



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