“Alas poor stormtrooper, I knew ye not.”
“Friends, rebels, starfighters, lend me your ears.”
“Once more into the trench, dear friends, once more!”
Have you ever wondered what Star Wars would've been like if George Lucas had used iambic pentameter for his dialogue? No? Well, believe it or not, someone did and this is what he came up with!
I have been eagerly awaiting this book since I first heard about it back in June. Written for the Star Wars fan, William Shakespeare’s Star Wars is an amusing and interesting mashup of the New Hope script with the style of the Bard of Avon. It is definitely not something that is meant to be taken seriously by either genre. Doescher wrote this to be fun and fun it is. He throws in various famous Shakespearean orations and gives them a comical Star Wars twist. The various asides of the characters to the audience and well done illustrations show that Doescher is not above poking fun at Star Wars itself with subtle wit.
As fun as it was to read, there were times where the dialogue bogged down in pace and became awkward in its reading. Especially with the lines of the chorus. It felt like Doescher tried too hard to force the storyline to fit the style. Some might find the novelty to wear off after the first few acts. I didn’t, but I could see how that might happen. Despite that, I would still love to see some imaginative group actually do a reading of this book. Perhaps those cumbersome passages would be better in a live-action setting.
If you are a die-hard Star Wars enthusiast or Shakespeare aficionado or both, this is the book you are looking for.