C-3PO, R2-D2 and AM/FM
May is a big month for Star Wars fans and I wanted to find a way to celebrate the series for this month’s Swords and Rayguns newsletter. The problem, as some of you may know, is I don’t particularly like Star Wars. You’ll notice when I have to provide some kind of introduction as a writer I often state I prefer “Star Trek to Star Wars and DC to Marvel.” I haven’t sat through any of the new films except for Rogue One (which several people said I might like but, honestly, I did not) and even though I have a Disney+ subscription I have not watched any of the new Star Wars related series. I seriously considered tackling one of those but, honestly, I kind of feel like they have been covered plenty by others. When I came across a cassette copy of Star Wars: The Radio Drama and Return of the Jedi on CD at a used book store a few weeks ago, though, my course seemed clear! All I had to do was track down a used copy of Empire (it is probably still available new but I am cheap).
Before we jump into the background of the two radio dramas (Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back were produced for NPR Playhouse radio series but Return of the Jedi was not aired on the radio) it seems like I should probably address the bantha in the room: I really am not a Star Wars fan.
When you find out someone does not like something you like, especially something you love, it is a common and understandable reaction to try to convince them they are wrong. We have all done it. So when people find out I am not a fan, it is pretty common for them to try explain Star Wars to me. This always strikes me as funny; I mean, I have seen it! It is especially crazy when someone half my age tries to explain the cultural phenomenon and impact of Star Wars. I get it. I was there. My brother and I had Star Wars sheets and curtains (thanks, Mom).
I was almost five when Star Wars came out in 1977 and back then, frankly, I loved it. Who didn’t? We saw it at the movie theater (the Esquire just outside of the St. Louis city limits, a theater where I would one day work as a manager for AMC Theatres and I met my wife, another manager, while there). I really don’t remember going to see it but I can tell you this: we did not stand in line for it. The only long movie line I ever remember standing in a long line to see as a kid was Superman in 1978 (we showed up an hour early for the time we wanted, waited almost three hours… that was also at the Esquire). Anyway, my little brother was all in on Star Wars too and pretty much all we wanted for Christmas or birthdays for a good long bit was Star Wars toys. There were some incredible Star Wars toys. The X-Wing with wings that went into X configuration when you pushed down on R2’s head with sounds and a red laser light? Awesome. The Landspeeder with retractable wheels that looked like it was really gliding? Sweet. I never had one, but Han Solo’s blaster was so cool. The Death Star play set with the elevator and cannon and trash compactor with a pop open door? Seriously, one of the greatest toys ever made. Honestly, though, there were a couple crappy ones too. The Cantina Playset (which may have been a Sears exclusive) was pretty lame.
The real weakness of Star Wars toys was the action figures themselves. Sure they looked like the characters (by and large) and the slide out lightsaber arm was pretty awesome. But you were like five so those tiny guns were destined to get lost about 11 minutes after you opened the package. From 1977 to 1979 missing Stormtrooper guns required a thorough dissection of the every vacuum cleaner bag before it could be thrown out. The biggest problem of all was the fact the action figures with their permanently straight arms and legs were basically Fisher Price Adventure People. The only improvement was to hole in the heel of each foot to allow you to push them onto the pegs found scattered around the play sets to keep your Stormtroopers standing up (until the Rebels wiped them out). The vinyl capes on the original set of figures were awful and started to tear the moment they were touched by any light. GI Joe action figures, frankly, came along and kicked the living crap out of the Kenner Star Wars toys. But the inherent coolness of GI Joe is a whole other discussion… The point is I do have some fond memories of Star Wars. I remember Mom made popcorn when we watched the Holiday Special. It was a big night.
I am not sure exactly how Star Wars lost me. I looked forward to Empire Strikes Back when I was eight (back in 1980) and really liked it. But by the time Return of the Jedi came out in 1983 my mother had to make me go see it with my little brother. It is probable I was aware of Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress by then, the then controversy over its influence on Lucas and I may have even already seen the movie. Yes, I was not quite 11 but my uncle was a film critic who had managed an art house theater (which, you guessed it, I later managed too) and if Blockbuster had it, I rented it (I still carry a Blockbuster card in my pocket as a kind of good luck charm). I was also a voracious and advanced reader, commonly knocking through a paperback a day. I had read the novelizations of Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and the Rock Hill Public Library’s copies of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and Han Solo At Star’s End by the time Jedi came out as well as every Star Trek, Space: 1999 and Battlestar Galactica novel the library had. I am pretty sure I had already read all of the Lord of the Ring books and probably was tackling Dune in anticipation of the upcoming movie. Thanks to the library, I read all the movie and science fiction magazines, too!
When I was in fourth grade I read at an advanced high school level, by fifth grade it was even higher. It was a real problem in a way because I my reading comprehension was more advanced than many adults but I was still just a nine or ten year old kid. Finding books that were written at a level that did not bore me without content unsuitable for an elementary school kid was a problem until a librarian asked me if I liked Star Trek or Star Wars. I liked both, of course, so she pointed out the rack of science fiction paperbacks. Her thought was even though the novelizations were written for adults they were still based on a TV show suitable for network prime time and a movie which was barely rated PG. That is what really drew me into science fiction and fantasy… and that rack held paperback gold like The Hobbit, Asimov’s robot novels, Smith’s Lensman series along with novelizations of Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers and The Black Hole.
So it is possible my tastes had simply outgrown Star Wars by the time Jedi rolled around. Books probably fueled my preference for Star Trek and, honestly, Wrath of Khan was out by then… it is an amazing film. As an adult, though, I can say one strike Star Wars had against it was the whole “kid with a humble background destined to be a hero” thing. It is a plot point I have always disliked because it often seems to be a lazy shortcut for both the writers and the character. Give me a hero who has to work hard for it, like San Te in Thirty Six Chambers of Shaolin.
The huge amount of hype which developed around Star Wars over the years did not help, either. I can not count how many movies, books and TV shows I have really looked forward to only to skip because of over-promotion. Sometimes I go back later and sometimes I never do… I still have not seen Ready Player One or Avatar. Virulent uber-fans are even worse than marketing departments when it comes hype and when all the hype leads to revisionist history, fallacious claims about innovation, importance or legacy and the like then I am really done. Star Wars definitely has some of that! (For example, how it completely resurrected the science fiction genre in film despite the steady stream of science fiction films throughout the 1970s or how it was the first successful science fiction franchise). The bottom line is, for reasons I can not exactly explain, Star Wars as a franchise is not something I have been interested the last forty years. I get why some people love it, I really do. But it simply hasn’t been for me.
That covers me, so let’s talk about Star Wars on the radio. Radio plays had a bit of a US resurgence in the late 1970s and early 1980s, thanks in no small part to the original Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. Although NPR had a radio play anthology series throughout the 1970s (Earplay) it launched a new series called NPR Playhouse in 1981 beginning with Star Wars. George Lucas had basically given the radio rights of the series to his university’s public radio affiliated station and allowed use of the film’s music and sound effects in their production.
Both Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back were adapted for NPR Playhouse (in 1981 and 1983) but Return of the Jedi was not (probably due to a cut in NPR’s federal funding). It was finally produced in 1996 by Highbridge Audio, the company who released the first two productions commercially on cassettes and CD. As a result, the first two series are ten episodes each while Jedi is only six.
I realize many fans will immediately question if the radio show will “feel” like the movies. I can almost hear so of you muttering to yourself. All three shows use music and sound effects from the original movies and Lucasfilm was involved with the productions. Unfortunately, though, they do not feature much of the original cast. Mark Hamill is Luke Skywalker in the first two but was replaced by Joshua Fardon in Jedi. Anthony Daniels plays C-3PO in all three series and Billy Dee Williams appears as Lando Calrissian in Empire but not Jedi. In all three productions Perry King, best known for Riptide, plays Han Solo, Ann Sachs, who really does not have many other credits, plays Leia and accomplished character actor Bernard Behrens performs Obi-Wan Kenobi. They all do creditable jobs. Yes, I know right now many of you are saying you can’t imagine anyone but James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader. I admit, it is iconic. Brock Peters, probably best known as Admiral Cartwright in a couple Star Trek films and as Ben Cisco’s father in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, was the actor to take up the challenge. He is not quite the movie Vader but he has a deep, distinctive voice which I felt worked. There are more than a couple recognizable actors in the three productions, including David Alan Grier, Meshach Taylor, Ed Begley Jr and Yeardley Smith. By and large the cast is good enough to keep you in the story and not really worrying over the fact it is not the movie cast.
Oh? You caught that “by and large,” huh? There are two pretty big exceptions. Actually, I do have to admit I have no real memory of Boba Fett’s voice so Ed Begley Jr might throw off some fans. I was okay with it. It did bother me, though, when Arye Gross (Ellen) took over as Lando in Jedi. Arye Gross is a good actor but he simply is not Billy Dee Williams! The absolute worst bit of acting, though, was John Lithgow as Yoda. He did a poor imitation of Grover with more than a little bit of his Emilio Lizardo character from Buckaroo Banzai thrown in. It was jarring. To be fair, I was also a bit disappointed Mark Hamill was not in Return of the Jedi but Joshua Fardon did well enough I really did not give it a thought after the first episode. In fact, had I not just finished Empire moments earlier I may not have even noticed.
Brian Daley wrote all three productions. He was also the writer of the Han Solo Adventures, the trilogy which made up (with the exception of Splinter) the first non-movie adaptation novels in the Star Wars universe, so he was no stranger to Star Wars. I did not realize it, but I am a Brian Daley fan. He wrote on the cult classic cartoon The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers and, along with writing partner Tom Lucero under the combined pen name of Jack McKinney, wrote the Robotech novelizations (don’t get me started on how great Robotech is). He did an excellent job, for the most part, expanding the action of the films and providing new background material. Although the first episode of Star Wars was a little rough for me because Luke and the gang at Anchorhead came off like a bad, old fashioned portrayal of juvenile delinquents, the second episode, which covered Leia’s involvement with the Rebel Alliance, hooked me. It was Star Wars with a little extra, taking advantage of the expanded running time to fill in details the movie could not. It should be noted much of those details were erased by Rogue One and Disney no longer considers any of the radio dramas canon.
So what did I think of the the Star Wars Radio Drama Trilogy as someone who is not a Star Wars fan? I really, thoroughly enjoyed it. I had a couple long drives to make and my plan was to force myself to listen to at least an episode each leg of the journey before returning to my preferred listening (you know, punk rock and other books). Instead, I listened more or less straight through… although I would turn it off after an episode if I was not going to be able to listen to the next in its entirety. To be completely honest, I forgot Jedi was shorter than the first two and was a little mad when it went by so quickly. Keeping the spirit of absolute honesty, with its shorter run time and cast changes I feel Return of the Jedi is the weakest link in the radio drama trilogy. It also does not help that Ewoks lose about 98% of their charm when you can’t see them! Still, it is worth the listen.
I wholeheartedly recommend all three radio dramas to everyone, whether you are hardcore into Star Wars with yin-yang tattoo made of the Rebel Alliance and Imperial logos or just a casual fan. Maybe even if you are not a fan but just are looking for something to listen to during your commutes. Did it change my mind about Star Wars? That is kind of a hard question to answer.
As I write this article (a couple of days after finishing my listen) I have to say probably not. I really might have said yes right after I listened. It was really nice reintroducing myself to the original trilogy in a new way. It definitely stirred some nostalgic feelings. But the truth is I have the original trilogy on DVD somewhere and I haven’t bothered to dig it out or even look up any of the Star Wars stuff on Disney+. On the other hand, if there were audio adaptations of the other movies I probably would have jumped right in. I might look for some audiobooks next time I am downloading from the library or even try reading a novel if one comes my way, but when it all comes down I think it is pretty safe to say I still prefer Star Trek to Star Wars.
