The force awakens

When it comes to adaptations, most often, one sees a novel adapted into a film. This creates an interesting opportunity, seeing a 300 to 800 page book converted to a 2 hour film. One gets to see a myriad of design choices, including dialogue changes, and acting calls that see a book come to life on screen.

Then there is the exact opposite, where a film is adapted into a book. In many cases, this is an interesting beast, since the screenplay is almost only the most basic of directions and dialogue for each character. This means that the author has some leeway in terms of identifying what makes a character tick. What are their innermost thoughts that can help us, the reader, understand why they do what they do?

For myself, I must admit that my reading of film to novel adaptations is somewhat slim. I can only remember reading one, and that was all the way back almost over a decade ago with the X2: X-Men United novel. It was good enough to read in class, when I wanted to relive the magic of the film without having it around. This novel was, sadly, nothing like that. This book does not manage to capture the magic I had when watching the 7th Star Wars film, but I think that is mostly my fault.

This is because that I, like many, had a sense of nostalgia at seeing the old characters on screen, and excitement at meeting the new ones. This personal connection that I had cannot compare to a novel, in which an author has to take a bare bones script and try to forge that personal connection to the reader all over again. It is something that is very personal and near impossible to do. Which is why I wasn't surprised when I didn't really feel any connection with the characters, the way they are presented in the novel.

Still...it isn't like the author helped matters. Often, the writing is very complex, which makes me wonder if the author knows what kind of book he is writing. I can clearly tell he is good at his craft, but perhaps he is too good, as the writing style is clearly too advanced for something as simple as a 7th Star Wars film. This made for a bit of a disconnect between the film I saw, and the novel's language that I got, making me wonder if there was something complex about this book that I just wasn't seeing.

Still, this novel isn't terrible, it is merely serviceable. With the way that many film-to-book adaptations start out, with a bare bones script and little else, it is fine. It just isn't able to capture the magic of the film. I'd still recommend the film over this any day. But if you happen to like the movie, and see this at Goodwill for a buck, pick it up. You'll be able to relive the magic somewhat when you don't have the luxury of a TV screen nearby. I give it a two out of five.