Star Wars Books Should Never Become Movies
Today's Star Wars Book Q&A with Wookieepedia has me thinking ...
This week’s Now This Is Lit episode features a Star Wars book Q&A with Jordan from Wookieepedia (“The Wook,” as you may have heard it called). And it’s had me thinking a lot about the Star Wars stories readers love and why so many fans want to watch their favorite books on a screen.
One of the questions we answered in the episode was about Star Wars books we would most want to see turned into movies or TV shows. And while we had an absolute blast answering this question (and many more!), I’ve been thinking a lot about Star Wars media and why I don’t actually think a Star Wars book should ever be turned into a movie.
You can listen to the full episode with Jordan and I below.
I’m not a publishing expert, especially when it comes to IP and the legal side of media in general. I’m not here to tell you why a Star Wars book has never been made into a movie or speculate about whether or not it will ever happen. I am, however, convinced that aside from the occasional book character making their way onto the big or small screen every now and then, books should stay books.
I have a complicated relationship with book-to-screen adaptions. For the most part, I don’t really like them. They’re often best executed when a book is adapted to the small screen in the form of a miniseries — I stand by my long-running claim that Hulu’s Looking For Alaska adaption is the best book-to-screen retelling I’ve ever seen.
There’s a reason Star Wars exists in so many different mediums (movies, TV shows, books, comics, manga, audio drama). Each storytelling medium allows writers to explore characters and events in different ways — in some cases, in ways completely unique to that particular format.
At some point, the collective “we” stopped appreciating these different art forms as Star Wars grew and instead decided that every book and comic needed an on-screen adaption. And while I’ll always jump on the speculation train (Doctor Aphra Disney+ series when?), I just think Star Wars books belong in book form. There are far too many untold stories that deserve screen time to spend time and resources remaking stories that already exist.
This all isn’t to say that it’s not fascinating when Star Wars book characters do find their way onto the screen. Vernestra Rwoh, who debuted in a middle-grade book, will appear in The Acolyte in 2024 — a show that will likely be viewed by many fans who have never read a Star Wars book before. That’s exciting! But it’s also unlikely that scenes from her past depicted in books will make their way onto the screen along with her. The Acolyte will be an extension of her story beyond the books, making the books non-essential for viewers but still giving them motivation and opportunity to read them if they so choose. That is cool. I love that.
It becomes an issue when people see a character on-screen that isn’t exactly like the character they pictured in their head when they read a book featuring them. What gets lost in the noise is that a screen adaption of a book is not meant to be an exact retelling of the source material. It’s different for a reason, and in some cases, those reasons are good.
Books are just too special to be turned into movies or shows. To me, it feels like undoing the magic of the world a reader got to build inside their head. It’s fun to imagine Lost Stars one day becoming a movie or miniseries, and I can’t expertly say that it never will be. But the thing about imagining is that sometimes what you picture doesn’t happen, and instead of being disappointed, it’s really just part of the game we’re all playing. Star Wars is supposed to be fun, after all.
Now This Is Lit is a podcast (and newsletter!) about Star Wars books, the people who make them, and the readers who just can’t get enough of them. You can find the show wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe to the Substack for more deep dives, guides, interview transcripts, and book love.