Seems like the novelty would wear off before very long, certainly before the end of something as long as a Shakespearean play. Pride & Prejudice & Zombies was a bit of a slog for the same reason.
Amazon lets you “look inside”. I looked. Right at the beginning of Scene 2, that should be an Imperial officer saying “The Death Star plans we could not find herein…” not Rebel1. Vader’s patience surely runneth quickly out on errors like that.
You might be surprised. It’ll depend on how much you like Star Wars, but I found myself actually wanting to mount a production. It’s a hoot and a half to read aloud, and would actually be an excellent introduction to get modern kids to understand the conventions of Shakespearean dialogue in a very familiar context (just as familiar as the old tales of Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar would have been to the unlettered groundlings in Shakespeare’s day).
One of the funnier aspects is that we finally get to hear what Artoo thinks. His regular boops and beeps are conscientiously delivered in iambic pentameter, but he also gets to speak asides in English, and his commentary on C3PO’s intelligence and the whole state of affairs (along with his inability to make himself understood to anyone except ol’ Goldenrod) is priceless.
Please tell me he actually refers to C3PO as “ol’ goldenrod”.
This reminds me of watching Monty Python & The Holy Grail with the “subtitles” from Richard IV Pt.2. That made a film I was painfully familiar with fresh again, and could have been good for familiarizing Shakespeare’s language if I’d needed it.
Surely these books wouldn’t be worth it unless they’re in the original Klingon.
Well, no, not quite. His first aside is right after Threepio ducks into the escape pod with an “I warrant I’ll regret this. So say I!”
“This golden droid has been a friend, 'tis true,
And yet I wish to still his prating tongue!
An imp, he calleth me? I’ll be reveng’d,
And merry pranks aplenty I shall play
Upon this pompous droid C-3PO!
Yet not in language shall my pranks be done:
Around both humans and the droids I must
Be seen to make such errant beeps and squeaks
That they shall think me simple. Truly, though,
Although with sounds oblique I speak to them,
I clearly see how I shall play my part,
And how a vast rebellion shall succeed
By wit and wisdom of a simple droid.”
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I do indeed! That’s awesome.
If Adam Bertocci has done it the same way Doescher did the Star Wars ones, it’ll be worth reading. I was amazed at how every single dramatic beat of the movie (every spoken thought, every single moment) is given the Shakespearean treatment. You can picture the movie as you read along. It’s so lovingly and skillfully done, it’s incredible.
I’m still waiting for Timon and Pumbaa Are Dead. Make it happen, Internet!
You might want to pass on Pride and Prejudice and Fear and Loathing then, a wonderful book in which Mr Darcy sneers as he gets wasted and crashes a rented convertible Cadilhac into Downton fucking Abbey.
Pride & Prejudice and Zombies was appallingly written.
“The Jedi doth return”?
I thought “the Jedi” in “The Return of the Jedi” was plural.
After all, it was supposed to be about the return of the Jedi Order from non-existence, not about a single Jedi returning from vacation.
That’s what they should have done with Lion King 1½.
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