Star Wars and Ad Astra

I finished the Star Wars novelization while waiting for my windshield to be replaced (freakin' huge crack.)  I'm not quite sure what the provenance is of the script that Alan Dean Foster was adopting, but I suspect that it was a near-final version, missing only some of Gloria Katz and William Huyk's polish on the dialogue.  Foster also filled in some details that are non-scriptish; some backstory to the planets, races and characters here and there that nobody actually says anything about.  There weren't a lot of surprises, needless to say, but a few minor details here and there (the Wikipedia article sums them up, if you're interested.)  It's really made me want to watch the original movie again.  But I don't know that I will; I've got to do a Predator marathon (or at least catch the three mainline movies) before the next one comes up next week!

Next up to read is Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the "real" sequel to Star Wars that would have been more like it in tone and feel.  I haven't read that but once, so I don't really remember very much about it, to be honest with you.  And by the time I do that, hopefully my omnibus of the Han Solo books will have arrived (I got a note that it shipped yesterday.)  Stuff to read which should hopefully have that old school space opera vibe, but with a specific Star Wars twist.  The Star Wars that could have been, if you will.  Which is actually what I'm more interested in recreating with AD ASTRA.

Anyway, after the books, I should also have the old script adaptation to comic book form to read.  Whoever's got it checked out at the library literally is supposed to turn it in today, so it should be ready for me to pick up hopefully by tomorrow, of not later tonight.

Either way, I tried to imagine more of the McQuarrie art than the actual movie visuals as I read it, and the lightsaber fight was a bit more active.  And that's also more of the vibe I'll be pursuing.

It occurs to me that at this early stage, the Star Wars novels had something going for them that the Expanded Universe, when it came along, later lost.  Namely; they were more imaginative, and went somewhere new.  This is also where the Old Republic games and the Clone Wars TV show were better than much of what followed, because the creators felt more free to be more inventive.  The Expanded Universe, on the other hand, very, very quickly developed into a calcified exploration of minute details.  We couldn't create new planets, races, or characters—we had to explore the culture of the Rodians, who of course, had to be the one character Greedo expanded into an entire race (sigh.)  Even the Rebels show failed in this regard; it was mostly exploring stuff that was mentioned in the past without really doing very much that was truly new, inventive or even interesting.

All that said, I'm only going to mention a very brief AD ASTRA today.  The descriptions I've used in the past have actually described the Seraeans and the Idacharians very similarly.  And... they're allied with each other, and occupy much the same role (and even literally the same space.)  This is probably silly; they should be visually more distinct, I think.  So, rather than having the Idacharians be pale-skinned with dark hair (as opposed to pale skinned with white hair like the Seraeans), they'll be jet black—space drow with dark hair.  Or, the Firstborn from Barsoom, if you will, which is maybe a better visual.  I can still use the Colorless to refer to both of them together, because both black and white are usually considered colorless, right?