Novelizations hold a special place in the realm of films and TV series. Though the film tie-in novelization is normally relegated to superhero and franchise films in 2020, making them rarer than in decades before, there is an art to taking a 100+ page script and turning it into a 250-page novel. And for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” that job fell on the shoulders of Alan Dean Foster. But according to the author, some artistic changes he made to the story of the Disney/Lucasfilm story was a bit too far for the studio, even though they might have actually been improvements, in the long run.
Speaking to Midnight’s Edge, in a more-than-two-hour interview, Foster talked about the back-and-forth he experienced with the studio over changes he was making to the story of ‘The Force Awakens.’ And yes, there were some major changes and extrapolation needed to fill those pages.
“I did my usual thing when I do these adaptations of trying to fix things that I think need fixing in the story and fixing in the science,” Foster said. “Not so much with the characters, because the characters are fairly well-established in a screenplay. Some things they said to take out, and some things they left alone. Some of the things they said to take out I thought were silly and would really have improved the book.”
READ MORE: George Lucas Defends ‘Star Wars’ Prequel Trilogy’s Cringeworthy Dialogue
One of the major things he added to ‘The Force Awakens’ was more of a romantic relationship between Rey and Finn. Not having seen ‘The Last Jedi’ or knowing where Lucasfilm was going with the Sequel Trilogy, Foster just assumed the seeds planted in the first film would be expanded on, including Rey and Finn’s seemingly romantic relationship. But nope, that was cut.
“I expected to see that developed further in [‘The Last Jedi’],” Foster said. “And zero happened with it. And we all know why zero happened with it — and there’s no need to go into it in-depth — but that’s, sadly, just the way things are.”
Another major change to the book version of ‘The Force Awakens’ that had to be edited out was a better explanation about how Rey would have become such a master of the Force in such a short amount of time. In the proposed story of the novel, Rey would have been hurt and required emergency surgery, which implanted her with droid parts. This would have made her more adept at learning skills and having an easier time communicating with droids. And thus, it would explain why she was able to become a Force user quicker and without much training. Basically, it would solve the “Mary Sue” argument that has followed the character throughout the three films.
“That gives her the ability to learn remarkably quickly and also enhances her existing Force powers, and that’s how she can throw boulders around at the end of ‘Episode VIII,’” Foster said. “Also, it allows her to be instantly simpatico with other droids. I thought this would be a really fun story element, as well as explaining why and how she’s able to do these remarkable things.”
READ MORE: Francis Ford Coppola Feels Sad That George Lucas’ Career Became Eclipsed By ‘Star Wars’
Alas, this change was also vetoed by the studio. Over the course of the below interview, you can see the author talk about more stories like that and other changes that were turned down by Lucasfilm. And after watching how the Saga ended, maybe Lucasfilm could have adopted some of these changes instead of vetoing them early on. It might have been better, huh?