I received an absolutely wonderful book as a gift from a friend today. It is called The Empire Striketh Back, a re-telling of the story of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back as if it were written by William Shakespeare. It is actually written by Ian Doescher, and I must say he did a marvelous job translating the film’s script into the language of the Bard.
There are so many things to love about this–it had me hooked from the “Dramatis Personae” page, done perfectly in the style of the plays. And then the language–well! Let me quote a little bit of the first scene, just to give you an idea:
LUKE: If flurries be the food of quests, snow on,
Belike upon this Hoth, this barren rock,
My next adventure waits.
It is really quite splendid. Probably would have made the movies better if Lucas’s rather awkward dialogue had been re-written this way. I highly recommend it to anyone who has seen the movie (and who hasn’t?) I haven’t enjoyed a parody of Great Literature this much since reading The Classics Reclassified. I highly recommend it.
Reblogged this on Sophie's blog….
This gave me a good chuckle. I would love to read it!
Doescher also wrote a Shakespearean adaptation of “A New Hope”, and “Return of the Jedi” is coming soon. But, as he says in the afterword to “Empire”, it has perhaps the most Shakespearean storyline of all the SW movies.