William Shakespeare's Jedi the Last
Page 13
The Falcon, surely, hath seen tighter spots,
Which Han once piloted with tranquil hand.
15 Editor’s translation: Aside, my furry friend, or else be smash’d,
I cannot have thee perch’d on these controls.
16 Editor’s translation: Sweet Leia, general and longtime friend.
AFTERWORD.
While watching The Last Jedi for the first time, I kept thinking, “Wow, this is where it ends, and what an ending! What a cliffhanger!” And then the movie kept going. The Last Jedi contains so much and explains so much—it may be the most ambitious Star Wars movie of all. And as I watched in the theater, I was definitely plotting my adaptation. (I saw the film once on each of the three days of the opening weekend. Some call it overkill; I call it research.)
William Shakespeare’s Jedi the Last sticks to the character-specific dialogue conventions that loyal readers have come to expect: Finn using Fs and Ns in each of his lines, Poe’s Edgar Allen Poe references, acrostics in Rey’s longer speeches, Yoda speaking in haiku, villains reciting villanelles, R2’s asides to the audience, BB-8’s skip code, Admiral Ackbar’s words ending in -ap, Captain Phasma’s words of steel, and even the AT-M6 and AT-AT walkers’ murderer scenes. (This time, I borrowed from the murderers’ dialogue in Richard III. In The Empire Striketh Back the AT-ATs’ dialogue was borrowed from the murderers in Macbeth.)
I pushed myself to make one speech extra special; when Rey is in the cave on Ahch-To, I wanted to give a sense of the remarkable scene in the movie in which we see a long row of Reys. Instead of trying to recreate this effect visually on the stage, I did it with language. The speech is one of Rey’s acrostic speeches, and of course it’s all in iambic pentameter. But here’s something you might not notice: in the thirty-six-line speech, the letter r occurs exactly once per line, in sequence. In the first line, r is the first letter, in the second line r is the second letter, and so on until the thirty-sixth line, in which the final letter is r. This creates a string of Reys (represented by the letter r) throughout the speech.
I added special touches for a few new characters, too. The Master Codebreaker’s speech in Act II was lots of fun (look for two Easter eggs…or twenty-six, depending on how you count them). DJ’s stutters from the movie become something a little different on the page. And the First Order droid BB-9E gets its own skip code. My imagined dialogue for the porgs makes me chuckle. The fathiers were so noble and beautiful in the film that I felt compelled to give them straight dialogue.
Not until I was about to write Luke’s death did I notice the parallels between Luke and Prospero in The Tempest: both are exiled on an island (one by choice), both are surrounded by mystical elements, both have a particular love for books, both are men of extraordinary—even magical—power. One goes home to Naples, the other goes home to the Force. That’s why Luke gets Prospero’s entire final speech. I can’t think of a better conclusion for him.
A final note about the power of myth, to borrow Joseph Campbell’s phrase. Seeing The Last Jedi in the theater—as I became familiar with the story and was able to sit back and enjoy the experience—I loved observing the moments when the audience had the biggest reactions. Kylo Ren killing Snoke, Rey and Kylo Ren fighting and defeating Snoke’s guards, Holdo flying her ship at lightspeed into the Finalizer, and the realization of how Luke beat Kylo Ren in the end—these are moments when all of us, as Star Wars fans, cheered or laughed or applauded or were shocked into silence. These were moments when we were, collectively, deep in the grasp of Star Wars mythology. Yes, Star Wars is just a story, but it’s our story, and it’s a story with the power to move us and even unite us across countries and cultures (go to Malaysia, meet the members of the Star Wars fan club there, and you’ll know what I mean). If ever I needed a reason to think Shakespeare and Star Wars belong together, seeing people in the movie theater react to the living myths in front of them—like groundlings at the Globe—was all the proof I needed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
As each book ends, I get to write this acknowledgments section, which feels so appropriate: to end a writing project, for which I’m so grateful, with gratitude.
This book is dedicated to Jason Rekulak, until recently of Quirk Books. In 2012, I emailed Jason out of the blue with a random idea for a Star Wars/Shakespeare mash-up. I’m confident that, had he not responded, the idea would have faded into a haze of “good ideas I have no time to pursue.” Thank you, Jason, for the past six years (and counting).
To my immediate family: my parents Bob and Beth Doescher, and my brother Erik.
To Josh Hicks, for friendship and for saying yes to not one but two trips to Lucasfilm in 2017. To his wife, Alexis Kaushansky, and daughter, Ruby, for letting him go. To Murray Biggs, still my Shakespearean paragon.
To the team at Quirk Books, each one of them a delight to work with: Jason Rekulak, Rick Chillot, Nicole De Jackmo, Brett Cohen, Christina Schillaci, Kelsey Hoffman, Ivy Weir, Jane Morley, Doogie Horner, and the rest of the crew. Thank you to Nicholas Delort again and again for his illustrations.
To the people always on this list because they are with me every day, in my heart if not in my presence: Heidi Altman and Scott Roehm, Jane Bidwell, Travis Boeh and Sarah Woodburn, Chris Buehler and Marian Hammond, Erin and Nathan Buehler, Melody and Jason Burton, Emily and Josiah Carminati, Jeff and Caryl Creswell, Joel Creswell and Sibyl Siegfried and Sophie, Katherine Creswell and Spencer Nietmann, Jeanette Ehmke, Mark Fordice, Tom George and Kristin Gordon, Holly Havens, Mona and Roland Havens, Jim and Nancy Hicks, Anne Huebsch, Apricot, David, Isaiah and Oak Irving, Jerryn Johnston, Chris and Andrea Martin, Bruce McDonald, Joan and Grady Miller, Tara and Michael Morrill, Lucy and Tim Neary, Dave Nieuwstraten, Omid Nooshin, Bill Rauch, Julia Rodriguez-O’Donnell, Helga, Michael, and Isabella Scott, David and Sarah Shepherd, Naomi Walcott and Audu Besmer, Ryan, Nicole, Mackinzie, Audrey and Lily Warne-McGraw, Steve Weeks, Ben and Katie Wire, Ethan Youngerman and Rebecca Lessem, and Dan Zehr.
To everyone in the Multnomah County Department of Human Services—especially Sierra Maxwell—striving to make sure every child in Oregon has a loving home.
To my spouse, Jennifer, who has a growing collection of Star Wars memorabilia in her home and loves me anyway. To my sons, Liam and Graham, who were my dates to see The Last Jedi and are the reason I do, well, everything.
QUIRKBOOKS.COM
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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616) was a poet and playwright. He is widely considered one of the greatest writers in the English language.
GEORGE LUCAS is a film producer, screenwriter, director, and the creator of the Star Wars motion picture saga. He lives in California.
IAN DOESCHER is the New York Times best-selling author of William Shakespeare’s Star Wars. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his family. Visit him at IanDoescher.com.