Dark Horse Comics will give readers a very different take on Star Wars when it adapts George Lucas’ original scripts for the film into a comic book later this year.
The new series will adapt some of Lucas’ original ideas for “a galaxy far, far away” including a General Darth Vader, a young hero named Annikin Starkiller and an old general named Luke Skywalker. It will even include the 6-foot-tall alien lizard — Han Solo.
It’s no April Fools’ prank! Dark Horse is honored to announce a dream project: working with J.W. Rinzler, executive editor at LucasBooks, and artist Mike Mayhew (Avengers) to adapt the rough-draft original screenplay which spawned the biggest franchise in film history!
Three years before his 1977 film, George Lucas put down on paper his first story set in a galaxy far, far away—a tale of fantastic adventures, daring escapes, “lazer swords,” romance, and monsters. A story of Jedi Annikin Starkiller and General Luke Skywalker, an alien named Han Solo, and evil Sith Knights. The screenplay was titled The Star Wars!
“I’m not sure where I first read about The Star Wars—it was years and years ago—but the idea of Luke Skywalker being an older Jedi General, and Han Solo being a six-foot-tall lizard, turned my Star Wars fan brain on its side,” said longtime Star Wars editor Randy Stradley. “I always assumed this would be one of those stories that would be ‘lost to history,’ so getting to work on bringing it to life is kinda like a dream come true.”
“While researching in the Lucasfilm Archives I’ve found many treasures—but one which truly astounded me was George’s rough draft for The Star Wars. His first complete imaginings were hallucinating to read—mind blowing,” said writer J.W. Rinzler. “While working with George on another book project, I once asked if we could adapt his rough draft. He was hesitant. Years later, with Dark Horse’s invaluable help, we showed him a few drawn and colored pages of what it might look like. He gave us the okay.”
Originally conceived in 1974, The Star Wars has been the subject of rumor and legend in the fan community throughout the history of the galaxy far, far away. Now, Lucas has seen fit to grant Dark Horse the right to adapt this fabled story into an eight-issue comic series launching in September!
tensaibaka says
April 3, 2013 at 7:18 pmThe headline immediately brought out some skepticism from me, but knowing this will be before the ear of Jar Jar, I am now intrigued. Even though it won’t be “new” material per se, at least it won’t be more Clone Wars. I like the Clone Wars cartoon, but I’m itching for some other material.
Laith Preston says
April 4, 2013 at 6:12 amI think the key here will be for the really hard core fans. Getting to see how things might have been will be really interesting. Doing it as a graphic novel setup will be more enjoyable than just having an older draft script to read.
I did like the Clone Wars cartoon for the first few seasons, but it started to go off the rails the last few, my eldest is a fan but she stopped caring when it “got weird”.