A New Hope: a Big Golden Book
A New Hope: a Big Golden Book adapted by Geof Smith, illustrated by Caleb Meurer and Micky Rose
A very cute and beautifully illustrated adaptation of events, this book skims over the more tragic and scary parts of the story. It is definitely a version suitable for very young children. The alterations to the story line make you realize how dark A New Hope can get despite it's feel-good, happy ending.
The following are all skipped: Leia's interrogation, her witnessing the destruction of her home planet, the fact stormtroopers were dispatched to provide the disguises for Luke and Han, and any Rebel ships meeting their demise. The destruction of the Death Star is shown so I guess it's okay to show bad guys getting blown up, but not good guys...weird. Disney really does hate the bad guys. I wish they would give them a little more humanity like in From A Certain Point of View--now that book fabulously showed both sides of the story. Of course, I know we are talking about a children's book here...
Being published in 2017, I have a real issue with the following narrative: "Led by brave Princess Leia, a small team of rebels had just stolen secret plans for the Empire's ultimate weapon." They didn't have to mention Jyn since I'm sure they were streamlining the story, but they didn't have to replace her with Leia either. Ugh...sometimes oversimplification just muddles the story more. Now, I will say that the original Little Golden Book was published in 2015 before we knew the story of Jyn, but they could have easily modified the new Big Golden Book to reflect current canon knowledge.
Another discrepancy was when Luke and C-3PO are out hunting for R2-D2 on Tatooine and the narrative says, "When they finally reached the little droid, they saw dangerous Tusken Raiders, also known as Sand People, in the distance." Ummm...Luke only saw banthas and that's why the attack was so surprising. The movie viewer didn't know if any Tusken Raiders were actually there or not. Another oversimplification that just doesn't make sense.
But overall, it's a good read and would certainly make a nice bedtime story. I'm curious if they're planning on doing this with all the movies? We already have the Little Golden Books of each movie, but the Big Golden Book is kind of fun with its oversized pages and large illustrations. I double checked one against the other and the Little GB is in the present tense and has a little less story while the Big GB is in past tense and expands narratively just a tad. They made some interesting choices in what was changed around--felt sort of random, but overall, it works and just gives us another view into a fabulous tale.
The following are all skipped: Leia's interrogation, her witnessing the destruction of her home planet, the fact stormtroopers were dispatched to provide the disguises for Luke and Han, and any Rebel ships meeting their demise. The destruction of the Death Star is shown so I guess it's okay to show bad guys getting blown up, but not good guys...weird. Disney really does hate the bad guys. I wish they would give them a little more humanity like in From A Certain Point of View--now that book fabulously showed both sides of the story. Of course, I know we are talking about a children's book here...
Being published in 2017, I have a real issue with the following narrative: "Led by brave Princess Leia, a small team of rebels had just stolen secret plans for the Empire's ultimate weapon." They didn't have to mention Jyn since I'm sure they were streamlining the story, but they didn't have to replace her with Leia either. Ugh...sometimes oversimplification just muddles the story more. Now, I will say that the original Little Golden Book was published in 2015 before we knew the story of Jyn, but they could have easily modified the new Big Golden Book to reflect current canon knowledge.
Another discrepancy was when Luke and C-3PO are out hunting for R2-D2 on Tatooine and the narrative says, "When they finally reached the little droid, they saw dangerous Tusken Raiders, also known as Sand People, in the distance." Ummm...Luke only saw banthas and that's why the attack was so surprising. The movie viewer didn't know if any Tusken Raiders were actually there or not. Another oversimplification that just doesn't make sense.
But overall, it's a good read and would certainly make a nice bedtime story. I'm curious if they're planning on doing this with all the movies? We already have the Little Golden Books of each movie, but the Big Golden Book is kind of fun with its oversized pages and large illustrations. I double checked one against the other and the Little GB is in the present tense and has a little less story while the Big GB is in past tense and expands narratively just a tad. They made some interesting choices in what was changed around--felt sort of random, but overall, it works and just gives us another view into a fabulous tale.
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