William Shakespeare's Star Wars

By: Ian Doescher

Narrated by: Daniel Davis, Jonathan Davis, Ian Doescher, January LaVoy, Marc Thompson

Length: 3 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Finalist, Multi-Voiced Performance, 2014

Return once more to a galaxy far, far away with this sublime retelling of George Lucas's epic Star Wars in the style of the immortal Bard of Avon. The saga of a wise (Jedi) knight and an evil (Sith) lord, of a beautiful princess held captive and a young hero coming of age, Star Wars abounds with all the valor and villainy of Shakespeare's greatest plays. 'Tis a tale told by fretful droids, full of faithful Wookiees and fearsome Stormtroopers, signifying...pretty much everything.

William Shakespeare's Star Wars will astound and edify Rebels and Imperials alike. Zounds! This is the audiobook you're looking for.

©2013 Ian Doescher (P)2013 Random House Audio

Faithful reimagining with only a few blights

Tounge-in-cheek and extremely charming- only occasionally feels like it's trying too hard. Some of the monologs feel especially forced (Luke's on board the Death Star comes to mind, specifically), but some of the others serve as profound enhancements to the story.

Different but not great

Title sounds more interesting than the book is. It's a unique take so I wanted to like it but in the end it was like episode 3, full of promise but you're disappointed on the drive home

Shakespeare and Star Wars: A Match Made in Heaven

Who would have thought that combining Shakespeare and Star Wars would lead to such fun? They truly are a perfect match and you can tell that the voice cast had a lot of fun with their performances. They were all spot on in their characterizations, so much so that I could easily picture the original actors speaking the Elizabethan dialogue. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this and have only two small complaints. In my opinion, C-3PO’s usual panicking is becomes a bit annoying in the overly dramatic Shakespearean speech but his voice is done so convincingly that it makes it more tolerable. My biggest annoyance was that, for some reason, R2-D2’s beeps and whistles were spoken by the actors instead of using the actual sounds like they should have. All in all though, those complaints are minor and in no way truly took away from my enjoyment of this book. Now if only they would release the Audible version of the prequel trilogy; frankly, I’m surprised that they haven’t done so already. Hopefully they’ll produce them soon; I’d buy them all in a heartbeat.

A little different from what I expected

This audiobook both was and was not quite what I was expecting. I somehow expected it to be a bit more silly than it actually was.

What it actually was was a faithful retelling of the Star Wars story, only written in the style of William Shakespeare. A Chorus plays the part of the giant letters scrolling through space giving the background of the story. There are stage directions as Shakespeare would have written them – and these are stage directions for a stage play, so that in the great space battle scene, the narrator has to tell us to use our imaginations to visualize the battling armies, because no stage would be big enough to hold all those spaceships at once.

The whole thing is done in iambic pentameter, just as if Shakespeare had written it himself. There are even the occasional internal rhymes at the close of certain scenes. Also, just so you’ll know it’s Shakespeare who is being imitated here, there are frequent references to famous Shakespearian lines and the names of some of his plays. Interestingly enough, almost all of the main characters are given several asides where they speak directly to the audience, sharing their internal thoughts.

The narrators did a great job. Several of them sound almost exactly like the characters in the movies. The others manage to give a Monty Pythonesque vibe to the whole thing.

Far and away the most enlightening thing about the book was R2D2. As in the movie, when he is speaking to the other characters, his lines consist of things like “Boop Boop, Beep Beep, Squeak,” and a few electronic sounds. But R2 also gets his chance to speak directly to the audience, and in these, he speaks regular English so we can understand him without C3PO to translate. Hearing his thoughts is interesting.

great

Fantastic. Great job following the rythym and detail of Shakespeare's writing. The narration was dramatic and entertaining

I do Doth love the beep beep beep der squeak

Ok I laughed out loud. So much this review did not deserve a lol. No!

It deserves a ROFLMAO!

Having studied Shakespeare is a plus, but even my young nephew thought it was funny! 6 stars!

Very enjoyable!

It was a very fun listen. I enjoyed hearing phrases and words that made me think of when I was in high school english class. The monologues added to the character development. I was easy to imagine the movie playing with this dialogue. In all I was very happy with this story.

Great twist to a great story

This was a great twist to a great story. It definitely helps seeing the movie to visualize the narration.

Incredible!!!!!

What did you love best about William Shakespeare's Star Wars?

a fun and exciting romp in the stars with the bard!

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

Han or Obi Wan

Any additional comments?

the ONLY detractor to the book is R2-D2 saying beep and boop. the story would have lost nothing if the sound effects of his speech had been added. still and absolutely fan-freaking-tastic I hope that empire and Jedi are soon to follow!!

Silly and interesting.

Where does William Shakespeare's Star Wars rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Not very high but very well done.

What was one of the most memorable moments of William Shakespeare's Star Wars?

The Death Star Battle.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

Marc Thompson's voice work was excellent.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes.

Any additional comments?

I hoep they make more of these.