From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi (Star Wars)

De: Olivie Blake, Saladin Ahmed, Charlie Jane Anders, Fran Wilde, Mary Kenney, Mike Chen

Narrado por: Jonathan Davis, Sean Kenin Elias-Reyes, Jon Hamm, January LaVoy, Saskia Maarleveld, Adam Scott, Marc Thompson, Sam Witwer, Various

Celebrate the lasting impact of Return of the Jedi with this exciting reimagining of the timeless Star Wars film featuring new perspectives from forty contributors.

On May 25, 1983, Star Wars cemented its legacy as the greatest movie franchise of all time with the release of Return of the Jedi. In honor of its fortieth anniversary, forty storytellers re-create an iconic scene from Return of the Jedi through the eyes of a supporting character, from heroes and villains to droids and creatures. From a Certain Point of View features contributions by bestselling authors and trendsetting artists:

• Olivie Blake provides a chilling glimpse into the mind of Emperor Palpatine.

• Saladin Ahmed recounts the tragic history of the rancor trainer.

• Charlie Jane Anders explores the life and times of the Sarlacc.

• Fran Wilde reveals Mon Mothma’s secret mission to save the Rebel Alliance.

• Mary Kenney chronicles Wicket the Ewok’s quest for one quiet day on the forest moon of Endor.

• Anakin Skywalker becomes one with the Force in a gripping tale by Mike Chen.

Plus more hilarious, heartbreaking, and astonishing tales from:

Tom Angleberger, K Arsenault Rivera, Kristin Baver, Akemi Dawn Bowman, Emma Mieko Candon, Olivia Chadha, Gloria Chao, Adam Christopher, Paul Crilley, Amal El-Mohtar, M. K. England, Jason Fry, Adam Lance Garcia, Lamar Giles, Max Gladstone, Thea Guanzon, Ali Hazelwood, Patricia A. Jackson, Alex Jennings, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Sarah Kuhn, Danny Lore, Sarah Glenn Marsh, Kwame Mbalia, Marieke Nijkamp, Danielle Paige, Laura Pohl, Dana Schwartz, Tara Sim, Phil Szostak, Suzanne Walker, Hannah Whitten, Sean Williams, Alyssa Wong

To celebrate the launch of this book, Penguin Random House and Disney/Lucasfilm will each make donations to First Book—a leading nonprofit that provides new books, learning materials, and other essentials to educators and organizations serving children in need. In recognition of both companies’ longstanding relationships with First Book, Penguin Random House will donate at least $100,000 worth of books to First Book and Disney/Lucasfilm will donate 100,000 children’s books to support First Book and their mission of providing equal access to quality education.

Narrated by a full cast, including: Daniel Davis, Jonathan Davis, Sean Kenin, Nika Futterman, Jon Hamm, David Lee Huynh, January LaVoy, Saskia Maarleveld, Brandon McInnis, Euan Morton, John Pirkis, Adam Scott, Kristen Sieh, Marc Thompson, Shannon Tyo, and Sam Witwer

©2023 Olivie Blake, Saladin Ahmed, Charlie Jane Anders, Fran Wilde, Mary Kenney, Mike Chen (P)2023 Random House Audio

A great listen!

Definitely a good listen for anyone hungry for Star Wars content. But, did almost all of the stories involving any kind of romantic plot/sub-plot, need to be LGBT? the narrators did great with what they had.

There are (((only))) 5 LGBTQ or Self-Insert Fanfiction Stories in this book

Of those 5, only 1 is remotely decent. It's "Wolf Trap" but the ending is kind of hilarious. And one of them "When Fire Marked The Sky" retcons Lando Calrissian (started he flirted with dudes) and Wedge Antilles (only implied) as gay, although not necessarily with each other. It's no good, but it isn't incompetently written as the self-insert stories. You can tell those writers probably just watched YouTube videos about Star Wars or ROTJ. 4/5 of these stories are in the last ten stories of the book. Overall, the book is pretty good. But those stories do drag it down. You'll spot them within 3 minutes of each one. Bad writers can't help themselves. It also establishes The Ewok movies as canon, which is beyond stupid, but this is Disney Star Wars, so you should at least expect that. So, in the words of their former writer: make your own canon. Take what you like and dismiss the rest. All the other stories are good or even great. So in that sense, it's FAR better than the previous two, which had a lot more self-insert and LGBTQ stories. The performances, even of the bad stories, are well done. But don't pay full price.

Another must read/must listen

Great extra info. A must read for all Star Wars fans. Extra info really helps you dive into why some were with Imps.

Fantastic!!!

A Huyang worthy telling of many stories that we didn’t know we needed. Just FANTASTIC!!!

The Panderverse is real

Good stories, but every romance that wasn’t established in the movie is of the LGBTQ type. Other then that I loved seeing storm troopers, and other baddies done with some humanity.

Enjoyed very much

narrators, stories awesome and funny, and I loved it from beginning to end. There were a few I really did like.

Love to the Ewoks.

There were lots of great stories. Unlike The Empire Strikes Back where I thought some 1-2 star stories should have been swapped for other POVs, I didn’t feel that way here. The stories felt more balanced. There were only two stories that I felt were 2 stars. I had many 5 to 4 star stories on my list. I especially liked the Ewok stories. My absolute favorite story is "Brotherhood" by Mike Chen.

What was interesting is that Jason Fry said that these books are called From a Certain Point of View for a reason. If the stories don't match up, don't analyze it too much. Some narrators are unreliable. Which is funny because I mentioned for my ANH review the authors didn't communicate about continuity and I thought for ESB they did. I didn't notice inconsistencies in RotJ.

4.5 out of 5 Second Death Stars.

Thoughts on the narrators:

Sam Witwer was great at Sidious and I don't know how he didn't ruin his vocal cords.

The narrator for "My Mouth Never Closes" had the Sarlacc sound like a surfer dude and it was so funny. He was also a vegetarian and didn't like people falling down his mouth.

"When Fire Marked the Sky" - great Lando voice.

Excellent (most of them) collection of stories

I really enjoyed these stories. My favorites were “The Veteran” and “Brotherhood”. However I do feel in attempt to be different, many of the authors choose a similar theme. Forcing the direction of the stories to be repetitive. In the end I greatly enjoyed all the individual stories and what they brought to the table.

Across The Stars is Anakin and Padme’s Song

I really liked this book and it really added to the Lore of Star Wars, however they used Across The Stars several times throughout the book. It is by far one of John Williams’ greatest scores, but it is for Anakin and Padme, not two no-name characters no one is going to care about when they’re done with this book. I really like adding elements of the Star Wars Score to these audiobooks, but lessening one of the best just doesn’t work. Overall I really liked this book, but at what cost.

all the various stories read by amazing people really brought this book to life

there wasn't anything that I didn't like, all the stories were immersive and engaging, they really have me thinking about all the side tales that could be possible