Indiana Jones Novelizations

[Dean1700 4]

I don't know if anyone here has read the books but has anyone noticed the newly re-written novelizations of the first 3 movies at all?

The original Raider of the Lost Ark book was written by Campbell Black and in all honesty it was a shocker. I couldn't finish it and it was nothing like the final film. Now I know they release a draft script to publishers to get the book out in time for the movie but if they had stuck with the draft script would Raiders have turned out better or worse?

[Nick Parker 3,017]

You are referring to the "three-in-one" book published by Scholastic earlier this year when you mention "newly rewritten", correct?

[Luke Skywalker 1,284]

there are the adult novels from del rey and the kids novels from scholastic.

[Wojo 2,442]

Which reminds me, I believe there are also differences between the versions of Star Wars novelizations as well. I own the original novelizations to Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back (I never found Return of the Jedi used), and they are quite good. But they have new (within the last few years) editions of the movie novelizations bundled in threes -- each trilogy in a tome -- and the distinctions between them include such notables as:

in the original SW novelization, SW is part of the "Journal of the Whills";

Leia's great quotation "they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, naturally they became heroes;"

Ben and Luke's discussion on Tatooine about ducks;

and in the original ESB book, the carbon freeze sequence included Lucas' original dialogue of "I love you / You just remember that because I'll be back."

The new ESB novelization includes the "I love you / I know" exchange as in the movie, and the SW novelization drops a lot of the extra Tatooine stuff that didn't get included in the movies.

[Ollie 859]

I didn't realize they had changed the novels. Back in the early 90's when they re-released the books in hardcover with the new Laserdisc artwork I junked my paperbacks and bought them.

I had TOD & LC in paperback back in the 80's.

[artyjeffrey 20]

This is interesting, yet predictible. If you think about it, Lucas seems to want to continuously erase/alter past accomplishments.

I have all three Indy novelizations, and only read (strangely) LC. Now, I think I'll have to check out RotLA.

[Luke Skywalker 1,284]

Which reminds me, I believe there are also differences between the versions of Star Wars novelizations as well. I own the original novelizations to Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back (I never found Return of the Jedi used), and they are quite good. But they have new (within the last few years) editions of the movie novelizations bundled in threes -- each trilogy in a tome -- and the distinctions between them include such notables as:

in the original SW novelization, SW is part of the "Journal of the Whills";

Leia's great quotation "they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, naturally they became heroes;"

Ben and Luke's discussion on Tatooine about ducks;

and in the original ESB book, the carbon freeze sequence included Lucas' original dialogue of "I love you / You just remember that because I'll be back."

The new ESB novelization includes the "I love you / I know" exchange as in the movie, and the SW novelization drops a lot of the extra Tatooine stuff that didn't get included in the movies.

I have the latest edition (awful DVD covers - dman i should have bought them when they had the SE artwork...) adult single novelisations of the SW OT and they have all the things you mentioned.

I think people is mixing the junior novelisations and the adult novelisations. Both exist for SW and Indy.

The most important changes have been the title changes from 'Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker' and 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' to their respective new titles.

[Dean1700 4]

I do know with Star Wars there were two original print versons, an adult and children's version (the childrens version was essentially the same as the adult only abridged). I can't say for certain this occured with the other two films. But the Indiana Jones books have been re-written by Scholastic.

Campbell Black wrote ROTLA and has now been re-authored by Ryder Windham. I checked Amazon and found that both versions are currently in print.

James Khan wrote TOD but now has been re-authored by Suzanne Wehn; and

IJALTC was originally written by Rob McGregor and has been re-aurthored by Ryder Windham.