Review: William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: The Phantom of Menace, by Ian Doescher

O Threepio, Threepio, Wherefore art thou, Threepio? 

Join us, good gentles, for a merry reimagining of Star Wars: Episode I as only Shakespeare could have written it. The entire saga starts here, with a thrilling tale featuring a disguised queen, a young hero, and two fearless knights facing a hidden, vengeful enemy. 

‘Tis a true Shakespearean drama, filled with sword fights, soliloquies, and doomed romance…all in glorious iambic pentameter and coupled with twenty gorgeous Elizabethan illustrations. Hold on to your midi-chlorians: The play’s the thing, wherein you’ll catch the rise of Anakin! 

We all know there are only three Star Wars movies, but luckily for us Ian Doescher continued his series of plays based off of them with this fourth book, The Phantom of Menace, which was a fantastic read all around.

Moreso than the other translations of the Star Wars movies, this book really expands upon the story, adding new implications, new dialogue, and new perspectives that change your perception of the film. Characters get new interpretations and different emphasis is placed on dialogue to change how the entire film appears to play out. These do much to add depth and tone to the film, in some ways bringing it more in line with the original trilogy and improving on the story overall.

The book had to tackle two main problems: the pod race – how to convey a rather long scene with almost no dialogue and not much way to convey action? – and Jar Jar Binks, considered the most hated animated character of all time. Both of them were handled exceptionally well. The pod race was handled differently from the regular battle scenes, which conveyed it better, in my opinion, allowing for a nice overall picture of how it went that we would not otherwise have gotten. Jar Jar’s character got completely turned around, making him likeable and competent (almost). We get the usual references to other Shakespearean plays and a nice, light-hearted scene poking fun at how different and comparatively old the original trilogy looks compared to the newer movies. Unfortunately, nobody says “Prithee”, but the rest of the dialogue is awesome enough to compensate for that.

I once again implore people to put on a performance of these plays for my entertainment, but until people do, this book is a wonderful read on its own.

Overall rating: 5/5