Someone on the recent Star Wars discussion mentioned some cool information he read in the original Star Wars movie novelization that sheds more light on something as simple as Ben Kenobi telling Luke how bad Mos Eisley was and the poster mentioned if Luke lived there all his life he would have already been aware of it so why would Kenobi say that? In the novel, it's not just because of that, it's to refocus Luke because he's all distracted because of what just happened to his Aunt and Uncle and it gives Kenobi time to scan the city for imperial ships.

I read the Star Wars novelizations a few years ago because I found a small paperback that had all 3 in it and they are very cool. As most movie novelizations do, they put things in that probably were in the scripts and didn't make it into the movie. So you get extra insight like Kenobi and Mos Eisley. One that really stuck out for me was in ROTJ when Luke was being tempted by the Emperor to turn to the Dark Side and Vader states Kenobi couldn't have taught him much, he knows about someone else teaching him and taunts him about it by saying "This jedi master, lives he still?" which is obviously a Yoda taunt. I always thought that was cool. The intro paragraph of the first movie from the "Journal of the Whills" describing the history of the SW universe and basically the Prequels was cool too.

I also remember as a kid reading Gremlins and it used several pages that had Stripe (the lead Gremlin) trying to figure out what the rules were while he was a mogwai so they could become Gremlins and one of the mogwai accidentally got locked outside and the sunlight killed it. So you were able to see what he was thinking and trying to do and that was cool too.

Does anyone here know of any other cool information or differences in a movie novelization? And I don't mean an original novel that later became a movie like Lonesome Dove or Jurassic Park, I just mean novelization of an original movie.

Also, I have always heard that The Lost Boys novelization has a lot of cool stuff in it too but since it's out of print and expensive I can't read it. Anyone know what that info is?

I read (and still own, tattered though they are) all those Star Wars OT novelizations.

The novelization to Alien (by Alan Dean Foster) had one sequence that was never completed during principal photography. In the book as in the movie, the engineer character, Parker, had gone off by himself to refuel the flamethrowers. At some point, he is thinking how stupid a decision this was - and he comes across the alien inspecting the main air lock. While he stands unmoving in the shadows, he is able to communicate with Ripley and Lambert, who are still on the bridge. He has them open the inner airlock door hoping to lure the thing inside, so that they can then close the inner doors and blow it into space. But of course, the android Ash is listening, and in concert with his special order to bring the alien back to earth, he turns on a siren that startles the alien out of the airlock just as the doors close, right on its arm. The outer airlock doors open, there is rapid depressurization, and the alien finally rips free of the inner doors sans its arm, with acid spewing as it scurries away. The acid eats away at the inner door seal, with a resulting depressurization in the area surrounding the airlock. This very nearly kills Parker before Ripley and Lambert get there to pull him back into an unaffected area.

The Alien laserdisc and BR has the very beginnings of this scene on the outtakes reel, with Parker whispering to them via the comlink, as well as a shot of Ripley/Lambert fighting against the urge to open those airlock doors before the optimum moment.

There also was a slight difference in the air shaft sequence where Captain Dallas disappeared. Instead of Dallas maneuvering his way right into the alien, the alien is depicted as actually tracking him down, and as I recall, it reached up from below him to snag him by the ankle.

That novelization also had the sequence where Ripley runs into the alien's lair to discover the remains of engineer Brett and Captain Dallas, who is still alive and begs Ripley to kill him. Which she does. That sequence was filmed, and was included in the director's cut of the movie that was released circa 2003.

When I was a kid I read the novelization of The Goonies, and it had a scene not in the film (possibly cut?) with leeches. It's been ~35 years, but I vaguely remember that Data rigged a battery to shock them off of everyone.

That's cool. Thanks!

In the original ROTJ novel, obiwan tells Luke that anakin fell into a "molten pit" during their Duel and later clawed his way out. There is also a lot of Palpatine stuff in there.

Im ESB, yoda throws a silver bar in the air while training and luke is supposed to get it with his lightsaber. He misses completely and yoda says a real jedi would have cut it in 7 pieces. Later luke cuts it in 4 pieces.

I remember the 7 pieces bar cutting from the Marvel Comics Adaptation of ESB. One of those comic adaptations I had he was purple and he was also super tiny like Tinkerbell sized standing on Luke's shoulder.

gggmann said:

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When I was a kid I read the novelization of The Goonies, and it had a scene not in the film (possibly cut?) with leeches. It's been ~35 years, but I vaguely remember that Data rigged a battery to shock them off of everyone.

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I think there was a cut scene with an octopus attacking the group.

Found this: Williamson actually went back later and fixed the artwork for Marvel. Consequently, although Yoda was purple in issues #42 and #43 of the main Star Wars series, he was actually redrawn and colored green when the adaptation was reprinted in the paperback-sized Marvel Comics Illustrated Version Of The Empire Strikes Back.

There was a very recent podcast episode on this (99% Invisible maybe? ). Basically, the authors would just wing it. They often don't have all the details of the movie since it's still in production usually... so they just made **** up when they had to. Plus books need a lot of filler compared to a screenplay and they get a lot of leeway with that.

Think Alien was specifically mentioned and the author interviewed I think. Had no idea what the Alien was actually supposed to look like while writing the book.