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William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back Review

The Empire Striketh Back

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, along comes Ian Doescher with his Shakespearian interpretations of the original STAR WARS trilogy. His original book, simply titled William Shakespeare’s Star Wars, was received to critical acclaim. His follow-up, The Empire Striketh Back, is equally rewarding for fans of the Bard, STAR WARS, or just fine comedic literature.

If you’re unfamiliar with Doescher’s original work, his Shakespeare STAR WARS scripts are written literally as that – replete even with stage directions. Exposition is delivered through monologues, with characters speaking in iambic pentameter. But Doescher delves further into the mindset of George Lucas’ characters than the films ever dared.

Take, for instance, one of the book’s most comically tragic highlights: a monologue by the exogorth, the giant space slug which almost eats the Millennium Falcon, as it watches its prey fly away: ‘Alas, another meal hath fled and gone / And in the process I am sorely hurt… / I shall with weeping crawl back to my cave / Which shall, sans food, belike become my grave.’

Imagining the likes of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader speaking in Shakespearean tongue is a worthy enough reason to give The Empire Striketh Back a read, but it’s the introduction of Yoda here which lends itself well to Doescher’s work. Well, his interpretation of the little green alien’s curious speech patterns, anyway: a revealing afterword by Doescher gives us some insight into his thought process for converting Yoda’s lines into Shakespearean dialect.

His contemplation’s included a complete reversal, in which Yoda speaks like a modern person: ‘Don’t try, just do it or don’t. Seriously.’ He also considered repeating the Jedi Master’s lines verbatim from the original script, as a nod to the fact that he already sounded a little Shakespearean – but the direction he ultimately took is another highlight of the book which we won’t spoil for you here.

Ultimately, this isn’t something you’re going to want to sit down and read cover to cover, but it’s a great little slice of parody that mashes together two great styles. Now it’s just a question of who’s going to be the first to stage a play from the script… (dibs on playing the Exogorth).

You can order William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back from Firebox for just £11.99.

Chris started life by almost drowning in a lake, which pretty much sums up how things have gone so far. He recently graduated in Journalism from City University and is actually a journalist and everything now (currently working as Sports Editor at The News Hub). You can find him on Twitter under the ingenious moniker of @chriswharfe.

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