Star Wednesday: The Star Wars Storybook

Happy Star Wars Day, everyone — May the Fourth Be With You!

2016-05-04 08.12.45

I’m pretty sure I stated that my 1977 Bradley Watch was the first Star Wars thing I ever owned. If it was, this was a close second. The Star Wars Storybook was a Scholastic Book that I purchased through my school’s book club when I was in kindergarten. The school didn’t traditionally bring the Scholastic handouts to kindergartners because most of them couldn’t read, but I could, and someone must have provided me with one.

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On the first page, readers are treated to a “who’s who” of the Star Wars universe. Some of the pictures are from the movie while others, like Luke and Vader, are promo pictures. I have no idea what Mark Hamill is wearing in his picture — a black t-shirt? I remember being temped as a kid to cut these out and start my own trading card collection. As an adult, I’m sure glad I didn’t.

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The book was compiled before the movie was released, and as such a few deleted scenes (like this one with Luke talking to his buddy Biggs about joining the academy) never ended up in the film. I read this book so many times that my mind played tricks with me and I swore that I had watched this scene in the movie theater, even when I hadn’t.

2016-05-04 08.14.45

Back before the internet and DVDs and even VCRs, this is what we had — record albums and picture books. This is the only picture in the book where something (Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter) flies out of the picture frame. It really conveyed a sense of speed and action to me as a kid and I remember loving this page specifically. Even though I only saw the original movie once or twice in theaters as a kid, I must have read this book a thousand times.

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The back of the book features this picture of Vader that also appears on the picture disc. I also had it as a poster (probably also from Scholastic). I like this picture now because it looks like Vader is standing in front of one of those generic family photography backdrops. “Show me angry, Dark Lord!”

I own probably a hundred Star Wars books including hardbacks, paperbacks, picture books, comic books, and all kinds of things, but this was the first one that started it all.

5 comments to Star Wednesday: The Star Wars Storybook

  • Still have this one…along with the life-changing Star Wars Question & Answer Book About Space. However, curiously, mine is Random House, not Scholastic. (Who am I kidding, Star Wars merch was selling so well back then that it was probably licensed to multiple parties without anyone getting burned.)

  • RetroJoe

    I had this! Mine was Scholastic too. I think I got it from one of those book fairs from elementary school. Man, I need to find another one now. :)

  • I still have that book! I’ve also got a Star Wars “science” book with a cool picture of Mars taken from Viking showing frost on the ground.

    That picture of that deleted scene always confused me too. The copy we had was recorded off NBC or something with the commercials clipped out so for all I knew it wasn’t in the version I had. It was kinda neat that before the deleted scenes were released on Youtube and all I could tell people of this deleted scene and show the book as “proof”.

  • Ah should have read Earl’s comment first. Question & Answer Book About Space. That’s the name of the “science” one.

  • Paul in AZ

    As for those “deleted scenes,” a buddy of mine lent me a computer CD-rom with a Star Wars encyclopedia on it – some of these scenes appear on this encyclopedia. My question has always been – if they exist, why have they NOT been added to a deluxe edition re-release as bonus materials?

    Anyway, the scenes (as motion picture edits) do exist – it’s not that there are just still frames floating around out there, but entire scenes

    As an example, from the surface of Tatooine, Luke witnesses the “battle” between Leia’s ship and the Star Destroyer which opened up the film.

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