*****STAR DESTROYER-SIZED SPOILERS!*****

In early 1981, within the pages of Starlog magazine (the internet before the internet), my then-14 year old self read about an upcoming series on National Public Radio (NPR) that was going to adapt 1977’s “Star Wars” into a 13-part radio play (pre-“A New Hope,” which was added for the movie’s 1981 rerelease). This radio play would be adapted by Brian Daley (1947-1996) from George Lucas’ original script (including new and deleted scenes), and would feature a full cast, under the direction of John Madden, who would later direct 1998’s Oscar-winning “Shakespeare in Love.”

Two of the original cast members from “Star Wars” would be returning as well; Mark Hamill would reprise his role as Luke Skywalker, and Anthony Daniels would return as C3PO.  Actor Perry King (“The Lords of Flatbush,” “Switch”) would play Han Solo, a role he first auditioned for back in 1976.  The late Brock Peters (“To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” “Soylent Green”) would provide a more emotional, almost seductive take on Darth Vader, while stage actress Ann Sachs would play a stern yet vulnerable Princess Leia.  Actor Bernard Behrens (“The Changeling”) gives a solid performance as ex-Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, playing the role with a bit of a Mid-Atlantic accent.

Also returning to give the series greater immersion and legitimacy were the Oscar-winning music of John Williams combined with the rich, organic sound effects created by fellow Oscar-winner, Ben Burtt. The spaceships, the vehicles, the blasters, and even the manufactured ‘voices’ of Chewbacca and R2-D2 would all return, courtesy of Burtt’s acoustical magic. Not enough can be said of the enormous contributions Williams and Burtt make to the aural environment of these radio plays.

Star Wars

The radio play greatly expands the original movie’s screenplay, using deleted material from the original script and earlier cuts of the movie, as well as a cornucopia of new material that greatly enriches Luke’s life on Tatooine, as well as our heroes’ sojourn into Mos Eisley, Princess Leia’s traumatic interrogation by Darth Vader aboard the Death Star, and much more.  In all, the original 121 minute movie would now fill a six and a half hour radio series (!).

Back in March of 1981, I remember setting my old Sanyo radio-cassette recorder to my local NPR station here in SoCal, and stopping the dial just as I heard John Williams’ blast of opening brass, followed by actor Ken Hiller’s narration. Luckily, I’d caught it almost exactly as it began. The first chapter (“A Wind to Shake the Stars”) features Luke and his aimless friends on Tatooine, including actor Adam Arkin (“Halloween H20”) as “Fixer,” a local hotshot whom Luke challenges to a dangerous skyhopper race.  There’s also a restored deleted scene from the movie, as Luke uses his macro-binoculars to spot the opening space battle between an Imperial star destroyer and Leia’s Tantive IV, as he and his droid ‘Treadwell’ fix a moisture vaporator.

This scene occurs just before Luke’s reunion with his friend Biggs Darklighter (Kale Brown) who’s visiting from the Academy in order to let Luke know that he’s joining the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire. The relationship between Luke and Biggs later became famous in Star Wars expanded lore, and Brian Daley’s expansion is more or less faithful to the intent of those lost scenes, which you can easily find on YouTube these days. The second chapter (“Points of Origin”) sees Princess Leia and her father (Stephen Elliot) on Alderaan hosting an arrogant Imperial guest named Lord Tion (John Considine) for dinner; only to have him killed when he suspects his hosts are Rebel sympathizers who are wise to the Empire’s top-secret Death Star weapon. There is also much added material to the Mos Eisley spaceport sequence (“The Millennium Falcon Deal,” “The Han Solo Solution”), with the droids cleverly evading capture by Imperial forces at every turn, as Obi-Wan is forced to use his mind-trick powers to sell Luke’s landspeeder.

As good as the “Star Wars” radio play was, I was a silly teenager back in 1981, so I’d accidentally missed a couple of episodes.  It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the radio play, but I just couldn’t get in the habit of ‘appointment radio’ at the time (I was more a TV, movie and book nerd). When the series eventually came to deluxe CD sets in 2007, I bought the first two at my local Border’s bookstore (how I miss that place) and I was amazed at how engaging the expanded stories were when listened to in entirety. The “Star Wars” radio play filled in so many nooks and crannies of the 1977 movie—canonical or not. Perhaps it took reaching middle age for me to acquire enough patience to better absorb the more relaxed pacing, detailing and world-building of the Star Wars radio plays.  

The Empire Strikes Back

Around that same time, I’d picked up “The Empire Strikes Back” (TESB) radio play on CD as well. Originally debuting on NPR in November of 1983, TESB ran a bit shorter than the first radio play, clocking in under four and a half hours and spread over 10 chapters (which were also broadcast weekly in 1983, just like the original). Despite its shorter length, TESB radio play still adds depth and enrichment to many moments of the original film (“The Empire Strikes Back” remains my personal favorite of all Star Wars films, to this day).

The core cast from the first Star Wars radio play would return for the second, but the biggest surprise of the second radio play would be the return of actor Billy Dee Williams, who would reprise his role of Cloud City administrator, Lando Calrissian.  Another pleasant surprise came with actor John Lithgow (“Twilight Zone: The Movie,” “2010: The Year We Make Contact”), who would replace Frank Oz as Yoda. Lithgow, whom I’d been a fan of since his Oscar-nominated role in “The World According to Garp” (1982), does a marvelous job as Yoda, and his performance is a highlight of the radio plays. Lithgow would graciously agree to return for the “Return of the Jedi” radio play 13 years later.

The play opens with the dramatic loss of an incoming Rebel supply convoy (“Freedom’s Winter”). There’s also an extended scene of Luke and Han doing their “Odd Couple”-best to stay alive in an emergency shelter, during the brutal cold of the Hoth night (“A Question of Survival”). We also hear more expanded material from Luke’s Jedi training on Dagobah under Master Yoda (“Way of the Jedi”).

I also appreciated a small moment where Han realizes the seemingly traitorous Lando allowed Han to strike him during our heroes’ detention in Cloud City; it was Lando’s coded way of signaling to Han that he is sympathetic (“Gambler’s Choice”), despite his betrayal. This little throwaway moment makes Han’s sudden trust of Lando in “Return of the Jedi” a bit easier to buy later on. And wait till you hear Hamill and Brock Peters in the confrontation between Luke and Vader. Needless to say, NPR’s TESB radio play was excellent, with John Williams music and Ben Burtt’s soundscape once again delivering an A-game feel to everything.

Return of the Jedi

Arriving in February of 1996, nearly 13 years after the broadcast of “Empire Strikes Back,” the “Return of the Jedi” (ROTJ) radio play was produced amid severe government cutbacks to National Public Radio.  As a result, ROTJ’s radio play ran much shorter than its predecessors. Clocking in around 3 hours and a dozen minutes, it’s only an hour or so longer than the original feature film, and is told over just six chapters.  To be honest, I was never a huge ROTJ fan (still the most disappointing of the Original Trilogy for me), and at the time, I found the ROTJ radio play on audiocassette at a Crown Books liquidation store, so I grabbed it. Luckily, my now 23-year old Honda Accord still has a cassette deck. In fact, it’s the only functional cassette deck I own these days.  

Note: For non-US readers, National Public Radio in the United States is viewer and government supported, unlike advertisement revenue-supported radio stations or subscription-driven satellite stations across the United States. 

Due to his commitments with his wildly popular role of ‘The Joker’ in the 1990s animated “Batman” series, Mark Hamill was unable to reprise his role of Luke Skywalker, leaving Anthony Daniels as the sole cast member from the original movies to return for this final radio play.  Soundalike actor Joshua Fardon does a very earnest job as Luke, though he lacks Hamill’s little eccentricities. Fortunately, Ann Sachs, Perry King, Bernard Behrens and Brock Peters would all reprise their respective roles of Princess Leia, Han Solo and Darth Vader as well; roles they successfully made their own in these alternate versions. Sadly, Billy Dee Williams would not return as Lando Calrissian, with actor Ayre Gross (“Soul Man”) inexplicably cast in the role; something Gross self-deprecatingly acknowledged in later interviews, since he doesn’t exactly consider himself to be a suave, Billy Dee Williams-type. 

Note: Gross previously costarred in the shockingly outdated 1986 blackface comedy, “Soul Man,” where he played the best friend of a rich caucasian student pretending to be Black in order to gain a Harvard scholarship. Even though I lived through it, it’s hard to believe what often passed for comedy in those days… 

Despite the diminishing returns of the ROTJ radio play, there were a few casting coups, including the legendary Ed Asner (“Up,” “Mary Tyler Moore Show”) as Jabba the Hutt, who, unfortunately speaks entirely in electronically-modulated ‘Huttese’ for the role; a waste of the late actor’s considerable talents and character. In fact, Asner’s voice is so indistinguishable, that they might as well have used the original character’s vocal tracks from the film (as was done with “Greedo” in the first radio play). On the plus side, the late actor David Birney does a fine job as the unmasked Anakin Skywalker in the final chapter (“Blood of a Jedi”).  

Given the shorter runtime of this final Star Wars radio play, there aren’t as many expanded or new scenes added to the story, though a previously omitted opening scene of full-Jedi Luke Skywalker building a new lightsaber on Tatooine while communing with his father Darth Vader via the Force is restored, as well as a humorous reunion aboard the Millennium Falcon following the rescue of Han Solo, where Leia excuses herself, saying she’d like to change out of her slave girl bikini.  Once again, John Williams’ music and Ben Burtt’s sound effects, along with actor Ken Hiller’s dignified narration, all return to grace this somewhat abbreviated production, which isn’t quite as expansive as its predecessors. Sadly, the series’ genius scriptwriter Brian Daley would pass away at age 49, shortly after ROTJ’s debut in February of 1996.

After NPR’s struggle to complete ROTJ, there have been no further NPR Star Wars radio plays, though audiobook read-throughs of other Star Wars movies and non-canonical Star Wars books have continued, but without the high caliber of voice talent or Lucasfilm’s extensive library of music and sound effects.  Director John Madden’s “Shakespeare in Love” would win Best Picture at the 1999 Oscars. 

Note: I still think Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” wuz robbed, but, oh well…

NPR’s Star Wars radio plays offer fascinating alternate versions of the beloved original trilogy, giving us entirely new scenes while adding heads and tails to more familiar ones. These new bits and alternate takes add to the mythology of the Star Wars universe, even if some of that older material has been undone by later cinematic canon.

Summing Them Up

With just a bit of imagination, one can easily ‘see’ these Star Wars radio plays in one’s mind’s eye as expanded cuts of the original films. In fact, I’ve seen amateur YouTube videos using deleted scenes from the original films dubbed with dialogue from the radio plays to fill in missing audio tracks. The first two radio plays (“Star Wars” “The Empire Strikes Back”) are easily the strongest of the trilogy, and were clearly made while the momentum and funding were stronger. The admittedly late and hindered production of “Return of the Jedi” does manage to complete the story and round out the set, and I appreciate the effort, despite its flaws. 

Listening to these radio plays in full also reignited my passion for other types of audio dramas, such as Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre radio plays of the 1930s (including 1938’s adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds”), as well as the CBS Radio Mystery Theater radio plays of the 1970s and 1980s (many of which are currently available on YouTube). Along the way, I’ve also become a fan of Max Brooks’ 2007 full-cast audio drama of “World War Z” (available on Audibles) which is infinitely better than the lackluster 2013 film adaptation starring Brad Pitt, which is an adaptation in name only. I also enjoy the “Twilight Zone Radio Dramas” (available on Spotify and on CD, if you can find them through eBay or Amazon) and a few of the “Doctor Who Big Finish” audio dramas I’ve collected over the years.  All recommended.

Personally, I think fans of the Star Wars Original Trilogy (or of Star Wars in general) would be doing themselves a favor by grabbing a pair of earbuds (or good old fashioned headphones, for an era-appropriate feel) and give these radio plays a try.  If the admittedly lengthy runtimes are prohibitive, consider playing them on long drives, or during exercise, or while cooking, or even when simply surfing the internet.

Sometimes it’s good to just close your eyes, lower your blast shield, and reach out with the Force to let your imagination do the heavy lifting every once in awhile.

Where to Listen

The Internet Archive currently has all three multi-chaptered Star Wars radio plays in these links:

Star Wars: A New Hope Radio Play; Internet Archive

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Radio Play; Internet Archive

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi Radio Play; Internet Archive

If you’re a physical media nerd like myself, NPR’s Star Wars radio plays are also still available on CD box sets (individually or collectively) from Amazon. You can also listen to them on YouTube, on multiple YouTube channels; just type in Star Wars Radio Plays NPR using YouTube’s search engine, and may the Force be with you!