"Folks at NPR thought, 'Oh good grief, we're selling out to Hollywood.'"

December 20, 2015 9:34 PM

In 1981, NPR affiliate station KUSC hatched a bold plan to adapt George Lucas’ Star Wars for radio. Easily the most visual film of the last decade, Star Wars as a listening experience seemed like an unlikely idea, but Lucas sold them the rights to adapt the hit movie for one dollar, and opened the Lucasfilm vaults to the show’s producers: Star Wars sound effects would be available to them in their raw form, along with every note of John Williams’ music. The cast was a mixture of original Star Wars cast members, Hollywood veterans, and future TV and movie stars still in the early stages of their careers. Novelist Brian Daley and Director John Madden then turned the first three films into "movies to watch with your eyes closed."

Logbook: Radio Free Death Star: A Brief History of NPR’s Star Wars:

"Writer [and science-fiction novelist] Brian Daley expanded slightly over two hours of movie into thirteen half-hours of radio, primarily by expanding on the events in the movie’s earliest scenes, going further back in time to give listeners a “look” into Luke Skywalker’s dull Tatooine life (and constantly being teased by his friends for being a dreamer of far-fetched dreams), and his friendship with future Rebel pilot Biggs. Also explored was Princess Leia’s life on Alderaan with her father, Bail Organa, and their activities with the the Rebel Alliance leading up to the theft of the Death Star plans. If one can overlook a certain naivete on Bail Organa’s part when it comes to the Rebellion (in the prequel trilogy, Organa is shown to be one of the Rebellion’s founding fathers, not hesitating to rescue and shelter the last two Jedi Knights known to have survived the Emperor’s “Order 66”), the events portrayed actually track very well with the story revelations that came in the later movies.

Acting out Daley’s scripts in the KUSC recording studios would be a mixture of original Star Wars cast members, Hollywood veterans, actors who nearly had a shot at intergalactic Star Wars fame, and future TV and movie stars still in the early stages of their careers. Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels reprised their roles of Luke Skywalker and C-3PO, while familiar sound effects eliminated the need to recast R2-D2 or Chewbacca. Though he lost the role to Harrison Ford on film, Perry King finally got his opportunity to play Han Solo on the radio. Brock Peters took over for James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader. Other future “names” such as David Alan Grier, Jerry Hardin and Meschach Taylor joined Hamill and the others in donating their time for free in exchange for a unique experience: radio Star Wars would almost certainly be one of the most-listened-to NPR broadcasts ever, and might even lead to a resurgence in the medium of American-made radio drama. With such a high-visibility (audibility?) project and their future career profiles to consider, why not?"

Edited versions are available on YouTube

NPR's Star Wars Radio Dramas: Full Playlist

A New Hope. (A six-hour edit can be heard here.)
Written by Brian Daley
Directed by John Madden
Produced by National Public Radio
Music by John Williams
Sound Design by Ben Burtt
Originally Broadcast in 1981
Starring:
Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker
Perry King as Han Solo
Ann Sachs as Princess Leia Organa
Brock Peters as Darth Vader
Anthony Daniels as C-3P0
Bernard Behrens as Obi-Wan (Ben) Kenobi
Keene Curtis as Grand Moff Tarkin
John Considine as Lord Tion
Stephen Elliott as Bail Organa
Kale Browne as Biggs Darklighter
David Clennon as Admiral Motti
Thomas Hill as Uncle Owen
Anne Gerety as Aunt Beru
Adam Arkin as Fixer
David Paymer as Deak
Stephanie Steele as Cammie
Joel Brooks as Heater
Meschach Taylor as Wedge Antilles

The Empire Strikes Back
Written by Brian Daley
Directed by John Madden
Produced by National Public Radio
Music by John Williams
Sound Design by Ben Burtt
Originally aired February, 1983
Starring:
Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker
Ann Sachs as Princess Leia Organa
Perry King as Han Solo
Brock Peters as Darth Vader
John Lithgow as Yoda
Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian
Anthony Daniels as C-3P0
Bernard Behrens as Obi-Wan (Ben) Kenobi
Merwin Goldsmith as General Rieekan
Peter Michael Goetz as Admiral Ozzel
David Rasche as Captain Piett
Gordon Gould as General Veers
Nicholas Kepros as Captain Needa
Paul Hecht as Emperor Palpatine
Alan Rosenburg as Boba Fett
Don Scardino as Wedge

Return of the Jedi
Written by Brian Daley
Directed by John Madden
Produced by HighBridge Audio
Music by John Williams
Sound Design by John Burtt
Originally aired in 1996
Starring:
Joshua Fardon as Luke Skywalker
Ann Sachs as Princess Leia Organa
Perry King as Han Solo
Brock Peters as Darth Vader
John Lithgow as Yoda
Paul Hecht as Emperor Palpatine
Arye Gross as Lando Calrissian
Ed Begley Jr. as Boba Fett
Ed Asner as Jabba the Hutt
Anthony Daniels as C-3P0
Bernard Behrens as Obi-Wan (Ben) Kenobi
David Birney as Anakin Skywalker
Mark Adair Rios as Admiral Ackbar
Jon Matthews as Wedge Antilles
Peter Michael Goetz as General Crix Madine
Natalia Nogulich as Mon Mothma
Peter Dennis as Moff Jerjerrod
David Dukes as Bib Fortuna
Samantha Bennett as Arica/Mara Jade
Yeardley Smith as EV-9D9

posted by zarq (42 comments total)

David Paymer as Deak
David Rasche as Captain Piett
John Lithgow as Yoda
Arye Gross as Lando Calrissian
Ed Begley Jr. as Boba Fett
Ed Asner as Jabba the Hutt

Get out
posted by rhizome at 9:47 PM on December 20, 2015 [26 favorites]

John Lithgow = not bad as Yoda.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:49 PM on December 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

I have vivid memories of discovering at the very last minute we did not receive the NPR station that was broadcasting this from the bumblefuck area where my family home was. (the station was available when driving in the area but not with whatever FM radio my dad had in the house at the time.)

Like a whiny Luke Skywalker, I silently vowed always to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible and to always go to Tosche Station if I wanted to do so.

(Okay, my origin story is not that clear, but if you run the real thing through the Lucasfilm filter, that's basically what you'd get.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:58 PM on December 20, 2015 [8 favorites]

This is relevant to my interests! I heard part of this a long time ago and it was really, really good. Like "so good I might have imagined it" good. Now I can finally hear the whole thing. It's a Christmas Miracle!
posted by irisclara at 10:04 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

While you can, laugh, monkey boy. Rrrmm, yes.
posted by Mrs. Davros at 10:05 PM on December 20, 2015 [12 favorites]

I listened to this first run as a kid - iirc, they backed the Star Wars half hours with Hickhiker's Guide. Whatever, it was awesome.

My wife, who is a huge Star Wars fan, had never heard of the series, and it is clearly my best Star Wars gift to her ever in the form of CDs she can listen to on her commute.
posted by mwhybark at 10:10 PM on December 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

I've never listened to this, despite being a big fan of Daleys' fiction. (There were rumors before his death that he was working on another Hobart Floyt & Alacrity Fitzhugh book, though perhaps that was just wishful thinking on my part. That setting would be fun for an RPG, for sure.) And his other work with Star Wars—the books he wrote about Han Solo and Chewie having adventures—are quite good.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:15 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

The movies weren't why I named a pair of guppies Luke and Leia. It was the radio adaptation and I was 6 and I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT WAS TO BECOME CANON EITHER, OK
posted by Spatch at 10:22 PM on December 20, 2015 [8 favorites]

John Lithgow as is Yoda.
posted by mazola at 10:37 PM on December 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

I should probably look at this again now that I'm older, but I remember hearing this on a long drive when I was much younger and it was like falling into some bizarre alternate universe where Star Wars wasn't an exciting movie but instead the longest, dullest explanation of life on a desert planet ever conceived. I didn't have any context other than yes, that IS the voice of Luke Skywalker and they keep saying it is Star Wars but the content was endless boring discussions by people in what I guess was the intergalactic equivalent of 'Between Bakersfield and Taft, If You Know Where That Is'.

Maybe it picks up around hours seven or eight?
posted by Skrubly at 10:47 PM on December 20, 2015 [8 favorites]

Sadly, Skrubly, I know the earthly equivalent of between Bakersfield and Taft all too well. And don't get me started about Fresno ... Nevertheless, I plan to give this radio thing a listen. Thanks for the post, zarq.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:00 PM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm giving Episode IV a try, but it's a good reminder of what a miracle of concision the original movie is. I'm 1.5 hours in and we still haven't met Obi Wan.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:18 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was a Star Wars maniac and adored the Empire adaptation as a kid, yet somehow I totally missed the Star Wars and Jedi ones. It really is strange that it somehow bypassed me, because I was the ideal target audience for these things and would have loved them but somehow parts 1 and 2 never reached me.

(Come to think of it, I believe they broadcast Empire on the cruddy local college station, which may have been going through some sort of brief NPR flirtation. I guess they never ran the other parts, and since this was pre-Internet I never heard about it and never knew that Ed Asner had played Jabba. Such was life in the dark ages! If there was a bright center to the universe, Long Beach was the planet it was farthest from.)

Of course it's gonna seem long and digressive if you go into it expecting the movies. The whole point is that these things expand on the movies. If you're annoyed that Obi Wan hasn't shown up yet and everybody keeps talking and talking, perhaps the show isn't the problem but you're just not listening right.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:59 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just listened to these last month on a drive back to New York from Florida. The Star Wars one is a bit of a slog at the beginning (the written-for-radio Princess Leia prologue is terrible, and while the Luke prologue is essentially what was shot by Lucas from the shooting script, you can understand why he chose to drop it from the film) but once you move into the story we all know and love, it zips right along. Overall, Daley did a great job adapting these and they're a lot of fun. I wound up picking up his Han Solo trilogy (which I hadn't read since I was a kid) and am pleased to say that they hold up pretty well.
posted by KingEdRa at 4:12 AM on December 21, 2015

I had completely forgotten about these until someone mentioned them on this very website a few years ago. My dad and us kids used to head down the coast for weekend getaways and the Star Wars radio series featured very heavily for a while there and then vanished from my mind for 30 something years. How wonderful to get to hear them again!
posted by h00py at 4:17 AM on December 21, 2015

I remember listening to the first adaptation as a kid - it was my first experience with radio drama and it was so much fun.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:07 AM on December 21, 2015

I used to have these on cassette tapes that I taped myself. So there were parts missing because my tapes had to be flipped, etc.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:42 AM on December 21, 2015

Metafilter: you're just not listening right.
posted by el io at 5:55 AM on December 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

zarq: "Novelist Brian Daley and Director John Madden then turned the first three films into "movies to watch with your eyes closed.""

OK, OK, now just watch Skywalker fire those torpedoes into that exhaust port. Boom! Pow! Right there. Here's a guy who when he uses the Force, he can actually shoot better.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:50 AM on December 21, 2015 [15 favorites]

Ed Asner as Jabba the Hutt

Technically, it's Ed Asner speaking Huttese under a whole bunch of cheap audio filters (although they make liberal use of Ben Burtt's sound library for ROTJ, he's not the sound designer on the actual episodes per se) as Jabba. If you didn't know it was him, you literally wouldn't be able to tell. I love these dramas with every bit of my heart, but you could tell the budget for time and resources were running low by the time they got to ROTJ.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:55 AM on December 21, 2015

OK, OK, now just watch Skywalker fire those torpedoes into that exhaust port. Boom! Pow! Right there. Here's a guy who when he uses the Force, he can actually shoot better.

"Ooh, and Vader chops off Luke's hand! I don't care who you are, that's gotta hurt."
posted by entropicamericana at 7:57 AM on December 21, 2015 [7 favorites]

Like a whiny Luke Skywalker, I silently vowed always to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible and to always go to Tosche Station if I wanted to do so.


You're listening to KTTN, Mos Eisley Public Radio. It's our annual pledge drive, and for the next hour, we've got a credit for credit match from Jay Hutt, and some new rewards. For only 100 credits, Max Rebo and his band will play at your event. And for 250 credits, they'll stop. Call in now so we can put off our slide into the Sarlacc Pit for one more year.
posted by zippy at 7:58 AM on December 21, 2015 [17 favorites]

I bought and listened to SW on CDs 10-15 years ago. Enjoyed it very much.

Also, I once captured the audio of the movie and listened to that on road trips many times. It is an aural feast.
posted by neuron at 8:48 AM on December 21, 2015

I have had to institute a rule in my car. You can only ask to listen to the Star Wars radio plays once in a trip. If I say no, I will offer to play them at some later point. Unless you ask me again. If you ask me again, I won't play them.

My kid is 8. For the past three or four years, he has listened to and loved these.
They might slog a bit at times, but they if they can hold a kid's attention, they aren't that bad.

When I was a kid, I recorded them off the radio.
I had the cassettes until adulthood.
One year I was living in this walk in freezer. We would close the door, turn out the lights, lay on the shelves (or my cot) and listen to the cassettes. We were smokers. Zipping your cigarette back and forth during blaster battles was AWESOME. Turning the freezer on during the Hoth scenes was . . . cold.
posted by Seamus at 8:51 AM on December 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Now I want to hear the events of Star Wars narrated by all the sports announcers.

"Well Jeem, last night we talked to General Organa about the Rebels' plans for defending the base on Hoth, and she told us that the turrets are very good at shooting AT-ATs, so that will really help them shoot AT-ATs."
posted by Rock Steady at 9:01 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Palpatine: You are a powerful Sith Lord.
Vader: I am a powerful Sith Lord.
Palpatine: You will beat Luke Skywalker.
Vader: I will beat Luke Skywalker.
Palpatine: You will give one hundred and ten percent.
Vader: That's impossible. No one can give more than one hundred percent. By definition that is the most anyone can give.
posted by entropicamericana at 9:32 AM on December 21, 2015 [5 favorites]

Andrés Cantor: Palpatine approaches Vader. Approaching. He whispers to him. Something about Padmé? She's dead? Nooooooooooo! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!
posted by Rock Steady at 9:37 AM on December 21, 2015

goddamnit I promised myself I wouldn't engage with any star wars content this month but this is ugh
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:44 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

I hate how much I wanted to relisten to all these right now. My dad taped them all off the radio and I listened to them on my red Sony boom box over and over and over again. Before Empire came out I thought this WAS Star Wars. I was so confused when I saw the 1st movie on video.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:46 AM on December 21, 2015 [4 favorites]

Does anyone else remember the 15hr expanded radio play version of Buckaroo Bonzai that I wrote in my own head in the 90s? Because I do
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:50 AM on December 21, 2015 [12 favorites]

One year I was living in this walk in freezer.

wait what
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:25 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

So, Potomac Avenue, . . . uh . . . what's the chances you would write that out someday.
That's some fanfic I could get behind.

One year I was living in this walk in freezer.
wait what
Yeah, it was a room and I could shut the door, so I moved in. The problem was when people thought it was funny to plug in the compressor while I was asleep. I would wake up shivering with ice crystals in the water on my nightstand. It was a freezer so it had shelves to store stuff on.
The reality wasn't nearly as interesting as you would think.
But the darkness was absolute.
posted by Seamus at 10:37 AM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Double
posted by miguelcervantes at 11:23 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Whatever quibbles one has with Lucas, his openness to fan fiction and stuff like this was always cool. Try and imagine Disney licensing it for a dollar and providing all the effects and music.
posted by pmurray63 at 11:49 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

So are the versions on YouTube (quasi-)bootlegs, or can someone hook me up with MP3s with proper metadata? Because these sound like the sort of thing I'd want to hang on to, long term.
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:39 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've never listened to this, despite being a big fan of Daleys' fiction. (There were rumors before his death that he was working on another Hobart Floyt & Alacrity Fitzhugh book, though perhaps that was just wishful thinking on my part. That setting would be fun for an RPG, for sure.) And his other work with Star Wars—the books he wrote about Han Solo and Chewie having adventures—are quite good.


Ah, yes, the Doomfarers of Coramonde...my copy was dogeared to the point of falling apart.
posted by prodigalsun at 1:03 PM on December 21, 2015

Double

Arrrgh! I hate it when that happens.

Flagging this for mod review but I hope, just maybe the additional content (the extra two shows and background on how they came to be) might save this one?
posted by zarq at 2:24 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Recently re-watched the six movies, and listened to A New Hope radio drama. The radio show is better. No bad CGI.
posted by larrybob at 3:20 PM on December 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

(Also, if you find you love science fiction in audio form, may I suggest the Doctor Who stories at Big Finish?. It is exactly the the right time of year to listen to The Chimes of Midnight, for example. Christmas just isn't Christmas without your plum pudding.)
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 4:59 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Amazing. A whole thread on Star Wars that hasn't devolved into an "George Lucas stepped all over my childhood" bitchfest about the prequels.

There is hope. Maybe even ... a new hope.
posted by zooropa at 7:20 PM on December 21, 2015 [4 favorites]

Last year I got these as an audiobook from my the local library. I wonder if it's the same thing?
posted by wenestvedt at 9:14 AM on January 7, 2016

Ah-hah! The hidden notes on the YouTube page say, "Edited to remove all opening and closing narration (by Ken Hiller) from each individual episode, combining the 13 half hour episodes into one continuous five hour audio drama."

Which means that yes, it's the same thing I have. So...cool!
posted by wenestvedt at 9:20 AM on January 7, 2016