Escape from Darth Vader (World of Reading)

Darth Vader's Great Escape is a story geared toward younger readers, published by Disney–Lucasfilm Press and hitting shelves on September 16, 2014. Penned by Michael Siglain and brought to life with illustrations from Stéphane Roux, the narrative unfolds during the initial moments of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, focusing on the Rebel Alliance's ship, the Tantive IV, as it's being hunted by the Imperial Star Destroyer known as [Devastator] (/article/devastator). The tale follows the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO as they make their daring escape and crash-land on the desert world of Tatooine, with R2-D2 safeguarding the secret schematics for the Empire's formidable Death Star weapon.

Publisher's summary

C-3PO and R2D2 [sic] must prevent Darth Vader from getting his hands on the Rebels' top-secret designs! This book, filled with illustrations and perfect for early readers, re-tells the famous scenes from A New Hope where the droids find themselves on Tatooine and encounter a young man named Luke.

Plot summary

A rebellious starship, carrying Princess Leia Organa, is enduring an assault from a significantly larger Imperial warship. Princess Organa is in possession of classified schematics for an Imperial weapon. A specialized droid, R2-D2, is urgently trying to find the princess, who is quickly trying to avoid an Imperial boarding party. Elsewhere, another type of droid, C-3PO, is concerned that everyone on the ship is doomed.

Princess Organa dodges the pursuing stormtroopers and entrusts R2-D2 with the secret plans, to prevent them from falling into the grasp of the dreaded Sith Lord Darth Vader. She is soon captured by the pursuing soldiers and brought before Vader, but she keeps the plans' location a secret. C-3PO locates R2-D2, and together, they board an escape pod, which crash lands on a desert planet. Having evaded Vader while safeguarding the secret plans, they embark on a new adventure that will lead them to meet farm boy Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, smuggler Han Solo, and the Wookiee Chewbacca.

Development

Situations and concepts are presented in simple language.

On April 25, 2014, Lucasfilm made public a revised approach to storytelling within the Star Wars universe. Under this new system, older works previously considered part of the Expanded Universe were re-designated as Star Wars Legends, while all new releases would form a new, unified canon. Escape from Darth Vader, a fully illustrated, thirty-two-page book by Michael Siglain with illustrations by Stéphane Roux, was released on September 16, 2014, making it part of this new canon.

This title, aimed at readers between 6 and 8 years old, re-tells events and situations originally presented in the original trilogy film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. Disney–Lucasfilm Press also released a digital version on October 7, 2014, and Egmont put out a U.K. edition on June 4, 2015. An Australian version was also published by Scholastic Inc..

Continuity

Escape from Darth Vader belongs to the World of Reading series of Star Wars books, designed to retell events from the franchise in a way that is easy for young children to understand. Other books in this series include Use the Force!, Rescue from Jabba's Palace, and AT-AT Attack!, all of which were released in 2015.

There are two short stories by other authors with the same title as Escape from Darth Vader. One short story by Rebecca L. Schmidt was included in the anthology The Original Trilogy Stories on September 1, 2015. The other short story, by Brooke Dworkin, was released as one of eleven stories in 5-Minute Star Wars Stories, a December 2015 collection from Disney–Lucasfilm Press. It uses the same core story and illustrations by Stéphane Roux but has completely new text written by Dworkin, and it also includes direct quotes from the film that are not in Siglain's version.

Escape from Darth Vader is one of the stories included in the collection 3 Out-of-This-World Tales!, which came out on August 29, 2017. This collection also features AT-AT Attack! and Ewoks Join the Fight, and it comes with a CD containing narrations of the stories.

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