TFN Interview with Ryder Windham

January 24, 2012 at 8:50 am | Posted in Interview, Star Wars Books, Star Wars News | Leave a comment
Tags: ryder windham, the wrath of darth maul

TheForce.Net posted an interview yesterday with Star Wars author Ryder Windham. The interview covers his work with the various Star Wars biography books including his new book The Wrath of Darth Maul.

How has your approach to the subjects of the biographies changed over the last four volumes?

For The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader, I was initially instructed to focus primarily on writing an adaptation of every scene featuring Anakin and Vader in the movies. I can’t remember why, but Lucasfilm was somewhat hesitant to let me incorporate a lot of details from the Expanded Universe. I very politely protested, suggesting that readers would expect something more than a replay of Anakin and Vader in the movies, that the Expanded Universe information would be new for a lot of young readers. I was also keen on adding some new bits, like how Anakin and his mother arrived on Tatooine, and how they met Watto, not because I wanted to claim bragging rights for scripting those particular moments, but because I thought such sequences would help shape Anakin’s character. It was also my idea to tell the story in a somewhat non-linear fashion, beginning with Vader just before the events of Return of the Jedi, and then flashing back to Anakin Skywalker’s childhood, and proceeding up through the end of Jedi.

After the novel was released, young readers enjoyed it well enough, but a good number of older readers complained that that it didn’t contain more “new” material. Annmarie Nye became my editor at Scholastic, and when she offered me the Obi-Wan assignment, she encouraged me to draw more from the Expanded Universe and also to create new sequences. For the Luke Skywalker book, I was further encouraged to develop new sequences, including an adventure for Luke after the events of Return of the Jedi, and I couldn’t resist resurrecting an old enemy from the Star Wars comic strip by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson. As for Darth Maul, very few stories existed about his youth, so I was fortunate in that Lucasfilm allowed me to expand his biography quite a bit.

Windham answers a lot of questions on Maul and the interview is well worth checking out. You can view the full interview here.

Posted By: Skuldren for Roqoo Depot.