The Retelling of ‘Star Wars’ in This Decades Old Chinese Comic Book is Simply Stunning!
Back in the 1980’s, a few Chinese publishers released comic book adaptations of George Lucas’ blockbuster smash hit film Star Wars.
One Chinese retelling was packed with illustrations showing scenes from the famous 1977 blockbuster film. However, beyond Darth Vader, C-3PO, R2 and a few other characters, the book was vastly different from the movie’s storyline. This is by far one of the most interesting movie adaptations ever created. You’ve got to see this!
Titled Xing Qiu Da Zhan (Chinese for “Star Wars”), is a fantastic comic book film adaption that was unearthed by Maggie Greene, an assistant history professor at Montana State University. Lost for decades, Maggie accidentally unearthed the book at the Shanghai book fair back in 2010 and later decided to tweet a few photos from the pages of the book. The original tweet gained so much notoriety and overwhelmingly enthusiastic support from followers, she later decided to scan and post the whole volume of photos.
The comic book, originally published in 1980, was vastly different from what was produced in the United States during that time. Xing Qiu Da Zhan features single images accompanied by short descriptions that look like a picture book. It draws on a Chinese tradition dating back to the early 20th century.
The comic gets some of the plot of George’s film correct, but the general outline has some very strange and unusual differences. One scene involves Darth Vader ordering a scanning crew full of Mandalorian’s that are dispatched to complete a search of a spacecraft.
Another scene shows the deep bowels of what is supposed to be the enormous interior of the Death Star. This image looks oddly like a scene from Star Trek: The Motion Pictures Starfleet Headquarters.
Yet another scene involves a meeting room on the “Death Star,” which has Darth Vader staring at star map that shows the “Kennedy Space Center”.
Regardless of the interesting direction that the comic book takes, it doesn’t distract you from taking in the beautiful and stunning Chinese art. It’s one wild an interesting take on the Star Wars we all know and love….
But Wait, There’s More!
Thanks to Nick Stember, a translator and historian of Chinese comics and science fiction, the complete 142 pages of the Chinese adaption has been painstakingly translated for your viewing pleasure. Along with Maggie Greene’s high quality scans you can now view the complete SIX part Star Wars Chinese comic book adaption below. Click on the link.
CHINESE STAR WARS COMIC SIX PART SAGA
For more detailed information about the comic, please visit Maggie Greene’s blog.
May the force be with you….
This is the craziest fever dream of an adaptation that I have ever seen.
Hai https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa49dd7961001282b0298f6c01cef3d0f09b69535dcbec3c2be5cbe7b93bffc8.jpg
Nice – they cribbed Leiji Matsumodo’s ‘Space Battleship Yamato’! Dude – the Wave Motion Gun would OWN the Death Star!
http://www.nickstember.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Chinese_star_wars_comic_manhua_llianhuanhua5.jpg
how awesomely bizarre
Kind of star wars as a Rupert story
To add weirdness on top of other weirdness: some of the designs are obviously based on Empire (there’s clearly something that looks like Boba Fett, and the bounty hunter droid is featured as well). Also: onomatopoeias are written in latin alphabet, instead of ideograms, in a chinese comic book? Is that a thing?
ALSO also: apparently Owen and Beru lived in a classy “late ’60s/early ’70s”-ish apartment, with the stylized statue of a naked lady, and Ben Kenobi used to have J&B bottles lying around his ’70s-optical “secret cave” (with windows).
I LOVE this shit. Tshi!
Every single thing about this comic is a win.
I had to laugh about the last image which seems to be derived from one of Frank Frazetta’s works: http://www.notzombies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/frazetta-jc0.jpeg
The original shows John Carter of Mars as a little ironic icing on the cake. 🙂
Good eye!
This is awesome!! I had no idea this edition existed. the art is fantastic, looks like a great storyboard.
I think we now know why the Chinese Box Office is never spectacular for the films….they just go make their own shit up
And when you say “shit”, you’re not far from the thruth.. 😉
Don’t feel too bad. Pretty much every blockbuster is geared towards them now
Page 50.
This is what Obiwan should’ve looked like in the PT!
Armor! Missile-launching Motorcyle! Sweet helmet!
Disney, find this guy and hire him!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dfb0d9bb9b3418637cef084925d423b9a11dd420b54423504d5b1cfd6f116434.jpg
Not sure it’s very SW but I’d still love to see it onscreen
Well, when most seem in awe in front of this pictures, I just see poor copies of something that was not understood nor directed…that’s why all this mess and mix of SW/Empire and other SciFi/fantasy icons (from 80 and before, remember it was not done in 77.. a time where copyrights in this country meant absolutly nothing) in one comics serial. Who said chinese were only good at copying? Well, at the time, not even able to copy properly…unless it was a meant to be a joke, which I have troubles to believe. Hopefully they’ve done much better since. IMNSHO 🙂
Your must be fun at parties (<— sarcasm, since I suspect you may have trouble detecting it).
Chewie gets a medal! As well as Artoo and Threepio!
Ha ha. Starfleet headquarters, Love it. The Sith rage from San Fran!
Like Turkish Star Wars in printed format. I actually love this stuff since it’s like digging up old drawings you did as a kid that were completely inaccurate to the story but full of creativity