That was definitely a concern as I read their initial chapter on the (chronologically) first Star Wars film, which repeats much of what Kiminski, Rinzler, and countless other writers and documentarians have already revealed about that movie. Secrets of the Force uncovers more secrets when it moves beyond such well-trodden ground to get into such relative oddities as Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye novel, the merchandising, and the much-maligned Star Wars Holiday Special. By fully acknowledging that Star Wars is more than a series of feature films, Gross and Altman have basically found their own niche.
But with that comes the unfortunate paradox of Secrets of the Force: the terrific movies it discusses have been so over-discussed elsewhere that the freshest chapters discuss a lot of stuff that stinks. I was curious to see how our tour guides would deal with The Phantom Menace, a movie that even Altman admits to hating in his introduction. I was not so curious that I really needed to read 70 pages about that particular film though. That’s nearly as many pages as the authors allot to Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi combined or the entirety of the sequel trilogy. None of the commentators grasp the simple reasons why a lot of people don’t like Phantom Menace or the other prequels. It’s not that they were too unlike the original trilogy for long-time fans, as most of the commentators theorize. It’s not because of their lapses in continuity or character motivation, because if that was the case, there would be no hope for any Star Wars movie. It’s that the prequel characters don’t have personalities, the acting and writing are stilted, the plot is dull and too byzantine for children’s movies, and the visuals have all the warmth and texture of a video game. When the commentators in your oral history lack sufficient insight, they put your oral history at a disadvantage.
On the flip side, Altman and Gross practically cede the entire chapter on Return of the Jedi to a writer named Ray Morton who hates that episode more than most fans do. Morton is also the primary critical voice on The Force Awakens, and he does not like that one either. Consequently, we’re left with the impression that the execrable prequels are more beloved than they are, the air-headed but still fairly entertaining Return of the Jedi and Force Awakens are much less so, and that Morton, who is the most quoted voice in this book by a long shot, is the final authority on all things Star Wars.
While there are some pretty large sections of Secrets of the Force I was almost tempted to skip over, I do recommend the book as a whole, especially to those who have not read any of those other Star Wars histories. This is certainly the most compact and complete regarding the attention it offers to almost all of the major Star Wars offshoots (the book passes over Rogue One and Solo completely and affords only eight pages to The Mandalorian, easily the best thing with the Star Wars brand name to emerge after the original trilogy). The key words in its subtitle are “uncensored” and “unauthorized,” which imply a certain irreverence you’re not going to find in any Disney-authorized history. It probably could have used even more of that, but at least Altman and Gross allow critical voices such as Foster and Lucas-biographer Dale Pollock to chip in their respective two cents and balance people, such as the guy who made that Fan Boys movie, who uncritically worship Lucas.
There are also plenty of anecdotes from Mark Hamill, the most effortlessly charming living person associated with Star Wars. And because Altman and Gross do not limit themselves to the living, there are anecdotes from those other effortless charmers Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing, as well as Alec Guinness, Kenny Baker, screenwriter Leigh Brackett, Irvin Kershner, and a rather self-aggrandizing Richard Marquand. Oh, and there’s also a quote from Monkee Micky Dolenz, so you can’t say Secrets of the Force doesn’t break any new ground at all for the Star Wars history.
