By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
With Kathleen Kennedy stepping down from Lucasfilm, many fans are hoping we might start getting better movies and TV shows set in a galaxy far, far away. Unfortunately, that could take a long, long time, and there’s no guarantee the franchise will ever hit the creative heights it experienced under George Lucas. In the meantime, here’s some good news for Star Wars fans: there are decades of killer audio dramas for you to catch up on.
Star Wars Audio Dramas Rule
Interestingly, the phenomenon of Star Wars audio dramas goes back to the early days of the Original Trilogy. Back in 1981, NPR released an audio drama recreating A New Hope, and we later got adaptations of The Empire Strikes and The Return of the Jedi. Each of them has a full cast of voice actors that includes familiar franchise faces like Mark Hamill and Billie Dee Williams as well as fun newcomers like Brock Peters and John Lithgow.
These early Star Wars audio dramas kicked off a storytelling tradition that continued into the ‘90s with adaptations of some of the best Dark Horse comics of that era. This includes adaptations of Dark Empire, Crimson Empire, and many more. As someone who grew up reading these awesome comics, it’s great hearing them brought to life in a way that I can enjoy during walks, gym visits, or late night video game sessions.
For Star Wars fans who don’t mind enjoying non-canonical stories, there are plenty of other audio dramas to choose from based on Legends characters and tales. This includes stories related to Dark Forces, the iconic Star Wars first-person shooter that recently got a remaster. There are also adaptations of the Tales of the Jedi comics that gave fans our first real glimpse of what the Jedi were like at the height of their power.
When it comes to non-canon Star Wars audio dramas, many would say the gold standards are the ones created Kyle Newman. He recorded and/or released these tales for different Star Wars Celebration conventions, and each drama focuses on Han Solo and Chewbacca’s adventures after A New Hope. As an added bonus, these dramas featured the vocal talents of voice actors from the beloved Clone Wars cartoon series.
There are, of course, canonical Star Wars audio dramas, including ones focusing on Count Dooku and Doctor Aphra (a fan-favorite character that debuted in the comics). There are also several audio dramas set during the High Republic era. If you hated how The Acolyte portrayed that time period, you may enjoy the more coherent audio dramas, which have 100 percent less mystery boxes and confusing flashbacks.
If you want to check these Star Wars audio dramas out, your best bet is to explore them through Audible, which has many available at the click of a button. If you’re feeling old-school, though, you can always track down the vintage cassettes or CDs for the older productions. No matter how you experience these dramas, you can be sure of one thing: they are far, far better than what Disney has been trying to shove down our throats for the last few years.
