Star Wars Radio Drama Now Available on Audible

When I was in Middle School I once by chance happened upon an episode of the Empire Strikes Back on the Radio. It was really cool. It had a few recognizable character voices but not a full cast. I remember specifically the scene with R2-D2 in the bog on Degoba and Luke was talking dialog that was unnecessary for the filmed version. It was a clear illustration of the difference between a radio drama and a video production.

So I happened upon this episode of what was a serialized production. It was on the local NPR radio station. I had missed the beginning part. I figured out how to use the family high-fi to hook up to the cassette recorder. This was an old piece of furniture with a radio and a record player. The cassette recorder was a separate wooden box that set on top and connected to the AUX port using RCA cables. The cassette recorder required two hands to press the record button. You had to push the record button and then press the play knob to the right to get it to record. That is how I left it because I had to get to school. I came home to a partial recording of the episode. At the end of the episode was information about when the next episode was on. I think there were 10 half-hour episodes. I recorded as many of them as I could using the same procedure. I shared the cassette tapes with friends from school.

Years later I spotted the same radio drama in CD format in a friend’s CD collection. This same friend also had Star Wars in the same format. During a road trip a short time later we listened to both CD collections. You can still buy these CD collections on CD for about $100 each. Amazon naturally has them for cheaper. About a decade later NPR produced Return of the Jedi in the same format. I have yet to hear this production.

Fast forward to November 2007. Audible.com has just released all three productions in their library. This is a great value, especially if you have the Audible Listener plan like I do. I get two audiobooks every month for a little over $20 — that’s about $10 a book. I downloaded the first episode right away. I’m looking forward to listening to all three episode this month.