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I decided to read all the film novelizations last year when I got the B&N bound set of the OT. I read them all but Revenge of the Sith, starting soon though.

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the films as books? If reading the novels made anyone feel differently about their favorite (or least favorite) film?

When I listened to the audio version of Revenge of the Sith, I came away with a much finer appreciation of the story. The prequel trilogy lacked... so much. The novelizations, whose job it was not to save the movies so much as fulfill the contractual obligations to cover the movies, end up taking advantage of, or completely missing, the opportunity to make the movie so much more. Episode III nailed it. Highly recommended. It even has sound effects. On top of that, the approach Matt Stover (author of the episode III novelization) took to the story, was brilliant.

If you're looking for a shining example of a novelization done RIGHT, check out this one. Bonus points for finding the audio reading. (My local library had it.)

I completely agree with Bernard. Stover's take on Episode III was by far the best novelization I have ever read. Stover didn't hesitate to modify and expand some of the dialogues (something the authors of most novelizations are afraid to do) without adding unnecessary scenes (which happened in Salvatore's novelization in Episode II, for example). As a result, I felt the depiction of certain events - such as Anakin's transformation into Vader - was much more satisfying in the novel than it was in the movie.
I would also highly recommend anything else Stover has written in Star Wars. Shatterpoint, NJO: Traitor, as well as Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor was simply brilliant.

I agree with about the ROTS novel. Telling the opening battle from Dooku's POV added a great dimension to the story missing from the film version.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that loved ROTS. It seems a lot of the people I know are prequel haters, and it extends to everything related to them.

As for novelizations, I can't say whether I feel different about the films because of the novelizations or not. For me, it has to do more with the books and stories surrounding a film--my best example is Darth Plagueis. This one added so much depth to the character of Palpatine and the events leading up to Episode I that it actually made the movie more interesting to watch. But Terry Brooks's take on the movie...not so much. I couldn't even finish R.A. Salvatore's version of Episode II.

I agree that the Episode II book was awful. When I rewatched the movie afterwards, I couldn't help but feel like it was somehow worse than before reading it. I felt somewhat the opposite after reading ROTJ, which was always my least favorite of the OT.

Novelizations are always hard for writers, they never really have the room to play that they might want, and will usually be criticized for differences between their book and the film, which are inevitable as they usually have to work from am earlier version of the script then is given on set and actually shot. Episode two for example has a fairly large battle at the end that never got into the book, because it wasn't in the script Salvitore got.

My thoughts and opinions on the novelizations. I get the feeling that my views on them will not fall in with the majority of the people posting here but here it is, for what it's worth:

Phantom: This book was alright. I didn't like the way it started. I am not the biggest fan of Terry Brooks to begin with and this book clunked along. I did like a few of the changes and thought it did a really good job of expanding upon the foreshadowing for the other films in this series, but I felt his characters were mostly wooden, not a lot of depth but Anakin was helped by the book.

Attack/Clones: I like this novelization and I think it is the only reason I can watch the movie at all. It filled in a lot of the plot holes from the film that make that movie almost unwatchable. Salvatore's additions to the Anakin/Padme plot of the film actually help their relationship make sense and fall into place. You can understand why they do what they do, this is missing from the film and is very important to the characters development. Overall it was a hard book to write since it was the worst script in the entire Star Wars series of films. From what I have heard it was based on a very early script that changed a lot before filming started so this may explain a lot of the difference between the book and film.

Revenge/Sith: I hated this novelization but I think that is because I have figured out that I don't like Mathew Stover as an author. Every book Stover writes I end up disliking heavily. It was nice to have the Padme political plot line which was trimmed from the movie as it allows us to make sense of how Anakin and Padme end up the way they do but aside from that this book plods along and his action scenes were horrible and hard to follow. I could not stand his take on the characters, it felt to me like he didn't take the time to understand them at all or maybe it was just the 'if it isn't Mace Windu than it doesn't matter who they are' attitude.

Star Wars: This was the best of the novelizations that were written. The extra stuff added without ruining what was in the movie. The characters came to life much better when Alan Dean Foster wrote them versus what George did with them on screen.

Empire: This was a well written book but so much of it was different from the film that it almost felt like something else all together. It was very apparent that this was based on an very early script and maybe only an outline at that. While a good read way too different from the movie.

Jedi: This was well written also but the script is only so-so and that made this one a hard one to adapt, like all of the prequels. I think it is the most accurate representation of one of the films, the least added or changed. I enjoyed the book but it does not bring anything to the table really.

Some of the novels were somewhat mediocre ( Attack of the Clones comes to mind) but others such as Revenge of the sith I quite enjoyed. In fact reading this novel improved my impression of the actual movie.