To head off too much further speculation, let's just say that I did my best to keep the adaptation focused on the events of the script itself; this book is intended as a companion piece to this particular film, after all, and Mr. Lucas made it even more so, trimming things that would have made tasty Easter eggs for EU fans, but were not entirely necessary to understand the story.

I believe that Mr. Lucas's level of involvement with this book is roughly the same as with the other novelizations; at least, no one at LFL seemed surprised -- quite the contrary, in fact, when it looked like his work schedule might prevent him from taking a close look, they seemed surprised and disappointed. Fortunately, he managed to find the time. I don't know, however, that he's read any of my other work, or that he has any plans to. It didn't come up.

...

Though there's no marker. LucasBooks does everything electronically now, so Mr. Lucas just went through and hand-deleted everything he didn't want the book to say, and hand-entered everything he did want the book to say.

He didn't give his reasons. He doesn't have to. Though, I have to say, his reasons are usually entirely clear.

...

Not all over the place. With the exception of a couple specific scenes and one thread of imagery, he mostly let it stand.

You may be surprised to learn that I actually know what I'm doing.