The title is very specific, and doesn’t claim the movie is based on the novel despite that clearly being what they’re trying to really claim.

The order was screenplay > book > movie, but the writing was screenplay > book and screenplay > movie. The book and movie aren’t actually related, other than the underlying screenplay they both use. The Fandom wiki page linked literally says:

It adapts the film of the same name, and it was based on the screenplay by Lucas.

“which means Star Wars hype is technically literary-based in nature”

With this logic, all movies are literary-based since all movies are created from screenplays.

I wasn’t trying to claim the movie was based on a book (not sure where that’s coming from), just that the book’s status as coming before the movie in terms of release has the weird effect of implying the hype train could’ve begun with a book and that one could argue Star Wars is technically a book series first, even if it’s a movie tradition first.

Like imagine back then any Lord-of-the-Rings-type discussions that could’ve played out, a la “did you see this movie, it’s awesome” followed by “yeah, but did you read the book?”

“implying the hype train could’ve begun with a book”

But it didn’t. Yet your title wasn’t posed as a hypothetical but as a fact.