Product Description
The Star Wars universe is expanding faster than ever before, and Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Characters has received an exciting new face-lift-with completely updated text and more than a hundred brand new, full-color illustrations by extraordinary new artist Michael Sutfin. This all-new Essential Guide features detailed profiles of more than one hundred and thirty characters from across the Star Wars galaxy, including all of your favorites-such as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, and Mara Jade-as well as, from Episode II: • Jango Fett • Count Dooku • Anakin Skywalker • Zam Wesell And the key players from Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace: • Queen Amidala • Qui-Gon Jinn • Mace Windu • Darth Maul Here is complete, updated coverage of the novels from the incredible New Jedi Order and all of the classic movies, books, comics, TV specials, games, and the rest of the Star Wars universe. This must-have book describes the essential history and personal data for each character-with vital statistics, homeworlds, and political affiliations. More characters, more information, brilliant artwork-the Essential Guides are hotter than ever!
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 Not comprehensive enough ( jawajojo )
The most obvious flaw of this book is that it doesn't include Revenge of the Sith material. So critical things like Anakin's fall to the Dark Side, Padme and Count Dooku's deaths, General Greivous entirely, are all casually left out.
The more annoying flaw though, is the lack of coverage. A good amount of characters are covered, but too many are just left out entirely. Nearly all the members of Rogue Squadron simply aren't mentioned, just as one example. It's hard to expect them to fit in every character ever, but there are far too many missing for this resource to be able to be considered comprehensive.
Their main mistake was restricting themselves by format. Every character received at least one whole page of information, plus a full, detailed, color illustration. At the end, a few dozen other characters got a short blurb, and some got a facial portrait. They should have gone for a more encyclopedic approach, allotting as much space as was necessary for each character, and not restricting themselves to a page by page format. Then they could have included a lot more people and amde the book a lot more satisfying.
This book does very nicely in what it has done, I'll certainly give it that.
But as it stands, a few years after it's release, it is in need of a serious update and a total revamp of included characters.
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 A Great Book To Have! ( atbk )
I really like this book. Seldom do you get the opportunity to read about Star Wars characters, all compiled into a single volume. Every page in this book is fun to read. Character illustrations are pretty good and the descriptions on each characters are quite detailed and well-constructed.
However, there are some typo errors in the book and I was left wondering why did the publisher (Del Rey) decide to revise this book before Episode 3 was released. Some of the key characters missing from this book include General Grevious and many other important figures in Episode 3. In my opinion, this book should have been revised after Episode 3.
Nevertheless, its still a great book to read. I recommend it book to both fans of Star Wars and RPG gamers. A job well done to the author of this book - Mr. Daniel Wallace.
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The New Essential Guide to Characters (Star Wars)
The book has a lot of good information and is up to date.
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 Needs to be updated and expanded ( yerisp )
I don't own this book, I just read through it at a local bookstore. I didn't buy it because there was just too much missing. Some major characters from the films and EU are omitted or receive only short (one paragraph) descriptions, while other minor characters get full 1-2 page entries.
For example, mad clone Joruus C'Baoth gets one paragraph (nothing on the original Jorus), whereas Boss Nass and Sebulba from Ep I have full entries. Most of the Jedi Council from Eps I and II get one paragraph each in a collective entry, with a few omitted completely. The podrace competitors get about the same coverage as the Jedi Council, if not more. And a personal quibble, I would have liked to have seen an entry on Captain Tarpals. He's at least as important as Sebulba.
Surely this will be revised to accommodate Ep III and Tartakovsky Clone Wars updates. Hopefully it will also include many expansions on older characters as well.
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I'm waiting for post-Episode III edition ( desharik )
New edition of Guide to Characters is no doubt better than previous but still it has too many defects. Pictures are OK but what really annoys me is completely lack of key SW characters
both from Prequels and Expanded Universe. It just looks like authors choose accidental heroes and forgot about others. NJO fan will be enraged that there's no real description of Tenel Ka, Zekk, Raynar Thul etc. Ancient Era fan will be enraged that great Nomi Sunrider is barely mentioned. KOTOR fan will quickly notice the absence of Bastila Shan and so on. Besides what sense is publishing (after 6 years) new edition of Character's Guide shortly before the premiere of final Star Wars film - Revenge of the Sith? After 2005 newer edition will be needed anyway and let's hope that this time it will live up to our expectations
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