Star Wars: The Blueprints | ||||||||||
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Product Description
Star Wars: The Blueprints brings together the original technical drawings from deep within the Lucasfilm Archives. Combined with insightful commentary from best-selling author J. W. Rinzler, the collection maps in precise, vivid, and intricate detail the very genesis of one of the most enduring and beloved stories to appear onscreen.The meticulously researched text gives voice to the groundbreaking and brilliant engineers, designers, and artists that have, in film after film, created the most imaginative and iconic locales. Blueprints shows how in bringing this extraordinary epic to life, early concepts were translated into iconic sets—the rebel blockade runner, the Millennium Falcon, the bridge of General Grievous’s flagship, Jabba the Hutt’s throne room, and many others—thanks to the exquisite craftsmanship and artistry of successive art departments.
Special Features:
•More than 250 blueprints
•More than 500 photographs and illustrations
•Ten gatefolds
Top Reviews
Epic technical book not just for Star Wars fans, but for all architectural, industrial, product & grby mPm (5 out of 5 stars)
October 23, 2014
Star Wars- The Blueprints
I didn't hardly see any reviews of the much less expensive $ 60 version of this book.
So, I decided to do a small review of this edition of this more accessible and much less expensive version of this unique and very impressive collection of actual design blueprints from the Star Wars Universe.
The deluxe, $500, Limited Edition version of the book comes in a custom covered and printed, gold leaf embossed portfolio case with the book contained and protected inside. The book, itself, is of collector quality, strong bound signatures, with high quality book covers with a tastefully minimalistic cover design with gold leafed embossed book titles all over. The collector's edition is sized at a WHOPPING 18.25" wide by 15.5" high by 2" thick.
I have seen and handled this version and it is the largest and heaviest book I have ever handled in any artbook genre and this has to be THE largest book in the entire Star Wars literary collection! Period!
The collectors' copies have really high quality, heavy duty, matte varnished pages.
That version was limited to a 5000 copy print run.
The $60 version still gets you a very large and still very impressive book.
It's size in 12.25" wide x 14.75 high x 2" thick with still very strong, quality binding with more traditional matte paper laminated hard bound covers with different background images with just the title of the book embossed and gold leaf on the front cover only.
The quality of the paper stock is identical as the paper stock in the Limited Collectors' Edition.
The book comes in a brown non-description cardboard portfolio to protect and keep this book in, if you prefer to keep it well protected.
(I am thinking about adding the book titles and logos neatly to these portfolio boxes, myself, to create the same effect of a custom portfolio box for this book.
It is still a very large, very heavy, and very impressive and amazing technical drawing book of most of the sets, locations, vehicles, robots, equipment and props from much of the original first three films and about 60-70 pages for the prequels.
About a dozen large size, heavyweight paper, bound gatefold drawings in this collection.
I am glad that the publisher, Epic Ink, and LucasFilm decided to reprint this in a much less expensive version.
It's still a monster book, even in this size format and the details and drawings are still plenty big and crisp to easily peruse.
Check out this video promo for the book that gives a fairly good description of what is contained in this book.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrde7h7fqpu&sns=em
I recommend this book not just for StarWars fans, but for art, graphic and design professionals as level of technical skills is on par of the same quality and skill level you'd find in a Syd Mead publication.
I was thoroughly impressed by this book from a design and technical illustration and drawing perspective, as well as the production photos and stories behind the creation of the actual things based on these drawings and Ralph McQuarries painting references.
I feel this book is well worth Amazon's $60 asking price.
You will be thoroughly be impressed with both the sheer size of this technical book as well as the written content.
A must have for Star Wars afficionados
by K. F.,Top Contributor: Star Wars (5 out of 5 stars)
May 11, 2014
I first saw the $500 version of this at Comic-Con a few years ago and finally got a copy as a birthday present this year from a wonderful lady. I have a pretty big Star Wars book collection but this one is an instant favorite. At over a foot square while closed and well over 300 pages, you better believe this has damn near everything in it. In addition to an exhaustive collection of all of the technical drawings for props, vehicles, and sets for the original trilogy, there is at least a few paragraphs of fascinating background info on nearly every objected depicted within. I've only had chance to skim the book yet, and even though I feel like I've barely scratched the surface I was able to have a good five minute conversation with a friend just relaying some of the fascinating behind-the-scenes info Rinzler collected for this work.
I've never looked at film prop blueprints before; they are much more detailed and accurate than I expected, with nearly every line given a measurement. The drawings and accompanying text point out each time a piece of a prop or set was reused for another prop or set, which gives you some insight into cost-cutting measures in film production.
Unfortunately, even skimming the book I noticed two errors in the text. I don't have the book with me at the moment, but I believe that Jabba's torture droid, EV-9D9, is given the wrong name, and the author certainly mis-captioned one of the images, calling a clearly completely different droid the same name.
Another error can only partially be attributed to the author, and is much more subtle and took me longer to figure out. There is a drawing of a cockpit described as (and even labelled in the drawing as) "A-wing cockpit". The text describes it as a cockpit built for filming, commenting that no B-wing cockpit was ever built (which I thought was strange since I thought I remembered there being B-wing cockpit shots in RotJ). However, the drawing is clearly not of an A-wing cockpit. It took me a while of staring at the drawing to realize it, but the drawing is clearly of a B-wing cockpit, suggesting the drawing was mislabeled or the craft was renamed later in production.
Aside from a few small mistakes, this is a must have, and I'd recommend it to anyone who geeks out over technical drawings of Star Wars craft. Do you have the red Millenium Falcon blueprint shirt? Re-read the Essential Guides yearly? Still hanging on to your copy of the original West End Star Wars Sourcebook? BUY THIS BOOK AND YOU CAN DIE HAPPY.
A ridiculously gorgeous book in every way!
by CC (5 out of 5 stars)
May 15, 2015
This book is a true work of art. An absolute MUST have for anyone who even remotely likes Star Wars. Even just of pure visual/architectural/design standpoint; this book is a must have, regardless of interest in Star Wars. J.W. Rinzler has created a stunning HUGE book, that has so much information, it's mind boggling. The font size is small and therefore where there are stories and info to be told, there is a ton of it. Also, the quality of the paper is great. Very thick. When I'm turning pages, I always think I've grabbed two....when it's just the one page. Super high quality.
The blueprints are incredibly cool. The foldouts are stunning. The pictures and other concept drawings are awesome. And the layout is just perfect.
If you could have one Star Wars book...it would be this one, without doubt.
Excellent
by Periklis-Silouanos Farmakis (5 out of 5 stars)
May 14, 2016
It is my opinion that this book should be bought by everyone interested in the actual background of making Star Wars. It's not only for getting a glimpse of the blueprints of the various starships, bases, droids, etc. This book will give the reader full picture of the work done by the Star Wars staff. Even the engineering descriptions are very realistic. This makes it a lot more valuable, as at the time these plans and designs were drawn and furnished, very little bits of information were available regarding high tech applications of real world airplanes and so on. This book says out loud that the staff behind Star Wars were true visionaries and that a very great deal of hard and detailed work at making the films was done. It is initially bothering the fact that there is another, complete, version of this book by the same Author and that this one is incomplete, but this actually doesn't really matter and nobody should be disappointed that the complete version has a much higher price. What matters here is to see how these people at the Star Wars franchise supported George Lucas' vision by making an excellent job, a job which is also, IMHO, completely original. Finally, even in comparison to its complete counterpart, this book can still definitely deliver an unimaginable experience and in a fairly reasonable price, even with a dozen or so other blueprints shorter. And of course, one must note that it has an excellent binding! It is a must have, hands on!
but it also gives you set photos and a good amount of information
by DarkGalXE (5 out of 5 stars)
July 12, 2014
I purchased this as a gift for a friend who is a raging Star Wars fan and loves all of the major and minor details of the movies. What a hit it turned out to be! He was basically floored. I could tell by his expression that he was severely impressed by this book, and honestly, so was I. Star Wars: The Blueprints simply excretes quality from its pages. It is a massive, hardcover book that could probably break the legs of your coffee table. Not only does it give you scans of the original blueprint drawings, but it also gives you set photos and a good amount of information. I should probably write a check to the publisher because I feel as though I owe them a bit more money for what I actually got out of this.
Seriously awesome.
by S. Kosloske (5 out of 5 stars)
December 5, 2013
I saw a copy of the Limited Edition in a book store in NYC, and almost bought a copy right there. The book is just amazing for a hard-core Star Wars fan. But I bristled at the $400 price, and put it back.
Now you can have pretty much the exact same book for $60. A MUST HAVE for the Star Wars collector, this book is seriously awesome.
And don't let the low(er) price scare you, this is a massive book, it's a full 12x14 inches in size, and weighs a good 10 pounds.
It's very cool to be able to look at the original drawings and blueprints going all the way back to the mid 70's when they started the planning for Episode IV.
Seriously, get this book.
Blueprints? Where?
by Jason G (3 out of 5 stars)
January 17, 2016
I got this book to get detailed information on Star Destroyers. What I got was a two page mention of the internal bridge set of a Star Destroyer.
I'm noting saying it is a bad product. It just had not much of what I wanted and a whole lot of stuff I didn't.
If you are getting this thinking you will get nice detailed "Blueprints" (as the title suggests), you will be disappointed.
If you like to see semi-technical drawings of some ships and sets, you'll love this book.
Not what I thought, but still awesome.
by Version One (5 out of 5 stars)
February 18, 2016
This isn't the blueprints for each ship or machine, but rather a set design walk-thru showing all of the various elements involved in creating a captivating scene. Brilliantly done as a book. I was expecting blueprints to build my own Millennium Falcon, but this is much better. Wish it had all of the stuff that was outsourced to ILM though.
A must have for Star Wars geeks
by Kevin Bodnar (5 out of 5 stars)
January 25, 2014
This is a large heavy coffee table book. the book arrived in a custom cardboard shipping box that was inside a standard Amazon box, so do not worry about the book being damaged in shipping. The pages are of heavy stock with multiple fold out pages. The art work and drawings are just beautiful. The book is well worth the asking price, a very well done and high quality book. If you are a Star Wars geek and do not have this in your collection yet, I would recommend purchasing this book.
love this book
by Lawrence Shum (5 out of 5 stars)
October 8, 2015
love this book, if you're a nerdy star wars fan with an architecture / ID background this is a great book to have. I spent several days reading the history and examining the drawings, mostly schematic design drawings. it was very interesting to me to see how complicated it was to put these sets together and the hurdles they had to jump through to get this movie made and the talent behind the scenes that most people never acknowledge.
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Details were last updated on Apr 19, 2024 08:42 +08.
