Genre fans have long rejoiced in arguing impossible questions; who is tougher, Hulk or Superman? Which is quicker, the Millennium Falcon or the Starship Enterprise? This is because we love a good statistic, but the problem with statistics is that they are very dull to look at.
Fortunately, there is an ongoing fad where our favourite tidbits and facts from the franchises that we love so much are being produced and laid out in a fun format that makes them a little bit more digestible: the infographic book. This is where an author has researched the topic at hand in depth and produced these facts alongside crude art that signifies what is being dissected. It may include specifically coloured pie charts or comparison drawings to make things easier on the eye.
The latest of these books covers both the original and prequel trilogies from the Star Wars universe and is pretty extensive. It covers such varied topics as the fastest space vessels or pod-racers, to individual heights of key characters. Ever wondered how many kisses there were in all six episodes? This has got you covered. Have you ever pondered how expensive it would be to hire the Cantina band for a wedding? Sorted (it’s 3,000 credits by the way). We are even shown exactly how much Han Solo owed Jabba the Hut, with the debts incurred broken down individually.
There are some very interesting bits of information in here, including all shooting locations in the real world for the six films and an exact layout of the Cantina bar, but there are also some pretty pointless facts laid out, as well as some hard to understand infographics too, as there are some acronyms and abbreviations that only a true hardcore fan would understand easily.
On the whole, this is more fun than annoying, but you can’t help but feel it would have been better to separate the two trilogies into different volumes and then really delve down into the intricacies of each set of three films. Sometimes it feels like the information on show is just skimming the surface – no more so than when it only uses two pages to break down how many lines of dialogue each character has in the two trilogies, yet misses out major characters like Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker and C3PO, yet includes Jar Jar Binks.
But, we can forgive minor issues like this because it does offer a heck of a lot of information. The Force is fairly strong in this one.
STAR WARS GRAPHICS / AUTHOR: VIRGILE ISCAN / PUBLISHER: EGMONT / RELEASE DATE: 5TH MAY
