The latest in Abrams’ stunning line of Art of Star Wars coffee table books once again takes fans behind the curtain for yet more unprecedented access to the exhaustive conceptualisation that goes into the making of every project set in that most beloved of galaxies far, far away. Except, this particular release isn’t devoted to a film, nor one of Lucasfilm’s ever-growing number of TV spin-offs. It’s dedicated to Disney Parks’ Star Wars-themed land, Galaxy’s Edge, currently only located in California and Florida, destinations that most non-US film fans will cruelly never have the opportunity to visit. We’ll get it out of the way upfront – yes, the book can make for bittersweet reading!
As expected from this series, the main draw here are the innumerable, hitherto unseen and often breath-taking pieces of concept art that take us on a journey through the design process, from the team of artists being asked to “imagine without constraints”, to the eventual “dusty Route 66 of Star Wars” that Disney unveiled to their patrons in the form of planet Batuu’s Black Spire Outpost, aka Galaxy’s Edge. Straight away, anybody with a passing knowledge of the attraction itself (full disclosure, this reviewer has not been, but has seen plenty of other lucky scoundrels visiting it on YouTube) will be struck by the audaciousness of the artists in their early ideas for what the park could be. Imagine taking a journey into a downed Star Destroyer like Rey did in The Force Awakens! While yes, that ‘would’ have been most awesome indeed, like far too many of the imaginings ‘without constraint’, they simply did not come to pass, making the resulting park seem quite quaint by comparison.
Sadly, the book all too often leaves us to draw our own conclusions as to the abandoning of the ideas it presents, as written commentary is in short supply here. If you’re a regular visitor to the park and read page 198, then you’re most certainly going to want to know why you were denied the opportunity to ride Elee, a hulking yet adorable original new creature created for Galaxy’s Edge that would choose lucky guests to climb on its back for a mooch around Batuu! As pictured on page 235, they’d even got as far as creating a tie-in children’s book for Elee (again written by this book’s own author, the always excellent Amy Ratcliffe), so answers for the beast’s eventual absence are surely more in-depth than the brief “it was challenging” we get here.
As anybody who’s familiar with the concept art process when it comes to making Star Wars, nothing is ever wasted, with unused artwork from the original trilogy still being mined today. It’s likely, then, that while much of the work in The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge might not have been used in the park itself, it doesn’t mean that this will be the last time you’ll see these rejected designs. (In fact, we’d wager our entire stash of galactic credits that the aforementioned Elee or its species will appear in an episode of something very soon!) The early access to that kind of minutiae is one of this particular tome’s saving graces, and fans will certainly enjoy pouring through the hundreds of new beautifully illustrated Star Wars locations, delicacies (pickled rathtar eggs, yum!), costumes, vehicles, and creatures never seen on screen before.
Unlike previous titles in the series, The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge admittedly won’t have as wide an appeal amongst fans. Without the luxury of being candid about the development of the project – it’s very clear it wasn’t a smooth process – it doesn’t feel like the subject has the scope to justify such a weighty tome (a whopping 256 pages!) and can even feel repetitive at times. Previous visitors to Galaxy’s Edge will most certainly get the biggest kick out of having this in their collection, but otherwise, this release is strictly for hardcore Star Wars fans only. And to be fair, that accounts for a lot of us!
