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Title: The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
ISBN: 0345477634
Author:
Stephen J. Sansweet
Pablo Hidalgo
Bob Vitas
Daniel Wallace
Publicate Date: 2008-12-09
Publish: 2008-12-09
List Price: $125.00
Average Customer Rating: 3.0
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $63.95
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $87.66
Amazon Merchant Price: $78.75
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Phenomenal Star Wars resource
I'm a big Star Wars fan; i'm only at the letter F right now (looking at the pictures and some of the interesting entries) and i already found out so many cool things i didn't know about. There was obviously a great amount of work that went into this. Illustrations are everywhere, and there are also maps, timelines and more... Btw, i found the quality of the print exceptional. No doubt, if i had to choose i'd definitely buy it again.
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2: Epic laziness
The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia isn't bad if you recognize it for what it is: a severely distilled digest of SW information. When it comes down to it, that's all most fans want or need. The real problem with it is the total lack of original illustrations. The first SW Encyclopedia had a wealth of pictures that came from sources that casual fans didn't have access to in 1998 in the early days of Internet fandom. Animation cels and publicity and reference photos weren't available just anywhere.
These days, however, Star Wars media saturates the Internet. The place this Encyclopedia could have really shined is providing images that still aren't available to the public, from the depths of the Lucasfilm archives. Unfortunately, it seems that Lucasfilm doesn't HAVE any such archives -- they actually copied over fifty pictures from the unofficial fan encyclopedia, Wookieepedia. Apparently, nobody at Lucasfilm has a PC and the ability to take screenshots from video games, because every picture of a subject from Empire at War, Star Wars Galaxies, or the Knights of the Old Republic games is either from an ancient publisher's press release, or stolen from Wookieepedia.
Shame on you, Lucasfilm Limited. This is laziness on a truly epic scale.
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3: Minimalism Run Rampant
I was very excited to receive the new Star Wars Encyclopedia, but after reading through its many articles I am very sorry I bought it. I hope everyone goes out and uses Wookieepedia online as the ultimate Star Wars reference instead of this lousy encyclopedia. I was hoping for some new information to be reveled or very detailed articles of known information, but I have not seen much in the many entries I have read thus far. However, the biggest problem I have is the heavy amount of minimalism that the authors clearly went out of there way to spew across these volumes.
I really hope someone out there at Lucas reads this, but it really baffles me how they do business. Now when it comes to the numbers and scope of the Star Wars Universe either fans will not care or there will be people like me, who are hard core fans. All we want are somewhat reasonable and common sense numbers to be assigned to the various stats behind the Star Wars Universe. Now why not make everyone happy by admitting you were wrong and changing your numbers, instead of intentional going out of your way to anger you're most loyal fans? It doesn't make any sense.
You continue to portray a Galactic Army consisting of only a super pathetic 3 million troops, you say the City Planet of Coruscant is basically deserted at a population of a mere trillion and unfortunately there so many more terrible numbers. I mean it took you guys many years to admit you were wrong in the length of a Star Dreadnought Executor and the diameter of the second Death Star, so I am not hopeful these numbers will ever be corrected. This is truly a "Travesty", pun intended. I don't want Star Wars to be as technical or realistic as Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek, but I mean think about the numbers you assign to things for more than one second before putting them down on paper. So please get rid of these ludicrous numbers and portray of the Star Wars Universe as it should be and while you are it could you also stop with all of the modern day metaphors. I want to get away from the real world when I read about Star Wars and I don't to read stories that mirror the Iraq War or go on and on whining about democracy.
In closing give us the things that make Star Wars so great: Big Ships, Big Navies, Big Armies, Galactic Scale Wars, Huge Battles, Planet Killers, Civilizations 100,000's of years ahead of our current levels of technology, Kings, Queens, Aristocrats, and Religious themes!!!!!
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4: Rather Up To Date though a few gripes
Just got this today First opinion is that it's nearly on par with the previous edition. The book covers All 6 movies gives a general overview of the Clone Wars. Then goes up to the last Legacy book Revelation along with a general overview of the Legacy era happening in the Dark Horse Comics that's still ongoing.
At 1200+ pages the information is amazing though some of the pictures they included are recycled images from the previous edition of the Encyclopedia. My main gripe is the fact they'll give a entry but unlike the last edition there are no refrences in the Enclyclopedia tracing back to the orginal source like the previous version did.
Other than that very impressed at the price from Amazon and compared to what we paid for the orginal the book was well worth it and a great addition to the refrence people who want a physical book to go back to. Otherwise I'd refrence to the online encyclopedia that theforce.net hosts.
This being an add on to my review now that I've had the opportunity to give the books a solid look through. All the above I hold to. Though this refrence runs into the same issue that you'd expect from a series that is ever expanding. You can get the hint at what point in the series where the authors got there sources on things that are ongoing.
A few of the entries seemed to go on and just abrubtly hit the brakes and end right there while other entries don't go into enough detail. The most notable locations of history and character development that are glossed over that I wish would have got more of an explanation are the Legacy (Dark Horse Comics current ongoing series based 130 aby) and the Force Unleashed storyline.
The Force Unleashed seemed to be lacking the most. Character acomplishments of Galen (The Apprentice) seemed to have been thrown in just so the authors could say they covered all up to date Star Wars info. The history behind PROXY, Galen, and Juno seemed to be very lacking. The largest missing peice would be these character's parts in forming the Rebel Alliance. While it's mentioned breifly here and there no details are really explored. Galen's family crest being the symbol of the Rebel Alliance for example. Mentioned in a short sentence in an odd ball refrence but nothing about Galen's part in the history ofthe Rebel Alliance.
But still overall I have to say I like this. The books are worthy of the rating I gave of 4 stars. My gripes are probably little details but I guess you can say I have a deep love for Star Wars.
The book does have alot of odd entries little items you'd not think of and if you know someone that loves the Star Wars Expanded Universe this is worth picking up.
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