Star Wars Complete Cross-Sections: The Spacecraft and Vehicles of the Entire Star Wars Saga

by David West Reynolds, Kerrie Dougherty, Curtis Saxton

Book Overview

From the Millennium Falcon to Clone Battle Tanks, young fans can peel back high-tech layers to reveal the cockpits, engines, hyperdrives, and construction secrets of the vehicles featured in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0756627044
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: DK Children
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 2.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 14.0" x 0.8" x 10.8"

Customer Reviews

Like Where's Waldo for Star Wars Geeks

The absolutely byzantine level of detail in these illustrations is remarkable to view in such a large format. Just like how Lucas wanted his vehicles to look "used" and "worn out" for his first 3 films these drawings have plenty of that "lived in" look that draw your eyes over all the little doodads behind the metal skins. As an engineer I love technical drawings and I really get a kick out of seeing how these fictional craft can have their internals look so "purposeful". The real life technical illustration field is tough enough when working from real objects and so I am impressed by the amount of creativity required to invert so much "how and why" detail. You can see how the form and function were intertwined to give these designs plausible suspension of disbelief. For example, even though there are no shields in our real world, the way the emitters are located and shaped in these drawings causes you to envision how they "work" in an intuitive way. You can see the power conduits feeding them and see how they outline the profile of the ships. The section at the end of the book where the illustrators show how the drawings go from pencil sketch to painting is fascinating and awe inspiring in this age of overwhelming CGI. I only had one of the previous cross section books so for me the value of this title was a no-brainer. If you already own the others then it boils down to having them in a single volume and if that is worth it for you. My only gripe is on the fold out illustrations. They are really almost too wide to allow easy use. I'd rather see the folds be vertical where the two open pages are joined across the top and fold upwards into more of a square. There have been a few books on NASA and spaceflight done this way and the result was better in my opinion because the folded out section supported itself. This landscape style foldout, while allowing a very wide image make the pages flop around more than I'd like for such thin paper.

5 stars for COMPLETE Cross-sections!!

People should get Star Wars Complete Cross-Sections. Here are three reasons why anyone who likes Star Wars should get this book. 1. Star Wars Complete Cross-Sections includes information about ALL six episodes in one book. It's great to have it all in one volume instead of four separate books (Episodes I, II, III, and the Trilogy). 2. Star Wars Complete Cross-Sections has extra content not included in the separate volumes. The Imperial Shuttle, the RZ-1 A-Wing, and the B-Wing Star Fighter are new material in the combined book. 3. Star Wars Complete Cross-Sections is jam-packed with large full color illustrations and tons of fascinating facts. The pages are crowded, but the information is great. The Star Wars Complete Cross-Sections book rules the galaxy and any Star Wars fan would just love to have a copy. I checked it out of the library, but now it's on my Christmas wish list!!

My 5 year old loves it!

I purchased this for my 5 year old because he loves Star Wars. We have a couple of other Star Wars guides. He loves the cross section book because "it shows all the ships and details and that's cool". He loves finding something small that I would have missed. Great book for all ages.

How Cool!!!

I bought this as a present for my son, who loves all things Star Wars. He is fascinated with maps and detail, and this book is perfect for him.

All four previous book + more

I have loved these cross-section books since even before these came out (seen a cool Star Trek OS cutout of the Enterprise). What you are getting with this volume is every entry in the previous four cross-section books as well as some extras. That's right. Even if you have all four original books you are still not getting everything. This book adds cross-section entries for the TIE Bomber, TIE Advanced (something only touched on in the original trilogy cross-section), A-Wing Fighter, B-Wing Fighter, and the Imperial Shuttle. That's roughly half the vehicles you would find on a regular cross-section book added to this volume. On top of that you get a forward by both artists/writers talking about the fun they had making the books. So what does that mean? Well if you have never gotten a Star Wars Incredible Cross-Sections book this is the one to get. You get ALL of the vehicles fromt he previous books plus another 1/2 book's worth of exclusive material. If you don't quite have all of the previous books then I say get this one at the price of a regular book (shouldn't be hard at all). If you don't have the original trilogy book that makes the purchase that much more sweet as that's where the new material is. If you have the complete collection then you have to make a choice. Do you buy the book, thus get the extra ships and more shelf space? Do you complain to Lucas for the double dipping? Personally I am one of those people with the complete set and figured I didn't need the new book, however I really, really love the B-Wing and relished the idea of having a view of its innards so I got it. I'm pretty pleased with the purchase, and besides I was able to sell my old books to recoup some of what I spent.