by John Holliday
by Emily Bloom
by George Taylor
by Christian Fannin
[Keep up with the "Special Feature" column and Christian Fannin will sit you on his lap and talk to you about whatever movie-related topic he feels like.]
Ever wanted to build your own Millenium Falcon or redo that unused guestroom as the Mos Eisley Cantina but you just couldn't do it without the exact measurements? I mean, why be a Star Wars fan if you're not going to be accurate? Well dust off your circular saw and stock up on the lumber because the fine people at Epic Ink have the most definitive book for you.
Star Wars: The Blueprints is a massive tome of the original architectural drawings used to build the sets and ships of all six Star Wars movies. And when I say massive, I mean this thing weighs around 30 lbs., is roughly 2'x2' and clocks in at 336 pages including a few multi-page spreads. It has to be this large to contain all the detail inside which is down to the ⅛" and often smaller. Of all the schematics found in books on this franchise, I've never seen any of these actual layouts that are proven physically possible to recreate. Now, someone, somewhere WILL. The only thing it's missing is a hardware shopping list (of course SOMEBODY had to find a flaw).
The best way to describe this book is simply by showing it. Below you can check out a high-resolution image from the pages showcasing the Millenium Falcon's ramp. There, you'll find another treat in this book, behind-the-scenes photos of the crew building various set pieces, the Falcon in this case. Unfortunately, most of the large props were destroyed after filming so this is a rare glimpse at the last life-size ships from a galaxy far, far away.
At the heart of it all is, of course, J. W. Rinzler, the author behind "The Making of…" books for not only 'A New Hope' and 'The Empire Strikes Back', but also all four Indiana Jones films and many other Star Wars related works. Rinzler again provides excellent commentary to give perspective on these drawings and takes you back to 1976 in the pre-production minds of the masters at work. This book really couldn't stand on it's own without him walking us through all the history, explaining how things came into being and their inspiration.
Of course bluescreen technology greatly diminished the need for blueprints, so the Prequel Trilogy only occupies the last 66 pages which is perfectly fine with me. The rest of the book still shocks me with the amount of work and thought that went in to so many things that even the biggest fanatics haven't noticed. It's so much that, when browsing, I'm sometimes skeptical that these were created in the 70's even though my brain knows there is no conspiracy. I keep thinking back to all the interviews where the cast and crew say they had no idea Star Wars would be so popular and that they were unsure of this bearded new guy's space opera even during filming. In retrospect, it's plain to see that anything with this amount of love put into it would be a success. Hear about the art department for yourselves:
What I wouldn't give to snoop through the Lucasfilm archive… At least we have this abridged version of Skywalker Ranch. Well, 5,000 of us. That's right, this publication is limited to only 5,000 copies with the usual "Certificate of Authenticity", hand numbered, etc. And you'll also scoff at the $500 price tag. Did any of us really expect this to be available in stores? We all know this will sell every copy because there's easily that many Star Wars fans with that kind of money to drop on this monster.
That makes this very gimmicky which is my only real complaint. It may never see a mass production for those of us that are still huge fans but don't have the money to buy every little variation of the merchandising. And you can't really blame the publisher, it's all about practicality. I really don't know what to say for the little guy except to cross your fingers for an eventual e-book version but prepare to make use of that zoom function.
When all is said and done, there will never be another book with this amount of insight into the creation of these iconic designs. I definitely recommend buying it if you can afford to. Even better, if you can invest, buy two copies and in a couple of months when it's long sold out you'll be able to sell the extra copy for twice the amount. Essentially, a free copy.
Don't hesitate to tell Christian what you think of his column and suggest a topic by e-mailing him at: christian@cineweekly.com
