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Showing posts with the label DK Books

Book Review: 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - The Visual Dictionary with Exclusive Cross-Sections'

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Photo Credit: © 2019 DK Children (a division of Dorling Kindersley Limited) and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  On December 20, 2019 ﹘ the same day that J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker went into wide release in theaters, Dorling Kindersley Limited's DK Children imprint published Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - The Visual Dictionary with Exclusive Cross-Sections, a hardcover reference book written by Pablo Hidalgo. As the sixth and final visual dictionary based on a Skywalker Saga film. the book follows the template created in 1998 when DK Books published archaeologist and Star Wars fan David West Reynold's  The Star Wars Visual Dictionary, a 64-page volume that covered the Original Trilogy films. Although that 1998 book - which is still in print and is also incorporated into DK Books' omnibus editions of The Complete Star Wars Visual Dictionary - was marketed for the "younger reader" audience, the writing was also smartly written and edited becau

Book Review: 'Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary' (2018 Edition)

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© 2018  Dorling Kindersley (DK) Publishing and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Since the late 1990s, Britain's Dorling Kindersley (DK)  Publishing has been releasing lavishly-illustrated reference books related to various aspects of George Lucas's Star Wars movie trilogies and, since 2015, the Sequel Trilogy and Anthology films produced Lucasfilm, the production company purchased by the Walt Disney Company after Lucas's retirement in the fall of 2012. These reference books run the gamut from Star Wars: Complete Vehicles and Star Wars: Incredible Cross-sections to Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide.  In addition to these works, DK also publishes Visual Guides or Visual Dictionaries that tie in to specific films, starting with David West Reynolds' 1998 work  Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary (which encompassed the Original Trilogy era) and continuing over the years with either Visual Dictionaries or Visual Guides for each of the new Star Wars films shortly after their the

Book Review: 'The Ultimate Star Wars'

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(C) 2015 Dorling Kindersley Limited and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On April 28, 2015, Dorling Kindersley Limited's DK Books published Ultimate Star Wars, a large "coffee table" format visual encyclopedia which covers "characters, creatures, locations, technology, and vehicles" that have been depicted in the Star Wars saga in film and on television. Written by Ryder Windham, Adam Bray, Tricia Barr, and Daniel Wallace, this 320-page volume delves into the history of a certain galaxy far, far away across various time periods, including the decline of the Old Republic, the Clone Wars and the birth of the Galactic Empire, and the Galactic Civil War.  Ultimate Star Wars is a comprehensive, wonderfully detailed encyclopedia of the entire Star Wars galaxy that explores characters, creatures, locations, vehicles, technology, and more.  Reflecting the saga's epic scope, Ultimate Star Wars is structured chronologically from Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Book Review: 'Star Wars: The Visual Encyclopedia'

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(C) 2017 Dorling Kindersley/Penguin Random House and Lucasfilm Ltd. May 25, 2017 marks the 40th Anniversary of the theatrical premiere of Star Wars, a space-fantasy film written and directed by a young filmmaker named George Lucas. It was financed and released by 20th Century Fox, a studio led by a board of directors that was skeptical of the movie set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" that theater owners who wanted to screen The Other Side of Midnight (Fox's expected hit movie for 1977) could only do so if they booked Star Wars during the summer. (Only 40 theaters in the entire U.S. had agreed to show Star Wars when Fox tried to market the film before May 1977, so the studio decided to play hardball and made the theater owners an offer they couldn't refuse.) The 33-year-old Lucas's "space movie" would only be a modest hit, and Fox would be lucky to get back its $11 million investment.  The "suits" were wrong. Star Wars was not

Book Review: 'Star Wars Year By Year: A Visual History, Updated and Expanded Edition'

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The slipcover features a stylized drawing of Kylo Ren from Star Wars: The Force Awakens Last September, Dorling Kindersley (DK) Books published Star Wars Year By Year: A Visual History, Updated and Expanded Edition, a lavishly-illustrated look at the multi-media franchise created by George Lucas 40 years ago. As the title implies, it is a sequel (and an expansion of) to DK's 2010 book Star Wars Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle, which was written by Ryder Windham, Daniel Wallace, Gus Lopez, and Pablo Hidalgo. Like DK's well-known Star Wars: Visual Dictionary series,  Star Wars Year By Year: A Visual History, Updated and Expanded Edition is a user-friendly reference book that blends text by writers who know their subject well and a Star Destroyer's docking bay's worth of photographs and illustrations that include publicity stills from various Lucasfilm movies and TV shows, book covers, trading cards, Star Wars action figures and vehicles, posters, and video game scr