A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 2000 Del Rey Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  In 1984, Ballantine Books’ imprint Del Rey published Raymond Velasco’s A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, an A-Z reference book about the characters, vehicles, weapons, and locations in George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy and various tie-in media works, including the early Expanded Universe novels and Marvel comic books. Although some of the entries in Velasco’s book were one-line descriptions of aliens, planets, spacecraft, or weapons, it was the first book of its kind and – in that dark period when no one thought there would be any new films or stories set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” – it sold well and many Star Wars fans had a copy in their collection of books and magazines. 10 years later, Del Rey revisited the Guide in an expanded and revised edition by West End Games’ writer-editor Bill Slavicsek. By this time, Bantam Spectra had won the publishing rights to new Expanded Universe novels, the firs...

Author's Note: This is the original review of The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia that I wrote for Epinions, a now-inactive review website owned by eBay, on December 30, 2008.  It was, of course, written at a time when George Lucas still ran Lucasfilm. The now-canceled Star Wars: The Clone Wars television show was barely halfway through its first season on Cartoon Network, and as far as we knew, the feature film saga was complete; Lucas was adamant that the six films - plus the aforementioned TV series on Cartoon Network - were the complete account of The Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker and that he wasn't interested in making the long-rumored Sequel Trilogy. In 2018, we know that things have changed since I wrote this review nearly a decade ago. Lucas retired and sold his company, Lucasfilm Limited, to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. Star Wars: The Clone Wars ended its five-season run in 2014 and was followed on Disney XD by Star Wars Rebels, which recently end...