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Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary #9

by Pablo Hidalgo

An authoritative companion to the climactic final chapter in the new Star Wars trilogy, this essential visual guide to Star Wars Episode IX explores the world of the movie in unparalleled detail.

Star Wars Episode IX Visual Dictionary features the fascinating characters, planets, vehicles, and aliens that the heroes of the Resistance will encounter in their battle to defeat the First Order. Produced in close collaboration with Lucasfilm, Star Wars Episode IX Visual Dictionary delves into the backgrounds of the new characters seen in the movie, as well as providing in-depth, updated character profiles of beloved Star Wars heroes, such as Rey, Poe, and Finn. The book also contains a handy visual recap of the events of Episodes VII and VIII, and stunning cross-section artworks of key vehicles!

Genres: Star Wars, Science Fiction, Reference, Fiction, Art, Science Fiction Fantasy

200 pages, Hardcover

First published December 20, 2019

Reviews

[Neil R. Coulter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, a good bit of this book is Pablo Hidalgo trying frantically to bring some sense of logic and order to the sequel trilogy. But...he's really good at it, and the book is a surprisingly nice summary of not just The Rise of Skywalker but the whole trilogy. My favorite parts are the actual story details; Hidalgo fills in some of the gaps in the trilogy story in ways that satisfied me. I'm much less interested in the technical details of machines that are, I believe, fictional.

An odd part of this book is how often Beaumont Kin shows up. In the movie, he's a bland side character who says a couple of dopey lines. But in this book, he's everywhere. Strange.

A book like this makes me eager to have the movie on blu-ray so that I can pause it at various scenes and look for all the details

[Elaina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was similar to the other visual dictionaries I read yesterday, but it was slightly more in depth and a little longer (Which makes sense because TROS was really long xD) Was a nice time killer for a slow day at work lol :)

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

And so comes to an end the series of visual guides to the Star Wars films - who knows when they will be back and in what format as the franchise moves on to its next era.

But what of the book - well this is a sort of hybrid - mixing elements of the visual dictionary and the incredible cross sections series. Ironically partly due to the fact that in this film there were no enough vehicles to warrant a book on its own.

Now I know this film has divided fans probably as much as any of the recent releases but I think its rather ironic and telling that the back ground material that to me makes this universe so fascinating and limitless finds itself at a loss for material.

True you could argue that that this was a film led more by characters than flashy scenery or amazing craft but for me I think it is showing something else. Yes there is still a whole galaxy of possibilities but have we lost a little bit of our wonder - I still remember seeing the first film when I was barely able to see and the franchise has been with ever since so do I think this is a suitable eulogy for the series - I am not so sure. Does it represent the film it most certainly does - I guess you have to make of that what you will.

[Richard Guion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent guide to the characters & ships in the movie

So much design work goes into the Star Wars films, what I love about the DK books is learning more about background characters we only see briefly. There’s very interesting details on the Sith ships & stormtroopers as well.

[Octavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutalísimo. La cantidad de información que hay aquí es acojonante. Un disfrute.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeously made and a joy to look through. There were a few tidbits that stood out, info-wise, but man, this took me soooooo long to read through.

I also find that some of the newer and more extreme background alien designs are kinda offputting to me. (Anyone with a face described as a 'rictus,' for example.)

I'm looking forward to the Rise of Skywalker art book, because I think overall I prefer the behind the scenes info rather than the in-world stuff.

[nikita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gives some sense and logic on things movie decided to skip. A cheap and disgusting move though. However, this VD concludes all three movies and gives the new trilogy some sort of coherency that Lucasfilms are not keen on.

[Bilbo · Rating 3 out of 5]

«Lo que algunos despreciaron como meros juegos políticos era en realidad una cortina de humo para una expansión militar que, tras años de preparación, trajo el regreso de la tiranía fascista y del letal militarismo a la galaxia» (pág. 12).

No hace falta decir mucho más. Consigue mejorar con mucho esfuerzo e imaginación algo, poco, la película. Pero está incompleto, posiblemente porque salió antes del estreno y no podía revelar secretos de la trama.

[G-E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Encore une belle édition avec plusieurs informations qui n’étaient pas mentionnées dans le film. Par contre, il n’y a rien sur Palpatine, dommage.

[Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK, so there is a lot to digest here.

It really goes through VII to IX movies, not just the last one. So there seems to be a lot of stuff that just made the book longer.

Reading through the book it is crazy detail of a lot of things including the weight of the ships and all technical information. I mean who comes up with this stuff? It also includes a bio on everyone that was in the movie regardless if they talked or not. Grant it, the SW to Return had a ton of action figures that were barely in the movie and since I grew up during that time I didn't mind because I got all of them to play with. But come on. They are giving way too much background on these guys, where they are from, maybe who their parents are and I am surprised they didn't tell us what their favorite food is... Again just me and I am sure if I was a kid I would be this is so cool.

One big problem that I had was they had the Knights of Ren and in the book they were from different worlds and backgrounds. It was described as warriors that was given from Stoke. Well in the movies it seemed Luke had the vision and needed to strike Kyle down before he became a Sith. It also appeared that the Knights were also in the Jedi school and followed Kyle to kill the Jedi's. So major conflict, where the Knights could have some really cool books made out of them as agents sent out to the galaxy or something.

But I think a lot of this is just to set up the books, which the more I think about it the more I probably wouldn't read them because Disney really screwed up those movies with lots of flaws. I mean come on. The Emperor is alive? Lame. Ren is related to the Empire. So dumb. I read a story that Ren said they kept going back in forth to have her Ben's kid or the Empire's kid and they didn't know what to do. So incredibly bad considering this is SW for goodness sakes.

But I do have the Thrawn books, which I will read and if they do the Knights story and maybe check out Aftermath and a few more, but that might be it. No stories in in between Awaken to Rise movies.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Facts about, and photos of, characters, creatures, vehicles, planets, and more from The Rise of Skywalker. This book has more relevant details and less irrelevant minutia than other Star Wars Visual Dictionaries, which is a welcome change.

The book covers many characters, including many background characters that you don't notice in the movies, but there's not even one page for Palpatine! How is this possible?

Rather than the established Star Wars dating system, BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) and ABY (After), this book uses BSI (Before Starkiller Incident) and ASI (After). Why?

Notes

After becoming Emperor, Sidious delved deep into dark side, including hunting for immortality.

Han and Leia wed same year as destruction of Death Star II.

New Republic defeated bulk of Imperial Navy at Jakku 1 year after Destruction of Death Star II. Surviving Imperial ships jumped to Unknown Regions.

Leia remained in New Republic politics until being ousted in 6 BSI.

Geonosians conspired to develope planet-destroying weapon. 1 year later, Republic captured Poggle the Lesser and explored development of the weapon. 1 year later, Death Star program began.

Luke went into hiding in 6 BSI.

Luke learned how to project his presence from ancient sacred texts. He "gives his all into the Force," resulting in his death at age 53.

Shipyards on Exegol have been building a fleet for decades.

The lightsaber Luke lost on Cloud City was later salvaged, then acquired by Maz Kanata.

Remnants of Empire fled to Unknown Regions and later used dormant production facilities to build new forces.

Knights of Ren are somewhat Force-sensitive.

First Order's military is fraction the size of Empire at its peak.

"The Force allows glimpses of the future, the past, and of the departed … it explains [Leia's] indelible images of her mother."

Personnel on Sith fleet on Exegol were raised by Sith Eternal cultists on Exegol.

[Geena · Rating 2 out of 5]

The visual dictionary for The Rise of Skywalker is roughly longer than the standard script of a feature film, and in a lot of ways, that's its biggest problem.

Where the visual dictionaries for the likes of The Phantom Menace,, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith were fairly brief (62-63 pages long), and to-the-point abut what was important in an external sense, but not necessary to read to gain greater context of the films, The Rise of Skywalker is full of anecdotal information that could fill up a proper and genuine sequel to The Force Awakens, would've been good to have within the script of The Rise of Skywalker itself, but is also full of information that further highlights the weaknesses of the end result that got released.

Now to be fair, a lot of it is padding. The "first chapter" is just an attempt to blend together two narratives that clash and don't fit on any structural level (The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi), with the first being overridden on every conceivable level by the latter, while the "last chapter" is a fairly uninformative Behind-the-Scenes collection of concept art and production photography. Somewhere within the middle of both chapters is your bog-standard Star Wars Encyclopedia fluff. Took me forever to read it I was so disinterested in its justifications.

[Sebastian Zavala · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considering the amount of unanswered questions The Rise of Skywalker left audiences with, it doesn't surprise me that the official Visual Dictionary ends up doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Not surprising, but still disappointing. After all, it makes the movie seem even *more* incomplete. Did you know that those guys in Palpy's lair in Exegol are called the Sith Eternal? Did you know that they are the ones who constructed his fleet? It's stuff like that that gives the movie a bad name, to be honest.

And funnily enough, even though there's a lot (and I mean a LOT) of information that tries to tie up the three sequel movies (as if they had been planned all along), there's someone missing from the book: Palpatine. There's a whole lot about Exegol and the cultists and the Final Order... but no Palpy. Huh. Weird, considering that he's supposed to be the main baddie. These kinds of inconsistencies, along with stuff like trying to avoid mentioning that Lando appear on Passanna (but then doing so anyway during the last few pages... wtf) make the book seem a little rushed an desperate.

Don't get me wrong. What we *do* get is quite interesting and detailed and very well written; after all, Pablo Hidalgo has always been very good at this stuff. And even though I do enjoy the sequels, do you know what would've been better? A consistent trilogy, and a series of movies planned from the start.

Oh well.

[Elwin Kline · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I liked it." - 3 out of 5 star rating.

I own quite a few of these Visual Dictionary titles for Star Wars, I believe ten (10) in total. One for each movie and then also another one for the animated Clone Wars TV show.

With that said, this is probably my least enjoyed, but that doesn't mean its terrible. It just mainly has to do with Sequel-itis. Yes, I love the Prequels, Classics, and The Clone Wars far and beyond more than anything found within the Sequels. I do however try my best to stay positive and not join the Sequel hate-train bandwagon, but it's quite clear why that particular thinking path has such a following.

What interested me personally the most is that this offers a lot of great detail on Kijimi, the primary setting for the upcoming Star Wars: Outlaws videogame, that is scheduled to release this year in 2024. There was a lot of cool characters, factions, areas, so on and so forth about Kijimi found here, that I really hope some (if not all) of it is incorporated into the videogame. It would be super cool if this book was a reference point for the content we expect to see in Outlaws.

Otherwise, this is exactly what you would expect from a Visual Dictionary.

I actually read this with my daughters overtime as a slow burn before bedtime. They really enjoyed all the alien deep dive content more than anything, with spaceship and vehicular content being the runner up.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

More information about The Rise of Skywalker than you could possibly handle, though for the most fervent Star Wars fan (like myself), that's kind of the selling point. I will admit, when I was reading the entry about a Sith jet trooper, having recently finished the entry about a First Order jet trooper, I wondered if there wasn't a bit of padding in this Visual Dictionary. Example B: the extensive revisiting of the two previous movies in the trilogy.

And yet, even with the padding, there's quite a bit missing. Of course, the plot holes with the actual movie are glossed over (note: I was fine with the movie), but this Visual Dictionary fails to include any information about the reborn Emperor or his Sith Eternal empire on Exegol. Sure, those might be spoilers for the film, but they're also huge plot points about which I'd like some danged info! Tell me more about those Sith temples! And the ghosts of ancient Sith Lords, or whatever that amphitheater was! Ugh.

The contents of The Rise of Skywalker's Visual Dictionary are perfectly adequate and will be very pleasing to any Star Wars buff. But the padding and glaring missing elements knocked off a few points for me.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a former graphic designer, I've been loving these "DK" books since my first one back in the late 80's (either SHELL or SKELETON; can't remember which). Started off with their natural history titles, then got into the much larger regular history books (Civil War and both World Wars), travel guides, and finally their kind of oddball volumes (Explorers, Warriors, Mountaineers, Commanders - basically whatever looked cool on the Barnes & Noble bargain table). But for sheer enjoyment, it's hard to beat their movie/TV tie-ins, like Doctor Who and now the Star Wars volumes.

I just saw "Rise of Skywalker," so found this both a fun and informative follow-up. It's at its best when highlighting the various aliens, ships and weaponry, but kind of drags when it gets into lengthy bios of background human characters - you've seen one Resistance pilot, you've seen them all. There's also a lot of extraneous backstory on both people and planets that I'm tempted to say Hidalgo pulled straight out of his ass - but seeing the humongous bookshelf at B&N devoted just to Star Wars fiction, I'm pretty sure every minor character and location in this whole book has had at least one story written about it.

As with Doctor Who, there are a lot of unnecessary or downright dumb photo annotations - "hair coiffed to Hux's exacting standards," "determined gaze scans surroundings for dangers and opportunities," or simply "trigger," (with a helpful arrow pointing to the unmistakable trigger on a blaster pistol). But then spotting the silly amidst the interesting is half of the fun!

[RumBelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This dictionary was longer than any other visual dictionary I have ever read for the saga, though not complete. I suppose one could argue it was not complete to conceal plot points, but it was still disappointing.

It started off with several sections on information related to the first two movies in the trilogy, then followed the Rise of Skywalker, with gaps, chronologically as the film was laid out. As always a great deal of detail wa provided on the entries in the book. Clothing, weapons, character points and much more.

What was missing? No information on the Emperor, Dark Rey, the final Battle of Exegol, Rey's return to Ach To, Han's spirit visiting Ben, Rey's journey to Tatooine. All of these things were so vital to the film, to have little or no information about them in this dictionary felt, to me, like a real cheat to readers.

What was included was very well done, but a lot was left out.

[Steve Davala · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always enjoyed these visual dictionaries. There's a bevy of information here, perhaps too much this time. I think I skipped over the pages that had "random resistance member #14." This book was different than others I've read in the series, and not just the shape of the book.

There were some cool things in here: about a protocol droid that used to work on Kessel but became independent because of some incident... which is a cool reference to Solo.

I had made a prediction a LONG time ago when the first ROS trailer came out that it looked like the characters went to Jedha. AND it turns out the sand planet they were on was filmed in the same place they shot Jedha! In Jerusalem. I felt validated.

The added bonus was that there was some "Cross section" stuff, on a few random ships. That was pretty cool.

Good on you, Pablo Hidalgo. I still think I should be writing for you guys.

[Billy Jepma · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always, the newest Star Wars “Visual Dictionary” is a treat.

The images are crisp and stunning; the deep-cut lore references a lot of fun; and the added bits of exposition cool to learn. While some of these should’ve been in the movie itself—I promised myself this review wouldn’t be a rant on the movie and dammit I’m gonna keep that promise—but Hidalgo’s writing is great and it’s always tremendous fun to see him play around and invent backstories for random background characters (secret lovers? possible OT character back from the dead? callouts to characters and events from SW comics and books? sneaky reference to KOTOR? all present and accounted for).

I wish there was more info on the film’s climax, as the potential for additional lore seems like a wasted opportunity. Still, I always love reading these, and that hasn’t changed here. This one isn’t as strong or even as thorough as some of the previous ones, but there’s still plenty of good to be found.

[Jose F. Martin del Pozo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always like these Visual Dictionaries - browsing one way and the other, examining the images, and reading the stories and data that Pablo Hidalgo creates/compiles.

I cannot explain myself how they didn't detect a strange mistake: all types of stormtroopers are the same height (correct, up to here): 1.8 metres, 5ft 10in. But those two numbers are not equivalent!

a) 5ft 10in is slightly under 1.78m; 1.80 is slightly under 5ft 11in

b) when you give heights in meters, you always give two decimals, even if the last is zero. The same way nobody writes a check for $138.5 or €153.4, but $138.50 and €153.40, because you mean dollars/euros and cents, when you talk about height you give meters AND centimeters. So I guess these guys are 1.80m tall after all.

[Tom Christiansen · Rating 2 out of 5]

These are always fun to work through. This is my least favorite film of the franchise so I was hoping to walk away with a bit more appreciation for the film. That didn’t happen, but there’s some interesting info throughout the book.
The biggest downside is that the book was clearly written BEFORE the movie came out and not after. There are aspects of the movie that have NO mention at all (like the arena from the final fight and the whole cloning facility) and they gave Lando his own page along with the Hermit character that’s just him in disguise, clearly the publishing team wasn’t privileged to that info during the book’s production. Sticks out like a loose horizontal stabilizer on a podracer.

[Todd Stansbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy getting into the weeds of the Star Wars Universe, then this book, like others in the series, is just perfect. A trove of background information it places the new movie in perspective providing motives and information that could not be brought forth in the movie without mountains of exposition. It might go a little too deep for the casual viewer, or even a diehard fan of the movies; does anyone really need to no more about Faddaff Davenspon? Still, anyone who enjoys the movies would enjoy flipping through the book and finding more about the background details that might have been missed.

[Justin Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Way back in the day, I used to read these DK Visual Dictionaries all the time. I had them for Star Wars, Marvel characters, animal facts, etc. They are fun little forays into the minutiae that help flesh out the universe. They are definitely geeky, though!
In this case, the facts and backstories were often more interesting than the film they were referencing! While I didn't hate TRoS by any means (unlike The Last Jedi), it certainly had a lot of disjointed faults. Here, some gaps get filled in, but, like I said, they were often stories that I wanted to explore more and it is disappointing to know that this probably will not happen.

[Ron Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. A little something for everyone. Some folks are really into the weapons and technology. Others just want a cute picture book for their kids. I like how the Visual Dictionaries provide backstories for the background characters and help fill in some of the gaps in the story. Although I'm annoyed that Rose gets a brief blurb while J. J. Abrams lil buddy got a two-page spread. And why did the folks who showed up at the end of the movie get left out? I was hoping to learn more about Wedge Antilles and Wicket.

[Richard Shank · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun read! A lot to go through and filled in a lot of gaps left unexplored in the film. I actually feel better about the film after reading this, so to me, this is a companion piece to the movie. For fans of Star Wars, but i doubt anyone would pick this up without understanding that.

I really enjoyed learning more about the First Order and Sith Eternal factions. All of the pictures and models in this book are full of rich details that are simply fun to relish. These whole series are worth it and I think I will go back and read through the previous editions. Keep up the great work!

[Sir Laguna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Como siempre, los diccionarios visuales son imprescindibles para los fanáticos de Star Wars, sin importar si les gustó la última película o no. Este libro no solo expande ideas y conceptos que vimos en El Ascenso de Skywalker, sino que llena huecos en la trama.

Aún así, siento que le faltan cosas. No hay nada sobre el regreso de Palpatine, no tenemos un esquema del sable de luz de Leia y la información sobre Exegol es muy reducida. Me pareció curioso que decidió ignorar temas controversiales como los ancestros de Rey.

Interesante para los más fanáticos, pero inútil para todos los demás.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm disappointed because we didn't get to see Palpatine!!! You could barely see him in the movie - I wanted some hi-def images.

Like the book suggests, it's a Visual Dictionary - They generally release one for every Star Wars film. For some reason, this one didn't seem as informative as previous books, although it was still an interesting read. Check it out if you're a Star Wars fan or just a casual watcher - There's definitely some material that answers questions from the film.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feast of visuals that make the Star Wars galaxy look so 'lived in.' Interesting upfront history that ties many new cannon events to new films timeline. Just, fun.

The captions border on useful, uber technical, and jokes, which is appreciated. For example, two captions from the Poe page:

Caption for holstered blaster: "GLIE-44 Blaster Pistol: Poe's favored side are is the Glie-44 due to its lightweight rugged construction"

Caption for face: "Rarely clean shaven"

[Nisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed and lovely to look at, but I laughed out loud at the author’s valiant attempts to explain some of the gaping plotholes in the movie. I appreciated the effort. I would’ve liked to see how he explained Ben Solo’s TIE fighter getting to Exegol, since TIE fighters don’t have hyperdrives (forgetting how the heck it was in flyable condition to begin with).

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

It helped answer a few questions I had after seeing episode IX, but many remain unanswered. The timeline of events is at times confusing as it switches from the standard SW chronology of using the battle of Yavin to using the “Starkiller incident”. The book also completely omitted Darth Sidious/Palpatine & the Sith acolytes