Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know, Updated and Expanded

Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens

by Adam Bray, Cole Horton

The updated edition of this bestseller with fascinating facts and fun trivia from everyone's favorite galaxy far, far away!

Star Wars(TM) Absolutely Everything You Need to Know is now updated and expanded with brand-new weird and wonderful Star Wars trivia, strange-but-true facts, and fascinating "Did you know?" Q&As. Find out who cleans the floors of the Death Star and what takes 1,000 years to digest its victims! From movie-making trivia to quirky data you never knew, this book will excite new and old fans alike of the latest Star Wars movies, Star Wars Rebels(TM), and Star Wars: The Clone Wars(TM).

(c) & TM 2017 LUCASFILM LTD.

Genres: Star Wars, Nonfiction, Reference, Childrens, Media Tie In

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 4, 2015

About the author

Adam Bray, Author, Travel Writer, Adventurer
Adam Bray is the USA Today and Amazon Best-Selling author of nearly 20 official Star Wars, Marvel and LEGO books. He has also contributed to nearly 40 books on travel in Southeast Asia and has been called a 'Modern Indiana Jones' by CNN.
From working with great apes, to finding lost temple ruins in Vietnam, to writing in a galaxy far, far away...
Adam Bray writes a lot of books. He is the author of the first comprehensive licensed reference books for the Marvel Cinematic universe, including the Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary, the Marvel Studios Character Encyclopedia and Marvel Studios 101. Adam is also a co-author of the cornerstone reference books for Marvel Comics, including the flagship Marvel Encyclopedia (with a forward written by the late, great Stan Lee), Ultimate Marvel, and Marvel: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know.
Fortunately Adam is a life-long Star Wars fan, because he's written even more Star Wars books than Marvel. Adam is the author of the official guides to Disney XD’s Star Wars Rebels animated TV series (with a forward written by Executive Producer Dave Filoni--seen in the lower right photo--and interview exerpts with Simon Kinberg, producer of the X-Men and Deadpool movies). Adam has also co-authored the reference books that define Star Wars canon, including Ultimate Star Wars (with a forward written by actor Anthony Daniels, aka C-3PO), the Star Wars Visual Encyclopedia and Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know (Nominated for a Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award). He is also the co-author of Stormtroopers: Beyond the Armor (with a forward by actor John Boyega, aka “Finn”), the definitive filmmaking history of the Empire’s iconic soldiers, from the earliest appearances of stormtroopers in marketing of the original Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), through merchandising, publishing, games, animation, the 501st Legion, and though seven more live-action films, including Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017). The book features interviews with lots of Star Wars creative talanet, including actors Sam Witwer (Darth Maul, Starkiller) & Dee Bradley Baker (Captain Rex and all the clone troopers), artists Kilian Plunkett, Terryl Whitlatch and many others. And speaking of stormtroopers, Adam is also proud to be an honorary member of the 501st Legion.
Adam Bray is a life-long fan of LEGO and proud do be associated with their brand. Adam’s LEGO books include DK’s LEGO Star Wars: Into Battle! and LEGO Star Wars: Chronicles of the Force (featuring an exclusive LEGO minifigure from The Force Awakens).
Publicity appearances are a big part of Adam's work. He has survived four national book tours, stopping at around 45 cities to promote his Star Wars and Marvel books. He has appeared as a featured guest, panelist and autographer at Star Wars Celebration (Anaheim, London and Orlando), San Diego Comic-Con (2014, 2015, 2018), New York Comic-Con (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), C2E2 in Chicago (2016) and Fan Expo Vancouver (2018). He also appeared on the Emmy-Nominated “The Star Wars Show” (see the video below). Adam has written numerous articles for StarWars.com and has also been interviewed many times for StarWars.com and Star Wars Insider (the official magazine). His books have been advertised on billboards in Times Square in Manhattan and inside issues of Marvel Comics too.

Reviews

[Ivy · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars

Nice to have an encyclopedia on the Star Wars universe. Great to see more information on the characters and places.

Can't wait to read more Star Wars stuff and watch more movies!!!

[BOOKS ARE LIFE · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my goodness!!! This book was really good!!! I learned so many useful facts that I had never thought about and I loved that it wasn't just text, it was pictures too to help with keeping the reader interested. They had fun facts along with sizes of planets, back stories and more about characters. When I started this book, I never really thought that it WOULD be everything I would need to know about Star Wars, but it was. I loved all of it!!!

[Lil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh, the bane of my evening reading life! Brezaks from Zygerria, top 5 veggie delicacies in yoda's pantry, more than you want to know about stalgasian hives? This book has it all (and SO much more)! I keep trying to nudge it out of our library to no avail.

[Milan Pohl · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book covers a wide range of topics, including characters, aliens, creatures, locations, and technology from all existing Star Wars movies as well as the TV shows Rebels and The Clone Wars. However, rather than a thorough encyclopaedia, this books resembles a random collection of fun facts from the Star Wars universe, including many "top 5" lists, quotes and pictures (in varying quality) aimed primarily at very young readers. This books has very little to offer long-time fans; however, it might help newcomers to get better acquainted with that amazing galaxy far, far away.

[Filip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely aimed at younger readers with mostly trivia presented in a not entirely mature way. It also barely mentions things relevant to the sequel trilogy. That said, the art is good, the trivia is interesting and it is very comprehensive, including prequels, cw, rebels and original trilogy materials. Definitely the "behind the scenes" part was the most interesting one, telling me plenty of facts about making of Star Wars that I didn't know before.

[Chloe (thelastcolour) · Rating 4 out of 5]

a must read for any star wars fan!

[Sebastian Rodriguez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es muy infantil para ser una guia visual, pero esta bonito

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing encyclopedia of Star Wars Universe. The focus is on fictional places, nonhuman characters and the special effects. My disappointment is the lack of focus on the human characters and their stories. There are perfuntual photos of them and an occasional mention, but they aren’t the focus of this book. To never it made the book irrevelvant and boring.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really cool book to get some amazing facts on some past characters, and a few future characters that will be in the 7th movie! Really cool book!

[Katia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Date una medaglia a questi uomini. Un mondo rappresentato in 200 pagine. Un mondo.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rather poor book, both confusing due to its inclusion of a wider Star Wars canon, but which also lacks any real insight or structure such as – timelines, histories, explanations, summaries.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's really good. A lot of pictures and graphics.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trivia about characters, locations, vehicles, and creatures. Most of the details are worthless; few are meaningful to the stories. Covers A New Hope through The Last Jedi, as well as the Clone Wars and Rebels shows.

Notes
Sifo-Dyas sensed the coming war and ordered the clones. The Sith killed him to take control of the clones' creation.

Dooku ordered Kaminoans to put computer chips in clones so they'd obey Palpatine without question.

Saw Gerrera was trained by Ahsoka Tano.

Saw Gerrera's 3-pronged symbol originated with the rebels of Onderon and was combined with Sabine Wren's rebel starbird symbol to become the crest of the Rebel Alliance.

After the Clone Wars, the Senate banned battle droids. The Empire got around the ban by classifying the KX-series as security droids.

Baze Malbus was a Guardian of the Whills until the Empire destroyed the Temple of the Kyber and he lost is faith.

Obi-Wan left a journal of stories about the Jedi Order in his home on Tatooine for Luke to find.

After Battle of Endor, Chewie returned to Kashyyyk to free his people from Imperial occupation. He reunited with his wife and son who had escaped from an Imperial slave camp.

Palpatine's deflected Force lightning melted his face to reveal his true, evil nature.

Imperial officer uniform colors: gray for navy and army, black for stormtrooper officers, white for intelligence.

Kylo Ren wasn't a Sith; Snoke encouraged him to draw on the light and dark side.

The Darksaber was created over 1,000 years ago by Tarre Vizola, the 1st Mandalorian Jedi.

Space monsters like space slugs consume radiation, gases, asteroids, other space monsters.

Kaminoans didn't care about the conflict between the Jedi, Sith, and Republic. They didn't question who ordered the army; to them the Republic was simply another client.

After the Geonosians helped build much of the Death Star, the Empire almost wiped out the species.

On Dagobah, Luke entered a cave strong with the dark side and faced a phantom of Vader.

Jedi starfighters are smallest ships in Republic fleet because Jedi need fewer controls, instruments, sensors, ammo.

[RumBelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chronologically, this book covers from about the era of Star Wars Rebels through the Force Awakens, with one last chapter devoted to The Last Jedi. The information is taken from Star Wars Rebels, The Clone Wars, and the films. Each section, which include such topics as Rebels, Sith, The Underworld and Ships, follow the same rough chronological pattern.

Each character, or subject, for the most part, gets a two page spread. In that two pages are photos, trivia facts, behind the scenes information, quotes and more. In some cases, where characters go together like R2D2 and C3PO the two combined get a two page spread. The pages, with their text bubbles and photos, are laid out in collage style and your eye eagerly bounces from one bit of information to the next.

The whole book was bright, lively and highly informative. The only thing I didn't like was that, in several cases, you had to turn the book sideways, vertical, to read certain entries. That, to me, was annoying and unnecessary. However, a small flaw in an otherwise fantastic book.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

The pictures were nice. I didn’t like the flow of the book— the way they categorized each section was interesting to consider (non chronologically), but it often jumbled together random facts that haphazardly crossed the movies and Clone Wars. The thing I thought was really lacking was the context for each page— it wasn’t clear, so you’d often need to read everything on the page to understand what the common theme was (or was supposed to be).

I admit, I was really only a super fan of the first three movies released and I’ve only watched the first season of Clone Wars, so maybe that tempered my enthusiasm for the book. Perhaps also that I assume was intended to be a kids’ or young adult book and I’m not either— but that really shouldn’t excuse what seems very evidently to be a hastily thrown-together book.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was .... okay??
It did have a lot of interesting facts about Star Wars, but it seemed awfully dumbed down to the point of being aimed at 8-12 year olds. The pictures weren't very up to scratch and it didn't go into as much detail as the visual encyclopaedias. If I was a lot younger and just joining the Star Wars fandom, I would definitely love this book.
Overall, the visual encyclopaedias are a lot more informative for casual and hardcore fans alike, but this book is pretty good for regular Star Wars fans and there were a few random facts that I didn't know. My rating for this book is not the book's fault itself, but the age that it's aimed at.

[Vince · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bray's summary of the official Star Wars mythological canon is functional, intended to whet appetites for The Force Awakens.

Unfortunately, in a post The Force Awakens era the book fails to help readers understand what the heck is going on. The book succeeds at highlighting the higher-quality of stories and myth coming from The Clone Wars and Rebels animated franchises, as compared to most of the movies themselves.

Amply illustrated, with not too many words, kids will enjoy flipping through this on loan from the library before moving on to the next graphic novel.

Two stars.

[Ahdom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some fun facts in it that connect the dots from the movies and the TV shows. There was not much done in the way of relating too much to the novel or graphic novels. The book was presented in a fun way with lots of great pictures and neat layouts. This is perfect for kids who want to know more about Star Wars and shouldn't really be seen as and expansive Star Wars Encylopedia that covers all the species, planets, weapons, ships, and characters. This was updated to include things from The Last Jedi.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took a whole year to read this book to my son. He likes the page about how to gesture with Lekku and it took a lot of convincing to move past that section. I think next Star Wars book big book for him will be the visual dictionary!

[Dan H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's fun and exactly what I expected. It's definitely geared toward kids, but still has a lot of information if you are a big Star Wars fan.

[Jackie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this was a fairly complete look at the "official" Star Wars world there are some major events and characters that have been left out.

[Gary Rivera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me divertí con este libro! cada detalle que han hecho para darle un nuevo sentido a algo que ya esta bien establecido y cuajado! como extraño el canon antiguo!

[Layne Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically the first one (with literally some of the same pictures and info but add a couple new boxes/replace some).

[Tommy Correnti · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best encyclopedia out there.

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 3 out of 5]

65 - 2022

[Jenna Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book for Star Wars enthusiasts. Very comprehensive... But needs the final 3 films properly included

[CS. Leho · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good summary book, it has some things I've never heard before, it's not long but it's not short either, lots of pictures and drawings.

[Andrew Denes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and interesting but a little tacky at times, as some of the side notes are a little superfluous and forgettable.

[Eben Larman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty cool book tells you alot of facts about star wars, interesting just not my cup of tea. 6/10 | ⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Ivymars · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mean it’s StarWars