Star Wars: The New Essential Guide to Characters

Star Wars: Essential Guides #8

by Daniel Wallace, Michael Sutfin (Illustrator)

The Star Wars universe is expanding faster than ever before, and Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Characters has received an exciting new face-lift–with completely updated text and more than a hundred brand new, full-color illustrations by extraordinary new artist Michael Sutfin.

This all-new Essential Guide features detailed profiles of more than one hundred and thirty characters from across the Star Wars galaxy, including all of your favorites–such as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, and Mara Jade–as well as, from Episode II:

• Jango Fett • Count Dooku • Anakin Skywalker • Zam Wesell

And the key players from Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace:

• Queen Amidala • Qui-Gon Jinn • Mace Windu • Darth Maul

Here is complete, updated coverage of the novels from the incredible New Jedi Order and all of the classic movies, books, comics, TV specials, games, and the rest of the Star Wars universe.

This must-have book describes the essential history and personal data for each character–with vital statistics, homeworlds, and political affiliations.

More characters, more information, brilliant artwork–the Essential Guides are hotter than ever!

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

250 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 1995

Reviews

[Othy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have only read a scant few of the old novels, but I heard they were fun and wanted to dip in. Unfortunately, I found that the stories, as described in this book, sound incredibly dull. It may be the fault of this book, but it seems like the original stories are scatter-shot episodes with no connection. This book did not get me interested to dive into the novels at all.

[Hazel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The New Essential Guide to people you probably already know. This book probably has the unfair disadvantage of being the least interesting and least useful in the Essential's series due to it's subject matter. Everybody remembers the characters. Planets and moons, vehicles and vessels, weapons, even droids are more interesting. They're more ambiguous, It's nice to have little manuals on the less memorable aspects. It's cool to read the specifications of a starfighter, to see diagrams of luke's lightsaber. To try to memorize the little bibbits we should already know. To use the vehicles as references to create our own cool designs. But we know the characters. We can tell you, whats happened to them throughout their life. And for the aspects we don't know it's far more interesting to go out and find the book they're in and read that.

This book was written in 2002 really an inopportune time, badly chosen. This is before the end of the New Jedi Order series, and before Revenge of the Sith came out. This means the book only has partial information of these events. We had been waiting for new guides for years, we could have waited a bit longer for more complete information.

The artist uses a variety of styles from accurate representations of characters from the movies, to comic-book like portrayals of others. These are pretty good for the most part, but often he leaves us asking "what is with that outfit!" or "What is with that facial expression." His portrayal of the Yuzzan Vong is not the worst I've seen, but I would not consider it very accurate. I also have to wonder at the images of some of the aliens, which not having read any comics I've not seen images of. They just don't seem to fit with what I have in my mind from the books. We also have to wonder at his reducing Han's age from the movie to meing in his teens-20's especially when he is of course displayed so closely to his chjildren and wife.
He has also chosen to deviate from the images of Kyle Katarn and Mara Jade, who we also have had real actors for. I have no real objection to this I jut wonder why he has chosen to do so.

The author claims the book is written in an in universe survey of some of the most well known people. This generally is seen briefly at the beginning, occasionally with a bad joke, and then just turns into a quick run through based on book, comic, movie, game in chronological order. This make the book an uninteresting read, as it is so disjointed and encyclopedic. They wanted to limit the book to a certain length and have it be a mix between the two. They should have either made it a true encyclopedia, or had it be a true in universe piece and given it more space to go through the characters lives.

[Jeremy Stephens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this is out of date, this book has a lot of interesting information about various Star Wars characters.

[Maksym Vasyliev · Rating 4 out of 5]

От і добрався я до цієї книжечки.
Отже, приблизно через два роки від покупки я дістався до цієї книги. Відразу хочу сказати, що очікування себе виправдали. У книзі зібрані короткі біографічні відомості більшості відомих мені по фільмах персонажів, а також жменьки персонажів з розширеного лора з якими я був радий познайомитись. Про них розказано у приємній манері, історії про персонажів перетинаються та частково дублюються. Також при читанні мимоволі помічаєш зв'язок у порядку розміщення персонажів, наприклад, читаєш ти про мисливця за головами, що працював у дуеті, і ось, на наступній сторінці ти вже читаєш про його напарника. До речі, хочу зауважити, що книга створена відповідно до "старого", не діснеївського канону (наприклад Бена Соло тут немає, а "замість" Хана Соло помер Чубака).
Підбиваючи підсумки, хочу сказати, що книга досить-таки цікава і дозволяє "юніорам" ознайомитися з лором ЗВ на початковому рівні, рекомендую!

[Graham Barrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Read in 2002, review from 2024)

I have a distinct memory of receiving this edition as a gift the Christmas after Attack of the Clones came out and it was my 10 year old self's introduction to the wider cast of characters beyond the films like Grand Admiral Thrawn, and an expansion of the stories of the film's characters after the credits roll (i.e., Boba Fett's survival and escape from the Sarlaac). It doesn't quite do these characters justice like the EU novels did and it definitely was limited at times (i.e., they had to give Palpatine and Sidious separate entries because Revenge of the Sith wasn't out yet) but it did introduce me to the EU (now non Canon) so it was worth reading at the time.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of spoilers for the Star Wars Extended Universe, and that would only bother me if the EU was still canon. I kind of wish it was still canon. A lot of the characters and plots in here are much better than their new canon equivalent, especially in the sequel trilogy. Jaden Solo as described here is much better than Kylo Ren, and while the Yuzhaan Vong plot is more Warhammer 40k than Star Wars, it as described here through Vong characters is a better story than the sequel trilogy. Some art here is a bit bad, and some characters don’t have nearly enough context for them, but this book makes me yearn for earlier times in the Star Wars fandom.

[Action Jackson Buth · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much background and lore disclaimer this book is pre "Disney star wars" so most of it will not be cannon

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Star Wars: The New Essential Guide to Characters (Paperback)
by Daniel Wallace
this book is an amazing collection of facts on characters and science of the star wars environment. Much of this I did not know about the star wars series.

[Marc · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great guide. I have used this in all my travels across the state. I used to be a HUGE nerd about Star Wars. And this book helped make the the best at being a nerd. I learned so much from this book. I love it.

[Scott Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Star Wars.