Author Topic: Incredible Cross Sections of Star Wars  (Read 2846 times)

Offline Brian

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Incredible Cross Sections of Star Wars
« on: April 10, 2008, 03:18 PM »
I was just looking for any opinions anyone might have on this book, The Incredible Cross Sections of Star Wars (The OT Edition).  I've thumbed through it long ago at a bookstore, but just haven't ever picked it up.  Is it a pretty good book?  I've got the various visual guides for the characters and everything, but I thought this might be a good book for the vehicles.  Any opinions?


Offline Jesse James

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Re: Incredible Cross Sections of Star Wars
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2008, 03:45 PM »
Find the complete Cross Sections book that encompasses all 6 movies.  To me that's the only way to go...  I'm fairly annoyed they even did that because with all the "Complete" books from DK they've included stuff you can't find in other books if you bought each movie/trilogy's books individually. 

I think I only need the locations book and I'm set.  The Cross Sections is interesting...  Maybe a little over-analyzing at times, and inaccurate at times IMO, but it's itneresting nonetheless.  They could stand to release companions (not rehashes with 2 new drawings in them) to the complete series though...  I'd take cross sections of a Frigate, Transport, Troop Shuttle, some EU ship designs, etc.  And they certainly could delve into EU and the PT a bit more I think.

Basically...  They're not complete books and I'd like to see them really more comprehensive.
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Offline Nicklab

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Re: Incredible Cross Sections of Star Wars
« Reply #2 on: April 17, 2008, 09:13 PM »
I agree, The Complete Cross Sections is the best way to go.  It's all 4 of the original Cross Sections books rolled into one, plus the drawings for the TIE Bomber and B-Wing.  I think the entire series is a tremendous collection of work.  And the books and they offer some great insight.  The Falcon drawings alone are fantastic, and I think they might have served as some inspiration/reference for Hasbro in the design of the new Millenium Falcon.  But to simplify my thoughts on the books?  They're fun to check out.

I would definitely like to see more books in this series in the not-so-distant future.  I think the Clone Wars offers a cool opportunity for that.  Sure, we've seen most of those vehicles in the prequel books, but there are still some that might be of interest to fans of this series of reference books.

I actually had a chance to chat with Richard Chasemore and Hans Jenssen, the artists for these books, at Celebration 4.  They're very cool guys who have a very strong background in industrial design.  They were very much open to discussion at their art tables.  And they gave some great insight on the development of the first book during one of the panel discussions.  Apparently when the original book was in the works, it was quite a challenge for them and David West Reynolds to come to agreements about the inner workings of the starships and other vehicles.
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