Going on sale this coming November, Star Wars: The Blueprints by J.W. Rinzler, will offer a collection of more than 200 of the original production design blueprints that were created for the complete Star Wars saga.
With just over two months to go until its on-sale date, we have received the Book Layout and Design (BLAD), which provides a little insight into what will be included in this high-end collectible book, including blueprints for such iconic vehicles as the Millennium Falcon, Y-Wing and X-Wing starfighters, as well as locations like the Lars’ Homestead, Jabba the Hutt’s Palace and the Death Star!
From the very first technical drawing, a design for the moisture vaporator prototype, to the plan and elevations of the Alderaanian diplomatic cruiser, the cockpit for which was the last set built for the Star Wars saga, the reader is provided with some indication as to the degree of precision that was taken to detail even the most mundane aspects of the galaxy, far, far away.
Accompanying the extensive technical drawings that were an integral part of movie production for the entire Star Wars saga, are concept designs, production models and film stills, as well as incredible stories and anecdotes dug up by Rinzler, who has enlisted an expert panel of Academy Award-winning visual effects artists, including Dennis Muren, John Knoll and Lorne Peterson to select each image.
Furthermore, the book also contains a number of interviews including Gavin Bocquet, Norman Reynolds, Roger Christian and Les Dilley, the latter three also signing the first 125 copies of the book, being the surviving Academy Award winners for Best Art Direction for Star Wars IV: A New Hope.
The blueprints themselves demonstrate the value of having draftsmen collaborate with the art departments, by displaying, as Rinzler puts it, “an attribute that concept art lacks – a sense of the real”.
Only 5,000 English language collector’s volumes will be printed, with the book itself presented in an oversize folio housed in a cloth-lined clamshell case with each copy being hand-numbered. Containing more than 500 photographs and illustrations, Star Wars: The Blueprints will also include ten 45”x18” gatefolds as well as a certificate of authenticity.
Stay tuned over the coming weeks as we bring you more on this exciting collectible…