Author:  David West Reynolds, James Luceno
Publisher: DK Children
Binding: Hardcover
Publication Date: September 25, 2006

The Complete Visual Dictionary is nothing more than a consolidation of four books (books were published previously for Episodes I, II, III, and IV through VI). The cover claims new cut-away art, but the new art lacks the detail you would expect from Dorling Kindersley. Nothing on par with their Star Wars Cross Section books. Instead, you get poorly rendered cartoons plainly overlaid on photos.

While the art is lacking, you do get is a decent collection of production photos with explanatory paragraphs. And if you look at each of the four sections separately, they are great, but combined, they overlap too much. R2-D2, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, they all get too many pages devoted to them. Simply redesigning the book to consolidate the duplicate articles would have made it much easier to read.

“…this revised and expanded guidebook illuminates even more nooks and crannies of that far away galaxy.” - Page 8

Now, I freely admit I have a severely jaded view of this book and I blame my Star Wars book-collecting neurosis for that. Thus, I found most of the material covered in the Complete Visual Dictionary to be elementary for a well-versed Star Wars fan. Yet, I did on occasion find certain entries to be entertaining. Here’s what I found:

- A Comlink looks just like a woman’s razor handle painted silver.
- The Hangar Deck Scrubber Droid looks like an upside down tote painted yellow.
- The Scalefish on Naboo (called Ray, Faa, See, Laa, Tee, and Mee) sound like music from Julie Andrews.
- I found the Freighter Trampers to be the shining light of this book, something new and visually pleasing.
- The Interrogator Droid looks just like two R2 domes stuck together.
- The character Delva Racine looks an awful lot like Natalie Portman.
- Lando’s “winning smile” looks like it came from a Colt 44 commercial.

In the end, I was hoping for something that most fan-boys did not already know, thus improving my status among their ranks. Instead, I was dropped to the mat on numerous occasions by the competition with the simple phrase “I already knew that.”

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Topics: David West Reynolds, DK Children, James Luceno, Star Wars, Star Wars: Complete Visual Dictionary