A little over two weeks ago, Lucasfilm Publishing partnered with DK Books to put out the new reference volume Star Wars: Dawn of Rebellion – The Visual Guide, and below are my thoughts on this release after having some time to sit with the review copy I received last week.
In the original Star Wars film, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi used the term “The Dark Times” to refer to the period after the rise of the Empire and before the moment where he came across Luke Skywalker and his droids in the Tatooine desert. To us as fans, it’s the era between Episodes III and IV in the larger Star Wars saga, and it incorporates media like the movies Solo and Rogue One, live-action television series like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor, animated series like The Bad Batch and Rebels, and video games like the Jedi – Fallen Order series. There’s a lot of content there, and much of it has come in recent years since the Walt Disney Company’s acquisition of Lucasfilm– and that’s why this new reference book, Dawn of Rebellion – The Visual Guide is so welcome. Written by Lucasfilm Story Group members Pable Hidalgo and Emily Shkoukani, this hardcover volume is an instant must-read for those who have an undying passion for the finer details of A Galaxy Far, Far Away.
Divided into seven total chapters, this Visual Guide kicks things off with a timeline of events after the end of the Clone Wars and prior to the beginning of the Galactic Civil War, and then a map of the known galaxy to help readers get their bearings as they relate to this material. From that point on, Hidalgo and Shkoukani have broken down pretty much everything one might want to know about this roughly two-decade span of the fictional Star Wars chronology. They start with the players, vehicles, locations, and factions on the dark side of the Force and then flow into the Rebel Alliance itself, setting the galactic stage for the timeless battle between good and evil we knew from the original Star Wars trilogy. But here we zoom in on planets like Alderaan and Ryloth and groups like Clone Force 99 and the Inquisitorius who were active during this period. We learn more about the corporate interests that take hold on Ferrix and the Imperial Security Bureau that filters precious information through the Empire. There’s also the galaxy’s underworld, so important in the upbringing of characters like Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, that gets explored in-depth in these pages.
But the meat-and-potatoes of this reference book are the Empire itself and the burgeoning Rebel Alliance, both of which are scrutinized in-depth as to how they function, their personnel, and which vehicles and weapons they utilize. I particularly like the two-page spreads breaking down the various different types of TIE fighters and stormtroopers– information I mostly know off the top of my head already from a lifetime of consuming Star Wars, but it’s terrifically handy to have these indispensable charts ready to go at a moment’s notice. My favorite part of this era in the Star Wars timeline is that there aren’t a whole lot of Jedi around to speak of (though that list seems to get longer every year), so the focus here really is on the down-and-dirty day-to-day lives of galactic citizens living under the Empire, and how some of those citizens begin to fight back against their oppressors. That spirit is reflected wholeheartedly in this book, which should prove an essential resource for those who want to get more out of this universe created by George Lucas in 1977 and expanded upon by a new generation of creators at Lucasfilm over the past decade.
Star Wars: Dawn of Rebellion – The Visual Guide is available now wherever books are sold.