The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi
By Phil Szostak, Rian Johnson (Foreword)
Written and directed by Rian Johnson (Looper, The Brothers Bloom, Brick) and production designed by Rick Heinrichs (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Captain America: The First Avenger), Star Wars: The Last Jedi, like every chapter before it, owes its visual language and fully imagined cinematic landscape to an incomparable art department: the Lucasfilm “visualists.” The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi explores their vision and illuminates their creative process in stunning detail. Featuring concept art, costume sketches, and storyboards, this book takes fans on a deep dive into the development of the fantastic worlds, characters, and creatures—both old and new—of The Last Jedi. Exclusive interviews with the filmmakers and with the Lucasfilm visualists provides a running commentary on this unforgettable art, and reveals the inspirations behind moviemaking magic at its finest.
Summary from Goodreads.
The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi is over 200 pages of a small sample of concept art that was produced for the making of the film. Surprisingly, it actually started with a chapter based on The Force Awakens (apparently the art book for The Force Awakens was released close to the films release so they did not include the film aspect of the film in the art book for that film and instead decided to include it here).
The actual start of pre-production on Star Wars: The Last Jedi start way back in 2014 (some of the filming actually occurred before The Force Awakens was actually released!). You never realise how long something like this takes to come to fruition. Also, one thing that I noticed is that every piece has a name and number to identify it. Some only go through a through a few iteration, while others, such as ‘Leia Chamber Version 45’ go through heaps! I was amazed that what ends up on the screen could have looked drastically different.
The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi had the right combination of art to words. As much as I love seeing all of the beautiful artwork that has been created and always want to have more included, having some written description as to what the piece is, how it came to be, and the process of it certainly added a lot of value instead of just looking at art. I cannot fathom how all of the artist are able to create such detailed designs, and also make a ridiculous amount at that!
If you love looking through the concept art of movies, then I could not recommend this art book to add to your collection.
5/5
Have you read The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi? What did you think? Let me know in the comments.
Check it out on Goodreads here.
Purchase it on Amazon here.
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