Review: LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia

RRP $29.99
Available from most retailers.
On sale for $20 in the Big W catalogue starting Thursday 30th April 2015.

In between working and writing blog posts I don’t really get a lot of time to sit down and read books, but when I was given the opportunity to review the new LEGO® Star Wars: Character Encyclopedia I jumped at the chance.

The 2015 edition of the book features information on minifigures released including those featured in the first batch of 2015 sets.

The Content

When you open up the book you are greeted with a detailed contents broken down by movie or show. There is a lengthy blurb explaining how the book is laid out. The breakdown makes it very easy to find a particular minifigure, but if you are having trouble there is a detailed index in the back of the book. The index also includes set numbers, which is great if you want to learn about minifigures in a particular set.

It would be impractical to have every variation of every Star Wars minifigure ever produced, but DK have got around this by focusing on the most recent version of each character, and highlighting interesting variants. I like the way they have used the information about the variants to show the evolution of the minifigures. As somebody who happened to not be a LEGO fan when the prequel trilogy was released I found the traditional yellow versions of the characters really interesting.

One thing you will notice going through the book is how LEGO’s printing has improved over time. Minifigure designs that are only 15 years old look vastly different to the versions from 2015. Basic lines and shapes are now incredibly detailed prints.

The improvements in the printing are even more apparent because the photography in this book is fantastic. Every minifigure is captured with such clarity that it jumps off the page. You can see detail that you may not have noticed even having the minifigure in front of you.

The pages are also full of really interesting facts. You would have to be the most hardcore Star Wars and LEGO fan to not learn something from this book. Did you know that Jar Jar featured the first moulded minifigure head? I don’t want to spoil the content, but there are heaps of other facts that I jotted down as “interesting” while reading the book.

The Exclusive Minifigure

One of the best parts of any DK LEGO books is the LEGO attached to the front cover. This edition of the Star Wars Character Encyclopedia is no exception. If you were walking past it in a shop your first impression may be that this is a boring old storm trooper or clone trooper but hardcore Star Wars fans will realise that this is a Boba Fett inspired by the original concept art for the character by Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston.

With so many Star Wars characters already produced as minifigures it is great to see something different as the exclusive.

Wrapping Up

I have never been a huge collector of Star Wars LEGO, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading through this book. There is enough interesting information here to keep young and old Star Wars fans entertained.

If I did have any criticism of the book it would be a personal one – as somebody who hasn’t watched the Clone Wars or Rebels cartoons I found those sections a little bit tedious. The different clone troopers all started to blend together and I was actually glad when I finally got past the Clone Wars and into Episode III. Obviously if you were more familiar with those series then these sections would hold more interest.

The only other issue is The Force Awakens, which is released in December this year. That film is going to bring new characters and older versions of existing characters. While Force Awakens sets haven’t been official announced, they are coming. I don’t feel that this is a huge issue – this book is still a fantastic read. I actually think it could be cool to have a few different versions of the book to see how things change over time.

If you are a LEGO Star Wars fan, or even just a minifigure fan, then I highly recommend this book. It would make a great May The 4th present.

Bricking Around was sent a copy of the LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia to review by Penguin Australia.