Review: THE ART OF STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
The release of nearly every major blockbuster is accompanied by the release of a book dedicated to the art of that film, and often they're enjoyable — if slight — pieces of entertainment that may provide a couple of small insights into the movie in question and do little more than look good on a coffee table. The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, however, is the rare art book that is actually worth going out and purchasing right now, because it's jam-packed with literally hundreds of pieces of amazing concept art that fans of the movie could spend hours poring over.
Written by Lucasfilm image archivist Phil Szostak, who worked in The Force Awakens' art department from 2012 through the end of production, the book is full of first-hand accounts from artists, designers, and animators as they talk about the artwork generated from the early days of the movie's development all the way up through post-production. Plus, Szostak provides a timeline that takes readers month by month through the development process, giving us insights into what director J.J. Abrams and his team were working on at any given time and how the story eventually evolved into what we saw on screen.
Being able to see concept art of Kira and Sam (who would become Rey and Finn) is a cool way to trace how the movie was made, and you can see how story decisions formed and influenced the art moving through the production and vice versa — there are a handful of images that are replicated almost 100% accurately in the movie. Reading The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the equivalent of watching a time lapse of a sculptor carving a solid block of marble into a gorgeous statue, and it's awesome to see the boundless creativity of the designers and artists involved in the making of one of the year's biggest movies. There are likely going to be many more books written about the making of this movie, and while they may end up providing a more detailed blow-by-blow of what happened on what day during the production, none of them will have as many jaw-dropping pieces of artwork as this one.
If this sounds like it's up your alley, you can get it on Amazon right here. Check out a very small selection of the book's artwork below.
