Mr March Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 Star Wars The NEW Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels Written by W. Haden Blackman Illustrations by Ian Fullwood Del Rey, Published by Ballatine Books ISBN 0-345-44902-9 For a fan of Star Wars, much of the wonder of this mythic science fiction fable has been thanks to the wonderfully colorful spacecraft that fly across the screen. Whether doing battle or just cruising in hyperspace, the spacecraft detailed in this updated book on all ships Star Wars is enough to satisify most fans of the franchise. To label Star Wars The New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels (NEGVV) as either essential or new is something of a misnomer. What the book does is list in alphabetical order all the ships and vehicles from the Star Wars movies and books, devoting two pages to each vehicle. For each ship within its pages, the NEGVV features a full color, one page glory shot of the ship at a dramatic angle as well as two small orthogonal schematics and some breif statistics. The second page features a name and class designation as well as a detailed and at the same time frivolous description of the ship. Yet while the NEGVV is certainly an improvement over the black and white schematics of the previous edition, don’t toss your old yellow book by Bill Smith and Doug Chiang into the green recycle bin just yet. The reason the title of this book is a little misleading is because like its predecessor, the NEGVV is a 200 page book. Unfortunately, as many Star Wars fans well know, there has been a number of new ships and mecha created for the Star Wars franchise in the seven years since the first Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels was released; a book which itself was 200 pages back in 1996. What this means is the NEGVV is something less than complete. Those Star Wars fans who own the first edition of this book and collected the Incredible Cross Sections series will find they certainly want to maintain their collection. The first edition EGVV features some Star Wars materiel not included in the NEGVV (or only breifly mentioned). Furthermore, the Incredible Cross Sections books (especially Curtis Saxton’s remarkably comprehensive Attack of the Clones ICS) explore the machinery and statistics of each Star Wars ship in much more detail and most importantly, with much better accuracy and science. Lastly, the written descriptions feature plenty of fluff just like the first edition. There is more than a little information included for the sake of word count that reads like a comic strip and is just plain incorrect or irrelevant. More hard statistics like complete ship measurements (ie more than just length), weapons payload, operational ranges, and more real technical analysis would be welcome. In other words, get Dr. Curtis Saxton to write more of these books...many more. So what does the NEGVV get right? Actually, quite a bit. The presentation itself is plenty to be happy about. The guide is printed on glossy paper and is much more colorful than the dull, colorless pages of the first edition. The NEGVV provides the beloved schematics featured in the first book while also featuring full color, full page pictures of the ships in all their glory. Most of the glory shots look great and many of the vessels - like the Mon Calamari Cruiser - benefit from a much stronger presentation. The NEGVV also has a good number of new vehicles not featured in any other book to date and all of the vehicle descriptions are newly written. The book also corrects several size errors and moves numbers more towards the accurate sizes of the Star Wars ships. The fan favorite Executor is described as 12.8 kilometers long in NEGVV and while this number is still a long way from the correct canon figure of 17.6 km, avoiding the long time erroneous 8 km figure is a welcome change in a Star Wars publication. Most of all the NEGVV is a fun read. Even for diehard fans who ould probably write a better guide themselves, the book is worth the price. Just hang on to all your other Star Wars books, cause the ultimate guide hasn’t seen the light of day just yet. Rating: 7 out of 10. A flawed encyclopedia of Star Wars vessels that is at the same time entertaining to read and informative even for veterans of the franchise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsu legato Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 Thanks for the review, Mr March. It sounds like I'm better off saving my money, at least for the time being. The new Essential Guide seems decidedly so-so. The new format they're using in the Essential series is definitely an improvement over the 1st editions, but it's still no excuse for fluff-filled writeups. At least the old version was informative, even if the text was largely lifted from the old West End Games books. Since some vehicles have obviously been omitted from the new edition to make room for the Clones hardware, what's been included from the previous edition? I personally wouldn't miss some of the more goofy EU vehicles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr March Posted October 28, 2003 Author Share Posted October 28, 2003 I admit I'm very picky about my technical data. If I had to choose one over the other, this new second edition would win. The old black and white EGVV got two things wrong that really made me dislike it. They used that stupid 8 km length for the SSD and they stuck the schematics for a Victory Star Destroyer into the section for the Imperial Star Destroyer. For crying out loud the ISD is the poster child for Star Wars spacecraft...it should have been a no-brainer. So yeah, the NEGVV definitely beats out the old. But just so you know where I stand on written content, the NEGVV contains no more or less fluff than the old one. The old EGVV is just as campy and "fact" filled as the new one. The new one may even be slightly better because of the more accurate editing, but I wouldn't bet on it. Personally, I consider "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones Incredible Cross Sections" to be the definitive published work about any Star Wars spacecraft released to date. The book featured real scientific units, plenty of accurate data (let me say that again...accurate...that felt good), and had the most technically relevant discussion that was both entertaining and interesting. Unless someone does the same in their book, I'm always going to give the competition a lower grade. As for stuff that got the axe, all the stations have been removed. No Death Star, Cloud City, Hosk Station, etc. Which is kinda good in a way since they are neither vehicles nor vessels. You'll be happy to know that most of the EU stuff got axed to make room for the clone hardware and like you, I don't miss the cut. Personally, the more stuff I see about the Acclamator-Class Republic Assault Ship, the better. Here's a short list Stuff I miss from the old guide: Death Stars Victory Class Star Destroyer (even if it was just an RPG concontion made out of Star Destroyer concept artwork) World Devastator Stuff I love in the new guide: Acclamator Mon Calamari Cruiser (new, more accurate schematics and a great glory picture) All the droid army materiel All the clone army materiel Techno Union Starship Color pictures! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Druna Skass Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 Hmm speaking of Star Wars mechanics, I did a Variable X-Wing once , I'll put it up if I can find it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phyrox Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 (edited) hmm, does the new book have any of the pod-racers? I have been looking for something with ACCURATE info on them, but haven't really found anything. Some of the episode one books had stuff, but sizes and descriptions were off, so I avoided them. Even the SW web-page has not-accurate-to-footage dimensions. I hope this has 'em. On a side note, any of the other books have anything worthwhile on podracers? Seems odd that they were the center of the first movie's only really good action scene...but get so little press. ed-for spelling Edited October 28, 2003 by Phyrox Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Druna Skass Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 I fliped though it once, yeah I think it has some podracer data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azrael Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 I'll just wait till Episode 3 comes out before I pick up another Essentials Guide. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsu legato Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 I think the Episode I Incredible Cross-Sections is your best bet for Podracer data. I'm glad to hear that most of the EU vehicles have been cut. Given a choice between the "Sun Crusher" and the Republic Gunship....which do you think I'd pick? And the Death Star and the other stations and cities don't really belong in this book anyhow, so again there's some wise editing decisions being made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mislovrit Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 For a better list of errors and which ships weren't in the book go here.link Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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