Our first Geek Pick of the Week for 2025 dives into DK’s new Star Wars Blueprints book, which is packed to the gills with behind the scenes goodies.
As the Holiday season approaches, we’re bringing back our Geek Pick of the Week. Each week leading up to Christmas, we’ll be highlighting a cool product we’ve found that we feel would be the perfect gift for geeks of all kinds. Use these to help fill in your own wish list or find the perfect gift for the nerds in your life. Click HERE to read more about previous Picks of the Week!
It’s Fall, which means Geek Pick of the Week is back to help you over the next couple months with ideas for some perfect nerdy gifts. We’ll be spotlighting some fun things that we think might be deserving of a spot on your own wishlists, or something you could snag for a friend/loved one.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that I’m kicking things off this year with something Star Wars related. Specifically, the Star Wars The Blueprints: Designs and Artwork from The Skywalker Saga book from DK. Written by none other than the primary Star Wars maven, Pablo Hidalgo, this massive tome of information also features insights from J.W. Rinzler (who wrote the previous Blueprints release over a decade ago).
I found this aspect particularly neat as Rinzler sadly passed away back in 2021. His behind the scenes Star Wars books were always a treasure trove of candid insight and he wrote with a style that not only made the subject material more interesting, but made the more technical elements easier to understand. As such, it was great to see his fingerprints all throughout this new edition of Blueprints; a way to honor his original work and the legacy he’s left behind.
The concept of the book itself is relatively straightforward. We’ve seen plenty of (excellent) art of Star Wars books over the years that highlight the creative process behind some of the iconic designs we see on the big screen. It’s important to remember, however, there’s a WHOLE PROCESS of getting those pieces of art and translating them into what you see on the screen.
That’s where Blueprints comes in. It puts the spotlight on the little covered nitty gritty elements of production and all that goes into making the fantastical galaxy far, far away come to life. So it’s not like a break down of the individual ships and their functions (that would be for the Incredible Cross Sections reference books), but a breakdown of how the models (both practical and digital) came to be.
It’s incredible to see the original blueprints/pages (often with handwritten notes and annotations) the teams used when they were building the sets and ships. The size of the book, which comes in at a hefty seven pounds of greatness, lets these images to really spread out over the page. This way, readers are able to get up close to them and and appreciate the minute details that could easily be overlooked.
Beyond just the blueprints, the book does a great job of showing the end result (and some of the stages in between). The comparison images go a long way to showing how involved the process can be, and how even the tiniest details can have a major impact on a design.
One of my favorite—among many—spreads is a look at the Hoth Rebel Base in Empire Strikes Back and the icy corridors created for the film. Not only does the page fold out into an even large spread, we get a number of other behind the scenes photos from the set showing the end result. It goes a long way to showcase the thoughtfulness behind these designs, and how even the smallest details notated on the blueprints can have a monumental effect on how something looks on screen.
When it comes to the various starships and such, there are some fun details revealed as well. As many know, oftentimes only smaller sections of the vehicles (cockpits, sitting areas, hallways, etc) are constructed and movie magic makes it look like the full thing. It’s fun to see the exact blueprints of those sections and how the designers did their best to work within the scale of the “full” ship they were working with.
While crafting sets to look good/workable on the screen will always trump such minor continuity, it’s impressive to see how much care and attention went into making these cutout sections still feel logically part of the vehicles and ships that audiences see. When you consider the fact that some of these sets are only on screen for scene or two, it’s even more mind-blowing to see the sheer level of work put into them.
And yes, it’s very nice that this book covers not only the original films, but goes through the Prequels and Sequels. Hell, Blueprints offers the best look yet at Palpatine’s life-sustaining armature on Exogol (something I was sad the Art of book avoided). While the bulk of the novel and blueprints shown are from the original films, I think a lot of fans will be pleasantly surprised to see how much from the more modern films still incorporates that older process. No, it’s not “all CGI” and this serves as a great reminder.
More than just showcasing the blueprints used by the team to build the practical models and sets, the book offers a number of insights behind the scenes as well. The informational tidbits they reveal are neat, but more importantly, they hammer home how much of an artistic process this stage of development is. It’s not merely taking concept art and recreating it; it’s a translation process. Where the designers have to capture the essence of the approved art, while making necessary adjustments to ensure it still works within a real-world setting.
All in all, it’s a phenomenal reference book. Even in just in a “coffee table book” capacity—flipping it open to random pages to explore the art—it’s pretty wonderful with neat insights. Star Wars fans, or just fans of filmmaking in general, will absolutely love getting their hands on this one.
Star Wars The Blueprints: Designs and Artwork from The Skywalker Saga is out now (October 7th) and available both online and wherever books are sold!
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