Available today, the fantastic new THE ART OF STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN celebrates the iconic Disney+ show with a tome that is FILLED with nerdy Star Wars fun. From anecdotes and details about the evolution and creation of the show to the pages and pages of beautiful conceptual artwork, this is a book created just for fans.

When we were offered the opportunity to review this book it was the easiest “OH MY GROGU, YES, PLEASE” we could have mustered.

Although on-screen we’re about half way through the second season on Disney+ right now, THE ART OF STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN takes us back to last year and dives into the iconic first season of the streaming show.

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Lucasfilm creative art manager Phil Szostak was tasked with compiling the impressive hardcover book that contains 256 pages of glorious behind-the-scenes goodies. The organization of the content is pretty straight forward; the first section is about THE PITCH (with Kathleen Kennedy rounding up Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni to work together) and then continues on by breaking down each episode/chapter with closer looks at the people, places, gadgets, and moods.

With captions from a myriad of contributors who worked on the show, we get a great peek into the gear workings where one thing that seems to ring consistent is that even from the early pitch phase, there was a buzz for this project. That excitement was seemingly so palpable that we even sensed it in the press conference ahead of the show’s debut last year where we noted: “The vibe in the press conference was effervescent and when filmmakers are this excited about a project it’s hard not to feed off of the hype. I have a good feeling about this.”

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The real magic doesn’t come from being excited about it, though. The clincher is when you are able to pair the passion and buzz with some of the world’s most premiere talent to bring it to life. As you leaf through the gorgeous full-bleed pages and pause for captions and narrative you get a clear sense of the insane amount talent from the people involved. No level of detail was too small to consider, from figuring out where a building in a village would store its rubbish bins or how an armorer in a sewage hideaway would get adequate ventilation for her trade to how much weathering and paint to include on a space ship or what kinds of materials and fabrics to use on a costume.

Of course, time is money and in the instance of THE MANDALORIAN the time was tight and the budget was tighter. With over 300 minutes of content to create that spanned an entire galaxy (and about half the budget that a feature film of the same length would secure) everyone involved was tasked with working out a LIfe Day miracle. Luckily, many of the team assembled for this project have deep roots with Star Wars and Luacsfilm in general and the fruits of that labor have proven successful.

© Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.

If there was one complaint that fans might have is that The Child does not get nearly as much of a spotlight as you might expect. There are various reasons that you could hypothesize as to why but he does still get a few pages of allocation with some really great concept art and anecdotes for his creation.

THE ART OF STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN offers a whole lot regardless of your aim. If you want a book that gives great insider references and almost unnecessarily specific timelines then you’ll satisfy hardcore nerds. If you want a really nice coffee table book for the casual fan or home library then you’re also going to be perfectly satisfied. And for film buffs interested in the pre-production process there’s just enough here with various storyboards and detail schematics to offer a tease of working for Lucasfilm. It’s a well-rounded tome that would satisfy anyone who enjoys THE MANDALORIAN.

See it for Yourself

Marked by Amazon as a #1 Best Seller, THE ART OF STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN is available now for purchase.

MORE INFO: Buy it now on Amazon