Customer Reviews

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Incredible Cross-Sections (The Definitive Guide to the Craft from Star Wars Episode III)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

STAR WARS: REVENGE OF THE SITH - INCREDIBLE CROSS-SECTIONS is so visually captivating and interesting that I don't quite know how to begin describing it. The incredibly detailed, superbly painted cutaways of the major vehicles and vessels of STAR WARS: Episode III provide for a unique experience in literature.

This book commands your attention as it forces you to soak in several intricately detailed paintings of the amazing craft of Episode III. The text that accompanies each picture provides excellent descriptions of each ship's engines, weapons systems, radiation, shielding, etc. and shows you how each individual part of the ship works. (The descriptions go in-depth so far, in fact, that they almost leave me wondering if any of the technology of STAR WARS might be possible. The credit for this must go to the author's degree in theoretical astrophysics.) Each craft also has a "Data File" text box for a quick analysis of the manufacturer, dimensions, hyperdrive, and maximum speed of the specific vehicle.

In contrast to all of the pros, I do have a couple of cons: grammar in some parts of the book is not quite as good as it should be for such a major work. Also, I found that beneath the protective jacket, the hardcover has little splotches of glue smeared on it. Though this isn't a problem at all for me, it might be one for someone who must have their books looking perfectly clean inside and out.

Overall, this book is an excellent work of art that is certainly worthy of STAR WARS fans' time and money. Its commitment to perfection in its utterly detailed and spectacular paintings and its very good descriptive writing easily give this book the power to hammer out its very minor flaws and earn itself 5 stars.

This is on the whole an excellent book that has cross-sections of almost all of the key vehicles participating in The Revenge of the Sith. Of particular interest are the cross-sections of the Vector-Class Star Destroyers and the big-wheeled infantry armored-personnel carrier. I especially like how the vehicles that appear in Return of the Sith appear outwardly to be inferior, earlier versions of vehicles that appear in Episodes 4, 5, and 6, which makes perfect sense since the vehicles in the later episodes represent a 20-year evolution of technology. One thing that doesn't make particular sense, though, are that vehicles that have such amazing propulstion technology (hyperdrives, intergalactic travel, etc.) rely on what are basically Napoleonic-era battle strategies (i.e., broadside salvoes of main armament between capital ships) rather than a more realistic strategy of using capital ships as stand-off missile-platforms or carriers for small assault craft which represent the capital ships' main striking power (as in, an aircraft carrier's fighters and attack aircraft). This is to a large extent understandable in the fictional Star Wars universe, as watching big battleships exhanging broadsides is immensely entertaining, probably moreso than watching a big, beautiful star destroyer go down because some stupid A-win crashes through its bridge (apparently, people who have mastered intergalactic travel haven't mastered the art of having backup control centers for a capital ship). It also makes sense since its more entertaining to watch X-wings and TIE fighters dogfight WWi/WWII style rather than a cold, impersonal missile-launch contest. Having said all that, I disliked how this book devoted an entire section to Yoda's escape pod but neglected to have a page for those archaic versions of the TIE fighters that escorted Emperor Palpatine's shuttle to Coruscant at the end of Return of the Sith (when a wounded Darth Vader was being wheeled into the surgery center). It would have been interesting to see a cross section of that spacecraft. Also missing was a cross section of the archaic Corellian corvette that took Bail Organa and Princess Leia to Alderran at the end of the movie, when infants Luke and Leia were split up and hidden by the surviving Jedi to keep them from Vader.

Overall a highly-interesting book that makes an airline flight or wait in the doctor's office go by very fast, but the few missing vehicles put a slight damper on it overall.

Not a bad book at all! I recommend it. I liked the sneak peek into Episode III (yes, I'm spoiled on it already) and seeing the internal workings of the ships was nice.

Here were my frustrations.

Okay, for starters, the inclusion of two pages devoted to Yoda's escape pods is criminal. Unless these escape pods end up doing like the same as the Jedi Interceptors (which I still don't like nearly as much as the Jedi Starfighters from AotC) in the movie in terms of how big of a role they play, which I doubt, they weren't needed. Nobody really cares, I think, what internal luxuries were afforded to Yoda in his tiny little Wookiee escape pod for the few seconds that it features on-screen. If they try to script Yoda's pod escaping from Kashyyyk into a battle sequence in the upper atmosphere or in space, it would be inane. The thing about Dagobah being one of the lost planets is interesting, though. Car'das must have slipped word of the name to someone after he escaped from that Bpfassh Dark Jedi. Anyway, it would have been a better use of page space, I think, to have Bail's speeder, or Padmé's yacht, or the AT-PW or whatever it's called, or just something besides boring escape pods, the Star Wars equivalent of life rafts!

Also I noticed that it wasn't quite as engaging as the other Cross-Sections before it, which showed you the characters and the key places that the characters explored, etc.

However, all in all, it was a good and informing read, with some deliciously sinister backstory for the Invisible Hand and some explanation as to how the Venator Star Destroyer and the ARC-170 fit into their other Expanded Universe "cousins" (I think I even saw a reference to the Planetary Fighter from that old PC space flight sim, X-wing Alliance, in there!)

I gave this to my grandson who is into Star Wars! He has enjoyed it very much!

I own all the star wars cross section volumes. I love them all! A must for fans of star wars tech!

My 11 year old son loves these books. We now have one for all 6 episodes.

For those not aware of the internet Versus debates, which pose such questions as "Who would win, a star destroyer or the U.S.S. Enterprise?", the debate raged for years and got quite nasty. That is until the information written by Dr. Curtis Saxton for this and the previous Incredible Cross Section book for Attack of the Clones, wherein Saxton took information from Versus debaters such as Michael Wong, Wayne Poe, Brian Young, and many others (Most named in the books' acknowledgements) and snuck them in so that they could settle the debate once and for all by encoding it into the Expanded Universe material canon. As a result the information in these books do not in any way shape or form match up with what is seen in the movies, nor especially the The Clone Wars TV series and movie as far as the capabilties of the spacecraft and vehicles are concerned. If you want a really good ICS Star Wars book, buy the first one for Star Wars: A New Hope, and the compilation book, but do not waste any money on this horrible fanboy wankery.

I thought this book was great! It has very detailed illustrations and is a must buy for any Star Wars fan! The books binding and everything was great, including the dust jacket. So dont turn away from this book just becuase some white is showing in the binding.

The art is great. The commentary is nice to read. My problems with this item have nothing to do with it's content. I received this item with damage to the dust cover. Pretty bad, too. The material seperated, peeling back on the dust cover, causing a large whitish area visible on the cover. Then the replacement had similar damage to the dust jacket on the spine. Amazon told me that this is a wide-spread problem as of the last time I talked with them, 4/20/05. So, if you want the book, but don't care what condition the dust cover is in, order away. If you care about the apearance of the book, look elsewhere.

I love the DK Episode's VI-IV & I,II Vehicles and Locations but I found the Episode III Space ships and Vehicles not all that amuseing I feel that it wasn't a completed book to end the spectacualr tiology books in the detailing of the great space ships and vehicles. The reason why I didn't get this one as my collection was becuase I didn't see Padme's Naboo Skiff, which we really didn't get to see much in the film, but i would of have liked to see the detaling at least . Over all it's a great book but not enough.