Book Review: The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

This is an excellent movie companion artbook just Star Wars: The Force Awakens. All the good things I've written for that book applies here as well.

The book is still a hardcover with 256 pages.

The concept artworks featured are wonderful. They are nicely painting, very detailed and polished. There are some character designs, but the main bulk of artworks are for the environment paintings.

For character designs, we have a few for Rey, Luke, Finn, Kylo and Snoke. There are more on the Caretakers (the Lanais), the puffin-like porgs, sea cows, the different species of racing fathier, Praetorian guards and other characters. There's also the concept art of Han Solo's death that was missing from the first book to prevent spoilers. Needless to say, if you haven't watched The Last Jedi, this book is also filled with spoilers right from the start.

What I really like about the environment art is they are part of the scene, part of the action that's happening. There are characters in the scenes, and the scenes are telling stories. So you get to see how the environment is actually used. This is unlike concept art where the environment art is shown as some background art devoid of people. The environment provides the setting and context for the characters and it works really well here.

There are also pieces of art for the spaceships, anything that looks sci-fi and mechanical in the film. Such as interiors of the spaceships, control stations, hangar, the different versions of BB-8. ski speeders, landskeeter, walkers, and other heavy armoured vehicles. If you want a more detailed look at the vehicles, spaceships and interiors, the book to check out is Star Wars The Last Jedi Incredible Cross-Sections. And to see the finalised designs, check out Star Wars The Last Jedi The Visual Dictionary. These three books cover all the visual aspects of the film.

Overall, this is a fantastic artbook for the Star Wars fans and those who love sci-fi art and/or concept art. It's really worth the money.

The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)