The Art of Solo: A Star Wars Story

Continuing their line of “Art of” books, Abrams’ The Art of Solo: A Star Wars Story provides fans with some looks at the concept art that didn’t make the cut or helped shaped the final product. There’s images of the various ships, weapons, locations and character designs. Many of the images show the early ideas that were rejected or used elsewhere. Plus there’s written content that sheds some behind the scenes info on the creatives, their ideas, and the time line of the film’s production. It’s not as much info as the old making of books, but it’s a taste of what we used to get from them. For those looking to delve deeper into the movie, this one is a must.

Written by Phil Szostak, who also did the “Art of” books for The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, the book follows the same basic structure. Throughout the book there are lots of pictures, some taking up a whole page, two whole pages, or smaller images arrayed out with accompanying text. There’s also two forewards, one by Neil Lamont (production designer for Solo) and one by James Clyne (design supervisor for Solo). The written content of the book gives readers a brief overview of how the creation process went for Solo. It covers the project from beginning to end with an emphasis on the art department and their designs for the film. However, there’s lots of cool pieces of information hidden away in the book, a lot of it which you will not find elsewhere, even in Solo: A Star Wars Story: The Official Guide from DK Books. So if you’re looking to put all the pieces together and scrounge up all the info you can, this book will be a necessity.

As for the images, there’s a smattering of everything. There are concept ideas for different version of the Millennium Falcon, Han’s speeder, Moloch’s speeder, the train, Enfys Nest’s swoop bikes, new TIE fighters, new Star Destroyers, and ideas on a mother ship for Enfys Nest. There are creature designs for Moloch and Lady Proxima, Dryden Vos and the various background aliens. There are character designs for Enfys Nest and her gang, plus wardrobe ideas for Han, Qi’ra and Lando. There’s droid designs, the creation process leading to L3-37, and some wild ideas that eventually converged into Rio who was at one point two different characters. On top of all that is the location images that highlight different scenes, and even shows some of the ideas for planets that weren’t used.

For the casual fan, The Art of Solo: A Star Wars Story would make a nice coffee table book or gift idea. It’s the kind of book you can pick up, flip through, enjoy and put down. For the hardcore fans who plan on devouring it from cover-to-cover, it will certainly yield some fun and useful info. It won’t be the most gripping read, and with all the images, it won’t take too long to read, but it’s not too bad. All it all it’s a useful book that can be consumed in different ways and satiate the interests of different kinds of fans. I give it a four out of five metal bikinis.

Reviewed By: Skuldren for Roqoo Depot.