Chronicle Books has released a 300 page tome that documents the sounds of Star Wars, the stories behind them, and how they came to be. A book about the sounds of Star Wars would be pretty boring without an element that would allow you to actually hear, so Chronicle added a speaker and a sound bank that allows you to listen to the sounds and clips of the film as you read the book and follow along.
At first, I sort of felt like I was reading a kids book, but the sound bank and speaker are actually quite good and complimented the words perfectly.
Though the book was written by J.W. Rinzler, at least two-thirds of it may as well have been written by Lucasfilm sound guru, Ben Burtt. He’s quoted everywhere and has to be, since he’s the mastermind behind the audio element of Star Wars. (For the prequels, Special Edition, and The Clone Wars section of the book, Matthew Wood is consulted quite a bit. He also provided the voice for General Grievous and other ancillary characters in the films and show.)
The book is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the minutia of the behind the scenes of Star Wars, but is also a great book for kids interested in the saga as well. In fact, when the book arrived, I had to wait a couple of hours before my 7-year-old daughter would let me touch it. She spent hours at the kitchen table reading about all of the sounds and listening to each one in turn. I’m not sure how much of it she soaked in during that first reading (and listening), but she’s sneaked off with it more than once to brush up on it. I don’t think she cares about the sounds and their story as much as I do, but she loves the book just the same.
The book is divided up into each different movie of the saga and covers pre-production, production, and post-production of each film. It begins chronologically with A New Hope and ends with The Clone Wars. It’s laid out and designed very well and lays out the information in a neat and orderly way, drawing your eye from the pictures and the stories with ease.
Some of the stories are the same ones we’ve all heard over the years, and some of the stories dispel some of those stories. The book reads very conversationally and is quite easy to read, it has thousands of photos to provide a visual element to the photographs, including plenty of behind-the-scenes photos that I’d never seen before.
In short, this book is a must for any Star Wars fan (or audio engineer fascinated by the process of sound effects and fake language creation). It offers a window into the life of a sound creator, designer, and editor, and because the book has an audio element to it, it’s a perfect melding of mediums.
I would recommend it highly. I learned a lot reading it, and was able to relive some of my favorite moments in the Star Wars saga as I did so.