ADVANCED REVIEW: ‘Star Wars: Age of Resistance-The Official Collector’s Edition’

Star Wars: Age of Resistance-The Official Collector’s Edition is a magazine published by Titan Comics. The magazine takes a behind-the-scenes look at the films in the Star Wars sequel trilogy—Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Included in the magazine are official pieces of concept art from all three films, as well as interviews with the cast and crew and a detailed timeline of all nine films in the Skywalker Saga.

The timeline is probably one of the best parts of the magazine, as it compiles the events of the Skywalker Saga into an easy-to-read set of pages. It also comes up with a unique way to bisect the timelines, using the Starkiller Base attack from The Force Awakens as inspiration. (‘BSI’ refers to ‘Before Starkiller Incident,’ while ‘ASI’ refers to ‘After Starkiller Incident’. Whether the reader is a die-hard Star Wars fan or new to the saga, this will be the place to start.

I also loved the concept art that detailed the creation behind Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron. The work by concept artists Glyn Dillon and Christian Alzmann perfectly captures the actors’ likenesses and often features radically different versions of characters. BB-8, for example, once sported a design that looked more like a NASA rover than his adorably spherical self. Likewise, Kylo Ren was imagined as a cybernetic nightmare and a far cry from the tortured visage of Adam Driver. I like seeing concept art because it shows the process of bringing a character’s design to life, and I get to see other designs that were just as amazing,—or potentially better—than the final result.

However, a great deal of this art was already covered in the official art books for each of the Star Wars sequel trilogy’s respective art books. Likewise, many of the interviews with the cast and crew had already been covered in various sources. I feel this issue would have been a bit better if it featured more behind-the-scenes materials such as script pages or the first table read from The Force Awakens. Another addition that would have made more sense would be separate sections with directors J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson, as well as screenwriters Lawrence Kasdan and Chris Terrio. I know the actors have brought the characters and story to life, but the directors are also a large part of the film and I would have loved to get more of their insight or even a look back at the films (considering The Force Awakens hit its five year anniversary in 2020).

Star Wars: Age of Resistance-The Official Collector’s Edition is a decent collection of behind-the-scenes material, though it feels a bit redundant given that other books have covered the same material. I can only recommend it to hardcore Star Wars fans, as they will probably be the folks who get a kick out of it.

Star Wars: Age of Resistance-The Official Collector’s Edition will be released on March 9, 2021 wherever comics are sold.