Star Wars is all-encompassing, an aspect that’s been part of the Saga since the first film’s 1977 release. Star Wars: The Rebel Files (Deluxe Edition) adds to that allure
From comics to novelizations to additional stories, Star Wars has always lent itself to print medium. This holds true even more now, in an era of virtual and augmented reality, app-based game, extensive massively multiplayer online role-playing games and of course online, almost-interactive games for consoles and computers.
But it’s the accompanying books that help add layers of context and detail to the Star Wars Saga and, frankly, that’s a needed thing, given the complexity of the characters, stories and more that population the Star Wars Galaxy.
Which is why Daniel Wallace’s The Rebel Files (Deluxe Edition) from publisher becker&mayer! is an edifying and entertaining dive into the history of the Rebel Alliance, from its jerky formative start to polished and regimented cohesion in the struggle against the Empire.
Written by Wallace, himself no stranger to this style of work, given his previous outings — The Jedi Path, The Imperial Handbook, Book of Sith and The Bounty Hunter Code — this latest addition to the Star Wars “reference” library is a perfect melding of fictional accounts, documents and observations presented in a learned text about a Galactic history that never was.
Sporting lavish illustrations by Joe Corroney, including memos, cables, dispatches, dossiers ranging from the collapse of the Galactic Republic to the “end” of the Empire, the book is a panoply of information both edifying and entertaining. Almost all eras are here, from those in Star Wars: Rebels to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and of course the Original Trilogy, too.
What adds to its realism is the inclusion of Imperial transcripts, as well as the Alliance, offering up parallel views of the struggle. The six inserts are informative, offering up as they do, character sketches of Jyn Erso and Lando Calrissian, among other topics. Their inclusion helps to emphasize the book’s earned subtitle of Collected Intelligence of the Alliance.
It’s stirring, to see these characters we’ve known and loved, both good and bad, and learn more about their contributions to what became a successful Rebellion. It’s also maudlin, in a sense, too, to be reminded of how many didn’t make it.
The Rebel Files (Deluxe Edition) is a long time in coming, but the wait was worthwhile. It’s a book that deserves to be in a Star Wars library.
While the deluxe edition proffers a fine presentation, what with the hard-shell plastic case and the built-in holo projector, it’s pricey, selling for just less than $80 on Amazon. Like its predecessors, a book-only version will be available July 3 for about $20 online and in stores.
You can purchase Star Wars: The Rebel Files (Deluxe Edition) here.
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