Cool Stuff: The Star Wars Deluxe Edition Hardcover Collection

Dark Horse Comics has released The Star Wars Deluxe Hardcover Collection, which compiles The Star Wars comic book mini series. Based on George Lucas's original rough draft screenplay for Star Wars, the comic adapts Ralph McQuarrie's early concept designs to bring the un filmed version of the story to life. We'll take a look at this special collection, see some photos of whats inside, and find out my thoughts on The Star Wars Deluxe Edition, after the jump.

The Star Wars Deluxe Hardcover Collection comes with three deluxe, foil-stamped, hardcover volumes and enclosed in a clothbound clamshell box measuring 9"x13.5"x3".

Inside is the following: A oversized hardcover trade paperback collecting issues #0–#8 of The Star Wars featuring an introduction by writer J. W. Rinzler, a portfolio hardcover collecting the comic covers in removable lithographs, and a third book which is an official guide to the different galaxy which includes the original comic art commissioned to pitch the project to George Lucas.

The first book features a complete oversized reproduction of The Star Wars comic book miniseries. The inside over pages feature two-color art from the comic, as does the other books in the collection.  This is the best possible produced version of this comic book trade paperback.

I was a little disappointed by The Official Guide To the Different Galaxy. I was hoping that this book would collect some images of George Lucas' original draft of The Star Wars alongside Ralph McQuarrie's original early concept art, but instead the book focuses just on the artistic choices of the comic book series. I'm not sure if Dark Horse had permission to use the McQuarrie art or to reprint pages from Lucas' original hand-written screenplay, but for whatever reason they chose not to. The comic book artistic choices are interesting, but I'm left wanting to know more about the story behind this early draft. I was hoping that with J. W. Rinzler involved, we could have gotten more a glimpse behind the curtain as we did with his fantastic Behind the Scenes of the Star Wars movie book series.

The third book, the Cover Portfolio, collects the amazing beautiful cover art from the original comic books. Each piece of art is reproduced on a special removable lithographic which can be framed if you wanted. This is a nice touch that fans of this comic book collection will treasure.

Dark Horse has released The Star Wars in three different versions, this more-expensive collectible deluxe hardcover collection (available for around $79), a standard hardcover for around $28 (which is smaller in size but features much of the same content) and a cheaper paperback version collecting the comic book miniseries available for around $13. I'm not sure I could recommend the Deluxe edition unless you're a hardcore fan. The Deluxe Edition Collection would be a perfect Christmas gift for a hardcore fan of the series — its huge, classy, and looks great on a book shelf. For all others I would recommend the hardcover edition, which collects much of the same content but in a smaller size.

Here is the official description from Dark Horse Comics:

Before Star Wars, there was The Star Wars! This is the authorized adaptation of the rough-draft screenplay by George Lucas–the story that would eventually become a motion picture that would change the world. Annikin Starkiller is the hero . . . Luke Skywalker is a wizened Jedi general . . . Han Solo is a big green alien . . . and the Sith . . . Well, the Sith are still the bad guys. High adventure and derring-do from longer ago, in a galaxy farther away!