Are there any great books out there about the “Star Wars” films, preferably a history that details everything from the initial ideas and inspirations to the creation and filiming of the movies?
I’d normally look up something like this myself, but there’s such an enormous glut of SW books that searching for something like this is nearly impossible.
If anyone’s read something like this, let me know!
There’s one called “Star Wars: The Creative Impulse”, but it’s a bit shallow.
Another called “Skywalking” is quite detailed, but is an unofficial Lucas biography and possibly isn’t completely accurate.
There are a couple of more recent biographies too. Check out this list here.
The new DVDs of the Original Star Wars Trilogy is coming out in September, and will have a pretty definitive series of new documentaries chronicling Star Wars specifically, so you could wait until then.
Star Wars: From Concept to Screen to Collectible by Stephen Sansweet may be helpful. It’s not as detailed about the idea inspirations as it is on conceptual renderings - lots of concept models and preproduction drawings. The second half is mostly about the glut of merchandising from the series, but it’s an interesting read nonetheless.
I have Empire Building: The Remarkable Real-Life Story of Star Wars by Garry Jenkins, and highly recommend it. A number of behind-the-scenes photos, details of the studio politics needed to get the movies made, George Lucas’ temper tantrums over The Empire Strikes Back, Mark Hamill on having “Property of Lucasfilms” stamped on his ass, and more. Boffo stuff.
And IIRC, the DVD set of Star Wars coming out later this year is the computer-enhanced “Special Edition,” not the untouched originals. 