Star Wars Stormtroopers: Beyond the Armor
by Ryder Windham, Adam Bray
Published: October 24th 2017
(176 pages)
Foreword by John Boyega
Just in time for the next blockbuster, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, this unique and beautifully designed compendium with removable features traces one of the franchise’s most iconic characters—the stormtrooper—from initial development through all nine Star Wars movies to their many iterations in TV, comics, videogames, novels, and pop-culture.
Star Wars: A New Hope, the very first installment in the beloved science-fiction series, introduced the Imperial stormtroopers—the army of the fearsome and tyrannical Galactic Empire. Charged with establishing Imperial authority and suppressing resistance, these terrifying, faceless, well-disciplined soldiers in white have become a universal symbol of oppression.
Star Wars Stormtroopers explores these striking warriors and their evolution in depth for the first time. Ryder Windham and Adam Bray trace the roots of their creation and design, and explore how these elite troops from a galaxy far, far away have been depicted in movies, cartoons, comics, novels, and merchandizing.
Filled with photographs, illustrations, story boards, and other artwork, this lavish officially licensed book comes complete with removable features, including posters, stickers, replica memorabilia and more, making it an essential keepsake for every Star Wars fan, as well as military, design, and film aficionados.
I wasn’t sure what Star Wars Stormtroopers: Beyond the Armor was about. How could you write an entire book about stormtroopers? Stormtroopers act robotic like droids except I would argue that droids have more personality. So I was surprised to find that this book is more of a history about the making of Star Wars with a stormtrooper focus that gives a story line to that huge amount of history. That focus helps make it interesting, but it suffers from listing a lot of things (mostly toys and how many versions they came in) for the sake of accuracy which made it tedious to read sometimes. Overall, I came away from Star Wars Stormtroopers with lots of fun facts and insights that I didn’t know before. Here are some of my favorite facts from the book:
- They released comics and novelizations before the first movie which wasn’t a common way to market movies back then.
- Boba Fett was first a super trooper stormtrooper design. It was so cool to see an all white Boba Fett. (The pictures in this book are great by the way).
- They based the AT-AT walkers movements on elephants.
- History of the stormtrooper toys released in the entire franchise (some of which seemed really cool and I kind of want them.)
- Fun details about Daniel Craig as a stormtrooper.
- Some hints at the end about the new stormtroopers coming up in The Last Jedi.
Stormtroopers are a blank slate and given the right setting they can be comical. There’s a great picture of toy stormtroopers posed on a lunch break at the office that made me wonder, are stormtroopers really that scary? Getting to know one stormtrooper when we have always seen them as this massive entity was such an interesting twist which makes Finn one of my favorite characters. John Boyega, who plays Finn, does a great introduction for this book. In 1995, there was a short story about the stormtrooper who had found the droid parts in Episode IV who becomes a spy for the rebellion. The book doesn’t go so far to say that Finn was inspired by this story, but I think it’s interesting how similar the stories are.
I was surprised that I hadn’t read that stormtrooper story before. In 1991, Lucas Licensing started publishing new stories called the expanded universe. This was my Young Adult fiction as a teen and I read every book they had at the library. I was beyond excited when in 1994 they announced that they were making more Star Wars movies. I felt like a part of history.
History is only boring if we don’t know why we should care about these names, dates, and facts. Context helps you care about those things and this history book (I know it’s about a movie, but still) could have used more context. Like on pg 74, it says about a video game that “Stormtrooper voices were all performed by Denny Delk.” Was this significant in some way? Should I know who that is? Or is it just a random fact that they’ve crammed in here so the nutrition label can say “complete facts for your 2000 calorie Star Wars diet”?
Star Wars Stormtroopers: Beyond the Armor is part of the Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi series and it’ll help get your Star Wars fix while we are all waiting for the next movie to come out.
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I received this book for review from the publisher, Harper Design, in exchange for an honest review. I was not told what to say, I was not paid to write this review and all the opinions expressed are my own.
About Adam Bray
Over the years, Adam Bray has acquired a reputation as the go-to-guy for adventure travel in exotic locations across Asia and the Pacific. Adam is renowned for his off-the-beaten-path adventures to remote hilltribe villages, dense tropical jungles, and for occasionally discovering ancient (as in more than one thousand years old) Cham temples along the way. Adam was the first journalist to visit the Long Wall of Quang Ngai (Vietnam's Great Wall), which he reported on for CNN, CNN Travel and BBC.
Speaking the language helps—Adam speaks Vietnamese as well as a smattering of Cambodian, Cham and a few hilltribe phrases. He's one of the few who can also read and write Cham script.
Adam is an expert on New Zealand and Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) history, culture, geography and tourism. He is also a specialist in Cham culture and history, as well as that of other hilltribes and ethnic minorities of Indochina. Adam has contributed a combination of original text, photos and expertise to nearly 40 books on international travel (See below for a selection of some of Adam's most recent books or you can read a selected bibliography here). In addition to CNN and BBC, and has also reported for a variety of other media outlets such as National Geographicand even the SyFy Channel.
About Ryder Windham
Ryder Windham is an American sci-fi author who has written over sixty Star Wars books, including novels, comics, reference books, and so on. He has also written junior novelizations for Indiana Jones movies. Since 1993, he has been working on Star Wars projects either by himself or with other authors. His reference book Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide had been on the New York Times Best Seller list for three weeks in 2005. Although he has written lots of books, accepted interviews, and appeared at several fan-conventions, little is known about his personal life.
My name is Jessica. I love to read Young Adult and classic literature. I’ve been a book blogger for six years and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. I’m a very curious reader. Writing about all the questions and thoughts I had while reading a book is the best hobby ever.
I don’t consider myself THAT big of a Star Wars fan but this one sounds mostly fun. I love Little fun facts about big movies.
I’m glad you enjoyed the book. It actually sounds like something I might enjoy reading. But, I do have to say that you know that stormtroopers are human, right? They actually began as clones of Jenga Fett per Attack of the Clones… They’re not robots.
Jango, oops.
Um yes I obviously know that. See also the character of Finn. I said robotic meaning they have no personality. They walk around in huge groups and say almost nothing and until Finn they were not individualized in any way. I changed my review to make that comparison more clear. They ACT that way and aren’t actually robots.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH, lol. I totally read that completely wrong. Sorry.
Lol that’s ok. The new wording is better anyway :)