Beginning in 1998, DK Publishing began releasing visual dictionaries of the Star Wars films. The first dictionary was written David West Reynolds and contained information from the special editions of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. He brought out another in 1999 containing information from The Phantom Menace and another in 2002 containing information from Attack of the Clones. James Luceno was the author of the dictionary containing information from Revenge of the Sith (pictured at right), which was released in 2005. In 2006, all four dictionaries were republished in one volume as Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary which included new and updated material by Ryder Windham. It was subtitled as "The Ultimate Guide to Characters and Creatures from the Entire Star Wars Saga".

I personally don't think it's "the ultimate guide". Steve Sansweet's Star Wars Encyclopedia has much more information from Episodes IV-VI. But, The Complete Visual Dictionary is full of details that are hard to find in any other reference manual. Even the online databank on this website doesn't have much of the information included here. And it's clear that James Luceno used some information he gathered for Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary in his novel Labrynth of Evil. For example, we learn just what Yoda did to earn the respect of the Wookiees. And, we learn why he carries a gimer stick for a cane. (It isn't just because of old age, but that is certainly part of it.) There's tons of information about Tusken Raiders and Geonosians. We also learn that Palpatine told a few people that he was a Sith Lord before he told Anakin. (You can proabably guess who else Palpatine told, but the visual dictionary confirms it.) There's also information about most of the Jedi we met in Episodes I-III and an in-depth diagram of R2-D2 as a bonus for those who haven't collected the other visual dictionaries. I've just scratched the sufrace of all the information that's in here. In the end, Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary is a must-have reference manual for fans who want more background on characters and planets from the Star Wars films. Final rating: **** (on a scale of 0-4 stars).