Star Wars is expansive, so expansive that there are dedicated teams of people that keep the lore coherent and fitting together. Occasionally, some of them work together and bring us what is known as a visual guide. These books help expand and teach us the lore and interconnectedness of its shows and films, showing off objects and characters of interest and filling in details. Dawn of Rebellion: The Visual Guide brings together The Bad Batch, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor under one umbrella. With the shows being set in relatively the same period, the book provides a perfect opportunity to fill in gaps and help us learn much more about the shows and the era.
Dawn of Rebellion expands on the worlds of Andor, The Bad Batch and Obi-Wan Kenobi
Visual guides are among my favorite of Star Wars merchandise, and Dawn of Rebellion is no exception. The book has almost 150 pages filled to the brim with facts, information, and lore about all corners of the Reign of The Empire era of the Star Wars timeline.
The book is very nicely laid out as well, with different parts of the book corresponding to what characters or objects you may learn about. For example, the chapter “Worlds of Unrest” mainly deals with rebel groups from Bad Batch and Andor. There you can learn a lot more about the series and how they connect to the planets the characters are from.
A great part of this and other visual guides is the galaxy map and timeline shown at the start of the book. This helps readers to fully establish just where their favorite planets are and how expansive the shows can be across the galaxy, with every new visual guide adding to the list of planets.
The timeline aspect is also important. Whilst it’s covered in much more detail in Star Wars: Timelines, the smaller one we get at the start of this book helps place things nicely in order to help establish when in the timeline a particular show or project takes place.
One of the best parts of this new visual guide for me, is the sheer expansive it covers, not only is it about the three Disney+ shows, but the guide also includes information from several other projects like Solo: A Star Wars Story, and Star Wars: Rebels. This helps to fully flesh out the era, and also brings together some elements of lore; like the page on The Inquisitors (the evil group of double-saber wielding ex-Jedi), which labels most of them, and brings them together from across video games, series, animation, and books!
This is one of the most expansive visual guides yet, and also one of the first to bring in elements from the comics which have become popular over the years. It’s clear a lot of thought and care was put into this book. It would be a great place for new fans to jump into this era of Star Wars, especially if they want to check out some of the books, comics or other media.
But this Star Wars Visual Guide feels incomplete for now
There is a small problem with the Dawn of Rebellion visual guide for me, however, which is that the shows it mainly covers are unfinished. We are still expecting another season of The Bad Batch (expected sometime in 2024) and season 2 of Andor (expected in 2025). While this doesn’t affect the guide too much, it feels like they should have waited until both those shows had wrapped up. There will be a lot more information coming, characters and lore to add to the era by the time these shows have ended their run.
There may be plans to make another one or a part two in a few years, but as it stands, it now feels somewhat incomplete with unfinished plot threads and missing characters for now.
Final thoughts on Dawn of Rebellion: The Visual Guide
Despite feeling somewhat incomplete for now, I still absolutely love the Dawn of Rebellion Visual Guide! It is chock-full of absolutely everything that would possibly be interesting to a Star Wars fan.
It looks great as a book too, and it has come out at the right time to make a great Christmas present for any level of fan. The fact the book covers more than just the shows is such a big draw for me. Highly recommended and a must-read, in my opinion.
My rating: 8/10
Star Wars: Dawn of Rebellion The Visual Guide is available now! Do you plan to pick this one up? Let us know on social media @mycosmiccircus or on The Cosmic Circus Discord!
Star Wars: Rebellion Companion Guide
Reflecting on the Andor Series
