Reviewed by Scott Weller

I really wish- I really truly do wish- that I could tell you that the latest issue of TITAN PUBLISHING's official STAR WARS INSIDER MAGAZINE is a vast improvement on the previous very average edition I reviewed for the site a few months back, but, in all honesty, it really isn’t. It’s no better, no worse-the same kind average averageness that I think is going to be with us for a long time to come, and that fact makes my heart sink even more. The title betrays the continuing kiddie comic design layout and, as before, parts of it are visually indecipherable and messy looking with no real identity; with regards to the news and so called exclusive material they present within their pages, there’s still nothing there that you can’t already get from numerous websites, official and non official, on an everyday basis. As for the features, again, the same mixed bag, most of which are still shockingly unmemorable -the magazine’s deputy editor, Jonathan Wilkins, manages to lock down what seems to be an extensive interview with Make-Up artist wonders Stuart and Kay Freeborn-there are a few new little snippets which  I wasn’t aware of, a lot from Kay, about their work on the film, and there are a few additional new nuggets from Stuart, too, but once again, INSIDER seems to be unable to ask any questions that haven’t already been asked of numerous times by other journalists over the years (in fact, dear readers, why not try and compare INSIDER’s interview with the one we at AFICIONADO did earlier this year, for our still available MAKING OF JEDI issue!!). In fact, some questions they’ve asked resemble ones from INSIDER when it did an earlier interview feature with Freeborn back in it’s glory days between 1994 and 1997!! The article on Nick Dudman, who hasn’t really talked much about his work on the Saga, could have been a more heavily detailed article, separately to Freeborn’s, and is woefully too short, and equally hideously designed, the use of pictures very messy-many of which are still the same old ones we’ve seen over again and again (though one different out-take Wampa prototype pic is used which is quite rare). The Phil Tippett section-well, that’s okay (again a couple of rare-ish images too), and the top ten alien monsters-same old, it’s been done zillion times since 1997. One issue on, I’m still desperately missing Chris Treva’s SET PIECE section-this new classic scene page really is a waste of time-this issue, which tries but fails to capture any real Twenty Fifth anniversary/celebratory feeling for RETURN OF THE JEDI, focuses on the taunting between Luke and the Emperor from that film, and has some sloppily compiled information in it-included quotes from Mark Hamill that make us believe he is referring to the 1982 making of JEDI are actually from the making of the first film in 1976!!!-I’m amazed no one at LUCASFILM spotted the mistake (as with the previous mis-spelling of Qui-Gon’s name from last issue!!), or even checked J.W. Rinzler’s MAKING OF STAR WARS which has the interview quote!! Not only that but the main picture they used to illustrate the feature is terrible-it seems to me that many colour and black and white shots of those all important climactic scenes for the movie, originally shot under top secret filming conditions, either don’t exist or have yet to be released from the bowels of the LUCASFILM Image Archive. And what’s with the minimal use of black and white images-what should it matter what type of rare shot is used as long as it’s exciting looking on the page!! The feature on the CLONE WARS, again by Wilkins, is actually okay, and whets the appetite for new STAR WARS still further, but again, why can’t this official magazine for LUCASFILM actually use some new exclusive shots provided by LUCASFILM-there must surely be hundreds of completed cell images, or high definition grabs, ready for release for all the upcoming books and magazines that will be available for the film’s release. Surely the magazine could have used material that no one else has yet seen?

Compared to other sci-fi genre magazines (like PANINI’s DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE, and even TITAN’s own LOST MAGAZINE), STAR WARS INSIDER is becoming a very sorry state of affairs. Though its UK edition is no longer printed on toilet paper, it won’t be long before I’m using it as such…. If they (TITAN/LUCASFILM) want to make it for a specific target age audience/readership then say so, rather than make it a hybrid entity that tries to appeal to fans of all types but impresses no one. Ten bets the magazine will be re-vamped once again in a year’s time. But will it grow up once the live action, darker edged STAR WARS TV series comes on in 2010?  We can but hope…

P.S. Message to Brian J. Robb, Editor of STAR WARS INSIDER: Brian, I’m still waiting for my last two years worth of art cards from the club, and I still haven’t received my UK edition of the last issue!!

REVIEW RATING: Another wasted effort from TITAN/LUCASFILM. 5 out of 10.