LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary by DK Publishing

• Interviews & Essays

Interviews & Essays

An Interview with Simon Beecroft

How long did you work on this book?

I wrote a book plan in January 2009. Lucasfilm and The LEGO Group approved the book plan in February, and I started writing the manuscript text in March. Through April and May, I made lots of little changes, refining and adding info as the page designs were put together. There were further small changes from Lucasfilm and The LEGO Group. Finally, the finished book went to the printer at the end of May.

There are so many cool minifigures -- which one is your favorite?

I like them all! I love the simplicity of the designs: the way the LEGO® Star Wars® designers capture a character's essence in such an economical way. Particular favorites are Boba Fett, Darth Maul, Luke in X-wing outfit, Han in Hoth parka, TIE pilot, Rebel soldiers with goggles and the new Admiral Ackbar.

Were you a Star Wars fan growing up?

Yep. I saw A New Hope in the cinema in the UK in 1977; I was seven years old. I remember my dad bought me a fold-out poster in the cinema foyer with C-3PO and R2-D2 on it which stayed bluetacked to my bedroom wall for what seemed like my whole childhood! Me and my friends used to play Star Wars in the school playground. We pretended the white lines of the sports court were the Death Star trench and we'd run along them like we were flying X-wings.

How did you organize so much information into one book?

Oh, that's just secret editor's stuff. Though I should perhaps pay tribute to our consultant, Jeremy Beckett, who owns all the sets and photographed many of them for us. That's how we got so many of the sets in the book.

Which LEGO® Star Wars sets are your favorites?

I do love the Death Star set. It features so many details and iconic moments/locations from two movies rolled into one. It looks like great fun to play with! There's loads of vehicles that I especially love -- Slave 1, Luke's X-wing, AT-ATs... And of course the UCS Millennium Falcon.

If you could be one Star Wars character, who would you be?

Chewbacca. He's got a good heart. Or R2-D2 because he's totally loyal and also really single-minded.

Why do you think LEGO® and Star Wars go so well together?

It's the most amazing thing, but I can't really explain it. Maybe because they both work so well on many levels -- they both appeal to kids and older people, and adults, all of whom take from it what they want to.

What was your most memorable experience writing this book?

OK, a few things: Seeing for the first time the new minifigure the LEGO® Star Wars team designed specially for this book. That was a kick! Interviewing Jens Kronvold Frederiksen [design manager for LEGO® Systems] was a great privilege and pleasure. Coming up with the idea for a flip animation on the page corners- - something I've loved in books since I was a kid and always wanted to do in a book of mine. Also realizing how much our designer, Jon Hall, knows about Star Wars and LEGO® Star Wars. It was great working with him: I could ask him tricky or obscure questions and he'd always have an answer.

What was it like interviewing Jens Kronvold Frederiksen on this project? His job sounds so cool!

Jens was very supportive of the project from the start. He was generous with his time when I interviewed him -- we were talking for over an hour. His job is everything I was hoping it would be -- his designers really do come to work and play with LEGO® bricks to design new models; they really do work in a cool environment where even their pen holders are made from LEGO® bricks; his designers are all slightly obsessive Star Wars fans; they really do invite groups of kids in to test whether new models are fun to play with.

Which sets would you like to see LEGO® come out with next?

I'd love to see a full cantina set with some of the aliens or the Bith band. A Wookiee tree house would be cool too. I'm sure there'll be lots of the new vehicles from the Clone Wars TV series: Freeco speeder bikes, Weequay pirate ships etc. And though Jens says they'll never make a Yavin IV set, they've made a rough model (it's in the book) and it would totally work as a set.