Star Wars Origami: 36 Amazing Paper-folding Projects from a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

I got this book for my 11 year old nephew as a gift because he loves to do origami, and I loved the fact that there is the Star Wars paper in the back of the book and the final product looks pretty darn cool. After reading some of the reviews, I was anticipating the ‘Jedi Master’ level items to be pretty difficult for my nephew, but they were actually a breeze for him! I should let you all know that he has been doing origami for a couple of years now, so that’s probably not indicative of how all children doing this might feel. Although he thought that everything in the book was fairly easy, he LOVED doing them. It is honestly a great value for your money. There are so many different items you can make and it kept my nephew busy = no TV! He also had a pretty good time teaching my other nieces and nephew how to do it all. Wonderful, great, perfect, & fun!

I bought this book for my daughter for Christmas, if she asks it's from Santa. My wife bought this book a couple of times for my daughter's friends birthday. It has always been a hit for the kids to receive. My daughter would always come back from the parties saying that she wanted this book. Her friends would bring her origami they made from the book and she would never let me throw them away. So more about the book: They book has lots of origami to make at all different levels. My daughter likes to use white paper so she can color them how she likes. I would say any kid over the age of 7 would love this book.

I went to see Chris Alexander at the Star Wars Origami panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, where he taught us a couple of origami projects from "Star Wars Origami." We made Boba Fett and a lightsaber. When I bought the book, I searched for the most difficult project and made Jabba the Hutt first. It wasn't bad. Then, I tried the X-Wing, which was one level down in difficulty, but I got a little lost and gave up on it. Each project comes with a synopsis of the character, droid, or ship we are making, in case we are unfamiliar with its role in the saga. Many are well-known, like Princess Leia and the X-Wing, but some are lesser characters, like Taun We, or the Armored Assault Tank. Inserted between the pages every now and again are trivia pages to test your Jedi prowess. Do you know how many starships survived the battle of Yavin? The projects are indexed by difficulty level. Many of them come with two pieces of printed origami paper, in case we want to repeat it. I would like it if the origami paper was labeled with the project name. I don't like searching and it's not always obvious. Also, the origami paper has an arrow on the back of each page. I'm not sure how that is supposed to be oriented when we start working. I just fold and hope it's right. Luckily, it was good when I did Jabba the Hutt. My son is eleven and he thought this book was too difficult. The children were frustrated at the panel we attended and so were many of the adult attendants. My husband wouldn't even try. He thought it was hard, and the lightsaber (the one we were being taught) is one of the easiest projects. I would say the book is definitely geared more for adults. I can get most of the folds, but the sink fold is extremely difficult for me to do properly, even though I understand what needs to be done (hard to explain here, but the fold is inverted). For the adult Star Wars fan, this is a wonderful book. ____________ UPDATE 2/3/13: Just to clarify my rating of this book as it was brought to my attention that it appears I'm complaining a lot about this book. It was my intention to alert the buyer that this is not easy for children to do. It is better for an adult or teen, one who is good at following visual instructions. I am able to do most of the projects that I attempt; and I did try to do the most difficult ones first, just to see how challenging that can be. It is a great book, if you know what you are getting into.

My oldest LOVES Origami. I'm not sure how or when he first learned of it, but every day I'm finding flowers, swans, and other creations in his book bag. Time to kick it up a notch. He also enjoys the Star Wars movies and shows, and he really does enjoy these little projects. He says it's a little different than the Origami he's used to, as these sheets are printed such that the finished product looks like what it's supposed to resemble. He's used to plain paper Origami, or at least that's what he calls it. I think it threatens to stifle the challenge (and the imagination), but on the other hand there's nothing stopping you from using plain paper cut to the same dimension. The instructions seem clear and simple to follow. I tried one and made a passable space ship, so there's that. Those with more skill combined with an enjoyment of Star Wars will get a lot out of this.

Got this for my 8.5 yo nephew who was visiting from out of state. I thought it was a nice quality, soft cover book with good color pics/illustrations. My nephew has been into origami for a couple years and he seems to enjoy the challenge of origami. He also loves whatever little he actually knows about Star Wars at his age. When he first opened his gift and confirmed it was a book, I could tell he was a little disappointed...‘great, another book from my aunt’. But, the next morning I found him at the kitchen table with the book open, very happily working away! He worked on 2-3 different pieces over the week of his visit and he was really, genuinely happy with the book!

My son checked this out from the school library and I thought he needs his own. The book comes with special star wars origami paper. These papers really make your project gorgeous. My son is 11, he loves star wars and we did all the yoda, chewbacca darth paper and they were fun, this takes origami and star wars to a whole new level. The instructions are for the most part easy to follow. Our book came with two of each kind of project paper. It has provided us a lot of entertainment and after the origami figures were made the empire and the rebel alliance faced offs, complete with the millennium falcon and x wing fighters.

We wanted to like this project as a family, but most of these are incredibly complicated because the steps are not well explained or clear at all. Picture examples would skip steps without any explanation, and many folds for even the beginner steps were very difficult to fold. There is just no way these are for grade level 3-4 or for beginners. It's a fun "puzzle" project but many steps are not explained well at all. I think if the steps had shown the actual PRINT of the model you are folding, it would have made all the difference. But instead it is solid red, so it's hard to orient exactly what it's supposed to resemble in certain steps. The real print shown in each would have been much, much better. It's also weird that the papers are all compiled in the back without being numbered so you have to flip through to find the pages you need. I don't understand why they didn't just go in order based on difficulty, or even group the pages you are folding along with the chapter of corresponding directions. The book feels extremely disorganized for seemingly no reason. I will say the prints are neat, so once you finally at least sort of figure out how to put one together, there is a real sense of accomplishment. It has potential but I can't recommend it to anyone that isn't already experienced in origami. I guess for the reasonable price, it's a way to practice and spend hours of your time as a side project.

I want to preface this review by saying I know nothing about origami, and I gave this as a Christmas gift to a girl who really enjoys origami. This review is not based on much first hand experience, but the experience of giving it as a gift. She already knew a lot about the different types of folds and terminology used in origami, so she didn't need to read the tutorials, though they were provided. She just jumped in, however, she never did sci-fi origami, so she found it fascinating since she loves star wars, and she also found these challenging. The book provides the paper so when you are done it looks like the character or object. She taught me about origami using this book and going over the different folds and techniques. She's happy and made a few of them and they turned out great. No flaws found, item and results are exactly as described, advertised and expected.