By now we’ve seen almost every scene from the Star Wars franchise meticulously and repeatedly recreated as a LEGO diorama, except for one… When Luke receives the Empire’s calling card, in the form of the still-smoking remains of his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru in Star Wars: A New Hope. So I thought I’d rectify this glaring oversight by the LEGO community!

I’ve found no satisfactory explanation for this surprisingly graphic scene in a seemingly PG movie franchise …which to be fair does feature its share of bodily dismemberment and a pretty significant body count. And while you might argue that this is an important moment of gravitas that propels Luke on his journey against the evil Empire, it’s interesting that he never once later mentions the demise of his only living relatives, who in all likelihood died guarding the whereabouts of their whiney nephew!

On the other hand, this sad event does furnish Luke with the perfect excuse to finally leave his godforsaken home planet in search of the adventure he had always dreamed of. So maybe he wasn’t that cut up about it after all. Then again, who cares – it’s just Star Wars, where nothing really makes that much sense. It’s all just a vehicle for a lotta big space battles and waving of laser swords by a bunch of space wizards!

I’m really pleased with my interpretation of Luke’s X34 landspeeder. It’s minifig scale but more accurately proportioned and accurately detailed than any of LEGO’s official set versions. Some color compromises were made – Flesh would be the logical choice but part availability in that color is severely limited, so I focused on Medium Dark Flesh, which is also a hard color to work in but manageable. Highlights were done in Medium Orange (also a tricky color) instead of the logical Dark Red in order to not detract from the fine details. The thrusters are somewhat “blocky” in nature because that’s my default building style, and allowed me to capture some of the color variations from the movie without resorting to stickers!