Teased at the end of the previous season of The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett recently wrapped up its limited run on Disney+. While not all limited Star Wars TV series get the LEGO Star Wars treatment, LEGO recently announced two LEGO Star Wars sets from The Book of Boba Fett. The first sets are already starting to show up in the wild, and we recently picked up 75326 Boba Fett’s Throne Room from one of the large warehouse stores. Scheduled for release on March 1st, the set includes 732 pieces with 7 minifigs and will retail for US $99.99 | CAN $129.99 | UK £89.99 and is available for pre-order from LEGO.com now.
If you’re interested in a review of this LEGO Star Wars set, we’ll be assuming you’ve already seen the TV series. Minor spoilers ahead!
The box & packaging
The front of the box announces its playset status with the 9+ age rating, minifig action scene, and colorful Tatooine sunset background. Instead of appearing in the upper right to tie this set to other sets in the same wave (namely 75325 The Mandalorian’s N-1 Starfighter), Boba Fett and Fennec Shand appear in the lower-left of the box. The action continues on the back of the box, showcasing the set’s various play features.
The parts for the set come in six numbered bags, with both the instruction booklet and sticker sheet loose in the box. Fortunately, neither the instructions nor stickers were damaged.
The sticker sheet only has six stickers — dark tan designs on a lighter tan background — and we would consider them optional decoration if we weren’t applying them for the purposes of this review.
The build
Boba Fett’s Throne Room is merely the latest in a long line of “Jabba’s Palace” playsets, going back to the earliest days of LEGO Star Wars. All of these sets have essentially been built studs-up, often with large pillars and panels, with just enough detail to give you a sense of the source material it represents. There has never been a LEGO Star Wars set depicting this location with the same level of detail as the wonderfully detailed 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina released for adult builders less than two years ago. As a 9+ playset, the easy, modular building process and fairly basic techniques follow the pattern of the previous “Jabba’s Palace” sets.
The build progresses with plate+brick bases that support pillars, panels, slopes, and eventually arches.
Each module is capped by a roof, where there is nice detail from inset grilles.
Various play features reveal themselves along the way, including food and drink serving areas and hidden compartments.
The large throne centerpiece sits on a removable section that slots into the main body of the palace. Although semi-circular stickers do add some detail to the throne, most of the detail is brick-built.
When complete, three sections swing out from the central throne room, in addition to the slide-out throne itself.
The finished model
As we mentioned earlier in this review, Boba Fett’s Throne Room follows the basic design pattern and aesthetic of previous “Jabba’s Palace” sets, particularly 9516 Jabba’s Palace released in 2012 and 75005 Rancor Pit (with the suddenly expensive rancor…) released in 2013. While there’s no indication that this set is designed to stack on top of another, the color scheme, tower to one side, and curved roof line are all consistent with the immediately two previous sets.
Each section has its own play features, starting with the throne itself, which slides out from the main structure. Sadly, there is no room for trap doors that open onto a rancor pit below (one of the joys of putting the two previous Jabba’s Palace sets on top of each other). The throne’s own integrated play feature is a lever that’s supposed to flip its occupant off, but mainly seems able just to bump them up slightly in their seat.
Beneath the throne, a small hidden compartment contains ingots (perhaps beskar steel) and a couple of weapons.
The area behind the throne features drumsticks on a rotisserie. For a full turkey, you’ll need to pick up 10292 Friends: The Apartments. Although details like this are certainly fun, this type of feature creates a degree of disappointment that the set doesn’t include any substantial references to scenes from the TV show itself, such as the hilarious Episode 4 kitchen scene recreated so well recently by Jonas Kramm, the Mos Espa crime gang truce scene, or epic hangar battle.
An entryway to the right of the throne room area includes a door with an integrated TT-8L/Y7 gatekeeper droid that slides up and down in a slot. The short stairway can tip up to dislodge a pesky intruder who makes his way past the “tattletale” droid.
The door itself slides up, portcullis-style, and twin blasters on a ball joint defend against intruders deemed unworthy by the gatekeeper.
A small seating area to the left of the throne room provides a couple more spots to feature the minifigs included with the set.
The minifigures
Seven minifigs round out the cast of scoundrels included with the set — Bib Fortuna, a Quarren, Fennec Shand, Boba Fett, Gamorrean guard, Theelin dancer, and Weequay guard.
The Boba Fett minifig included with the set is identical to the version included last summer in 75312 Boba Fett’s Starship. Similarly, the head, torso, and legs for Fennec Shand are identical to her previous minifig from that same wave, but if you want her helmet instead of the unique hair in this set, you’ll need to pick up 75315 Imperial Light Cruiser as well.
Fennec Shand’s hair piece reflects the character’s long, tightly braided hairstyle that she wears under her orange helmet. Including the helmet itself would have been a nice touch, similar to the hair/helmet alternatives provided in most LEGO Speed Champions sets.
Bib Fortuna gets himself a brand new minifig, with completely new head piece, head, torso, and leg designs compared to the immediately previous version from the Jabba’s Palace set in 2012. Jabba’s former majordomo is considerably more, uh, well-rounded in his brief appearance at the end of The Mandalorian Season 2, and his new head piece sports much thicker lekku or Twi’lek head-tails. While the differences on the head/torso mold are subtle, the printing is different from previous Gamorreans, and the leg printing is entirely new, complete with toe printing.
The thicker head-tails extend around to the back of the minifig and hang down.
Bib’s head also features an alternate face, so he can suddenly look worried when he’s about to be murdered in cold blood by the hero of our TV series.
The supporting cast of characters are also unique to this set, although they also only appear tangentially (if at all?) in the darkly lit closing scene of The Mandalorian, rather than as central characters in The Book of Boba Fett itself. Each of these characters fits perfectly into the background of Jabba’s Palace, and I personally welcome their addition to the unique aliens available to round out the denizens of my favorite Star Wars planet.
The Quarren features a brand new head mold, while the Theelin dancer and Weequay guard have new head and torso designs, with the torso design extending all the way down to printed hooves on the Theelin dancer. Although the dancer is the same species as Rystáll Sant, who first appeared in a Jabba’s palace scene added to the 1997 Special Edition of Return of the Jedi, the gray on white minifig design doesn’t match the dark bodysuit worn by the character in the movie, nor does the pink hair match the crimson hair of the movie character.
While it’s certainly fun to get a number of new or updated minifigs in a Star Wars set, the selection of figs in this set provide further indication that the LEGO Star Wars design team may not have been able to work from the actual TV show (or its concept art) prior to airing, rather than only from the end-credits teaser scene from the last season of The Mandalorian.
Conclusions & recommendation
I’m no media critic, but I felt personally that The Book of Boba Fett was an imperfect TV show — a series of fantastically fun stand-alone moments (especially the ones with the Mandalorian rather than the titular ex-bounty hunter), featuring fairly flat characters, strung together on a paper-thin plot. But hey, it’s Star Wars, and I truly enjoyed it for what it was. Similarly, there is much I could criticize about this LEGO Star Wars set, from the basic building techniques to the LEGO design team’s rather obvious limitation in access to up-to-the-episode source material. And yet, I also enjoyed the build and play features, and I appreciate the almost entirely new set of minifigures included with the set.
What I’m not particularly happy about is the price point. The inclusion of 7 minifigs will certainly have bumped up the price, and there’s always the “licensed property tax” LEGO must pay to Disney, but $100 for only 732 pieces feels a bit steep. Given that the set is based on a non-core property, perhaps this is a set we will see discounted by 20% over the course of its shelf life, which would bring it in line with a more reasonable purchase.
75326 Boba Fett’s Throne Room includes 7 minifigures and 732 pieces. The set is scheduled for release on March 1st from LEGO at a retail price of US $99.99 | CAN $129.99 | UK £89.99, but it may be available sooner elsewhere.
The Brothers Brick purchased the set featured in this review at a non-LEGO retail location in the United States.
Except the minifigs, which are diversified enough to be used anywhere, I don’t see anything in this except a part donor.
The review is excellent, as usual; it says and shows what you need to know before you have the chance to get your hands on the set.