LEGO Star Wars Diorama Collection 75330 Dagobah Jedi Training [Review]

LEGO recently announced its new Star Wars sub-theme for adult builders, the Diorama Collection, featuring three iconic scenes from the Original Trilogy. We’ve got our hands on the sets ahead of their release on April 26th, and we’re taking a closer look now at 75330 Dagobah Jedi Training, which includes exactly 1,000 pieces plus three minifigures, and will retail for US $79.99 | CAN $109.99 | UK £69.99. How does a set designed for adults in 2022 compare to the fairly recent, “Ages 7-12” 75208 Yoda’s Hut from 2018?

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

The packaging, instructions, and parts

When we first opened the shipping box that included all three of the new Diorama Collection, the new theme hadn’t been announced yet, and we were rather surprised and delighted to see something completely new, with a black box design aligned to LEGO’s adult product strategy for Star Wars sets, showcasing the “18+” age and high part count.

Inside the box, five groups of bags provide nearly all the parts, plus several large plates loose in the box. The instruction booklet was also loose, but with no sticker sheet to be damaged, we were glad to see LEGO eliminate unnecessary packaging for a booklet wrapper.

Even though this is a smaller set than the Master Builder sets like 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina or Ultimate Collector Series sets like the UCS AT-AT, the instruction booklet follows the same overall design pattern, with brief interviews with the LEGO Star Wars design team and information about the set’s inspiration and detailed design.

Although there are no brand new elements in the set, there are a few notable pieces, including several curved arches and rounded corner pieces in tan for the first time, as well as the three unique printed pieces.

Of course, one thing that jumps out from among the numbered bags is a bag that includes nothing but 1×1 transparent green pieces!

The build

The build starts simply enough, with plates stacked on each other to create the basic, rectangular footprint. LEGO tells us that every set in the Diorama Collection will use this same footprint, under 20 studs deep.

LEGO fans have been building small dioramas and calling them “bignettes” (big vignettes) on a defined footprint for quite a while. Some builders have even incorporated edges on their scenes to create even better-looking display pieces.

The LEGO Star Wars Diorama Collection takes this design aesthetic to the next level, featuring a crisp box that defines the edges, complete with a plaque on the front and what appear to be vents on the sides — almost as if this is an electronic device like a holo-projector. You spend the remainder of the build process filling in landscape and structural details within this box.

As we noted earlier, the third bag of parts consists entirely of trans-green 1×1 pieces (both tiles and plates), which cover the variously colored layer below to convey differences in the swamp’s depth. I’m not much of a mosaic builder, but I learned that placing about 200 1×1 pieces without paying attention to my form can result in some mild repetitive stress pain — I can’t imagine what CJ and our #MosaicsOnMonday builders must feel! Anyway, once you’ve finished laying down lots of landscaping detail, you’ll finally start building Yoda’s hut and the mangrove-like trees it sits under.

For LEGO fans my age whose favorite childhood sets may have been Forestmen sets like 6066 Camouflaged Outpost, the combination of arches and flat leaf pieces capped by 1×2 plates or tiles will feel nostalgically familiar.

It’s even more clear that this set is one designed for adults to enjoy the build process, rather than a playset for kids, when there are numerous details that become less visible as the build progresses. For example, Yoda never uses his lightsaber in the Original Trilogy, but Luke has it with him in The Book of Boba Fett. Providing a bit of a non-canon explanation, this set shows us that Yoda was storing it in the rafters of his hut.

The finished diorama

During the build, I felt like I was attaching a lot of random arches and curved slopes to build up Yoda’s hut and the trees. However, upon completion, they fit together rather beautifully.

The hut itself stands out in tan from the darker browns and greens of the foliage. There are little details throughout, like crates and a lantern.

A wisp of smoke wafts from the other side of Yoda’s hut as the ancient Jedi master cooks a pot of rootleaf stew.

My favorite detail is of course the piece of Luke’s X-wing starfighter wing sticking out of the swamp’s water. Unlike the stickered details on the 75301 Luke Skywalker’s X-wing Fighter (2021) or 75218 X-wing Starfighter (2018), the Red Five stripe markings are printed on the 1×4 tile rather than being a sticker.

The combination of transparent green 1×1 pieces (square tiles, square plates, and round plates) really captures the feel of the dank swamp water perfectly. We asked how the LEGO Star Wars design team arrived at using only 1×1 tiles, and Design Manager Michael Lee Stockwell said:

We did experiments, we had larger tiles. It just looked wrong. It looked like a green floor. It didn’t look like the rippling of water. Where when we reduced it to the ultimate building block of LEGO, being the one stud, it all came into play and it just seemed like this is the LEGO language for water.

The plaque in front features the LEGO Star Wars logo alongside the quote that defines the scene, “Do or do not. There is no try.” The logo and quote truly tie the overall set together as a wonderful display piece.

The minifigures

Dagobah seems to be inhabited by a rather limited number of sentient creatures. Thankfully, this LEGO set includes the maximum population of such beings — Yoda himself, Luke Skywalker, and R2-D2. This version of Luke features a new torso and leg printing, while Yoda is indistinguishable to my eye from previous versions.

Most notably, though, Artoo finally gets full printing on the back of his body — in this case, a mud-spattered version from jumping into the swamp from the droid socket on Luke’s X-wing. This is the first version of the droid to feature printing on the back, and I’m hopeful that future versions of R2-D2 (including the ubiquitous “clean” version) will also have back printing.

Conclusions & recommendation

TBB Managing Editor Chris Malloy and I have been writing about LEGO Star Wars for a very long time — we’re even the co-authors of the official Ultimate LEGO Star Wars. We’ve seen it all, and it’s rare that we’re deeply impressed by something unless it’s truly new. So, consciously setting aside our pleasant surprise that the sets we unboxed weren’t just variations on all the previously released playsets, replete with the usual stud shooters and catapults, it’s hard not to acknowledge that 75330 Dagobah Jedi Training is easily the very best version of this iconic Star Wars location yet released by LEGO.

I’m not entirely sure what perfection would actually look like — perhaps a smoother shape to Yoda’s hut? — but for a thousand-piece set at $80 featuring a fun build and great minifigures, with a finished model that fits beautifully on a bookshelf or desk, this is pretty close to my vision of LEGO Star Wars perfection.


LEGO Star Wars 75330 Dagobah Jedi Training includes 1,000 pieces with 3 minifigures hits stores April 26th, and is available for pre-order now from the LEGO Shop Online (US $79.99 | CAN $109.99 | UK £69.99), Amazon.com, and elsewhere.

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.


2 comments on “LEGO Star Wars Diorama Collection 75330 Dagobah Jedi Training [Review]

  1. Jimmy

    This is just lovely, I really appreciate the swampy water level of detail that the designer was finally free to include in a model. I hope this kind of adult-focused detailed model keeps coming in other themes as well. Building something massively huge is all well and good, but I’d rather have a collection of smaller better detailed things, my bookshelf is only so big!

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