If you watched Star Wars beginning with Episode IV: A New Hope as many of us born in the decades before the Prequel Trilogy did, the first planet in a “Galaxy Far, Far Away” you ever saw on screen was Tatooine. But the enormous universe that Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi lived in truly came alive only when they first stepped into the cantina in the Mos Eisley Spaceport — “This place can be a little rough,” Old Ben warned Luke. LEGO’s latest set in its Master Builder Series takes us deep into that “wretched hive of scum and villainy” with 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina. It’s rare that I acknowledge up front in a review how excited I was personally about a forthcoming LEGO set. But I am, because my favorite planet in the Star Wars universe is still Tatooine, and my favorite place on the planet is Chalmun’s Cantina. Does it live up to my nearly life-long expectations? How does it compare to previous incarnations of this iconic watering hole?

75290 Mos Eisley Cantina is built from 3,187 LEGO pieces, and the product description states that it includes 21 minifigures “plus” R2-D2 the droid (a point we’ll return to later in this review). The set retails from the LEGO Shop for US $349.99 | CAN $449.99 | UK £319.99 and is available to LEGO VIP Program members beginning on September 16, with general availability on October 1st.

Let’s strap a blaster to our hip, leave the droids to park the landspeeder, and step inside…

Read our hands-on review of LEGO Star Wars 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina