Tag Archives: A New Hope

Look, sir! 5,000 pieces of LEGO Star Wars awesomeness!

Mirko Soppelsa is (literally) building up quite the collection of massive LEGO Star Wars builds. This time, Davin Felth AKA TK-1023 is the subject of Mirko’s expert handiwork. What do you mean, you haven’t heard of Davin Felth?! If I say “Look, sir! Droids!”, does that help to jog your memory? Well, now you know his name, and you have to suffer with that useless knowledge taking up valuable space inside your brain like I do. Let’s just go back to admiring Mirko’s superbly detailed sculpture… And once you’re done with this one, you can see some of his other marvels in our archives.

SA-Project 008

You don’t need a massive base to fight the Empire

It can be hard to capture the majesty of some of the larger Star Wars locations at a scale that matches LEGO’s own sets. We have seen a few variations on the Masasi temple on Yavin IV at minifigure scale, but they all only feature a small section of the enormous rebel base. Anders Horvath has found the solution: downsize! This tiny temple appears to have been scaled around an X-wing polybag. In fact, make that several X-wing polybags! The benefit of microscale is that creating a rebel fleet is much less parts-intensive. The temple detail doesn’t suffer at this small scale though. There’s still plenty of texture in the ruins, as well as the paraphernalia that comes with running a rag-tag organization of misfits in the fight against evil.

Yavin 4 by Anders67

“I suggest a new strategy, Artoo. Let the Wookiee win.”

Did you know that, despite their visual effects fame, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) only elected to use stop-motion animation once in the original Star Wars? The scene in question is the Dejarik board on the Millennium Falcon, depicted on Instagram by Shaun Sheepa (brick.sheepa). Shaun is a dab hand when it comes to Star Wars creatures, so the holochess board is a veritable feast. You’ve got, um, the big grey one, and, er, the dude with the hammer, and the red… Caterpillar… Thing? I won’t pretend to know their names. I bet Shaun could tell you – after all, he’s done a phenomenal job of building them!

That’s no twin suns...

Ah, Tatooine. A wretched hive of scum and villainy and being the centre of the galaxy. Honestly, everything Star Wars seems to take place at this dangerous ripoff of Arrakis from Dune. However, somehow it works. What amuses me is that amongst all the bounty hunters and intergalactic crime cartels, the biggest dangers for two droids is freaking Jawas. Short, hooded, chattery notorious salesmen traveling in a massive brown tank. And this small build by Kosmas Santosak conveys this so well.

Stranded

There’s just something about the image of a hooded Jawa looming over a stranded C-3PO and R2-D2 that makes me laugh. Perhaps it’s the glowing yellow eyes that’s a parallel to Tatooine’s twin suns that is clever and funny. Or perhaps looking at it I can hear the high-pitched babble of those mischievous scavengers…

Utinni!
Shootogawa!
A beton nya mombay m’bwa!
Nekkel juuvar obwegadada!

A Star Wars post sure to make you “Mad About Me”.

Let’s face it, you can’t get that jaunty, upbeat tune out of your head now. I know it, you know it and builder Minicoop4 knows it. The best thing to do is just ride it out and maybe re-watch Star Wars. These five Jizz-wailers (tee-hee!) are so good at playing that one tune that it’s the only request they ever get. Trust me, I’d love to keep sputtering out the lowbrow jokes real thick here but any innuendos I may have had in mind were already exhausted by the world’s most important news source so you’ll get no more jokes from me.

Cantina Band

Some neat facts about the song though; it commonly goes by the Cantina Band Song but it’s actually called “Mad About Me”. The band of Bith aliens is called Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes, but if you want it played at your wedding, you’d have to credit composer John Williams. If you want to audition for the band, be sure to have a black turtleneck and a snappy pair of gray slacks. It also helps if you have cleavage showing. Forehead cleavage, that is. OK, maybe I had one dumb joke left!

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

This holiday season, Star Wars fans are flocking to movie theaters to see the final installment in the Skywalker saga. Since Star Wars came out in 1977, we’ve grown older, some of us have had kids of our own, some have bought homes, held more than a few jobs, some of us may even be looking as old and grizzled as Luke Skywalker himself. No matter how we turned out in life, Star Wars fans who were children or young adults in 1977 recall the year that changed their lives immesuably. An entity named NS Brick Designs has sparked a sense of wonder and nostalgia for older Star Wars fans with a LEGO rendition of the original Tom Jung pulp poster that started it all.

Luke’s robe billows open revealing his massively muscled chest while a subservient, sultry Leia slinks at his feet holding a blaster. This wasn’t the reality of the movie; Luke wasn’t all that ripped and it turns out Princess Leia could hold her own and wasn’t going to play second fiddle to a farm boy from Tatooine. But pulp images, especially this one inspired by the fantasy art of Frank Frazetta, have a way of capturing the imagination and bending perceptions a bit. Now in modern times, we are calling the newest movie the last of the Skywalker saga, but we have new heroes to look up to such as Finn, Rey and Poe. Thanks to a dedicated fan base and thanks, in part, to images like this one, the magic and lore of Star Wars has persisted with us most of our lives and will likely remain with us for generations to come.

LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series returns with 75252 Imperial Star Destroyer [News]

LEGO’s next Star Wars Ultimate Collectors Series (UCS) set has officially been announced as 75252 Imperial Star Destroyer. The ship is the Empire’s and Darth Vader’s flagship from A New Hope named the Devastator. The set will come with 4,784 pieces and two Imperial minifigures of an officer and a crewmember. The Star Destroyer will be the third-largest LEGO Star Wars UCS set of all time and will be available for US $699.99 | CAN $849.99 | UK £649.99 starting September 18th for LEGO VIP members with general availability beginning October 1st.

The Devastator was the second spaceship ever on screen in a Star Wars film, chasing after the Tantive IV above Tatooine in the opening shot of A New Hope. Just like the movie, this LEGO Imperial Star Destroyer follows the release of the not-quite-UCS 75244 Tantive IV from earlier this year.

Click to get a closer look at the new LEGO Star Wars UCS Imperial Star Destroyer

LEGO Star Wars fan builds animated Death Star trench run & Death Star II destruction scenes with 50,000 LEGO pieces [Video]

LEGO Star Wars builder Anthony Ducre recently shared a massive diorama featuring scenes from both A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. Built from over 50,000 LEGO bricks, the diorama includes Darth Vader chasing Luke Skywalker down the trench of the first Death Star, animated by placing the starfighters on classic LEGO 9-volt train tracks.

LEGO Star Wars Death Star diorama by Anthony Ducre on YouTube

Watch videos of this huge LEGO Star Wars diorama after the jump

LEGO Star Wars set designers share some secrets of the upcoming 75244 Tantive IV [News]

With May 4th on the horizon, LEGO will be launching the impressive 75244 Tantive IV, the Rebel corvette featured in the opening shot of Star Wars: A New Hope. LEGO set designer César Soares and graphic designer Maddy O’Neil sat down to share some of the secrets behind the creation of the LEGO set and talk about their journey working for LEGO. Some of the more interesting details include our first good look at the hidden handle embedded in the swooshable set, as well as the inspiration for the interior scenes, some newly recolored elements borrowed from the 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon, and how the Bail Organa minifigure came to be.

75244 Tantive IV will be available for purchase from LEGO for US $199.99 | CAN $269.99 | UK £179.99 starting at 9 am ET on May 3rd for LEGO VIPs and 12 am ET on May 4th for everyone.

LEGO Star Wars returns to A New Hope with 1,700-piece 75244 Tantive IV [News]

LEGO has revealed 75244 Tantive IV, the Rebel corvette featured in the opening shot of Star Wars: A New Hope, the very first Star Wars film ever released. The set comes with 1,768 pieces and six minifigures including Bail Organa, Princess Leia, Captain Antilles, a Rebel Fleet Trooper, C-3PO and R2-D2. The Tantive IV will be available for purchase from LEGO starting May 3rd for US $199.99 | CAN $269.99 | UK £179.99.

Interestingly the set is not labeled as an Ultimate Collectors Series (UCS) set nor as a Master Builder Series (MBS) playset, though the packaging is similar to both. Instead it looks more akin to an up-scaled and more detailed version of the 10198 Tantive IV released a decade ago.

In addition to this newly revealed set, don’t miss the rest of the LEGO summer 2019 sets reveals, and be sure to check out the new Toy Story 4, Spider-Man, and The LEGO Movie 2 sets that just went sale a few days ago:

LEGO Architecture
LEGO Batman
LEGO City
LEGO City Space
LEGO Creator
LEGO Friends
LEGO Friends Ocean
LEGO Harry Potter
LEGO Jurassic World
LEGO Ninjago
LEGO Star Wars

Click to get a closer look at the newest Star Wars set, the Tantive IV

LEGO Star Wars 75229 Death Star Escape [Review]

There are only so many Star Wars scenes that are prominent enough to become a LEGO set, so it’s refreshing to see something that hasn’t been done before. Most LEGO Star Wars fans would probably agree that the Death Star escape scene has been long overdue in becoming a set. Despite receiving 3 minutes of screen time, it is one of the most memorable scenes from the franchise. Now, we finally get to see it built in LEGO-form. The 75229 Death Star Escape consists of 329 pieces and retails for $29.99 USD  (CDN 39.99 and GBP 24.99). Does it hold up to the memorable scene from Star Wars: A New Hope? Read on to find out more.

Click to read the full review of the Death Star Escape

LEGO Star Wars 75235 X-Wing Starfighter Trench Run [Review]

A number of things have changed in the way LEGO has begun marketing its sets in 2019, and one of them is the Juniors line of branding. The “Juniors” branding has been replaced by boxes with a huge “4+” number at the bottom left corner. This year, for the very first time, the LEGO Star Wars theme enters the newly branded 4+ (formerly “Juniors”) age group and one of our favorite vehicles makes its debut, the X-Wing Starfighter. We don’t typically review sets meant exclusively for younger kids, but with Star Wars, how could we say no? 75235 X-Wing Starfighter Trench Run is available now, retailing at $29.99 in the US (CDN 39.99 and GBP 24.99), and we wanted to let you decide for yourselves as we dive into the details.

Read our full review of 75235 X-Wing Starfighter Trench Run