Tag Archives: Star Wars

LEGO Star Wars is one of the most popular LEGO themes of all time. Far beyond X-wings and TIE fighters, there’s a whole expanded universe of inspiration, and an army of LEGO fans ready to build whatever comes out of George Lucas’s head next.

LEGO Teedo and Luggabeast from The Force Awakens

Though they got little screen time, the pair that tried to capture BB-8 in a net near the beginning of The Force Awakens has been faithfully recreated by teohongtzer. Teedo is given a name drop by Rey (for he’s no respect for anyone), his steed is not. If you dig a bit you’ll find out it’s called a “Luggabeast” and they are cyborg creatures used to find droids and salvage on Jakku.

I’m hopelessly in love with this build. Partly because I’m a Star Wars nerd, partly because I’m a Warhammer nerd and this looks like a Juggernaut, and mostly because it’s just done so well.

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Interview with Hannes Tscharner, builder of 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon from The Force Awakens

When I first saw the amazingly detailed 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon the day after Christmas, I knew right away that it deserved worldwide attention. The model was built by someone who went by the screen name “Marshal Banana“, whom I recognized as the builder who’d created the wonderful 10,000-piece Jawa Sandcrawler back in 2011. Less than two days after I’d posted the Falcon, my prediction came true and the Falcon was everywhere, from “geek” sites like Kotaku and GeekWire to major news outlets like Time Magazine and USA Today. But we still knew almost nothing about this talented builder.

Now that he’s back from a well-deserved holiday, I’m pleased to bring our readers this in-depth interview with Hannes Tscharner, builder of both the Falcon and Sandcrawler.

Hannes shares a bit about himself, along with tips on photographing LEGO models and editing the photos for presentation. We also learn how he organizes his collection, what he uses to add lighting to his models, and more.

Click through for our interview with the builder of the 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon!

75131 Resistance Trooper Battle Pack [Review]

As part of their January 2016 assortment, LEGO released a number of new minifig-centered battle pack sets as army builders for The Force Awakens, including 75131 Resistance Trooper Battle Pack. The set has 112 pieces, including 4 minifigs, with a price of $12.99.

There really aren’t spoilers to worry about with this review. Still, I’ve managed to write what are probably far too many words for such a small set like this, so hit the jump.

Click through to see the full review

Don’t be a TR-8R h8ter

Builder nobu_tary pumping out awesome creations is no surprise, but the Internet fame that has been bestowed upon a relatively minor character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens is. Commonly referred to as TR-8R (pronounced ‘Traitor’) this was a Stormtrooper that had an ultimately tiny role and less than a minute of screen time. Yet the Internet has deemed him the darling character of the film and created (in addition to his unofficial name) an entire mythos around him.

While it has been postulated that the character of TR-8R has more colour in the novelisation of The Force Awakens, we have this LEGO version to gawk over until that is confirmed. It should be noted that this recreation is actually a heavily modified version of LEGO’s new First Order Stormtrooper action figure set. Nevertheless, the mods are a great improvement over the original. The builder even transformed the set into a Heavy Gunner:

All I have left to say is… WHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITY!

LEGO Star Wars 75139 Battle on Takodana from the Force Awakens [Review]

The January 2016 LEGO sets continue to arrive on our doorstep, so we continue our flurry of new set reviews with 75139 Battle on Takodana. This new set from The Force Awakens was released on January 1st and retails for $59.99.

As I did when reviewing 75140 Resistance Troop Transporter and other recent LEGO Star Wars sets, I’ll bury the full review under the jump, but I WILL be referencing spoilers in this review. If you’re reading a LEGO Star Wars set review about a set from The Force Awakens nearly three weeks after the movie was released, I think it’s safe to assume you’ve seen the move.

If not, SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Click through for the full review!

I will finish what you started

Kylo Ren is my new favorite villain. He clomps around menacingly, has an eerie, almost mechanical, baritone voice, and just the right amount of that famous Skywalker immaturity. Though we recently also featured torokimasa’s chibi Kylo Ren here on TBB, Kevin Ryhal‘s brick-built Kylo was too good to pass up. Kevin perfectly captured Kylo’s distinctive flowing robes (no easy feat with brick) and the unstable blade of his vented lightsaber. Also, the battle-stance pose is spot on.

I’ll show you the dark side

At least, he will try. Just imagine torokimasa‘s adorable LEGO Kylo Ren throwing a tantrum and vandalizing First Order equipment! While the technique the builder used for the lightsaber blades would have been lazy for any other lightsaber, I think it works great to emulate the unstable blade effect on Ren’s crossguard saber.

I’ve got a good feeling about these

I was determined to stay away from the Star Wars stuff for a while following the glut of excellent models prompted by the release of The Force Awakens. Yet these figures from Luc Byard are simply too cool not to post…

Immediately recognizable, the Princess and her beau have never looked cuter. The shaping is excellent, avoiding some of the blockiness which can come with chibi builds, and the attention to detail is impressive whilst staying with the chibi-aesthetic – those blasters in particular are spot-on.

Luc has also had a crack at Darth Vader in this building style. It’s good, but for me it hasn’t quite hit the sweet spot between recognisable, fun, and cute which really set the Han and Leia figures apart. I hope Luc keeps going though, more figures in this style would make me very happy indeed.

Kylo Ren’s Lightsaber from The Force Awakens in LEGO

Inspired by the blade construction in the recently featured replica of Darth Vader’s lightsaber, and by my three viewings of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I constructed a LEGO prop replica of Kylo Ren’s crossguard lightsaber. Measuring 41″ long (30″ blade), and built in four days (4-5 hours building time), the LEGO saber can be swung and slashed around without breaking.

The unstable, crackling blade effect was important for me to capture, as it is a unique detail to Kylo Ren’s lightsaber as much as the haphazard hilt construction and the crossguard. The best way I thought to achieve the blade effect was the texture of 1×2 grill tiles in translucent red.

Ren’s lightsaber would make a fine addition to my collection!

January 2016 LEGO sets now available [News]

It’s the first day of the new year, which means that the January 2016 assortment of LEGO sets is now officially available. Highlights include more LEGO Star Wars sets from The Force Awakens, the brand new NEXO Knights theme, new Creator sets, and more.

75139 Battle on Takodana includes 5 minifigs and 409 pieces at $59.99. We’ll have a review of this new Force Awakens set shortly.

75827 Firehouse Headquarters includes 9 minifigs and 4634 pieces at $349.99. Read our in-depth review of the new LEGO Ghostbusters Firehouse Headquarters here on The Brothers Brick.

Click through to see more January 2016 LEGO sets

Minifig-scale Ewok Village

Have you ever thought about how tall the trees on Endor would be if they were scaled to minifigs? Check out KW Vauban‘s Ewok village with its gargantuan trees that rise over 3 feet; then head over to MOCpages for more photos on and see how many scenes from the movie you can spot.

Top 10 LEGO news stories on TBB in 2015 [News]

Did you know that a new Star Wars movie came out in 2015, with accompanying LEGO sets? If you’ve been living in your basement working on your LEGO masterpiece and weren’t aware, one glance at TBB’s top LEGO news stories would provide a clear picture of just how much excitement has preceded what turned out to be a rather excellent movie. Like our round-up of most popular LEGO models of 2015, LEGO Star Wars stories have dominated news coverage this year — especially since the sets were first revealed in September.

The actual Top 10 list is heavily dominated by set announcements, so hit the jump to check it out.

But some interesting and important news doesn’t necessarily show up in this top 10 list. Back in July, TBB celebrated its tenth anniversary, and I reflected on what it’s been like running a LEGO blog for 10 years. I promised we would be making some changes to improve the experience for our readers, and we’ve done exactly that. After BrickCon in October, we added eight new contributors, who’ve all helped us improve our coverage of both LEGO models and LEGO news. We’ve significantly broadened our geographic diversity, with two new contributors from the UK (both Scottish, coincidentally) and one each from Russia and South Africa — adding to our existing team from the US, Canada, and the Netherlands. Our new contributors have helped to free up our editorial staff to focus more on time-consuming content like LEGO set reviews.

In other news, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s LEGO project generated some interesting discussion in the comments, and several of our contributors participated in the annual Creations for Charity event.

Meanwhile, TBB staff were also a strong presence at LEGO conventions such as Brickworld in Chicago and BrickCon in Seattle, where readers and contributors built a rather epic American Civil War display in LEGO, featuring help from a corps of volunteer dinosaur cavalry.

And in the UK at BRICK, Elspeth took on LEGO Wonder Woman.

Click through to see all of the top LEGO news stories of 2015!