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.

Unpimping Rey’s Speeder – kitbashing a movie-accurate Jakku speeder

I obviously hadn’t seen the movie yet when I reviewed 75099 Rey’s Speeder on the day the set came out back in September, so I had no idea whether the LEGO set was in any way accurate. I was most suspicious of all the fun play features built into the set — the stud-flinger weapons, the opening doors, the inner compartment, and so on. Now that I’ve seen The Force Awakens twice (my inner Star Wars nerd having also reawakened), I wanted to mod the LEGO set to make it a bit more accurate to the movie.

To be honest, the stock LEGO set now feels a bit like an entry in our Pimp Rey’s Speeder contest — though I still love it. When I got home from the movie again yesterday, I pulled out my two copies of this lovely little set along with a few choice pieces from my existing collection and set to work to build a movie-accurate, unmpimped version of Rey’s speeder.

Rather than a LEGO creation built entirely from scratch like nearly all the models we feature here on TBB, this is a lot like the “kitbash” process plastic modelers use, so I thought my build process might be interesting enough to share. I’ll avoid plot spoilers, but in case I mess up, hit the jump for my full write-up.

Read all about the differences between the LEGO set and my kitbash

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Authentic Star Wars A-wing

While the world goes Episode VII crazy, Dead Frog inc. brings us this gorgeous rendition of the A-wing Interceptor. While it doesn’t get nearly as much love as it deserves, the A-wing is one of my personal favourites and this is definitely one of the best recreations I’ve ever seen.

P.S. The Force Awakens is superb and you should watch it before the endless internet trolls spoil it for you.

2015 LEGO Star Wars & LEGO Friends Advent Calendars (Day 21)

We’re three weeks into December, which means it’s Day 21 of TBB’s virtual LEGO Advent Calendar series.

We’ll be unveiling the mini-kits or minifigs from each Advent Calendar around this time every day, and we won’t ruin the surprise — you’ll need to click through to reveal the LEGO behind the tiny doors.

Click to see the Day 21 mini-kits!

Star Wars vehicles with a few twists

I am not quite old enough to have seen the first Star Wars movie in the cinema and remember it, have yet to see the latest instalment and, if I had to choose would prefer Star Trek (before J.J. Abrams ruined it), but I too jump on a bandwagon every once in a while. I’ve had a Landspeeder in my collection of movie vehicles for more than a year now and last weekend decided to add a Speeder Bike.

“Where are the twists?” you may wonder. Well, Andrew has been virtually twisting my arm to blog them, to show that the contributors to this blog are builders (and to avoid an embarrassing repeat of the “Optimus Prime fiasco” when everybody and his uncle got around to blogging one of my models before I did). The more interesting twist, however, is their scale. At a first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that these are not that much different from LEGO’s own sets and, in terms of size, they indeed aren’t. Yet, I build my vehicles to a scale of 1/22, which is intended for brick-built figures roughly twice the size of minifigs. I particularly enjoyed building the Scout Trooper for the Speeder Bike. Looking into the specs and pictures of the props taken on the set, it turns out that they really are quite small; a Landspeeder should not be the size of Ecto-1, but more that of Mr. Bean’s Mini and a Scout Trooper on a Speeder Bike really should look like somebody riding a legless horse.

2015 LEGO Star Wars & LEGO Friends Advent Calendars (Day 20)

Only 5 days until Christmas, which means we’re 20 days into TBB’s virtual LEGO Advent Calendar, with only a few more LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Friends mini-kits and minifigs left to unveil.

Click to see the Day 20 mini-kits!

Disney Princesses as microscale Christmas ornaments

Every year Markus Rollbühler creates some new LEGO Christmas decorations for the tree, and he shared this year’s collection of Disney Princesses in microscale.

From left to right:

Leia and R2-D2
Ariel, Flounder, and Sebastian (from The Little Mermaid)
Snow White and a deer
Tiana and Naveen (from The Princess and the Frog)
Elsa and Anna (from Frozen)

The details are fantastic at this scale, making the characters easily recognisable. I love Flounder and Sebastian, created using simple 1×1 tiles or plates with clips and 1×1 plates. Another favourite is R2-D2 who is simply a 1×1 Technic brick resting on a silver 1×1 round plate, two white minifig hands and a blue-based lever – inspired use of parts!

Thanks to Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, Princess Leia can be officially described as a Disney Princess too…

The many Star Wars faces of Unikitty

Unikitty is one of my favorite characters from The LEGO Movie, but I don’t know that I love all the line-ups of Unikitty variations I’m constantly running across. But this one is different. tankm has built nineteen different Unikitties as characters from the entire Star Wars saga.

Here are my three favorites, conveniently in a single picture — Unikitty Chewie, Unikitty Han Solo, and Unikitty Han Solo in carbonite.

I also like Luke & Leia’s parents — the expression on Unikitty Queen Amidala’s face is priceless.

2015 LEGO Star Wars & LEGO Friends Advent Calendars (Days 18 & 19)

I was so focused on the new Star Wars movie yesterday (have you heard? there’s a new Star Wars movie out!) that I totally forgot to post yesterday’s installment of our virtual LEGO Advent Calendar series, so here’s Day 18 & 19 together.

Click to see the Day 18 & 19 mini-kits!

Darth Vader’s lightsaber with brick-built blade

Lightsaber handles are a popular subject in LEGO, but it’s very rare to see a fully brick-built blade. This LEGO lightsaber by Cole Edmonson has all the details a LEGO lightsaber needs, but he goes one step farther by making the brick-built blade strong enough to swing around.

Watch the lightsaber in action in this video Cole made. Interestingly, he built the red lightsaber with a white core, which works beautifully when in motion.

Harrison Ford signs a fan’s LEGO UCS Millennium Falcon on Conan

Back home from seeing The Force awakens, I’m watching Conan O’Brien interview J.J. Abrams and Harrison Ford, and was entertained to see that the UCS Millennium Falcon just made an appearance. Watch how the actor who played Han Solo carefully handles this painstakingly built LEGO set.

Heh heh. Thanks to reader Mike R. for the tip earlier in the day!

Resistance T-70 X-wing starfighter from the Force Awakens

I just got home from seeing The Force Awakens, and all I’ll share is that it was a Star Wars movie. Note that I cannot say the same for the Prequel Trilogy. It feels good to love Star Wars again. While several of us from the TBB team were off seeing Episode VII together, David Hensel posted his 21st build for the current round of Iron Builder — an X-wing in gray and blue to match 75102 Poe’s X-wing in black and orange.

My critique of the official set — that the LEGO X-wing is missing the long, tapered angle of the nose forward of the cockpit — applies to David’s own design as well, and it’s a bit unfortunate that he doesn’t seem to have the excellent new X-wing cockpit to use. Nevertheless, this is a great rendition of the iconic fighter from the new movie.

2015 LEGO Star Wars & LEGO Friends Advent Calendars (Day 17)

We’re 17 days into TBB’s virtual LEGO Advent Calendar, and there’s a part of me that’s hoping for some sort of Episode VII easter egg.

Click to see the Day 17 mini-kits!