Some crazy old space wizard once described the light saber as “an elegant weapon, for a more civilized age” — something that is clearly borne out by the plethora of civilized dismemberments seen in the Star Wars franchise. I was very pleased to see this tradition being continued in the latest installment, so much so that I decided to augment LEGO’s rather limited selection of Last Jedi BrickHeadz with one featuring a very special “play feature”…
The LEGO Shop‘s sales & deals for May the Fourth 2018 are now online, revealing plenty to make the credits burn a hole in every LEGO Star Wars fan’s pockets. As we noted in our review of 75181 UCS Y-wing Starfighter earlier today, the new UCS set’s launch is the centerpiece for the May the Fourth event. Similarly, all LEGO Star Wars purchases over $75 qualify for a free 40288 BB-8 polybag to go with your R2-D2 from last year. VIP Black Card holders (those who’ve purchased a UCS Millennium Falcon) can use a special code LEGO sent via email to get a Y-wing blueprint with purchases over $35.
See all the info about May the Fourth LEGO Star Wars sales & deals
Each year, LEGO releases at least one new LEGO Star Wars set in its long-running Ultimate Collector Series line of large-scale sets. Last year saw the release of the monumental 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon (the largest LEGO set ever released at 7,541 pieces) as well as the excellent 75144 UCS Snowspeeder. This year’s UCS release is 75181 Y-wing Starfighter, built from 1,967 pieces, retailing for $199.99 starting on May the Fourth or “Star Wars Day” 2018.
Of course, this is not the first UCS Y-wing that LEGO has released — 10134 Y-wing Attack Starfighter was released fourteen years ago, way back in 2004. We’ll take a closer look at how this latest UCS Y-wing stacks up against the first one in our hands-on review.
Read our hands-on review of 75181 UCS Y-wing Starfighter
LEGO builder Jarek is pretty much the undisputed king of Star Wars ships, routinely making the most accurate and gorgeously intricate vehicles from a galaxy far, far away ever to be built of bricks. He’s been on a roll lately with the Imperial Navy, starting with a TIE Fighter and TIE Interceptor, then upgrading to the heavy TIE Bomber. But now Jarek’s moved up the chain even further, to Darth Vader’s personal spacecraft, the prototype TIE Advanced.
Click to see more of this incredible TIE Advanced
The new LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series 75181 Y-wing Starfighter launches on May the Fourth this Friday, and we’ll be bringing you our hands-on review at midnight GMT on May 4th, so check back later this week for our own review. In the meantime, LEGO has released a really great video in which model designer Jordan David Scott and graphic designer Madison O’Neil discuss how they approached the design process, their own background as LEGO Star Wars fans, and more.
The video provides great insights into the LEGO set designer role, rather than just focusing on the set’s play features. We’ll be covering the play features (and more) in our review, so the video provides a wonderful view into the interesting people behind our favorite LEGO sets.
Although most of the spring wave of LEGO Star Wars sets have been focused on Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Classic Trilogy hasn’t been forgotten. LEGO returns to Dagobah with 75208 Yoda’s Hut. The set includes three minifigures with 229 LEGO pieces, and retails for $29.99 in the US.
We’ve focused a lot of our reviews lately on large sets like 75212 Kessel Run Millennium Falcon and the forthcoming UCS Y-wing (look for our review later this week), so it’s nice to take a bit of a break with a smaller LEGO Star Wars set. Let’s dig in!
Read our full review of 75208 Yoda’s Hut
The battle scene from Crait from Star Wars The Last Jedi was most memorable for its distinctive blood-red dust plumes that billow from the wake of the Resistance Ski Speeders in their feeble attempt to bring down the First Order. Their target was the modified canon protected by the First Order Heavy Assault Walkers (AT-M6) that towered over the battlefield. Builder Irwan Prabowo miniaturised the scene with a diorama that perfectly captures the tense moment.
We love the cracked planet surface texturing approach Irwan used. If you take a closer look, the tiny Ski Speeders use minifigure skates to complete the look (albeit on the outrigger, not the ski). How appropriate!
May the Fourth or “Star Wars Day” is right around the corner, and LEGO has sent us an early copy of the free promotional set, 40288 BB-8. The set will be available May 4th through 6th (or until supplies run out) with LEGO Star Wars purchases over $75. We’ll bring you more details on the May the Fourth sales and deals later this week, so check back soon for more updates.
This buildable character joins the large-scale 75187 BB-8 released in 2017, and is about the same size as last year’s buildable R2-D2, so let’s dig in and see how this new droid compares.
Read our full review of the buildable BB-8 promo set
We all love Star Wars, but why should only the spaceships and battle scenes get all the love? How about some Jawas? This is what I imagine could have gone through Jacob Sadovich‘s mind when starting this build. This Jawa is so realistic, I just want to sell all my scrap copper to it!
What I really like about this build is that it is 100% LEGO, including the cloth. We have seen large Jawa figures in LEGO before, even life-sized ones, but most of them cheated at least a little. There is more to Jacob’s interpretation than just the robes, of course. The eyes light up and the belts with pouches are ironicaly made out of pouches with belts. The ion gun the little guy is holding in his hand also adds a lot to the character, as does the Technic-lined base.
Everybody’s favorite sand lizard has been featured in a few LEGO sets over the years, but they have not been much to get excited about. But this dewback and sand trooper scene by LEGO 7 is an amazing tribute to this Imperial beast of burden on the remote Outer Rim planet of Tatooine.
The dewback looks to be posable and features some impressive organic sculpting using a variety of curved and sloped parts. And that yellow lever base for eyes is genius. The sandtroopers also deserve close attention, and while a bit clunky, they do capture the likeness pretty well at this unique scale.
And speaking of scale, here is the official dewback and rider for comparison.
From 7146 TIE Fighter back in 2001 through 75101 First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter in 2015, the iconic Imperial starfighter has evolved significantly. The latest incarnation in nearly two decades is 75211 Imperial TIE Fighter released to support the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story in May. This latest TIE Fighter set includes 519 pieces and 4 minifigs, and retails for $69.99.
Let’s dig in to find out how this latest TIE stacks up against its predecessors — the 2015 LEGO TIE Fighter from The Force Awakens in particular. Minifigures may reveal SPOILERS ahead of the movie’s release, so you’ve been warned!
Read our complete review of 75211 Imperial TIE Fighter
B-Wing fighters are truly under-appreciated vehicles in the arsenal of the Rebel forces in Star Wars and similarly, in the LEGO world, I’ve yet to see a decent build until now. This stunning creation by Patrick Lacroix uses a colour scheme that stands out quite a bit with the red highlights and great use of the blue transparent base parts from the Dimension series which has those RFID tags inbuilt at the exhaust ports. It uses the same style of caterpillar tracks modelled from the LEGO 10227 UCS B-Wing release for the cockpit but in the more common black parts, and the best part that Patrick mentioned is, it rotates as it rightly should so as the main feature! While I wasn’t quite sold on getting a B-Wing to add to my collection, I believe this has changed my mind!
Click more to see the beauty of it all