Ahead of the premiere of LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy – Pieces of the Past, coming to Disney+ on September 19th, Amy Rich takes a look back at 25 years of the Star Wars and LEGO partnership in a new article at StarWars.com.
Rebuild the Galaxy is the latest animated incarnation following an impressive (most impressive) collection of LEGO Star Wars shorts and series. Unlike its canonical cousins, LEGO Star Wars animated stories often reimagine iconic characters such as Darth Vader, Leia Organa, and Yoda and their stories with a humorous take.
Image: Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda in LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles (2013).The first LEGO Star Wars animated adventure dates back to 2005 when LEGO Star Wars: Revenge of the Brick debuted on Cartoon Network. The short featured Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and Yoda taking on the Separatist droid army on the ground and in space over Kashyyyk, in LEGO brick form. Dozens of shorts have followed including Bombad Bounty (2012) with Jar Jar Binks, Rebels Ghost Story (2014) with the crew from Star Wars Rebels, a series of era-spanning shorts in LEGO Star Wars: All-Stars (2018), and New Year’s Hothin’ Eve (2021) that gave fans a unique new look at the Battle of Hoth. More recently, Gifting with Grogu (2022) starred — you guessed it — everyone’s favorite green foundling.
Image: Luke Skywalker holding a Wookiee’s paw in LEGO Star Wars: Terrifying Tales (2021).LEGO Star Wars television specials began with 2011’s LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace, which featured Yoda leading a group of Padawans on an adventure. Mixing the original and prequel trilogies, 2012’s LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out took Leia, Han, and Luke to Naboo after the destruction of the first Death Star. More recent specials, including The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special (2020) — complete with Poe Dameron in a holiday sweater, — LEGO Star Wars: Terrifying Tales (2021), and LEGO Star Wars: Summer Vacation (2022) introduced seasonal themes. All three are streaming on Disney+.
Image: A scene from LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures (2017).Rebuild the Galaxy writers and executives producers Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit are the latest to join the pantheon of LEGO Star Wars creatives, which includes Michael Price (LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles (2013), LEGO Star Wars: Droids Tales (2015), Star Wars: The Resistance Rises (2016), The Padawan Menace and The Empire Strikes Out), Bill Motz and Bob Roth (LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures(2017) and All-Stars) and David Shayne (seasonal specials). “It’s been such a thrill getting to work with stellar writers over the last two decades who have all brought their heart, soul, and love of LEGO and Star Wars to the screen” says Lucasfilm senior Star Wars lore advisor Leland Chee.
Beyond the bricks, each one of the LEGO Star Wars specials and series has one key quality in common. According to Lucasfilm’s James Waugh, SVP of franchise content and strategy, every LEGO Star Wars story is careful to maintain the ‘anything is possible’ feel kids have always associated with the LEGO brand, and building with LEGO bricks. “LEGO Star Wars has its own sense of humor, its own style, and creates a special opportunity to share something you love with your kids no matter the age,” Waugh says. Looking at how kids actually play with LEGO bricks is a vital part of the process. “[For most films and series], we’re in our canonical sense of building stories, which delineates certain characters and vehicles set across different points of time. And when I’m watching my son play with [LEGO bricks], and watching other kids play with them, that’s not the case. It’s more like, ‘I’m dumping all my LEGO Star Wars sets out, and I’m going to have the AT-AT fight battle droids from the prequels.’”
Building Star Wars brick by brick
Connecting back to its roots, 2024’s Rebuild the Galaxy introduced Jedi Bob as a nod to one of the first LEGO Star Wars sets ever released. Voiced in the series by actor Bobby Moynihan, Jedi Bob was originally an unnamed Jedi minifigure packaged as part of the LEGO Star Wars Republic Gunship (7163) set released in 2002, early in the partnership that launched in 1999 with the release of thirteen sets themed to the debut of the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace film. Fans took it from there, christening the lone Jedi as “Bob,” and the name stuck.
Image: Jedi Bob in LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy.In real life, Jedi Bob is one of over a thousand LEGO Star Warsminifigures that the LEGO Group has designed over the years, often inspiring LEGO designers to break the mold and create all-new pieces to make the characters more screen-accurate. For example, the 1999 Jar Jar Binks LEGO Star Wars minifigure was the first to have a unique head sculpt. Then in 2002, Yoda, Boba Fett, and Ewok LEGO Star Wars minifigures were among some of the first to feature shorter legs. That same year, the Zam Wesell LEGO minifigure from the LEGO Star Wars Bounty Hunter Pursuit (7133) set was one of the first to have double-sided face decorations — only fair for a shapeshifter!
More recently, LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy has inspired several new LEGO sets, including Jedi Bob’s Starfighter, TheForce Burner Snowspeeder, the TIE fighter and X-wing mash-up, and the Dark Falcon. Chris Gollaher, director of product design at Lucasfilm, notes that both the LEGO brand and Star Wars “have that cross-generational appeal. The parents and the kids share it in the storytelling of Star Wars, and then the experience of the LEGO brand. And that’s why it’s so great. It works so well and hits on all levels for that.”
Read the article in full at StarWars.com.
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