Happy Star Wars Day! I’d like to start by thanking some of our readers for sending in fresh scans and new photos of Catalogs and Magazines from the early days of LEGO Star Wars. In Particular Sue Ann B and Trevor C, David L, and El Davo. You guys rock. Now…read on

It was 1999, and I was still in my LEGO Dark Ages, but something was afoot. The LEGO Catalogue for the year opened with some themes, tried and true on the cover: Top left led off with a rocket blasting off from the LEGO Town – Spaceport; on the lower left we see the Adventurers theme, this year exploring the South American Jungle. The bottom right image brought us a new, original theme: Rock Raiders; And finally on the top right was an image that would change the way LEGO was looked at for ever. Star Wars. At this time, roughly 22 years had passed since the first film was released, and nearly 2 years had passed since the Special Editions had debuted, introducing a new generation to the joy of Cinema.

This year, 2024, we celebrate 25 years since the release of those first Star Wars LEGO Sets, and on May the 4th, and here at the Rambling Brick we are going to revisit that first look we had at LEGO Star Wars back in 1999, by revisiting some of the publications that came out around the time: first the 1999 Catalogue entries, and then the LEGO World Magazine. Now… I thought I had some of these catalogues in the archives at home, and while I might, I was unable to locate them in a timely fashion, so I am grateful to the readers who responded to a distress flare the other night. [read on for new scans and long-forgotten mangazines]

The new IP – one of the first external IPs that LEGO produced sets with (Winnie the Pooh was the other released at this time – occupied the pride of place in the new catalogue, And there we saw it: an ‘Ugly’ – a mashup of the X-Wing and TIE Fighters. I had been a huge fan of Keith A. Stackpole’s Rogue Squadron books in the mid 90’s, and the idea of star fighters produced by salvaging the best parts of whatever craft you could find made for an exciting read. The New LEGO Star Wars logo was also revealed, including characters from the original triligy in their yellow bricked glory.

This was followed up on the next page with the initial wave of March sets – at this point they were all based on the Original Trilogy:

The mainstays of the range were the small craft: Snowspeeder, Landspeeder and Speeder Bikes, as well as the star fighters: X-wing and a double pack: Y-Wing and TIE Fighter.

It really is something looking back at these sets, from days when curved slopes were still on the element designer’s to do lists, and when SNOT techniques were still relatively rarely employed, although the X-Wing and TIE-Fighter certainly meant the game was afoot.

The following page, and the last with any Star Wars Content on in this first catalogue of 1999 promised more to come:

At this stage, we had a little information about the new movie, certainly as casual cinema goers, there were stories of a small child set to bring balance to the Force, fast cars – err pod racers – and a princess. But we did not get to see any of those yet. but there was a starfighter, and product photography as it was back then, it was difficult to tell exactly which colour was used on the leading edge of that craft. Only time would tell.

World Club Magazine

Let’s fact forward to later that year, when the LEGO World club magazine featured many of the Star Wars set, from the first and second drop inside. Other topics of interest included the Time Cruisers Comic, Johnny thunder’s Jungle Adventures, the LEGO Truck show and how many different type faces you can fit on a page. It would appear that 10 was the best they could manage.

.

On the inside, there were double page spreads for highlighting the sets and characters featured inthe sets based on Episode I: The Phantom Menace, as well as those based on the Original Trilogy. [And time revealed that colour to be grey. Chrome would have to wait for the UCS version.

And into the future…

There were still many key elements and characters to be seen, but we did not get to see the Millenium Falcon until we got past the Millennium Bug as the Calendars clicked over to the year 2000. Moving forward a couple of years, and El Davo has forwarded a couple of casual snaps from the US mail-order catalog 2002 – showing just how the LEGO Star Wars Universe had expanded: not just with minifigure playsets, but also introducing LEGO Technic and Mindstorms into the fray. To say nothing of a taste of things to come.

Thanks to David L., Sue Ann B., Trevor C and El Davo for their assistance in digging into their archives to help

I hope you have enjoyed this little trip back in time to the early days of LEGO Star Wars. What’s your favorite LEGO Star Wars Memory? Why not comment below. In the meantime, if you are interested in picking up some Star Wars sets from LEGO.com, consider using this affiliate link. There are all sorts of special offers over the weekend, including double Insider points

You can keep up to date with the Rambling Brick on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr (or just sign up for our mailing list) and find some extra content on Instagram and TikTok. And feel free to share this post with anyone who might be interested…

Until Next Time,

Play Well!