C-3PO

2022 Advent Calendar Minifigure Review

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**WARNING: This Post Contains Some Spoilers for the LEGO® Star Wars Advent Calendar. While the Minifigures present are revealed on the box, the box doesn’t show you the faces behind the masks.**

I was a little torn when I was offered the LEGO® Star Wars Advent Calendar to Review back in August. I mean, was I going to hold on to it until December, by which stage the set would be sold out (and so the review would benefit nobody)? Or open it up and spoil it all, months in advance? Not that the images on LEGO.com work to keep the contents a secret.

And so, prompted in part by the existence of this article on Medium.com, bemoaning the relative at the relative absence of female minifigures in the LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendars, I was promoted to open mine, to see if there were any surprises to be found inside. I’ll reveal my discovery later.

As it is also the VIP Weekend (2x VIP Points at LEGO.com), and with Black Friday Sales next weekend, it might just be the time to pick up that Calendar you were wondering about, before you need to start opening those doors on a daily basis.

Now, I don’t want to spoil the calendar experience, so I didn’t open up the doors. I just removed the recyclable tray from the box and picked out the bags containing minifigures. I can’t even remember where they came from: I just picked them all out and closed the box again. I’m sure this won’t cause any real problems…

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LEGO® Star Wars: Death Star Trash Compactor Diorama [Hands On Review]

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When Star Wars was released back in 1977, I did not get to see it straight away. “Wait for your birthday,” I was told in July 1977. My birthday is in March.

And so I read the paperback (ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster), I bought a couple of action figures (Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. My brother got Princess Leia and R2-D2. Eventually, we worked together to buy the Landspeeder, with its authentic floating motion), and started to collect the Scanlen Trading Cards (On license in Australia from Topp’s).

In the absence of a colour picture book, streaming services, Blu-Rays, DVDs or a VHS copy of the film, the next best way to visually experience the movie was to collect these screen shots. As far as I can tell there were at least 4 series releated to the film subsequently known as a New Hope. I only ever found the first in our local shops. Back in the day, I am pretty sure that I collected all of these blue bordered cards, as well as the series of 144 Battlestar Galactica cards, and subsequently the Return of the Jedi Cards. As a kid, It made no sense to try and purchase an entire box. Why would I do that? I only wanted one piece of bubble gum. Unfortunately, I do not know what happened to my series of Star Wars or BSG cards. I still have those from ROTJ, and secretly hope that there will be a diorama related to that in the future, so I can wax nostalgic about them…

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Back to the Beginning- Backlog Building II: Microfighters 75228

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Back when I first saw Star Wars, after the spaceships, one of the things that captured my imagination was the exotic location of Tatooine – a desolate planet, where people survived in an environment where they should not. We had strange indigenous races: the Jawas and Sand People, and exotic reptiles, such as Dewback Lizards. Somewhat restricted in their first cinematic outing, due to desert sand interfering with the animatronic mechanisms, they came back with a vengeance in the Special Edition, as the imperial presence on Tatooine increased with the addition of multiple CGI ships, troops and dewbacks. This is of course somewhat ironic, as they were employed by Sandtroopers as mounts in an environment where their conveyences were unable to work well, due to interference from the sand.

Of course the Sandtroopers are searching for the missing Death Star plans, carried by R2-D2, who accompanied by C-3PO, escaped from the Tantive IV during the opening battle in an escape pod. There have been a number of versions of the Escape pod released over the years, and dewbacks have previously only appeared in sets centred around Mos Eisley.

In 75228: Escape Pod vs. Dewback Microfighters, we have the first brick built version of the dewback, as well as a small version of the Escape Pod. this set has now retired from LEGO.com, but is still available from many retailers around Australia. Your local individual results might vary.

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