LEGOStarWars20

Star Wars Backlog Building I: 75423 Slave One: 20th Anniversary Edition

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I have been feeling a hankering for Mandalorians, following the series finale of ‘The Mandalorian’ on Disney+ last week. Unfortunately, I have been unable to secure either of the sets associated with the series at this time. So I had a look through my shelves and found the next best thing: a set with Boba Fett: the 75423 20th Anniversary Slave I. The LEGO® AFOL Engagement Team sent this set to me last year, along with other sets in the 20th Anniversary range (20th anniversary of LEGO® Star Wars that is). However, by the time I got those sets built, I was a little exhausted by LEGO® Star Wars – and so I put the set on the shelf for a while, awaiting inspiration. And today inspiration had finally arrived, so I opened up bag 1 and started to build . All opinions are my own.

Slave I is one of the spaceships from Star Wars most frequently represented in LEGO® form. Despite having less than 2 minutes of screen time between 1980 and 2000, Boba Fett’s spaceship has appeared in at least 10 sets – 1 UCS, 5’minifigure’ scale and 4 microscale, 2 magazine cover gifts, a keychain and two Advent Calendars. Certainly it has a distinctive shape, and is readily amenable to representation in LEGO bricks, at any scale. That said, none of these representations is perfect.

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75262 Imperial Dropship – Star Wars 20th Anniversary

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In which I try to come to terms with the fact that I didn’t attempt to buy Every Star Wars Set Ever, despite a childhood obsession, and come to realise that reissues of sets are useful as elements and building pieces evolve.

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY. If you have read any of my posts about the 20th Anniversary of LEGO® Star Wars, it would become apparent that Star Wars played an important role in my childhood. There was something enchanting, in a fairy tale sort of way, about the way in which the characters moved through the story. I read the novel (Ghost written by Alan Dean Foster) several times before I turned 10. I had a couple of action figures. Some follow me today. My brother and I saved up lots and lots of pocket money, to be able to afford the Kenner’s Landspeeder, with amazing floating action, when it finally became available at our local toy shop in 1978. I had a book mark left in a friend’s copy of ‘Splinter of the Mind’s Eye’, and when our family went to visit theirs, I would read another twenty of so pages. In 1983 I finally finished reading it.

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Celebrating 20 Years of LEGO® Star Wars: Advertising Archive

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In which it becomes apparent that the LEGO group are celebrating the 20th Anniversary of LEGO Star Wars. With some of their Archive material, as well as some of my own, from a simlar era, we look at the Early Days of the Star Wars print ads.

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY. Forty two years ago – a Long, Long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away… Star Wars was released on an unsuspecting world. Fan based consumerism would never be the same again.

A LEGO X-wing fighter, circa 1982. It contains a Kenner Luke Skywalker Action Figure, as well as a brick built R2-D2

Star Wars consumed 9 year old me. I read the novel, again, and finally saw the film at the cinema for my ninth birthday. The Belgrave Cameo Cinea, in March 1978 for those playing at home. Drawings, LEGO models and action figures. I couldn’t get enough. I had a ‘making of’ magazine – covering movie history, the special effects, and some of the concept artwork by Ralph McQuarrie, and more still by the Brothers Hildebrandt. Eventually my brother and I managed to combine LEGO with our actions figures. Fast forward to the future…

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