LEGOstarwars20th

May the Fourth Be With You: An interview with Jens Kronvold Frederiksen [LEGO® Star Wars™ Creative Director]

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Jens Kronvold Frederiksen has worked for the LEGO Group for over 20 years: initially as a designer, and more recently as the Creative Director for LEGO® Star Wars™. On Saturday, May 4th – as part of the LEGO Star Wars Day Celebrations, he took part in the Worlds Largest LEGO Star Wars Unboxing at Westfield Chatswood in Sydney with Ryan ‘Brickman’ McNaught. This is his first trip to Australia.

I had the opportunity to speak with Jens on the eve of this event – we spoke about the importance of Community events, the evolution of LEGO Designs, stickers and how he came to one of the coolest jobs in the world.

As I write this up, unboxing has occurred, and the model inside has been completed… the event continues until 5pm Sunday May 5th.

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Giving LEGO® Star Wars™ a Boost [75253]

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Convergence. Twenty years ago, we saw the release of the first LEGO® Star Wars™ sets. LEGO Mindstorms was launched the year before. Later in 1999, the Droid Developer Kit 9748 was released, followed up the following year with the Dark Side Developer Kit 9754. These sets were equipped with the Micro Scout CPU – it came with a number of pre programmed responses, including behaviours that could be influenced by ambient light. The programming might have been limited, but who wouldn’t want to be able to build their own R2-D2?

Fast Forward 20 years, and LEGO Robotics system have obtained an unprecedented level of power through the EV-3 system, and the new Powered Up paradigm is starting to take hold. With the LEGO Boost Creative Tool Kit now almost 2 years old, it seems reasonable for it to be upgraded, and what better way this year, than to make it a LEGO Star Wars set.

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20th Anniversary Snowspeeder: An Emblem of Hope, as the Empire Strikes Back [75259 Review]

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At the Start of Episode V, we hear about the Snowspeeders before we see them:

“Are the Speeders Ready?”

“Not yet: we are having some difficulty adapting them to the cold.”


It’s 1980 and already, we worry about this machine that we have never seen before. Unlike the first time I saw Star Wars, I had not waited over six months before having the chance to see The Empire Strikes Back. I only knew one other person who had seen the film before I went to see it. And he had spoiled the ending. But I didn’t believe that what he told me could possibly be true. So I entered in, hopeful and optimistic.

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Wookie Here: 75261 Scout Walker 20th Anniversary Edition

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Episode III:Revenge of the Sith had action happening all over the place: Coruscant, Tatooine, Utapau, Mustafar, and every other outlying planet where the separatist Armies were fighting races loyal to the Republic. The ultimate treachery of Palpatine, directed towards the Jedi and the Separatist forces combined was devastating. In a movie with so many locations, and so many vehicles in action, it is this Scout Walker from the Battle of Kashyyyk that has been reimagined for the LEGO® Star Wars™ 20th Anniversary.

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Celebrate 20 Years of LEGO® Star Wars™ With The World’s Largest LEGO Star Wars Unboxing!

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Fans are invited to kick-off celebrations for May the 4th Be With You Day 2019 at Westfield Chatswood

If you are in Sydney this year, you have the chance to be involved in a very special event over Star Wars Weekend: May 4th-5th. LEGO Star Wars Creative Director Jens Kronvold Frederikson, and Australia’s LEGO Certified Professional Ryan McNaught will be at Westfield Chatwood to run a massive LEGO Star Wars Unboxing and Build!

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Recalling the Phantom Menace [20th Anniversary Edition Podracer 75258 Review]

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LET ME TELL YOU A STORY May 1999: Episode I, the Phantom Menace is released. After a long wait, there has been quite a lot of hype. I first saw Return of the Jedi when I was 13. I am now 30. Well, when I say it had been a long wait, we had been granted some interim amusement in the form of ‘Spot the Difference’ as we watched the Special editions. Adding new material and music, we kept some of the great ‘head bashing into wall’ bloopers from the original, but they took out some of my favourite tunes. Whatever happened to the great ‘Jub-Jub’ chorus at the end of what felt like it could afford to be considered The Final Film (Now we just call it Episode VI)? What happened to Sy Snootles great puppet performance at Jabba’s Palace? But despite all this, the time had come to sit back, relax, and see how the story panned out. Or at least started…

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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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75244 Tantive IV Announced

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March, 1978. The Belgrave Cameo Cinema. 3:30 pm. It’s my 9th birthday, and for the last eight months I have wanted to do nothing more than see Star Wars. Some how it hasn’t happened until today. In later years it would be renamed Episode IV: A New Hope, but for the time being, there was only one. The movie opens, the opening crawl runs and the camera pans across the surface of Tatooine to reveal what looks like a big spaceship. Then we see it being chased down by a much larger one. It does not end well for most of those on board, but an adventure into the imagination that now spans generations was launched…

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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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