Star Wars, Geek Culture, and Power Converters
Lots of news this week! New books! New The Last Jedi details! New hair! Let’s dive right in, shall we?
Though rumored as early as December 2015, it’s now official; following the death of original Star Wars actor Kenny Baker, going forward (beginning with this December’s The Last Jedi) the adorable astromech will be portrayed by Doctor Who veteran Jimmy Vee. I guess this makes him R2-D2-2. (source)
via OhSoSmall.com
The lovely human beings over at The Brothers Brick have posted an image from either the London or Nuremburg Toy Fair (which one isn’t made clear in the post), giving us a look at some of the Lego Star Wars sets we can expect this summer. Hop behind the break for a look (as well as my — ahem — expert analysis).
Gird your wallets, fellow U.S.-based Lego fans! The Winter 2016 wave of Star Wars sets — already available in other parts of the world, grumble grumble — are finally coming to our beleaguered shores in March, according to reports from The Brick Fan and AZ Central. This wave features the sets we previously reported were coming, including an updated ETA Interceptor for Obi-Wan, a Bespin carbon-freezing chamber, and an updated version of the droids’ escape pod from the original Star Wars film. Have a look at the box art below, and let us know in the comments which sets you’re planning on picking up.
More details about Lego’s upcoming slate of Star Wars sets for 2016 are beginning to trickle out. Over the weekend, a sheet of paper included in the Finn minifig polybag was discovered, which includes more official looks at the sets we caught glimpses of back in October, as well as a couple new sets.
In addition, an Instagram user has gotten their hands on the Maz Kanata minifig from The Force Awakens, and we’ll have an image of that after the break!
Over the weekend, the good folks over at The Brick Fan posted some images of forthcoming Lego sets found on Lego’s servers. Close to a hundred images were posted, but of course we’re only interested in the eight Star Wars-related ones. Let’s have a look and get speculating, shall we?
Right away I’m not sure what to think. We’ve got a fairly detailed and intricate build of a speeder bike, the coloring of which suggests it’s meant to represent the bikes seen on Endor in Return of the Jedi. However, this one has a stud shooter on the back, along with what looks like room for a gunner to sit.
Even though my LEGO preferences tend to lean more towards the larger, more complicated sets (the UCS Slave I is currently sitting just to my left), one of the “Force Friday” The Force Awakens sets I was most looking forward to was the relatively tiny Rey’s Speeder (75099). I liked the look of the vehicle from the two teasers we’ve seen so far, and the set itself looked like a solid, satisfying build — not huge or intricate, but well-designed and fun to put together, much like the Inquisitor’s TIE set (75082) from back in January. That wound up being an extremely satisfying build, despite its small size — does this new (even smaller) offering from LEGO follow suit? Read on to find out!
(Minor spoilers/speculation for The Force Awakens, I guess)