What, you thought I’d just go with “It’s a trap!”? That’d just be lazy. Admiral Ackbar may not have had the most memorable line in The Force Awakens, but his presence at the Resistance base marked another point in the movie that reminded us we were watching a true Star Wars film again. Master character builder Eero Okkonen captures the essence of the Mon Calamari admiral with a variety of slopes, vehicle fenders, reins, and other sundry bits. A few pieces of brown lend subtle texture to what would otherwise be a mass of dark red. His expressive eyes are built from a black 2×2 boat stud layered over a round 2×2 yellow tile.Tell all your friends! This week there are several deals on LEGO Star Wars, Ninjago, Technic, Chima and LEGO Elves. There are also still great deals on LEGO Dimensions Packs! LEGO Ninjago Temple of Airjitzu is 20% off, currently listed at $159.99. The late Carrie Fisher had been scheduled to appear next month at Seattle’s Emerald City Comic Con, so I decided to make a Leia tribute for the convention’s Brick Nation display.
We’ve already seen LEGO tributes showing a demure Princess Leia shoving a floppy disk into some poor hapless droid, but I wanted to recreate a moment from the original trilogy that captured Fisher’s feisty character! Jabba’s death scene from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi seemed appropriate (…ignoring for a moment the fact that this is basically a PG-rated movie that features a brutal and drawn-out murder scene) The Brothers Brick publishes so many news stories each week that we’re rounding them up for some weekend reading of the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our Weekly Brick Report for the third week of February, reporting live from Toy Fair 2017 in New York City! See more of this week’s LEGO news Yes Yoda, I AM judging you by your size. And I judge you to be the cutest little Force-wielder ever. These microscale LEGO Star Wars figures by dmitri dolgov are fabulous — enough detail to be instantly recognisable, yet teeny-tiny enough to be supercute blocky interpretations.
Sorry Dmitri, but I insist you go and build all the other Star Wars characters at this scale. As if to punish its largest market, LEGO held back the American release of the first wave of 2017 LEGO Star Wars sets in January, even though they were available nearly everywhere else in the world on January 1st. Fans of LEGO Star Wars in the United States can now pick up the latest sets, including great new sets from Rogue One and Rebels. 75172 Y-Wing Starfighter features a Blue Squadron Y-Wing Pilot, Admiral Raddus, the bounty hunter Moroff, an astromech droid, and a stormtrooper. The set includes 691 pieces and retails for $59.99. The set is already backordered from the LEGO Shop online, but is available now from Amazon. 75171 Battle on Scarif includes Jyn Erso disguised as an Imperial ground crew member, Cassian Andor, and two shore troopers. The set includes 419 pieces and retails for $49.99. See more new LEGO Star Wars sets available now Continuing our coverage of LEGO at New York Toy Fair 2017, we’re happy to bring you newly unveiled sets for Star Wars.
We anticipate these sets being available in June or September. First up, 75178 Jekku Quadjumper will be available June 1st for $49.99, with Rey, Finn, another one of Unkar’s thugs, plus a First Order stormtrooper. The Quadjumper has a knob on the top, which I’m hoping makes it explode (we’ll see). The rear of the vehicle showcases the huge engines and rear hatch. 75180 Rathtar Escape is an 836-piece playset of the Eravana highlighting the scene in The Force Awakens when our heroes escape the rathtars and Guavian Death Gang. The set includes Han Solo, Chewbacca, Bala-Tik, and two Guavian Death Gang security soldiers. The set will retail for $79.99. See more LEGO Star Wars sets from Toy Fair New York Check out this week’s LEGO sales from Amazon. Included are sales on sets from Star Wars and Ninjago, as well as a large assortment of discounted LEGO Dimensions packs! Captain Rex’s AT-TE is 25% off, currently listed at $89.99. This brilliant minifig scale Zeta-class cargo shuttle by Renegade Clone is by far my favorite vehicle from Rogue One.
Looking like a turtle on its belly with its flippers up, this ship looks exactly like the one in the film – the builder has captured it just perfectly. It’s definitely in my top two along with the Rebel U-Wing. With a wonderful orange highlighted belly and forward hatch that opens with plenty of room for the cargo crates and *spoilers*, the builder used LEGO Digital Designer for rapid prototyping during the construction and an estimated 4000 LEGO bricks to create this UCS quality model. But then Krennic’s Imperial Shuttle is pretty cool too, so it’s easily in my top three. Check out the Flickr album to see work in progress pics and more *spoilers*. A brilliant replica of one of my favorite ships …until LEGO brings out a Hammerhead Corvette, that is! Those of us who attended a LEGO club meeting here in Seattle this past weekend got to see Taylor Walker wield his enormous LEGO Darksaber inspired by Sabine Wren’s new weapon in Star Wars Rebels. Despite the brick-thin blade, the life-size weapon is incredibly sturdy, reinforced by subtly integrated Technic beams in the blade’s black core.
While the blade and its sturdiness are certainly impressive, the handle has a great design, with geometric striping, an angled hilt, and small gold details. Alternate X-wings and TIE Fighters certainly aren’t unusual among custom LEGO Star Wars creations, but this pair of starfighters by Christian Lintan looks like it could have been built from the all-white LEGO Architecture Studio set, though of course many of the parts don’t come in that set. Despite the parts limitations, Christian has achieved great shaping, particularly on the X-wing — the sides of the nose, the engines, and even the flash suppressors on the S-foil laser cannons are all unique design solutions, not just a recolor of an official set. Christian builds almost exclusively in white, and while that might sound boring on paper, I was mesmerized by his photostream on Flickr (and he also has an Instagram). With a pivotal role in Rogue One supported by an official 75155 Rebel U-wing Fighter LEGO set, it’s not surprising that LEGO builders have embraced the newest addition to the Star Wars fleet with custom LEGO U-wings like the one from Joshua Brooks.