2019 was an anniversary year for Star Wars. In 1989, a mere 30 years ago, Jake Lloyd and Kelly Marie Tran were born. 1989 was also the year Timothy Zahn started working on his novel “Heir to the Empire”, the books that seemingly relaunched the public’s interest in Star Wars. It was the 20th anniversary of “The Phantom Menace” ( has it been that long already?) but it was also the anniversary of the joining of two giant industries. I am of course talking about Lego and Star Wars. Star Wars was the first branded sets that Lego had produced. They started as very simplistic builds but as time went on Lego honed its craft to create spectacular models of of ships and scenes from a galaxy far far away. The size and scope of their work only improved as the years passed. In 1999 Lego released just a very few sets for the original trilogy but the biggest draw was the the Phantom Menace that was releasing that year.
Move forward to 2017
and Lego releases the Millennium Falcon that was built to scale of the mini figures. It was the largest set commercially available with more than 7500 bricks and a 494 page instruction manual. Lately the Lego company has been putting out sets with all types of branded sets. From Marvel superheros to Spongebob to the Ninja Turtles it seems as though Lego has covered it all. Star Wars was, however the first and the gateway from which all the others were made possible.
Originally it was only licensed from 1999–2008, but the Lego Group extended the license with Lucasfilm Ltd. multiple times: first until 2011, then until 2016, then again until 2022.
The brand has spawned six video game releases, developed by Traveller’s Tales — Lego Star Wars: The Video Game, Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga which will release in 2020 after the release of the Last Jedi. Many short films and miniseries have also been produced.
For the 20th anniversary Lego refreshed 5 classic models and packaged them in distinctive packaging along with a retro style mini figure and base. As to the future, The Lego Star Wars team are actively involved in the fan community, understand what the fans want and always keep fan requests in the front of their mind. I personally think that Lego has done and continues to do an amazing job with their product and fans as well as myself look forward to another 20 years.
