Utterly useless LEGO Star Wars trivia!
Posted by CapnRex101,
Over two decades have passed since LEGO Star Wars was introduced and various unusual items of relevant trivia have emerged during that time.
I often try to include surprising LEGO facts in reviews and other articles, although some of my favourite trivia about LEGO Star Wars has proven difficult to integrate. May the Fourth seems an ideal occasion to publish them though. I cannot guarantee that you will find the following pieces of trivia interesting but I can promise that they are completely useless!
1999 set numbers
Thirteen standard LEGO Star Wars sets were released during 1999, divided between Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and the Original Trilogy. Their set numbers follow a consistent pattern as each Prequel Trilogy set is numbered '71?1' while each Original Trilogy set ends with the number zero and follows a '71?0' format.
However, 7128 Speeder Bikes breaks that pattern! While its set number should be '7120', it has instead been assigned '7128' which seems strange as the appropriate set number had not been used before 1999 and still remains vacant today.
Padmé Amidala and Jon Vander
Padmé Amidala occupies an important role within the Star Wars saga and is perhaps the most influential factor in Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. Even so, this character has only appeared on seven occasions in LEGO, generally based upon Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
Jon Vander, meanwhile, commands Gold Squadron during the Battle of Scarif and the Battle of Yavin. These are undoubtedly important events, although his appearance in seven sets is relatively surprising when compared with Padmé. In fact, Vander is the only member of Gold Squadron to appear in any LEGO set.
CT-7567
Captain Rex is officially designated CT-7567 and his first minifigure appeared in 7675 AT-TE Walker. Captain Rex's designation number is accordingly an anagram of the number for the earliest set which includes his minifigure!
Unfortunately, the same pattern does not apply to any other named Clone Troopers that LEGO has produced.
1138 and LEGO
The number '1138' has been associated with Star Wars since 1977, making reference to THX 1138 which was George Lucas' first feature film. LEGO has not released any sets that include exactly 1138 pieces, although two Star Wars sets contain 1137 elements.
Coincidentally, they are both AT-ATs as 10178 Motorised Walking AT-AT and 75054 AT-AT each include 1137 pieces. Evidently the designers of these sets neglected to include one more part, narrowly missing that potential reference to George Lucas' first movie!
Most lines without minifigures
LEGO has released more than 1100 Star Wars minifigures since 1999, depicting 412 characters from across the Star Wars universe. Nevertheless, some notable omissions remain. Based upon their respective quantities of lines during the eleven live action films, the most talkative character without a minifigure is Dryden Vos.
The public leader of Crimson Dawn delivers 59 lines throughout Solo: A Star Wars Story and his Hylobon Enforcers have appeared in 75219 Imperial AT-Hauler. Dryden himself remains elusive though. I will shortly publish a complete breakdown of characters with the most lines during the movies but no minifigure representative.
What are some of your favourite LEGO Star Wars facts, completely useless or otherwise? Let us know in the comments!
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38 comments on this article
All completely useless, but also very interesting! Anxiously waiting for that complete breakdown of characters with the most lines during the movies but no minifigure representative!
Your encyclopaedic knowledge never ceases to amaze @CapnRex101 .
When I first saw the headline, I honestly thought you were referring to the 'Utterly useless LEGO Star Wars May 4th event'!
Utterly useless, CapnRex101... that's why I employ you :-)
"Missing figures" seems like an interesting category for discussion.
My thoughts: 1) we've never had an Episode III Padme, have we? I'm not sure what her seven figures are. I think there's been at least three Tatooine handmaiden Padmes, one of her in the Naboo ceremonial gown, and one on the Republic gunship. I don't think there's ever been a Mustafar Padme, which would be the most important one.
2) The Episode III Magnaguard needs a rerelease or update.
My only guess with 7128 Speederbikes is that when someone wrote down what set numbers each set should be, they put a zero with a slash through it so as to not be confused with an O, but even that is flimsy at best because how does somebody screw that up with so many other sets ending in 0s? The pattern of 1s and 0s in the 1999 sets is something I noticed years ago, but 7128 has always been weird.
Actually, thinking of it now, someone may not have closed a zero the whole way and it looked like a 6, and so then they tried to fix it by scribbling it closed, but that made it look like an 8.
I don't know.
We'll probably never know.
'I will shortly publish a complete breakdown of characters with the most lines during the movies but no minifigure representative.'
And I shall eagerly await for it.
Speaking of Star Wars minifigs, seems like there are only two that uses dual molded legs: Han Solo from Betrayal at Cloud City and the imperial officer from UCS Star Destroyer.
You know what I'd be curious on? Star Wars animals, and a breakdown of molded (like Tauntauns) versus brick-built (porgs). I am shocked that we still only have brick-built porgs, but the hounds from Solo got a mold.
Wow, I love these! Wish we got a Dryden Vos minifig...
Here’s a piece of useless trivia: LEGO has previously made errors with regards to the equipment used by named clone troopers on their box art and promotional images. In the 7675 AT-TE set, Rex is shown wearing a visor on his helmet, while the actual character exclusively uses a rangefinder. Also, Cody has been shown on numerous occasions wearing a pauldron and kama, both of which the clone commander does not use in any media.
Useless trivia is the best trivia because you always feel so smart on the rare occasion you get to use it. Everyone already knows the useful trivia
I needed that - thanks CapnRex101
LEGO needs more Padme variants.
Love useless trivia! Though I have to point out that three of Jon Vander's appearances are in rereleases of the same set!
Even more useless trivia to explain something else: the reason we never got a Dryden Vos minifig is that the character was originally meant to look like the two alien enforcers we got as minifigs in https://brickset.com/sets/75219-1/Imperial-AT-Hauler instead. When Ron Howard did the reshoots for Solo, it was decided that they needed a human-looking villain instead, so they got Paul Bettany for the role. Presumably, Lego had been given the original Lord and Miller designs and had already finalised the set, which is why we got stuck without a proper Dryden minifig.
as i read the Subjet line. "Utterly useless LEGO Star Wars......" it was at this point i was thinking the next word was going to be "SALE" i did not think it would turn out to be "trivia!"
did CapnRex101 just Trol us?
@MCLegoboy said:
"My only guess with 7128 Speederbikes is that when someone wrote down what set numbers each set should be, they put a zero with a slash through it so as to not be confused with an O, but even that is flimsy at best because how does somebody screw that up with so many other sets ending in 0s?"
I'm not an expert, but it seems especially unlikely that a Dane or someone working in a Danish company would do this as "Ø" is it's own letter in the Danish alphabet- maybe a Danish commenter could chime in?
So, when will we get an "Overlooked Villains Battlepack" containing Dryden Vos, Saw Gerrera, Seventh Sister and Rune Haako? Come on Lego, just make it happen.
@shirhac said:
"So, when will we get an "Overlooked Villains Battlepack" containing Dryden Vos, Saw Gerrera, Seventh Sister and Rune Haako? Come on Lego, just make it happen."
That sounds like the weirdest band
@shirhac said:
"So, when will we get an "Overlooked Villains Battlepack" containing Dryden Vos, Saw Gerrera, Seventh Sister and Rune Haako? Come on Lego, just make it happen."
Saw Gerrera isn't a villain though, they should do Wat Tambor instead.
How about a boss nass minifigure?!
I may differ with the Capn on one of the points. Learning that a key female character from one of the trilogies has been included in the same number of sets as a supporting character is not a useless piece of trivia to me. It's a very interesting observation.
Jon Vander isn't a named character in the sets, though, he is just the only Y-Wing pilot we ever see on screen, so of course he's included in nearly every version of that fairly popular ship. Padmé should have been in the 2002 lineup and in some battle of Naboo sets, but a lot of the scenes she is in in the later films are very dark, so I do understand her absence.
@J0rgen - Jon Vander is far from the only Y-wing pilot we see onscreen, even during A New Hope. In fact, Davish Krail has nearly as many lines in the cockpit as Vander and he probably speaks the most famous lines of any Y-wing pilot:
"Stay on target..."
With regard to the relative absence of Padmé Amidala across the theme, I presume her role onscreen is the most important factor. Padmé appears in reasonably few action scenes and events in the senate, for example, seem unlikely to appear in LEGO sets. Even in sets where Padmé does appear, her minifigure sometimes feels like an external addition more than an integrated character. 9499-1 Gungan Sub springs to mind, in particular.
Fascinating and May the 4th be with you.
The Speeder Bike set number is easy to explain. They got sick of flying in circles and decided to show off a bit by doing figure-8's (since there's two of them, there's a very real risk of fatal collisions if they don't time it right).
It's a bit of a cheat to say that Gold Leader Jon Vander appears in seven sets when two of those sets are rereleases of a third set. I'm not sure why 7152 has an extra dark-bley 1x2 plate, but even the inventory differences with 7262 pale in comparison to the running changes made to the TMNT Shellraiser under a single set number. For that matter, it was a bit of a cheat for LEGO to release Anakin's podracer as a standalone set when the entire thing was part of the bigger Mos Espa Podrace set (the smaller set was the only one I skipped from the first wave because it seemed stupid to buy a unique vehicle twice).
@ResIpsaLoquitur:
If you click on the provided links, it's pretty easy to figure out which versions they've made. She's appeared three times alongside Anakin's podracer (twice in the initial wave, plus once in the 20th Anniversary wave), and the same outfit has been used for one version of Darth Maul's Sith Interceptor. The other three minifigs are all completely unique, being her Geonosian Arena outfit from one of the Republic Gunship sets, the red dress with the light-up globes (the _last_ minifig from the original Ep1 logo to be released, 13 years after the logo debuted) from a Gungan sub, and one of her Clone Wars animated series outfits with the Malevolence (Grievious' flagship from the same series). And no, there hasn't been _any_ Ep3 Padme.
@J0rgen:
What, you don't think they'd go for a "Padme Dies" set?
Where's the "Padme Gives Birth" set with the baby Luke and Leia?
I definitely think Padme is absent due to the scenes in the films... while she is an important female character she's in few action pieces, and those she is in are often inappropriate for LEGO. Leia has tons and tons of minifigs, as does Rey, so I feel like it must be a content issue.
Always enjoy reading "useless" trivia...more notes to add to my collection logs.
I'd love to see a list of vehicles/sets that have never been updated, particularly those that have made multiple appearances across the movies and TV series. That would be fun to read about!
Useless trivia is a favorite pastime of mine.
Love such articles, keep 'em coming.
:-)
This article is amazing! I would love to read useless trivia on other themes!
I just realised there has never actually been an Episode III Padme before. Also I'd like to see a Boss Nass make minifigure form.
@Brick_Yoda_5555:
Oddly enough, I can't even think of any outfits she wears in Ep3, which may also play into that gap. In Ep2, the only outfit I remember is the white catsuit that gets clawed. But in Ep1, she (or, as was often the case, Kiera Knightley's body double, Sabé) had a ton of outfit changes that have not made it into the LEGO line. Sure, many of them are bulky, ornate gowns like the red one from the Gungan Sub set, but the purple outfits her whole crew wore when they retook Theed seems like low-hanging fruit.
And it took a long time for them to fill in some of the gaps in Leia's wardrobe. For years, her main Ep4 outfit was the only option. Currently, I can only think of two notable gaps in her minifig selection. The first is the white jumpsuit she wears when they arrive in Bespin (looks like what she wore on Hoth, but without the parka and with everyday boots). There's really nothing they've done that looks like that. The other one, however, is the outfit she wore in the briefing room in Ep6. Now, that one they actually made when they did Endor Leia with a cloth poncho. Just ditch the poncho, and it's a perfect match.
To be fair, Leia is by far the more popular character, and she wore a lot fewer outfits during the OT than Padme did during the PT. With Disney effectively shoving the PT into a corner, it may take decades to round out her wardrobe.
Not trivia, but fact, SW Lego got me back in to Lego
And I hate them for it, it costs me a bleedin' fortune! lol
However, they are helping me stop buying it, as they rehash the same sets over and over, I have lost interest in repeated similar models
"I will shortly publish a complete breakdown of characters with the most lines during the movies but no minifigure representative." Looking forward to this. Pre-LJ, I was fairly certain Bail Organa would've qualified for this role, but he's been since created. I'd be very curious to see such a list.
Although in terms of total film appearances, I don't think anyone comes close to Nien Nunb's four films and zero minfiigs, I'd imagine?
@JVM:
Chancellor Valorum, Boss Nass, Dexter Jettster, anyone from Kamino, Sy Snootles, Shmi Skywalker...
And while Major Bren Derlin may not have many lines, everybody knows his name.
You may think they are useless, but I tried passing off the 1138 one as useful trivia today, and someone really liked it.
@Toa_of_Pi:
There's also no chance now that they'll ever release a SW set numbered 1138 (the only set by that number is a service pack with 8 light-grey 4.5v/12v train tires). All sets at this point are given five-digit set numbers, and all retail SW sets are given numbers in the 75xxx range, so even a set numbered x1138 isn't feasible.