Since 1949, when Lego was founded, many themes have come and gone, and up until recently, had been internal creations. In 1999, Lego and Lucasfilm entered into a series of lengthy licensing deals which have spawned some of the most popular Lego models in the company's history, as well as some fairly unique multimedia experiences like video games and animation films that really unify the two brands in almost irresistible ways.
Take the movie "Lego Star Wars - the Empire Strikes Out", which I picked up just a few days back from ToysRUs on a whim because,
A) it was an impulse buy at under ten dollars, and
B) I wanted an interesting new item to review for my first Lego post on here..
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| Lego Star Wars - the Empire Strikes Out: HOW could I resist?! It was a complete package! A animated movie about Star Wars Lego adventures and it comes with a tiny Darth Vader! |
So the main draw of this package was of course the variant version of Darth Vader with Medal. The attraction of these minifigs is completely understandable. With a fair 7-point articulation on most of the figurines from Lego, increasingly cool designs, and being produced on a small scale height of right around two inches on average (which makes storage and display easy and affordable...) you can't go wrong with them as a start out line on your path to becoming an incurable collector of toys.
Vader was of course made available in a myriad number of sets and variations prior to this one, at least a total of nine times including a rare variation that had a black chrome look.
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| Edition of 10,000 randomly inserted into Star Wars sets in 2009 to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Lego and Star Wars. |
This particular Vader that comes in the Lego Star Wars - the Empire Strikes Out set, does not come with a lightsaber (most bonus minifigs like this do not come with accessories).
The second part of this set, the actual movie, was pretty good family friendly fare, not unlike the other Lego movies that are often shown at Legoland KC in the 4D Cinema room but longer as it came in at a television episode length of about 22 minutes.
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| Screen capture from "Lego Star Wars - the Empire Strikes Out" |
Plenty of light hearted humor bits on the Star Wars universe and something that I imagine the kids around the age set of 5 to around 10 would enjoy more than once.
Overall, I'd say that if you can find this set, it's a good purchase at around ten bucks, it normally retails at about fourteen dollars in some places. For kids, it's a great set, for the collectors, it holds it's own as well, as I'll drop a $20 to get a rare figurine at a comic convention when I come across one to complete my collection.
Considering there are just around
3,700 individual minifigs available out there in a variety of scarcity and exclusivity, (and companies like
Brick Forge adding even MORE customization options to the mix) I think I've got my work cut out for me.
