Fans of LEGO Star Wars have wanted a book that documents the history of how the collaboration came to be, the design process, and how LEGO Star Wars became a franchise in its own right for far too long. The LEGO Star Wars Visual Dictionary from DK is a good reference guide, but it’s aimed at a much younger audience and doesn’t include the detail many adults and fans crave. Likewise, 2017’s Ultimate LEGO Star Wars book, also from DK, failed to hit the target for many people.
The 25th anniversary of LEGO Star Wars seemed like the perfect opportunity for such a book, and fortunately the LEGO Group thought so too. LEGO Star Wars: The Force of Creativity, written by lifelong Star Wars fan Graham E. Hancock, is housed in a slipcase measuring over 11″ (26 cm) long and 12″ (31 cm) wide, featuring the Ultimate Collector Series (UCS) Millennium Falcon, which opens to reveal the UCS Star Destroyer on the cover of the 310-page hardback book. Underneath that is a similarly sized box which houses a time capsule featuring numerous items from the last 25 years, some of which are facsimiles and others are shared here for the very first time — more on those later.
The book starts with a foreword from Lando Calrissian actor Billy Dee Williams who has played the role for almost 45 years, and who also voiced the character in LEGO Star Wars animation. This is followed by an interview with Doug Chiang, Lucasfilm Senior Vice President Art & Design, and Jens Kronvold Frederiksen, LEGO Star Wars Design Director, giving a fascinating insight into the two different worlds at Lucasfilm and the LEGO Group, and detailing how the collaboration works. It was interesting to hear Chiang refer to the LEGO Designers as artists, creating works of art from piles of bricks. The two discuss various aspects of design and how they try and align on ships and set designs, although that’s not always possible — a good example being The Razor Crest as seen on screen in The Mandalorian. The ship was never designed to house Blurrgs, but when executive producer Jon Favreau made the request, they were surprised to find the Chiang designed ship accommodated three of the creatures; meanwhile the UCS version could only manage one brick-built model due to the differences in scale.
From here we learn how the partnership came about, with each company reaching out to the other to explore possibilities. More than 50 interviews from the teams at Lucasfilm, the LEGO Group and others reveal numerous anecdotes and memories, with something new for even the most die-hard fans. The next two chapters focus on the model and minifigure design process and contain many never-before-seen images and photos, including a discussion on how the Royal Starship was designed, only to be scrapped following the discontinuation of the chrome elements. The whole process is discussed from concept to box design, in what is probably the most in-depth discussion of its type to date. We hear from almost every department — set designers, graphic designers, instruction makers, and so on. We learn that there is a bank of LEGO Star Wars minifigure designs ready to go for many unproduced characters – two are mentioned by name: Willrow Hood and a new version of Zam Wessel.
The book then jumps to a discussion on the numerous LEGO Star Wars video games produced; there are talks with the designers and a look at how the games have evolved since their introduction in 2005. A chapter on the Ultimate Collector Series is next, although I had to stop to question the order of the chapters at this point, since you’d expect the physical sets to be grouped together, but this a minor complaint. Here we learn about some of the complexities of these huge sets and also get to see a couple of unreleased sets that may surprise some.
The next chapter focuses on LEGO Star Wars animation, from one-off specials to full blown series such as The Freemaker Adventures, and talks to the writers and producers to discuss how the tone was chosen for the animated representation of the LEGO Star Wars characters. We then return to discuss sets including Buildable Figures, Microfighters and the Helmet Collection. We learn about a couple of previously unreleased Buildable Figures, although we are not given a reason for their cancellation, and we see how Microfighters have evolved from being show exclusives to be part of the main line.
The penultimate chapter showcases the large sets created for exhibitions and shop displays, with interviews from the designers at the model shop discussing scale and complexity. There is a lot of interesting information here, as there is throughout the book. It’s good to see Steve Sansweet and Rancho Obi-Wan get a brief mention here in relation to the life-size LEGO models of Darth Vader and Boba Fett. Finally, there’s a chapter on fan creations which looks at notable builders in the community and some of their amazing builds. It’s a shame that the book doesn’t go further though, turning the focus to the many minifigure customisers, LEGO Star Wars collectors and influencers. The book concludes with a checklist of every set released from 1999 to date, but unfortunately this is the weakest part of the book since it contains a number errors and omissions.
Time Capsule
The time capsule contains ten items spanning all 25 years of LEGO Star Wars, adding to what is already a most impressive book. The contents of the capsule, including a description of each item, is printed on the inside of the box. The first item is an early version of the LEGO Star Wars logo, followed by a recreation of the 1999 Toy Fair invitation to see the first LEGO Star Wars sets. This reproduction needs to be put together and the result is the same size as the original invitation sent to press and toy industry representatives, however it lacks the two minifigures and sound chip from the original. Moving on we get a pencil sketch for one of the early 1999 adverts, before jumping a decade to the artwork produced for the 2009 hologram microfigures. We get a facsimile of the 2010 Toy Fair booklet, that was also given out in small quantities at Argos in the UK. Next up is the first of two sets of instructions, this one being for a micro build of The Ghost that was dropped from Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in 2015. An unproduced script by Michael Price for LEGO Star Wars Tonight, an animated talk show hosted by Emperor Palpatine, is included alongside an unreleased UCS Star Destroyer poster from 2019. For 2020 we get the development artwork for a long overdue redesign of the Zam Wessel minifigure, which is sill awaiting released. The final item is set of instructions from 2023 for the Lucasfilm Yoda Fountain that was given out exclusively to Lucasfilm employees on May 4th.
Whilst these items are fantastic, I feel the lack of presence of any physical LEGO bricks or minifigures. An exclusive minifigure or build should have been added to the time capsule, or failing that, the parts for The Ghost and Yoda Fountain included. Worry not though, these pieces are available to purchase at LEGO.com.
Conclusion
This is a book that we’ve waited for and wanted for years, and it doesn’t disappoint. It offers the most comprehensive look behind-the-scenes at the creation of LEGO Star Wars sets, how the collaboration came to be and so much more. There are a few things missing, such as an in-depth drill down on marketing, a detailed look at the exclusives produced over the past 25 years, a wider appreciation of the LEGO Star Wars community, an accurate checklist, and some form of physical LEGO build or minifigure, but that shouldn’t put you off purchasing what is the best LEGO Star Wars book to-date, provided of course you can afford the hefty price tag of £129.99/$149.99/€149.99.
LEGO Star Wars – The Force of Creativity is available for pre-order from May 1st and will ship from July 20th. We talk to Graham about writing the book on the next episode of RADIO 1138, landing April 30th.
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The book was provided by the LEGO Group to review, and all opinions expressed are those of the author.
