An Epilogue Built Brick By Brick
The trilogy of holiday-themed Lego Star Wars specials forms the missing piece of the sequel trilogy: an epilogue.
If you told me a few years ago that I’d consider a summer vacation-themed Lego Star Wars TV special a near-essential part of the viewing experience for the new trilogy I’d have thought you’d lost your mind.
And yet, here we are.
It’s not that I’ve ever disliked any of the various Lego Star Wars games, shorts, specials, and series that have come out over the years. I’ve enjoyed most of them (and the others I just haven’t gotten around to watching—there are just so many shows to watch these days!) But they’ve always felt like something extra. A bonus to remind ourselves that it’s okay to poke a little fun at this space-wars franchise we love, and ourselves.
But the release of Lego Star Wars: Summer Vacation this week has me wanting to sing the virtues of this sub-franchise as a must-watch.
Summer Vacation brings to a conclusion the loose trilogy of holiday-themed specials that have been a yearly release on Disney+, beginning in 2020 with the Christmas-themed The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special and continuing in 2021 with Lego Star Wars: Terrifying Tales. Each special stands on its own, putting a member of the sequel trilogy “big three” front and center in a post-The Rise Of Skywalker story that engages in some cross-saga fun. But together, they give the sequel trilogy the send-off it’s been missing.
From The Padawan Menace to The Freemaker Adventures (and Everything in Between)
The holiday trilogy follows a similar formula as previous Lego Star Wars installments. There are lots of jokes, poking fun at some of the sillier or more “controversial” elements of the Star Wars saga, and there’s lots of fun to be had with the fact that the characters are Lego Minifigures.
It’s become a familiar formula, but these latest specials build on what’s come before, elevating Lego Star Wars to new heights.
The first Lego Star Wars special, The Padawan Menace, felt like an event. Written by Michael Price (The Simpsons, F is for Family), it premiered on Cartoon Network in September 2011 when the only Star Wars on our screens was The Clone Wars animated series. The announcement of new films was still more than a year away and the films themselves were more than four. The idea of having multiple Star Wars TV series released in the same year was a complete pipe dream.
In this environment, the one-off special felt like something to be savored. An unexpected gift to supplement the Star Wars franchise that, at the time, felt like it might be winding down (the biggest thing on the horizon was the 3D rerelease of The Phantom Menace). We’d had a handful of animated Lego Star Wars shorts before, and, of course, there were the cutscenes from the classic video games. But the concept of a TV special was an unknown.
And it delivered. Big time.
Punch for punch, The Padawan Menace might still be the funniest of all the Lego specials. It’s also the only one that I can think of that also puts the target squarely on the Lego part of Lego Star Wars. The best joke in the whole special comes when R2-D2 hands C-3PO the instruction manual to rebuild their crashed space-school bus.
“These are just pictures, where are the words?” an incredulous Threepio asks before throwing the booklet away, defeated. “Oh, this is impossible!”
A scene all too familiar to anyone who has ever built, or tried to help someone build, a Lego set.
The Padawan Menace was followed the next year by The Empire Strikes Out, an original trilogy-based special that took a similar approach with a rollicking adventure, rapid-fire jokes, and more than a few winks at the camera. After that, specials grew in scope, becoming mini-series, with several variations of The Yoda Chronicles and Droid Tales airing from 2013-2015. After that came a full series, with two seasons of The Freemaker Adventures airing on Disney XD from 2016-2017.
While The Freemaker Adventures certainly has its fans, the series did feel like it got a little lost in all the excitement of Rogue One, The Last Jedi, and Star Wars Rebels seasons two and three, all of which were released during Freemaker’s run. Even I have to admit I haven’t seen more than the first half of the first season. I like what I’ve seen, don’t get me wrong, but it just wasn’t what I was looking for at the time.
After The Freemaker Adventures wrapped up, it felt like Lego Star Wars needed to take a step back. Not because of quality, but to find its place in the evolving landscape of Star Wars.
It should come as no surprise that they nailed it. It’s the how that was unexpected.
It’s A Life Day Miracle
It’s safe to say that Star Wars and holiday specials haven’t always had the greatest history. Before Lego took up the mantle, there had only been one previous attempt and to call it disastrous would be an understatement. In 1978, the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special aired once (and once only) on CBS and has never been seen again (officially) since.
The live-action special centers around Han Solo and Chewbacca trying to get back home to Chewie’s family in time for their annual “Life Day” celebration. The TV event had all the main cast members from the original trilogy back in their roles and featured a cartoon segment that was the first appearance of Boba Fett. On its surface, it sounds like it can’t possibly be that bad…can it?
It is. All of it. It’s horrendous. At one point, Chewie’s grandfather watches what amounts to VR porn. (Yes, really.) And don’t take my word for it, George Lucas himself refused to ever let it air again!
So imagine the shock when Lego announced in 2020 that their first major Star Wars TV event since 2017 would be: The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special.
Once you got over the shock of a new Star Wars Holiday Special, 41 years after the original monstrosity, it did make a certain amount of sense. The 1978 special set the bar so low it would be practically impossible to be worse. It was also buoyed by the fact that, in the intervening years, The Holiday Special has taken on a certain cult-like status, and elements from the special have begun to crop up in mainstream Star Wars. Din Djarin wields a weapon similar to one Boba Fett uses in the cartoon on The Mandalorian. Chewie’s son appears in the novel Aftermath: Life Debt. You could even buy merch from the special in the Disney Parks at Galaxy’s Edge last fall/winter.
(I may or may not have bought a light-up Wookiee Life Day Orb during my visit last November. And no, I’m not going to tell you what I paid for it).
But it was still a risk, and The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special did the impossible and delivered a worthy Christmas/Star Wars crossover.
Set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, the special follows Rey on a timey-wimey adventure in search of some Jedi wisdom that can only be found on Life Day. All the while, her friends set about throwing the best Life Day party ever for Chewie and his family (yes, the same ones from 1978 abomination).
Lego Star Wars The Holiday Special has all the usual Lego fun we’d come to expect from the previous specials. There’s the self-referential humor, the moments of Lego-ness when a character removes their hairpiece, and a spirited adventure. All with some references to beloved Christmas classics thrown in for good measure.
What sets this special apart, however, is that it captured the heart of Star Wars in a way that the more “serious” stories sometimes miss.
Knowledge And Wisdom
The turning point in The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special comes when Rey, having come up short in her quest to discover some key piece of Jedi knowledge, while also accidentally creating the ultimate dark side team-up of Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, and the Emperor (time travel is a helluva thing), laments her failure to the Force ghost of Yoda.
Think back on all the Jedi masters and their students you’ve seen in your (time) travels today, Yoda instructs her, what do they have in common? After a moment of reflection, Rey realizes they all share a bond that runs deeper than the lessons and trials of Jedi training. What allows them to achieve greatness is not some special lightsaber technique hidden away in an ancient text, it’s the friendships they forge and the connections they make.
If you ask me, the best pieces of Star Wars wisdom are the ones that don’t relate to any Star Wars specifics (the Force, lightsabers, Jedi etc.) but are just good life advice—even when you drop the space-opera trappings.
“Do or do not, there is no try.”
“Your focus determines your reality.”
“The greatest teacher, failure is.”
All great pieces of wisdom that work just as well if you happen to live on Earth and have never heard of The Force, the Jedi, or anything else from a galaxy far, far away.
“In connection, strength we find,” Lego Yoda tells Lego Rey. “And happen, great things can.”
It’s the perfect lesson for a girl who grew up completely on her own, with no one to rely on. And also for anyone who might hear it, while watching the special or just randomly. In these divided times (the special was released two weeks after the 2020 election), it may be the exact message we need to hear—whether we’re ready for it is another question altogether.
It’s the sort of message that would have been right at home in the conclusion to the sequel trilogy.
A Trilogy In Need Of An Ending
I have complicated feelings about The Rise of Skywalker, the ninth installment in the Skywalker Saga of films that were released sporadically from 1977 to 2019. On the one hand, I think it’s the weakest Star Wars film. On the other, I hate hearing people go to the extremes they do when bad-mouthing it online (especially when pushing an agenda) because I have such fond memories associated with it.
The sequel trilogy was the first era of Star Wars I got to experience from start to finish. I missed the original trilogy by not being born until eleven years after Return of the Jedi. And while I was technically alive for the prequels, I wasn’t introduced to Star Wars until 2004. Revenge of the Sith was the first Star Wars movie I saw in theaters. And for a while, I thought it would be the only one.
So when the sequel trilogy was announced in October 2012, part of the thrill was getting to experience all the fun that came with a new trilogy of films. Not just the films themselves, but the marketing hype (trailers, conventions, etc.) and the speculation that came with it. The stuff I always heard about with the prequels, but missed most of.
And from that standpoint, the sequels lived up to the hype. From 2012 to 2019, I was fortunate enough to experience some of the best times surrounding the Star Wars franchise. From the Celebration panels where the teaser trailers debuted, to the raucous energy of the opening night crowds, and all the weeks, months, and years of speculation in between, I have an abundance of fond memories and friendships that were forged during that time.
And I got to go to the world premiere of The Rise of Skywalker. That was really fuckin’ cool.
However, I can still admit that the films were flawed. None more that The Rise of Skywalker. While the film has its highlights, it comes up short as a conclusion to the trilogy, and the saga, in three main ways.
First, I felt the film lacked a piece of parting wisdom. Luke telling Rey, “confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi” may well be an attempt at this. And while there is a good lesson there about not letting fear dominate your life, it doesn’t meet the criteria of great Star Wars advice I laid out above. It’s phrased more like “Jedi advice” than just good life advice.
Second, the conclusion does little to reassure us about the future is in good hands. At the end of the film, the First and Final Order(s) have been defeated, Palpatine is dead for good this time (hopefully), and Ben Solo is redeemed in a heroic sacrifice. At the moment things are good, but what comes next? I’m not asking for a roadmap to Episodes X-XII, but a little reassurance that our heroes have taken the lessons they learned and are ready to face the future would be nice.
And finally, we never really got a chance to say goodbye to the characters we followed through three films. Rey, Finn, and Poe’s group hug after returning to the Resistance base is poignant, however, a scene or moment—with dialogue—where we see that the heroes are going to be okay after the credits roll would have gone a long way to ending the trilogy on a warm note.
In other words, the ending felt incomplete. Like there were a couple of missing pieces.
Enter Lego.
For Every Trilogy There Is A Season
Whether intentional or not, each of the last three Lego Star Wars specials answers one of my criticisms of the sequel trilogy’s big screen ending.
Yoda’s advice to Rey in The Holiday Special was the sort of poignant wisdom missing from The Rise of Skywalker. It summed up her character arc through the films, from the girl from nowhere who could rely on nobody to someone who built up a trusted network she could rely on and believed in the best in others. It provides closure to one of the big, cross-trilogy arcs, and gives the audience an important message to take home.
Terrifying Tales, meanwhile, provided us a brief glimpse at what a post-Rise of Skywalker future could look like. While Poe is off on his adventure, he recruits a young Force-sensitive mechanic named Dean. When we meet Dean, he’s working for Graballa the Hutt to support his family who was ruined by the First Order after rumors surfaced that they were supporting the Resistance. Poe helps him escape this dangerous situation and brings him to train at Rey’s new Jedi academy.
This vision of the future, of our heroes actively trying to help those harmed by the previous system, suggests that maybe this time they’ll get it right. That there’s hope that the wrongs of the past can be righted and that those who were left behind will have a place in the future. It’s appropriate that the “scariest” of the specials might also be the most hopeful.
And, for its part, Summer Vacation feels the most like a goodbye. Not just for the characters, but the audience too. Finn’s attempt to spend one final vacation with his friends before they set off on their own for their next adventures is nearly thwarted when everyone sets off to do their own thing. This leaves Finn to have fun by himself, where he instead encounters three ghosts of Jedi who have moved on.
After some goofy, summer-themed flashbacks from Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker (as well as a Weird Al cameo), Finn is visited by Leia Organa. She tells him of the last vacation she and Han took with Ben before dropping him off at Luke’s academy.
“Was it hard?” Finn asks his mentor about moving on.
“It was the hardest,” replies Leia. “But it was also time.”
Questioning his choices, Finn explains that he thinks he’s not ready to move on. Leia smiles knowingly and lets him in on a secret: his friends aren’t ready to move on either, that’s why the trip has felt so weird.
In this moment it becomes clear why summer vacation was chosen as the theme for the final special. Try as we might forget, summer always ends.
The same can be said for a Star Wars trilogy. Like summer, we know when it begins that one day it will end. The stories will become memories, revisited during the years to come. Whether that’s as a happy thought during the bleak months of winter, or as a comfort movie to be rewatched when the mood strikes.
“A trip isn’t about the destination,” Finn tells his friends after they admit that they too have been feeling a creeping sadness at the prospect of saying goodbye. “It’s about the journey, enjoying the moments for as long as they last.”
Finn would not be who he is without Rey, Finn, and Rose, and the same goes for each of them with him. He then reminds each of them of an important moment in their relationship, where their actions helped change his life, complete with Lego-ified flashbacks to the films.
It’s the last missing moment from the ending of the sequel trilogy. The battle has been won. We’ve learned a valuable lesson. We’re feeling optimistic about the future. Now, we can kick back and celebrate how far we’ve come. It’s dinner on the last night of vacation, or the bond fire on Labour Day weekend. The end is in sight, so let’s take one last look back before time runs out.
Together, the Lego Star Wars Holiday trilogy forms the epilogue the sequel trilogy needed. Providing the wisdom, hope, and reflection needed to bring the story to a fitting close. It’s not the end for the characters or the stories, those will continue someday (hopefully soon), but the trilogy itself is done. So let’s enjoy the memories of a worthy adventure. On-screen and off.
Lego Star Wars: Summer Vacation is streaming now on Disney+