The Brick Connection– A novice Lego fan explores the great brick world of LEGO

Happy New Year my LEGO friends!

I hope your 2016 has gotten off to a great start. Did you make any resolutions?

Did you realize that you will never keep those resolutions?

Good, now we can focus on the task at hand….

Talking about STAR WARS

…and of course how it relates to LEGO, blahblahblah.

Guys. I fell down the rabbit hole. The rabbit hole that is Star Wars insanity.

My tumblr feed is now 98% Star Wars blogs; I’m scouring YouTube for old interviews of the original cast from when the fist trilogy came out; I bought Star Wars pajama pants; and I’m following like five Star Wars parody twitter accounts. (I highly recommend Emo Kylo Ren and Very Lonely Luke. )

Also, I’ve been thinking about getting Star Wars sheets for my bed. Why? How does sleeping on pictures of Star Wars characters benefit me in anyway?? It doesn’t! I just want to! (I was also very close to buying an R2D2 pillow……..I still might get it.)

As I mentioned last week, I have seen the new film twice….so far. A third viewing in theaters will be happening and it will most likely be in 3D. Now I would like to discuss my thoughts on the film.

IMPORTANT NOTE: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS

I’m not that worried about spoiling anyone because if you haven’t seen Star Wars by this point (3 weeks after its release) then clearly you’re not much of a Star Wars fan. And if that’s true, this blog post is probably not for you anyway.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT NOTE: THERE WILL BE LEGO

I haven’t forgotten the purpose of this blog. In fact, revisiting The Force Awakens sets that were released in September as well as the two new sets (yay!) will be a great way to talk about the film.

But first, have you seen any of the interviews over the last month or so of the cast and J.J. Abrams promoting the film? So many good interviews out there! My favorite ones are any with Harrison Ford and/or Carrie Fisher. Harrison Ford has this whole grumpy old man, don’t care attitude that only he could pull off and still be charming and humorous. And Carrie Fisher is just downright hilarious and a total badass.

Conan O’Brien did a whole show with the cast that I highly recommend you check out. One of the segments involved Conan’s associate producer, Jordan Schlansky bringing out his LEGO Millennium Falcon to have Harrison Ford sign. Jordan said it took him 60 hours to put the spaceship together. What happens next is absolutely hilarious and for any LEGO fans out there, kind of heartbreaking.

Watch for yourself (the LEGO part starts at 1:43, but you should watch the whole thing):

It may seem like this was a really cruel thing to do, but if you’ve ever seen any Conan segments with Jordan, it’s not that unusual. He’s a very peculiar guy and Conan loves messing with him.

Speaking of Millennium Falcons built out of LEGO, did you see this? ….

No, that’s not one of the Millennium Falcon LEGO sets. That was all the planning and building of a LEGO/Star Wars fan who goes by Marshal Banana on Flickr. (Check out his Flickr page for more pictures and you can also find pictures of the Sandcrawler from the original Star Wars film that he built with LEGO a few years ago.)

To build this masterpiece Marshal used about 7,500 pieces and spent about 240 hours building it. It took him a year overall to complete the ship including planning….and eating and sleeping I assume.

It weighs about 22 pounds and measures 32 inches long by 21 inches wide and is 7 inches tall.

He was even able to build a big enough cockpit to include 4 seats, just like the real Millennium Falcon.

This is different from the latest LEGO Millennium Falcon set where you can barely fit two minifigs in the cockpit.

While were on the subject, let’s talk about the Millennium Falcon’s storyline in The Force Awakens. I don’t remember how long into the movie that it first appears, but I love its introduction. Rey and BB-8 have just met Finn on Jakku when the First Order starts attacking the area because they are after BB-8. BB-8 has a piece of a map to the location of Luke Skywalker.

Oh hey, yeah, Luke Skywalker has vanished guys!

That’s why he wasn’t on the movie poster and why we only saw one tiny little flash of what we assumed was him in the trailer. It’s because he was in the movie for a total of maybe two minutes.

But interestingly enough, despite not being on screen, Luke still drives the story forward.

Back to the Falcon… Rey, Finn, and BB-8 are running/rolling towards a ship to try to get the hell outta dodge Jakku. Finn recommends a ship off-screen, but Rey says it’s trash. When the ship their running towards gets blown up in front of their faces, Rey decides that the trash will do. And that’s when we see that the trash she is talking about is none other than the Millennium Falcon.

Going back to the LEGO set for The Force Awakens version of the Falcon, we now have some explanation for its messy interior. The Millennium Falcon has been away from its rightful owner for some time and therefore hasn’t been very well taken care of. Amazingly this detail is included in the LEGO set. There are a lot of randomly strewn pieces throughout the interior of the LEGO Falcon, purposely designed that way to give it an unkempt look.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the newest Millennium Falcon (left) and the previous set. 

As you can see, the one for The Force Awakens is very cluttered. (Photo credit to The Brick Fan)


When we first looked at the set, we didn’t know how that clutter would fit into the story line because we didn’t even know for sure if Han Solo still owned the Millennium Falcon or not. Actually, it's because we didn't know anything, but now we know the reason for the mess.

Question. Over how many days does this movie take place? Also, over how many days do episodes 4, 5, and 6 take place? Episode 4 almost seems like it could be just one day. Maybe two.

Episode 7 seemed to take just about 2 or 3 days. Things sure move fast in this galaxy.

After Rey and Finn escape Jakku they are quickly captured by a larger ship. And that’s the epic moment when we see Han Solo and Chewbacca for the first time in 30 plus years.

This eventually leads to a fun escape on the Falcon from giant squid-like monsters and from a couple gangs looking for Han to settle his debts. (What else is new?)

The Falcon then heads to Takodana to get help from Maz Kanata, a cantina owner that can help them get BB8 to the Resistance.

The Falcon’s next move comes later after The First Order attacks and Kylo Ren kidnaps Rey. The Resistance arrives to save the day, led by General Leia.

Now they have to worry about the Starkiller Base, which is basically the Death Star on steroids. Han, Finn, and Chewie use the Falcon to infiltrate the base. They are there to lower the shield and find Rey. They do both, but not without consequences.

Chewie, Finn, and Rey eventually escape on the Falcon, minus one space cowboy.

More about my many feelings concerning this development later.

The Falcon has one last mission to wrap up this film. Now with Rey as pilot to Chewie’s co-pilot, the Falcon follows the completed map (courtesy of R2-D2) to the location of Luke Skywalker.

And that is where we leave our new heroine. Face to face with our old hero; presenting him with his father’s lightsaber.

This may have been the Millennium Falcon’s biggest role yet in a Star Wars film. And what a roller coaster of emotions to go through with it.

I think this was the saddest Star Wars film yet. The end of Episode 3 was pretty depressing, you know with almost the entire Jedi Order being murdered, babies being orphaned, and Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader. Still not as depressing as Han Solo dying…at the hands of his son. Nope, definitely not.

So that's just one of The Force Awakens sets covered...obviously I’m not good at keeping discussions of Star Wars short. I definitely want to talk more about my thoughts on the film and how the LEGO sets compare. Plus, there are two new LEGO Force Awakens sets, just released that I really want to talk about. 

But I will save these discussions for next week and beyond. 

We have only scratched the surface of my many Star Wars thoughts and feelings.

Basically I will be milking this Star Wars thing for as long as possible. I hope you will indulge me. I’ll see you right back here next week for more Star Wars and LEGO talk. Bring popcorn.


Until next time...what did YOU think of the movie? And who the hell are Rey's parents???

*Compliments, general feedback, and constructive criticism are welcome. Any haters that are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate can go step on some Lego with their bare feet.*