Hah! This was good - I opened the little door and saw the diagram and thought "What is this?" Then I built it, and said, "What is this?"
Partly because I was thinking the ewok would show up today to have whatever the big special thing is tomorrow; and partly because I just couldn't figure out what this is.
So I thought for a few moments and then it came to me - it's the flying wings used by the Ewoks!
23 days in - just one more day to go!
Today's build is an Imperial Star Destroyer. I'm assuming this is to be one of the Destroyers as seen in ROTJ, though I don't think there was any difference between those and the ones we saw in Episodes IV and V.
It's not a bad build - take a look:
Given the detail of other builds in this calendar, it's a bit of a letdown - it's very few parts. But that's a complaint based more on "Other builds had so much more this time!" than it is based on any objective reason to be disappointed in this one. In previous years' calendars, this would get a high rating. I'm totally cool with it, but it also feels like being at a restaurant and after 21 courses of exceptionally creative and tasty dishes, they brought out some of Aunt Martha's meatloaf warmed up from yesterday. At any other time, Aunt Martha's meatloaf - even warmed up in a microwave - would be an excellent meal, but in this context, it's like a conductor deciding that halfway through the Urlicht from Mahler's Symphony No. 2 a couple measures of "Louie, Louie" is a necessity. [side note: there are times I have seriously wondered if Mahler was actually an angel or demigod or other divine or semi-divine being, and not just a mere human; it seems to me that no mere human could have written such utterly sublime and soul-destroyingly beautiful music]. Yeah, Louie Louie is an awesome song; but it would come as a disappointment in the midst of the Urlicht.
[[double side-note: Zappa, of course, included a modified "Louie, Louie" in a lot of his music, and so the hypothetical inclusion of "Louie, Louie" in the Urlilcht that I mentioned would definitely not be the Zappa form of it, because such an inclusion would make it even cooler and say to me "Oh, that conductor is a freaking genius if he knows Zappa that well!"]]
So, anyway, I'm still very happy with this year's Star Wars LEGO Advent Calendar! The destroyers are my second favorite of the interstellar ships, exceeded only by the far larger and more powerful Super Star Destroyers, such as the one that Darth Vader got to ride, and which was forced to crash into the Death Star II, the Executor.
Yippeee!
Today the calendar delivers... The Imperial Throne!
That upon which the magnificent (long may he reign!) Emperor Palpatine sits in the Imperial Throne Room on the Imperial Death Star II and from which he controls the entire Empire, including the entire fleet, and even his sith apprentice. At least, for most of the movie he controls his apprentice.
Look at this beauty!
I gotta say, best Star Wars LEGO Advent Calendar so far, and I think this is my tenth one.
It's important for those of us who follow Jesus to not think of the nativity as a once-and-done moment in time about which we can be angry at the innkeeper for not having enough room, or be angry at Herod for killing the children, and sit back and say "I would have made room for them" or "I would have helped". Through Jesus' incarnation, we ought now to see this situation wherever it occurs, and to consider our own actions toward the holy family when we're being the ones who say "no room" or "they are a threat, let them die" or similar.
If one is so sure that one would have helped the holy family, then why not help those in similar fate right now? Helping those now is the only way to help the family back then.
We have refugees who will be resettled in my home area of Eau Claire, WI, through the help of World Relief. Oddly, even in this pre-Christmas time, many locals (and I'm sure many of them would very much proclaim themselves Christian) have been fighting the city and county to try to keep this from happening, and doing so with some fairly weak arguments based mostly on fear: economic, racial, cultural, and some out of sheer ignorance of the process itself. As they place the baby Jesus in their mangers at home all snug and lovely, they are actively trying to prevent other very real people, who are in very real danger, from placing their babies in safe beds - to set up a nativity while basically supporting Herod is a significant failure to understand the nativity and its implications for us.
Without going into the details that any refugees being resettled have years of vetting behind them, and federal law prohibits communities from choosing who gets to live there, and other legal issues, or economic or social ones, from a theological standpoint there is no excuse not to help the stranger, the foreigner, or the refugee. The requirement to do so is right there in the law in the Bible, and using that very language of "foreigner" and "refugee", and right there in the words of Jesus, and right there in the Holy Family's status as refugees when they were forced to flee the violence of the state (Herod killing the children) by going to Egypt for a few years.
As I said at a press conference recently that World Relief, JONAH, and the Eau Claire Hmong Alliance held, as a voice of our moral responsibility to take care of refugees, "The question should never be, 'Can we help?' or 'Can we afford to help?', but, 'We must help, so, How are we going to make this happen, How are we going to make sure that they're safe and taken care of?'" Love for neighbor is an integral part of all the major religions.
Helping those who are currently in the same situation as the Holy Family were 2000 years ago is the way to show that we would indeed have helped them back then. But if we create roadblocks to keep those who are currently in the same situation from finding relief, or if we straight out deny them relief, then we're putting up roadblocks for the Holy Family. "Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me." Until we see Christ in our neighbor, are we really able to see Christ at all?
I found out today why the Palpatine minifigure came earlier than I would have expected. Turns out, Palpatine was behind the door of Day 20, not Day 19. I went to open the door for Day 20 today and it was already opened... I double checked the date... checked the door... checked the date... and realized that I was off by a day yesterday!
Yesterday should have been this amazing build of the SLD-26 planetary shield generator on the Forest Moon of Endor! Wow! Another great one! It's so simple, but it really looks like the dish from the movie.
Check that out!!
Here's the one from the movie:
Here it is from a still from the movie:
No photo of my version being blown up. Sorry.
ooh - today we get the big guy himself! And in a Christmas sweater, too! Love it. Lightning in one hand, coffee in the other. Sith are fueled on caffeine, perhaps.
Welcome, Emperor Mr. Palpatine!
I normally try as much as possible not to look at the images on the Advent Calendar box so that I don't ruin the surprise of what's in it, but it was very difficult to not see the image of Emperor Palpatine sitting on his throne. So I knew Palpatine was coming. But I thought he'd be closer to the final day. This seems a significant character and minifigure to get while there are still five unopened doors in the calendar. This was quite the welcome surprise today!
We're still on the Forest Moon of Endor, where live the creatures from which tasty Ewok Jerky can be made.
We've had an Ewok treehouse, Princess Leia minifig in camo, the entrance to the shield generator, an AT-ST, and now today, the Speeder Bike! (the version that appeared in Return of the Jedi; so I'm glad that we haven't moved to a different move yet. And maybe we won't. Maybe the next 7 days will also be ROTJ stuff!).
Wonderful! This looks pretty good, and I can see Leia jumping on one of them and speeding away, zipping through the Redwood National Park in California trees of Endor.
Not bad. Not bad at all. Thanks, LEGO! That's 18 great builds in a row!
Day 17 brings us a week away from the final. Not many days or builds left.
But given the excellence of the daily builds so far, I'm beginning to think that we're looking at some great rest through the entire calendar.
I mean, look at this one: an AT-ST from Return of the Jedi! And a pretty good one. I wish they had made the ankles out of rotating LEGO like they did with where the legs meet the "pelvis" of the thing, but that's a minor quibble.
Great, isn't it? On the liturgical calendar, today is the third Sunday of Advent - known as Gaudete Sunday, which means "Joy". I have been an absolute fan of all the Walkers in the Star Wars world since seeing an AT-AT for the first time in Empire Strikes Back. I was giddy with excitement seeing those things walking across the snow. Are they entirely impractical for anything? Absolutely! Truly a terrible design from a functional standpoint, but a brilliant design from a fascist/brutalist standpoint. I was obsessed with the walkers. Such a cool design.
Then when the AT-ST showed up in ROTJ? I was all woo hoo again! I don't think any design will ever top the awesomeness of the AT-AT, but the AT-ST is definitely close.
So on Joy Sunday, LEGO's Advent Calendar filled me with joy. Woo hoo!
Another WOW! from me as I opened the little door to the secret cubby hole that is the hiding place of the build that is the LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar for day 16. This is now three days we've been on the forest moon of Endor. We had princess Leia in her Endor battle fatigues; we had the tree houses of the Ewoks yesterday, and today the entrance to the Imperial Shield Generator site.
And it looks pretty good, too!
as a p.s. - did you know that Endor is in the Outer Rim territories? That's why the Empire chose it as the place to build the Death Star II. But even more interesting is that throughout galactic history, Ewok Jerky was a popular snack in the Outer Rim and outworlders would often come to Endor to hunt the ewoks to make jerky out of them. Creepy. But then, the little buggers were gonna eat Han and Luke, so, well, it's all fair play I guess. And where did they get the dress for Leia if not from some other humanoid they ate previously? I don't know.
Ewok Jerky was first mentioned in the Clone Wars series, so I guess that's the tie that LEGO was going for when it switched the Advent Calendar from Clone Wars builds to Return of the Jedi Endor builds.
I wonder if I get a prize for figuring this out.
I know that there is at least one more ROTJ build coming, because the cover of the calendar shows an Ewok minifgure. I really try not to look at the box so that I will be surprised, but some things are difficult not to notice.
ooh - another day on Endor! Princess Leia yesterday and the Ewok tree homes today!
Quite a nice little model, really. I'm impressed at how well it looks, and how good it is.
Quite happy. We're 15 days in, and other than an initial negative reaction against the battle droids, this year LEGO have really been offering some exceptional quality and quantity.
WOW!!
As I put today's together, I thought, "This looks like Leia on the forest moon of Endor" but then I thought we've spent so much time in Clone Wars that there wouldn't be a Princess Leia. But then, yesterday was an Imperial Shuttle, so maybe today could also be from the original trilogy.
I looked this one up just to make sure that I wasn't missing a character from Bad Batch, Obi Wan, Mandalorian, Clone Wars, Rebels, etc. I don't know any of those shows very well; not in the way that I know the movies, anyway.
And yep - it is indeed Princess Leia from Return of the Jedi in the outfit she wore to try to blow up the shield generator. And the uniform she had on when she got to return Han's words from Empire Strikes Back, "I know". And apparently in this one she's delivering a pizza. Maybe a fruitcake? A cookie? A tambourine? Or is that supposed to be one of the explosives they used to blow up the shield generator? If it's supposed to be that, it's pretty poorly done. I'm going to call it a pizza and call it good. Given the Christmas theme, it's probably supposed to be a cookie, but I think a pizza is more fun to imagine her carrying through the forest. Thinking that maybe the Ewoks invented pizza, and are the only ones in the galaxy who have pizza, and Leia has discovered something so special that she can't get enough of it and is willing to carry one through the forest.
Way to go, LEGO! I know I keep saying it, but this year's Calendar is delivering every day. Best one yet!
LEGO have done an exceptional job this year.
Today's build is one of my favorite of all the Star Wars ship styles - the shuttle. The wings that fold up and down, and the cockpit that goes up and down, are beautiful to watch in the films. I think particularly of Darth Vader's shuttle landing on the Death Star II and Palpatine's shuttle landing there a little later in Return of the Jedi. They are so graceful. And that elegance and gracefulness stand out because so much of the Galactic Empire's preferred style is a Brutalist/fascist one, designed to reek of power and danger and make people feel small and insignificant against the violent power of the Empire. Consider the AT-AT (another of my favorites) and how impractical they are for anything other than that they can invoke fear and terror in enemies.
Today's would appear to be an Imperial Shuttle (Lambda-class T-4a Shuttle). And it also means that after almost two weeks, we're finally (well, *I* use the word finally) into the original trilogy (meaning Episodes IV-VI).
This is a beautiful build. Very well designed.
The quality and size of the items in this year's Calendar is the best that I remember. Really getting my money's worth this year.
From the Clone Wars we move to ... Santa's robotic reindeer shop?
I really like when the Advent Calendar builds come with a holiday/Christmas theme (like Yoda in a santa hat from years ago, or minifigures in ugly Christmas sweaters).
Today's a double win - one of my favorite of all the Star Wars droids, the Gonk Droid, dressed up as a reindeer! A truly excellent idea from the geniuses at LEGO.
I wish that instead of a black stud for the nose it had included a red one to make Rudolph. Thankfully, I have a boatload of red ones that were extra parts in other builds, so I tried two of them, a solid red and a translucent red:
I like the subtlety of the translucent one, but I think the boldness of the solid red one works much better. My version of the Reindeer Gonk Droid now has a solid red nose. Welcome to my home, Rudolph Gonk! I do hereby name you R1G4! (Because I think this is the 4th gonk droid I've gotten in the Advent Calendars over the years).
The Calendar keeps delivering some wonderful treasures.
Today is another Clone Wars-era vehicle, the Assault Tank (or more rightly, an Armored Assault Tank, or AAT). Pretty good representation! And the turret swivels.
Day 10 of the Calendar and it's another transport. Probably the ugliest/silliest in the line of Star Wars designs (a line of designs that has very, very few duds, mind you), I've had a quite negative reaction to this thing since I first saw it. I don't know why, but I find it to be a ridiculous design, even in a fantasy world that often doesn't care so much whether a certain design would actually work so long as it looks cool.
But, that's not very important - what's important is that this LEGO build is a very good representation of the thing.
I give you (or more precisely, LEGO gives you) the IG-227 Hailfire-class droid tank.
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Good work, LEGO! Even though it represents something I'm not keen on, it's a wonderful build and continues to make the 2023 Star Wars Advent Calendar to be one of their best in terms of good builds, many parts, interesting things, and not feeling like they're being lazy or cheap.
