Day 24 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar - the last day!

it's the last day, and it's a great day! A most excellent and fun build: porg dressed as Santa!

And the porg looks unhappy about it. Perhaps he's thinking of his brothers/sisters that Chewie ate a few days ago and, in the context of this Advent Calendar, Chewie is still eating since his minifigure from a few days ago has a big ol' porg drumstick in his hand.

Bravo, LEGO, bravo!

I'm so glad that I decided to get the calendar this year even the last couple years have had many disappointing days. Perhaps LEGO heard the cries of the fans who spend good money for these things and have felt cheated for a few years. I'd like to hope that LEGO was paying attention, and that this wasn't just a fluke of a year that might never be repeated again.

Day 23 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Oh, yeah! Another win!

A Christmas decorated gonk-bot.

That's the name I gave this bot many many years ago, because the sound it makes is like "gonk gonk".

I just checked the Internet to find the real name of this droid, and lo and behold, that is the name. Well, not really. It's officially the GNK Power Droid, but GNK is "gonk", and "Gonk droid" is how it's referred to by the fans.

The GNK droids are walking batteries.

And this one comes with Christmas wrapping!

And they even included a bow on top! Absolutely fantastic.

Great year for the Calendar! Which I've said a number of times, but wow, it really is.

Day 22 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Another minifigure!!

A Cloud City cloud car pilot! With funky helmet.

For some reason, I thought I should turn his helmet around to see if he fly using the Force. Come to find out, didn't have any, unfortunately. Fortunately, it's a cloud planet so the crashing cloud car didn't hurt anyone went down through the atmosphere.

In the words of Ron White retelling the story of a nervous passenger on an airplane asking, "If the engine goes out, where do you think the plane will take us?" and he answered, "All the way to the crash site."

Day 21 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

And again a very welcome build from the calendar!

The Cloud City bi-plane thingy called simply "Cloud Car", which seems a rather boring name, really. But the build isn't boring - it's quite well done!

I find myself needing again to say "Great Calendar this year!"

Day 20 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

The good stuff keeps coming!

Today was the Hoth nipple gun! You may remember this blasting shots into space from Hoth to hit the Imperial ships and clear a path for the Rebel transports to get away. Sure, it would have been easier to just fly the transports to the other side of the planet first and then have them fly into space... but, well, that's not what happened.

Pretty nice rendition of this gun from one of my favorite scenes in all of Star Wars! The Battle of Hoth gave us snowspeeders and AT-ATs. (Yeah, I know, the snowspeeders actually showed up in the scene looking for Luke, but we didn't really see them and what they could do until the battle).

p.s. - "nipple gun" isn't the actual name, but that's what I've called it, and how Mr. Pewterschmitt (playing the General with the Purina symbol on his uniform) referred to it in "Something Something Something Dark Side", though he said "boob-nipple gun".

Day 19 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Yow!

WOW, I am so glad I decided to get the Star Wars Advent Calendar this year. Best one since the first one I got like 7 or 8 years ago or whenever it was.

Today is a stellar day - a monumental day - a stupendous day!

WE GOT A MYNOCK!

YES!!!!!!!

They don't get a lot of screen time, but they are incredibly important players in the rebellion's success against the Empire. Without mynocks, Han, Leia, Chewie, and C3PO would all have been eaten by that terrible space lizard/worm thing in the asteroid that they had flown into getting away from the TIE Fighters and Darth Vader.

So, thank you, mynocks, for defeating the Empire!

I also really like Episode V - that one, Episode IV, and Rogue One, are what I consider the most Star Warsish of the Star Wars films. So anything in those movies is welcome.

Also, mynocks are seriously under-represented in the LEGO oeuvre, so to have one show up in an Advent Calendar was a most awesome and welcome surprise!

I wish I'd had the camera on my face when I opened the door to today's build, because a very huge smile slammed into my face. And that smile came back right now as I typed the memory of it for your reading pleasure.

YES!

And it's quite a good representation, too.

I am so very, very pleased. Best Advent Calendar ever so far!

Here it is:

SWEET!

Day 18 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Another great day - another minifigure!

Today's is one of the traitors that hung out with that Princess Leia (you remember her: she's the one who doesn't back up her data, and thus put into motion a couple years of unnecessary fighting and anxiety).

A rebel scum gunner with slope helmet! More than likely, given the escape pod from yesterday, this is a Tantive IV Rebel scum gunner, but he might be from the end of Rogue One as well. Either way, he was probably killed. Possibly by Vader himself!

Good figure. Nicely modeled and formed, good printing, the helmet is splendid, the faces are great.

I'm happy!

Day 17 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Woot!

It might not be the Tantive IV, but it comes FROM the Tantive IV - the escape pod as seen in the very beginning of Episode IV. The one that escapes because for some reason one of the officers on the Star Destroyer says not to blast it because there were no life forms aboard. I like how this scene was done in Family Guy's version when one of the underlings says "Oh, are we paying by the laser bolt, now?" and the officer responds, "You don't do the budget, Todd. *I* do!" Ha!! Cracks me up every time because it was a lazy bit of writing to suggest that the Star Destroyer, that had been blasting endlessly for however long, would save a blast on an escape pod just because they didn't detect any life signs.

And why, with the technology they had, was R2D2 the only one with a copy of the death star plans? Whoever was in charge shuold have been fired or reduced six steps in rank for not taking an electronic file - which the plans were - and making copies in every Alliance droid and ship and put it on a flash drive and give a copy to every troop so that someone, somehow, from somewhere, would be able to get it to Yavin. Or beam the data somewhere. I mean, the people in Star Wars are able to communicate via holograph, so clearly they have data transmission. Email the thing.

Anyway, here's the escape pod. Pretty sweet. Another great day in the Advent Calendar!

Seriously - Leia had an entire trip in which to make copies of the data. Or to email it somewhere. or give it to R2 right away and tell him to share it with every droid on the ship.

I bet Leia was the type of person that uses "password" for their password, and forgets every now and again and has to call IT because she can't "get into her hard drive thing on her desk because I forgot my password". 

Did you try, "password"? Dork.

Back up your data!! The whole Episode IV-VI series of stories could have bene totally avoided if she just backed up her data. The Star Wars saga is really a nine-hour meditation on the importance of backups. A fable for the modern, computer-driven, age. 

Back. Up. Your. Data.

And use secure passwords, folks. It's 2019. You should have learned this 20 years ago already.

Day 16 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Hmmmm....

before looking it up, I thought "landspeeder", but it doesn't seem like it ought to be Luke's. And since the Calendar this year seems to go thematic for a number of days in a row, I decided that this must be an Episode III - we had the snail tank and the battle droid, both used in the Battle of Kashyyyk.

So who had a landspeeder in Episode III?

No one?

No one I can remember. I don't think that Yoda used one to get to his shuttle.

So, time to rethink - I had thought at first that the snail tank from two days was part of the Battle of Naboo, and this has a similar color scheme. Perhaps it's not a landspeeder but a much larger vehicle. Could it be a troop transport? It does look like one.

I looked it up, and yep, definitely appears to be one of these troop transports that has a hatch (and I assume that dangly thing on the end of the model is the hatch in "open" position) that pushes out the battle droids like those orange pushups from my childhood

except that instead of getting some wonderful ice cream, one gets emotionless computerized death machines with blasters. That thankfully are programmed very poorly and programmed to be silly, not actual death machines. Yet another reason to loathe the prequels.

So, here it is:

Another pretty good realization of a ship in very few pieces.

I am SOOOOO pleased with this year's Advent Calendar! After the past few years, I almost didn't get this year's, but when it came out I couldn't resist. I'm glad I got it.

Day 15 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

A minifigure! Always exciting to get a minifigure, though I have so many battle droids already this isn't very exciting. But still, it's a thing.

Day 14 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

A ship!

Well, not really a ship - a tank!

A snail tank.

I had to look this one up. At first, it looked to me like one of the tanks used in Episode I during the battle on Naboo.

But no, it isn't one of them.

Finally, I found out it's a snail tank, used in the Battle of Kashyyyk in Episode III.

Here it is - pretty darn good job, LEGO people! I discovered in my searching that LEGO has released at two larger versions of this tank over the years.

Here is the "real" version:

Day 13 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Score!!!!

Ever since I was a kid, sitting in the theater at 11 years old, watching Star Wars for the first time in its original run, the mouse droid has captured my attention! They don't get much screen time, but the little bit they had was very memorable. Who can stop the smile from happening when Chewie growls at one of these poor things, even if one's seen the movie hundreds of times? Or forget those awesome little squeaky sounds that Ben Burtt created for the cute little guys.

Their inclusion was also part of a number of small inclusion into the films that Lucas gave us to flesh out the world we're in - it was an unnecessary thing to spend money to build and to film, but by showing us that within the Star Wars world are these repair droids, it shows that there is more than just what we're seeing on the screen, story-wise.

A banner day in Advent Calendaring today to have a mouse droid! Or more properly, an MSE-6 Repair Droid.

You gotta love these guys. I sure do.

If LEGO did a UCS version of one, I'd probably get it. Though there isn't much to it, so using a few thousand pieces to build one would need some serious justification.

Day 12 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Gosh, this year has been a good year for the Advent Calendar! The past couple years' had many disappointing days, but so far this year it's banging along quite nicely. There have been a few builds so far that weren't exciting, but nothing yet that's made me go "booooooo!"

Today's another grand day: minifigure!!

Splendid - Imperial Gunner!

Which now makes me think that my initial thought about yesterday's tower being a Death Star I turret is true - these guys were only seen on the Death Star I within the canon of Star Wars, so it makes sense that he's supposed to go with yesterday's build, and yesterday's build is supposed to go with this guy.

So that, I think, solves the mystery of the Day 11 build.

I think that even the first time I saw Star Wars Episode IV when I was a child (seeing the original run), I thought, "Gosh, those helmets seem unreasonably designed for comfort or functionality". But I also thought then, and still do, that they are wicked cool looking. And for the Empire, looking cool was also important - for enemies to see crazy uniforms like this, or weapons like an AT-AT, offers a psychological propaganda advantage, even as impractical and a waste of money as something like an AT-AT, or a helmet with a long-ass extension, would be.

Who cares. It's fiction and it's film, and looks and story must always take precedence over logic or sensibility.

Great build today! Makes me happy.

Day 11 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Another mystery, though this one not so much born out of my own ignorance.

It looks like a blaster cannon on Hoth, though the colors aren't quite what the Rebellion had on Hoth. It could be a blaster cannon from the first Death Star, but it's not quite that, either. Perhaps something from Starkiller Base?

That's the best guess I've found for this one.

A blaster cannon from Starkiller Base.

Even though I'm not sure, and the Internet doesn't seem really sure, either, it's a cool build. I'm not always happy with the structure builds because sometimes they're just not that interesting compared to minifigure or a ship (that's just my own opinion), but I'm really liking this one.

Which makes me wish even more that I knew what it was. My money is a blaster from the first Death Star, but it seems odd that the Advent calendar would all of a sudden go back to the first movie made. But, there's no reason that it couldn't.

:D

BONUS CONTENT:

I said yesterday that photographing the models on the display board that the LEGO box offers is messing up the gray color and turning it tan/orange: here's an example. Yes, that really is the same model shown above.

Day 10 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

I must admit, after getting this built I did not recognize what it was. I thought about it for a while, I looked at it, I tried to shake a memory out of my head... but nothing. But I also haven't seen all the animated Star Wars stuff, so maybe this is from that, I thought. Here it is:

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I have to photograph these things on my tablecloth because the taking photos on the scene that the box offers is changing the grey pieces into an orangish tan. There is so much blue on the LEGO box display area it's throwing off the camera's ability to grab the colors correctly, even though to my eye (in real life) the pieces still look gray. Weird. Science!!

I had to look it up. Duh. As soon as I read what it was, I was like, "Duh."

It's a quadjumper! I didn't much get screen time in the movie, but it did come out as a larger LEGO set last year or the year before, perhaps, and I *almoat* bought one when I saw it on sale. But it wasn't a ship that had enough emotional resonance to have it, and I'm already out of space to display things with quite a few sets that I haven't even put together yet... eeesh.

So, anyway, Quadjumper. It's an intersting ship design that I'm not sure I like, but not sure I dislike, either.

But whatever my feelings of the ship's design, this LEGO mini-version is a pretty good version of it in 20 or so pieces. I'm pleased, but some of the colors aren't quite what they ought to be.

See the oroginal.

Something I did not know until I was just now looking up the ship is that it comes apart - a top part and a bottom part, both of which can fly independently and have separate cockpits. Cool.








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Day 9 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Today's surprise was very welcome and really made me smile!

Radagast the Brown!!

No, of course, it isn't. That would be silly.

It's Luke Skywalker with a brown lightsaber!

No, it isn't that, either.

But it is Luke Skywalker!!!!!!!!!!

I knew there was a Luke in the box because it's on the cover of the Calendar, but I expected that he'd come much later in the month.

So here he is the proper way (this is actually the same photo as up above, I'm just posting it twice. I also see now that I didn't do a good job of showing what is in his hand: it's a fish with its mouth wide open). Yep, that's the same handle that is used for lightsabers, but this time, it's just the top of a walking stick. And the stick part of the stick is the exact same size and shape of the tubes used for the lightsaber beams, so in a sense, this really is a brown lightsaber hilt with brown lightsaber blade. 

I'm so glad that Lucas never used brown as a lightsaber color.

(and he does look like he could be a rather young Radagast the Brown)

Day 8 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

As exciting and exclamation point-laden as yesterday's offering was, today's is pretty meh.

Sure, it's a nice model of Ahch-To island (assuming that is what it is supposed to be), but, who cares?

Don't need a small island in a Star Wars calendar. I want Star Wars! Could just as well be a pile of brown pieces and call it "sand of Tattoine". Could be sand of Tunisia, because "sand" isn't specifically Star Wars. Or other typical stuff one could find anywhere, in our world or in Star Wars: Shovel! Tree! Metal floorplate! Milk pitcher!

Meh.

Oh, well. The colors are nice. And judging from the cover of the Advent Calendar box it appears we're getting something later to place on the island. I won't offer any spoilers.

Day 7 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Woot!!!!

Chewie!!!

And not just any Chewie - but Chewie eating a roast porg leg! Ha!!

'nuff said.

Day 6 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Today is a strange build. It's a Troop Transport - what we saw Princess Leia flying in in The Force Awakens.

The directions for the build that are printed on the inside of the doors was missing one piece, and I'd suggest that it was missing two of them.

After I got the thing built, I had six pieces left over. An unusually high number for a small build like this. One of those pieces (the 2x1 on the back of the ship) had no duplicate. It's really strange to have an extra piece in a LEGO set that is unique. But I figured out on my own that it goes on the back of the ship.

I'm also pretty sure that the diagram missed a 1x1 gray piece on the bottom of the build; since I had one of those pieces as an extra, I put it on. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not.

So I only have four pieces left over now, which you can see in the final photo.

It's a good resemblance to the Troop Transport made with 16 pieces, spo I give it props for that. But the Troop Transport is one of the ugliest designs in all of Star Wars. And yeah, I get it, within the films the Resistance is running out of resources and cobbling together stuff the best they can and we can't expect a shoestring resistance to have awesome looking ships.

BUT wait! Yes we can!

From a meta-level viewpoint, we can expect it - Lucas always wanted ships to have a "wow" factor, even if perhaps it didn't make sense either by way of physics or a logical consistency within the story. The designs were elegant and beautiful and designed with the viewer in mind, not so much the fictional people that would have to use them. I think this is one of numerous areas in which J.J. Abrams doesn't "get" Star Wars. I can't blame this design on him, because I don't know enough of what went on in the background to know who's choice this ultimately was, but since he's the guy in charge, he always had the option to nix it. It's a lackluster lazy design for a ship.

/offsoapbox

Would I have preferred a different ship than this one? Sure. But I'm still happy with this reduction of it. I think the ship actually looks cooler in this reduced version than the real one does.

Here's the build:

Day 5 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Wow!!

An X-Wing - and a big one! - and not just any X-Wing, but Poe's X-Wing.

This is a 22 piece monster build: for an Advent Calendar, that is. This is quite big! And quite impressive. It's almost micro-build/polybag size!

I'm very excited about getting this one!

Yeah, today was a good day for the Calendar. We are off to an incredible start with the five things that have been in the calendar so far.

Sweet.

Day 4 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Aadvent Calendar

For Day 4 we're not getting something that's quite as exciting as the previous three days, but it's still good to have because so far as I can remember, we've not seen one before.

It's a repeating laser rifle used by the First Order.

I looked it up, and it's the FWMB-10 Repeating Blaster used by heavy assault troopers. We've seen them in Episodes VII and VIII, and I'm going to guess that we will see one or more in Episode IX as well.

Maybe not the most exciting thing to have in the calendar, but it's a good thing to have anyway. I like it!

Day 3 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Day 3 brings us a minifigure! Yee hah!!

First Order Stormtrooper. Excellent printing on the figure, and minifigures are always exciting to get!

Day 2 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

For Day 2, we have another ship - Kylo Ren's shuttle!

It's a pretty decent version of the ship done in few pieces.

A very welcome and pleasing version of a pretty cool looking shuttle.Though I wish that the creators had not used the grey pieces (they look tan-colored in these photos because the lighting over my table is kind of yellowish tonight and I don't feel like going to adjust it to take different photos). Kylo's shuttle should be all black and red, so the use of grey is disappointing.

But overall - this is a great one! Two days in a row of pleasing goodies in the calendar!

Day 1 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

For Day 1, what appears to be a rather pedestrian Star Destroyer. And given the colors, and that this is 2019 with a new Star Wars movie coming out, I’m assuming it’s a First Order one.

I checked my assumption with another blog I follow, and according to the blog writer, yes, this is indeed a First Order Star Destroyer.

The blog also mentioned that the “doors” of this year’s calendar are easier to open - I actually thought that same thing after opening this first door. The doors of the calendars have always had perforations and a little tab to punch in so that one can then pull out the door. The perforations were often not well done, and opening the door often resulted in tears and frustration. But wow - the perforations this year are much better and the door opened smoothly!

Though the model is somewhat lackluster, that's also a fault of the lackluster design of the ships in Star Wars. The original Star Destroyers were awesome - the First Order ones lack finesse. They are an inelegant design. In my opinion, that is. So much so that I did not buy the LEGO version of the ships. They're even uglier in LEGO.

But given the few pieces that make this mini-model, I'll give them credit for making it work. It's a good start to the Advent Calendar!

Day 0 - 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

For Day 0, I'm talking about the box the Advent Calendar comes in.

Normally I’m so excited about the calendar that I open it the first day, but anxiety about a surgery  I was supposed to have on Dec. 4 (the fourth day of the Advent Calendar) and the anxiety of getting all my ducks in a row before the surgery has made me not psychologically ready to open the thing. So after my surgery had to be rescheduled because my *$*% car broke down on the way there, I spent a number of hours calming down from anger and frustration and "Why is the universe against me?"-ism, and eventually late the night of Dec. 4 I opened the Calendar.

I opened it was immediately taken by the unified scene that is in the interior. Look at this awesome background! Other years have had okay ones, but they’ve been busy and not unified. This is definitely a single scene! Way cool.

Super impressed I am.