My daughter loves LEGO and loves Star Wars, so naturally she enjoys playing with LEGO Star Wars. This week we were lucky to be sent a trio of sets to build, play, and review. When they arrived my daughter was rather overcome with excitement.
Honestly, her choice of a LEGO Star Wars t-shirt that morning really was a coincidence.
I assumed she’d have trouble deciding which one to make first, but she opted straight away for the set with Darth Vader. She loves Darth Vader. I like to think it’s because he’s Leia and Luke’s daddy.
This new Star Wars LEGO set recreates the iconic setting of the final showdown between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi in the Emperor’s Death Star throne room.
My daughter and I spent an afternoon making this together, while listening to the Return of the Jedi soundtrack (her idea). Given this set is recommended for 8+ and my daughter is a 3-year-old, I was the Master Builder with my daughter assisting. Playing LEGO is a great joint activity for us, and while she can’t make a set like this herself, it helps her develop her fine motor skills, ability to follow instructions, general concentration, as well as her imagination, when we build LEGO together like this.
She did have sole responsibility for the minifigs though, of which there are five – Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, and two of his Royal Guards.
The detailed 100+ page instruction booklet was easy to follow, and by afternoon’s end we had an awesome LEGO Star Wars playset. It recreates the key spaces of the movie setting, such as the Emperors throne:
The Stairs leading up to it where Luke and Vader duel:
The shaft where Vader sends the Emperor to meet his maker:
And the Darth Vader figure is particularly nicely detailed, with a two piece helmet so you can recreate the big reveal.
As well as the adapted setting, this also has interactive elements such as a collapsing walkway and stairs, sliding doors, plus a minifig ‘force jump’ lever, and even mechanism to fire a lightsaber in the air. There are also hinges and siding parts so it can be opened up or closed between play sessions.
“Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed.”
I actually have an early precursor to this set. That one wasn’t very impressive.
The most boring Star Wars LEGO set ever? Luke being brought to meet Vader & Emperor, without Vader & Emperor. pic.twitter.com/KueYRwun0U
— Man vs Pink (@ManVsPink) March 4, 2015
To call this new set an improvement is clearly an understatement.
The fundamentally great thing about this is that it’s a playset. It provides my daughter with a detailed LEGO Star Wars environment for her to recreate scenarios with her minifigs. We have a bunch of LEGO Star Wars vehicles, which are great, but this is our first playset (the one above clearly doesn’t count) and the way she interacts with it is a joy to behold.
My daughter loves to improve upon the existing stories, usually by adding more female characters (for instance, she made her own Princess Leia minifig and a brand new scenario to go with it). As this scene is all male, she addressed the lack of women by bringing in a couple of female characters from the other sets we received.
Eventually, we came up with our own alternative finale.
And that was rounded off with an epilogue that my daughter created all by herself.
I think she knows daddy often likes a glass of wine or two at the end of the day. :s
This is a perfect LEGO Star Wars set to enable any little girl (or boy) to create new adventures with. While it was satisfying to construct, it’s far more fun to play with. My daughter usually tries to pull apart any sets we build, but she hasn’t even attempted to with this. She far too busy coming up with more stories in the galaxy far, far away. The force is strong with this one.
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The LEGO Star Wars – Death Star Final Duel set (75093) has an RRP of £69.99, and is available to buy here.
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Disclaimer: While I was not paid to write this review, we did receive this LEGO set free of charge. All opinions stated remain our own.
I didn’t even know this was a set. XD
Reblogged this on samermelegos and commented:
Did I know about this set? No. But that makes it even more cool!
First, thank you for sharing your stories. Our daughter is only 5 months old so she has no concept of how the world is going to try to force her into boxes. Being raised by two non-gender conforming lesbians will help with that. But it’s already a challenge to buy her clothes. Before long it will be toys. Seeing how your daughter just makes the world her own is an inspiration and helps me worry a lot less!
Second, have you considered getting her into parkour so she can learn to move through the environment kinda like a Jedi? She’s probably enjoy it and it would give her a natural self defense skill, not to mention making her a total badass. lol
Third, you may have heard about the Jedi religion, but there’s also what we can Jedi realism, which is using the inspiration of the fictional Jedi to live a better more full life. It might be something she’d find beneficial when she’s older so I wanted to mention it. Maybe you’ll remember when it comes up and know there are options for her. 🙂
Thanks again for the great stories and pictures!
I never knew their was a Jedi religion. XD Thank you for expanding my knowledge!
No problem. My group is instituteforjedirealiststudies.org and it is a pragmatic rather than religious take.
good to know
These look absolutely fantastic. Actually to point that I’m going to go look them up now. Thanks for linking up with us on the #bigfatlinky hope to see you there this week.