Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’s blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

May the Fourth Be with You, as today it’s ‘Star Wars’ Day! 🙂 I was hoping to check out and write a quick review on the ‘Andor’ series that’s on Disney+. But with the ‘Doctor Who’ 60th anniversary celebrations and other things getting in the way, I haven’t been able to find the time to check it out.

Hopefully, I will check out ‘Andor’ by the time you’re reading this. Instead, let’s talk about three LEGO ‘Star Wars’ specials that are also on Disney+. I’ve been wanting to share my thoughts on one of these specials for quite some time as a Christmas review, but like ‘Andor’, I couldn’t find the time. 😐

So, here I am on that LEGO ‘Star Wars’ special along with two more that have been made since then. The special I’m referring to is ‘The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special’. The other two specials are ‘LEGO Star Wars: Terrifying Tales’ and ‘LEGO Star Wars: Summer Vacation’. All have been very entertaining.

The three LEGO ‘Star Wars’ Specials I’ve recently seen take place after the events of ‘the sequels trilogy’. This is after ‘The Rise of Skywalker’, where we see what happened to Rey, Finn, Poe, Rose, BB-8, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 after the First Order was destroyed. It’s rather fascinating to see that.

I don’t hate the sequels trilogy like other ‘Star Wars’ fans seem to hate it. They’re a mixed bag for me. With that said, seeing the ‘Star Wars’ characters in LEGO form after the events of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ has been enjoyable to check out and the LEGO specials are better than the sequel films. 🙂

That’s not to say the LEGO ‘Star Wars’ specials are excellent. There are lots of goofy moments featured throughout, since it’s LEGO and meant for kids, but it was easy to watch these specials compared to the sequel films. I almost wish the LEGO specials were official after ‘Rise of Skywalker’.

The voice cast for each special is interesting. Whilst Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac don’t return to voice Rey, Finn and Poe, we still have Kelly Marie Tran, Billy Dee Williams and Anthony Daniels returning to voice Rose Tico, Lando Calrissian and C-3PO respectively in these LEGO special films.

‘The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special’ was released at Christmas time in 2020. It’s of course meant to be a follow-up to the infamous ‘Star Wars Holiday Special’ that was released in 1978. And to be honest, ‘The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special’ is better than the actual ‘Star Wars Holiday Special’. 😀

The special focuses on Rey, who attempts to train Finn to become a Jedi by helping him learn the ways of the Force. This happens on Life Day (‘Star Wars’ equivalent of Christmas). In the process of training Finn, Rey, with BB-8, ends up going to the planet Kordoku to find a powerful key to solve her problem. 😐

The key grants the user access to space and time. Thus, Rey goes to various ‘Star Wars’ movies including ‘The Phantom Menace’, ‘Attack of the Clones’, ‘Revenge of the Sith’, ‘A New Hope’, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, ‘Return of the Jedi’, ‘The Force Awakens’, ‘The Last Jedi’ and ‘The Rise of Skywalker’. 😀

I enjoyed the nods to previous ‘Star Wars’ movies in the special as well as the appearances of characters from those movies like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Darth Maul. The Mandalorian and Grogu make cameo appearances too. It did get really crazy when these characters met each other. 😀

As well as having nice nods to previous ‘Star Wars’ movies, ‘The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special’ did feel very festive, even with the goofy moments featured throughout it. It’s a Disney+ Christmas Special that I would happily revisit. Perhaps more than ‘The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special’. 🙂

‘LEGO Star Wars: Terrifying Tales’ is clearly a Halloween special that was released on Disney+ in 2021. I’m not keen on Halloween, though I enjoyed the stories featured in this special. This is an anthology special containing three stories linked by an overal plot that has Poe Dameron as the main lead.

In the special, Poe crashes his X-wing starfighter on the planet Mustafar. He and BB-8 visit Castle Vader, which happens to be a ‘first all-inclusive Sith-inspired luxury resort’. Darth Vader’s former servant Vaneé, who apparently was in ‘Rogue One’, shares three Sith-inspired stories to his guests. 🙂

The first story is called ‘The Lost Boy’, which is about how a young Ben Solo first met Ren and his Knights of Ren. I actually prefer the origins of how Ben Solo became Kylo Ren in this little story compared to how it happened in ‘The Last Jedi’. At least it didn’t have Luke planning to kill Ben Solo.

The second story is called ‘The Duelling Monstrosities’, which depicts how the villains Darth Maul from ‘The Phantom Menace’ and General Grievious from ‘Revenge of the Sith’ were reborn. And there’s ‘The Wookiee’s Paw’, which tells an alternative depiction of Luke Skywalker becoming a Sith.

I really enjoyed ‘The Wookiee’s Paw’, as it depicts Luke being a Sith alongside his father Darth Vader and provides an alternative take of ‘A New Hope’. ‘LEGO Star Wars: Terrifying Tales’ has been enjoyable to watch. It isn’t as good as ‘The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special’, but it’s still entertaining.

‘LEGO Star Wars: Summer Vacation’ is better than ‘LEGO Star Wars: Terrifying Tales’, but it isn’t as good as ‘The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special’. This was released on Disney+ in 2022. I actually saw this special in my hotel room, the day before I went to ‘Collectormania 27’ in Birmingham in 2022. 🙂

In the special, Finn has arranged a surprise vacation for his friends aboard the Galactic Starcruiser called the Halcyon. Finn’s plans go awry when he finds himself separated from the group. Whilst he’s alone however, Finn finds himself meeting the Force-ghosts of Obi-Wan, Anakin and Princess Leia. 🙂

I found it interesting that Finn would meet up with the Force-ghosts of these ‘Star Wars’ characters. Clearly, Finn has had quite a bit of Jedi training from Rey since ‘The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special’. Obi-Wan, Anakin and Leia share with Finn how their unexpected occasions of vacations went awry.

With Obi-Wan, he shares how he met resistance fighter Lt. Valeria and helped her to steal coaxium from Jabba the Hutt’s palace on Tatooine, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt. Yeah, I know. It’s LEGO. Roll with it. 😀 Anakin shares with Finn how he, as Darth Vader, tried to take Emperor Palpatine on a trip.

This is on Empire Day, as Vader took Palpatine to the planet Scarif where the original Death Star plans were kept, which sets up ‘Rogue One’. And Leia shares with Finn how she and Han once took their son Ben on holiday to the planets Mimban (from ‘Solo’) and Endor (from ‘Return of the Jedi’). 🙂

The three LEGO ‘Star Wars’ specials on Disney+ have been enjoyable and interesting to check out. The animation by Atomic Cartoons is very good and the voices for most of the ‘Star Wars’ characters from the prequels trilogy, the original trilogy and the sequels trilogy are pretty spot-on when you hear them.

There’s no getting away from the goofiness of certain moments and scenes in these LEGO ‘Star Wars’ specials, but honestly, I prefer that over the often-lacklustre efforts in the sequel films. I’m sure I’ll be checking out these specials again very soon, perhaps when I’m on holiday or something. 🙂

These LEGO ‘Star Wars’ specials certainly celebrate the best and worst about ‘Star Wars’ in all its glory. 😀

Anyway, enjoy your ‘Star Wars’ Day and May the Force Be with You! 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂