LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past Review
One year ago, Disney and LEGO teamed up to celebrate 25 years of LEGO Star Wars by giving fans a super-cool limited series, Rebuild the Galaxy. After a nerf-herder named Sig Greebling messed with an ancient Jedi artifact, the Star Wars galaxy was reset into this bizarro, mismashed timeline. Good guys were now bad, bad guys were now good, Tatooine was a beach planet, and Darth Jar Jar was real! It was crazy, but most people agreed that it was the best Star Wars thing to come out in years. While the series did end with the bizarro heroes coming out on top, it was pretty clear that Disney wanted to do more with this premise. That brings us to the sequel, Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past, which I’m thrilled to say continues to be a love-letter to the best of Star Wars.
And it’s also not afraid of making fun of the series misfires.
A Story that Doesn’t Take itself too Seriously!
At the end of Rebuild the Galaxy, Sig helped saved the Galaxy from the Sith Empire. However, it came at the cost of being estranged from his brother, Dev, who was an aggro Sith Lord in this timeline. Being the pure-hearted fan that he is, Sig continues to believe that his brother can change for the better, despite everyone else saying its a lost cause. Unfortunately for everyone, Sig’s beliefs get put to the ultimate test when the two brothers open up a rift to another dimension. Out of there comes Solitus, Jedi Bob’s former master who went mad and became the biggest hater of the chaos of the Star Wars Galaxy. Now he plans to destroy everything and cast it into oblivion. The only way to stop him is for the good guys and bad guys to team up.
So Wholesome!
As was the case with Rebuild the Galaxy, Pieces of the Past is a story that does not take itself too seriously. It just wants to have fun using as much of the Star Wars franchise as possible to tell the stories it wants. The kind that a kid with the imagination and enough LEGO sets would tell, no matter how silly it might be. Ahsoka being a brickheadz figure? No one really cares, since she’s played by Ashley Eckstein once more. A pit of Snoke Clones instead of a Sarlaac pit? It’s the punchline for a joke about how pointless Snoke was in the Sequel Trilogy. Padme Amidala being a pirate queen in this timeline? Honestly, she was tough enough to do that if she had wanted to. It gives her and Anakin/Vader’s relationship in this timeline a Batman/Catwoman vibe.
Speaking of which, if you thought that seeing Anakin/Jedi Vader getting the chance to be a good father in this timeline was wholesome, that’s nothing compared to Padme meeting Luke and Leia. Knowing how the two never got to meet their mom in the canon, getting the chance to see her kids as grown adults is enough to make a grown man cry. If anything, these specials show just how much of a raw deal the Skywalker family got in this Disney canon.
Beyond the endless easter eggs and jokes, though, Pieces of the Past doesn’t lose sight of the franchise’s central themes: love, hope, and redemption. Despite his brother being a Sith, Sig never gives up on Dev and continues to reach out to him. Jedi Bob, in contrast, keeps antagonizing Dev, convinced that he’ll turn on them. But if you’ve seen Star Wars, you know how that song and dance will go. Redemption is always possible, so long as someone’s willing to make that change. Solitus, though, is most certainly not.
Pieces of the Past Has a Great Villain
I wasn’t joking when I called Solitus, hammed to perfection by Dan Stevens, the ultimate Star Wars hater. He’s like a more extreme version of Lord Business from The LEGO Movie, being someone who’s fed up with all the chaos around him and wanting to be rid of it. He’s basically an allegory for the kind of bitter adult who thinks LEGO is a waste of time, and thus needs to be stopped. The best part is that he also has an army of Battle Droids to support him, meaning we get to see more of the quirky droids. Given how much I loved them in The Clone Wars, that’s already a big win for me. Alongside the return of Darth Jar Jar, that is. And the entire chase sequence to promote the new LEGO Death Star set.
Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past was yet another amazing story from the LEGO Star Wars brand. It’s full of easter eggs and self-aware humor to make even the most disillusioned Star Wars fan chuckle, and I wholeheartedly enjoyed it. I might be able to buy any of the tie-in sets, though. I’m already running low on room as it is! If you’re lucky enough to get any of them, though, then may the Force be with you!
