Podcast: Lego Star Wars: Terrifying Tales
It's a special Space Waffles/Straight Out Of Home Video crossover!
This week, Arezou, Candace, Bri and special guest Noor-Hal take a look at the newest holiday special featuring Star Wars Lego. Come for their favourite moments, stay for Ben Solo conspiracies, the best horror movie homages, and some (not so) surprising thoughts about Darth Maul
Plus: Scroll down for Arezou’s Top 5 moments from the special
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TOP 5 LEGO STAR WARS: TERRIFYING TALES MOMENTS
by Arezou Amin
Following last year’s delightfully sincere Lego Star Wars Holiday Special, the team at Lucasfilm are back at it this year with a chilling, brick-tastic special just in time for spooky season: Lego Star Wars Terrifying Tales.
The special follows Poe Dameron, who has made an emergency landing on Mustafar after his X-Wing was damaged in a skirmish with remnants of the First Order. There, he sees that Castle Vader is being turned into an all-inclusive retreat for Sith, and the dark-side minded by Graballa the Hutt. While there, he and Dean - a young mechanic working for Graballa - are roped into the schemes of Vaneé, a former servant of Darth Vader’s, who presents them with three tales of the Dark Side.
I love the Lego Star Wars specials, and hope they become an annual tradition, and while I adored the whole thing, here are my top 5 favourite moments:
5. Lego Palpatine is the best Palpatine
The Lego specials are at their best when they poke loving fun at Star Wars, and nowhere is this more comprehensively illustrated than in Emperor Palpatine. In brick form, the stoic and schemy Sith Lord becomes dramatic and petty (and a little bitchy) in a way we always knew Palpatine could be. He is constantly exhausted by everyone around him, while simultaneously being an exhausting, overbearing boss. He is always the first character to make a meta joke, and while I generally don’t care for that kind of humour, it just works in Lego form. That might be because while it’s an expected component of the genre, they always tie it back to something genuine and sincere.
4. Darth Maul - Somehow more intense in Lego form?
No one has ever accused Darth Maul of being a chill guy. And somehow, in animated brick form, he’s even more tightly wound and intense.
Maul features in the second short, “The Duelling Monstrosities”, which pits him against General Grievous as Palpatine tasks them both with finding the Saber of Scardont, a Sith weapon that turns the wielder mad. What could possibly go wrong?
It was interesting to get a little peek into Grievous’s resurrection scene, with hints at his pre-cyborg life, which I don’t believe I’ve seen anywhere else. But it’s Maul’s resurrection that takes up more time, blending two parts of his Clone Wars arc together to fantastic comedic effect. In Vaneé’s tale, it is Mother Talzin who gives Maul his infamous spider legs - though not without a few false starts, including attaching him to a probe droid, and to spindly legs too small to support his weight.
Throughout the special, and through each of his Spider-Maul upgrades, Mother Talzin’s Spiky Son is operating at a 10 when everyone else around him is at maybe a 6. The simmering intensity that works so well in The Clone Wars remains unchanged here, and having Sam Witwer voicing him definitely plays a big part in that. My favourite moments are definitely when Maul is delivering the kind of lighter lines we see in Lego specials, with all the emotion and intensity of his darkest Clone Wars or Rebels moments.
Also, it’s been a couple of days, and I am still laughing over Maul’s whispered narration of his own abilities. Force flip! Force leap!
3. The Kiss!
The third short, “The Wookie’s Paw”, is obviously a riff on the “be careful what you wish for” story of the Monkey’s Paw, and it’s also as close to a Star Wars “What If” as we’re getting right now. It’s also as close to a What If as I want, personally, but that’s for another day.
In the short, Luke wants off of Tatooine and he wants off now. While in town on an errand for Uncle Owen, he is approached by Watto, who brings him a wookie’s paw, which he says has the power to grant him any wish. Very quickly, Luke becomes a stormtrooper, then an Imperial pilot, then rises to the notice of Darth Vader, who takes him on to train because he’s strong with the Force.
Via a Yoda-style training sequence, complete with Vader on Luke’s back, the two of them run through the Death Star, finally reaching an infamous dead end that requires Luke to swing across a chasm with a grappling hook.
And Vader kisses him on the cheek.
For luck.
2. The Knights of Ren: Take Two
I really enjoy the Rise of Kylo Ren comic. I do feel a little silly looking back on how excited I was, because I really did think the comic was going to pave the way for his inevitable - living - redemption, which obviously didn’t happen *insert clown emoji here*.
But that aside, for what it is, I really do enjoy the comic, and not just for the quality Padawan Ben Solo stuff we get, but also because the comic expands on the Knights of Ren as a concept and a group in a way the movies just never do. It always seemed a shame that they were confined to the page, and away from most audiences.
Until now. The first short, “The Lost Boy”, shows Ben’s fall to the Dark side, and his recruitment by the Knights of Ren in a much more child friendly way. 100% more beach dancing, 100% less fighting your best friend to the death.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention Christian Slater’s fantastic take on the leader of the Knights, the man himself, Ren. With the aesthetic of Keifer Sutherland in The Lost Boys, and the attitude of every bad boy you ever saw in an 80’s/90’s movie, I’m hoping when they inevitably do an (animated) canon version of Ben Solo’s story, they bring Christian Slater back to play Ren.
Speaking of Ben Solo...
1. Baby Boy Ben Solo
I’m sure you’re all very shocked that this was my favourite part of the special. It just felt so very personal to have them bring back one of my favourite characters, finally bring the tragedy of his backstory to a wider audience, and clear up misconceptions that I’ve spent too much time trying to correct.
And all this came out on my birthday. Do you see why this felt like it was made for me, personally?
But seriously. I am aware that this is a Lego special, and that Lego specials aren’t “canon”, or even meant to be taken all that seriously. But the strength of the specials is that even though they are meant to be silly, and meta, and for eight year olds, that’s never used as an excuse. The moral might be made a little more explicit, but it’s never dumbed down. And most importantly, they never miss the mark when it comes to the themes in the work.
Nowhere in this special was that better exemplified to me than with “The Lost Boy”. The short leans into the “whiny Ben Solo” jokes (which, really, are a Skywalker family trait). There is even a running gag about the true meaning of the word “Kylo”, which is pretty funny. But on top of that, they aren’t afraid to lean into the voices in his head, the feeling of not belonging, and the Dark side tendencies.
Also, he didn’t blow up the temple. He was trying to save it. And that’s actually canon.
There’s also something to be said for Poe hearing this story when he has the most reason to be skeptical about the kind of person Kylo Ren used to be. It’s not mentioned again, but it could be. There’s at least one version of Poe Dameron that knows the whole story, albeit a version of it with an 80s montage. I personally think there’s enough in Ben’s onscreen story to warrant a redemption arc, but I get that not everyone feels that way. Those that weren’t already invested in the character’s redemption usually find their hearts softened at least a little by learning this part of the story, so *puts conspiracy hat on* this is how they’re paving the way to bring him back. I’m calling it now.
All this to say, I loved Lego Star Wars: Terrifying Tales. I hope they make more specials, and I can’t wait for the day when the Sequel Trilogy characters - all of them - make a comeback.
