TV Review: LEGO Star Wars Summer Vacation

Best vacation ever? If getting everything you wanted and everything you didn’t know you were missing in one 45 minute package makes it the best vacation ever then consider this a resounding yes. 

LEGO Star Wars Summer Vacation is the latest brick-tastic holiday special to hit Disney+, following in the grand tradition of the Holiday Special and Terrifying Tales in following Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose after the events of the Rise of Skywalker. Rather than concerning themselves with deep lore and action sequences in and around the character building, however, these specials use their limited runtime to just get to the true heart of the characters, and Summer Vacation does this best of all. 

The special opens with the gang — along with Chewie, BB-8, R2-D2 and C-3P0 — heading for a much needed vacation onboard the Halcyon cruiser. Finn is the one most keen for them to all spend time together before they go their separate ways to pursue their own post-war endeavours but of course things immediately go awry. 

The second she gets a sunhat on her head, Rey peaces out to go read by the pool (which honestly, same), and Poe goes into vacation planning overdrive, complete with scheduled breaks (also same). Absolutely unwilling to get swept up in Hurricane Dameron, Rose and Chewie make a break for it while Finn is off getting their room keys, meaning by the time he returns, there is not a soul in the Starcruiser lobby that he actually knows. 

Dejected, he heads for the lounge, where the bartender makes him a custom, bright-green cocktail that looks like a glass full of absinthe. But rather than seeing little green fairies, Finn is instead visited by Force ghosts. Three of them, to be precise. And each of them have a story to tell about a vacation gone wrong.

The first, Obi-Wan Kenobi, appears to him almost immediately. Finn lights up at the pronouncement that Obi-Wan is there to see a Jedi in need, and that he means Finn and not Rey. The second ghost to visit is Anakin Skywalker in full scuba gear, while the third is Leia (“General Organa to you”). All of them come visit Finn to tell a story of a vacation gone wrong and impart a little wisdom along the way. While they all tie into a deeper message for Finn, which we’ll get to later, each of them was a sweet vignette in their own right: 

Obi-Wan Explores Fake Marriages — and Karaoke

Once, on Tattooine sometime after he returned Princess Leia to Alderaan, Obi-Wan Kenobi was just minding his own business in the cantina when in bursts Colvette Valeria (from LEGO Freemaker Adventures which I should really watch at some point) on the run from the Empire. She quickly lies and says that Obi-Wan is her husband and asks him to play along, which he does. 

Fake marriage tropes?? In my LEGO Star Wars? This short really is the gift that keeps on giving. 

Because Obi-Wan is bored with very little to do, he agrees to accompany Valeria to Jabba the Hutt’s birthday party so she can steal a shipment of coaxium for the rebels. Life and death as this mission might seem, it also gives us Hawaiian shirt Obi-Wan singing a song about Gamorrean girls.

While Valeria manages to get the coaxium, Obi-Wan’s overzealous performance accidentally reveals the plan to everyone and the two make a break for it, with Boba Fett in hot pursuit, though they manage to evade him. I also have to say that I certainly wasn’t expecting a reference to the Book of Boba Fett, but hearing the theme song played while he chased them made me nostalgic for this past winter.

Even though Obi-Wan opts to stay behind on Tatooine instead of joining the rebels — he has Luke to watch after all — he still looked like he had a great time getting involved in “that sort of thing”, which means there’s plenty of scope for a Tatooine-focused Obi-Wan Kenobi season 2, should anyone want to take that route…

It’s a Scarif Beach Party

Darth Vader and Palpatine on the beach? What a delightful premise.

I adore the LEGO version of Darth Vader. He reminds me of Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas & Ferb in a way I can’t quite explain, but which I know to be true. He’s a sweet, grumpy dork of a man who is 100% over Palpatine and his drama, and who is just trying his best.

In the short, the two of them are looking to celebrate Empire Day in a way that is unique, since Palpatine isn’t enjoying the usual festivities on Coruscant. The two of them head for the beaches of Scarif for some fun in the sun — complete with the musical stylings of Vic Vanko and his incredibly catchy “Scarif Beach Party” track. 

Of the three stories, this one is definitely the silliest, but I am always pro-LEGO Vader and pro-Weird Al, so I have no complaints. 

Ben Solo Flies the Freaking Falcon

I think anyone who knows me knows this was the part I was looking forward to the most. Yes, Obi-Wan is my favorite character but we’re just coming off of an incredible 6-part series all about him, and I am starved for Baby Ben Solo content. 

The short follows the Solo family taking a last holiday before Ben goes off for Jedi training. Bored with Han’s attempts to walk him through his past, Ben asks if they can do something fun instead, when Han suggests a stop at a resort on Endor. 

While Han and Leia are distracted by the resort owner, Ben gets the chance to hang out with the owner’s very pretty, slightly older daughter, and is absolutely smitten like the dork he is. When a local teenage hotshot challenges Ben and tells him he’s lying about having ever piloted the Falcon, Ben takes his new friends on board to prove him wrong — never mind that he’s never actually piloted the Falcon. Naturally things go wrong, and they wind up caught in Death Star debris, meaning Ben has to pilot the Falcon to safety. 

That’s right, LEGO did what JJ Abrams could not and let Ben Solo actually fly the Millenium Falcon. And then they had the segment end with both of Ben’s parents telling him they love him. They all even hug! No I’m not crying I just have a porg in my eye.

What this all comes to, in the end, is Finn learning to enjoy the moment and to let go. This ends with him admitting to Leia that he is worried about him and his friends going their separate ways. Change is a natural thing to fear, particularly for someone like Finn who has seen so much of it. Naturally Leia assures him that he has nothing to worry about, and the special ends on an upbeat note.

Nearly two years removed from the first LEGO Star Wars special, I still can’t believe quite how lucky we are. It was always going to be a thankless task to continue the story after things got convoluted (to say the least) following The Rise of Skywalker. But because these specials are so short, and aimed at a slightly broader audience, they can very effectively distill the characters down to their cores, and by the end of the special have provided a path forward for each of them. The way it ends, with talk of separation, and things coming to an end makes me think this is the last one planned. I suppose the desire for trilogies persists no matter the medium. I hope they come back, but if not…

Listen, I know these specials aren’t technically “canon,” but from a certain point of view these events could have happened. And by extension, plenty of stories could be told with Poe Dameron training X-Wing pilots (does he love it or hate being a teacher because he’s no longer a hot shot?), or Rose leading relief missions and getting to do something that she passionately believes in. Neither of them had much to go on in Episode IX, but these next steps feel logical. Granted Rose doesn’t get a ton of time in the specials either, they still understand her and her heart so, so well.

Finn’s declaration that he’s going to go out in search of others who are like him, and Force sensitive, feels like the best possible meeting of his Jedi abilities and the desire so many of us had to see him lead a stormtrooper rebellion. This isn’t quite that, but whose to say one can’t lead to the other? 

And as for Rey? Her mission is not to start a training temple or take an apprentice, but to go out and see the galaxy, exploring the Unknown regions for Jedi temples. This was the best kind of closure I could have gotten for Rey, a character I adore. It saddened me to think of a “happy” ending for her being grounded on one planet, pulled into the machinations of another system (even a chosen one like the Jedi Order). Yes it would be cool for her to take on a student as a master, but she’s barely had time to see how wide and beautiful the galaxy can be. She has a curious mind, and knowing it’s going to be fed is intensely satisfying. 

Speaking of satisfying. I did not understand the full depths of my lack of closure following The Rise of Skywalker until I saw Ben Solo appear in ghost form beside Leia, who fondly takes his hand while they smile at each other. I did not realize how badly I needed to see Ben and Leia reunited, and to get some kind of moment where the story explicitly acknowledged that Leia loves her son, and knows he turned and did the right thing in the end. He’d been alone for so much of his story, and all she ever wanted was for him to come home. Their wordless smiles as Ben reached for his mother did wonders to heal a wound I didn’t realize my heart was carrying in the first place.

However, I am still wearing my clown makeup and my tinfoil hat and proclaiming to anyone who will listen that Ben Solo will return someday in corporeal form. Maybe that’s something Rey will figure out on her trip to the Unknown Regions while she’s looking for old temples. Because if you think he’s not following her out there on that mission, you would be sorely mistaken. They finally get some proper alone time without the threat of death over their heads.

No one is doing it like LEGO Star Wars. Just 7 years after the Sequel Trilogy began, and 3 years after it came to an end, the little cartoon bricks remain dedicated to telling the story of Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, Rose Tico and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo. A new generation was gifted with Star Wars characters to call their own and was forced to say goodbye to them far too quickly as far as canon stories were concerned. But with LEGO in our corner, these new characters - and those of us who love them - have been gifted with stories, with moments and with closure they and we deserve. It’s also refreshing to see a story that truly encompases all of Star Wars storytelling: the animated series, the live-action series, the saga films of course, but also references to Rogue One and Solo. Really, I think all we were missing was a reference to The High Republic and we would have been completely set.

The beach ball is in the other court now to see if these threads Finn laid out will be picked up and continued, but I know in my heart this won’t be the last time we see this group. I guess you could say I’ve got a good feeling about this. 

LEGO Star Wars Summer Vacation is streaming now on Disney+