20 YEARS OF LEGO STAR WARS

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Via Starwars.com:

TWO DECADES AFTER STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE, LEGO STAR WARS LIVES ON.

Twenty years ago, on the eve of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace — the start of an all-new Star Wars trilogy chronicling the fall of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire — two worlds collided. Lucasfilm’s licensing division sought a whole new universe of colorful merchandise to delight fans and drum up excitement for Episode I, and there was one toymaker that presented an especially awesomeopportunity: the LEGO Group. The multi-colored bricks, minifigures, and playsets of LEGO Group’s unique world were, after all, an entire galaxy of their own. Here was a brand that empowered children (and people of all ages) to create and tell stories on a canvas that combined the act of building with the raw power of imagination.Now, two decades later, LEGO Star Wars is one of the most recognizable toy lines to ever exist. There have been full-length films and TV series featuring Star Warscharacters in LEGO form; there’s an entire video-game franchise based on the partnership; there have been LEGO kits depicting events from nearly every canonical Star Wars movie and show to date. Several select models and playsets were recently released to celebrate the 20th anniversary of LEGO Star Wars.

To mark the occasion, StarWars.com spoke with Design Director Jens Kronvold Frederiksen, who’s been a part of the legendary collaboration since 1998.

StarWars.com: Looking back, what can you recall about the very beginning of the partnership?

Jens Kronvold Frederiksen: When I started at LEGO in 1998, one of the first things that I saw were some draft models of LEGO Star Wars. And I have to say, I was totally surprised, and very, very curious what that was about. There wasn’t a contract yet, but it was in negotiations. So, obviously, all the designers at LEGO were working on sketch models to see what this could look like from a product point of view.

StarWars.com: Did things start with the sets for The Phantom Menace, or were you focused on doing the X-wing and such at first?

Jens Kronvold Frederiksen: It was before The Phantom Menace, and that was a big part of it. It was really good timing. From the beginning, the intention was that LEGO would launch products related to that new movie. And there were several other models that we launched around the same time — the X-wing and so on — that kind of just had to be made. At the time, it was a bit of a controversial thing at LEGO, because of having a new product line with “wars” in the title; we hadn’t been making anything related to war. Models had to be either realistic, very historic, or fantasy, so it was still controversial when it came up. When the first sets were made, we didn’t even make implements for the blasters. It was just a megaphone turned backwards, with a colored stud on the end.

StarWars.com: These days, we’re seeing things like The LEGO Batman Movie and The LEGO Movie 2, which sort of owe their existence to those late-’90s Phantom Menace sets. When you first saw LEGO getting involved in the licensing world, what were your hopes for the idea?

Jens Kronvold Frederiksen: Like many other people, for me it was a dream come true. Because two of my favorite things were being joined together. But if you asked me at the time, I would never have imagined that it was something that would become an evergreen LEGO line and it would exist for 10 or 20 years continuously. It’s become one of the longest-living LEGO product lines.

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