LEGO Star Wars 75279 - Advent Calendar 2020 (311 pieces)

Product Information

The added extra bonus with this Star Wars advent calendar is the rollout playmat of the Ahch-to-island scene. Once all 24 doors have been opened, you can roll out the mat and get playing on Christmas day. This year’s Friends Advent Calendar seems to resolve several disappointing aspects from earlier years. Firstly, it includes a play scene mat, meaning Friends has finally joined the rest of the advent calendars to provide for inbuilt play and/or display. This is a great improvement. The play scene print provides play areas for three locations: Emma’s room, Santa’s toy workshop and a winter wonderland. This maximizes the play options and ties together nicely the surprises behind each door. Overall, it gives an impression of a cohesive design. The Mandalorian has been an absolute delight for Star Wars fans, and has truly breathed in new life into the franchise, taking it to new heights and personally, has made me fall in love with Star Wars all over again, after being tired out by the sequels. These Droid Control Ships were absoutely gargantuan, teeming with all sorts of Droids, MTTs, Vulture Droids, Armoured Assault Tanks and everything else in the Trade Federation’s arsenal to wage war against the Republic.

Droid-fans were feasting this year, with a great selection of Droids – with a festive D-0 and Snowman Gonk Droid taking the take. With the bar being set now with Festive Gonk Droids, I’m expecting one next year as well. The minifigures included in this Advent Calendar really are perfect. The number, with two mini-dolls and two micro-dolls finally provides enough characters to facilitate proper play and story-telling. Both mini-dolls (one of which I won’t spoil but will say that she is an iconic grandmotherly Christmas character) offer something special. That these mini-dolls are obtained behind doors 1 and 24 works really well and indicates to me that the LEGO Group is also considering the door opening sequence in its design. The Porgs have gone through a few minor changes since making their LEGO debut in 2017’s 75200 Ahch-To Island Training set, and now sports a white body.For many models, we’ve been able to see a clear progression of designs, and are often upgrades. Putting them side by side, I think I actually prefer the 2014 version better!

The design is great, capturing the instantly recognizable sphere control bridge in the center, which is encircled by a semi-circle ring. Emma in blue pajamas – It is hard to believe that we have not seen one of the Friends characters in pajamas up until now. How has this taken so long, with so many Friends sets taking place in homes and sleepovers in the clubhouse? What makes Emma’s pair of pajamas all the more perfect is that these are not Christmas-themed, so can be used year round. Let’s hope 2021 will deliver us the whole Friends gang in pajamas. It seems perfect given 2020 also brought us the mini-figure girl in pajamas in mini-figures series 20 (71027-15). Emma’s accessory is a hairbrush (3852b) which is probably a small disappointment given how commonly this is included in Friends sets, however it does fit in with the pajamas outfit. It was always a big ask to follow Day 2’s excellent Poe Dameron, but I daresay the micro Lars Homestead is going to please a lot of Original Trilogy Star Wars fans!Also known as the Consular Class Cruiser, this sleek and narrow cruiser was used by the Republic to ferry Jedi and Diplomats across the galaxy. In the Phantom Menace, it was the ship that Obi Wan and Qui Gonn used to meet with the Trade Federation. While I still wish we had gotten Rey with a yellow lightsaber, the standouts are undeniably Darth Vader and Poe Dameron with their festive Christmas jumpers. We last saw an A-Wing Starfighter in the 2015 Advent Calendar, and the entire look is a massive upgrade. This has been a particularly solid year for minifigures, with a rich helping of main characters, and useful army-builder types like the Battle Droid, Stromtrooper and Sith Trooper – literally no filler at all. There are 7 LEGO minifigures/figures/droids in this festive calendar: The Mandalorian and the Child (Grogu), affectionately known as Baby Yoda, both in festive outfits, plus a Scout Trooper, Stormtrooper, Tusken Raider, IG-11 and IT-O Interrogator Droid. Children will also love building and playing with mini builds such as The Razor Crest, TIE Fighter, Tusken ballista snow launcher, training targets and the Child’s hoverpram.

The calendar has an assortment of fan favourite and recognisable characters from the Star Wars extended universe. Children will be able to play with figurines of Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, Ahch-To Island, Poe’s X-wing, a Quadjumper and Stormtroopers, along with a selection of weapons and vehicles. What are my favorites? I hate to say it but 3 of my top four are ‘things on a table’ builds! This really is a reflection of how limited some of the other builds were. Despite the large minifigure count this set contains a lot of repeated pieces and figures coming with just 3 exclusive pieces to date. Despite this there are still some great additions to this set. Fans of The Mandalorian are absolutely going to be delighted with Day 5’s build, and if you’ve been watching The Mandalorian religiously, the timing of this certainly does seem very fitting!

Conclusion

I’m really pleased that we got a Mandalorian build in this Advent Calendar, and I’ll be honest, it’s going to be really hard to top the Razor Crest!

This year, in addition to Star Wars, I’ll also be counting down the 2020 Friends and Harry Potter Advent Calendar, which you can follow along as well.It’s cute, and joins D-O and the Battle Droid to beef up the “Droid Contingent” of the Advent Calendar. Pit Droid– While this set comes with four buildable figs / creatures, there’s really only one that stands out to me and that’s the Pit Droid from the original Episode 1, Phantom Menace. I’ve seen several variations on this and have a loaded pit full of the original ones from 20 years ago, I think this version is really well done and makes nice use of parts in reddish brown. D-O is a wheely (sorry) cute droid, made up of a single wheel, and a cone-shaped head that zips around. This version from the LEGO Star Wars Holidsy Special has a Santa Hat attached, making him all ready for Christmas Life Day! And there we have it, an epic conclusion to what is undeniably THE best LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar ever. I’ve been doing this countdown since 2014, and I have to say that 2020 has been such an enjoyable calendar, that hasn’t missed a beat since the A-Wing Starfighter popped out on Day 1. Each of the Lego advent calendars listed has different recommended ages in which they are suitable. Most of these ages are from between 5 years old and 7 years old up. All the calendars are gender-neutral making them the perfect choice if you are looking for a boys Lego advent calendar or a girls Lego advent calendar. Lego Advent Calendars For Boys