Two words strike either fear or delight into the hearts of Star Wars fans – Holiday Special. Back in 2020, the LEGO Group teamed up with Disney to create an animated Holiday Special, one that had nothing to do with the questionable live-action special shown only once back in 1978. Both the original and Disney+ specials celebrated a holiday known as Life Day. The Disney+ Holiday Special Life Day has been given a festive twist to it, nicely connecting it to Christmas. In fact, it inspired some of the content in the 2020 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar. Now it’s also acted as a muse for the first ever retail LEGO Star Wars seasonal set.
Product Details
Set Name: Millennium Falcon Holiday Diorama | Set Number: 40658 | Pieces: 282 | Theme: LEGO Star Wars
RRP: £25.99/$29.99/29.99€ | Number of Bags: Bags x 3 | Instructions: Paper booklet + Builder App | Stickers: N/A | Minifigures: Rey, Finn & Chewbacca plus Porg & BB-8 | Insiders QR: No
Availability: LEGO Stores & LEGO Online between Oct 1st – Dec 31st
Before taking a look at what the set has to offer, it will have limited availability. Once it goes on sale on October 1st, it will only remain on sale until December 31st. So it really is a limited edition release.
The set recreates a slice of the iconic Millennium Falcon ship. Even though this is a small set and it’s covered in festive decorations, you can tell it’s the Falcon thanks to the surroundings of the set. These include part of the familiar circular corridor and a tiny Holochess Table. To connect it to the holidays, the area is kitted out with various festive cheer in the form of a Christmas tree, a snowflake wall decoration and a string of fairy lights. Just as it was shown in the Disney+ special, there’s also a small table of festive food including a roast turkey or it may possibly be a roast Porg, if Chewie was in charge of making dinner. On the back of the set is a small area, in which you can store the two lightsabers.
The set features five characters including Droid BB-8 and a brick-built Porg. These match the designs of other sets, although the BB-8 I got appears to have wonky print detail on the head. Chewbacca is another previously used minifigure and offers nothing unique or different from other sets. Rey and Finn do offer something unique thanks to their festive jumpers or sweaters. These are similar torsos found in the 2020 Advent Calendar. Rey’s green jumper features a ‘knitted’ design depicting the Falcon and Finn’s is a blue jumper complete with Rebel Alliance insignia. Both are similar in design to the torsos featured in the LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendars. Thanks to the set having no stickers, Rey also includes one of the Jedi textbooks, which has a printed cover.
Overall
As mentioned in the introduction, this set is inspired by the animated LEGO Star Wars special released in November 2020. I can only assume someone designed the set a while back and it’s been recently found in a drawer somewhere. Despite the odd timing of the set’s release, it’s a fun little set. I’m surprised it’s taken this long for a seasonal set based on a licence to be released. It’s certainly a concept which could and should become a yearly thing. Little festive scenes featuring well-known characters would make a fun way to mark the festive period. Plus they would provide fun gift ideas. I must also mention the price, this could have easily been given a higher price point but thankfully is fairly sensible. It’s still not cheap but it could have been much worse. The set launches on October 1st and will remain on sale until December 31st, 2023. You can still watch the LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special on Disney+.
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The LEGO Group provided this set for review purposes. The thoughts within this review are those of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
