Major milestones from LEGO Star Wars’ past 25 years

LEGO Star Wars’ 25th anniversary is an impressive milestone for the theme and it’s far from the first major moment in two and a half decades.

Few LEGO themes can say that they’ve lasted over two decades and in 2024, LEGO Star Wars is celebrating 25 years of sets, shows and other projects based on a galaxy far, far away. You can find out more about the anniversary by clicking here.

As you might expect, surpassing 25 years of sets means that LEGO Star Wars has reached more than a few major milestones, including the likes of over 100 sets, over 1,000 different minifigures and more.

Here are a few of these massive moments from 1999 to 2024 to celebrate 25 years of LEGO Star Wars on May the 4th 2024.

The first flesh-toned minifigure

LEGO Star Wars hasn’t always used flesh-tone minifigures. When the theme first started, the characters were depicted with the familiar yellow skin. Eventually, this changed as the LEGO Group embraced realism but the 20th anniversary minifigure collection references the classic designs.

The first LEGO Star Wars set to feature a minifigure with a realistic skin tone is technically 10123 Cloud City from 2003 thanks to the inclusion of Lando Calrissian. That said, the dark-skinned minifigure was the only one to use a realistic skin tone as the rest of the characters (with lighter pigments of skin) were the standard yellow variety.

With that in mind, a more appropriate marker for the milestone of the first flesh-tone minifigure in a LEGO Star Wars set may be 4504 Millennium Falcon from 2004, which included an entirely accurate cast.

When we crossed 100 sets

Today, there are over 900 LEGO Star Wars products and with the rate of sets released per year, we’ll likely hit 1,000 in no time. Before that though, one of the first major milestones for LEGO Star Wars was surpassing 100 sets.

The 100th LEGO Star Wars set to be released is 7257 Ultimate Lightsaber Duel from 2005, featuring a rare play feature that has only returned in a few models since. It’s based on one of the most iconic moments from the prequel trilogy, fitting for the 100th LEGO Star Wars set.

The first non-movie model

LEGO Star Wars sets are mostly based on the recognisable movies of the original, sequel and prequel trilogies and other movies from within their respective eras. That’s not all the content that LEGO Star Wars has had to draw from though as the likes of series, comics and more have all inspired various LEGO Star Wars sets, especially in recent years.

The first LEGO Star Wars build to include a non-movie model is 10131 TIE Fighter Collection. The two TIE Fighters and TIE Advanced have been featured in plenty of movies but the TIE/d Starfighter at the back is from the Dark Empire comic series. It was the start of a long road for expanded universe LEGO Star Wars sets, covering games, shows and even original LEGO Star Wars content.

The launch of LEGO Star Wars games and their respective sets

Another huge moment for LEGO Star Wars was the launch of the first video game in 2005. The legacy of this title and the games that followed it is worth its own report.

Though the first game had no sets to tie into it, this wouldn’t be the same for every LEGO Star Wars title. 30605 Finn (FN-2187) is packaged with the deluxe edition of LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens from 2016 and it would be followed by 30625 Luke Skywalker with Blue Milk with LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga in 2022.

Later this year, an especially touching LEGO Star Wars video game model is going to be included in 75395 Star Wars Advent Calendar 2024 too.

The first comic-con exclusive

LEGO Star Wars has a history with Comic-Con exclusive models, available only to attendees of the San Diego Comic-Con. These have ranged from Microfighters to the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit though the focus of the exclusives shifted to other themes from 2019. Still, two more were planned for the event in 2020 which was cancelled due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

This all started with the 2008 LEGO Star Wars exclusive model. Thankfully, those who missed out on the event didn’t miss too much as the set only includes 2007’s 7654 Droids Battle Pack and 2008’s 7670 Hailfire Droid & Spider Droid, Captain Rex, four Clone Troopers and a poster in a promotional box. It was limited to 1,200 copies.

The first repeated vehicle

Despite the wealth of content to draw upon, it’s inevitable that LEGO Star Wars would have to draw upon some familiar content eventually with a repeated vehicle. Over the past 25 years, we’ve seen countless X-Wings, TIE Fighters and Jedi Starfighters but none of these were the first vehicles to be repeated.

Technically, the first repeat in LEGO Star Wars history happened in the first month of the theme. Both 7131 Anakin’s Podracer and 7171 Mos Espa Podrace were released in April 1999 and included the same build of Anakin’s podracer. LEGO Star Wars’ history of repeated vehicles goes back to the very first day of the theme.

The 1,000th minifigure

LEGO Star Wars features many different minifigures from the past 25 years, depicting Jedi, Sith, droids and everyone in between. At the time of writing, there are 1,330 LEGO Star Wars minifigures, surpassing 1,000 different minifigures.

The 1,000th minifigure is none other than Iden Versio from 75226 Inferno Squad Battle Pack from 2019. This battle pack is based on Star Wars Battlefront 2’s campaign and you can take a closer look at the set and its minifigures by reading our in-depth review. It’s one of the most impressive milestones for LEGO Star Wars and it will be interesting to see how much longer it takes to reach 1,500 and 2,000 minifigures.

To find out everything you need to know about this year’s LEGO Star Wars May the 4th event, be sure to head to our dedicated deals page right here.

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