Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar, Day 16: Clone Pilot

In the regular Lego sets, a clone pilot's head looks like this:

(If you stare at his head long enough, his mouth turns into a mustache, and then he is smiling at you.)

In the advent calendar, the clone's head is just a plain black head. I guess you can't have everything, right?

Clone Pilot:

Lego Clone Pilot:

Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar, Day 15: Republic Gunship

Today's build is a Low Altitude Assault Transport (LAAT), also known as a Republic gunship. I found another really cool microbuild of the Republic gunship, but it's a bit bigger and more involved than the one in the calendar. The building instructions are on brickshelf.com.

There's not much to say about the Republic gunship–it was used to transport troops, was especially easy to maneuver, and had a lot of weaponry on it.

The Republic gunship can be seen in Episodes II and III.

Republic Gunship:

Photo from C4Des.

Lego Republic Gunship:

Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar, Day 14: Mouse Droid

Here are some forms of inter-office communication one might encounter in real life or fiction:

Business: email
Junior high: 5th-period student assistant
University: courier
Mansion: intercom
Star Trek: communicators
Ministry of Magic: paper airplanes
Star Wars: mouse droid

The mouse droid wasn't just for carrying notes around spacecraft though: according to Wookiepedia, it could also be used for sanitation, security (mostly as an alert system, I'm guessing), and navigating troops through Imperial ships to wherever they were needed. Direct quote from Wookiepedia: "Their use was only limited by their owner's creativity."

And here I thought they were just there to feed the cat droids. :o)

You can see mouse droids in Episodes III, IV, V, and VI.

Mouse Droid:

Lego Mouse Droid:

Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar, Day 13: R2-Q5 Astromech Droid

Astromech droids are cute, and Lego astromech droids even more so. R2-Q5 is an astromech droid. You can see him in Return of the Jedi, about three-and-a-half minutes in, if you look closely at the background area as the camera pans over the troops. The Stockholm Droid Factory has a good picture if you want to see where to look.

R2-Q5:

Lego R2-Q5:

Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar, Day 12: Rebel Snowspeeder

The T-47 airspeeder, aka rebel snowspeeder, was seen in Episode V, during the battle on Hoth.

To me, snowspeeders have always resembled some sort of sucker-type animal, or maybe a stingray.

Photo by Kevin Eddy

But maybe that's just me. :o)

Rebel Snowspeeder:

Lego Rebel Snowspeeder:

Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar, Day 11: Pilot Battle Droid

Following the theme of shuttles, starfighters, and other flying things, today's build is a pilot battle droid (not to be confused with the command battle droid, security battle droid, or generic B1 battle droid).

I've always wondered about humanoid droids--is the upright human shape really the most efficient design in terms of mechanics and function? Particularly in the case of a battle droid, I'd think it would make more sense to incorporate weapons into the droid's body structure directly, rather than having it hold the weapon, but that's just me. :o)

OOM-series Pilot Battle Droid:

Lego OOM-series Pilot Battle Droid (with extra arms for carrying weapons or not):

Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar, Day 10: Imperial Shuttle

Apparently this isn't just an imperial shuttle, it's a Lambda-class T-4a shuttle. I never would have guessed. :o)

You've seen the imperial shuttle in Return of the Jedi, when the Emperor visited the second Death Star. It's also the shuttle that Han, Luke, Chewbacca, Leia, and the rest of the strike team used to land on the moon of Endor, which led to the downfall of the Empire. Woohoo!

The coolest thing about this Lego build, in my opinion, is the blue plate which represents the lights on the back of the shuttle.

Imperial Shuttle:

Lego Imperial Shuttle:

Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar, Day 9: X-Wing Starfighter

I've always loved the X-Wing: it's the starfighter Luke flew when he destroyed the first Death Star, it's the starfighter Yoda raised from the murky swamps of Dagobah, it's the starfighter that was used by Rebel pilots in the destruction of the second Death Star, and it pretty much just looks awesome.

Another cool thing about the X-Wing is how the wings can be locked together or spread apart, which Lego captured perfectly in their Day 9 build.

X-Wing Starfighter:

Lego X-Wing Starfighter: