Review: Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales ”Exit from Endor”

Can this become the official theatrical cut for The Phantom Menace?

 

When I was handed this special, I was a bit tremulous. Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales. “Star Wars… Droids…”

No, not that Droids.

Let’s see the title

Exit from Endor–

Droids and Endor. I was expecting cavities. Somewhere in the time between reading the title and watching the opening of the special, I failed to notice the operative word: LEGO.

Well why didn’t you say that sooner? So I was a little gun shy, I admit.

I’ve never played the LEGO Star Wars games, though a few of the actual toy sets have crossed my path, and I loved The LEGO Movie. From clips of the games I’ve seen over the last couple of console generations, Exit From Endor captures the irreverence of the LEGO franchise, and just LEGO in general: not only is the end of Return of the Jedi turned into a house party, but Admiral Ackbar is going around like he’s the Futurama parody of Richard Nixon.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect from this after months of the grimmer, more serious Clone Wars, Rebels, and the comics. Fortunately, before I can put my nerd cap on, Exit From Endor starts the ball rolling: LEGO!Luke meets the LEGO!Force Ghosts of Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Hayden Christenson. Not a new joke, but then Mace Windu and Palpatine arrive… and Luke is even more confused. This is the first of several jokes pointing out the clashes between the two film trilogies.

But nit-picking continuity is not nearly as fun as retelling it!

On Endor, R2-D2 and C-3PO, like good droids, are the only ones cleaning up after the celebration, and they have to hurry because Admiral Ackbar needs the pair for an important mission in the morning. Sounds like a perfect time for his owners to make him tell them about all that stuff that happened before their dad took over the Galaxy.

What follows, if you haven’t seen the Prequel Trilogy, is a fairly accurate summary of the first two films, up to and including the actual audience reactions. No one knows how or why any of this started. Something about trade? No one cares about Anakin and Padme’s wedding when there’s Clone Wars to talk about. Just like the movies!

If we take Threepio’s narration as his interpretation of the first three films, you get the impression that he knew exactly what was going on the entire time, and must have an iron will to have never commented on it. The protocol droid isn’t as dumb as his antics lead us to believe.

Threepio’s almost Shakespearean role in the Star Wars saga. He sometimes speaks for the audience, sometimes to the audience, and he does his best to make us laugh. Now Threepio has gone from chorus to comic relief, to audience stand-in to now narrator. In 30 minutes, your kid will have a passing knowledge of the prequels, and you’ll have won them over to Star Wars without sitting through Attack of the Clones. For that alone, you’ll want to watch Exit From Endor.

Exit From Endor is more Star Wars than LEGO, and contains more than a dash of Futurama in the joke department. While rule of cool sets the tone, the special does preserve many of the dynamics of all the Prequel characters while stripping out the drama that would otherwise bog the story down for younger viewers: the Jedi are too into being Jedi to notice Palpatine is evil yet no one notices. Anakin is a brat. Jar Jar’s antics are reduced to brief cutaways of him being blown up.

Is LEGO Star Wars: Droids Tales new or original? No. Anyone over the age of ten with a love of Star Wars has asked the same questions and thought the same things about Star Wars continuity. Both Robot Chicken and Family Guy have both mined Star Wars for parody, seasons before either even attempted a full episode parody. This feels more like an abridgment than a parody though, and no TV show that’s done a Star Wars parody would ever deign to touch Prequel-era stuff. That is this special’s strength though. The Prequels aren’t on the same pedestal, and moreover, the prequels lend themselves to farce, and Exit From Endor jumps on it.

Watching this special will give you more or less how someone watching Episodes I and II felt, while sparing you six hours. My only bone to pick is that this is a five-part special. Encapsulating it all in a single episode might have been too much, I suppose, but it almost seemed like they were going to. Now with Disney’s scheduling, it’ll probably be the week before The Force Awakens before we see the conclusion. But I suppose that’s a good problem. I can’t wait to hear C-3PO explain the actual Clone Wars and Episode III.

No seriously, with this, you no longer need to watch Episodes I or II. That’s worth a nine on its own.