Even more mash-ups and hilarity are in store for fans as four new parts debut on Disney+ this week.
For LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy - Pieces of the Past, the four piece sequel series that follows the events of last year’s LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy, the goal was clear: take more risks, include more new characters (‘Hello there’ evil Obi-Wan!), and keep the spirit of Star Wars at the heart of the story while enjoying the unique elements of the LEGO universe.
Returning stars Gaten Matarazzo and Tony Revolori, who play brothers Sig and Dev Greebling (AKA Darth Dev) in both series, fully embraced their chance to build on the brotherly bond they developed over the first four piece set. A big part of that was recording together — something the pair didn’t get a chance to do the first go-round. “It was complicated to arrange everyone's schedule at the same time,” writer and executive producer Benji Samit tells StarWars.com, “but we made an effort to be able to record them together, and it made their chemistry pop even more.”
And after seeing how much fans loved Rebuild the Galaxy, Revolori felt comfortable taking more risks. In the recording booth for the sequel, which premieres on Disney+ September 19, Revolori says he realized, “I can relax a little bit. I can play a little bit more.”
Bigger swings the second time around
Being open to ideas from the cast and crew was important to Samit and co-writer and fellow executive producer Dan Hernandez. “I think one of the beautiful things about having continuity when you've worked together before is that then people do feel more comfortable and that extends not just to the actors but to the production, the animation team, Chris Buckley our director, everyone,” says Hernandez, who has a long-standing partnership with Samit. “We want to elevate everyone else’s ideas. They have spent years perfecting their craft. If they have an instinct, we should follow it; 99% of the time, something amazing comes out of it.”
“There were times where Tony would do an amazing take, and we thought ‘All right, we got it,” says Samit, “and Tony would say, ‘No, I'm gonna go again. I know what I need to do.’ And he would do one more take, and it would be even better. Everyone was on the same page about wanting this to be as good as it could possibly be.”
One detail from Pieces of the Past that wasn’t in the script was Sig’s orange-colored lightsaber blade, an idea that came from Matarazzo himself. After going down a rabbit hole (we’ll get to Jaxxon later) of past Star Wars storytelling, Matarazzo was drawn to the idea of an orange lightsaber. “I thought, ‘You know what, that feels like Sig’s vibe.' I think it just looks kind of cool.”
While the zaniness of LEGO Star Wars and characters like Darth Jar Jar will always be a large part of its appeal, Matarazzo and Revolori agreed that the success of Rebuild the Galaxy comes from the story being, at its core, pure Star Wars. For Pieces of the Past Matarazzo was ready to ramp things up. “I was really ready to lock in plot wise,” he says, “and really excited to see where Sig was going to go on his journey to be a different kind of Jedi Knight in a different kind of galaxy.”
Revolori enjoyed digging deeper into his character Dev Greebling who took a turn to the dark side as Darth Dev in Rebuild the Galaxy. “What he really wants and longs for is family,” Revolori says. “He's going about it the wrong way to make the universe his so that way he can feel connected to everyone and he doesn't have to be alone. So, what he's doing is not inherently wrong, what he wants. He's just going about it the wrong way.”
Making the impossible possible
When asked by a friend where LEGO Star Wars fit on the timeline, Revolori had the perfect response: “Nowhere and everywhere.” LEGO Star Wars stories color outside the usual lines, a special part of the experience for everyone involved. In early talks, Samit remembers focusing on something the writers would love to see that they couldn’t imagine happening in a traditional Star Wars story. “The thing we honed in on is this may be the only opportunity to ever see the Skywalker family unit, to get all four of them interacting with each other. It felt like something that maybe we could be the only ones to show that to the fans and to ourselves.”
As Padmé Amidala wasn’t in Rebuild the Past’s first four episodes, Pieces of the Past creators had to find a way to add her to this story and explain where she’s been. Their answer? Pirates! “Pirates are such a big part of Star Wars,” notes Samit, “but we wanted to do our fun more LEGO-ish take and that's where she came from.”
In addition to grouping characters together from different eras, Pieces of the Past brings in several new-to-LEGO Star Wars characters that have their own devoted fan bases. Darth Revan, who debuted in the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and most recently appeared in the mobile game Galaxy of Heroes, joins in on the fun as well as feisty green rabbit Star Wars comics fans know very well.
“Dan is a big comic book collector and we had this moment of, ‘Well, if anyone can bring Jaxxon [to the screen], it's kind of us’,” says Samit. “When we did Darth Jar Jar in the first series, again, it was like this may be the only way that it ever happens." The character was so popular, he later appeared in Fortnite. "So it's that sort of excitement. What are the things that we would be excited to see? Because if we're excited, the fans probably would be too.”
The LEGO of it all
Samit, Hernandez, and Pieces of the Past director Chris Buckley wanted to make sure the LEGO part of their Star Wars story was as realistic as possible, down to adding scratches and fingerprints onto LEGO blocks. “Every build you see, there's no LEGO pieces that don't fit together properly in this entire series,” says Samit. “That was important to all of us. How can we plus the LEGO and plus the Star Wars even more than we did the first time around. That was kind of what was in front of our mind for this.”
Making themselves and the audience laugh and have fun was also key to Samit and Hernandez. “We wanted to recreate that feeling of taking your bin of LEGO and dumping it on the ground and playing with it,” says Samit. “ And no two people — kids, adults, anyone, — play the same way. That's the fun of it. Everyone creates their own story, and we wanted to make that feeling come to life.” As an added bonus, the writing duo got to visit the LEGO headquarters to help bring Rebuild the Galaxy LEGO sets to store shelves. “That was one of the magical things about this experience,” says Hernandez. ”Being involved in the design of LEGO sets was something that I never thought I would be a part of in my life. And, yet, there I was in Denmark a year ago.”
Looking back, Hernandez and Samit credit the connection and love fans have for both LEGO and Star Wars as key to the success of Rebuild the Galaxy. “I think the reason that all the LEGO content is so well received is that it is spiritually Star Wars to its core,” says Hernandez. “Yes, it's anarchic and funny and sort of purposely off kilter, but it's Star Wars identifiably. At a certain point, you kind of forget you're in a LEGO form, and you realize you’re enjoying a great Star Wars story.”
Reunite with Sig Greebling, his brother Dev, Jedi Bob, and their friends in LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy - Pieces of the Past, now streaming on Disney+.
