The LEGO Star Wars: Ahsoka sets are victims of spoiler culture

18/10/202321/10/2023 Chris Wharfe 16178 Views 0 Comments

Star Wars: Ahsoka’s first season has now wrapped up, so it’s the perfect time to reassess its initial wave of tie-in LEGO sets and see whether they’ve done justice to the Disney+ series…

The LEGO Group doesn’t necessarily have the best hit rate with sets based on new Star Wars movies or TV shows, often struggling with at least one of timing, accuracy or even the breadth of its merchandise. But it’s fair to say we’ve come a long way from The Mandalorian Season 1, when 75292 The Razor Crest crawled on to shelves months after the first episode aired.

So while we’re still waiting on spoiler-heavy Mando Season 3 sets, and Andor appears to be done and dusted with only 75338 Ambush on Ferrix, the LEGO Star Wars team has rocketed out of the gate with a trio of tie-in products for Star Wars: Ahsoka. 75357 Ghost & Phantom II, 75362 Ahsoka Tano’s T-6 Jedi Shuttle and 75364 New Republic E-wing vs. Shin Hati’s Starfighter all debuted only a week after the latest show from a galaxy far, far away premiered on Disney+.

When those ships were first unveiled, the response from the community was generally positive. The T-6 shuttle’s compromises for its budget were met with hesitancy, but the Ghost was welcomed with open arms nearly a decade after the original version, and the bright colours that permeate the entire wave were seen as a breath of fresh air among an increasingly grey LEGO Star Wars line-up. The minifigures were just the icing on the cake.

But now that we’ve all had chance to watch the entire first season of Star Wars: Ahsoka, just how well did the LEGO Group actually manage to cover the major ships, storylines and characters from Dave Filoni’s secret fifth season of Star Wars Rebels? We’ve revisited the three sets so far to find out…

Spoilers follow for the entire first season of Star Wars: Ahsoka.

75362 Ahsoka Tano’s T-6 Jedi Shuttle

Where something like 75346 Pirate Snub Fighter has drawn criticism for only appearing very briefly in The Mandalorian Season 3, it’s difficult to pull 75362 Ahsoka Tano’s T-6 Jedi Shuttle up on relevancy. This is a ship that appeared in essentially every episode of the first season, and is effectively the home base of the lead character. We spend plenty of time aboard the T-6 shuttle, so it’s great that it has its own LEGO set.

You can’t actually have the three hero minifigures spend any time aboard it, though, because the punishingly small budget allocated to 75362 Ahsoka Tano’s T-6 Jedi Shuttle has transformed it from the equivalent of the Millennium Falcon into a one-man fighter. A shuttle that can’t actually shuttle anyone around is… not a shuttle? Props for the minifigures though, because everyone here played a key role in Ahsoka – even if Marrok’s was ‘cannon fodder’ – and the designs are pretty much all on point.

Hits	Misses
Four relevant characters	Cockpit can only seat one minifigure
Prominent ship	No interior

75364 New Republic E-wing vs. Shin Hati’s Starfighter

At no point in Star Wars: Ahsoka did a New Republic E-wing ever face off against Shin Hati in her starfighter, so the very premise of 75364 New Republic E-wing vs. Shin Hati’s Starfighter is questionable. But both of these ships did at least show up in the series – even if the E-wing only had a token appearance – and it’s pretty clear at this stage that Disney is hesitant to share any kind of meaningful story details with its merchandising partners.

That’s presumably how we ended up this set, anyway. It doesn’t feel like the most relevant place for Baylan Skoll or Morgan Elsbeth to appear, but their minifigures were necessary, and it never hurts to get more generic pilots or droids. Like 75348 Mandalorian Fang Fighter vs. TIE Interceptor, this is more of a fun toy than a direct tie-in for its source material – light on spoilers, heavy on action – so you probably won’t be rushing out to buy it as a result of watching Ahsoka. But you will want the minifigures…

Hits	Misses
Two ships that make for great LEGO models	Low-stakes set to avoid spoilers
Three main characters, two welcome randos	Less tie-in, more toy

75357 Ghost & Phantom II

Proving you can’t have everything, the set everyone was most looking forward to from the Ahsoka wave is also the one with perhaps the least interesting minifigures. Hera Syndulla and Chopper’s return to the LEGO Star Wars line-up is to be celebrated, and Lt. Beyta’s re-use of the Mon Calamari head is fun, but Jacen Syndulla’s hair is the wrong colour, and First Officer Hawkins is not what you’d call an especially memorable addition to Star Wars canon.

All praise to the ship, then, which – like the series itself – benefits massively from Star Wars Rebels nostalgia. The Ghost and Phantom II both had surprisingly little screen time throughout Ahsoka, which would typically count against 75357 Ghost & Phantom II, but the pedigree both these ships have elsewhere made them an obvious candidate for this launch wave (again, avoiding any heavy spoilers).

Hits	Misses
Relevant subject matter, if only for nostalgia	Didn’t have a tonne of screentime
A couple of cool characters	TLG didn’t get the memo about Jacen’s hair

LEGO Star Wars Ahsoka set accuracy

Individually, each of the three LEGO Star Wars sets released for Ahsoka has its strengths and weaknesses. But how well do they fare as a collective reflection of the eight-episode series?

Looking at the three sets together, there’s a clear divide that jumps out: this is the most comprehensive approach to a Star Wars show’s minifigures as we’ve seen from an initial wave, with zero duplicates and almost every main character covered… at least for the first half of the season. The ships, by comparison, feel like low-stakes filler intended to sell these characters without spoiling any major moments from the show.

It’s difficult to lay the blame for any of that at the LEGO Group’s door, though, because it really has no choice but to work around the culture of heavily-guarded secrets that permeates Lucasfilm (no spoilers, thanks). Anakin Skywalker and Ezra Bridger were both kept under wraps until their respective first appearances, for example, while Grand Admiral Thrawn’s particular role in the series was unknown (even if he was revealed in a trailer).

When Filoni et al are being so protective over their stories, we could hardly expect these initial LEGO Star Wars sets to tackle those characters – which has pretty much been the case since The Force Awakens arrived on screens in 2015. The spoiler-heavy merch comes later (like 75324 Dark Trooper Attack, which was designed after the LEGO Group watched Luke Skywalker’s cameo in The Mandalorian Season 2 with the rest of us).

So within the confines of what was actually possible, the first wave of Star Wars: Ahsoka sets starts to look stronger. Getting so many characters right off the bat – while we still only have three minifigures from Andor, and too many Beskar Mandos to know what to do with – is a real novelty, and it’s easy to excuse the relevance (or lack thereof) of the sets when they do make for genuinely fun toys.

Plus, there’s a healthy contingent of veteran Star Wars fans who will surely be only too happy to see the E-wing fully realised in canon – and as a LEGO set…

The only real sticking point we’re left with is that 75362 Ahsoka Tano’s T-6 Jedi Shuttle deserved a higher budget to make it an actual shuttle, but maybe that’s what the inevitable UCS set will be for. (Hey, we got Mando’s ship-cum-home – why not Ahsoka’s?)

All three LEGO Star Wars: Ahsoka sets are available to order now from LEGO.com. You can support the work that Brick Fanatics does by purchasing your copies using our affiliate links below.

75357 Ghost & Phantom II
75362 Ahsoka Tano’s T-6 Jedi Shuttle
75364 New Republic E-wing vs. Shin Hati’s Starfighter

If you’re looking for the best prices on these sets, check out our Black Friday page for all the latest deals in the weeks to come. You can also browse the best LEGO Ahsoka Black Friday deals and the best LEGO Star Wars Black Friday deals.

Author Profile

Chris Wharfe

I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.