A controversial LEGO Star Wars minifigure could return in 2023

The LEGO Group is rumoured to be revisiting Jabba’s Palace in 2023 – but will we also see the return of one of LEGO Star Wars’ most controversial characters?

While a Jabba’s Palace set is technically currently on shelves in 75326 Boba Fett’s Throne Room, we haven’t had a LEGO Star Wars model depicting the location as seen in Return of the Jedi since 2012’s 9516 Jabba’s Palace. Rumours suggest that one of this year’s dioramas will depict the space slug on his throne, however, in celebration of the original trilogy closer’s 40th anniversary.

Beyond what else that set might contain – a moulded or brick-built Jabba, the return of Salacious Crumb and Bib Fortuna, and so on – the central question hanging over any such model is of course: will we get a new Huttslayer Leia minifigure?

If you’re not up to date on your Star Wars character lingo, Huttslayer Leia is the adopted term for Princess Leia in her metal bikini from the opening scenes of Return of the Jedi, replacing the more widely-used term ‘Slave Leia’. It was originally suggested by a Star Wars fan on Twitter, before being canonised by Bloodlines author Claudia Grey.

“Not only did I like recasting that outfit as a memory of Leia being really strong and kick-ass, but think about it – for a human being to kill a Hutt with her bare hands? That’s unbelievable,” Gray told Entertainment Weekly in 2016. “Anybody who would be able to pull that off would be remembered for it. That would be legend.”

Huttslayer Leia has appeared in LEGO minifigure form three times in the past couple of decades: first in 2003’s 4480 Jabba’s Palace, before the LEGO Group switched from yellow to skin tones for its licensed characters; next in 2006’s 6210 Jabba’s Sail Barge, now with more accurate skin tones; and most recently (and most authentically) in 2013’s 75020 Jabba’s Sail Barge.

The latter of those minifigures is far and away the most valuable, starting at £82 new on BrickLink. If the LEGO Group includes an updated version of the character in the rumoured Jabba’s Palace diorama, the price of ‘Princess Leia – Slave Outfit’ (as she’s known on the secondary marketplace, which is owned by the LEGO Group) will likely plummet. But what are the odds of that actually happening?

If you believe rumours circulating in 2015, virtually zero. Some sources – including Marvel cover artist J. Scott Campbell – claimed at the time that Disney and Lucasfilm had banned all merchandise related to the costume, which Princess Leia actress Carrie Fisher famously described as ‘what supermodels will eventually wear in the seventh ring of hell’.

Fast forward five years, though, and it looks like those rumours were unsubstantiated: in 2020, Hasbro included Leia in her metal bikini among 10 different options in a fan poll to find its next Black Series Archive figure. She ultimately lost out to Commander Cody, but that the manufacturer was willing and able to produce Huttslayer Leia at all suggests she isn’t off the table altogether.

That means the LEGO Group may at least be similarly able to reintroduce the character to the LEGO Star Wars line-up in 2023. Whether it actually wants to is a different matter entirely. Fisher criticised the outfit again in 2015, telling Rey actress Daisy Ridley: “Don’t be a slave like I was… You keep fighting against that slave outfit,” although she told The Wall Street Journal that same year that controversy around the costume was ‘stupid’.

The image of the princess in a metal bikini chained to a giant space slug is iconic now, and of course that storyline ultimately ends with Leia strangling Jabba to death with those very same chains. But for all the potential baggage attached to the outfit in 2023, the LEGO Star Wars team may choose to just avoid it altogether – which would still be an active choice that would inevitably invite a different kind of controversy.

There probably isn’t a winning card to play here, but if those rumours of a new LEGO Star Wars Jabba’s Palace come to fruition later this year, all the headlines will doubtless focus on the presence (or lack thereof) of Huttslayer Leia. If she is included, let’s hope the LEGO Group is at least shrewd enough to put that name on the box…

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