For the last 88 years LEGO, which was founded in a carpenter’s workshop, has concentrated on making toys for children – first it was piggy banks, pull toys, cars and trucks, and houses before moving on to plastic toys and then the automatic binding brick the company has become known for today.
In all that time the focus was on children – until early in 2020 when LEGO performed a small pivot early in 2020 and recognized the importance that adult collectors had on their profit margin.
Using the two big summer conventions of 2019 – Star Wars Celebration Chicago and San Diego Comic-Con – LEGO released two exclusive busts as a marketing trial to judge how well non-traditional Star Wars sets would be received – before announcing their Adult Collector subtheme, which debuted with a selection of buildable helmets.
Coming hot on the heels (after a series of rumors and gaffs by retailers) of three “bucketheadz” was the proclamation of a new Art Decor subtheme, which LEGO launched with two Brick Sketches before the release of the crown jewels of this new line – a range of mosaic sets that included a Star Wars collection featuring not one, not two but three Sith characters.
In the long history of LEGO, mosaics aren’t new to the Star Wars license.Their first, in 2005, was a cross-promotional tie-in for Revenge of the Sith and M&M chocolates and then – after a two year gap – LEGO invited attendees of Star Wars Celebration V in 2010 to help assemble a massive mosaic that marked the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back.
This was followed up in 2012 at a May The 4th Be With You event that asked fans to upload pics of their LEGO Star Wars creations. It wasn’t until 2016 when attendees of LEGO Star Wars Days weekend could take part in a massive The Force Awakens build at LEGOLAND Windsor.
Most recently, a 3D A New Hope theatrical poster at Star Wars Celebration Chicago, the Guinness World Book record holding stormtrooper helmet mosaic made of stormtrooper minifigures, as well as the public build event held at Westfield St Lukes shopping centre in Auckland, New Zealand all helped to last year’s 20th anniversary of the LEGO Star Wars license.
31200 The Sith
If you’re a Star Wars™ fan, this is a great set for you. Create an iconic art piece with this LEGO® Art Star Wars The Sith (31200) set. Enjoy a well-earned break as you make a special display piece for your home or office.
Creative building project
Celebrate the Sith Lords, Darth Maul, Kylo Ren and Darth Vader, with this 3in1 portrait set. If you want more, you can buy and combine 3 sets into an ultimate Darth Vader wall piece. While you build, listen to the included Soundtrack to enjoy details and audio stories linked to the set. Finish the build with the Star Wars signature plate, then display on a wall or shelf.Hands-on, minds on
You don’t need to be a painter or have lots of LEGO models to enjoy building this portrait kit. Once you’re done, you’ll have a piece you can be proud to display. This LEGO set is part of a collection of inspiring building kits for adults interested in pop culture, art, design and architecture. The sets also make a great gift for anyone – including yourself.
- Immerse yourself in this LEGO® Art Star Wars™ The Sith (31200) canvas art set for adults, featuring a model with 3 build options. Display iconic Star Wars Sith Lords on your wall or shelf after you create it.
- Explore your creative ‘dark side’ with a 3,395-piece LEGO® set that includes 9 canvas wall decor plates, a Star Wars™ signature plate, brick-built LEGO frame, unique new hanging element and piece separator.
- Reimagine these epic Sith Lords and relieve stress as you create a unique LEGO® portrait. With the complementary Soundtrack, you can dive deep into the build with fun Star Wars™-related stories and interviews.
- Enjoy the appeal of iconic Sith Lords while building this unique LEGO® kit. To really push your creativity, buy and combine 3 of the sets to create an ultimate Darth Vader wall piece to display in your home or office.
- This 3in1 LEGO® Art set measures over 15.5” (40cm) square. Display it on a wall or shelf, where its details help it stand out. It also makes a great gift for you or another creative builder who may be a Star Wars™ fan.
- No batteries needed. This art set for adults offers an immersive build with LEGO® pieces and the informative Soundtrack. Escape your daily routine, have some creative fun and make an incredible display piece.
- The coffee-table-quality instructions guide you through the project, starting with a deep dive into Darth Vader before you begin building. Enjoy the Soundtrack, made for this LEGO® set, while you assemble the piece.
- Perfect for display on a wall or shelf, this LEGO® Art portrait of iconic Sith Lords offers you a rewarding building experience while you explore your passion for creative arts and crafts.
- LEGO® building pieces meet exacting quality standards, which ensures they are consistent, compatible and work every time – it’s been that way since 1958.
- LEGO® pieces are tested to ensure that every LEGO Art building set meets strict safety standards, helping to ensure that this Star Wars™ The Sith wall decor piece is as robust as it is beautiful.
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| Ages | Pieces | VIP Points | Item | Minifigures | Value |
The first and most obvious feature of this set is that the box it comes in is completely different to any other set – Star Wars or otherwise – that LEGO has ever produced. Long, wide and narow, you’d be excused from thinking a pizza was inside. Unlike most LEGO sets, which depict the model in dynamic, action poses, the exterior artwork simply shows the three different mosaics – with Darth Vader featured in almost 1:1 scale – that can me made from the pices in 31200 The Sith.
The contents of the box are divided into three segments – an internal carton holding the 16 x 16 plates which were speciallycreatedfor these mosaics, the instruciton booklet and a niche containing two dozen or so baggies.
Which brings this review to the second most notable attribute – all the elements are sorted into individual bags, so those builders who sift and arrange their pieces by size, color and shape before they get stuck in are going to save some time.
The often-rectangular instruction booklet is replaced by a perfectly square album – for want of a better word – that highlights each of the three characters by order of their Trilogy, before delivering the builder – who should brace themself for a very different LEGO experience – to the mosaic’s instructions. The third section of the instruction book explains how to reinforce and frame the mosaic while the fourth and final segment is a teaser for the ultimate Sith image instructions which can be made by combining threeseperate 31200 The Sith sets to form a single image of Darth Vader.
The instructions are easy to follow, and each of the nince 16 x 16 plates have a double page spread. The lefthand page depicts the location of the plate in the overall mosaic and shows where to place the Technic connector pins that allow each plate to join to the next one. The righthand page has a key to the different studs, which are placed in a color-by-number approach. It would have been nice if LEGO had thought to only include the necessary colors on this page, but for some reason they didn’t.
It’s at this point the advantage of having each color in a separate bag becomes obvious, and the clever builder will instantly recognise that having a number of small bowls to tip the pieces into will make the buld much easier – while the #LEGOlifehacker would opt for a muffin tray!
Upon starting the build the realisation that there are a number of different ways to approach this unique build, and so The Holo-Brick Archives roped in four volunteers – a cross-sticher, a jig-saw fanatic, a 12 year old and a vanilla AFOL – to see what their shared experiences would be.
Opting for Darth Vader – the second most (J. J. Abrams being the first) villanous persona to be connected to the Skywalker Saga – the four builders set to at their own pace, and employed very different styles: the cross-stitcher worked each color, one by one, as if they had a needle and a thread, the dissectologist worked the edges and then followed patterns, the distincly out-of-his-depth 12 year old treated it like a Lite Brite and worked the brightest colored pieces before attacking the blander ones and the AFOL tackled a quadrant at a time, much like building a regular set.
While the average time to complete a 16 x 16 plate was around half an hour, it was the highly advanced hand/eye skills of the cross-stitcher who brought the average time down, which would have been closer to 45 minutes if the AFOL and child had been allowed to continue.
Thankfully – for the sanity of all participants was at stake – the ambidextrous performance of the needle pointalist brought the mosaic to completion in a reasonable amount of time, and delivered this review to its conclusion without any more waffle.
While these LEGO Art sets might appeal to an adult who wants to enjoy LEGO and explore a new pastime, these aren’t going to have a huge amount of appeal to the average LEGO or Star Wars fan. While I can see the allure of having a unique piece of Star Wars art to hang on the wall, perhaps LEGO might have gone for something more mainstream, like a Star Wars movie poster, instead of something so conceptual.
The next time you are faced with the option of either ironing on a rainy Sunday while watching the same episode of The Nanny over and over again or building a LEGO mosaic, you’ll have a tough time making a decision.
Building a LEGO set should be fun and not a practise in perserverance; and wile the four builders who took part in reviewing 31200 The Sith enjoyed their interaction, they each declared that putting the mosaic of Darth Vader together once (never mind doing it three times) was enough for them.
I wanted to enjoy this new line, and I have to applaud LEGO for accepting that adults are an audience that need catering to, however I can’t condone that LEGO have tapped into the pop cultural aspect of their chosen subjects by selecting themes that can have multiple builds. In doing so LEGO has tried to create an artifical market, and at such an exhorbitant price tag of $119.99 each the likelihood of a LEGO Star Wars fan shelling out nearly $720 to complete all three Sith – plus the ultimate Sith mosaic – is pretty slim.
I expect that stockists will be finding reason to put these on discount before long, and when they do don’t be suprised to see an explosion of expresion.
Maybe it’s because the Star Wars hemisphere in my brain craves the unJedi-like experience of adventure and excitement, or the LEGO part of my 2 x 2 pink brick needs to see the model evolve before me but I can’t give this set a positive review.
As a footnote, I’d like to add that though the end result is most impressive the process to achieve it is more arduous than it needs to be. Should LEGO want to try again, with a 48 x 48 brick base, a mixed bag of 1 x 1 round tiles and just a photograph on the front of the box to go by, I’d be willing to try again too.
Not sure what is happening with LEGO at the moment with Star Wars. They are currently as accurate with their products as Imperial Stormtroopers are with their shooting skills. They are making things that we do want but can’t get without getting a second mortgage to feed the scalpers and then making things like this that nobody really wants. If only there were loads of forums and discussion groups out there with people discussing what they would love to see made and would spend their hard earned cash on that LEGO could have a look at and design sets accordingly…..