Lego Star Wars

Lego Star Wars (stylized as LEGO Star Wars) is a Lego theme based on the Star Wars media franchise created by George Lucas. It includes over 928 Lego building toy sets, 1389 Lego minifigures, an eponymous video game series containing six games, and multiple animated short films and television series.

Originally it was only licensed from 1998 to 2009, but The Lego Group extended the license with Lucasfilm, first until 2011, then until 2016, then again until 2022, and then once more until 2026.

Lego Star Wars is based on the Star Wars saga and franchise. The product line directly focuses on the Star Wars characters from the films and TV Series, with the exception of a few special characters. It was first announced in February 1999 at the North American International Toy Fair, serving as a tie-in to Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, that would be released in May.

The Lego Star Wars designers have revealed how they have "changed strategy" to get popular minifigures into cheaper and more accessible sets. Lego Star Wars Creative Lead Jens Kronvold Frederikcen explained, "We have changed our strategy a little bit over the years," and continued, "Where in the past, we often kept some of them – the most important especially – for the higher prices, we are now thinking young kids, maybe newcomers to Star Wars, want to get into it."

The designers revealed the Force Ghost minifigures as a result of changes to the company's transparent plastic. Creative Lead Jens Kronvold Frederikcen, "The reason for not doing it was that the minifigures are made out of many different types of plastic, because they need to have different abilities and characteristics," Design Director Michael Lee Stockwell explained, "Some have to be flexible, some need to use clutch power and whatnot," and continued, "So the hands are different material than the heads, for example."

Stockwell explained how coming up with playsets based on new shows and movies is trickier than creating vehicles. Referring to a Lego set based on The Mandalorian, Stockwell explained, "We were interested in [the Armourer's forge] already from the first season, but we didn't know enough about the context," and continued, "We didn't know enough of what was happening around this. That's one of the major differences between designing a ship and a playset like this, because it's sometimes easier to understand a ship."

The designers explained the Death Star (set number: 75316) is a great example of how they decide which sets to produce. Frederiksen explained, "If it's something that's exposed in more places, then there's a high chance that it's popular," and continued, "We did the same thing when creating stuff from Star Trek. We always thought the best set was [vehicles] that were both from the prequel movies, but also in The Clone Wars, [because] then we make more people happy."

The designers explained the design process of a minifigures and how they feel responsible for their accuracy. Lego Star Wars designer Madison O'Neil explained, "Part of that is just trying to fit these details in. The leg print, the arm print, wherever we can that's a new thing that we're starting to be able to do a little bit more of which is great to have the capacity to do that. We work within these frames that we have within the company that everyone has, and we just try to do the absolute best we can."