REVIEW: ‘LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild The Galaxy’ Is Missing A Few Bricks

I think Disney+ produced LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy just so they could make a good Darth Jar-Jar joke. And you know what? It was worth it. In this four-episode animated series, Sig (Gaten Matarazzo) and Dev Greebling (Tony Revolori) couldn’t be more dissimilar. Dev is effortlessly cool and Sig is effortlessly uncool, as Sig puts it. Dev dreams of getting off their backwater planet for good, but Sig is perfectly happy taking over the family farm. But when Dev takes his antics a bit too far one day, Sig reveals he has Force powers. After opening a Jedi temple, Sig accidentally causes the very fabric of the galaxy to break apart and rebuild itself, mixing up the stories and timelines of the Galaxy Far Far Away.

Everybody loves What If…? type story. Star Wars has even done something sort of similar with two seasons of Visions. But LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy is designed for kids. Almost every character known to Star Wars across all three trilogies and the TV shows has their allegiance swapped in broad but still funny ways. The Jedi are all evil, the Sith are all Rebels, the Ewoks are bounty hunters, and the old bounty hunters are Jedi now. A few characters do show up in less obvious roles, though, keeping the set-up elementary but still interesting.

We perhaps need Sig and Dev to give us a way into the topsy-turvy world, and their being in LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy does give the audience a plot to follow along with clearly from the start, in case they’re unfamiliar with any of the other characters. However, the first episode feels like it takes way too long to get into the action. Most viewers are coming to this show to see the good guys and bad guys swap, not learn about why Dev wants to leave home. A little less setup could have gone a long way.

The first episode has a few other characters it also has to set up, like Jedi Bob (Bobby Moynihan), who was supposed to be watching the Jedi Temple Sig accidentally ruined the galaxy over. He’s mostly funny, but his humor’s juvenility falls flat on some one-liners. There’s also Yesi Scala (Marsai Martin), a friend of Sig and Dev who also dreams of leaving home and becomes integral to Sig’s fixing things once the world gets turned upside down.

The actual plot is serviceable. What really matters in LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy is how many jokes and scenarios about the opposite world they can cram in. And they cram in loads. While not every character feels like their inverse gets used to its fullest—Palpatine (Trevor Devall), especially— the scenarios are still entertaining. You’ll probably crave more time with the characters you know and less with the original characters in the short runtime. Some of the characters and scenarios feel woefully underdeveloped.

There’s also way too much sequel teasing at the end. This era in filmmaking is over. Too many projects tease sequels and never deliver them to the point where audiences are annoyed by sequel teases more than they are excited by them, and LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy is no different. Here, it’s just a reminder that we didn’t get to spend nearly enough time with certain characters in this series. Still, it’s exciting that a number of characters are voiced by their original actors, including Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best), and a few other nice surprises, including a last-second gag.

LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy looks great, though. The quality of the LEGO animation is excellent and certainly superior to some other recent Disney+ LEGO projects. It’s always fun seeing the little LEGO details, like a ship crashing in the water and little blue LEGO pieces come flying up. There’s even a really fun scene that switches the visual style to look like the old LEGO animations and video games from the 90s that works perfectly. The soundtrack is fun too, weaving in all the classic Star Wars motifs, and even a few less common ones throughout the narrative.

LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy is entertaining, but it promises you one thing in a Star Wars universe turned inside out, only to make you spend the majority of the runtime with brand new characters. Those characters are all fine, but they’re not really standouts, either. So, unlike the great successes of the previous LEGO Star Wars movies, which boasted straightforward narratives putting your favorite post-Rise of Skywalker characters in silly situations, LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy is a little bit messy. Nonetheless, it’s charming and has its fun moments. Plus, we do finally get so see Darth Jar Jar.

LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy is streaming now, exclusively on Disney+.