Former LEGO employee and co-creator of LEGO BIONICLE Christian Faber claims that LEGO Star Wars put restrictions on brick-built Space sets.
Speaking to LEGO YouTuber DuckBricks in a three-hour live stream and interview, former LEGO employee and BIONICLE co-creator Christian Faber claimed that LEGO Space was 'stopped by Star Wars', suggesting that the collaboration between the LEGO Group and Star Wars included stipulations around other space-focused sets the companies could produce.
"When Star Wars came in during the late '90s, LEGO had to scrap all their space themes because the deal between Lucas and LEGO was that we couldn't do any space or extraterrestrial stuff outside of the solar system," claimed Christian. "Everything we did with Space until then was stopped by Star Wars."
On his LinkedIn page, Christian claims to have been 'deeply involved in the collaboration between LEGO and LucasArts concerning Star Wars', which is presumably how he claims to know this. How strict these rules were or how long they lasted is unclear, however. After all, although there was a two-year gap in LEGO Space sets between 1999's 6943 Speed Sled and 2001's 7317 Aero Tube Hangar, LEGO Space continued to put out sets alongside LEGO Star Wars for many years.
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, the LEGO Grop released sets under banners like Life on Mars, Mars Mission, and Galaxy Squad. While the first two have 'Mars' in the name, all of them have fantastical elements with robots and aliens that are certainly from 'outside of the solar system'.
Perhaps the exclusivity deal with LucasArts was only for the first couple of years, or perhaps it was re-negotiated. Perhaps it never existed at all, with no official statement from the LEGO Group today confirming it once and for all. With 2024's clear focus on LEGO Space, it seems that whatever deal may or may not have existed, it's null and void now – to the delight of Space fans.
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