The biggest LEGO Star Wars surprise of 2025? No more Jabba

Now that we have a relatively full picture of what to expect from LEGO Star Wars in 2025, there’s one surprising omission that initially seemed nailed-on…

Thanks to official LEGO reveals and the ever-churning rumour mill, we’ve already got a semi-concrete idea of what’s on the cards for the LEGO Star Wars theme this year. In the mix are sets confirmed or rumoured to be hooked to all three trilogies in the Skywalker Saga and the galaxy beyond, from a new Ultimate Collector Series AT-ST to a battle pack inspired by Star Wars: Ahsoka.

Perhaps the only hole left to fill in the 2025 portfolio is any potential LEGO Store-exclusive set in the final quarter of the year, following on from 2023’s 40658 Millennium Falcon Holiday Diorama and 2024’s 40755 Imperial Dropship vs. Rebel Scout Speeder. But there’s one character conspicuous by his absence, and he seems very unlikely to turn up in that sort of set. We’re talking of course about everyone’s favourite space slug, Jabba the Hutt.

Jabba returned to the LEGO Star Wars line-up in 2024 after an 11-year stint off shelves, headlining 75397 Jabba’s Sail Barge with a design resurrected from 2012’s 9516 Jabba’s Palace and 2013’s 75020 Jabba’s Sail Barge. The LEGO Group tweaked and refined his printing, but the moulds are exactly the same as the last time they were on shelves.

What’s important to note here is that the LEGO Group doesn’t keep its moulds in use in perpetuity. They’re generally retired after five years of inactivity, because the cost of maintaining and storing them outweighs the cost of bringing them back further down the line. It clearly keeps digital files with which to create new versions of the same mould, though – as we saw when the Collectible Minifigures team brought back the goat last year.

Anyway, that’s significant because it points to the LEGO Group’s wider approach to moulds. Where possible, new LEGO pieces are generally not designed to be single-use: repeating them across multiple sets, even in different colours, helps to recoup the investment in a mould. There are plenty of examples of where this hasn’t happened – and it’ll be interesting to see if Mario’s new nose and moustache fall into the same camp – but LEGO Star Wars minifigures are often the biggest culprit.

Take 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina, for example, which includes unique moulds for Ponda Baba and Garindan – both of whom are unlikely to show up in future LEGO Star Wars sets, because they’ll always play second, third or fourth fiddle to more important characters in smaller Mos Eisley Cantina models. But Jabba the Hutt is easily more iconic than either of those, as we saw the last two times this gangster showed up in LEGO.

The original, undecorated Jabba the Hutt figure first debuted in 2003’s 4480 Jabba’s Palace, then returned in 2006’s 6210 Jabba’s Sail Barge. The window between Jabba sets was even shorter when the LEGO Group introduced the current mould in 2012’s 9516 Jabba’s Palace, following up only a year later with 75020 Jabba’s Sail Barge.

It would have been pretty fair to expect Jabba to show up again then in 2025, as the LEGO Group maximised its renewed investment in the pieces required for the Hutt in 75397 Jabba’s Sail Barge by releasing – for example – a new Jabba’s Palace. But that doesn’t seem to be on the cards for this year now.

It’s worth recalling at this point the contention around the previous Jabba’s Palace, which made international headlines after the Turkish Cultural Community of Austria accused the model of including ‘educationally and culturally objectionable defects’. The group likened the design of the palace to the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and said Jabba’s ‘sneaky and criminal personality’ reinforced negative Muslim stereotypes.

While the LEGO Group may be keen to avoid such connotations again, it successfully sidestepped the issue when revisiting the location for The Book of Boba Fett in 2022, simply leaving out the dome-like roof in 75326 Boba Fett’s Throne Room. That’s an approach it could realistically take again for a new Jabba’s Palace set based on Return of the Jedi.

There are other possible avenues here, too: a diorama of the throne room, for example, which was once rumoured to be on the cards for 2023. But then the LEGO Star Wars Diorama Collection appears to be taking a year off in 2025 in the same way the Helmet Collection did in 2024, so there’s still a chance we could see a Jabba’s Palace diorama in 2026 or beyond.

And of course, more Jabba the Hutt could still be on the table for 2026, 2027 or beyond, because the moulds are still in use for 75397 Jabba’s Sail Barge (which is currently not scheduled to retire until the end of 2026). It doesn’t have to be in 2025. But you’d have thought the LEGO Group might want to get more mileage out of this mould as soon as possible precisely because it’s only otherwise being used in a £430 set.

There will presumably be far fewer copies of 75397 Jabba’s Sail Barge produced than something like a £70 diorama that’s sold at wider retail, after all. And a Jabba’s Palace set of any kind would also be a great excuse to re-use other character-specific moulds that have returned for last year’s UCS set, such as Salacious Crumb and the Gamorrean Guard.

On the other hand, holding off on such a set until 2026 or 2027 also keeps those characters exclusive to the Sail Barge that little bit longer. The LEGO Group obviously wouldn’t want to cannibalise sales of its latest flagship set immediately, especially when there’s an established community of minifigure collectors out there. 

Yet even if Jabba, Salacious Crumb and a Gamorrean Guard turned up elsewhere, there are still obscure minifigures (including Wooof and Max Rebo, both of whom have character-specific moulds) who will likely remain forever locked to the barge, just like Ponda Baba and Garindan in 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina. And a Jabba’s Palace set could include its own share of unique minifigures, too – like Oola, Sy Snootles and Ree Yees.

It’ll be interesting to see if Jabba most of all ever returns in another LEGO Star Wars set, whether in 2026 or beyond, because if 75397 Jabba’s Sail Barge ends up being the only time this mould is used, it could also go some way to explaining the eye-watering price of the set just a little bit more. All of its new character moulds, even for less obscure characters, would be exclusive and one-offs in a £430 set. That’s an expensive way to do things that doesn’t necessarily gel with the wider LEGO approach.

Time will tell, and while we do have a full list of LEGO Star Wars sets for 2025, anything not yet confirmed by the LEGO Group should be taken with a pinch of salt – so there’s still scope, however minimal, for Jabba to show up this year after all. Check out the latest list of LEGO Star Wars sets confirmed and rumoured for 2025 below. 75397 Jabba’s Sail Barge is available now.

LEGO Star Wars sets confirmed and rumoured for 2025

Read next…

• 75397 Jabba’s Sail Barge review
• LEGO UCS Jabba’s Sail Barge obscure minifigures explained
• Why was the last LEGO Star Wars Jabba’s Palace so controversial?

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