I’ve been doing quite a bit of reviews on LEGO sets since I started blogging,  this would be my first attempt to do something different.  This is a review of the LEGO Star Wars DVD – The Empire Strikes Out that was released in March 2013.  I’m not too sure when exactly LEGO started doing films (could be during those days of LEGO Universe), but I was drawn to them starting with those mini-movies that you can find on Lego.com under the LEGO City Theme.  These mini-movies are usually very well conceptualised and organised, bring along a simple movie story coupled with a display of the sets released by LEGO during that season.  For instance, the latest LEGO City mini-movie is call the Museum Heist as shown below, aligning to the latest LEGO City Police sets.

For this DVD release, I don’t recall seeing it available in any shops locally in Singapore at the time of writing.  For the copy I have now, it’s actually ordered from Amazon.com and shipped directly from US to Singapore.  By sharing the shipping costs with other AFOLs, a set of this actually cost around SGD$19, which is considered affordable considering that this includes an exclusive minifigure.

The DVD set comes shrink wrapped to prevent any tampering and theft.  At the front of the box, you can see the exclusive minifigure and it says “Darth Vader with Medal” just above it.  We’ll take a closer look at this later on.  The rear of the set contains a short description of the contents of the DVD and also some shots of the scenes.  Not sure about you, I always find the LEGO minifigures look very cute when they are featured in animations.

From the side view of the set, you can see that the DVD actually comes in a normal size DVD box.  The thickness of the set is to house the exclusive minifigure in the set, similar to the way Brick Master books stores the LEGO parts that come with them.

Opening up the shrink wrap, this is what you will get in the DVD set.  The exclusive minifigure comes assembled, inclusive of the cape, stored in a pre-form plastic enclosure to ensure the minifigure will not be damage.

Opening up the DVD case, you will find the DVD containing the 22-minutes short film and a mini poster of mini figures of the 2012-2013 LEGO Star Wars releases.

The minifigure include in this DVD set is a Darth Vader complete with helmet and cape about without his red Light Saber.  Taking his helmet off, you will find the pale looking Anakin SkyWalker’s face looking at you.

So what’s so special about this exclusive Darth Vader minifigure?  Comparing with the Darth Vader that came with LEGO 7965 Star Wars Millennium Falcon, the only visual difference between them is the inclusion of the medal baring the Republic’s emblem, hanging in front of exclusive minifigure’s chest.

For a LEGO Star Wars collector who don’t wish to miss out any single minifigure or set released, this DVD set will certainly be a part of the collection.  For the non-hard core, you may want to take a look at the trailer of the movie before making your decision. 🙂