Mini-review: Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles

It's Star Wars Month

Whoops, no it isn't, but one last loose end to tie up

We return to Lego star wars one last time, as we look at the Yoda Chronicles, a 5-part mini-series with Yoda as the titular character, with continuity from the Padawan menace considered part of it. For the purposes of this review I will be doing reviews of the first 2-parts, which were featured on a DVD (I got a triple pack including all these Lego Star Wars shorts, if you are to try buying them, I recommend this as it's the best value)

The Phantom Clone

I’m not sure what this is trying to be, a show with a serious continuous story-line, or a light-hearted parody. In a 1-part episode, I can accept gaps in logic, but in a continuous series it becomes a lot harder to

It does have its funny moments, the Palpetine/Siddeous changeover, R2 trying to point out how obvious it is that Palpetine and Siddeous are one of the same, admiral Ackbar’s appearance, the millennium falcon being a night-club and any moment with general grievous amongst them

But the narrative seems a little under-thought. Palpetine lures Yoda and Mace Windu (because when Yoda calls for all the best Jedi, he means Mace Windu) to a droid trap, stranding them on Dagobah (because gravity in space is a thing again) as Grievous breaks into the temple, steals the Younglings lightsabers, removes their crystals to merge them into 1 big crystal to so Dooku can create Sith Clones (because the rule of 2, what’s that?)

Meanwhile, the younglings, under the unwitting protection of C3PO seek to recover their stolen lightsabers which have been given to Jabba the Hutt

That’s a lot of plot to fit into a 20 minute short, even more when it’s supposed to be a parody, so the story is, kind of weak in places. With Mace Windu concluding that the Sith stealing the crystals can only mean they’re making sith clones…. Because…

Oh, and Sith Clones exist because, training to become sith is now completely irrelevant

The animation and voice acting are pretty good

Rating 6.5/10

Menace of the Sith

Someone has forgotten the difference between Sith and Separatist

They actually remembered there’s no gravity in space this time, so proud…. But now everyone can breathe and talk in space, so points deducted for that

This episode decides to be a little more cohesive, making the humour a little more subtle and not at the cost of the plot.

So the clone has a change of heart because it was Jedi crystals that aided his creation, and becomes the powerful hulk ‘just wants to be left alone character’ with a weakness for entertaining small children

Oh yeah, and Anakin’s in this story, he’s annoying as ever, but it works as they play it for laughs in this. There are continued gags about Palpetine, Yoda’s way of talking, and the odd reference to the original trilogy.

It’s not a perfect story, but it’s a much better one than the phantom clone.

Rating 7.5/10

As a DVD, I still don’t rate it particularly highly. Much like The Empire Strikes Out, it lacks special features. Considering it’s only about 40 minutes of content, it’s disappointing

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Images used in this review are from Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.