LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past, review

What we are experiencing, at least in terms of entertainment, will be remembered among other things as the era of the multiverse. Mainstreamed by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the contamination between narrative universes has spread with the rapidity of an ecological disaster (and with the same consequences, according to detractors) reaching every corner of the brand-o-sphere. LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past (the full title really is this, no error) is the second season of a show that has surprisingly managed to take the concept of the multiverse, apply it to a brand that in theory does not easily lend itself to formula modification, and push it as far as possible.

Among the many pretexts used over the years to justify cheerful outings (or more often brawls) between one parallel/narrative universe and another, LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy pulls out one of the most charming and apt. Setting its events in the LEGO universe, the new Disney+ series, which arrives today for streaming with all four episodes available, brings back the pair of sibling protagonists from the first season, blessed by the Force of the power to, respectively, combine and uncombine bricks. On the path of Sig and Dev Greebling this time, however, is their master's master, Solitus, re-emerged from forced exile with the intention of erasing the entire universe by exploiting the two brothers' powers.

The Two Brothers or of Yin and Yang

There's a reason for the remixing in LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy, where good guys become bad guys and timelines intertwine, and it's all to be found in the archetypal dimension applicable to any character in the series' main cast. Sig and Dev replicate in their dynamics all the dichotomies upon which Star Wars mythology was built, including the problematic nature of the family dimension, for once far from the Skywalker dynasty. They are simultaneously brothers, rival padawans, Jedi and Sith, hero and rebel: it's as if all the saga's protagonists, from Luke Skywalker to Han Solo, Anakin Skywalker, Kylo Ren, and even Cassian Andor, are relived through them.

And in the same way, Jedi Bob, Yesi Scala, and Servo, who return from the previous season, each represent the model of the master, the sidekick, and the robotic assistant. They blend characteristics of different characters without ever betraying the spirit of the role, to the point that everything revolving around their evolution can be glimpsed well in advance, without surprises. Unlike other cases where returning to the saga's roots was a pretext to sink it into a creative loop from which it still struggles to emerge (you know which film I'm referring to, come on), on this occasion, Sig & co.'s absolute fidelity to their archetype is an anchor that allows Pieces of the Past to set sail for unexplored territories through the truly very free use of the supporting cast and the many secondary characters.

A Galaxy to Rebuild

And to be honest, there are often so many characters on screen simultaneously that sometimes you risk losing the thread of the story and forgetting who remained where; no big deal, in these cases, just dust off the approach used to enjoy Tenet and push through. Not that there's much other choice, after all, because LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past condenses four mini-films into four episodes of about 23 minutes each, almost individually enjoyable as chapters of a tetralogy. The means by which Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit's series achieves this result is a fast, incessant, syncopated rhythm that leaves little time for events to settle.

The creative freedom granted by the contamination between LEGO and Star Wars allows the two showrunners, the aforementioned Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit, to blur the line of what's possible, and a sweet, singing Darth Maul is just one of the many gambles with which LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past allows itself to handle Lucas's saga, winking at fans and fixing a few decades-old narrative inconsistencies here and there with jokes. The highest point of the galactic remixing, however, is undoubtedly the subplot involving the Skywalkers, an impossible family reunion elsewhere that sees all family members reunited around the hilarious figure of Jedi Vader, one of the most successful examples of perspective reversal operated by LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past.

The contamination between genres and languages, however, manifests not only through the varied cast of characters but also in some directorial choices that at times make the series resemble a video game: in particular, in several combat scenes, a language well known to gamers is used, one that codes the moment of the boss battle in its different phases. In terms of visual references, in LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past there's really a bit of everything, including some callbacks to the aesthetic of manga combat, an element that has strongly influenced Western entertainment in the last decade.

The frenetic and cheerful explosiveness with which LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past stages its adventures manages to mask some flaws, such as a somewhat fluctuating direction that on some occasions allows for truly interesting shots and visual solutions, while in other moments it is a bit lazier. It's almost hard to notice, however, while being hit by sequences and jokes in repetition, chasing each other at a dizzying pace. In its frenzy, LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Pieces of the Past manages to do something very complicated, which is to remain faithful to the spirit of Star Wars and at the same time explore almost forbidden territories of the saga, all in less than the standard duration of a film. If after watching the four episodes you feel a bit disoriented, don't worry, it's just a small side effect of the Force.