Lego Star Wars will always be fun for both young and old, says lead designer

SINGAPORE – When the first Star Wars movie came out in 1977, Mr Jens Kronvold Frederiksen was not allowed to watch it because his parents thought he was too young.

That did not stop the then eight-year-old from becoming obsessed with Luke Skywalker and gang, thanks to the Star Wars comics and trading cards that he managed to get hold of.

Today, the 55-year-old from Denmark is living his dream as the creative director and leader of the design team for Lego Star Wars, the toy and model series that combines his two childhood obsessions – Star Wars and Lego.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Lego Star Wars, which has spawned video games, animated films and television series.

Over the years, the sets have become larger and more complicated. A recent version of the Millennium Falcon, a popular starship piloted by Han Solo, for example, is made up of more than 7,500 pieces and measures 83cm by 60cm.

A detailed and time-consuming set like that is obviously aimed at older fans, but Mr Frederiksen says that Lego Star Wars will always cater to a wide age range.

A few of its newest sets, such as the Captain Rex Y-Wing Microfighter, can be enjoyed by children as young as six.

“Some of the kids who grew up with Lego Star Wars are adults now, and they want to introduce their children to Lego Star Wars,” says Mr Frederiksen, who joined Lego as a model designer in 1998.

“And that’s also one of the things that I think we are more deliberate about. We are making products for everybody, for kids and also for adults, and everyone in between,” he says in a Zoom interview from the Lego office in Denmark.

Thanks to new movies, television series, video games and books, the Star Wars universe has expanded massively since the first Lego Star Wars sets were released in 1999. It was the same year that The Phantom Menace, the franchise’s first new film in 16 years, came out and sparked renewed interest in the space saga.

Each wave of Lego sets and figurines features new additions to the Star Wars lore. The latest series, for example, includes the Ambush On Mandalore Battle Pack, which has characters and a scene from the third season of television series The Mandalorian (2019 to present).

Still, Lego Star Wars will always put out models based on the original trilogy – Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return Of The Jedi (1983).

“Lego Star Wars will always consist of the classic items,” says Mr Frederiksen.

The latest models include a new version of the TIE Interceptor, a starfighter featured in Return Of The Jedi.

Mr Frederiksen says: “Deciding to do the TIE Interceptor was a deliberate choice based on our history, because it’s one of the first adult models – the Ultimate Collector Series, as we call it – from 2000. So we thought it would be great to bring that model back and also celebrate the history of Lego Star Wars.”

He says the best part of his job is working with his team, a diverse group of people of different nationalities.

“I think we’re from, I don’t know, eight, nine, 10 countries. So it’s pretty amazing. It’s a very international environment. It’s fantastic to be around these creative people, and I think we just have a lot of fun.”

The love of Lego runs in his family too, and Mr Frederiksen enjoys playing with the bricks with his grandson, 13.

“He played a lot when he was super young, then there were a couple of years when he was away from Lego, and now he has started collecting again.”