TL;DR:
- Original Price: $44.99
- Pieces: 263
- Minifigure(s): C-3PO, R7-A7, BD-72, Jawa in sweater, Battle Droid (scrap), Super Battle Droid, BB-8 Snowman, Babu Frik
- Plus brick-built Droids: Pit Droid, Buzz Droid, Treadwell, MSE-6 (candycane colors), Imperial Probe Droid, Medical Droid (festive)
- Sticker Sheet: No
- Pros: Rare figs (Babu Frik, BD-72, R7-A7, Jawa in sweater)
- Cons: Un-festive theming, lack of narrative, several stingy days (one-piece "builds", junk box, chair)
Assembly:
December 0 - I'll be doing something a bit different from my usual post format for this year's Advent calendar sets: given their setup, I will update this post with each day's builds. In the past, when I've been fortunate enough to have Advent calendars in more than one series, I'd saved them up, doling them out one month at a time (first Star Wars in December, then Disney in January, etc) both as an exercise in patience and to keep the fun going for much longer. It's a fun way to do it, especially if you can find them on clearance after December 1.
You can see my other 2025 Advent calendar reviews here: City, Frozen, Star Wars
December 1 - Babu Frik (microdoll). Oof, a one-piece day? That's even lower than the weapon racks of Advent calendars past. It would have been nice to include some tools or maybe a little build of something for him to stand on, but this also means the rest of the days' surprises have nowhere to go but up.
December 2 - Workbench. While I'm not sure what the 1x1 barrel is for—possibly something for little Babu to leap off of with the trans-clear bar-with-angled-stud—this is a nice little workbench setup, and the 1x2 hinge brick means that it is designed to be linked to other similar builds for a whole little setup (like the Avengers 2023 Advent Calendar). Though, with that one the baseplates for each little section were 4x4, allowing more depth and room for figures. I wonder if the other ones in this set will be 2x6 as well, or different shapes (and yes, I know I could look at other postings online, or the instructions, or even the box, but I want to be surprised).
Leftover Pieces
December 3 - C-3PO with red eyes. This selection fits with the Babu Frik minifig, and—along with the box art—makes me suspect that the theme for this year's Advent calendar is inspired by Babu's droid workshop on Kijimi, where our heroes go to effectively jailbreak 3PO to get the forbidden translation for their galactic treasure hunt clue. While narratively the whole knife-clue thing is a bit...weak...I won't deny that Kijimi was a cool looking location it would have been nice to see more of. The Sith-eyed minifigure is a nice addition to any collection, however, and I could see him placed on a rotating chair or platform, for a quick spin that swaps the regular protocol droid with this temporarily-evil alternative. It's worth noting that this is also the same as the one in the Dark Falcon set, with the only difference being that this 3PO has both arms in gold (like in The Rise of Skywalker), where as that one has a black left arm, as befits the bounty hunter version shown in Rebuild the Galaxy.
December 4 - Pit droid. I've noticed that the Star Wars Advent calendars like to reinvent the wheel—which isn't always a bad thing! We've gotten several variations of microscale ships, for example, each with their one unique strengths and weaknesses, and it's a sound creative challenge to try and design the same thing in a different way.
That said, this build definitely feels like a miss. First of all, the extra bar handles on the feet mean that this droid can't be placed on a plate, unless it's raised up or there's a stair step (as in the second photo). Second, while there is a slight angularity to the DUM-series pit droid's chest, it's not nearly as pronounced as the beer belly suggested by the cheese wedge affixed to its front. Pit droids, for all their short stature, are supposed to be gangly and lanky, with thin limbs that fold up into a compact bundle beneath their heads; there was even a cool-looking Technic set back in 2000 whose play feature was that specific action.
The third picture here shows very much the same build from the 2023 Star Wars Advent calendar set (C-3PO for scale). Not only does it omit the extra pieces on the feet (both reducing its height and enabling it to be mounted on a plate), but it's also done in festive colors, even including a white 1x1 pom pom on top of its head. It also uses a 1x1 half circle tile to give a suggestion of the droid's angled torso without adding too much thickness; I've even seen similar MOCs that omit a tile entirely, leaving just the bare stud on the 1x1 brick with studs on 4 sides.
Leftover Pieces
All of my research into the variations got me thinking: was there a better way? I noticed several
MOCs that had the same leg setup (1x1s with clips attaching to a
pneumatic T-piece), but others used bar-holders with clips or 1x1 round
plate with bar pieces as legs, which gave a much leggier look. Then I
rummaged through my SNOT collection and found what might be an even
better piece: the leg skeleton in brown, which is often used for
furniture or banisters. This had an antistud on the bottom, a clip on
the top, indication of joints, and even an extended foot...though
technically pit droids don't have toes.
While it made the final
build a little taller than I would have liked (again, C-3PO for scale)
the look and feel is more accurate than the official builds. I also used mechanical arms (bent and straight) in dark bluish grey, which are thinner than the skeleton arms that came with the original build. While I would have liked to have all/most of the pieces in reddish brown or even dark nougat to fit the standard pit droid look, having mismatched greys and browns does help with an appropriate scrapyard vibe.
December 5 - Chair. How exciting! This is actually the chair that 3PO sits in in The Rise of Skywalker while Babu works on him to free the translation of the Sith words into Basic. A bit of a disappointment, but it definitely reinforces my deduction that this year's builds are all themed around Babu Frik's workshop. The back is hinged.
December 6 - GNK droid. This one is...kind of a mess. First, it uses two 1x1x1 2/3 bricks with two studs on one side, when there exist perfectly good 1x2x1 2/3 bricks with four studs on one side, reducing piece count and keeping things aligned properly.
The droid has two transparent 1x2 bricks that match the trans-dark blue and trans-dark pink 1x1 plates on the front, making me think it's some sort of cleaning droid, filled with different cleaning fluids? The white 1x2 plate with bar handles and 1x1 plate with bar stick way out in front without looking like anything recognizable (reindeer antlers, for example), and while the broom clipped to one side further backs up the "cleaning droid" vibe, but I'm not sure why there's a black spoon attached to the other clip.
Another lackluster inclusion in an admittedly-weak collection; in other Advent calendars we've gotten plain GNK droids, as well as ones dressed up as packages (2019), snowmen (2020) and reindeer (2023), all of which are distinctive and easily recognizable. Not only is this one a bit garbled in its visual message, but it doesn't even have any sort of holiday theming—simply changing the colors from trans-dark blue and trans-dark pink to trans-red and trans-green would have made it at least a little special. Oh well, 18 more days to go...
Leftover Pieces—At least it comes with an extra black spoon (a bit of research shows that these are popular as side mirrors on the various Speed Champions cars).
December 7 - R7-A7. No build here, but that's pretty common for the minifig- (or in this case droid-) containing days. At least we get a good solid one today, with a holiday-themed astromech: the printing and color choice are both excellent, but also look like something you'd see on any Clone Wars episode...on further research, it seems that this is actually the droid's normal colors, and the same that appears in Ahsoka's Jedi Interceptor.
An interesting choice...on the one hand, it's easy to mistake it for a specially-printed minifig, made just for the Advent calendar, if you aren't familiar with every set; on the other hand, it's certainly convenient that there's a thematically appropriate droid that's only being used in one other set, and with 7s in the name making it a good fit for the 7th day; on the other other hand (aliens can have more than two hands after all), it's a good way to get a specific droid without having to buy the whole set (though the Interceptor is about the same price as the Advent calendar, so not really a savings)..and on the other other other hand, it feels a little cheap, like they're tossing in extras instead of making something special...especially when compared to previous years, like Christmas tree droid included in the 2014 Advent calendar set.
Apart from the Babu Frik microdoll, I'm beginning to wonder if there will be any special prints or pieces in this year's Advent calendar.
December 8 - Buzz droid. Like pit droids, buzz droids seem consistently impossible to capture in LEGO at an appropriate scale: the Pistoeka sabotage droid is 10 inches in diameter when in ball mode, meaning it would be more on-par with a minifigure head. This is a somewhat clunky build, with a radar dish used to both emulate its drilling bit and provide a stand. The build instructions were a little unclear as well, leaving me uncertain if I should plug the 1x1 with four studs top stud into the pin at the back of the main brick ("Brick, Modified 1 x 2 x 2/3 with Studs on Sides and Extended Stud Receptacle" according to BrickLink, though I tend to call it a video camera or laser gun).
It's not a horrible build, and is vaguely reminiscent of the robots I used to build with the old Space sets—for example, Set 1785 Crater Critters. It's worth noting that the plain domes are part of the problem here, making it feel more "generic robot" and less specifically a buzz droid. Other official sets (eg the Vulture Droid) used printed pieces to mimic the paint and texture of the real thing as shown in Episode III and various Clone Wars episodes. That would have taken it up a notch and, again, made this something special rather than just a meh inclusion in a meh calendar.
Leftover Pieces
December 10 - Part bin. We all have part bins, some more organized than others, and it seems Babu's no exception. It's a pity that this is the extent of today's "build," and that it only contains one of each part. For the torso and legs pieces, that's less of an issue, but getting only one astromech leg—especially in the comparatively-rare black—is a bit frustrating, especially given how lackluster the rest of this set has been. It would have been so easy to include a few more pieces, enough to cobble together a junk droid of our own, which would have really leaned into the whole idea of play. As it is, all you can do with these so far is swap out one of R7's dark red legs for the black one. Woo.
December 10 - Tool rack. Well, they did it, they actually did it. In previous years the weapon rack was the low point of most Star Wars Advent calendars, consisting of a minimal build and several weapons...and now we get one but for droidbuilding tools (though I have no idea what the spyglass piece is supposed to be, but they're useful enough for architectural details that I'll never complain about getting more. With as universally derided as this year's calendar seems to be, I'm quite curious to see what next year's looks like: will it continue the downward trend that some commentators have noticed (though hard to see how they could do even worse than this year's, without having a bunch of single-brick nothing builds), or will they bring it back to the heights of joy and delight that we all so fondly remember? It also doesn't help that there isn't really anything Star Wars-y about this—even the workbench had the sci-fi tablet tile to give it a bit of that flavor.
Also you can see the black and grey hinge bricks at the base, allowing this to clip to the workbench build from day 2. It seems that the whole calendar really is going to have us piecemeal build the setting for the C-3PO memory wipe scene from Rise of Skywalker, which isn't the most holiday-y of choices. Definitely seems to be a misstep as far as the fans are concerned.
December 11 - B2EMO. This build feels a lot like the other brick-built droids we've had this year—the pit droid on day 4, the GNK droid on day 6, and the buzz droid on day 8—better than nothing, but not quite on the nose as far as the design goes. It also breaks the theme so far: B2EMO wasn't on Kajimi, let alone in Babu's workshop (the only thing I could find in the concept and set photos that's even close is the dark red Bad Robot robot). So on the one hand it's a nice nod to a great series (seriously, Andor is fantastic and gives so many details of what the average person's life was like), but on the other the build is clunky and it doesn't fit the theme. If there had been other unrelated builds, I might have been more willing to let it slide
Leftover Pieces
My Modifications - In addition to the proportions of the official build, which don't feel quite right, I also didn't like that there was a yellow "foot" added to both sides when B2EMO only has his right hind "foot" replaced with a slightly larger yellow one. So I did some research like I did with the pit droid, and cobbled together several ideas I found online into a MOC that I feel does a better job of representing the droid's character.
Some of the MOCs I found made good use of the ingot pieces (two for the top, and two horizontally on all four sides to mimic his corrugated texture) but since I didn't have enough pieces, I tried a different tack. I also didn't want the double-square-plate look that the official build has, dark grey on top of dark red, but instead alternated round 2x2s with square ones, as you can see in my quick-and-dirty sketch. I included a 2x2 square jumper plate to fit into a 2x2 round tile-with-hole which both allowed the head to be built upside down (using the 2x2 glide plate as a domed top) and enabled a swivel action. While his eye is just a camera lens, I couldn't resist using a piece I had from the Bag Tag Panda DOTS set, which both looks like a round camera lens with a bit of highlight and shadow, but also allows me to give him a worried look to match his usual state of being when dealing with Cassian.
C-3PO for scale, as before. B2EMO can rise as tall as .79 meters, which is about waist height, and while my MOC is actually a little taller than the official one, I feel that the better proportions and characterization make up for that difference.
Poor B2EMO, we love you!
December 12 - BD-72. Another single-piece day, and just like day 1's Babu, we have a single piece microfigure. Unlike Babu Frik, this isn't an exclusive piece, but the only other way to get it is in the $59.99 Mandalorian's N-1 Starfighter, so this set is definitely a cheaper way for fans who want to get their hands on Peli Motto's little helper droid. It's worth noting that this is the same mold but with different colors as Cal Kestis' BD-1.
As with other days, it's hard to not compare this to previous years—specifically 2020—when we got the similar single-piece D-O; that little droid, however, came with a Santa hat and a 2x2 plate. I think that's part of what makes these feel so naked and underwhelming: even with minifigs there's usually an accessory (a cup, a camera, a blaster, etc), but both Babu and BD were just tossed in by themselves. I appreciate that these are rare/exclusive molds, but it stands to reason that a few extra pieces would have helped.
December 13 - Jawa service vehicle. Beyond the 1x1 plates with holes that obviously serve as wheels, and the light bluish grey guns (which are safety bars for the driver, perhaps?) it wasn't at first clear what this was, beyond some sort of vehicle. BrickLink describes it as "Jawa Vehicle", but Jay's Brick Blog points out that this looks very similar to the "Jawa service vehicle" in the 2018 set Tatooine Battle Pack...which also includes a crane arm one that I've noticed on the box art, despite my intention to not spoil future days.
Indeed, the back of the box (the part with the flap that folds down as the play mat) not only shows a Jawa standing in the very Kijimi-style doorway, but also this vehicle with the crane arm mounted on top (on the medium nougat tile with two studs), so I guess we'll all need to remember that when we get the random crane arm build in coming days (my guess is tomorrow). To my mind it would have made more sense to have the Jawa come first, then the vehicle, and then the crane (if they even needed to be split into two days) so it's clearer what it's intended to be.
While it isn't the prettiest-looking vehicle, the colors and cobbled-together vibe do fit the whole Jawa aesthetic, and it at least was a fun build that has some play value. Too big for Babu to drive, he'll have to sit on the back—or maybe on the front, shouting directions in Anzellan—while 3PO drives.
Leftover Pieces
December 14 - Crane. Just as I suspected, today's build is the crane that mounts on the back of yesterday's vehicle. I imagine the Jawa isn't far behind. While this is rather unimpressive on its own, it does fit well with the vehicle's scale and elevates them both to more than they would have been individually. I do wish the instructions had an indication that this should be mounted on the vehicle (even just a 50% opaque picture of it at the bottom with a directional arrow would have helped a lot), because the instructions tend to present each build as independent of the others.
Leftover Pieces
December 15 - Jawa with holiday sweater. Well, as I said before, it would have better to get the Jawa first, and then the Jawa-related builds. It really helps clue in to the theming, especially for the more esoteric days. Still the Jawa's sweater is cute, and a good addition to my Star Wars holiday sweater collection, so I can't be too disappointed...though it's worth mentioning again that other calendars (in other lines and also previous Star Wars offerings) would usually give us something along with the minifigure in a particular day's door.
December 16 - Treadwell droid. Unlike all of the other brick-built droids we've had this year, this one is in white and red as a nod to the purported holiday theme of the Advent calendar. Better late than never! Also this is a pretty good design for the droid, and feels like a hybrid of the two most common forms: the Clone Wars series shows Treadwells with two arms high up on their neck, where the original Episode 4 version (which seems to be called a Septoid model) has a veritable cloud of arms mounted around the base; given how customizable they are in-universe, it makes the design changes required for brickbuilding them at this scale much more acceptable. The binocular piece for the eyes is just so cute.
Leftover Pieces
December 17 - Scrap battle droid. I'm always happy to get a new battle droid—love those guys—so while there isn't a ton special in today's box, it's a nice change from the more disappointing days we've had this year.
It's also funny to note that the droid's replaced left arm is the same as the one I swapped out on a little MOC I built years ago (of a retired Gungan soldier and the B1 he rescued and repaired and befriended), though mine doesn't include the scrap antenna pack of today's build:
Leftover Pieces
December 18 - Shelves. We get some more workshop scenery today, with clips on either side to connect to the other parts, as well as very full shelves: the lower rack has a tidy line of paint jars, and the top one has two containers in which to put a spare battle droid head and some 1x1 round transparent tiles. Combining this head with the torso and legs that were in the spare parts bin (day 9) and the extra arms from yesterday's scrap battle droid, we actually have enough to build a second battle droid, which goes some way to mollifying the disappointment from the early days of this calendar. One easy way they could have made this better would have been to make the paint colors white, red, green, and gold; they could also replaced the trans-orange and trans-light blue 1x1 tiles transparent red and green as well. Such small changes in part color make a big difference in the mood of a build, and would have really helped it feel more holiday-y (see also the Treadwell's paint job).
Leftover Pieces
December 19 - Peppermint MSE-6 droid. The 1x1 clips do a fairly good job of mimicking the antenna racks on the top, and the 1x1 plates with "light attachment" make good wheel attachments (similar to some of the builds I tried for the I Like Trains House). As with the Treadwell—and as I pointed out with yesterday's shelves—it shows how color choice can make a big difference in how special a build can feel. Something like this would have been very welcome on other days, like imagine if we'd gotten red and green battle droids! But still, this is a definite improvement over accessoryless figs and un-festive chairs.
Leftover Pieces
December 20 - Super battle droid. Nothing special about this one: this variant with a narrow head only comes in four sets (including last year's Advent calendar, but also two somewhat expensive battle packs), whereas the older version with a wide head was in 13 sets (including the 2014 and 2012 Advent calendars). I'm not complaining, it's better than a chair, but it still would be neat to get something festive...and even if having him made from red and green plastic, I'm sure it wouldn't have been too cost-prohibitive to include a candy cane or something.
December 21 - Imperial Probe Droid. Like the other brick-built droids we've gotten this year, this one feels...somehow lacking. The diagram on the day's door is also a bit difficult to understand, so I'm including some process shots to show how I interpreted it.
Leftover Pieces
My Modifications - I started by reviewing other MOCs online and comparing them to the actual design of probe droids, which actually have a bulbous head (almost looking like it was designed by Mon Calamari shipwrights) over an inverted truncated cone body. It's also roughly 1 meter in diameter and three tall, to compare against the "human" scale of minifigures.
Several designs therefore used 1x2 slopes to accomplish this underside, with a 4x4 satellite dish to round over the top. I used 1x2 round plates to give an impression of the variety of ocular ports on the probe droid's head; I also scrounged in my part box to find a variety of arms to mimic the assortment of appendages. I also used a longer trans-clear antenna piece instead of the 4L bar included in the set, so the droid can hover higher.
It ended up being a bit too clunky, so I revisited the set's design and discovered an easy way to improve the build without changing too much. First, a taller support makes a big difference (either using the antenna as shown below, or else only inserting the 4L bar through the first plate on the build's underside instead of all the way through as shown in the instructions and above); and second, reversing the angle of the arms so their "elbows" are on the inside helps to accentuate its height and narrowness, as well as better matching the look of the actual droid.
In addition to including an antenna instead of a 4L bar, switching out the black octagonal plates for dark bluish grey would have made it look better, and more accurate (after all, the probe droids aren't technically black, their dark grey metal only looks black against blinding white Hoth snow).
December 22 - Holiday medical droid. This could either be the FX-6 or FX-7 model, both of which are cylindrical with many arms, but since the 7 has its arms mounted about the "waist" and the 6 up around the "neck," I think it safe to assume this is an FX-6, the same type of droid that Anakin crunched when he became Vader. The build is somewhat basic, but does a good job of simplifying the droid's look (and it's Force crush-proof), and is festively colored. Having it fit the holiday theme really escalates it from what otherwise would have been an ok build...though given that it's colored like a tree makes me wonder if this is going to be the Christmas tree in this Advent calendar, which would be an interesting choice.
Leftover Pieces
December 23 - Barrel. Oh no, we're back to the same vibe as the start of this calendar with a very festive...barrel, complete with a shovel so we can dump unwanted parts in it. It, too, has a clip brick to attach to the other scenic elements—and as part of the group it's less egregious a slight, to be sure—and comes with several extra arms. The only positive for today is the inclusion of two battle droid arms in red, which is a very rare color indeed.
Which brings up another missed opportunity in this calendar. In addition to having the ordering in a different (and more pleasantly-dramatic) arrangement, they could have made even the more dull and quotidian builds special by tucking a festively-colored droid part in each, allowing us to build not just one mismatched droid, but two—perhaps one red and one green (or as mix-and-match as we choose). Just because it's supposed to be Star Wars themed doesn't mean it has to be all unvaried browns and greys: just look at how much the little red claw stands out! A more intentional use of color theory would have made a big difference to us disappointed fans.
Leftover Pieces
December 24 - BB-8 snowman & Christmas tree. Now this is what I was talking about with the other minifig/minidoll days: if we had only gotten the snowman—cute as it is, and a unique offering only in this set—by itself, it would have been a bit of a letdown; getting the tree to build, even though it's small, helps to elevate the day. It's not quite spectacular enough for a proper 24th, but is much better than some of the other days. My only complaint with the snowman is that the top hat covers a lot of the droid's face and little stone eyes, but that's easily remedied by adding an extra plate (for example the dark brown 1x1 we got as an extra today) to lift the hat higher up.
Leftover Pieces
Tomorrow I'll present photos of the whole set, along with my final thoughts...
Final thoughts - This...was rough. The budget and design team really seemed to drop the ball, or maybe they got crosswired: the order in which we got several steps didn't make sense (for example, getting the Jawa before the two-part Jawa vehicle would have been more enjoyable, and makes a stronger narrative) and while the idea of building up an entire scene over the course of the calendar is good, the execution left much to be desired.
The dull color palette of Kijimi greys and browns is the opposite of festive, and while it's totally possible to dig through one's own collection of parts to re-color elements, it shouldn't have to be necessary. I can't help but imagine that it wouldn't have added anything to the budget to swap some of those dark tan or dark bluish grey pieces for reds and greens, especially on the brick-built droids (I'm looking at you, Gonk).
And speaking of brick-built droids, they were very hot-and-cold. The MSE and Treadwell were spot-on, and the imperial probe and F-6 were ok, but B2EMO, the buzz droid, the pit droid, and the GNK were total misses. And while special minifigures are usually the highlight of these sets, the only really holiday-themed ones were the Jawa and snow-BB-8, with Babu Frik being exclusive to this set and BD-72 only in one other set. As I'd said on the days, having nothing but a single-piece figure in a day makes for a pretty sour surprise.
I hope that the team(s) responsible for this set are reading fan comments like these, and comparing this set against the more successful ones (like this year's City Advent Calendar). We still got some good builds and good figures in this set, but the overall experience was definitely lacking holiday magic. I can't help but wonder just how much of the budget was taken up by the Babu Frik mold—which I sincerely doubt isn't planned to be in any other future sets—and be curious as to the calculations that were made to determine how the rest of the budget was spent.
Minifigs - Brick-built droids and traditional minifigures
Leftover Pieces
My Modifications - As mentioned above, I was able to make a whole extra battle droid using the pieces included in the build (and not a single spare).
Score (out of 5 🧱):
- Price: 🧱
- Process: 🧱🧱
- Presentation: 🧱🧱
- Play: 🧱🧱🧱
- Pieces: 🧱🧱🧱
- Total: 🧱🧱
Lego Instructions: here
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