So another year, and mostly the same format: Ace handling Star Wars, Eric looking at Harry Potter, and in a shocking turn of events, Nick not having to deal with a Marvel calendar dedicated to causing physical pain – he’ll be handling City this year because while his kids may be into Minecraft he decidedly is not (and also that thing was impossible to find in his area). As always, there will be some extra special bonuses, a lot of cheeky writing, tons of typos and things we miss that someone will demand we go and hire an editor to fix.
We will not do that.
This is a bit late because someone may have forgotten to schedule it after we wrote it…
Ace (Star Wars)
My final tally ended up being 6 hits and 18 misses. Far more generous than what Nick ended up with but both scores reflect the same sentiment: this is the worst Star Wars calendar we’ve ever had. Using a character who had a brief on-screen appearance in, I think, Rise of Skywalker, and his workshop as the central theme of the calendar was a disaster in the making. The majority of the droid builds were unrecognizable. The days that had a section of the workshop were worse. Those days builds were meaningless by themselves as LEGO could have built just about anything and claim that it was part of the workshop, which is EXACTLY how they felt.
I’ve been away from LEGO as a hobby for quite some time due to a variety of reasons. It never really occurred to me that I may be in my dark ages phase until I talked to a friend of mine recently. The thing about being away for so long, is that I’m no longer in the reality distortion field and can view the hobby with clear eyes with the benefit of experience of being around since the beginning. I have opinions on a bunch of things in the product line, posts for another day, but this year’s calendar makes me wonder what exactly what happened. It was either phoned in and not a lot of effort was put into it. Or somewhere along development, what sounded like a good idea actually turned into a bad execution and it couldn’t be stopped. Whatever the reason, the customers and the fans alike truly deserved better.
The best day was Day 24. The final day did not redeem the crappiness. If anything it highlighted what could have been, and in doing so made the calendar look even worse. If it felt like we were speeding through the last week with light commentary, there was a good reason for that. Nobody wants to hang around garbage any longer than they have to. Just the worst.
Eric (Harry Potter)
I gotta give LEGO props here: at least it was different! So many of these Harry Potter calendars boil down to “dining table” or “couch” just to create the setting of Hogwarts at Christmas. There have only been two that bucked the trend: the 2022 Advent Calendar and the 2025 Advent Calendar. The 2022 calendar still remains my favorite Advent Calendar I’ve ever opened, sucker that I am for microbuilds. But there are some great builds in the 2025 Calendar! The Chocolate Frog, Patronus, and Butterbeer are particularly noteworthy.
The rest…eh, I could take it or leave it. If you’re really into minifigs, you could do a lot worse. You get eight minifigs, range from A-list to Z-list Harry Potter characters. Other builds just feel like padding, especially the god-awful two Galleons. I don’t think I’ll remember this calendar fondly, if at all. A real mixed bag with some highlights and low-lights. If that isn’t a microchasm of a LEGO Advent Calendar, I don’t know what is.
Nick (City and Stuff)
I ended up with inverse ratings. 19 hits and 5 misses for City, and 5 hits and 19 misses for Star Wars. As Ace said, this is hands down the worst Star Wars advent we’ve ever got. I’m not gonna lie, this might be the worst Advent we’ve ever had. This was somehow worse than the Marvel swan song that was the previous record holder of that unglamourous title. Maybe I was harsh, but my wants for Advent stuff is pretty basic. I want to stick close to the holiday theme and I want to have fun building or opening it. Star Wars has always been pretty iffy on the theme part, but sometimes it can actually make fun things to build. Nothing about these builds were fun. The main build was spread across twenty-three days of opening… the intended way to go through this calendar.
My son is eight years old. If he was opening this along with me, the parts wouldn’t stay around for the full build for twenty-three minutes, let alone for more than three weeks. Contrast that with the City set, probably the best calendar I’ve ever opened. Great minifigures, great micro builds, and just an overall great calendar. Much like Ace, I rarely engage with LEGO anymore. The only line I consistently “collect” is the Icons video game stuff. Otherwise, it’s just when a set amuses me that I’ll pick it up. Sadly, Star Wars has just been… bad… for some time now, and I never really consider grabbing the stuff. But it’s hard to look at things like City, Creator, and even Icons (save the price issue) and not remember the magic that is LEGO. And that shows in just how different these two calendars ended up.
