Dumb bricks

 At this point in mid-February, Lego Star Wars has released it's 2026 January wave, and over the last few days, we have had several upcoming sets be revealed, (Most if not all are available for pre-order). 

New for Lego Star Wars this year is the "Smart Play" brick and features. This promises to provide practical sound effects involving particular characters and ships/vehicles. The sets also include "Smart minifigures" which can interact with the smart brick including vehicles. A variety of different sounds can be produced by coming into proximity with other smart bricks. 

Whilst a cool concept, the results have been disappointing so far. You can find videos online which show the smart bricks in action producing their sound effects, and frankly, I don't think anyone is impressed. From what I've seen, none of the sounds are even realistic to sounds in the shows and movies. The ships don't have their iconic sounds, the music in the cantina set isn't even the music in any of the scenes and the "speech" from the smart minifigures don't even resemble real words. 

Unfortunately, even the build designs leave a lot to be desired. To accommodate the smart brick and keep them accessible, the builds are designed around the smart bricks. The result of this is that the ships look terrible, the location sets like the Mos Eilsley Cantina doesn't look too bad, but the lack of a Han Solo minifigure in that set is totally illogical. 

From what I've heard about current rumours for later in 2026, there should be more of these Smart Play sets, so we'll have to wait and see if any of those are any better. 

May the bricks be with all Lego fans. 

TheLegoAddict