Blu-ray Review: ‘LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures – The Complete First Season’

Set in the incredibly rich time frame between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures is the surprisingly engaging family adventure about three sibling scavengers that get unknowingly thrust into the battle between The Empire and The Rebellion and become embroiled in a conflict that could forever change the Force itself.

The Freemaker siblings: young Rowan (Nicolas Cantu), sister Kordi (Vanessa Lengies), and the eldest, Zander (Eugene Byrd), make their living gathering scraps from the space battles currently waging all across the galaxy. They use these parts to either build new ships or sell the parts at the Freemakers family shop, but the 12-year-old Force-sensitive Rowan Freemaker finds his skills growing with age and shortly discovers an ancient relic known as the Kyber Saber.

Mysteriously enough, at the same time a female Jedi named Naare, a survivor of Order 66, reappears from hiding and offers to train Rowan. Suddenly the siblings suddenly find themselves in more trouble than they could have imagined as they find themselves in the crosshairs of Darth Vader (Matt Sloann) and The Emperor (Trevor Devall) himself.

For those hardcore Star Wars fans that are reading this review, I want to be clear that this show is absolutely a light-hearted, goofy family comedy – it most definitely is not trying to be the more mature Clone Wars or Star Wars Rebels. But aside from some early episodes that are way too heavy on childish humor, LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures is incredibly fun with a surprisingly deep well of Star Wars lore.

Underneath some rather grating kid jokes from characters like the reprogrammed battle droid R0-GR (Matthew Wood), there is a classic coming-of-age Star Wars tale here with twists and cameos from beloved characters that exist in all mediums of the Star Wars canon. In the center, though, is always the warm family dynamic of The Freemakers that gives the 13 episode first season its strong morals and big warm heart.

The animation on the show is certainly the simplistic LEGO visuals, but there’s a surprising amount of cool designs, neat action sequences, and bright colors that pop in HD. The art style and the color palette alone should have young kids glued to set while adults get to revel in the sounds of TIE fighters screeching across the screen with the John Williams score in the background.

While the Blu-ray set does contain all 13 episodes of the first season of LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, there’s not much else included in the extra features department – unless you count the six exclusive (but poor quality) Freemaker magnets. One of the features included is The Freemaker Adventures: Meet the Freemaker Family – a fun behind-the-scenes look at the infectiously excited voice cast with introductions and profiles for each character.

The only other feature included on the discs is Freemaker Salvage and Repair, which is a bonus clip of the Freemaker siblings taking viewers on a tour of their shop and showing how they run their business. The segment is cute, but not all that substantial,  especially considering its only one of two special features. Unfortunately there is also no DIgital HD version of the season included on Blu-ray set, leaving consumers with only the first season episode discs and the two bonus features.

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