75314 The Bad Batch Attack Shuttle represents a huge shift for LEGO Star Wars

The newly-revealed 75314 The Bad Batch Attack Shuttle represents a major, spoiler-filled shift for the LEGO Star Wars theme.

Ever since Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, the House of Mouse has kept a tight lid on Star Wars spoilers across its merchandising partners. And while the LEGO Group’s other themes are content to spill the beans on major tentpole movies like Avengers: Infinity War, its Star Wars sets have mostly fallen back on safe, non-spoilery staples like generic vehicles.

In some cases, that’s led to tie-in sets launching months (or even a year) after the debut of their source material, such as in 75292 The Mandalorian Bounty Hunter Transport. Baby Yoda was a special case – nobody knew about him until the first episode of The Mandalorian aired in October 2019 – but the slow drip-feed of Mando sets since suggests Disney is still fearful of spoilers.

But that grip appears to have loosened slightly where 75314 The Bad Batch Attack Shuttle is concerned, because the newly-announced tie-in set to Star Wars: The Bad Batch has been officially revealed just two days after the show’s first episode aired – and contains a huge spoiler for that premiere in its minifigure line-up.

Fair warning: the next paragraph will explain that spoiler in full, so turn back here if you’ve yet to watch the first episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch.

While 75314 The Bad Batch Attack Shuttle does include all five members of the eponymous squad of Clone Troopers first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the team’s sniper – known as Crosshair – is suited in his Imperial uniform, signifying his loyalty to the Empire while the rest of the team rebels from the galaxy’s new government.

While it’s a very early twist in the Disney+ series, so was the reveal of Grogu – and it therefore marks a major departure for the LEGO Group, which has until now mostly avoided those kinds of spoilers in upcoming Star Wars material, or even held off for months afterwards. Along with Baby Yoda, we had to wait over a year before receiving a version of Din Djarin in his Beskar outfit.

Both waves of sets for Solo: A Star Wars Story neglected to include Maul, meanwhile, who only subsequently appeared in a Character Encyclopedia released last year. But the LEGO Star Wars team’s recent admission that they don’t know the context behind 75314 The Bad Batch Attack Shuttle’s two speeder bikes suggests that all these examples may actually be caused directly by Disney.

After all, the LEGO Group can’t choose to be spoiler-averse if it doesn’t know there’s anything to be spoiled – and it may be that Disney simply decided to withhold certain characters and storylines from its licensing partners. Whether it was Lucasfilm or the LEGO Group making that call, though, the end result is the same: something has changed for 75314 The Bad Batch Attack Shuttle.

It’ll be interesting to see whether this is just a one-off, or whether all future LEGO Star Wars sets will be more open to covering current media instead of playing catch-up months or years later. Purely in the interests of accuracy and relevancy, we’re very much hoping for the latter.

75314 The Bad Batch Attack Shuttle will launch on August 1, and is available to pre-order in the US right now. Click through to learn more about the set’s surprising build and see a full gallery of images.

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