LEGO Star Wars C-3PO, Yavin IV rumours are fake after all

A series of recent LEGO Star Wars rumours and leaks have been confirmed as false – including the alleged Force ghost piece that’s been doing the rounds.

Over the past couple of years, the LEGO community has cemented Instagram as the home of rumours, and in doing so has created a breeding ground for fake information to rise to the top. That’s often easy to spot – reports of incredulous sets with wild minifigure counts, for example, or any rumours from relatively new accounts – but occasionally, things get a little tricky.

That was exactly the case with a recent series of LEGO Star Wars rumours from one new user, who claimed – among other things – that 2022 would bring us a drum-lacquered C-3PO minifigure, a Master Builder Series Yavin IV temple, and a Book of Boba Fett set with a brick-built Rancor. All of those rumours have now been declared false by the same user.

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What made those reports especially convincing, however, was that the same individual published images of what was apparently a new LEGO Force ghost piece, in the form of a trans-blue element that could wrap around any given Jedi minifigure (with the notable exception of Yoda). 

It now transpires that even that piece was (very convincingly) faked using Blender, a rendering engine that turns 3D objects into 2D images. But the aim was clearly to give the person responsible a vague air of legitimacy among the minefield of Instagram rumours, thereby allowing their reports to be picked up by wider media, including Brick Fanatics and YouTuber MandRproductions.

But as we’ve always said with every single rumour we report on Brick Fanatics, nothing is confirmed until the LEGO Group officially weighs in. And that means some claims – no matter how believable they appear to be on the surface – will inevitably be completely made up. It’s something we’ve seen time and again, but it’s also just part of the fun of the rumour mill.

So, we’re not getting a new LEGO Force ghost – at least in the style presented over on Instagram, and not in any form in the newly-revealed 75330 Dagobah Jedi Training – but given the overwhelmingly negative reaction to that faked piece, that’s probably a relief to most of us.

But if you were holding out hope for a Yavin IV set or a shiny, drum-lacquered C-3PO – a story we questioned even at the time – it’s hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment at this news. Still, you never know what the LEGO Group has up its sleeve: there’s always a chance at least one of these rumours was correct by sheer coincidence…

Featured image: Lucasfilm

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