Like final 12 months’s vacation particular earlier than it, Lucasfilm and Lego’s newest particular shifts exterior of canon to riff on the explanation for the season, dipping into a trio of spooky tales revolving round darkish facet artiinfo. Also just like the particular earlier than it, it’s at its finest when it ignores its non-canonicity to essentially check out a relationship from the sequel trilogy.

Although its nature as an anthology—three tales loosely themed round Poe Dameron crash-landing on Mustafar, and dragged into testing Darth Vader’s fortress there, mid-transformation into a brand new lodge, as a result of, good day Walt Disney—signifies that Terrifying Tales just isn’t fairly as narratively profound as The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special managed to be. But in amongst its goofs and jokes, certainly one of its extra attention-grabbing tales tackles the same method to the sequel’s most attention-grabbing characters. If Rey and Finn have been on the coronary heart of Holiday Special, then it’s Kylo Ren—or reasonably Ben Solo himself—who will get probably the most attention-grabbing time in Terrifying Tales, particularly within the first of the three tales, “The Lost Boy.”

A riff on the beloved vampire film The Lost Boys (proper right down to a gag that feels prefer it comes fully out of nowhere that includes a shirtless Bith going to city on a Kloo Horn like a sure oiled saxophonist), the brief is about in and round Luke Skywalker’s newly fashioned Jedi temple. Luke (voiced by Eric Bauza) is making an attempt to coach all of his college students equally, a lot to the chagrin of a teenage Ben (Matthew Wood), who’s clearly extra superior in his grasp of the Force, given his lineage within the household of the Chosen One. It’s rapidly some extent of frustration between uncle and nephew: Luke doesn’t wish to hear Ben’s complaints that the opposite college students are holding him again, and Ben is ignorant to Luke’s knowledge that endurance is a advantage and that his vanity over his talents might push him down a harmful path.

All this will get thrown into query when a sulking Ben, visiting a close-by outpost after coaching, crosses paths with the Knights of Ren and their enigmatic chief (voiced by Christian Slater, of all folks). Ren instantly guarantees Ben precisely what Luke received’t: energy, freedom, and above all, to be listened to. That, and a few nifty black robes and a pleasant helmet, nevertheless it’s being heard Ben craves greater than the rest, one thing we all know was additionally the case within the precise present canonicity of occasions within the run as much as The Force Awakens. We understand how Ben felt about his mother and father sending him to Luke’s academy, about how Luke’s makes an attempt to maintain his nephew protected finally brought about the self-doubts inside him that might push him away for good. “The Lost Boy” channels all these swirling frustrations too, even when it does so whereas turning the Knights of Ren into one thing extra akin to a frat boy biker gang than a roaming band of murderous darkish facet acolytes.

Where the brief story jukes away from the minimal particulars we all know of simply how Ben fell to the darkish facet’s temptations performs into that feeling of the younger man not being heard. “The Lost Boy” climaxes when the Knights and Ren try to strain him into leveling Luke’s temple to the bottom, and the younger boy tries to clarify that he didn’t need to damage his uncle’s work, he simply needed to be reached out to and understood. A quick duel with Ren later as Ben tries to defend the temple from blaster hearth, the previous knight is defeated (by, sarcastically, Ben lastly listening to Luke’s classes). But issues nonetheless end up as we all know them to: usurping Ren’s place, Ben turns into Kylo, pushed away from his uncle who can’t perceive why Ben feels remoted and ignored sufficient within the first place.

It might largely be performed for a number of gags, and it won’t really be a part of what we all know to the the textual content that’s Ben Solo’s character within the sequel trilogy. But for a present about animated Lego minifigures, “The Lost Boy” is a narrative that also manages to strike at one thing concerning the tragedy of Leia and Han’s son in a method that feels resonant no matter its canonicity. But additionally, it does have a shirtless Bith enjoying the Kloo Horn, which is fairly nice on prime of all that.

Lego Star Wars Terrifying Tales is now streaming on Disney+.

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