Interview with the LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures Producers

Full LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures trailer

In LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, Zander (Eugene Byrd), Kordi (Vanessa Lengies) and Rowan Freemaker (Nicholas Cantu) and their revamped clone droid Roger (Matthew Wood) own a ship building/repair shop. After a series of events, and a chance meeting during a salvage run, they end up on an adventure to regains parts of a very special artifact. The show is set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and also features some very familiar characters from the original trilogy. In fact, the premiere of the show, which airs on June 20 on Disney XD actually opens with a very famous pair; Darth Vader and the Emperor.

We attended a press conference with some of the cast as well as Executive Producer Bill Motz and Bob Roth, who we got to speak to afterwards. The cast was super jazzed about the precocious Cantu, singing his praises, especially about a particularly emotional scene he performed from later in the season. The producers explained that this show will have the humor we’ve come to expect from LEGO Star Wars, but will definitely touch on some darker subjects. The producers told us, “You’ll see some darkness in this. Hand in hand with the good times of Star Wars are the moment when Luke gets his hand cut off.” “Which is less upsetting if it’s LEGO,” I replied. “True,” they said, “and no one is getting their hand cut off, but we are telling stories that aren’t completely safe and happy all the time. We’re going to put our characters through some emotional paces.” We won’t learn too much about the character’s history, but we’ll see them grow and change during the season.

So, is this canon? Well, no, but everything in it fits canon. Motz explained that it’s sort of like hearing the story of what happened, but from a child. So, who are we going to see? Leia is definitely likely, but the producers told we’re going to see someone else familiar. “Are you familiar with Hando? You might see Hando, or Maz. We will be going to some environments that we saw in Episode VII. And how would you feel if you saw them both in the same episode?” We also might see characters from Star Wars Rebels, though it wasn’t confirmed.

We also learned that they cast the family multiculturally and really wanted to be inclusive. In fact, there is a LEGO color called nougat, which is a slightly darker skin tone than ones we’ve seen before. “It was important to us,” said Roth. “We don’t nail down the specific ethnicity, but we wanted this to be inclusive. We wanted kids around the world to feel like those [characters] are them. And there are too many times in life, as well as on the screen, where it’s characters who don’t look or act like you and we kind of wanted to change that up, even from the ADHD behavior of Rowan to—we want to say, you are valued as a person and in this universe.”

They also talked about having women in this universe and how important it is, including a very important character from the first episode that I can’t reveal because of spoilers. Roth said that, in addition to her and to Kordi, “A pretty significant Imperial officer is female.” Motz added, “It was really important to us that we told a story that was inclusive to everybody. We didn’t want to say to girls, ‘This is LEGO and this is Star Wars and this isn’t for you, sweetie. Go play with your dolls. No, we want them in as much as we want the boys. So Kordi builds as much as the boys. Kordi has a different way of building than Zander and different motivations than Zander. She’s a baker and he’s a chef, if that makes any sense. Bakers measure and they’re very precise. Chef’s, you know…even in the episode you saw [Kordi says to Zander] ‘I have to make sure that thing flies.’ It was important to us, because I have a daughter that’s 18. I want a role model for my niece and to say, you can be a strong woman and you can do these things. I love Rey. Rey to me was just so perfect and so spot on. When she offers Finn her hand—we wanted to bring that kind of thing to it.” (For the record, the Zander and Kordi thing isn’t a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference, but they joked that they probably did it subconsciously because they’re big fans.

Another really cool thing in the series is the ship design. “Episode 2 introduces Jabba the Hutt’s cousin, and he’s got the Rancor’s Fist, which is a really awesome ship,” said Motz. “If you imagine the aesthetic of the sail barge, and you see it in the comic book, it’s taking that aesthetic and putting it into the ship. I think it’s really cool. And Zander has a pet project ship that is his sports car, the Blazemaker,” he said. Roth added, “He’s making his own Z-Wing that he’s cherry-ing out. It’s chromium and everything else. But because things happen, the ship doesn’t stay exactly the same. Doug Chaing and his team designed the Blazemaker and its multiple incarnations,” he laughed.

LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures will premiere on Monday, June 20 on Disney XD. Will you be watching?