I love R2-D2 and have spent a lot of money on R2-D2 merchandise, including several LEGO R2-D2 sets. Over the years I've also bought several other LEGO sets of licensed merchandise.

Far and away the best of them is LEGO Ideas WALL-E (21303) which has the best backstory of all LEGO sets. LEGO Ideas sets originate from people outside of LEGO. Creative LEGO builders can submit their design on the LEGO Ideas website and fans vote on which designs should become actual LEGO products. The most popular ideas are invited to go through LEGO product design process, those that manage to emerge from it become products on shelves.

LEGO WALL-E idea was submitted by Angus MacLane, a lifetime LEGO fan who also happened to have a day job at Pixar Animation Studios. In fact, he was part of the WALL-E film production team. With such insider knowledge, this LEGO set absolutely built and felt like it was designed by someone who knew both LEGO and WALL-E inside and out.

Pawing through my archive of LEGO build instructions, I learned I also have 4738 Hagrid's Hut. I have no memory of buying this set. I've read the books and enjoyed some of the movies, but I wouldn't call myself a huge fan even before I learned what a horrible person J. K. Rowling turned out to be. I rebuilt this set hoping it'll jog some memory and... nothing. Shrug.

That's not the only set I've forgotten about. Going through my LEGO figures, I find a few that imply LEGO with missing pieces and memories.

  • I must have bought a LEGO Marvel licensed set for this Iron Man figure, probably a small one because I don't see pieces implying a large Avengers set. But I don't recognize anything as an opponent for Tony Stark.

  • I'm not a huge fan of C-3PO but I probably bought something just to get a R2-D2 figure and C-3PO came in the set. But I've lost track of the R2-D2 companion for this specific C-3PO.

  • A Darth Maul implies there should be a Jedi for him to fight. Likely a Qui-Gon Jinn, but tan robe and bearded face doesn't stand out like Darth Maul does in my pile of LEGO figures.

I was moderately amused by LEGO's BrickHeadz line. I assume they're trying to earn some money from the Funko Pop audience, as BrickHeadz are clearly designed to be built once and put on display, never disassembled. Or simply collected and left in their boxes, never to be built. Which is a shame, because it's interesting to see how much LEGO designers can do with so little. I'm especially impressed by how different hairstyles can be represented with generic LEGO bricks over the surface of a 4x4x4 volume. I don't think all faces are identical, but they certainly are in my tiny collection.

  • 41602 Rey was purchased after watching The Last Jedi, best of the trilogy (fight me) which set up some intriguing possibilities that J.J. Abrams ignored and flushed down the toilet. So much money squandered and opportunity lost with Rise of Skywalker.

  • 41611 was a two-pack: neighborhood scientist inventor Doc Brown and his friend in time, Marty McFly all set to document the inaugural test run of Doc's time machine. As of this writing, an impressive depiction of the DeLorean is available as LEGO 10300, but I decided to pass on that.

On the subject of LEGO cars, I do have McLaren Senna 75892 from LEGO Speed Champions line. I got this set because it is the featured car of a LEGO themed expansion pack for Forza Horizon 4, which I spent many hours playing. I actually haven't driven the Senna much in game, I had far more wheel time in the little red rally Mini. I contemplated buying that as well, but it is part of a larger set 75894 and I decided against it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kvMU7W-Ifc

I was happy to continue revisiting my old LEGO sets, but one of my previous electronics projects needed immediate attention.