How I Spent My Geek Pride Day

For Geek Pride Day, May 25th, I went into Times Square to see the life-size Lego X-Wing. And do all the other Star Wars activities they had scheduled. It was basically to promo the new cartoon "Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles".

Wearing my HerUniverse R2 shirt and my Tokidoki Thor hoodie and my R2 felt hairclip. I should have worn and broken in my new Jedi sneakers too, but it was raining and dreary and I didn't want to ruin them.

the lightsaber really lights up and blinks!

First, I made sure to figure out how to get on the x-wing. I got on one line to get a colored brick for myself which then I could get in line for the real deal in about 45 minutes or by watching the monitor to see if they called my brick color. That process took roughly 15 minutes. And around the time I got up there, they were running out of colored bricks. But traveling alone had its perks as they needed someone who was only 2 people. I said I was a party of one and they gave me the last gray brick. Woohoo!

 So with brick in hand, I then went to scope out the area around the x-wing. It had Lego brick statues of Chewie, Darth Vader, R2 & C3P0, Boba Fett and another unit I can't recall (R5?) Anywho...

They also had a spot to take a pic with Lego Yoda who had a touristy shirt on that said "NY I <3"
 

I took that pic as the line wasn't long and kept moving. Having more time, moved on to the longer wait of the make and take area where you could build a little x-wing mini fig. Too cute!

Then characters started showing up. Darth Vader, an x-wing pilot and a few Imperial guards. I want to think they were part of the 501st Legion but saw no signs that they were from that.

I kinda feel like this should say that he was dancing with the Vader umbrella but he wasn't. sigh.

Finally heard they called my brick number! Got in line by the x-wing and it was probably another 25 minutes before I got into the cockpit. And right after I got on the line with my colored brick, I heard they were going to start just lining people up because they ran out of the colored bricks. Whew, glad I got my brick as the line was now about 2 hours long where you got the colored brick.

Once up there, you get an awesome picture of you in the cockpit with R2 as your pilot behind you!

And these are the awesome closeups of the x-wing. Lego of course made the smaller pieces into larger Lego pieces :) Attention to detail never escapes the Lego builders.

Night shot of the back

Under the nose, you can see how the smaller bricks are made to look like the bricks if they were giant sized.

The millions of Legos!

 There was also a "master class" in brick building but I heard it wasn't that good. They didn't really give you anything to build that was master class level or from the kits you normally would purchase (not saying they should give that to you free but even if you just take it apart afterwards). They merely told you how to sandwich a few bricks together. The only good thing about the class was you got a purple brick to cut the x-wing line.

They of course also had a few cabinets with new toys out for the cartoon.

And this was a special promo with Toys R Us. If you bought the x-wing, you got this cool NY Yoda figure,

Yoda figure. Too cute! I now own one :)

The x-wing is now on its way to Legoland California. Enjoy Californians!

It was a fab day albeit drizzly and cold. Thanks Geek Pride Day! Thanks Lego! Thanks Star Wars!

Fun factoids about the x-wing, courtesy of Lego.com:
• Contains 5,335,200 LEGO bricks
• Weighs 45,980 pounds/20,865 kilograms
• Height: 11 feet / 3.35 meters
• Length: 43 feet / 13.1 meters
• Wingspan: 44 feet / 13.44 meters
• 32 builders spent 17,336 hours to construct – about 4 months
• Built in the LEGO Model Shop in Kladno, Czech Republic
• Is a one-to-one replica of LEGO Star Wars set #9493; The model is 42x the size of the retail building set
• The model was heavily engineered to withstand all the transportation, setup/break down and to ensure it was safe for Times Square given the subway system below and California’s seismic requirements for the LEGOLAND California Resort installation.

“The Yoda Chronicles”
The Yoda Chronicles is an exciting, funny and action-packed new LEGO Star Wars story told in three animated TV specials. “The Phantom Clone” will premiere on Wednesday, May 29 at 8:00 p.m. (ET, PT) on Cartoon Network with specials two and three airing later this year. In the first of three specials, a brand new character, Jek 14 will enter the Star Wars universe. Created by the LEGO Group, Jek 14 is a clone who has been ‘enhanced’ by the Force. 
-via Lego.com