Ep.292 – Built To Last: LEGO Star Wars and the Brick That Refused To Quit
A Trip Down Memory Card Lane · David Kassin and Robert Kassin
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Show Notes
In 2005, \LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game\ arrived on shelves seven weeks before the film it was partly based on, built by a studio working out of a cottage in the English countryside, and rejected by three major publishers before anyone agreed to sell it. In this episode, we go back further than the game itself, tracing the story of Ole Kirk Christiansen, the Danish carpenter who built one of the most recognizable objects in human history from a woodworking shop in a town with one sidewalk, and whose brick survived fires, depression, and a company that nearly destroyed itself trying to be everything at once. We follow Tom Stone putting his house on the line to rescue a shelved project, Jonathan Smith and Traveller's Tales building levels around a film they weren't allowed to see, and the decision to remove all dialogue that turned out to be the game's secret weapon. Join us for the story behind the brick, the galaxy far far away, and the studio that refused to take no for an answer, on today's trip down Memory Card Lane.