I've never bought a Lego advent calendar before, but when the first pictures of this 2016 Star Wars advent calendar went out, I got interested by the silver protocol droid. After seeing a huge discount on the Lego advent calendars in a retail store at the beginning of December, I decided to get one.

Here are a pic of what was hiding in each box (I just realized I forgot the Original Trilogy stormtrooper...):

I have to admit I've been positively surprised by the quality of the minifigures, as well as the micro buildings, although I'm not into it. About the minifigures, some are good for army building (Rebel Hoth Soldier, Stormtrooper, Snowtrooper, Battle Droid, Death Star Trooper...) and some are uncommon, as the Bespin guard and the silver protocole droid.

I'm a bit disapointed by the white Wookiee, as it's plain white with only black eyes and nose and a red and green belt. I was expecting some grey fur for the contrast.

About the micro buildings, some where really fun to build, such as the GNK droid (I love droids), and the Slave 1. It's amazing how the shape of the ship is perfectly repsected with only a few bricks.

My favorite minifigures :

As I said before, the protocol droid was my main interest for the advent calendar, and the minifigure is a gem. The printing is great and the yellow eyes gives it a nice look. I'm happy the get a Besoin guard too, as the Cloud City theme is underrepresented.

And Luke, despite its simple appearance with his Return of the Jedi clothes and green lightsaber is pretty nice. It's always good to get one of the main characters of the Saga.

My favorite minibuildings :

The GNK droid is really cool with its brown color. I can imagine it rusting inside the Sandcrawler. Also, the Slave 1 is great.

Overall :

This Advent Calendar is probably the first of many, as it allows to get a lot of minifigures. The pretrilogy is underrepresented, but it's not a bad thing as the incoming Star Wars story movies take place in the same era. Having some gifts from the Force Awakens could have been wonderfull, but I'm glad with what we got here.

This is a spoiler-free review (actually some minor spoilers but nothing that isn't on the outside of the box. The mini-kits are visible in the set pictures on this page, but you can read this and ignore them if you like.)

• Nice box art. The inside art is a mix of environments with lots of Christmas Easter Eggs. Erm... you know what I mean.
• Mostly original trilogy builds, some prequel/CW. An assortment of different planets (and space) instead of the even mix from 2015.
• 9 minifigures including droids. Very nicely printed and a couple of good army builder figures. Few characters. One figure is a nice alternative to a rare collectable from a couple of years ago.
• A handful of small vehicles and things. Some just OK. A couple are great. One personal favourite is here as another new design which I will add to my collection. Some very nice techniques for small and fiddly building.
• A couple of capital ships, including another personal favourite, but hit and miss designs. (I'm not a Lego designer and I know designing at this scale is deceptively hard).
• A couple of micro dioramas which are cute.
• No weapon stations/stores like previous years.
• Snow 'man' and sled are unusual and not traditional.
• Seasonal figure is not a Santa and could easily be a weird cousin of a familiar character outside of a holiday setting.
• A brick built item which made me laugh and contained a nice supply of very useful tiny pieces.

Overall it's as good as any previous calendar. The best bits are petty darn good but just miss out on being brilliant. My favourite little ship is missing a certain detail but most versions at this scale do as well. Another ship is spot on for its look but that means it can't sit flat. That said, I built a stand in five seconds from spares in this set. Any shortcomings will be very easy to fix with easily found bits. Because it's Lego.
At AUD 40 from ToysRUs when I wrote this, this is another good calendar.

Edit: the set pictures show a little stand for the small ship that won't stand by itself, but those pieces weren't in my set, or the behind-the-flap instructions.

As mentioned in my other calendar review; it's hard to review 24 mini-builds, but i will try to make it as complementary as possible.

The calendar in it self, is bad! The builds are the same as the past Star-Wars calendars. What im tired of, is none variation. None of the builds stands out from the other years. It's not much more to say, so i will use "pros, cons"!

Pros:

-Some of the figures are good. Snow-chewbacca is super cool.

-The micro-builds are neutral.

Cons:

-Very inaccurate micro-builds.

-Almost the same micro-builds, as other years.

-High price for what you get, even though America is cheap compared to European countries.

Overall Opinion:

Quite bad. Wish lego could be more generous on the past advent-calendars... As i said, nothing outstanding with this calendar.

I will give this 4.5/10!

Please remember that these are my thoughts (so before disliking, remember our opinion is different!) Thx in advance!