Is a skeleton a LEGO minifigure? Is a Battle Droid a LEGO minifigure? Do you want someone else to figure this out for you?
Since being introduced in 1978, the LEGO minifigure has become as synonymous with the brand as the 2×4 brick. And for good reason; the lovable little characters bring life to LEGO models in a way that nothing else quite can.
As the minifigure grew older, it grew beyond its original design, incorporating wacky heads for aliens and other creatures, with some even getting snake tails or multiple arms, too! Then there are also the likes of skeletons and Battle Droids, who fit in with minifigures… but do they count as minifigures themselves?
Blocks News Writer Ryan Everleth dives headfirst into the confounding conundrum, examining books and the figures themselves to try and reach that coveted conclusion: What actually counts as a LEGO minifigure?
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It’s a deceptively difficult question to pin down an answer for. Take 75435 Battle of Felucia Separatist MTT for example. On the box, it boats a solid twelve figures: Aalya Secura, Commander Bly, a Battle Droid Pilot, six Battle Droids and three Commando Droids.
“If you ask a random person to tell you how many minifigures are in 75435 Battle of Felucia Separatist MTT, they’re likely to tell you twelve,” Ryan says. “And this seems like an accurate answer. All of these are undeniably mini and pretty unarguably figures. But are they all minifigures?
“The look-in-the-minifigure-book answer is, no, they’re not. Battle Droids aren’t made of any standard minifigure elements, so they don’t qualify as minifigures. Thus the MTT has two. That’s the end of that.”
Except the answer isn’t quite so simple. The book doesn’t just exclude Battle Droids — it also excludes skeleton figures on the basis of them not being made up of “enough” standard minifigure elements to qualify. This makes decent enough sense, given the only standard part it uses is the head, but with modern minifigures having all sorts of crazy head and leg pieces, what exactly is the cutoff? What is “enough”?
“We’re going to have to figure this out for ourselves,” declares Ryan.
Journey down the rabbit hole of what does and doesn’t count as a LEGO minifigure, examining everything from the classic smiley-faced minifigure to aliens from a galaxy far, far away, building and tweaking a definition along the way. And at the end, reaching a definitely definitive definition of what actually counts as a LEGO minifigure.
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