When LEGO first designed a set for The Last Jedi’s badass Resistance Bomber, they only had some art and reference photos to go on. So they gave the pilot a placeholder name and white skin and released it. Once the film and its expanded canon hit, though, it turns out the bomber’s pilot had a name, and he was black.
As The Brothers Brick report, LEGO set 75188 originally contained a pilot called “Resistance Bomber Pilot #1", who looked like this:
But an updated version of the set has just begun hitting shelves, with the only difference being that the generic pilot has now been replaced by:
Obviously the skin colour and face have now changed, but so too has the pilot’s helmet design. That’s because ever since The Last Jedi’s release, and the release of a canonical novel about the Resistance’s bomber crews, the pilot has gone from being what LEGO assumed was filler to an actual character in the Star Wars universe.
His name is Finch Dallow, and you might remember him as the pilot of the last remaining Resistance bomber, the one also crewed by Rose’s sister Paige, which manages to release its bombs and destroy the First Order Dreadnaught.
The decision to replace the figure wasn’t down to a mistake on LEGO’s part; as a representative from the company told a fan who contacted them about the change, it was just down to the limitations of trying to make toys based on a movie before that movie is actually released.
“We developed The Lego Star Wars Resistance Bomber set (75188), based on “The Last Jedi” movie and discovered after the film was released that one of The Lego minifigures in the set doesn’t reflect the movie scene properly”, the rep wrote. “As a result, we decided to adjust the set accordingly, true to our motto: “Only the best is good enough”. We hope Star Wars fans across the world appreciate this attention to details.”
One person who’s understandably ecstatic about the move is British actor Kevin Layne, who played Finch in the film, and was shown a shot of the new figure late last year:
He’s not the only one excited; because the original set is already off the shelf in some regions, and it’s difficult to specifically request the updated version when ordering online, the Finch replacement figure is already going for a lot of money on eBay.