Those who have already gone to their local cinemas in order to watch Star Wars: The Last Jedi would’ve already gotten a good look at that weird-looking creature that we saw in trailers next to Chewbacca in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. Merchandising information has already informed us that those big-eyed, big-mouthed alien beasties are called Porgs.
If you’re one of the viewers who thought the Porgs cute in spite of – or maybe because of – their screeching voices, and happen to live in London, then you’re sort in luck. LEGO, being a merchandising partner of the Star Wars saga for so long, has decided to pitch in with promoting the film by putting up LEGO-brick Porgs in certain locations across the city.
About ten Porg statues made out of LEGO were positioned outside some of London’s easily-recognizable landmarks. These include classic structures like St. Paul’s Cathedral to the more contemporary sights like the London Eye.
These promotional set pieces were assembled by LEGO with help from the certified professional (LCP) outfit Bright Bricks. Each individual LEGO Porg is composed of 8,000 bricks and took 20 hours to build, thus 200 hours total to complete the set of 10. A completed statue is 60cm tall and weighs 16.5 kilos.
Porgs were conceptualized by The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, as bird-like creatures living in the ancient Jedi sanctuary world of Acht-To. The Porgs seen on screen were real-life puffins overlaid with CGI to look alien. A scene has Chewbacca roasting a Porg on Ahch-To, only to relent from eating it when other live Porgs nearby made him self-conscious. He took some of them aboard the Millennium Falcon later.
London’s flock of LEGO Porgs will be around from December 21 to January 15 next year. LEGO and Star Wars fans in the city shouldn’t miss taking a photo or two of them while they’re around.