Initially just some fairly mediocre stop motions filmed in 2007, they quickly became popular due to their humor, and over time they became better.
However, after the release of the fifth installment, the creator pizzamovies took a hiatus from the series, and eventually stopped working on it to shift focus to his new stop motion Lego movie, Planetfall. As of now, the series is an Orphaned Series.
Tropes that appear in this work
- Art Evolution: The first four episodes had the explosions and lasers done in Paint, the fifth episode uses particle effects to animate them instead.
- Bad Boss:
- Commander Cody, actually. In the first episode he runs over a clone trooper who just happened to be walking by with his speeder bike and in 501st Legion III - Revenge, he makes a squad of Clone Troopers walk after they miss the transports. In 501st Legion V - Republic Sovereignty, he leaves a group of Clone Troopers to be captured by the Droid Army because there wasn't enough room in the gunship they were escaping in. All of these events are Played for Laughs.
- Commander Fox isn't much better, running over a Clone Trooper in his first appearance and later complaining that his body hasn't been cleaned up yet.
- The Bad Guy Wins: General Grievous and his droid army succeed in defeating Commander Cody and Captain Rex's forces in 501st Legion V - Republic Sovereignty and force them to retreat and regroup with other Republic forces. As pizzamovies hasn't uploaded a sixth part, this leaves Grievous the winner.
- Big Bad: General Grievous, who commands many of the Droid Battalions that the 501st fights.
- Big Badass Battle Sequence: Every episode features an army of Clone Troopers going up against an army of Battle Droids.
- Big Damn Heroes: Usually happens once per episode.
- In the original 501st Legion vid, reinforcements show up to push back the Battle Droids just as they're entering Fort Monus.
- In 501st Legion IV - Confederacy Strikes, Commander Cody's forces show up to save the remaining Clone Troopers right when the Droid Army has forced them to surrender.
- In 501st Legion V - Republic Sovereignty, the Galactic Marines show up in a gunship to rescue Commander Cody and the other Clone officers when the Battle Droids breach the Galactic Senate Defense Post.
- Big Good: Commander Cody, the CO of the 501st Legion.
- Boom, Headshot!: Commander Cody blows Grievous's head of in "The Siege", but Grievous somehow manages to repair himself.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The first four videos were fairly lighthearted and comical, but in "Republic Sovereingnty" the series starts to become dark. The episode features the 501st being defeated and forced to retreat. Grievous then has the Clone Troopers he took prisoner executed. The episode ends with Commander Cody, Captain Rex and Commander Fox preparing to mount a Last Stand against Grievous's forces. All of this is Played for Drama.
- The Chew Toy:
- Starting from II, each episode features Gungans getting killed by the Clone Troopers.
- Regular Clone Troopers are also often mistreated or killed.
- The Dragon: General Grievous is typically seen with his own Battle Droid Commander whom he often deviates orders to.
- Co-Dragons: In III, the Droid Commander shares the spot with a Silver Assassin Droid as well as one of the silver Devastator robots from the LEGO Exo-Force line.
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Follow the Leader: It wasn't long after the series was uploaded that other Brickfilmers began uploading Lego Star Wars videos featuring Big Badass Battle Sequences and lots of jokes, some even featuring very similar lines to the original. - Guns Akimbo:
- Commander Cody wields two Blasters in 501st Legion III - Revenge.
- Commander Fox also wields two Blasters in 501st Legion - Confederacy Strikes.
- Non-Action Big Bad: Curiously, General Grievous is never seen doing any fighting himself, in stark contrast to his appearances in the canon series.
- Number Two: Commander Cody has an orange-armed Clone Lieutenant who appears to act as second-in-command to him.
- Orphaned Series: Pizzamovies has yet to make a final episode and given how it's been over half a decade since the latest installment came out, the thought of a Grand Finale is unlikely.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Silver Assassin Droid quickly flees when he sees that the 501st has broken through.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Grievous always retreats right around when his forces are defeated.
