<P> In 1999 , the first Lego products featuring licensed characters , i.e. not designed in - house , were Lego Star Wars and Winnie the Pooh Duplo , followed in 2000 by Lego Harry Potter characters to figures from other Steven Spielberg movies . Soren Holm , the head of Lego Concept Lab said toy weapons had always been heavily debated , but that since the Lego Star Wars release Lego has grown `` more comfortable with conflict '' . Mr Laursen , executive North American operations suggested to make `` violence not explicit , but humoristic . '' After 1999 a number of in - house characters were strongly characterised with media utilisation and non-Lego System merchandising , most notably Bionicle from 2001 -- 2010 and then again in 2016 . </P>
when did lego first begin licensing characters from movie and tv shows for lego sets
1999