Citation: Daniel Konstanski, The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks: The Inside Story of a Design Icon (Unbound, 2022). — p. 216.

Several vehicles, including TIE fighters, the Millennium Falcon and Jedi starfighters, were identified early on as ships that needed to always have some variant available on shelves. Accordingly, designers began allocating a certain number of new element frames each year to refreshing portions of those ships. New cockpit elements, wings, engines or bubble canopies provided stark visual distinctions from what came before, improving the overall accuracy of each new version.

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A platform was tasked specifically with developing a key class of elements. Its name was shape elements. With graceful curves and facets, these pieces were used to create ever more movie-accurate spaceship hulls. Even as they focused on LEGO Star Wars sets, designers never strayed from their initial push to make components as widely usable as possible. Shape elements were embraced throughout the company, showing up in contemporary themes like LEGO Exo-Force, LEGO® Dino 2010 and beyond, all the way to the present.

Refining the appearance of iconic Star Wars vehicles was a major source of new parts, including a whole 'platform' dedicated to a range of new curved 'shape' elements.