[REVIEW] Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator 7961

[Jigsaw Killer]

Name: Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator

Theme: Star Wars Episode I

Set Number: 7961

Pieces: 479

Year released: 2011

Minifigures: 4 (Qui-Gon Jinn, Padmé, Darth Maul, Captain Panaka)

Price: £60 (€68)

Legos’ Description

Track down Queen Amidala™ in the Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator™!

"Darth Maul is flying across Tatooine in his stealthy Sith Infiltrator, straight towards Captain Panaka and Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn! Don’t let him defeat Queen Amidala’s protectors! Defend the Queen at all costs! When the Sith Infiltrator makes a landing, open the hatches, fold the wings, deploy the landing gear and prepare for battle! Will Captain Panaka’s blaster and Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn’s lightsaber be enough to fend off Darth Maul on his detachable Sith speeder? You decide!

• Includes 4 minifigures: Darth Maul, Queen Padmé Amidala, Captain Panaka, and Qui-Gon Jinn with assorted weapons

• Features detailed interior, folding wings, flick missile, landing gear and detachable Sith speeder!

• Flick-fire the missile!

• Fold the wings, deploy the landing gear and lift the hatch to reveal the Sith Infiltrator’s detailed interior!

• Measures over 15” (38cm) long and 9” (22cm) wide

Minifigs

Qui-Gon and Darth Maul

I gotta say I hate that stupid thing on Darth Mauls head. It just doesn’t look right, his head looks massive... Good job he comes with a hood :D Qui-Gon comes with a new shade of green saber you can see the comparison in the shot below.

As you can see the saber on the left (the new one) is more darker and greener than the one on the right. I’ve got a lot of the neon green sabers so it’s nice to have a change here and there.

Padmé and Panaka

Mess around with a few pieces and you can make a windu...

The ship

Lets start with the views

The ship took me around 1 hour 30 mins to build. It’s quite solid, I haven’t had any parts break off for me while iv been holding it. I personally don’t play with Lego but it’s got a few nice goodys hidden away for those that do. Let’s take a look at them...

Firstly, the front of the ship opens up revealing a place for the Mauls speeder to sit and a place for the probe droids to hang out (The droids still look rubbish, they need printing). Other than that, the rest of the inside sadly looks pretty empty.

The probe droids can be released with some handles on the side but when they do come out they just fall flat like they are broke or something lol. I know there’s no way for them to fall and stand up straight but they could’ve replaced it with something better.

This ship also comes withhhh, you guessed it. Flick missiles!

The back opens up revealing a very small area for Darth Maul to stand (claustrophobic much?). There’s also a hidden draw you can take out holding his double bladed lightsaber.

The Last 2 features are the wings that can be adjusted, and the landing gear can be put away. Not much to say here...

The Pros

Excelent minifigs

Ship looks good from all angles

Lots of playability

New saber shade

The Cons

Probe droids should have printing

Mauls head gear makes his head look too big

Not much going on in the inside of the ship

Ratings:

Design: 4/5: The ship looks awesome my only complaint is about how empty the inside looks when its opened and how the probe droids fall out.

Build: 4/5: Enjoyable

Playability: 5/5: There’s alot of fun to be had out of this set. With the jedi and sith minifigs and some of the ship features, children can create lots of different scenarios.

Minifigures: 5/5: The minifigs in the set are brilliant if you exclude mauls silly hat... I love Qui-gon and Mauls new design. All the minifigs in this set are really well done I honestly don’t have a bad thing to say about any of them apart from the head piece ofc.

Price: 3/5: We all know Lego charges ALOT for their sets and this one is no different. Having said that, it’s not a drastic price to pay but it still should be a little less.

[Future74]

Nice review

Just got beaten by you, my review of this set will be up tonight.

[Mr Man]

Thanks for the review Jigsaw Killer.

Maul looks horrible , and Qui-Gon looks nothing like him. The ship is better than the first two but could do with the smoothness of the previous version.

[lightningtiger]

Great review 'Jigsaw Killer', interesting set but I feel this still lacks something...though I can't put my finger on it right now !

The only good thing are the minifigs (minus Darth Maul's spiky head gear), they are excellently detailed.

May the Eurobrick be with you !

[Baylego]

Nice review! I have the 2007 version, and I think that that one is more satisfying to me at only $30 when I bought it. I would still love to have the new Panka and Padme!

[airsoftg36c]

I wouldn't buy this set just because of the figs. So ugly, but the ship... It's the best I've seen of all 3 Inflitrators!

[Aanchir]

Thanks for the review. I love this set from what I have seen. The luxurious dark red interior is very nice, as is the sleek and accurate shape of the vessel. One question: when this was being exhibited at Toy Fair, there was nothing locking the nose of the ship closed, making the top flip open if the ship was turned upside-down. Does the final ship remedy this problem, or is it still restricted to right-side-up play?

The minifigures definitely impress me. Darth Maul's "horns piece" might not be a perfect fit (it would be nicer if it had less of a seam between it and the minifigure head, especially in the back where it's very obvious), but I feel the size is tolerable, and I'm very grateful to TLG for designing it since the inability to use Darth Maul without a hood was something that always bothered me about the first wave of Episode 1 sets in 1999.

All of the figs have back printing, which is a great detail. I like the use of Medium Nougat (BL's Medium Dark Flesh, introduced last year in the Prince of Persia theme) for Captain Panaka's skin tone, as well as the use of Transparent Bright Green (introduced last year in the Atlantis theme) on Qui-Gon's lightsaber. While Transparent Bright Green isn't as "glowy" as Transparent Fluorescent Green (BL's Trans-Neon Green), it's more consistent with the other non-fluorescent lightsaber colors. The new Qui-Gon Jinn is a great likeness of the actor's stoic depiction of the character, and Padme's face is much better than that horrendous face used for her in her first appearance as a minifigure.

In fact, the only thing that really bothers me about the minifigures is Darth Maul's face. The way his chin narrows so visibly looks simply incompatible with the cylindrical shape of the minifigure head, and I'd have much rather if his face had been distorted a bit to have a wider chin. Of course, with his tattoos this may have been difficult.

[Churchill]

This is the one new release I was looking forward to, and I'm pretty disappointed. I think part of the reason I don't like it is proportion. There's really nothing in the nose, and the back compartment is cramped. I think the problem is that this is supposed to be a moderately large ship, but Lego designs it with a scale like its a starfighter. It almost comes off like the Venator or Tantive, which are large ships that look great from the outside, but are taken up by one or two scale play areas inside.

Maybe overall with the outside appearance I'd say it doesn't look too bad, but open it up and it just fails for me.

[TheGreenMachine]

I think this set is ok - not great but not terrible either. My son wanted this set so we bought it along with the Republic Frigate. The proportions look ok to me and I think the cockpit is even great. The only thing I don't like is the underside, as it's too flat. The figures are great IMHO, especially the Qui-Gon Jinn. I also like Maul's nre headpiece. It may look weird, but come one, all Lego figures don't look realistic. I think it's silly to complain about such features, as it is LEGO after all.

The price (in Euroland) is a bit high, but this will always be an issue with Lego SW sets, so what...?

[Mr. Elijah Timms]

Must say, this seems like a rare case where a new SW fig isn't necessarily improved.

That Darth Maul is an ugly little guy, and I hate the print on the face! He's got owl eyes, and it also looks like he's got a bad porn 'stache. Top it off (literally) with the horny pancake hat thing on his head, and consider me unimpressed. I'm not a PT guy but even if I was I'd be very upset with that figure, probably enough not to get the set. Love the Panaka figure though, very cool!

[TheDarkness]

Thanks for the review. I own the original which I prefer, so this one most likely won't be on the shopping list. However, like most of this wave, the figures are excellent, Darth Maul being the exception. He looks too much like the Predator, with a squashed, crab like face. The horns wouldn't bother me, but that face is shocking.

[Nightshroud99]

Qui-Gon is awesome! But Darth Maul looks constipated and...bad.

Padme is really nice though!!!

Still a must get for me! Thanks for the review!

[Petit-bleu]

First of all, thank you for your review.

I don't like the ship. I find it poor.

I don't like Maul's face.

Padme is meh.

Qui-gon is meh.

Panaka looks good but i don't want him that bad.

It's an easy pass for me (until a huge discount of course), and probably the only "pass" from this wave.

Edi: I voted poor because one minifig don't make a set. For ten euros less i would have voted below average.

Edited June 20, 2011 by Petit-bleu

[Masked Builder]

A nice review. Like you, and many others, the minifigures are only meh. Not the greatest, though as we have been begging for a new Padme for years, it's good to see her return to a set. I do like Daarth Maul's new head piece. And the ship just needs to much work for me to want to get this. So this is a no buy for me.

[KimT]

Meh! I'm still somewhat disappointed in this set.

Why make another one? And why not go "all in" and make one that kicks some serious butt?

blogged

[Brickdoctor]

Thanks for this review.

I'm pretty disappointed by this set. It does look better than both its predecessors, but it's still lacking, gappiness being the biggest flaw in my opinion. And then TLG finally gets around to giving us a new Padme minifig and they don't even print a new face.

[Blackknight112]

Thanks fo the review. I must say this is an "ok" set, I'm not really happy the figs turned out. I don't like qui-Gon Jinn's face, it look way to cartonish. Darth Maul doesn't look like much of an improvement over the old one. Unlike Savage, the new horn piece just doen't look good on him. I'm not that happy with padme, but we finally got one The only figure I really like is Paneka, he looks sweet.

The set on his own looks good to me, but like others I wonder why another Infiltraitor?

[Petit-bleu]

The set on his own looks good to me, but like others I wonder why another Infiltraitor?

Why?

Next year, all the kids will want this set.

PS: Did you see the underneath?

[SWMAN]

I really like the Panaka. It's a pretty awesome figure. Hopefully it is a sign that Lego will release future sets that include Naboo troopers.

[xowainx]

Could you take a photo of the "detachable Sith Speeder", although given the "excitement" level of the rest of the set I don't blame you for missing it out!

[Stegoceras]

First off thanks for the review, have been looking forward to one on this set.

Unlike many others here, I actually like this set, one of the better sets of the summer wave in my opinion. An improvement over the first version and much better than the "lets add many giant sloped pieces to make a smooth looking ship" 7663 version. The bottom is poor but since I generally don't display my ships upside-down I honestly don't mind it much.

I do agree on the opinion that the Maul minifigure is a pretty poor, the horns just don't look as good as they do on Savage and the face seems to squeezed. The other figures make up for it tenfold though, been a while since we had a Qui-Gon and I'm sure he is much wanted by people who didn't get any of the sets from the early days of Star Wars Lego. Although Padme didn't come in a sweet dress fit for a queen it's nice to see TLC did finally listened to it's fans and gave them an updated version as well. Finally Panaka is simply very cool and easily the star of this set.

The price could do with some cuts but it's nothing we haven't seen from other Star Wars sets and still is nowhere as ridiculous as the price per piece ratio of the Geonosian Fighter.

[fff]

Unlike many others here, I actually like this set, one of the better sets of the summer wave in my opinion. An improvement over the first version and much better than the "lets add many giant sloped pieces to make a smooth looking ship" 7663 version.

Absolutely. I love this one too. I think this is a great reedition, as well as Anakin's racers. And price is ok too.

thanks for the review

[Gregorovich]

Thanks for the great review, Jigsaw Killer! Four posts and your already giving us a review of this quality? Well done!

The figures are excellent in this set. Pananka is perfect IMO, The new Qui Gon is great, flesh Padme is nice and Maul is great. Sure, it would've been great if Padme was in a new outfit, but she's nice nonetheless. The ship, unfortunately, does not live up to the figure's standard. The bottom looks awful, and the main part's interior is very shabby. The cockpit looks very good with it's smooth, crimson goodness. The lightsabre holder is also good.

Thanks again!

[Strand]

Mess around with a few pieces and you can make a windu...

Dats Racist!

/jks