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Here’s another Lego Star Wars review for the database.
Name: Yoda
Theme: Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series
Number: 7194
Year: 2002
Pieces: 1075
Minifigs: N/A
Price when released in 2002 : £79.99
Price paid by me : £101.00 from eBay UK in May 2009 (opened box, but Lego sealed in original bags inside)
I have to admit that when I started to seriously try and collect all the Star Wars Lego sets about 18 months ago, this set didn’t really appeal to me. I’ve always been a big fan of the technology of Star Wars, so it’s the ships like the Millenium Falcon, the Imperial Star Destroyer, the X-Wing and all the rest that I really loved and wanted to collect. Over time I managed to track these sets down, and at the same time I saw more and more pictures of the blocky but strangely lovable Jedi master as I immersed myself ever more in the world of Lego Star Wars. Eventually I decided to take the plunge, get out my cheque book, and I’m pleased to say that I wasn’t disappointed.
OK, in time-honoured tradition, here's a picture of the front of the box:
Some obvious thematic similarities with other older UCS sets like the X-Wing and the TIE Interceptor.
There’s some nice box art in evidence on the front :
The back of the box looks like this :
All in all, LEGO did a decent job on the box. In an ideal world mine would have been in better condition, but such is life….
The instructions are A4 size and actually pretty lightweight when compared with some of the encyclopaedias you get with some of the other UCS sets.
Front cover :
The back cover is sweet – some nice advertising shots of a few really interesting sets, including one of my all-time favourites – the UCS Tantive IV Blockade Runner which I STILL can’t bring myself to deconstruct a year after building it. I’ve since managed to get hold of the other sets shown here as well, including the fearsome Darth Maul bust, but not got round to building them yet.
Below you can see a couple of random pages from inside. Master Yoda is basically hollow, and you obviously construct him row by row following the instructions which generally show the build from directly above as you can see here. It can get a little confusing at times, but you soon just about get the hang of it. It’s the same kind of instructions utilised for the Statue of Liberty set, which some of you may have seen (and a few lucky ones might actually own).
So, on to the pieces. I have to say that the colour palette is one of the most pleasing I’ve ever seen in a LEGO set – a riot of sand green, tan, dark orange and dark brown. I’d be willing to bet that you’ll not see more sand green pieces in any other official set apart from the Statue of Liberty – Yoda contains over 400 sand green pieces. I also think there’s probably more tan here than in any set – well over 500 tan pieces. I need to confess that as a relatively old-timer, I grew up in the days when all I had to work with were red, blue, white, yellow, black and clear pieces (with a bit of old grey thrown in), so the huge number of parts in unusual and in some cases quite rare colours really put a huge smile on my face. Hmmm – maybe I need to get out more !
Here are the larger sand green bricks and plates (I sort all the smaller pieces separately) :
And here’s the mountain of tan bricks, not including pieces 2 x 2 or less :
Here are the dark orange and dark brown pieces, with a couple of white and black parts to make up the numbers :
And finally, here are the smaller pieces, which I sort separately :
So, on to the finished build……. I need to apologise here for the quality of the pictures – I found Yoda REALLY hard to photograph. Any shot with the flash, even when I turned down the flash intensity, reflected horribly and made Yoda look even shinier than he really is, and when I tried 3-point lighting I couldn’t get a decent result. More powerful lights needed I guess.
Anyway, here’s Yoda from the front :
And here’s a close-up of his face :
His eyes are made up of a few parts that I’ve previously only seen in Technic sets.
Here he is from the side :
And here from the rear :
Just one of the quirky things about this set is the seemingly odd brick you can see halfway up his back. Here’s a slightly closer look :
It’s actually an OldDkGray 1 x 2 brick with the LEGO logo (poorly) printed on it. Looks a bit out of place, a bit like the label on an item of clothing sticking out of your collar ! This is a close up of the 'offending part', which apart from this set only appears in a couple of 2003 advent calendars in this colour according to Peeron :
Here finally is the finished ‘masterpiece’ posing against the box.
I have to say I LOVED the build. It was really refreshing to be building with tons of proper bricks and plates for a change – it took me back to my childhood when there were few specialised pieces and we just had to make do. The colour palette was also a wonderful breath of fresh air after building multiple grey space ships !
Conclusions :
Design: 7/10. OK, so he’s a bit blocky, but it’s definitely Yoda, leaning on a stick…..
Price: 7/10. Seems like reasonable value for money, even considering what I paid. Lots of proper bricks in interesting colours, and over 1000 pieces in total
Minifigures: None in this set, although I’d give the colour palette 10/10….
Playability: 5/10. His head turns, and that’s it. But hey – he’s clearly for display, and certainly NOT to be messed with, so I’m not sure if it’s fair to mark him down on playability…
Overall: 7/10. Bit of a blocky design, but nice colours and a good old-fashioned building experience. Plus I like to see him looking wisely across the room !
Thanks for reading.
Dr. D.
PS. Could I ask one of the moderators to please add a poll and index this review ? Thanks !
Edited by WhiteFang, 13 March 2010 - 04:44 PM.
Indexed and poll added
