[REVIEW] 75149: Resistance X-Wing Fighter

[makoy]

This will begin to make things right (or maybe not -- you have to find out).  Here is my 8th RA review ready to take off,  75149: Resistance X-Wing Fighter.

Overview

Name: 75149: Resistance X-Wing Fighter
Theme:  Star Wars / The Force Awakens 
Year: 2016 (2H) 
Pieces: 739 
Minifigures: 3 (+1 astromech droid)
Price: USD 79.99 / EUR 89.99 / GBP 84.99 / SGD 179.90 / MYR 449.90 
Resources: Brickset and Bricklink
 

Quote

Help! Lor San Tekka's desert home is under attack by the First Order Flametrooper! Swoop to the rescue with Poe Dameron in the Resistance X-Wing Fighter with its opening wings and cockpit, 4 spring-loaded shooters, retractable landing gear, removable hyperdrive at the back and detachable BB-8 Astromech Droid. You must help Lor San Tekka before the trooper destroys his home!

• Includes 3 minifigures: Poe Dameron, Lor San Tekka and a First Order Flametrooper, plus a BB-8 Astromech Droid.
• Resistance X-Wing Fighter features opening wings and minifigure cockpit, 4 spring-loaded shooters, retractable landing gear, removable hyperdrive and a detachable BB-8 Astromech Droid.
• Building section features a container, a tower that can be pushed over, and knobs to attach flame elements for a make-believe blaze.
• Weapons include Poe's blaster pistol and the Flametrooper's flamethrower with attachable flame element.
• Accessory elements include a wrench, fire extinguisher, flames, Poe's helmet and the Flametrooper's helmet.
• Recreate exciting planet-side scenes from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
• The perfect addition to any LEGO® Star Wars collection.
• This set offers an age-appropriate building experience for ages 8-14.
• Measures over 4” (11cm) high, 14” (37cm) long and 12” (32cm) wide with wings open, and over 3” (8cm) high with wings closed.

 

Introduction

Whenever I tell people that I like Star Wars, it's hard not to blurt out Millenium Falcon or X-Wing because it is almost impossible to not know what an X-Wing is unless you are living under a rock. The shape of the starfighter always gives it away.

According to Star Wars databank, the Incom T-70, most commonly known as X-wing, is the latest incarnation of a classic design and the signature combat craft of the Resistance’s Starfighter Corps. It is faster than the Alliance-era T-65s which makes Resistance X-wings manoeuvrable enough to engage TIE fighters in dogfights, but powerful enough to take down capital ships. As for the official dimension, we only know that it's official length in-universe is 12.48m.

Now, I shall dispense all pleasantries so that we can scrutinise the box and all its contents.

As described in the official set description, Lor San Tekka is being attacked by a Flametrooper. Poe is supposed to help him fight against the bad guy but it looks like Poe Dameron is targeting Lor San Tekka with the flick missile instead. Just look at the missile trajectory. Even the stud shooter won't hit the Flametrooper. 

Thankfully the back panel of the box shows Poe directly engaging the Flametrooper with his blaster. He also carries a fire extinguisher to put off the fire this Flametrooper started. As with any LEGO sets, the back panel shows off the play features of the set.

The side panels show the minifigures included. LEGO does not count astromech droids as minifigures because they are obviously not minifigures but I think Bricklink and Brickset count them as minifigure for the sake of convenience. Therefore, in the official description you'll see that LEGO describes the set having only 3 minifigures but in Bricklink and Brickset you'll see they count astromech droids as minifigure.

Most people will remember that this set was released after Poe's X-Wing Fighter with only 10-month lag in between. The build is 99% identical except the price of the Resistance X-Wing is a little bit higher. To justify this, apart from adding a few more bricks, the box size of set 75149 was also made slightly bigger.

I refuse to think that the marketing team believes they can convince the buyers it's worth the extra price margin just by changing the size of the box. I think LEGO enthusiasts are way smarter than that.

 

 

Build

Moving on, inside the box, there are 5 numbered bags, and 1 plastic bag without a number that contains an instruction manual and a sticker sheet. As with my every other review, I will not put on stickers on this set.

Unboxing content

Sticker sheet

I won't elaborate the detail of the sticker sheet because you'll see towards the end that you really don't need the stickers on this set because the set looks just as nice without it.

 

Instruction Manual

The instruction manual is quite big. It has the same width as A4 size paper and just a couple of centimeters shorter in length. I noticed that the quality of the perfect binding (adhesive binding) used in the manual is far from perfect.

Look at the picture below. There are some pages that are quite difficult to unfold completely. You can force unfolding the pages but you risk damaging the bindings. I reviewed the First Order Transport which is an older Star Wars set. Its instruction manual didn't have this issue even though the binding technique used is the same. Maybe I'm just splitting hairs here but that's something I observed.

Bag #1 contents

Somehow when I took the picture below, I forgot to include the brick separator. As seen in the earlier photo,  the brick separator was inside bag #1. It also contains Lor San Tekka and FO Flametrooper. I'll skip the minifigures for now as I will dedicate a section for that later.

One of the outputs of the first bag is a small build -- a moisture vapourator with 2 crates. The fire elements suggest that the damage was done by the Flametrooper. As the moisture vapourator is on a hinge, you can also tilt it down like it has already been destroyed due to attack. Here's another angle of the small build.

The rest of the bricks went to the build of the inner core of X-Wing frame which includes the inner mechanism that makes the S-foils open and close.

 

Bag #2 contents

In the middle of building bag #2, I thought that I was making chopsticks. Apparently it is the exact same technique used in 9493 X-Wing so this is not new.

 

Bag #3 contents

After completing bag #3, the cockpit is already fully built. The new cockpit window is a great addition but it is still not fully accurate simply because the side should be angled a bit. Not complaining, just saying.

 

Bag #4 contents

Bag #4 adds the left wing. Now it is starting to look like the X-Wing that we are all familiar. The bag also contains BB8 and Poe Dameron with both his white/blue helmet and hairpiece.

 

Bag #5 contents

Finally, bag #5 completes the build with the addition of right wing as well as the 4 thrust engines. Below is the cruise mode of Resistance X-Wing with the S-foils closed. Side note: there is a little bit of slack on the lower wings because I did not put two rubber bands on the wings. 

Cruise mode

Below is the Attack mode of Resistance X-Wing with its S-foils open. This is done by twisting the black knob or what LEGO calls "Technic angular wheel" on top. 

 

Attack mode

 

Front view

The front view is just gorgeous. I purposely removed the flick missiles because it is entirely optional. I think it looks great without it. When you load the flick missiles while swooshing the X-Wing there is a tendency to flick it by accident. Stray missiles will just launch when touched by mistake, so either the kids lose the missiles or hurt someone -- totally not recommended for younger kids.

Back view

Showing the back of the Resistance X-Wing the blue rubber bands looks quite obvious. Not as bad as 75102 Poe's X-wing Fighter but the blue rubber bands could have been just black to conceal its presence more easily.

 

Side view

Bottom view

With all the anti-studs underneath, it makes you wonder why even bother attaching the bottom wings upside down. Frankly, no one will enjoy looking at this angle. I've seen modifications to replace the wings so that the studs are on top instead of at the bottom to get a more consistent look when viewed from the top.

Going back to the blue rubber bands, when you replace them with black hair rubber bands, it really looks more presentable and less obvious.

If you do this minor adjustment, apart from the bottom view, all angles will be camera friendly.  

Here's the bonus part. Let's talk about scale.

I put the microfighter Resistance T-70 next to the system-scale T-70 just for fun. Comparing the in-universe length of T-70 at 12.48m with the length of the system scale T-70 at 37cm, the scale used in this set is 1:34. 

If you consider that a minifig is 5 feet human, then the scale must be 1:38. In that case, the length of the T-70 should be 33cm only.

If you consider that a minifig is 6 feet human, then the scale must be 1:44. In that case, the length of the T-70 should be only 27.7cm only 

If you consider that 3 studs = 1 meter then the scale must be 1:42 so the length of the T-70 should be only 29.7cm.

Either way, the Resistance X-Wing is slightly bigger than it should be. However, I don't mind this because I think the system scale is quite close to minifig scale even with the limitation of the LEGO system.

Just look at the chibi version of X-Wing. At 8cm long, the scale works out to be 1:156 and it looks okay albeit totally out of proportion.

 

Parts

Surprisingly, the parts used in X-Wing is quite common. Except for the cockpit canopy, the rest are easily available from Bricklink. This makes it easy to make different  variants of X-Wing.

Here are some of the notable parts:

Sand Blue Slope 45 2 x 1 with 2/3 Cutout is not common. It only came out in 4 sets.
The Blue hinge plate only came out in 4 sets too. 
The shovel is very common in City but it does not normally appear in Star Wars. This is the 5th time it appeared in any Star Wars sets.
The printed tile 2X2 "No.231" (element 6078936) came out in Sandcrawler first and it's the first time it was reused.
That's all. Like I mentioned, there is no spectacular LEGO element in this set.

Of course, I need to show  spare parts left after building the entire set.

 

Minifigures

The line up of minifigures are quite modest in this set with Poe Dameron with a subtle smile and jacket, the ubiquitous BB-8, a slightly happy Lor San Tekka who enjoyed as much as 1:45 minutes screentime in the movie (same duration as Captain Phasma), and a lonesome First Order Flametrooper.  

Here's the view of the minifigures' back. I am not really sure where is BB-8's back because he is a spheroid. 

Below is how they look without any accessory and hairpiece/helmet. Surprise! Angry clone trooper face again.

Without the hairpiece and helmet, we see the dual face printed.  Poe has a serious but slightly worried look while Lor San Tekka has "I am doomed" face.

Poe Dameron comes with a different helmet -- the one that he wore in Jakku before being captured by the First Order. Below is the comparison of Poe's helmet against the helmet of Temmin "Snap" Wexley:

On the right side of the helmet, Poe's helmet has  roæhal written while Temmin's helmet has popsæboo written in Aurebesh. If you know the meaning of these words, do let me know. 

I can't find any information what's the significance of this Blue Squadron(?) helmet. We know that Poe has a black helmet because he is the Black Squadron leader so perhaps the other helmet is the older version before he eventually became the Black leader?

 

You have to hide. You need to leave.

 

 

Conclusion

I still enjoyed putting together all the pieces needed for Resistance X-Wing even though it is almost a copy of Poe's X-Wing.

One may ask why TLG released 2 X-Wings back-to-back. In my opinion, the marketing genius in TLG sees the opportunity to capitalise on diorama builders who wants to build multiple copies of X-Wings. If the LEGO Star Wars team designed only Poe's X-Wing then there will be opportunity cost as there are more blue and grey T-70 X-Wing in The Force Awakens. Making a diorama of many black T-70 X-Wing is not acceptable. Frankly, I like this regular Resistance X-Wing version more than Poe's black X-Wing.

 

Sometimes that moment when you wish you could run and hide is when you find you need a new hyperdrive.

 

 

I have a bad feeling about this

 

 

Review summary 
 
Playability: 9/10 - It is an X-Wing. It's fun and easy to swoosh around. The small moisture vapourator build allow kids to re-enact the scene in TFA
Design / Building Experience: 9/10 - I enjoyed the same old build and techniques used. New owners of X-Wing will enjoy building it.  
Minifigures:  8/10 -  Lor San Tekka is the minifigure-of-interest in this set. Poe's blue squadron helmet is a cool addition. Getting another BB-8 is also welcome.
Price / Value for money: 8/10 - I feel that I could have scored this a little higher if the price stayed the same as Poe's black X-Wing
Overall: 8.75/10 -  This could have been a solid 9 but with a slightly higher price I have to slightly reduce the rating. Apart from that, a great set to play or collect.

 

Thanks for reading. As always, wubba lubba dub dub.

[VaderFan2187]

Nice review! I appreciate the BLR easter egg (though you might want to add a link)

Not a fan of the reused design + increased price of this set. 

[jemakrol]

8 minutes ago, VaderFan2187 said:

Nice review! I appreciate the BLR easter egg (though you might want to add a link)

Not a fan of the reused design + increased price of this set. 

BLR?

[makoy]

5 minutes ago, VaderFan2187 said:

Nice review! I appreciate the BLR easter egg (though you might want to add a link)

Not a fan of the reused design + increased price of this set. 

I am trying to be subtle... so the text will do. :)

The price is really my biggest gripe... but you can easily overlook this during sales promotion. Regarding the design, I think the mantra "if ain't broke, don't fix it" works well here.

 

Just now, jemakrol said:

BLR?

Bad Lip Reading in Youtube.

 

[VaderFan2187]

19 minutes ago, jemakrol said:

BLR?

Here you go

Enjoy 

15 minutes ago, makoy said:

I am trying to be subtle... so the text will do. :)

The price is really my biggest gripe... but you can easily overlook this during sales promotion. Regarding the design, I think the mantra "if ain't broke, don't fix it" works well here.

True, but on a sales promo (like 20% off or something) it's likely that the other X-wing will be on sale too. So yeah. Still don't like the price.

[macaron35]

Hi,

I was wondering if you also have the bottom wing falling down when the wings are not deployed ? 

 

[icm]

The model is designed to use four blue rubber bands, two on each side.  Do you have two blue rubber bands on each side?

[macaron35]

I do.

Are those rubber band losing their strength over time or when keeping them stretched for a long period ?

After all, the set is 4 years old

[The Stud]

2 hours ago, macaron35 said:

I do.

Are those rubber band losing their strength over time or when keeping them stretched for a long period ?

After all, the set is 4 years old

I have the same problem with this set and my TFA Poe X-Wing so you’re definitely not alone.

[icm]

The lower wings of my 4502 X-wing didn't sag after over 7 years of being assembled nearly the entire time.  That model uses six white rubber bands, so their elastic properties may be different.  The lower wings of my 9493 X-wing didn't sag after about 2 years of being assembled the entire time, but I mostly kept it sitting on its tail so the rubber bands weren't under as much stress.  I haven't kept any newer X-wings assembled for more than a few days at a time, so I don't know how their rubber bands age.

[macaron35]

14 minutes ago, The Stud said:

I have the same problem with this set and my TFA Poe X-Wing so you’re definitely not alone.

Ok thanks it's somehow reassuring

i guess i just have to replace those rubber bands by stronger ones, they seem very thin and weak

[macaron35]

Just disassembled the wings this morning and rebuilt them back by replacing the rubber bands, they are no longer falling down, but it means that I will no longer open/close the wings, otherwise it will become loose again

 

if I want a X-Wing with wings open i will do it on my 75218 because the built is different