Clone OPatra Posted March 23, 2009 "Droid Fighters, up ahead!" -Naboo fighter pilot. Set Name: Droid Fighter Set #: 7111 Theme: Star Wars Episode I Pieces: 62 Minifigures: 0 Year of Release: 1999 Price at Release: USD $5.99 Buy it? Inventory? Bricklink Peeron I held off buying this fighter for quite a while when it came out. The reason was I didn't see any point to a set without minifigures. I owned a bunch of Episode 1 sets, but I hadn't seen the movie so I had no connection to this ship. Eventually, when I was on vacation somewhere, I didn't have any LEGO to build so I bought this guy when I saw him in a store I was in. (Yes, I just personified a machine, but it is sort of a character, right?) I still don't care for sets without minifigures. INSTRUCTIONS My box is gone, but my instructions are not. The front shows the normal design for Ep1 of that time: plain-ish design, cute Ep1 logo, and still the System logo. A random page. Easy to follow instructions with good color distinction; you can see on this page the difference between dark grey and black. The back: there's no minifigures to help "build" the ship like on most instructions from those days, but there is inspiration for another great LEGO Star Wars alternate model, the chicken walker with hat! MINIFIGURES Ha ha, I fooled you with that headline, there aren't any! I can still comment on the lack of though. Personally, as I stated above, I could care less about sets without minifigures. That being said, I would have loved to see at least one battle droid with lit megaphone thrown into this set. I remember trying to mod this when I got it to fit a battle droid inside to pilot it, but it didn't work out. If you try it, let me know if you can get results! SET - Flying Ok, now that I'm past what's not there, I'll start talking about what is there. First, here is a picture of the Droid Fighter in flying non-battle mode. It looks alright, has that nice printed "eyes" piece, and is fairly swooshable. The wings jiggle a bit when picked up though. Then it opens up for battle, and - whoops! Looks like it will soon be time to talk about what's not there again. If you couldn't guess, the answer is weapons. Weapons aren't there. It's not very menacing without weapons, I guess this is a friendly Droid Fighter. The side. Not much to see, no weapons, but those nice printed tiles that were quite common in SW in 1999. There are many uses for them, such as machinery. The back. Note those red taillights, maybe they work as a turning signal. They can be viewed better in a standing picture later on. A final picture of flying mode from the front. This demonstrates again the friendliness of the craft - no weapons! I think it actually looks pretty cute, and not really too blocky/chunky. SET - Standing I have already established that while this set looks ok, the lack of weapons is a bit silly. Now here's where things really get ludicrous, the conversion from flying mode to walking mode. Here's the instruction's picture of it. Yes, you actually have to just take the head off, and put it on the front. I find it especially crazy that in the picture for how to fold it, they have you moving the head up a row over a couple of steps. That's just whacko! Here is the Droid Fighter in standing mode. Again, the body looks fine, if a little un-sleek, but that head just sitting there on a pile of bricks looks really weird. Different angles will illustrate this better. A close up of what there is when the head is slid off: a computer "brain" I suppose. (Note: there are supposed to be two 1x4 brown tiles, but I could not find a second, so I used two 1x2's) From the side, the head is getting to look more awkward... ...but not as awkward as from the back! It looks so crazy, perched on that high neck, and with that pin hanging out at the back. What was LEGO thinking? Finally, imagine yourself as a small Jedi, about to be crushed by this odd looking beast! Here you can also note that open hole in the neck, where the head attaches to the body. Looks like a gaping wound to me. If I had any of the four newer versions I would of course do a comparison, but I do not. From pictures, it seems the Ep3 version of this that came with Anakin's Ep3 JSF is very similar to this, and equally crappy. It at least had weapons. The two newest versions are much better, and can transform without taking the head off and plopping it on the front. Now I'll sum it all up. For a sleek little flying ship, this looks pretty good. Only a little too chunky at the base. But for a flying fighter, the question is again raised, where are the weapons? The walking mode is not nearly as good. Firstly, the head looks absolutely terrible (even worse in real life), and it is not very stable. The perks of this set are: it can be swooshed, and has six printed pieces (head, four side tiles, computer tile). The bad parts are the walking mode, the wings flop a little, and the four wing panels fall off incessantly. Ratings time! Parts: 10/10 - good range, nice printed pieces, rare-ish long wing planks, and perfect price-per-part ratio. Minifigures: 0/10 - it has no minifigures, but I believe it needs at least one battle droid. Build: 8.5/10 - not repetitive, but a little annoying and those wings just keep falling off! Playability: 6.5/10 - it can be swooshed, but it can't be in a battle because it has no guns! Also, you can't play with the walking mode at all! The wings fall off when you play with it. Price: 7.5/10 - technically, this should get a 10/10 because of perfect price-per-piece ratio, but this set is lacking. For the same price at the same time, you could get Qui-Gon and Darth Maul battling, or Obi-Wan and Luke with their Landspeeder, both much more fun. This set should have been like $4, but I understand the piece count brought it up. Overall: 6.5/10 - a calculated score. Where I come from this would be a big fat D, which is perfect for this set. More to come! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
def Posted March 24, 2009 Sharp review, have I seen it before? I like the shots here. I have one or two of these at my parents house, but I haven't seen it in years. The design is pretty good, it hasn't changed that much with the current model, though playability has improved a lot (you don't have to take off the head now). So TLG had another winner in the early sets. I remember these being so cheap, I wish they'd release them stand alone again. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vulture droid Posted March 24, 2009 Ahh... my first set; I was young, probably 9 or 10, and I was at Disneyland. I was really into Star Wars at the time, Episode 1 was just released and I thought it was the greatest movie in the world (how naive I was.) I walked in to a dark store, and on the shelf I saw Lego sets that said Star Wars on them. I was like to my parents, and they got me the two cheapest sets, this set, and the landspeeder. Both are gone now, and the only Lego I have from 1999 is half a Maul fig, and the instructions to Lightsaber Duel, but Clone O'Patra, your wonderful review (and crisp pictures) have thankfully brought back memories of the first Lego set I ever got launching 10+ years of my interest in this wonderful hobby. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mischa07 Posted March 24, 2009 I was also planning on doing a review of this set. You beat me to it, but a great review! I actually have two of these. They were so cheap back then and I had to have more than one to use against my Naboo Fighter Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
baby Posted March 24, 2009 I have this set too. I like it because the pieces are printed instead of using stickers. The articulation is a bit out compare to the new ones, but I still can live with it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CommanderCody77 Posted March 24, 2009 (edited) Great review I've always liked this set but missed it since it was released in 1999 Good things about this set are: All printed pieces and no stickers Bad things about the set are: The Vulture droid or "Droid Fighter" as you call it looks weird when you put its head on top. Edited March 24, 2009 by CommanderCody77 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KimT Posted March 30, 2009 A lousy set in my opinion. In the end they nearly threw these in the bag when you bought another set. No fig, awful design and practically no use. Thanks for reviewing it though Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KinGanon Posted March 30, 2009 Great review I've always liked this set but missed it since it was released in 1999 Good things about this set are: All printed pieces and no stickers Bad things about the set are: The Vulture droid or "Droid Fighter" as you call it looks weird when you put its head on top. If you miss it why not buy it off BL? Its actually cheaper to buy MISB than when it first came out (one of the very few SW sets whose resale value actually dropped) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Legofin2012 Posted December 21, 2012 Nice review, got this one last year,guess Igot it cheap: 1 pound on ebay! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
