Review: 7879 Hoth Echo Base

[White Cat]

Action figures are just as bad. Hasbro throws play features into their models, too, in addition to all the non-canon vehicles they make.

Sorry if I'm just jump to conclusion but I saw some SW ship one the amazon and I think they looks quite accurate compare to lego. Especially the Gunship. And just like what I said before, something buildable like lego or model kits need the mod or moc to make it looks more fascinating. After all, toys are for kids, so the toy makers obviously aim for the younger audience rather than us adults .

[Brickdoctor]

Sorry if I'm just jump to conclusion but I saw some SW ship one the amazon and I think they looks quite accurate compare to lego. Especially the Gunship. And just like what I said before, something buildable like lego or model kits need the mod or moc to make it looks more fascinating. After all, toys are for kids, so the toy makers obviously aim for the younger audience rather than us adults .

Some of them are more accurate than LEGO, but my point was just that action figures aren't always any more accurate, and they do even more non-canon vehicles than TLG does. You are right, of course, that they're just toys.

[mutley777]

Thank you for the great and detailed review StoutFiles!

Apart from the figures this set is such a huge failure! What worries me the most is that this set might still sell quite well and we get more crap like it!

We wanted this!

We got a pile of lego bricks that most of the members here could put together in a much better way that this designed set. The designer of this set should hang his head in shame!

[Lobot]

Great review, thanks Shame about the set, although I’ll probably still buy one eventually for the minifigures. I’m really disappointed with this; they could have done so much more with it. It’s actually worse than Home One (7754) which was totally random!

[Rumble Strike]

Uh, mutley, a set based on that pic might be a tad expensive!

Thanks for the review StoutFiles.

[Brickdoctor]

It’s actually worse than Home One (7754) which was totally random!

7754 wasn't totally random. They took the three most recognizable scenes, arranged them in a pretty much logical manner, and executed them quite well, I thought. The play features, other than the A-wing's flick-fires, worked well. This set, on the other hand, is pretty random.

[Fallenangel]

Sorry if I'm just jump to conclusion but I saw some SW ship one the amazon and I think they looks quite accurate compare to lego. Especially the Gunship. And just like what I said before, something buildable like lego or model kits need the mod or moc to make it looks more fascinating.

Yeah, but they're still crap:

And as for your latter statement:

Salzo V3 kit. The paint job in this particular build is custom, so it's not perfectly screen accurate, but the size and shaping are near spot on.

Even if it were less accurate, as you claim, I would still take a LEGO set over Hasbro, because as you mentioned, the former can be modified, more easily so than the latter.

[Aanchir]

Thanks for the review! I'm personally a big fan of this set, which crams a lot of the most interesting Echo Base scenes into one playset.

Let's start with the best feature of the set: the minifigs. A couple new figs and some big improvements on repeated figures.

Han: Improved hood.

Leia: More accurate hair style, more detail on jacket. Yes, they gave her a popsicle as well.

Luke: Bacta Luke! Definitely the best fig of the set. Injured eye and cut on face. It's too bad the mask is on the face as well or this could work in the Wampa cave scene.

R3P0: An odd choice for a fig, but an exclusive fig is better than a standard soldier here.

Snowtroopers: No changes.

Chewbacca: Bowcaster is now a dark grey.

2-1B: Medical droid to put in the med bay with Bacta Luke.

What color is the medical droid's body? Is it just regular Sand Blue, or is it a "pearl" color? I'm extremely curious because last year and this year there haven't been any pearl blue colors on the color palettes which LEGO has released, and in fact the last one (Sand Blue Metallic) hasn't been on the palette since 2005.

The speeder in the background is from the Snowtrooper battlepack. Stop doing this TLG! Stop it now! The speeders are so different I can't even display them next to each other.

Since they have most of the same pieces, you could very easily just modify the new one to resemble the old one. Unless, that is, you prefer the new one, and if you do that's probably why TLG introduced it.

Alright, let's get to the base building...which always starts with a magical DSS.

Some great stickers in there, but a shame they're going to fall off and/or look like crap in a few years. TLG, give us some printed pieces!

When is the last time stickers actually had this problem? I hear people mention it all the time as a disadvantage to stickers, but I have plenty of sets that I've owned for years where the stickers are still attached just fine. In fact, the only stickers I've had that currently have difficulty sticking are ones that I've deliberately removed at least once (not a good idea if you ever intend to re-apply them). This includes STAMPs (Stickers Across Multiple Pieces) where the pieces have become separated, but I don't think this set has any of those so there's no reason it should have this problem.

The med bay isn't awful, just cramped. Why couldn't they have just made this room instead as shown below? Still, it's sadly the best part of the base.

I agree the med bay is the best part of the set, but I don't think its "crampedness" is a problem. It looks as though there's plenty of room for minifigures to stand around.

The control room is so cramped there's no room to sit down at the other panel. Unlike 7666, the glass screens do not fold open. The sticker placement is on the INSIDE of the transparent piece making accurate placement very difficult. I originally thought the glass screens would slide to the right for more room, but no. All of this is just so horribly cramped.

In this case crampedness does seem more of a problem; we can agree there.

Which leads me to my final conclusion. This set was designed for little kids. It has no regard for accuracy, just small bits from Hoth scrambled together to an undecipherable mess. It looks okay, but it's not remotely accurate. It's designed for this guy.

Personally, I don't buy sets for accuracy, even licensed sets-- I buy them for familiarity. In the case of this set, there's plenty of stuff that immediately made me think, "I remember that!" I think it's a very good playset-- not quite as good as the larger Cloud City from 2003, but still a great likeness of the scenes it's meant to replicate.

Really, there haven't been many location-based Star Wars sets that are a perfect replica of the scenes they're meant to embody, but I think that the familiarity aspect is the important factor. I'm a big fan of the most recent Death Star set, which packs a lot of great scenes into a small space. Being able to simplify a subject while retaining the most important design elements is a critical part of set design, and I think it was handled well here. If you want a better display piece, it doesn't look like it would take much modification to spread the parts of this set out further using parts from your personal collection.

Something you didn't mention in the review were those flick-fire missiles. I like the whole structure of the "guns" they're attached to. And as my twin brother pointed out yesterday when looking at the high-res pics, the flick-fires themselves are incorporated very nicely. I'm a big fan of the current style of flick missiles, as they are small and (for me) easy to work, as opposed to ones like in the TIE Crawler which are large and impossible to work. It's possible I just have smaller hands than a lot of AFOLs, though.

[StoutFiles]

What color is the medical droid's body? Is it just regular Sand Blue, or is it a "pearl" color? I'm extremely curious because last year and this year there haven't been any pearl blue colors on the color palettes which LEGO has released, and in fact the last one (Sand Blue Metallic) hasn't been on the palette since 2005.

I believe he is Sand Blue.

Since they have most of the same pieces, you could very easily just modify the new one to resemble the old one. Unless, that is, you prefer the new one, and if you do that's probably why TLG introduced it.

I'd rather they:

A: Stick to a design (they've re-designed the 74-Z so many times)

B: Make larger improvements (ex: put in some foot pedals)

I just won't put the speeders next to each other.

When is the last time stickers actually had this problem? I hear people mention it all the time as a disadvantage to stickers, but I have plenty of sets that I've owned for years where the stickers are still attached just fine. In fact, the only stickers I've had that currently have difficulty sticking are ones that I've deliberately removed at least once (not a good idea if you ever intend to re-apply them). This includes STAMPs (Stickers Across Multiple Pieces) where the pieces have become separated, but I don't think this set has any of those so there's no reason it should have this problem.

Stickers on tiles are fine. Stickers on sloped pieces, especially 60 degree sloped pieces that are slightly grainy are disastrous. The sloped control panel stickers WILL fall off if rubbed too much. Take extra care if you decide to throw those in with other pieces.

I agree the med bay is the best part of the set, but I don't think its "crampedness" is a problem. It looks as though there's plenty of room for minifigures to stand around.

I'm just not a fan of the bed and tank being right there. More space could have given 2-1B a console to work at.

Really, there haven't been many location-based Star Wars sets that are a perfect replica of the scenes they're meant to embody, but I think that the familiarity aspect is the important factor. I'm a big fan of the most recent Death Star set, which packs a lot of great scenes into a small space. Being able to simplify a subject while retaining the most important design elements is a critical part of set design, and I think it was handled well here. If you want a better display piece, it doesn't look like it would take much modification to spread the parts of this set out further using parts from your personal collection.

That's why I bought it. It has great pieces/figures to add to a MOC. I don't plan on leaving this together; however, I will admit that pulling off a full base with a $90 set is near impossible.

Something you didn't mention in the review were those flick-fire missiles. I like the whole structure of the "guns" they're attached to. And as my twin brother pointed out yesterday when looking at the high-res pics, the flick-fires themselves are incorporated very nicely. I'm a big fan of the current style of flick missiles, as they are small and (for me) easy to work, as opposed to ones like in the TIE Crawler which are large and impossible to work. It's possible I just have smaller hands than a lot of AFOLs, though.

Sorry, I don't normally like talking about FF missiles. Both guns rotate 360 and are built with the news reporter camera piece and a technic piece that holds two missiles. The dish gun underneath them rotates 360 as well. Same with the double-dish shield generator.

Edited July 22, 2011 by StoutFiles

[mutley777]

Uh, mutley, a set based on that pic might be a tad expensive!

I did say we "wanted" it not expected it.

This set could have been so much more! You only have to look at some peoples hoth MOC's of late, to see how good this could have been.

[wokajablocka]

I think the set is average but we must remember as AFOL and SW fans we all want and expect movie accurate sets from Lego. In reality they are kids toys made and marketed to kids. Im sure almost all of us started our passion with Lego as a child and have now been bitten buy the Lego bug again with cool themed and UCS sets and having children of our own and building with them. We cant forget the roots of Lego - kids toys. So as a play set I think kids may actually like it. Maybe we need to get some kids to do a review of the set and get them to tell us what they really like about it. Kids dont get too hung up about accuracy. Just my thoughts after thinking about what direction Lego is taking with the SW line. If you want accuracy only collect and build the UCS sets.

[Nightshroud99]

Except for the mini figures, this set is ugly as sin.

[pedro]

Much thanks for the review StoutFlies. Think I've been outspoken enough about my disappointment in this set. Even now things are popping out that make me want to shake someone! The exterior ROCK wall with lots of gaps, the cave-like back wall of the medical bay... I could go on. I won't. I'll still buy this. The minifig and parts selection are actually really bloody good in my opinion, and I own the rest of the Hoth sets apart from the most recent AT-AT. The price point isn't bad either.

It would be way too hard/expensive to give us an accurate base. Although a cool idea would be to make it in sections. January releases, give us, say a bacta tank section, then July release, say a control room section. Better yet, do 2 sections with each release.

Sure it'd be hard, it'd be a challenge; but that's excalty what it is whenever any of us come to build something new - and this especially so with LEGO designers. Any of the best builders here on EB could create something more accurate and with a comparable parts budget. I'm sure of that. A modular series would've been brilliant but in a sense that what they've done with the previous Hoth sets and this combined... just not in a thoughtfully planned way (or seemingly so).

There are a lot of better sets (and the upcoming Super Heroes theme) which are more worthy of our hard-earned cash.

You'll have a good while to wait for those... and we still haven't seen the actual sets yet.

7754 wasn't totally random. They took the three most recognizable scenes, arranged them in a pretty much logical manner, and executed them quite well, I thought. The play features, other than the A-wing's flick-fires, worked well. This set, on the other hand, is pretty random.

I agree. Each section was easily iodentifiable being fully representative of that in the movie. The hangar actually held a fighter too - what a novel idea! If they'd used that same template for Hoth, we could have had a decent sized command centre, med-bay and hangar with entrance...

When is the last time stickers actually had this problem? I hear people mention it all the time as a disadvantage to stickers, but I have plenty of sets that I've owned for years where the stickers are still attached just fine. In fact, the only stickers I've had that currently have difficulty sticking are ones that I've deliberately removed at least once (not a good idea if you ever intend to re-apply them). This includes STAMPs (Stickers Across Multiple Pieces) where the pieces have become separated, but I don't think this set has any of those so there's no reason it should have this problem.

Really, there haven't been many location-based Star Wars sets that are a perfect replica of the scenes they're meant to embody, but I think that the familiarity aspect is the important factor. I'm a big fan of the most recent Death Star set, which packs a lot of great scenes into a small space. Being able to simplify a subject while retaining the most important design elements is a critical part of set design, and I think it was handled well here. If you want a better display piece, it doesn't look like it would take much modification to spread the parts of this set out further using parts from your personal collection.

You must be lucky! There are widespread problems with stickers and so naturally many are loath to see them included. The transparent versions aren't quite as bad as far as I've seen, but the paper versions are terrible. I've seem many of mine crack and flake over the years for no apparent reason other than age. Not only that, but hey are really difficult to move when reduced to this state as they become crumbly and tacky. Applying any type of sticker to a grained surface is just ridiculous and just won't last.

You mention that there haven't been many location based Star Wars scenes that are a perfect replica, but they've been closer than this. The Death Star is a great example, Home One, the Endor bunker - all recent successes. I don't beleive that LEGO managed to simplify the most important parts well at all. If anything it looks like their designer struggled or just disregarded much of what made Echo Base in this much loved scene in Star Wars. Even the use of dark grey BURPS goes against the carved walls and interiors of Echo Base.

In reality they are kids toys made and marketed to kids.

This has been discussed many, many times. TLC are well aware that kids aren't their only market. LEGO Star Wars as a whole is marketed at a broad demographic which includes adult LEGO/Star Wars enthusiasts who expect a certain level of accuracy. It's a balance they have to maintain when they create any new set and it seems that tis time the see-saw is tipped way over to one side. I'm sure this will still sell to their youger market but unfortunately they've frosted out the adult market on this one I reckon. Let's hope if there's a lack of sales here it's recognised for what it is - bad set design - and not that playsets as a whole are just not marketable.

[wesker]

Pretty ordinary playset compared to what we're used to now, but still an excellent parts pack for creating your own Echo Base.

The new Luke figure is awesome and Han and Leia are huge improvements over the older versions. I really don't get why the new Leia face gets so much hate round here. Looks much better than the original.

[afosl]

This is the first time I've seen this set in any detail so thanks for that:thumbup:. Although not the the Hoth base that people really wanted, it does contain one or two recognisable features like the bacta tank and the walkway over the X-Wing nose. Of course it leaves a lot to be desired, but with the cost of Lego today, i think TLC has it's hands tied sometimes. If there were more pieces to make something more authentic, the price would go right up and how many would buy it? I certainly have been buying less and less as the recession bites. But this review does make me want the set. I would like another Tauntaun and the new Luke and Leia. Han's new parker is much better than the last and a red protocol droid is a bonus. I think it's nice when these minor characters get noticed by Lego and produced. I'm sure TLC know that great figures can sell a mediocre set. I'm hoping plenty of older figures get a rerelease with a fancy paint job. But with that said, just how many more mediocre sets will be released in the future?

I think I'll probably get this set eventually and add it to my other Hoth sets. Together with those, it will seem more complete, and it's another chance to get more Snowtroopers since they are my favourite of the Imperials.

[Destroydacre]

Leia: More accurate hair style, more detail on jacket. Yes, they gave her a popsicle as well.

OK, when I first read this I thought this was a joke. But they really did give her a neon green popsicle. Does anyone know what that's supposed to be? I don't remember anything like that in the movie.

[StoutFiles]

OK, when I first read this I thought this was a joke. But they really did give her a neon green popsicle. Does anyone know what that's supposed to be? I don't remember anything like that in the movie.

It's TLG's attempt at humor. It's a set designed for little kids anyway, so why not?

[Brickdoctor]

It's TLG's attempt at humor. It's a set designed for little kids anyway, so why not?

Someone pointed out in the 2011 Rumors thread that it wasn't unprecedented, as well. See Ackbar's trans-clear mug.

[Blackknight112]

Thans for the review. This is an easy no for me. This set could have been so much better!

[Petit-bleu]

I'll take one of these anyway. Yes it is kind of crappy but it have a lot of potential. And the figs are great.

[jonwil]

Anyone know if the hood in this set is the same as the hood on the Collectable Minifigures Series 5 Eskimo?

[StoutFiles]

Anyone know if the hood in this set is the same as the hood on the Collectable Minifigures Series 5 Eskimo?

It's the same piece, just a different color.

[has a differing opinion]

Nice review. I think this set is pretty good, it could be more, but then again you could combine it with the other sets to make a good base. Then you could make mocs of the other sets and then you could have the complete echo base.

[Ki-Adi-Mundi]

Thanks for this very good review, StoutFiles.

While the moody lighting has somewhat too much shadows, IMO, you really show us what the thing is all about and made a good choice on what to shoot.

I like the set itself more than you do because i think there's much more that TLG did right than they did fail at. The price tag is ok (... when we leave out the general overpricing in Europe).

As a great OT fan i thus must own this one. I wait for a sale to enlarge my Hoth collection. This focus on the interior is exactly what i was looking for. I would have gladly taken a rehash of 7666, too - for it's original price. Here we get quite a few notable specials for our money. No, i am not speaking of the kid play features.

[Zzz]

Thanks a lot for this review, it was done very nicely and gives me an opinion about this set: Skip it and seriously consider TLC to be monkeys who think they can ask for more and more money, delivering something like this.

I found the original base 7666 insanely ridicolous (60€ for a worse Snowspeeder, some minifigs and a door..) but I got K-3PO and the probe droid of Bricklink eventually. Here I cannot even consider that, even if the minifigs are nice, I would feel ripped and cheated. This set is proof of TLC asking for too much and becoming pretty moronic when it's about LSW.

I would advice to all those LSW OT nerds (that I was one myself) to consider not getting everything they spit our anymore and asking yourself if this is value that you get.