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DarthPotato

Review: 9526 Palpatine's Arrest

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Hello! I'm here today to review the new Lego Star Wars set: Palpatine's Arrest. This is a set that many people have wanted for a while now. And now TLC releases it! :sweet: But did it live up to my expectations? Is it worth its evil retail price? Read the review to find out...

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INFO:

Name: Palpatine's Arrest

Number: 9526

Pieces: 645

Ages: 9-14

Retail Price: 90 USD

The Box:

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Here's the front of the box. It's got a pretty nice scene with the jedi dueling Palpatine and Anakin flying in in his ship.

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And here's the minifigures, as listed on the front of the box.

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The top of the box with the actual size pictures of the figures.

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Finally, here's the back of the box. It's got lots of nice scenes showing off the play features.

Beginning Thoughts:

The set itself definitely has its strong and its weak points. The the design itself is lacking and there are some problems with the play features. The minifigures, however, are remarkable. With five new incredibly designed figs, and one old one, they are definitely the highlight of the set. But minifigures aren't the only thing that makes up a set. Anyway, let's take a closer look at those figures!

The Minifigures:

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We get six of them total, five being new. TLC sure does like to shove a bunch of new figures into their sets recently, but I'm fine with it. It does drive up the price though. The figures are: Mace Windu (Ep. 3 redesign), Kit Fisto, Saesee Tiin (Ep. 3 redesign), Agen Kolar, Anakin Skywalker (Ep. 3 variation), and Palpatine (Ep. 3 redesign). It's pretty cool that all six of the figures are either a jedi or a sith, and it's also pretty rare to get this many lightsabers in one set. Anyway, let's get into even closer detail of these figures.

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The first figure is Mace Windu. We have gotten him a few time in the past, but this one is a new Episode 3 redesign. Very cool. He's pretty simple, and the funny thing about him is that none of his parts are new. The torso belongs to TCW Mace and then the head is from Seso in the Prince of Persia line. There's no problem with this though, if anything it makes it possible for anyone to make a Mace Windu if they have all of those existing parts.

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Here he is compared to TCW Mace Windu. The difference between the two isn't too large besides the fact that one has a TCW head and the other has a pupil one. Anyway, the Mace Windu figure is a little plain but it still gets the job done.

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The next figure is Kit Fisto. He's actually the only figure that is not new in this set, but he's still alright. He has a cape like all the other jedi and then he also has a green lightsaber.

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Next we have Saesee Tiin. He's definitely my favorite figure of the set. :wub: He just looks great. While he may look a little skeletal, it's still movie accurate. The interesting thing about Saesee is that he's been in three sets now, two of them being this most recent wave. This surprises me as he's such a minor character, but I'm completely fine with it because he's one of my favorite jedi.

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Here he is compared to his TCW counterpart. While I loved TCW one, this one is better by far. Their head pieces and torsos are the same, but the main difference between them is the heads and the fact that they have different arm and hand colors.

I hope you all don't mind me reusing some of my funnies. :grin:

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The next fig we have is Agen Kolar. This guy's actually the only figure that's completely brand new. He's never been made before. I must say that he looks great. He also reuses Eeth Koth's hairpiece, so let's take a look at the two next to each other.

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The figures are pretty similar, but they are distinguishable from each other. While I love the Eeth Koth figure, I think Agen Kolar is better. :thumbup:

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Anakin Skywalker's next in line! He's actually pretty nice too. The torso and hair is the same as the Anakin from his Jedi Interceptor that came out back in January, but the head is the new part. We finally get a new Episode 3 Anakin! The face looks pretty cool and the torso is still very nice also.

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Here's his double sided head It's pretty similar to one of the faces that he had in the Interceptor set, except this time he's not gritting his teeth.

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And here he is compared to the one from the Jedi Interceptor set. The main difference between the two is the heads and that the new one possesses a cape.

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And then we have Palpatine! He's pretty cool. Not my favorite figure of the set, but still cool. While it's nice to finally have a movie version of Palpatine, I do wish that he would have had a normal face. But this face suits the scene more so it's understandable. His torso's pretty cool (it's in a dark red color) and he has the same hair as the TCW one. It would have been nice to get a new hairpiece, but I don't really mind the one he has now. Also, one of the most notable things about him is that he has a new gold lightsaber hilt! I believe it's been used in the Ninjago line too, but this is the first time it's been used for Star Wars!

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Here's his double sided face. It's pretty cool, and it's interesting to see the Darth Sidious head in flesh. But I'm pretty sure this is him halfway through the transformation. He also comes with two lightning pieces.

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And here he is compared to the TCW version. He is MUCH better then the old one on just about every level. My only complaint would be that he lacks his shoulder capes in this set, but I could always give him the shoulder capes from the TCW one.

The Set:

The set itself is split up into several sections. There's the main office area, the doors, and landing pad, and the small ship. Some sections of this set are better than others, but it does look nice when it's all connected together. We're going to look at the ship first.

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I must say, even though this is fairly small, it's a very nice ship design. It's accurate to the movie, too. It does have three stickers, but those are the only stickers in the set.

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Here's a side view of the ship.

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Here's the back view. I thought that was a nice technique to have the engines at an angle.

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And here's the bottom view. Yes, it does have flick missiles. Actually, they don't really bother me that much. But if they bother you, you can always just remove them. :classic: Also, you may notice that there's a circular light grey plate in the middle. This is so it can fit on the landing pad.

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Along with the flick missiles, it also has an opening cockpit where you can seat a minifigure. No controls are in there, though. I must say, even though this ship is simple, I really like it.

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The next section of the set is the landing pad. To me, it's kind of... plain. Not in a good way, though. It's very flat a small, but I guess if you put more baseplates around it it would look better. It also has technic pins at the edge, which allows you to connect it to other parts of the set.

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Here's the ship on the landing pad. As you can see, it takes up the whole pad. But, like I said, you can always just set it all down on a big grey baseplate.

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The next section is the doors. They do look nice, but there's a major problem with these.

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Here's the side view of them. I like how they put those gold cone pieces in the floor. It adds a good amount of extra detail.

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And here's the back view. These doors also have technic pins so they can connect to the main bulk of the set.

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You can also open up the doors and have minifigures walk through them. The problem with this, though, is that if you slide them to far to the side they come out. So they're really just loosely in there. Still, they look nice.

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You can connect the landing pad to the doors, and then you can also connect the doors to the office. But, for now, here's the three small sections of the set conjoined together.

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And then we have the big part of the set. It's a nice office for the Chancellor, but there's also some play features scattered throughout it to help reenact the duel that took place there in Episode 3.

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As you can see here, there's a good amount of open space where you can have the minfigures duel each other.

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I also love how they used the Lego microfigure as a statue! It looks great in pearl gold! I think this is starting to become more common, too, as they've used grey microfigures to represent rock statues in the Lord of the Rings sets.

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As we make our way closer to the nice window view, we get to the main office area. There are two chairs there that were in the movies. They're a pretty nice design.

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They can also spin. Hurray for spinning chairs! :tongue:

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Here's Palpatine's chair and desk. His chair does not spin and his desk is the same design as the ones used in the Venator and the Tantive IV. It's a pretty nice design for a desk so I can understand TLC using it again.

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To the side of the chairs is a play feature. No, that brick is not bulging out there for no reason. If you have a minifigure, like Palpatine, standing on part of the brick in the office, and you press down the brick, it will catapult him.

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Just press it down like that and it will flip him up in the air, representing him flipping around the room.

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The next feature is a place to store all of Palpatine's weapons. Do you see that grill plate sticking out from the floor there? Just pull it up and it will reveal a hidden compartment in the floor.

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On one side of the room, you can store his lightsaber in it.

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On the other, you can store his lightning. I know it doesn't make any sense for Palpatine to store his lightning under his office, but I think that's intended just to be a spot to put it so it's not laying around. If you're like me, then you don't like having pieces like that laying around.

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And know we come over to the window feature. I'll tell you my thoughts on this after I show you how it works. You simply pull that grey ball piece toward you, and the window falls over.

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It falls over like this. Personally, I find this feature to be very disappointing. This is probably the main feature of the set and the part of the duel that kids would want to recreate the most, and it just doesn't feel right to me. I think it would have been better if they used the same explosion technique they did for the wall in the Lord of the Rings Helms Deep set. That way, it would feel more like the glass shattered and didn't just fall over.

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Here's the view of the window without the feature being used. It looks pretty nice. :thumbup:

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There are also three places to attach the doors and the landing pad. This is pretty nice, as it allows you to arrange the set however you like. But I like to do it the simple way, with the landing pad and the doors attached to each other and then attached to the middle segment of the office. And that is it for this review.

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Final Thoughts:

The set itself is lacking in many areas, specifically playability. There were several features in which I was left disappointed in. The minfigures, though, are phenomenal.

Minifigures: 10 out of 10

Design: 6 out of 10

Playability: 7 out of 10

Overall Score: 23 out of 30

Would I recommend this set to you? Well, that depends. If you're just a diehard Star Wars fan who's been waiting for this set for a while now, then go get it. But if you're iffy about it and not sure if you should spend 90 dollars on it, then don't do it. The set itself isn't actually bad, it's just lacking in several areas. And that just about wraps up this review! Tell me your opinion of the set and if you think I did a good job or not on this review. All of your feedback to this will be gladly appreciated. :classic:

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Great review of a great looking set! I love the figs in this - and the amount of dark red in this is amazing! I'm getting this set. Palpatine is my favorite figure due to his faces - the look just like him. Anakin's face looks a bit too old for a 20-ish year old.

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Thanks for the review, DarthPotato! The main incentive for buying this set is definitely the figures...but the actual set itself isn't too bad, either. :thumbup: I like the ship that comes with it. I need to find some extra cash so I can pick it up! :laugh:

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Another nice review, 'DarthPotato'! :classic:

Another great summer 2012 Star Wars set. Too bad it has such a high price. Though, the figures are great and I love the structure.

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Thanks for this great review of Palpatine's Arrest. I'm unsure about the set. The figs as expected are amazing but the rest of the set leaves me a little cold and struggles to justify the relatively high price tag. The ship is small and there really isn't much to it. Palaptine's office looks authentic enough but I find it difficult to get excited about. On the surface, its a decent enough set but one I'll probably pass on. I confess that this may be due to my own prejudices, I've always preferred ships and vehicles to diorama's.

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Thanks for the review!

The minifigures are definitely brilliant, and the set itself is quite nice :classic:

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Thanks for the review 'DarthPotato', I'll buy my son this because it's one of his favourite scenes from ROTS but I must say I'm a little let down by the glass feature - though perhaps since the lightning can be hidden maybe Lego don't want parents complaining about lost parts or pieces of Lego flying everywhere.....though flick-fires seem to fix that argument doesn't it ? :laugh:

I guess it's the figures is what everyone will be buying this for right ? :wink:

It's still a good looking playset, and that's it.....a playset for 8 years and up (up I think is past 44 years of age :laugh: ).

Brick On Review On 'DarthPotato' ! :grin:

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Great review! I've also been rather looking forward to this set cause of the minifigures that are in it, but I'm not sure the overall set itself is worth the money.

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Thanks for the review, for me the small improvements in the figures is not quite enough to get this set, will bricklink them sometime down the track

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Thank you for this excellent review DarthPotato. I think you summed up the good and the bad points of this set pretty well. I knew there was something really bugging me about the window, and when you made your argument that it should be shattering like the Helms Deep wall instead of just tilting forward i couldn't agree more. The minifigures are nice, some of the details are ok as well, but on the whole i'm quite underwhelmed by the looks of this set. There are other sets i'd rather be spending my money on.

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Great review, DarthPotato! You really showed off the best features of the set in a way that makes me appreciate the design. The furniture in Palpatine's office is amazing. Your side-by-side comparison of the minifigs is interesting, too.

The set itself I probably wouldn't buy, but I might if I didn't already have earmarked all the sets I can afford this year. I really do like the office design.

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Thanks for the review! I've been really looking forward to a set like this and can't wait to get mine. I think the major thing from my hopes that is missing is the larger area from Ep. III where Palpatine and Windu actually did most of their fighting (the hallway area?). Otherwise, I'd agree with you that the minifigs definitely make it a worthwhile set!

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Fantastic review thanks.! If the set was near the £100 mark I would leave it but am seriously tempted seeing as it's £60 here in the UK. Great selection of figures although I would have liked the normal side of Palpatine's face not to be sneering as it would have been easier for animating etc.

This set has plenty of areas to be able to MOC but TLG could easily bring out some bolt-on pieces. Would love the corridor with the golden frieze (doubt it though!)

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I actually loved this set. I think it represents pretty decent value consideringthe figures you're getting and the really well thought out design.

i bought this set at the same time as Jabba's palace and a few others ands its my favourite and my 5 year old sons too.

get this set!!

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The review may be in error - my edition of the set seems to have additional 1x4 plates in the sliding doors that make them tall enough to not slide out.

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Could you give Agen Kolar a female hairpiece and take a pic of it? I think his face would work perfectly for a woman!

Edited by badboytje88

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The review may be in error - my edition of the set seems to have additional 1x4 plates in the sliding doors that make them tall enough to not slide out.

Really? I don't remember mine coming with any... although if yours really did come with those extra plates then that's definitely a plus side to the set and fixes that problem. :thumbup:

Could you give Agen Kolar a female hairpiece and take a pic of it? I think his face would work perfectly for a woman!

Sorry for the late-ish response, but here you go! I tried it with two different hairpieces:

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And:

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Hope that helps!

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Nice job DarthPotato!

Fantastic review...in your opinion, if you were a parts collector, would you consider buying this set without the minifigs (which are most of the redeeming quantity of this set's price) or not?

Thanks!

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Nice review!

Recently I got this set with a 25% discount, which is nice. I think if you like the minifigs, then it is a good deal.

The problem with the set is not the design, imo, but that it looks like a much less expensive set. All the elements of the office are beautifully done though, and it can be easily expanded via pins. I plan on adding some Sith art panels (once I figure out how to build them). With the newly released 2014-Royal Guards at the entrance the office looks even better.

The real selling points are the minifigs, it seems, but I am not a fan of the Jedi. Even so, I realize why people rate them so high. It is not often that you have all the characters needed to recreate the scene in the set. My only gripe is with Palpatine, who only has to angry battle faces. A calmer business face would have been more useful for other scenes.

In the end I think the set is not worth the original price tag, but it is a good deal with some discount.

Edited by Flieger

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Oddly, my local TRU has about a dozen of these on "clearance" for just $89.99...

Crappy sale is crappy.

Same here with my local TRU. One day it may go on sale even cheaper but once it hits a dramatic cheap point, they will likely sell out quickly.

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