M'Kyuun

Wow, a bit extreme. Well, IMHO, the new Grievous does justice to his cartoon likeness, and the fig itself now has much better articulation. He looks like Gen. Grievous; far, far better than TLG's earlier version. I'd rather the figs look more like their cartoon selves, and I'm anticipating this set for both the ship and figs. I don't have a problem with redesigns as long as improvements are introduced, and this is a definite improvement over the first set, which itself was a pretty good set. As far as the figures themselves go, I'd rather see them come in sets with which the characters have some relation. Oftentimes, that means they come in more expensive sets. It'd be nice if TLG could put the rarer or more sought out characters in cheap battle packs, but from a business standpoint, that's bad business. I believe TLG is aware of what figs are highly sought, and put these figs in the larger more expensive sets b/c , even if people don't want the main model, they'll often buy a set merely for the figs. It sucks for the collector, but it makes good business sense, and LEGO is a business first and foremost. I liked the Exo-Force figs, face prints and all (I'm an anime fan), and I'm neither bothered nor creeped out by the CW face prints. It's an official LEGO product, so the argument that it doesn't look like LEGO isn't valid. It doesn't look like the classic LEGO System faces, but then again, neither did the Life on Mars aliens, the UFO aliens, the Insectoids, the Atlantis Guardians, the SP3 aliens, or the Stingrays from the Aquazone sets. I'm sure I'm missing some, but the point is, TLG have made a lot of figs, both original and licensed, that departed from the classic System look. It's still LEGO; it's just different. But everyone has his or her own opinion.

That sounds interesting...language in all of its incarnations and subtlties is fascinating to me. I'm currently reading Piers Anthony's "Bearing an Hourglass", book 2 in his Incarnations of Immortality series. The main character assumes the office of Chronos, or Time. I'm not a big fan of fantasy, but I was given "On a Pale Horse", the first book of the series, and I was so impressed with his style and wit, I figured i'd give another book in the series a read. So far, glad I did.

I don't think 4504 is that inaccurate. It's a good compromise between playability, shaping, and getting the major details of the ship, which i think they did well. The price would have swelled had it been greebled out along the sides and on the the upper and lower surfaces, along with other details. i don't remember now if it had the lower cannon. I've seen some nice mods to the set, which really fleshed it out and added much more detail than TLG could afford to for the price point. I think the set stands on its own, but the beauty of LEGO is that it can be changed if you have the parts, time, and imagination. The UCS set is a gorgeous rendition of the Falcon, and comes closest to both realistic scale and overall detail, but it's a 5000+ piece behemoth that's more of a model than a playset. Since the majority of the sets are "System scale", designed around the minifig, generally much, much smaller than they should be scalewise, and designed as playsets, the 4504 just fits in better, and it actually offers more interior room than most of the capital ships thus far. Interior matters, Dr. D., oh, yes, it matters! But, it's interesting to see why you all favor one version over another, and it's pretty cool that we have a pretty nice range of sizes and detail levels to chose from as well.

Clone summed it up best for me. I own all versions, and while the UCS is a great model, it lacks the playability and interior of 4504, plus it's just plain huge, dwarfing all the other System capital ships. 4504 is just an overall excellent set with a novel solution to creating the roof contour while still permitting easy access to the interior. It comes with a snowtrooper and e-web, which is a bonus. I'll second that 7190 was pretty crappy, overall. It was a big deal at the time, b/c we waited a number of years for a Falcon, so perhaps the fulfillment of wish trumped criticism...at first. I remember being pretty disappointed with at after i built it. IIRC, the use of blue and red bricks for various structures and such show blatantly in the finished model, exacerbating its already prevailing yuckiness. I absolutely hate TLG's insistence on using primary colors in an other wise grey or dark colored model, esp when those colors can be seen. Red and blue show up in the (non-walking) AT-AT, as well. Grrrr

That's an excellent compact, functional mod for a function that both MTT sets lacked, but really stood out in the movie and should have been incorporated. I'd given some thought to modding this someday, and your idea is sweetly simple and looks authentic. Hat's off.

Seconded. I thought the old Grevious was crap; the new one is excellent, except for the attchment of the second pair of arms. Mine will stay in a two arm config for this reason. the ship is a nice update to the original, which was pretty nice in its own right.

While I still like to watch the first season of Transformers for that shot of warm-fuzzy nostalgia, I tend towards the more mature cartoons. Most of what has been mentioned makes my list: Evangelion, Rahxephon (Evangelion wannabe), Cowboy Bebop, Full Metal Alchemist and FMA: Brotherhood, Deathnote(awesome), The Full Metal Panics, Last Exile (only got through half of it, but good story), GITS:SAC, Big O (the Japanese answer to Batman), Samurai Champloo, The Macross Saga, esp Plus (great stories with transforming jet fighters to boot). I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. I caught one ep of Monster, a midpoint episode, and I was intrigued. Will have to give it a watch. I also liked Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets, or G-Force in the USA), but the new ADV 70's slang laden dub leaves a little to be desired. G-Force had a lot of cool mecha, and the team were evocative of Batman with their gadgets and gliding abilities. As for American animation, BTAS, Superman, Justice League, Beast Wars and Beast Machines, Spectacular Spiderman (Got it after reading so many positive reviews. Glad I did, very enjoyable), Gargoyles (highly underrated, esp by Disney), Mighty Orbots (little cheesy now, but still cool), Pole Position (great mature cartoon from the 80s, with some neat cars), and the Galaxy Rangers. Again, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. I also like Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, Toy Story (so many great characters, and nostalgia through the roof), monsters Inc. Iron Giant, and the Incredibles are also excellent movies. Bolt was ok, but i think I would have like it more if the dog really had all his abilities and they built an Incredibles type story around it...the opening scenes were the best part of the movie, IMO.

The first was indeed a great game, and a superb hero game. I hope the focus remains on Batman's stealth, and maybe adds a few tricks, like smoke bombs and such. While the Joker is always a favorite, I hope that a different villain takes center stage in the sequel, with plenty of battles with the rest. There were a lot of villains mentioned one way or the other in the first, but only a handful that you actually got to fight (Bane, Croc, Ivy). The Riddler's puzzles added a unique dimension and a reason to play detective. I hope that continues in the sequel as well. Some vehicle play would be fun, as well.

A Hunchback Gender: male Headgear: unkempt hair Facial expression: non-symetrical eyes, both in shape and expression, one half-lidded with rigors of day to day swith pulling, and the other of wide open, obsessive devotion, lopsided grin revealing single tooth Torso: dark tan ragged shirt exposing very hairy chest, and of course, a hump on his hack. Dark brown legs Accessory:hump piece, jar with brain, or a torch with fire (the better to torment the New Prometheus)

It appears that, like many SW sets, dark translucent pieces are used for windows, but they are only there for appearances and do not offer functionality. The shuttle looks very good, quite accurate overall. The stepped look of the rudder's leading edge looks a bit out of place, and I'm surprised there's not a sticker to cover that up, or that the designers didn't use a different method for creating the effect. Concerning the large brown fuel tank , I'm surprised they used the method they did over using these: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=47543 The lights around the shuttle are a bit superfluous, and I'd rather they have put those parts to good use in a gantry or ground support equipment. I'm curious to see the seating arrangement; there looks to be enough space for them to sit in-line, one behind the other. It has retractable landing gear!...a definite rarity on any System set designed for figs. Kudos aplenty for the effort! I hope that particular feature finds itself into more System sets. All it needs now is a deployable parachute! Looking forward to the first reviews of this.

The shuttle looks ok to me, at at 6 studs wide for the main fuselage, it's bigger than the old 4 stud wide shuttles from back in the late 80's & early 90s. I had the shuttle transport truck set, and thought it was pretty awesome. I could kick myself now for using it for parts. Anyway, I think a rolling transport (on treads, of course) and a full gantry would really complete and round out this set. Still, it looks nice to me, and I'll probably pick one up. Be nice to know what's hidden under those cargo bay doors. looking at the pic, looks like the third minifig drives the little cart that brings the astronauts to the shuttle. You can see the little cart on the lower left. Slightly OT, I agree that the American space program, once proud and capable, has withered into near non-existence, esp with the orbiters' retirement nearing, and no real replacement on line at this time. Mars is still on the table, IIRC, and I think a logical step for testing man's ability to really survive and operate in space for an extended period of time, so NASA still has a goal. I think some of the pioneering spirit that inspired my country has diminished, as Americans were much more excited and enthralled by space travel from the 60's all the way up to the 80's when Columbia took her maiden flight. I was quite young then, but I still remember the feeling of awe watching her leave her launch pad and become just a glowing speck in the upper atmosphere, and seeing her return to Earth, gliding in like an airplane. Just amazing, still, when you think about the leap she represented over the Apollo capsules and Saturn V rockets. Getting goosebumps even now, thinking back. RIP Columbia and Challenger. They literally changed the world.

Brings a tear. Great work! Glad to see the old blue and grey pop up from time to time.

I absolutely concur about the palette, and also some of the connection limitations/glitches. It's a great program on the whole, but there are still some annoying quirks I wish they'd fix. I'm working on a transforming powerloader right now, to unload the box from the back. Again, designing something like this in LDD can be stressing, but I'd search for hours in my mess of a collection to get all the parts I need, so LDD is a mess free alternative. During the build, I played around with the colors (I actually hate yellow, and only stuck with it b/c of the original which inspired me), and I had a nice white/black scheme going. It only made sense to maybe try making a police version.

First, thanks for the kind words. I don't consider myself a particularly good builder, so I'm humbled. I was going to PM you, but there's no option for attaching a file. If you know another way, I'm open to suggestions, and I'd be happy to share the file. I think you'll be disappointed...not a very sophisticated design, IMO. I never know how anything I build will turn out...I get a general idea of what I want to make, and then trial-and-error the dogsnot out of it until it approximates what I think I had in mind. I'm no artist, so no conceptual designs either. I like how this looks, and I also got a Warthog vibe when I built the front...wasn't my intention at all...in fact it almost looked completely different, and I was thinking about using some of my earlier experiments to build another vehicle. I was also thinking about making a police, i.e., black and white, version of this with some tweaks. Anyway, about the file, let me know.

Thanks for info...successfully deeplinked a couple pics.

I'm not too savvy with altering pics. When I tried to attach, the pic was too big for the measly 100k I'm allotted. How do I go about deeplinking?

I've long been hoping TLG would move their City line into Space, so the SP3 guys would have something more to protect. I love TLG's little mail truck #7731, and started wondering how I could upgrade the set to tackle off-world terrains. Here's what I came up with in a couple nights:

Sir Nadroj built his own Theta class shuttle, complete with brick built wings and dorsal stabilizer. Here's a Flickr link that shows a nice montage of various MOCs, a pic of the movie model, and a pic of the official set.: http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=...ttle&m=text Masked Builder, I think TLG was trying for a panel line effect on the "fin". TLG often uses a mish-mash of colors in their models , I guess to keep them from looking too drab or mono-hued, as well as to give a pattern effect. Sometimes it works, and sometimes, well... The Slave 1 I think is a model where it works. The Theta shuttle actually has a nice pattern of dark grey striping to contrast with the lighter grey wing, but TLG chose not to add that to the wings. Would have looked nice, IMO.

I like the set, and all the figs, but my beef with it is with some of the color choices...the red and blue control console looks out of place..why not a dark/light bley hinge piece to match the rest of the cockpit. And the use of red parts for Anakin's table. Even the landing gear's color choice and pattern looks , well, yucky. Construction-wise, the back of the ship suffers from too many gaps and what looks like black pieces lining the engine areas, and just does not present a nice appearance, esp. when comparing to the front of the ship. The top "fin" would have looked much better if both sides were studs out, but I imagine it was built this way more for strength than aesthetics. Or it was cheaper. Either way, it is what it is. Altogether, it's not as clean or appealing as it could have been. The RAS, love it or hate it, was, IMHO, put together better. On the plus side, I love that this is the first shuttle with actual retracting landing gear. It's a nice simple design, but it makes a difference to the aesthetics and "realism". Hope this is a trend they'll continue on all their shuttle sets from now on. This: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=30180 is just an eyesore and lazy. On the minus, and maybe my experience is unique, but I'm not too crazy about the rotating system for the wings..mine are always pretty loose...I think I would have preferrred they use the technic rotation joints like the ones used on 4483 AT-AT's legs, at least one on each side for strength.

It's a trend for TLG to put things in sets where they didn't occcur/ exist: Leia's office in the Tantive 4, Palpatine's office in the Venator, and now Vader's transformation in the Emperor's shuttle. I'm probably missing more, but these spring to mind. Vader was fixed and suited up on Coruscant, IIRC.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:Theta_ICS.jpg The link is to a pic of a cut-away drawing of the Emperor's shuttle from Ep 3. Aside from using darker colors, LEGO's model looks pretty much like its inspiration, down to the openings in the wings. I like SW shuttles, and this one is no exception. For those complaining about the interior, TLG rarely puts much interior detail in their shuttle models. The helmet placer mechanism is ok, so you can re-enact Vader's transformation and subsequent freak-out. The weapons dropping mechanism in the Republic Attack Shuttle was probably the best function I've seen. The only alternative is just to put seats in the thing with no playability. That's great for a model targeted at adults, but this is a kid's toy, and they try to incorporate neat little functions for them. Fortunately, it's all made of LEGO, and can be modded to suit. Personally, I'd love to see TLG make a shuttle with a proper boarding ramp, but until they do, I need to take my own advice. As for the pilot, I like how he looks, rather than just being another generic Imperial officer. I looked for a reference pic, but came up empty. As has been the recent trend, TLG's attention to detail regarding the figs is excellent. TLG have come along way since their first few years...setting nostalgia aside, most of the system sets were pretty inaccurate, and just left much to be desired. I think 2005-2006 marked a turning point in set design, and IMHO, they've been improving ever since. I think it also helped greatly for TLG to realize and recognize the enormity of their adult fan community.

Seconded! Additionally I wish TLG would make inverted slope pieces to match this: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4871 and its 4 stud long version: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4854. I also wish they'd make half versions of both of these parts (split down the middle of the plate area)..it'd be great for making tandem landing gear or bomb bay doors, and they'd match up perfectly when closed. I also second brackets where the side piece is as thick as a standard plate. Additionally, in the technic arena, I wish they'd make this http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=32013 , but with a technic pin connecter instead of an axle connector, i.e. half of this http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=75535b. T'would be very useful, esp for mecha builders. As for bricks and such , I'love to see this http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4865 and it's 4 stud long varient with studs on the outside of the panel, as well as http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=47905 with an axle hole, and this http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4595 realized as just a 2x1 modified brick (no stud or tube on the ends). Actually, I'd love a whole assortment of bricks with studs placed low, not to mention this http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=87087 with an open back like the headlight brick.

Can't really fault them for copying 6209; it's simply very well designed. I think they made this primarily as a way of introducing the new Boba fig, which doesn't break my heart at all. :)

My heartfelt condolences to his family first, and then to those of us who could only look on with awe at what he was capable of doing with a little imagination and a few bricks. A huge loss to the community. RIP NNENN, you were a master of your craft.

TLG's come a long way from their original Slave 1. I thought the last version was pretty much the definitive set, and a great build, as well, not to mention the other bounty hunters that came with. I'm not as crazy about the brighter color scheme, but I do like the new parts that surround the wing mounts (round and fluid like the real model). The main model looks pretty similar in all other respects, but the real plus is the improved Boba Fett. He looks awesome...how he should have looked from the beginning. I never like the backpack/helmet combo. Bossk joins the growing pantheon of licensed and non-licensed molded alien figs, and looks great, and the new Han, with his carbonite sleeping chamber, is a long awaited improvement to the printed brick of past sets. Truth be told, I never cared much for the Slave 1 until TLG's Jango version, and then the previous one from '06 or '07, which I felt was superb in all respects. In LEGO, anyway, it has become one of my favorite sets, and I'll definitely be picking up the new version. Thanks for the great review, CopMike!