Fallenangel

Very nice MOC – the angled plate construction of the head is very nice and fitting for the size. I also like your use of the old hinge plates as detailing. The body could use a little more blue, though. Is that third leg retractable?

Couldn’t this just go in the Future Star Wars Sets thread?

They’re not exactly fins; the wings are just shaped that way... While I share the opinion that The LEGO Group did an excellent job of capturing the look of the Eta-2 with 7256, as well as that the fact that the wings are larger in front does make the end result a bit clunky, I think that the other changes The LEGO Group has made to this new rendition, such as the wedge bricks around the cockpit bulb and the Technic pins in front, help the set look more like its on-screen counterpart enough that the bluntness at the bow is a small issue. I’m sure that the craft would look better from other angles, and if not, it looks like a pretty easy fix. Hopefully, with a full R4-G9 included. Agreed. Too true! An Eta-2 that was built within ‘minifigure scale’ would have saved us a fair bit of money. On the other hand, the fact that there’s more detail and less stickers on this one does make up for it somewhat.

It’s a nod toward accuracy. EDIT: IMPORTANT - To anyone who hasn't actually seen these movies, the Jedi Interceptor is this ship: One model was given four paint schemes to represent four different craft shown in the film - Obi-wan's red-and-grey rendition, Aayla Secura's blue-and-grey rendition seen above, the green-and-grey rendition represented by this new LEGO set, and Anakin's own yellow-and-grey craft. We should include this kind of info in the first post so that non-Star Wars fans can be in the know.

Because they figured people wouldn’t buy another yellow one?

I’m not sure, but I believe those are the slopes from 7877 in white. The white things below those are what I thought were flick-fire missiles (to represent the proton torpedo launch tubes, which is a fun improvement over 4502) but which now appear to be minifigure cups, faucets, or even telescopes.

The image is mirrored and the colors subdued, but yes, it appears to be the same one.

Yoda obviously doesn’t approve of this film. Just look at his big CGI frown.

The site wouldn’t let me embed the image for whatever reason, so I reuploaded it to my Brickshelf folder: The wings of the new Eta-2 appear to be one stud wider and one stud longer than those of the previous rendition – that should help the overall proportions. It’s slightly disappointing that the gaps around the cockpit bulb have gotten larger, though. The new ion cannons don’t look as good as the old ones, but that’s a quick fix, and in any case black lightsaber hilts are nice to have. (It's about time I gave Vader one in the right color. ) And then of course there’s the inevitable full socket, as well as the fact that the cockpit interior appears to be completely yellow. EDIT: KimT beat me to it. No printed headset this time.

The assumption in the other thread was that having to disassemble either the droid or the ship during play would prove too ‘tedious’ for kids. I don’t agree with it, but it does make designing that area a little more interesting. @KimT: Would it be possible to move all the posts in the Rumors thread pertaining to the droid socket into this thread?

The droid socket sits just forward of the engines, so there wouldn't be any interference.

There already exists a simple and stable solution for a 3-wide droid socket. It was thought up by Bruce Lowell and utilizes two pairs of hinges: This method allows the droid to be removed with ease and is much more space-efficient than SNOTed slope bricks.

This is a LEGO forum.

I'm aware that you're only on this site for your kids, but that hardly gives you an excuse to be a killjoy.

Might as well look like this then:

There exist two universes in the franchise – Lucas’ universe and the Expanded Universe. "There are two worlds here," explained Lucas. "There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don’t intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don’t get too involved in the parallel universe." This is another reason why we can’t toss in things like ‘personal canon’ into discussions. Without set parameters, sources are refuted and people trying to make points get frustrated since everybody appears to have their own definition of what is and isn’t Star Wars. There’s an official hierarchy of canonicity so that everybody will be on the same page – for the purposes of a discussion like this, it’s necessary to take this official canon as the definitive canon and save the bashing of the Expanded Universe, The Clone Wars, and the Prequels for more appropriate situations (or at least keep in mind that one’s personal opinions on the matter don’t alter what is actually canon – that right goes to Lucasfilm).

'Personal canon' is irrelevant. There’s nothing wrong with having preferences, but one shouldn’t use the term ‘canon’ to describe them. And they are free to do that, but their personal decision to do so does not qualify it as "canon", as I understand the meaning of the word.

It’s less about the position of the droid than how it affects the rear fuselage. Artoo’s legs are bulkier in LEGO than they should be, so attempting to fit all that in results in an oversized droid socket and/or gaps. By removing the legs, you get a better approximation of how big the droid ‘should’ be relative to the ship and are thus able to more accurately represent that area.

In that case, there isn't much point in bringing up canon in the first place and thus no point in having this discussion at all.

It’s not so much supporting it as tolerating it. As I’ve stated multiple times, the decision to put the droid in this way has enough positive aspects that it’s acceptable. Like this. Agreed.

Sources, sources… Nope. THE Clone Wars is T-canon, which ranks higher in canon than all other Expanded Universe material. It may not make any kind of sense, but that’s the way Leland Chee has it organized.

Better X-wings and TIE fighters than this rubbish.

It makes sense. The LEGO astromech droid is larger relative to a minifigure than it should be and sports bulky legs, so it shouldn’t be able to fit in a System X-wing the ‘right’ way: Hence it is sideways in this set, which is an acceptable alternative as it better retains the shape of the rear fuselage. Of course, this wouldn't be an issue if the fuselage was wider, but I’m assuming that would somehow interfere with the S-foil mechanism.

That really brings up the question of whether or not the entire political situation with Dooku was necessary. At the time of Menace, Palpatine and the Emperor had not yet become the same person, so it’s entirely possible that the whole political ordeal could have been taken differently. And since Lucas hadn’t allowed elaboration on the outbreak of the Clone Wars at the time, the idea of the clone army could have been similarly avoided.

During filming, any time a part of Threepio’s body wouldn’t have been visible on screen, the unseen plating wasn’t worn by the actor. This could possibly be a reference to that. The other, more obvious explanation is lighting.