Fallenangel

I second that opinion. I think the '03 Clone Wars were on the right track when they decided to shrink her eyes to dots instead of giving her irises and pupils like the other Jedi. That Shaak Ti minifigure is a bit scary... I was expecting something similar to what we saw in the first LEGO Star Wars video game.

Okay, I can't win against an LDD user... the 2x2 dome piece is obviously too large for Artoo's head, and that little strip looks about minifigure scale so that's what I assumed... Minifigure heads can be printed on top? Where have I seen that face before...? $59.99 for less than 400 pieces... with the recent trend, I guess I can't complain too much, but seeing as 7259 ARC-170 cost $40 for about the same number of pieces, I'm expecting a REALLY BIG shuttle. And I mean REALLY BIG. I hope they do not, as printed legs are part of what makes certain minifigures special (like the Boba Fett minifigure in the Cloud City playset, or the stormtroopers in the 7264 Imperial Inspection). Most LEGO minifigures do not have printed legs, and what's more, printing the legs just makes them more expensive. Now, it doesn't really look like a few bounty hunters or a couple of clone troopers are particularly iconic or central to the plot of the new series (especially considering Sugi and Embo have only appeared in two throwaway episodes, one of which stole its plot from a Kurosawa film, and that the Horn Company is neither ARC nor controlled by a particularly major Jedi, for to this day I cannot distinguish Agen Kolar from Eeth Koth). I suppose bomb squad troopers played a fairly crucial role in Ep. 17, but are they really that special?

Judging from KielDaMan's reference picture, that mold is quite impressive! If this were 2007 LEGO would never have included the breather details. I think that this may exceed the 2005 LEGO V-wing pilot in detailing - very, very nice. Something bothers me, though - they can make this, but they can't give Darth Vader a neck? Having just that triangle portion and then a straight edge gives a really weird look to the helmet. If LEGO is responding to AFOLS' demands for more detailed molds, I might as well take advantage. They've already perfected the stormtrooper, TIE pilot, and AT-AT drivers' helmets - it's time the Dark Lord gets a new mold to fit his new torso print.

You realize that the reason only part of the dome was printed initially is because Artoo would be horrendously out of scale with minifigures if the entire head were printed (much like it is now - but something about LEGO Star Wars changed after the winter of '07). The way I see it, LEGO knew that a few customers would complain about the ridiculously oversized astro-droid so they only printed part of the dome; this way, if you scrapped the body and just stuck the head on, say, an X-wing, it would look like Artoo's head and part of his body were sticking out of the hull the way it does in the film! What I'm wondering is why they didn't just print part of the body detail on the head as well instead of printing it on the separate body piece and leaving that unsightly white gap... With the current head print, Artoo is finally somewhat to scale with himself, but completely out of whack with Luke and Threepio. Actually, I'm glad that the Mandalorian armor isn't a metallic color - Jango's shiny armor completely kills the battle-worn image that Boba Fett's original suit had.

But then you've also got these and these, which for me give too much of a <insert that tiresome argument> look on the model. That's why I used 45 slope bricks on my X-wing instead of the large cylinder pieces (even though I suppose the latter would be more accurate, but hey, it's LEGO).

I think it's because LEGO is charging 50 cents for a droid body that people are mad... Anyone else here think that the bounty hunter gunship looks kind of... <insert that tiresome argument>? There are a lot of large curved pieces, bright colors, stickers... granted, LEGO did a better job integrating the curves here than on, say, the 7915 V-wing, but I still think it's a bit off. That is one HUGE BARC speeder...

Well what's wrong with a bit of inspiration?

Huh? Oh wait, the pilot's chair is really high up, now that I look at it... I almost don't want to say this, but the stabilizer fins and the cockpit should pivot independently of each other. If you connect them, it's impossible to get the cockpit to pivot correctly considering the location of the axle connecting the fins. Looks like this would take a while to correct...

The piece could also hold your buzz droid halves together... ever since I saw 7252 Droid Tri-Fighter I had been wondering how to do that.

It's amazing how quickly opinions can change... I guess you could just stick the body in the cockpit with the pilot then - there's certainly enough space. As expected from the UCS builder himself. It looks like I was right about the droid. Excuse me for a moment: Couldn't resist the Scrubs reference. =D

Just make sure he doesn't get bitten by the Neo-Clone Wars bug, or he'll lose appreciation for the Original Trilogy completely. In other words, keep him as far away from the Cartoon Network as possible. (You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy - except maybe the Disney Channel.) And of course, watch out for the Special Editions. And be sure to pore over every picture in the visual guide with him to help him spot out as many inaccuracies and wacky proportions in the vehicles as possible to give him a keen eye for details. Once he's acquired a real feel for the main characters, steer him toward the Thrawn Trilogy and the Black Fleet Crisis when he's old enough so that he can follow the stories of his favorite characters while expanding his vocabulary. As you're doing this, you might as well encourage him to consider the physics of Star Wars and how an X-wing could not possibly stay up in the air without the use of the Force - and be sure that he knows that a parsec is a unit of distance, not time. If you're crazy enough to follow the suggestions above you'll end up with a fairly bright child who can impress all around him with his brilliant mind and his love and knowledge of Star Wars.* *And he'll also be a lot like me... On a more serious note, if he only likes the minifigures, you may want to consider switching over to Hasbro, as LEGO minifigures of core characters require a large wallet at this point. Not only that, LEGO minifigures aren't very durable; all the joints will loosen up and start cracking after a few days of intense, child-induced lightsaber battling. (One of my minifigures from around '97 can no longer hold a megaphone upright.) On the other hand, I think I saw a Han Solo action figure at the local Wal-Mart the other day... but I could be wrong. And you could probably run a truck over the Hasbro figures and they'll be just fine.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080121191610/starwars/images/a/ae/Vwing_ICS.jpg Note that it refers to the droid as a "spherical Q7-series astro-droid". In other words, the body is actually just another dome - an R2 droid's body wouldn't fit there in the first place. LEGO did us all a favor because they realized that most people wouldn't know and included the R2 droid's body. (LEGO has full access to Lucasfilm, so there's no way that they wouldn't know.) With the radar dish, it's different. If LEGO were portraying the Falcon as it appeared during or shortly after the Battle of Endor, I wouldn't complain since the radar dish was actually knocked off while it was inside the second Death Star (I believe Lando's exact words were, "that was too close".) . This also would not be an issue if the Falcon were in Docking Bay 94, as it should not have a radar dish at all. Turns out that the whole ship couldn't actually fit in the docking bay so they only built part of it for that scene. Of course, if they had left out the radar dish when it was supposed to be there, I would complain since it's such a recognizable feature. EDIT: Oh yeah... When I do something stupid, just copy and paste this into your post...

The "hole" in the fins should extend all the way to the grey "claws" (which makes sense, since it should line up with the tan arm). In addition, it should be farther from the edge of the wing. cavegod's got the hole more or less in the right place, although it doesn't extend far enough either. Of course, it doesn't look like you'll be able to use for the fins anymore. You are correct in that this would require you to build the fin thicker, but the fin should already be quite thick in that section so I think you can use that to your advantage. As for cavegod, it looks like his arms are attached too far inward so I would advise against that (nice to see you're following along though; now I'm helping two MOCers at once) The driving ring looks great, but the angle on the U-joint isn't large enough - the thicker portion should be nearly parallel with the tan arm. Put another way, the driving ring itself should be angled downward. I think fixing this would also help the arm line up with the gap a little bit better. It looks like cavegod did this a little better on his model. But as you said, there are parts in that location that you can't tinker with, so I guess one should just compromise and leave that place as it is?

Might I ask why you would want the whole astromech to fit into the fighter? I don't understand... after all, they've already done us a favor by giving us the body.

There is a thread for all your LEGO purchasing decisions here in the general forum, all members please take note. I'm sure the forum moderators would prefer it if all the "what should I buy" posts were in one place rather than all over the forum.

That printed piece was used in the 6206 TIE Interceptor so LEGO has them in bley too. I just figured after the 7676 Republic Gunship that LEGO switched to stickers to cut costs because they realized all their new molds were driving up prices.

Well of course they can be bumped but usually the admins only allow such bumps when there are signs of insightful discussion... not youtube-style "hey this is great" comments. I don't understand this craze for minifigures lately, so I think the lack of exclusive figures in this set would be another redeeming factor. It keeps the price down and allows you to buy multiples without having to worry about how you'll get rid of that second stash of creepy Anakin minifigures... The real thing: http://www.modelermagic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/kg_at-te_-010.jpg I always thought it would be pretty neat if the AT-TE could kneel a bit when deploying troops, but so far I haven't come across any sources where it does that...

Yes, a bit too large. I think that with small vehicles where the minifigure is clearly visible, it is imperative that you get the scale as close to correct as possible.

So nobody can help me, huh? So is that their game? New sets for the Neo-Clone Wars kiddies and a lazy re-release for the older fans? Why won't LEGO release a better X-wing? It's not going to put them out of business doing it and they have a considerable amount of inspiration. There's a real question for ya. What, no new face for Wedge? Something's wrong here. Interesting to see that Luke has a new face but the same helmet. The same can be said for Han... and why is his coat still blue? Is that a pearl grey lightsaber he's got? Or is it chrome?

First of all, with the arches, it's just a really minor thing; notice here that at the place where the arches meet the brown skirt there's an angle of around 45 degrees. You had captured this fairly well with the 3x3 plates without corners in your previous rendition, but with the new pieces it looks like you may have overlooked that detail. The rest of what you said seems pretty reasonable... I guess next time I should try and take more of the internal structure and such into account before making more suggestions. And of course builders make compromises Anio... that's why, for the most part, I try to calibrate my suggestions to the limitations of the brick. Everything I said above was based on the achievement of details I had already observed in other models or what looked like a quick fix (color issues and such). I tend to be a little harder on UCS and other larger models (since there is more you can do with LEGO) but I still take into account the fact that it is LEGO. That's why I didn't bother to notify you of the large grey section of the skirt that needs to be larger, because I can tell from the way you've built that section that there really isn't any easy way to do it that way. And I'm perfectly fine with it. And if any of my suggestions seem unreasonable to you I'm glad you've informed me. I do think you really need to do something with those beams, but based on the way you've built this there doesn't appear to be a particularly convenient way to do it, so I'll just let it go. And you realize I was talking about sand green... Oh yes, cavegod and his UCS project that I think he said was a TIE Bomber at some point but I don't remember. It's a little odd since he specifically said he was doing a model that wasn't grey or black. What's wrong with amun-Ra's version? Sure, it's blocky but it really has the shape and proportions of the ship down pat in my opinion.

Well, it looks like I was right and the ship doesn't fit the whole astromech. I hope everyone realizes by now that this is more movie-accuate... The wings are connected via an axle running through the center of the ship. There is a gear on the right side that you turn to make the right wing (and thus the left) pivot. There's also an L-shaped Technic piece that acts as a stopper, as Walter Kovacs pointed out. Not bad. I'm just hoping it'll work well. On the other hand, did anyone notice that the boosters are built in exactly the same way as they were on the previous rendition? Bad show LEGO bad show... They've also taken a step back by having the triangles on the inner panels represented with a sticker rather than with wing plates, as on the previous rendition. As I predicted the inner panels are in fact shorter by two studs. Not only that, but the shape has been compromised in the process - they are now the more standard trapezoids rather than the isosceles trapezoids they are supposed to be. (Okay, of course they are not exactly isosceles trapezoids, but I'm saying they should resemble that shape more closely.) Contrary to what people thought, it doesn't look like there's anything that keeps the angle of the 3x6 wings on the bar clips fixed - but instead of complaining, just remember that you can always do this. Okay, so it looks like they've sacrificed the better shape they got with the 45 slope bricks in trying to attach the inner panels to the main body of the ship rather than to large Technic bricks on either side. However, the connection is still in the wrong place (the connection is with the face of the panels, not the edges) so it's a one-step-forward-two-steps-back sort of thing... That canopy is ridiculously oversized. I mean, it dwarfs the pilot completely! Just look at how cramped that pilot is supposed to be. The pilot has no controls, not even the little grille piece we got with the previous rendition. Stubby guns = awkward look. I wonder what the significance of that transparent 2x2 round brick is... What's with that completed view at 1:12? I have a growing feeling that people actually buy these sets without knowing anything about the actual ship. Yes, this video confirms it - I will definitely pass over 7915 next year.

Ah yes, Junsier of FBTB and his 9 versions of the Slave I. But at least they get a little better each time. I maintain that amun-Ra's model is the best I've seen.

Man, it's been quiet in this subforum lately. I was wondering how in the world the admins would allow a user to bump a year-old review for one opinionated sentence. Then I noticed he/she was new. If you ask me, old grey is the least of the original LEGO AT-TE's problems. In fact, some may even consider it one of its redeeming qualities (despite the fact that bley looks closer to the grey shown in the Prequels). A major point is the presence of the obscenely large gaps everywhere. I don't think even the 7259 ARC-170 had this bad of a problem. Those clones are practically ready to fall out! And it's not helped by the fact that as it is fairly close to minifigure scale this set should be able to hold around 20 clones, and that's after compensating for minifigures being more squat than actual people. The squat legs are also a big problem. We've seen from numerous video games, comic books and the like that one of the advantages of a walker is the leverage from the ground (for increased stability, greater mobility, etc.); with six long legs, the AT-TE could very well use this to its advantage. I mean, just look at this! But the legs on this model are just so very stubby - I can hardly imagine this thing being able to walk. At least the newer 7675 had longer legs. I can tolerate the usual myriad of inaccuracies found in toys, but this is simply too glaring of an error! It doesn't capture the feel of the original. The random colors are a bit of an eyesore, but it's early LEGO so it can't be helped.

The new dark green is looking great! I also see you've added more detail to the cockpit and the guns. The details on the back are quite impressive as well. Here's what I've noticed: First things first, I believe some work needs to be done on the stabilizer fins. As can be seen in this picture of the studio model, the fins should have large portions that appear cut out so that they can rotate without interfering with the beams to which they are attached. I think amun-Ra's model does a decent job of this detail. There's also an issue regarding the pair of beams that angle upward toward the hull (between the fins and the main body); they are actually attached to rectangular structures more inside the ship. When I saw that on the WIP pictures I had hoped that you would catch the mistake and fix it in a later rendition but you didn't so I'm telling you now. amun-Ra's model also illustrates this well. (I'm sorry I didn't tell you this before when the fins were still grey `= ) I didn't have decent reference pictures of this ship at the time.) I see you've swapped out the sand green pieces on the side with the dark green curves from the 8097, as you said you would. However, you've lost the angle where they meet the brown skirtlike area. Perhaps this could be fixed if you removed the smaller dark green curved pieces you've got right up against the brown bricks with something else? It looks like you've put an inverted 1x2 45 slope brick in place of the SNOT near Slave I's main hatch. In any case, the angles there are a bit different so I would suggest changing that piece. Perhaps a 1x2x2 slope brick would do. The field of grey on the sides looks a bit bland; I think we had already established the fact on FBTB that there should be more green there. This also shows in the image I deeplinked earlier in this thread. There's no tan there on the studio model either, so I would suggest removing the random tan tile you've got there; it looks really out of place and stands out too much. I think the end of the nose (or tail, or whatever) could look betterif you could somehow achieve the slight humps around the cannons. This can easily be done either with plates or with inverted radar dish pieces. About the back...

Does anyone here know the configuration for the Millennium Falcon's landing gear or preferably provide a picture? I'm looking for both the original version with five landing pads and the Empire version with seven.