drdavewatford

The guy top left in your photo with the lovely dark red hat is very similar to the stationmaster in the 7997 Station set, although in that set the legs were sand blue and the detailing on the torso is subtly different. Not sure that helps much, but anyway.... Dr. D.

Nice ! A part of me was glad that Indy was phased out as I couldn't see myself managing to keep up with all the Star Wars stuff, new modulars and exclusives, Toy Story sets, and Indy as well. I fear however that I may need to find the cash and space for these PoP sets - I love the colours, the figures and the interesting builds..... I laughed when I saw the complaints about "price per piece ratios" - would you rather they had dropped the horse, for instance, and instead included 50 1 x 1 bley round plates to bulk up the parts count ? Thought not. It's not about the numbers - a piece as large as the horse is surely worth 20+ other tiny and less interesting pieces ? Dr. D.

This is a tough question..... I think it has to be Emerald Night for me, although Winter Toy Shop also gave me a lot of pleasure. I do however have to admit that while I bought MMV I haven't actually built it yet, so perhaps my vote will change eventually ! Dr. D.

Some excellent points. It certainly seems as if many of the vintage sets which attract the highest prices now are those which didn't sell particularly well when they were released and are therefore rarer. Also, time will tell whether the current obsession with minifigs will be truly enduring or turn out to be something of a fad.... If the interest is enduring, the sets with lots of figs will obviously remain popular. For all reasons, 10188 Death Star is a dead-cert future classic in my book - fantastic huge set, loads of figures, and totally iconic. I've never enjoyed building a set more as an AFOL. I can't see the Endor set losing anybody money either, and because Home 1 is I think less popular, it'll surely hold its value due to the unique figs and the rarity. Related to this is how enduring the 'cult of Star Wars' will be, both with respect to Lego and also in general. There's been a sporadic flow of prequels, video games, merchandise, animated series etc. etc. since 1977 which have 'fanned the flames', but I suspect it won't go on for ever. I suspect it's now too entrenched in popular culture to lose its popularity this generation, but in a few decades time, who knows wether our lovingly-collected memorabilia will have retained its value ? While Star Wars remains popular, however, it's hard to see boxed LEGO Star Wars sets, particularly MISB, ever being worth less than their original RRP, and in many cases they will be a guaranteed money maker for anyone with the cash and foresight to buy up sets and stockpile them for the future. Dr. D.

Agreed, but the way some AFOLs talk you'd think that we were the majority ! These figures are hopefully a useful reality check for some. Dr. D.

This discussion also appeared on Brickset a few days ago. For those who'd like to see more opinions on the topic, click the link below : Brickset 5% AFOL discussion My take is that 5% is pretty low, and we're lucky that TLC takes so much notice of us ! Dr. D.

Good question. The UCS Snowspeeder (10129) is clearly too big, but the smaller 4500 (from 2004) or 7130 (from 1999) might be about the right size. Or you could wait for the upcoming Summer Wampa set which also contains a snowspeeder ! Go to the following link and enter 4500 or 7130 into the "Quick finder" box for the instructions : Official LEGO instructions Cheers, Dr. D.

Excellent review of an interesting set. I'm one of those who feels that the huge 2-piece balloon is cheating, although I have to admit that it'd be well nigh impossible to make a credible version out of regular bricks. I had similar concerns about the enormous wing piece in the "Fight on the Flying Wing" Indy set, and that one's even worse as it would have been fairly easy to design the wing out of normal bricks. Anyway, thanks for the lovely clear pics and interesting text. Dr. D.

Just realised that I qualify. Oh, go on then ! Dr. D.

I think the neck looks longer on your model because it doesn't widen where it joins the head. Shortening it by a stud or two may help with the bending of the neck and the appearance. Be aware however that these suggestions are just "small print" as your construction is already so good anyway ! Dr. D.

Does the neck even need to be that long ? I reckon you could shorten it to half its current length, which should help to address the 'neck droop' as well as make the model look a liitle more streamlined. Fantastic effort, incidentally - awesome model ! Dr. D.

It's just like buses, brickus - wait forever for the review, and then 2 come along at once ! Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks to all of you for the excellent comments. Big Pete - consider yourself incredibly lucky to have picked up a boxed Yoda set for £25 - I've been tagging and watching Yoda auctions on eBay for the past 18 months, and the cheapest I've seen was £56. All the early UCS sets don't come along very often, and they usually fetch £100+, so you got a major bargain ! Dr. D.

Nice review, Rufus - I particularly like the build pics and the design critique ! Looks like you didn't use a flash for the pics, so a very different approach from the 2 of us there. Dr. D.

Sorry, Rufus. I'd been waiting for someone to post a review for ages, and when nobody did I thought I might as well post one myself. Looking forward to seeing your review, however - as you say, always nice to see a variety of opinions, and I'm also interested to see how your photos come out. Cheers, Dr. D.

Here’s another Lego Star Wars review for the database. Name: Yoda Theme: Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series Number: 7194 Year: 2002 Pieces: 1075 Minifigs: N/A Price when released in 2002 : £79.99 Price paid by me : £101.00 from eBay UK in May 2009 (opened box, but Lego sealed in original bags inside) I have to admit that when I started to seriously try and collect all the Star Wars Lego sets about 18 months ago, this set didn’t really appeal to me. I’ve always been a big fan of the technology of Star Wars, so it’s the ships like the Millenium Falcon, the Imperial Star Destroyer, the X-Wing and all the rest that I really loved and wanted to collect. Over time I managed to track these sets down, and at the same time I saw more and more pictures of the blocky but strangely lovable Jedi master as I immersed myself ever more in the world of Lego Star Wars. Eventually I decided to take the plunge, get out my cheque book, and I’m pleased to say that I wasn’t disappointed. OK, in time-honoured tradition, here's a picture of the front of the box: Some obvious thematic similarities with other older UCS sets like the X-Wing and the TIE Interceptor. There’s some nice box art in evidence on the front : The back of the box looks like this : All in all, LEGO did a decent job on the box. In an ideal world mine would have been in better condition, but such is life…. The instructions are A4 size and actually pretty lightweight when compared with some of the encyclopaedias you get with some of the other UCS sets. Front cover : The back cover is sweet – some nice advertising shots of a few really interesting sets, including one of my all-time favourites – the UCS Tantive IV Blockade Runner which I STILL can’t bring myself to deconstruct a year after building it. I’ve since managed to get hold of the other sets shown here as well, including the fearsome Darth Maul bust, but not got round to building them yet. Below you can see a couple of random pages from inside. Master Yoda is basically hollow, and you obviously construct him row by row following the instructions which generally show the build from directly above as you can see here. It can get a little confusing at times, but you soon just about get the hang of it. It’s the same kind of instructions utilised for the Statue of Liberty set, which some of you may have seen (and a few lucky ones might actually own). So, on to the pieces. I have to say that the colour palette is one of the most pleasing I’ve ever seen in a LEGO set – a riot of sand green, tan, dark orange and dark brown. I’d be willing to bet that you’ll not see more sand green pieces in any other official set apart from the Statue of Liberty – Yoda contains over 400 sand green pieces. I also think there’s probably more tan here than in any set – well over 500 tan pieces. I need to confess that as a relatively old-timer, I grew up in the days when all I had to work with were red, blue, white, yellow, black and clear pieces (with a bit of old grey thrown in), so the huge number of parts in unusual and in some cases quite rare colours really put a huge smile on my face. Hmmm – maybe I need to get out more ! Here are the larger sand green bricks and plates (I sort all the smaller pieces separately) : And here’s the mountain of tan bricks, not including pieces 2 x 2 or less : Here are the dark orange and dark brown pieces, with a couple of white and black parts to make up the numbers : And finally, here are the smaller pieces, which I sort separately : So, on to the finished build……. I need to apologise here for the quality of the pictures – I found Yoda REALLY hard to photograph. Any shot with the flash, even when I turned down the flash intensity, reflected horribly and made Yoda look even shinier than he really is, and when I tried 3-point lighting I couldn’t get a decent result. More powerful lights needed I guess. Anyway, here’s Yoda from the front : And here’s a close-up of his face : His eyes are made up of a few parts that I’ve previously only seen in Technic sets. Here he is from the side : And here from the rear : Just one of the quirky things about this set is the seemingly odd brick you can see halfway up his back. Here’s a slightly closer look : It’s actually an OldDkGray 1 x 2 brick with the LEGO logo (poorly) printed on it. Looks a bit out of place, a bit like the label on an item of clothing sticking out of your collar ! This is a close up of the 'offending part', which apart from this set only appears in a couple of 2003 advent calendars in this colour according to Peeron : Here finally is the finished ‘masterpiece’ posing against the box. I have to say I LOVED the build. It was really refreshing to be building with tons of proper bricks and plates for a change – it took me back to my childhood when there were few specialised pieces and we just had to make do. The colour palette was also a wonderful breath of fresh air after building multiple grey space ships ! Conclusions : Design: 7/10. OK, so he’s a bit blocky, but it’s definitely Yoda, leaning on a stick….. Price: 7/10. Seems like reasonable value for money, even considering what I paid. Lots of proper bricks in interesting colours, and over 1000 pieces in total Minifigures: None in this set, although I’d give the colour palette 10/10…. Playability: 5/10. His head turns, and that’s it. But hey – he’s clearly for display, and certainly NOT to be messed with, so I’m not sure if it’s fair to mark him down on playability… Overall: 7/10. Bit of a blocky design, but nice colours and a good old-fashioned building experience. Plus I like to see him looking wisely across the room ! Thanks for reading. Dr. D. PS. Could I ask one of the moderators to please add a poll and index this review ? Thanks !

As some have said, I think the key is strong sunlight or an alternative U.V. source. Without this the process just doesn't work. I left my browned pieces in H2O2 soup for almost a week in a glass bowl in the garden but not much happened, and I think it's because we often get no sun in the UK during the winter (!) and it was so cold outside that the reaction was very sluggish. I'll try again over the Summer, and I'm almost certain it'll work better then. Of course the alternative is to throw the old pieces out and pay pennies for used pieces on Bricklink, but where's the fun in that ? :-) Dr. D.

Excellent review - thanks ! I love the classic space sets, and this is one that I don't yet own, so thanks for whetting my appetite ! Impressive that your blue and white pieces don't seem to have discoloured much - I had a particular problem with some of the blues on my 928 Galaxy Explorer and had to swap them out with (used) replacements. I guess you just looked after your pieces better than I did.... Keep the great reviews coming ! Cheers, Dr. D.

Superb review of a lovely set - thanks ! This one definitely falls into the "must buy" category...... Dr. D.

Ha ha !! That is incredibly cool ! A beautiful re-imagining of an iconic set - fabulous ! Dr. D.

Another lovely new mini, and another nice review from Big Cam. None to buy here in the U.K., but thanks to a generous Brickset member in the U.S. this just arrived in my mailbox - big respect, Brian ! I love the way that the LEGO community helps each other out at times like this..... Can't wait to build it..... Dr. D.

Thanks, Big Cam - nice review of a lovely looking set ! It looks more accurate than the previous official mini versions of the X-Wing. Can't wait for mine to arrive from the U.S...... UPDATE : It's sitting in my mailbox ! Dr. D.

Thanks for the great review ! I have this set as well, and agree it's awesome, as are the other sets in the theme. For me the highlight are the beautiful printed hieroglyphs which blew me away when I first saw them. Dr. D.

Superb as ever, Legostein ! Many thanks for sharing the instructions also. I don't have the 3-faceted 2 x 4 piece to reproduce this so I guess a Bricklink order is on the cards ! Dr. D.

If we're being generous in our definition of UCS, i.e. we're including the Death Star I, I would have to vote for that. If we take the strcit definition, it would have to be the ISD - more than 3 foot long and totally awesome ! Dr. D.

I'm assuming that the most expensive set ever at the original LEGO price is the UCS Millenium Falcon, which is still available through Lego S@H at £342.49. Fair enough, seeing that it's the second largest set (in terms of piece count) that LEGO have ever produced. It does however make the number 1 biggest set that LEGO have ever produced (Taj Mahal, 5922 pieces) a bit of a bargain at only £199.99 ! Happy building. D.