X-Wing attack

Last night's build was another x-wing, but after two of the more recent vintages, I went back to the early 2004 version (4502).  In common with a few of my recent ebay purchases, this one was also missing pieces and had a range of colour swaps (mainly reddish brown for old brown and LBG for LG).  So, once I'd cleaned and inventoried it, I then spent the best part of a month slowly buying the missing parts.  I'm still not quite there (found a couple more missing parts as I built and I've still not got the chrome lightsaber handles) but I was close enough to build.

The first thing I noticed about this set is that it's in old colours and must have been one of the very last sets to have been released before the full switch across.  Indeed, the set was originally from 2003 and my version is the "Original Trilogy Edition" re-release from 2004.

It's an interesting question as to whether I prefer the old Lego colours of my childhood or the newer colours from the last 18 year.  I like the wider range of colours you get now versus the 7 I think I had available as a child (black, white, light grey, red, blue, green, yellow, plus of course tranparent colours). I also tend to think that the new greys are somehow brighter than the old ones.  So, probably yes I prefer the new colours.

Anyway, back to the set... this X-wing is clearly the Dagobah edition as it comes covered in swamp weed and with a Yoda hut.  The X-wing is pretty clearly a step up from the 1999/2002 edition (7140/7142) and takes some of its design features from the earlier UCS X-wing - specifically the use of the hinge bricks to taper the nose cone.  It also usefully has a storage bin underneath for spare hair/lightsabers.  

However, the real joy for me was Yoda's hut which came together really nicely and has cool range of colours in it.  I like the way it unfolds too, for maximum playability - but does so in a way that is much better than some recent examples.  

Having sourced the right pieces, I'm therefore quite happy with this set.  7 out of 10.


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