It's raining hard here so what better way to spend my Saturday than building the new R2-D2 (75308). My opening thought is that it's odd that this isn't an official UCS set, as the almost identically sized 2012 version (10225) was a UCS set so why not this edition? My only guesses are a) that after the classification of the Assault on Hoth as a UCS set Lego are now super cautious or b) they have bigger and better sets that they want to reserve the UCS classification for later in the year. It's quite possible that both of these are true.
Initial impressions on taking this to my breakfast table are a) that they're consolidating on the uncluttered black styling and b) this thing is surprisingly heavy. The box is also much bigger than I was expecting - though that's probably my expectations.
On opening, you have 17 bags numbered 1 to 13 and 2 big technic beam frames (new to my collection), plus the instructions. There's also an inner box.
Getting stuck into bag 1, I had a few immediate observations. Firstly, I've never seen technic pins in the outer bag - they're always in the inner one. Straight after this, I noticed that these are the new style pins, not the older ones - this is the first set I've built up with them. Strictly, the probe droid had two of the new pin connector hubs (65487) and I missed that but here we have lots of new technic pieces. It's really odd having pieces that don't quite behave as you're used to - it's really subtle but after tens of thousands of pins you become very familar with how they feel. I'm still wondering why Lego have changed things that have worked well for well over 20 years... oh well!
Anyway, bags 1 and 2 deliver the central foot and its retracting mechanism:
On to bag 3 which uses the two big frames to build the rest of the internal structure.
Bag 4 starts to build some sense of the exterior with the side panels. Nicely rounded at this stage, in comparison to the 2012 version which was quite angular.
Then on to the legs - bags 5, 6 and 7. Quite similar to the old version here, though the shoulder joint has another part that's new to my collection (68235). Given I'm not yet half way through the bags, I'm surprised to find myself more than half way through the instructions...
Bags 8 and 9 do the front panel and 10 the rear - it's really starting to take shape now.
And finally bags 11 to 13 do the head and the info stand.
There's no doubt in my mind that this is an impressive set and I think it's generally an improvement on the 2012 version. Plusses - it's much more rounded in the body, the detailing is just a bit nicer, the central leg mechanism works better and there are more "play" features (i.e. the periscope and the lightsaber hidden in the head). My only hesitancy would be the head - I have this lurking suspicion that the layered plates gave a slightly more rounded design than is achieved here.
So, to compare to the original 2012 version here is 2021 R2-D2 with his older brother from 2012:
Very very similar! If you don't have the original, this is a great addition to any Star Wars Lego set. If you have the original, I'm not sure I'd bother unless you're a completionist like me.
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