The dark side of the brick

My pace of posting has massively slowed down since the first half of the year... though taking Lego apart and putting it in plastic bags isn't anywhere near as exciting to talk about as building it is.  This week, however, I've gone back to building - not that I have anywhere to put my new build it turns out.  My house is in disarray as I have new windows fitted in most rooms and my nephews are coming to stay next week which will cause further havoc.  Hmm. Anyway, my build for the week was the much delayed UCS republic gunship ( 75309 ).  I've not rushed it but it has taken me 4 nights of building and turns out to be 3292 bricks of typical incredibleness.  I really like all of the proper UCS sets and this is no exception.     The set is massive - it certainly compares to the ISDs and Falcons in terms of sheer scale.  Here's another photo with the old minifig scale gunships for comparison: It's also nicely designed with a robust feel and large...

No posts for a month and then 2 in a day.  I almost added the Falcon set to the last post but decided that they deserved their own special post. As I've been deconstructing, the Falcons have been taking up significant shelf space, even stood on their side, proped up against the wall.  So, they had to be an early target for deconstruction.  However, I did want to get the full set out and compare/contrast.   To date, Lego have released 6 Falcons at what I would call "minifig playset" size.  Generally these come in at around 1000-1300 pieces (the earliest is the counterexample due to the use of bespoke printed parts for the superstructure) and have been some of the pricier sets each year they came out.   The full list is: 7190 from way back in 2000 4504 from 2004, which was the archetype for all subsequent versions, though somewhat flimsy itself 7965 from 2011 which substantially improved on the sturdiness by introducing a technic substructure but ma...

Well, it's been a while since I posted anything but I've been busy doing enough deconstructions to move all Lego off the floor of my study before I turned the underfloor heating on.  My spreadsheet tells me that I'm 24% of the way through the whole lot so after 5 months, I had better revise my estimate on how long it will take me to get all the way there.  One other thing I need to revise is my estimate on how many boxes and ziplock bags I'm going to need... I bought 50 cardboard shoeboxes (the ones with pull out drawers) but over 30 of them are already full, in addition to the Really Useful and Ikea boxes I already had.  Hmm. Anyway, what's been deconstructed that I've not already blogged about... first off was the majority of the Droid fighters, including: Droid fighter 7111 Vulture droid from 7660 Vulture droid 7751 Vulture droid 75041 Hyena droid bomber 8016 The only one of this ilk still made up is the 2005 vulture droid from 75256.  These aren't my fav...

Barring a couple of the Y-wings and some of the Jedi interceptors, there isn't an awful lot of yellow in the Star Wars cannon, for some reason.  The big exception is the Naboo starfighter which is pretty much defined by its yellowness.   I will be open that this was never my favourite vehicle: it comes from my least favourite Star Wars film and is noted for being piloted by a very irksome Anakin Skywalker.  I think they wanted it to be beautiful and streamlined but I feel it misses on this, even in the film.  The Lego versions do their best to try and capture the flowing lines but are hampered by the brick nature.  As such, I've never been a fan of these. Over the years, Lego have released 5 minifig-sized versions, albeit one of them not including any minifigs and being (just about) part of the UCS series. Way back in 1999, one of the first SW sets was the "Naboo Fighter" ( 7141 ).  For its time, it was pretty good but, in my humble opinion, it's not r...

It's getting colder and I want to turn on my underfloor heating... which means that I need to clear the floor of the Lego cave.  Most stuff is on shelves but I have a couple of sets that fell apart while I was doing my inventory and video of the whole lot.  One of these was the Pasaana speeder chase ( 75250 ) from 2019.   I'm often ambivalent about the sets which comprise several small vehicles and a bit of random scenery.  I tend to the view that they miss on all fronts barring perhaps some playability.  However, this set actually has some really nice design features and I find myself actually quite liking it. The colours are pretty startling and definitely not traditional SW grey: you get plenty of red, some sand blue and the odd bit of medium blue thrown in.  You also get some nice minifigs - the two stormtroopers are unique to this set.  Both speeders are very nicely realised with lots of asymmetric detail and I even like the random tool shelt...

Continuing my attempt to deconstruct most of my smaller Lego Star Wars sets, I'm now onto "polybags".  I'm starting with the 200## and 30### sets which covers most of the polybags released since 2008. Starting with the 20000s, all of which are rebuilds in my collection as these are pretty hard to come by: 20006 Clone Turbo Tank (2008).  Apparently a random Brickmasters giveaway in the US 20007 Republic Attack Cruiser (2009).  As above 20009 AT-TE Walker (2009). Also Brickmasters exclusive but available from "shop at home" in the UK 20010 Republic Gunship (2009) As for 20009 20016 Imperial Shuttle (2010) Another Brickmasters exclusive 20018 AT-AT Walker (2010). Another Brickmasters exclusive 20019 Slave I (2011). Yet another Brickmasters exclusive 20021 Bounty Hunter Assault Gunship (2011) Guess what...Brickmaster's exclusive So, I realise now that all of these were basically Brickmasters exclusives!  Which now begs the question... what is/was Brickmaster...

As a Star Wars Lego nut, something that has bothered me for some time is the inconsistency between what is and isn't a UCS set.  There are various lists out there such as this one at Brickset and a fairly comprehensive review at Brickipedia .  The series launched back in 2000 with 7181 (Tie Interceptor) and 7191 (the excellent X-wing) and broadly speaking, around 2 a year have followed, though with some breaks. The problem is that Lego has been pretty inconsistent over the years, by including large playsets such as Assault on Hoth, Cloud City and Ewok Village but not Betrayal at Cloud City or the Cantina.  And why is the 2012 R2-D2 a UCS set but the near identical 2021 re-release not?  And how on earth did the Tie Fighter Collection get to be classed as UCS?   In 2011, Lego tried to be definitive by producing a UCS promotional poster.  However, this includes sets that had previously not been labelled UCS and didn't give any greater clarity as to the l...

To continue my theme of small SW Lego sets, I'm now on to my exclusives.  Almost all of my versions are rebuilds from parts, with the only one that is "genuine" being the 2019 Tantive IV store build.  I went to the London Lego store for the Luke build in 2019 but they were doing a ticket system and mine was #52.  I hung around for as long as I could but they'd only got to about #20 and I had a team event at work that I needed to go to.  So that one was a painful rebuild too. Here's my list of what I consider to be exclusive mini-build sets (there are some larger ones such as the Yodachron, LLCA53 and SWMP which I've covered elsewhere, and I've not included the minifig only exclusives).  Basically, these are the sets which don't have standard Lego set numbers. TANTIVEIV - 2019 in-store build XWING - 2019 Australian "make and take" build at the Westfield Chatswood shopping center near Sydney LUKE19 - 2019 in-store build MAY2013 - 2013 in-store ...

If anyone ever reads these posts, they'll get the sense that I've been sorting out all my smaller sets.  It's getting to autumn and I'm going to have to turn the underfloor heating on soon and I therefore want to get all my Lego off the floor.  Apart from a couple of random sets, the majority of what's on the floor is the smaller sets in boxes.  That's how it rolls! So, today's post is about the TRU sets - released typically as in-store builds at Toys R Us.  As a kid we used to take a yearly trip to Birmingham and the highlight was always the pre-Christmas shop at TRU on High St.  However, the Brum store closed down years ago and TRU shut up shop in the UK a few years ago now.  So, I can't say I've been in one since about 1992... and therefore all the sets here are rebuilds and I've only done the ones which are not duplicates of other sets.   The TRU in-store builds are not the best Lego sets by any means.  Most are pretty naff, with only a c...

So, a week on and I've now finished deconstructing and sorting my battle packs.  Work has also kept me busy in the evenings so I've had less chance for legoing.  But... on to the next sub-theme: the magazine gifts.  I am not even going to bother trying to count or describe all of these so this "review" is going to be thematic. Back in 2015, Lego launched another sales avenue with comics aimed squarely at the sub-10 market.  Each magazine comes with one or more "gifts" though really you're paying for the Lego and the magazine is secondary.  This is clear as the price varies from month to month, depending on how many "gifts" you get and their complexity.  I've got several years' worth of magazines but I can't say I've actually read any of them.   I've only ever made up the "gifts" that are ships or scenes - the minifigs have all stayed safely in their polybags to maintain value.  As a result, what you see below are p...