Lightsaber Duel: Qui-Gon Jinn Has A Bad Hair Day
Written: Jul 08 '02 (Updated Jul 09 '02)
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Pros: Two saber blades and hilts, Maul's detailed face.
Cons: Poorly designed speeder, Maul's single sided saber, no real replay value.
The Bottom Line: Only buy this set if it is on clearance! Repeat, only buy this set on clearance!
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| Freak369's Full Review: LEGO Star Wars Lightsaber Duel |
Being one of the smallest sets from this portion of the Episode I series, it isn’t all that bad. Of course, if this is the only set a kid has to play with – chances are the fun will last about ten minutes. Don’t get me wrong, this is a nice little set, the key word here is little. I don’t agree with a few of the pieces and this is a rare occasion that I will tell people to stay away from a set – unless of course it is on sale or clearance.
Buying the smaller sets is usually like playing Russia roulette, sometimes you end up with a set that is really worth the effort to track down and other times you are left wondering Why did I buy this?. Being a Lego lover it’s hard for me to come out and say that a set sucks – but this one is so borderline that the only thing that is saving it from being labeled with the term “maximum suckage” is the orange sale sticker on the front of the box.
The Lightsaber Duel
Trying to reenact the scene from the film, this set fails to give you anything to build upon other than a piece of space farm equipment and a stripped down speeder. If you are expecting some grand scene to unfold before your eyes, you will be sorely mistaken. This is as basic as basic can get, and to have a hard-core Lego junkie like me say that is pretty bad. There isn’t much replay value to the set since there are a limited number of pieces to work with. Don’t let the piece count of 50 elements fool you – most of these are used to make up the evaporator.
Darth Maul
With his stenciled face and beady yellow eyes, he makes a nice first impression. But just like The Elephant Man, most things look good from a distance. The biggest thing that really sucks about Darth Maul is the cape. The standard issue black cloth cape that attached around the neck peg is rather stiff. So when you try to put him into the speeder – the cape sticks out of the back of it. Sure you can tuck it in but you shouldn’t have to go to such lengths – the designers should have anticipated such a roadblock in the design process.
While you get the cool looking headpiece for Maul, the rest of him is rather boring. The torso is limited detail and the headpiece is just odd looking. I know it’s supposed to give the illusion or impression of ominous doom, but to me it just looks silly. He is able to easily carry, hold and use the light saber however once you put him in the speeder the range of movement is limited.
Qui-Gon Jinn
Aside from his light saber, Qui-Gon Jinn doesn’t have much to offer the collector. His stenciled torso depicts a nice brown shirt but that’s about all the details you get. His brown cape suffers from the same stiffness as Darth Maul’s and unless you play around with it, it stick out rather than laying flat. The sculpted hair is a nice touch but it is a little sensitive and does have a tendency to fall off from time to time. If you don’t anticipate playing with this figure much then it will hold up nicely, otherwise hit the hair piece with a drop of Super Glue to keep it in place.
Speeder
Could the Lego designers possibly have skimped a little more with the construction value of this vehicle? I doubt it! As I mentioned in the Darth Maul section, the biggest drawback to the design is that it doesn’t allow any space for the cape. When built according to the instructions, the end result is a rather cheap looking speeder but if you have some extra pieces laying around I highly suggest that you play around with it and enlarge it a little. Build it according to the instructions then add to it, once you have the basic structure you can add whatever you want to it.
Moisture Evaporator
An odd looking piece of machinery, it doesn’t serve much of a purpose within the set other than some background imagery. If you check out the back of the box there are some alternative designs that you can attempt to make but overall – you are better off trying to think up something creative to do with the pieces. If all else fails the pieces can be used with other Lego sets.
Instructions
The twelve-page booklet shows you the step-by-step process to build the speeder as well as the evaporator. On the first page you are shown the construction process for the figures – well – only for Darth Maul, you have to wing it for Qui-Gon Jinn. The back page offers you some alternative uses for the pieces in this set but not instructions are provided for these other structures. To me it looks like they spent more time with the graphics and illustrations than they did designing the set. Sorry, I am still a little ticked but the speeder.
Things To Know
One thing that didn’t sit well with me personally was the fact that Darth Maul’s lightsaber only has one blade, not two. While this might seem like an insignificant item, it irked me nonetheless. The single red blade is nice but it isn’t accurate. Maybe I am totally wrong – didn’t he have a double bladed light saber? In any event, both of the hilts [the saber holders] only have the capability of holding one blade – maybe Lego didn’t want to have to try and distinguish between the two in the directions.
If you find these at a reduced price you better snap them up. With the new portions of the Star Wars Lego’s hitting the shelves chances are these smaller sets will be removed, never to be seen again. It’s already happened at the Lego website as well as at Toys ‘R Us and Amazon. The smaller, inexpensive sets always get yanked first – so that is the tell tale sign of larger sets that will soon be moved to the sale and clearance section.
The Bottom Line
I only recommend this set if you can find it on sale or on clearance. It simply isn’t worth the suggested retail price – which may be another reason it has been discontinued. I picked this up for $2.00 and consider it money well spent. The saber blades and hilts are always great to have extras of and the ladder pieces from the evaporator can be adapted to almost any other Lego set.
So it is hesitantly that I recommend this set. If you pay full price for this you need to have your Lego’s taken away from you for a day.
The Stats
Set Name: Lightsaber Duel
Family Set: Star Wars - Episode I
Lego Set: 7101
Number of Pieces: 50
Age Recommendation: 5 - 10
Ease Of Assembly: Easy
Time Of Assembly: 10 minutes
Cost: $ 2.00 [clearance]
Suggested Retail Price: $5.99
As always, thanks for the read!
^V^ Freak ^V^
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): $2.00
Type of Toy: Blocks
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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