LEGO Trade Federation MTT, set 7184: 'Repulsor,' indeed.
Written: Nov 28 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Plenty of nifty, multi-purpose bricks
Cons: Falls apart with a gentle breeze; just fragile for $50
|
|
|
| kmennie's Full Review: LEGO Star Wars Trade Federation MTT |
At first I thought this was something that happened when a few Lego designers, a relative of Frank Lloyd Wright's, and George Lucas got together, and got stinking drunk. Apparently there was a bit more thought put into it than that. Or maybe the copy is just the excuse they came up with when the hangover wore off.
"This hovering repulsorlift vehicle transports Trade Federation battle droids into active combat zones. Open the front hatch and out come six armed battle droids ready to face enemy forces. Open the back hatch to fire four laser cannons. In battle, this mammoth vehicle provides cover for the troops --- and its reinforced front end can be used as a battering ram."
Probably very nifty if any of those features worked, even on an imaginary level...
This is one of those dead-annoying sets that require a surplus of patience while building, and then end up very un-toy-like at the end. Lego purists have critiqued the Star Wars Lego: "It’s all about the Star Wars, man. They’re forgetting the Lego."
And they are. For $50, this has got to be the worst-engineered set I’ve ever seen. Yes, it is full of fun play opportunities with all sorts of hinged hatches and various hiding places and detachable what-nots, but most of these things simply unhinge or detach at will. Must be a nasty shock for the somewhat absurd-looking creatures on the ‘MTT’ when the back hatch simply falls off while in transit, but hey, it looks a bit like the thing on the silver screen!
So that my biases are clear: way, way back a "Bloom County" cartoon had George Lucas saying his next sequel would be out in "1999 or so." One of the kids in the strip promptly beheads him with a light saber, noting that Jedi Knights do not wait that long for a sequel. I am firmly on the "Bloom County" side.
This absurd lack of stability and general tendency to "Look, Mum, I – oh" fall to bits at the wrong time may be a sort of feature. If you are bent that way, by all means, buy the Trade Federation MTT for your loved (small) one this holiday season: it will give you an excuse to spend the day playing with plastic blocks, not in silent contemplation: (can the new socks just go in the drawer, unwashed? They are poly-bagged and all. But unwashed?).
If the MTT recipient is short-tempered, you will spend a very long time picking up some bricks distinctly unlike your own childhood Lego bricks. I have this set because it offered so many other possibilities: it is almost entirely brown, beige, grey (all desirable colours for the builder with a serious architectural bent), and was explained by the gift-giver as "I thought it looked just a wee bit Frank Lloyd Wright-y." It does, eerily enough. Once shakily assembled, with no aliens in sight, it does take on the look of a sort of summer cottage designed by a person only slightly mad. One section of the swing-away-for-greater-play-but-the-doors-will-fall-off MTT looks absurdly homey, albeit in that poncy decorating magazine way, not as in "your own home."
I have to offer this a meagre two stars: yes, it looks nifty, and yes, it comes with a lot of very interesting parts, but $50 is simply too much if the Lego people can’t be bothered to build a little stability into their Star Wars flights of fancy. The builder with more pieces at hand will probably be tempted to simply re-inforce the structure himself, and he will be correct in doing so, although some sections are beyond redemption. Actually, the builder with more pieces will probably earnestly thank you for providing him or her with so many unique pieces, build it once with a modicum of swearing (I would have laboured through with this until the end, but I was a Polite Child. Other temperaments may not look so kindly on an hours’ work falling to bits thanks to short-sighted Danes), use the "battering ram" idea to attack a sibling and make the thing fall to bits, then ditch the instruction booklet in the trash and set about building something more interesting, like a square brown house.
Finally, you may as well wash the socks first. Anything unseemly – holes waiting to burst due to cheap construction, pilling, shrinkage – will come out in the first wash, so you won’t be standing there swearing about how comfortable they were the first time you put them on. Happy hols!
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
kmennie
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: K.M. Mennie
Location: Five cities in one year! Ha!
Reviews written: 380
Trusted by: 405 members
About Me:
Hopeless case: thorough knowledge of Victorian Domestic Science, Comparative Literature, Lego...and even worse stuff.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.