A May the 4th special!
A few months ago, I bought my first Lego set since... well since I was 12 or something. Several years ago, I saw some cool Lego Star Wars sets, and thought "hey, wouldn't it be fun to have these? I like Lego, I like Star Wars, so why not?" Well it took me until recently to act on it; partly because my cousin is starting his Lego phase, and partly because I found out it really isn't all that uncommon for adults to buy Lego sets, especially the thematic/movie ones, like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.
Anyway, on to the actual build of the X-Wing.
There were a lot of parts in this set that I definitely used for the first time ever (or maybe my memory isn't that good anymore, old man, etc.). There were some parts I definitely didn't expect in this build as well, I mean, green and blue bricks? For an X-Wing? How dare they!!!
Otherwise, it's actually a very fun build, very clever and surprising at times. The nature of the X-Wing means at times you are building things upside down, or in reverse, especially at the back (and the wings of course). This can be a little confusing (on my first build I honestly thought I did something wrong) but it all works out in the end. The best part for me is still the front/middle though, from the outside it doesn't seem like much, but it's actually a clever and "full" build, it's quite dense and uses a lot more bricks than you might think.
The mechanism for opening/closing the wings is fairly clever, however it's quite "digital", the wings are either open or closed, and when you close them down it's with quite a snap. The wings are sturdy enough, but it would be fun to have more control over the opening and closing.
And while I'm saying negative things: as a Star Wars purist it's a bit weird to see R2-D2 sit sideways in the X-Wing. I know this gets solved in the (far, far more expensive!) Red 5 set, but still, surely it wasn't that impossible to make the build a brick wider. Also, the X-Wings in the movies have rear landing gear, this one doesn't have that, when you put it down it basically rests on the engines. But this is nitpicking of course.
My first build took me about 2 hours, with a very short break in between, which seems to be the normal build time. A week ago, I took it apart and built it up again, that time it took me less than an hour and a half (I was interrupted many times, but I'd say definitely between 70-90 minutes). Again, I was surprised at how good the build really is.
The minifigs included are alright - R2-D2, R5-D8, Luke Skywalker (with lightsaber) and Jek Porkins (with blaster rifle). I'd say the other Rebel starfighters (Y-Wing and A-Wing) have better minifigs though.
I'd definitely recommend this to anyone with even a passing interest in Lego or Star Wars. The X-Wing is an iconic ship, and the Lego build does it credit.
Some pictures:
