"Looks like were coming up on the system. Get to the cockpit, Chewie". Han Solo's wookiee counterpart roared in response as he turned for the cockpit. Looking down upon his destination, Han thought the planet looked almost like a sun itself. It reminded him of Tatooine.
Chewbacca barked.
"Yeah, just about 30 clicks, Chew. Hey! It looks hot to me too, but you don't see me complaining."
The wookiee began to explain that he was going to have to walk around down there in a fur coat, but was cut off by the bleep of the sensor package. Both captain and first mate turned their heads to the display instinctively.
"Even if their any trouble, we should be able to outrun 'em to the other side of the planet. Too far away. It's not Imperial, that's for sure, but the ship seems too big to be bounty hunters. I'm not worrying, but lets redirect the cour..." The captain was shut off by several more bleeps.
Chewbacca roared in great alarm.
"Damnit, Chewie, looks like snub fighters. Turn on the shields, all even. I'm gonna go back and charge up the main batteries."
Upon stepping out of the cockpit, Han was frozen by an amazing Wookiee roar.
"Sheesh, Chewie, what is it!?"
Chewbacca let out a groan and Han got back to the cockpit. Han was about to look at the sensor display when a flash of green light paralyzed all in the cockpit. Han couldn't believe it, they had arrived already.
"Get us to the other side of the planet, and get those shields up!"
The wookiee barked once again, and Han realized they'd already entered the planets gravity well. Without giving the engines everything they've got, escape would be impossible. Han preferred to save some energy for the shields. "That's it, all shields!" announced Captain Solo as he ran to the gunners seat....
"She�s good enough for ya, old man"
The same applies to Lego's version of the famous ship, the Millennium Falcon. Despite the complaining of many skeptics, I'll say this, the Falcon has gotta be one of the coolest spaceships ever offered by Lego. Well worth 100 bucks and weighing in at 659 pieces, the Millennium Falcon is an awesome, but by all means not flawless, set. The scale of the set must be considered, and much of the important features that were not included or done wrong in the set required a much bigger scale. The price is already out of most kids' budgets so don't complain.
7190 is to the "real" Falcon as the X-Wing is to the "real" X-Wing. Sorta. The X-Wing tried to achieve exterior look, and the inside was a storage area. The same applies to the Falcon. The outside reasonably resembles the beloved ship, but the inside is nothing as it is supposed to.
6 spacious rooms separated by nothing but walls with no right angles are housed by the sets hamburger looking hull, with no corridors or passageways. In fact, only two rooms contain anything at all. One has the corner bench with holochess table, and one has a smuggling compartment. The remaining four rooms are totally empty. Surely they could have thought of something to place in the rooms, like the bed Luke was placed on after being rescued from Bespin. Of course, the inside is easily furnished using pieces you already have, and corridors would have been impossible at this scale. It still bugs me, though.
There is also a long spacious area running from side to side on the Falcon. From train roof to train roof piece. Under the "TIE cockpit" piece on each side, you can lower something with click hinges. One is a boarding ramp. The other side contains a horribly cheesy escape pod that can be dropped out. The escape pod isn't even enclosed (as one prefers when being jettisoned into outer space).
The forward mandibles are well designed, although hollow. After purchase of the set it does not bother you so much, it's not as bad as it looks. In between them are cargo bay doors that you can place a storage container into. The set includes 4 never seen before mini-figs, and two mini-figs you've seen so much of you'd almost rather they were left out. The four new figures are Chewbacca, C-3PO, Leia, and Han Solo.
Chewie is done pretty good, I couldn't have expected better from Lego. Still, the mini-fig pack that includes Chewie equips him with a bowcaster as suits him. I was looking forward to receiving this with the Falcon, but they gave him the camera piece! Furthermore, Threepio is plain weird. He looks expressionless and pale. I would have liked a gold fig but this one does the job...just barely. And then there's Princess Leia. I can't conceive how this fig might be improved. The printing on the head and the hairpiece of right on. Then there is Han Solo. The guy looks horrible. Even giving him the blaster of the Hasbro Han Solo (which is the perfect size) doesn't help. The doofy grin and the blue pants...ugh. I honestly think this is the worst Han Solo fig ever created. An Explorien fig works better, at least it doesn't make this supposedly cool guy look like a fool. That said, all the other figs are well done. Luke and R2-D2 are also thrown in.
The rear of the ship is one gripe of mine that could have been fixed without upping the scale. Engine exhaust consists of long blue clear Technic tubing. While all other Star Wars ships look just right from the back, this looks horrible. The Falcon's engine exhaust usually occupies much of the rear section, but this awkward tubing takes up a centimeters worth. Oh well. Lots of clear blue bricks would have worked great. Unfortunately, clear blue pieces are not easy to come by, so while many of the Falcon's flaws are easily fixed, this one stays.
To end the argument, two mini-figs cannot be placed side by side in the cocpit. It doesn't matter if you use all tiles and let the figs be loose in there, they cannot sit side by side. The cockpit does seat two figs in a clever way, but it leaves one slighty dissapointed. The cockpit is detachable, also. I actually appreciated this feature as the place where the cockpit mounts is flat, as apposed to sloped wing plates on the other side. This allows the falcon to rest of the left side when you need to get underneath to place landing gear on. If the cockpit didn't detatch, you'd either be placing a ton of stress on the cockpit or be resting the ship on slopes on the other side, making it unstable.
Speaking of landing gear, it stinks. Rock Raiders pieces on classic landing pads. Landing gear that retracts would not be hard to implement, the model has a entire bricks worth of hollow space under the deck covered by plates. The model is big and heavy, and you cannont easily attach landing gear without putting too much stress on any given area. I'd just land it on its hull, but then the boarding ramp can't be used. Ack!
Considering fan creations, this model is not the best Lego Millennium Falcon that there is, but it's a respectable offering from Lego. If you want to build your own version, this is a good place to start. Come on, it's Lego...and it's the Millennium Falcon for crying out loud. You know your just going to buy it anyway.
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