7140 - X-Wing Fighter

Rating:
Pros: A Lego X-Wing. Isn't that pro enough?
Cons: Overall cutesy feeling; clunky landing gear; cramped cockpit
Contents: 263 pieces including 2 mini-figs, R2-D2, and a lightsaber
Price: $29.99
Reviewed: 3-Aug-2000
Reviewed by: Gareth Bowler

Popping open its S-foils, the rebel X-Wing dove into a throng of TIE fighters, scattering them like leaves in the wind.
Inside the rebel ship, Marran Farez grinned and revved up her fighter's quad-linked laser cannons. She had taken some fire during the first exchange while her S-foils where still closed, but she could already hear her R2 unit beeping and whirring away as if muttering to itself while it made the necessary repairs. A TIE fighter suddenly swooped into view in front of her, hot on the tail of her wingman. Marran smiled, "It's a good day for a dogfight," as her X-Wing moved in on the target, cannons blazing...

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STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I think Star Wars Lego is the coolest thing since sliced bread. Many of these sets are more fun than their larger, plastic counterparts, which you can neither customize nor destroy in battle. These sets tend to build very differently from normal Lego sets, in that they contain fewer large, specialized or pre-printed parts, and are generally free from common space Lego design flaws, (like open cockpits and useless, dinky secondary vehicles) and usually have a very good piece-to-price ratio. Having established that I find these sets to be cooler than both normal Star Wars toys and normal Lego, let's move on.

Lego X-Wing. Say it with me now... Lego X-Wing. Hopefully you don't need any more convincing to run out and buy this right now. This set isn't perfect and there are better sets in the Star Wars theme -- but not by much, especially considering the X-Wing is a great ship, and any toy of it is pretty neat.

The set comes with the X-Wing, Luke Skywalker in flight suit with lightsaber, one rebel ground crew guy (apparently the twin of the guy who ships with the A-Wing), and a small hovering maintenance vehicle of some kind.
The maintenance vehicle holds a rack of tools and isn't really anything remarkable, but for a useless accessory it does have a few fairly useful pieces (the round 2x2 curved bottom pieces for example.)
The X-Wing itself contains many useful pieces, but nothing you haven't seen elsewhere. All the rare pieces in the Star Wars theme seem to show up in many sets. For example, the X-wing's canopy comes with the Y-Wing and Snowspeeder, the new cannons and 3x3 round engines come on many of the sets, and the X-Wing's "Death Star trench run" computer screen is included with the Y-Wing and TIE Interceptor.

The wings pivot using the clicking, vertical hinge; allowing them to open and close, like in the movie. The body has four crevices in it. First there is the cockpit, which is a little cramped and awkward. Luke can't actually reach the control panel in front of him. I assume he just kicks at it or uses the Force or something. The next is a small cargo compartment in the nose. This seems really awkward and out of place. Maybe if there were some engine components in there and it had a repair access hatch it would look better. The cargo compartment in the back makes a lot more sense. Finally, there is the slot for R2 which has no side walls. This looks fine while the wings are open and R2 is in place, but it makes the whole thing look hollow and weak when he is removed and the wings are closed.

The landing gear is another weak point. Up front in there is a strut made of a 1x2 inverted slope, two 1x1 round bricks, and a small ski. In the back, there is a large, 2x10x2 bridge-like strut from the Rock Raiders sets. Neither one of these move, retract, fold up or look even remotely good. Would it have been that hard to scrap the front cargo area and have the front gear swing back into the nose? The landing gear are a major sore spot since the ship needs them to be stand with its wings open. If they aren't open, they extend below the belly and hit the ground.

I debated a while over what rating to give this set. It's somewhat blockier than the X-Wing should be -- like it's a charicature of the famous fighter -- and it has a large number of small design flaws. I really wish I could give it a 3.5, but I can't. Die-hard Lego enthusiasts without much interest in the movies will probably prefer some of the other sets with more function (like the Falcon or MTT), but any Star Wars enthusiast will simply love this set.