Don't mess with the Fett....

Another Comic Con, another desirable exclusive.... This time the location was New York City and the event was the 2017 New York Comic Con (NYCC) where a few hundred lucky attendees were able to purchase a copy of 41498 Boba Fett and Han Solo in Carbonite, an exclusive Brickheadz set. I'm generally able to resist the lure of LEGO Star Wars exclusives, contenting myself with the Star Wars retail sets as discussed here; occasionally, however, a Star Wars exclusive comes along that I can't ignore and this set is one of those. And so it was that I dived into eBay and took the plunge on a copy of the set which arrived from the U.S. a couple of weeks later.

The sturdy packaging features an outer box (above) that's considerably thicker and more robust than that of the retail Brickheadz. Cutting the twin paper seals at the base allows the outer box to slide up and off, revealing a similarly robust black inner box (below). The front of the outer box features a shot of Boba Fett and Han in Carbonite without their display stands, beneath which are decorative rows of black bricks running along the bottom edge of the box which also appear on the retail set boxes.



The back of the box (below) features an alternative view of Boba Fett and Han. There's also stylised text identifying the set as a New York Comic Con exclusive, beneath which is a picture which illustrates the use of Boba Fett's display stand. I was pleased that I managed to acquire a copy of the set which had been signed by set designer Marcos Bessa. Marcos is rapidly becoming one of LEGO's most well-known set designers, having been responsible for a number of high profile sets including 71040 Disney Castle and 75827 Firehouse Headquarters as well as this Comic Con exclusive and a number of other Brickheadz.

The inner box contains two sealed bags of elements, one for the Boba Fett build and the other for Han. There are also two instruction booklets, one for each build. There's no sticker sheet.

Each booklet measures approximately 15cm x 10cm and is bound by way of a pair of staples down the left side. The booklet containing the building instructions for Boba Fett (cover above) is the shorter of the two at only 40 pages, while Han's booklet (cover below) weighs in at 52 pages in length. Both booklets incorporate a 2-page inventory of elements at the back specific to the individual build. The page backgrounds in both booklets are black, lending a stylish appearance to the building instructions which are clear and easy to follow.

The set includes a number of printed elements (below), all of which I assume are unique to the set. I built Boba Fett first. Construction follows the standard Brickheadz blueprint which is nicely summarised here. As is the case with other Brickheadz a handful of light bluish grey modified 1 x 2 x 1 2/3 bricks with studs on 1 side feature prominently in the construction of a central core. These are accompanied by a variety of other SNOT bricks including a reddish brown modified 1 x 1 x 1 2/3 brick with studs on one side which at the time the set was released was only appearing for the second time in this colour. The core of SNOT bricks provides abundant attachment points for the external detailing which brings the Brickheadz to life.

Fett's shoulders are made up of a pair of bright light orange double cheese slopes, one of which is printed with a mythosaur skull. This Mandalorian symbol has become synonymous with Boba Fett. The upper body utilises a number of dark green 1 x 1 tiles, and immediately above the waist is a printed reddish brown curved 4 x 1 double slope with no studs which represents a tool belt with 4 pockets. A dark green modified 3 x 2 plate with hole, appearing in a set for only the eighth time in this colour, attaches below the waist and presumably represents Fett's armoured codpiece, while his tiny legs are made up of a stack of small plates including bright light orange 1 x 1 plates to represent his knee pads.

Much of the build is concerned with crafting Fett's iconic helmet. The visor consists of a black 1 x 4 tile with a dark red print, while a pair of sand green modified 1 x 2 plates with door rail form part of the top of the helmet; these are only appearing in a set for the fifth time in this colour. In the movies, Boba Fett's helmet has a number of distinguishing features including a dent at the front and some yellow kill stripes on the left side. These have been reproduced by way of printed elements; the curved front of his helmet is formed from a couple of sand green 2 x 2 curved slopes, one of which is printed with the dent pattern, while the yellow kill stripes are printed on a sand green 2 x 4 tile. Unprinted sand green 2 x 4 tiles form the right side and back of the helmet, while the top of the helmet is crafted from more sand green 2 x 2 curved slopes. The triangular plates at the front of the helmet are made up of dark green left and right 2 x 2 wedge plates which haven't previously been available in this colour.

At the rear, a dark tan 3 x 3 wedge plate and an uncommon dark tan 1 x 3 plate make up the bottom of Fett's brick-built cloak; the cloak is decorated with a couple of medium dark flesh 2 x 1 curved slopes which have only previously graced a single set. A light bluish grey modified 1 x 2 x 2/3 brick with studs on the sides forms the core of Fett's sizeable jetpack; this is surrounded by various sand green elements including more modified 1 x 2 plates with door rail. The two jet nozzles, which are represented by sand green 1 x 1 cones, are attached to the body of the jetpack by black 1 x 1 round plates with 1L bar that have only previously appeared in three sets. A flat silver harpoon passing through a pair of sand green 1 x 1 cones forms the missile attached to the top of the jetpack.
With the jetpack completed and attached to Boba Fett's back, all that's left to do is assemble his blaster which is crafted from six elements, and build the display base featuring the printed black 2 x 4 souvenir tile.

With Boba Fett now built it's time to assemble Han Solo in carbonite. This build incorporates more printed elements than is immediately evident. As was the case for Boba Fett, I suspect that all of the printed elements are currently unique to the set. In true Brickheadz style the core is predominantly populated by SNOT elements, although in this case the elements concerned are a variety of brackets as opposed to the usual SNOT bricks. A couple of 2017 sets including 70620 NINJAGO City included a black modified 1 x 3 plate with 2 studs a.k.a. double jumper which hadn't previously been available. This element now makes an appearance here in a new colour, light bluish grey.  Further recolours follow soon afterwards in the build, specifically light bluish grey 45 degree 1 x 2 slopes with cutout and without stud and light bluish grey left and right curved 2 x 1 slopes with no studs and stud notch, none of which to my knowledge had previously appeared in a set in his colour. The latter are combined with some light bluish grey 1 x 1 round quarter tiles to make up Han's petrified hair. Han's closed eyes, represented by exclusive printed light bluish grey 1 x 1 round tiles, are then put into place, after which all that's left to do is finish up the background carbonite block.

The sides of the carbonite block feature a number of printed 1 x 2 tiles which represent digital readouts, buttons and switches; there are two different designs of printed tile utilised, both of which are presumably exclusive to the set. Four trans-clear 1 x 2 x 1 panels attach to the back of the block (below), and when the build is laid horizontally they help to create the illusion that it's floating above the ground. Once upright the block doesn't attach to the display base via studs; instead it sits within a tiled slot bounded by black 1 x 4 x 1 and 1 x 2 x 1 panels. The base incorporates a second NYCC-printed 2 x 4 souvenir tile identical to that found on the base of the Boba Fett Brickheadz.

You can see the pair of completed builds below. The set is a delight for anyone who loves Star Wars and is a fan of the Brickheadz aesthetic. Given how cool the set is, it's a huge pity that LEGO chose to release it as a NYCC exclusive rather than as a retail set, and it's unfortunately far from being the first time that LEGO have severely restricted supply of a desirable item like this - longstanding readers of Gimme LEGO may recall my past rants on the subject, for instance this one. It's clear however that the practice of restricting desirable collectables to a lucky few on the basis of geography or just dumb luck is clearly not going away anytime soon. I guess there's always a chance that LEGO will take pity on fans and decide to release the set, or at least a variation of it, at retail at some point. Past history doesn't provide much cause for optimism in this respect, however, and in all likelihood it'll therefore be a case of having to stump up the cash on the secondary market or just going without. It's not even as if these Brickheadz can be accurately Bricklinked, given the number of exclusive printed elements that they incorporate.

Determined collectors can at least aquire a copy of the set from the likes of eBay and Bricklink if they're feeling sufficiently flush. Most copies of the set currently listed for sale are located in the U.S., meaning that unless you're based there you can expect the overall cost of acquisition to be considerably bumped up by the addition of shipping fees and import duty. At time of writing there are a number of boxed, sealed examples of the set available on Bricklink starting at £125 plus shipping, although you may be able to find one for less on eBay. Happy hunting!

Every Cloud....

Around this time last year Bricks Culture editor Tim Johnson and I were discussing which collectible set I should write about for a Bricks Culture "Sets to Search For" article, and for a number of reasons we settled on Star Wars Set 10123 Cloud City. The article duly appeared in Bricks Culture Issue 3, as reported by me here in a Gimme LEGO posting. That was back in October 2015, and given that almost a year has now passed I asked Tim if he'd mind me reproducing the article here on Gimme LEGO and he generously agreed. So here it is below, together with a few extra pictures that I shot prior to disassembling the set - enjoy!

If you conducted a survey among LEGO Star Wars fans and asked them which set they would most like LEGO to remake, there’s every chance that Set 10123 Cloud City would be high on the list. In a theme notorious for regular rehashes of the most important Star Wars vehicles and locations, the tibanna mining colony of Cloud City, which floats above the gas giant Bespin, is unusual in having been immortalised in LEGO on only one occasion to date, and that was back in 2003.

At the time of its release, Set 10123 Cloud City was the biggest location-focused Star Wars play set that LEGO had ever produced; prior to that the largest LEGO Star Wars sets consisted of detailed versions of Star Wars vehicles, with key scenes from the movies generally consigned to small vignettes in modest, inexpensive sets. The Cloud City set is effectively a collection of vignettes representing some of the key scenes from Star Wars Episode V that were played out in Cloud City locations. These include Han Solo in the carbon freezing chamber, Lando Calrissian selling out Han and Leia to Vader in the conference room, and Luke’s lightsaber confrontation with Vader prior to the celebrated paternity revelations. It was the first time that LEGO had collected together a number of vignettes and tried to fashion them into a cohesive set.

Truth be told, LEGO’s efforts weren’t entirely successful. Unlike the later 2008 Set 10188 Death Star which skillfully fused multiple vignettes into a cohesive and instantly recognisable model in its own right, Cloud City has the feel of a collection of disparate modules which, while connected physically, seem stylistically disconnected with little in the way of shared DNA between them. Furthermore, the overall layout of the model, with its linear arrangement of modules augmented by a right-angled spur halfway along which gives rise to a walkway and a huge landing platform, feels more like an awkward sprawl rather than a cohesive whole. And about that landing platform…. It really is huge, occupying fully half of the set’s footprint, and it’s also empty and literally crying out for an appropriately scaled Millennium Falcon or Slave 1 model to occupy it. Problem is neither are included - a critical omission. It could reasonably be argued that the inclusion of one of these iconic craft would have significantly increased the projected cost, and since LEGO sets are designed to a target price this would have meant significant sacrifices elsewhere in the model. You suspect however that some prospective purchasers might have baulked at parting with US$100 or the UK equivalent seeing how so much of the footprint was given over to a barren landing platform.

On the plus side, the build is enjoyable, not least because of the variety afforded by the different modules, and there are some fun play-features included. The carbon freezing module, for instance, incorporates a winch mechanism for lowering Han into the carbon freezing chamber, followed by another mechanism for switching him with a black printed 1 x 2 x 5 ‘Han Solo in Carbonite’ brick which then emerges when the winch is reversed. Also, a number of quasi-destructible features are included in another of the modules with a view to being triggered while Luke and Vader fight it out with their lightsabers. I’d furthermore defy any LEGO Star Wars fan not to enjoy posing the Luke and Vader minifigures at the far end of the catwalk while playing out the denouement to Episode V.

Prospective purchasers looking to buy the set now might be surprised by the cost of the set on the secondary market, particularly given the criticisms above. For a pre-owned, complete and boxed example you’re looking at paying upwards of £500, while a new, sealed copy will cost twice that. Poor sales of the set back in the day may go some way to explaining this, but there’s another more important factor at play here and that’s the minifigures. Collecting LEGO minifigures has become a hugely popular pastime in its own right, with Star Wars minifigures at the vanguard. Set 10123 Cloud City includes seven minifigures, of which four just so happen to be unique to the Cloud City set, and it’s this that’s driving the aftermarket value. The jewel in the minifigure crown is the Boba Fett minifigure. While he appears in a multitude of Star Wars sets, Cloud City Boba Fett is the only version to feature printing on his arms, shoulders and legs; expect to pay upwards of £100 for this minifigure in used condition, or £150+ for a new copy. The other exclusive minifigures are Cloud City versions of Lando Calrissian, Luke Skywalker and Leia, and while these don’t command quite such extravagant prices you’re still looking at upwards of £100 for the three of them. Given this, it’s no wonder that prices of the set as a whole have gone through the roof.

If you’re a LEGO Star Wars completist then I’m afraid you’re just going to have to bite the bullet and stump up the cash; at least you’ll enjoy the build once you’ve recovered from the shock, not to mention resting a bit easier in the knowledge that you’ve managed to bag one of the more collectable pieces of the LEGO Star Wars jigsaw. Current aftermarket prices mean that that the set is harder to recommend to anyone else, though – while it certainly has its merits there are better sets out there for less, and the clever money is on LEGO releasing another Cloud City set one day. Maybe….

Build your own Tauntaun!

A few weeks ago I built and reviewed Set LLCA53 Han Solo On Tauntaun (below). Given the rarity of the set, I promised to share the instructions so that Gimme LEGO readers could have a crack at building it themselves.

I'm pleased to report that the instructions have now been scanned and uploaded to the Gimme LEGO Flickr stream and you can access them here. Apologies for the delay - I got tied up with a bunch of other stuff, not least preparations for the Great Western LEGO Show which I'll post about soon. LLCA53 is a promo item rather than a regular retail set, and as such the print quality of the instructions predictably isn't up to retail standards; even so, you should hopefully be able to follow them OK.

Good luck, and let me know how you get on! Don't forget to check my original LLCA53 posting for information about the build and a heads-up regarding some of the more uncommon elements that you'll need to track down.

"And I thought they smelled bad....on the outside!"

Being a LEGO Star Wars collector can be a pretty thankless task at times, particularly if you have completist tendencies. If it isn't the countless remakes, many of which seem little changed from the previous versions, it's all the blasted event exclusives and limited edition promos. These tantalising chase items, which are generally only available in small numbers, have been the subject of numerous Gimme LEGO rants over the years (for instance here and here), and I've long given up trying to collect them all. That having been said, I'm always delighted to pick up these curios when the opportunity arises, and I got lucky recently, managing to score the item below from a fellow member of the Brickset Forum.

The set in question is designated LLCA53 Han Solo On Tauntaun in the Brickset database, and it's apparently owned by just 14 of Brickset's 117,000+ registered members. The previous owner was given the set by LEGOLAND California as a thank-you for contributing Lego Star Wars photographs to their Fan Gallery, although it appears that the sets were originally designed for Ambassador Pass holders attending the 2011 Master Model Builder Class. The set wasn't supplied boxed - the elements are divided between three numbered grip-seal bags which are themselves packed into an opaque LEGO Factory bag along with six folded and loosely stapled sheets containing the building instructions. The instruction sheets are colour printed on both sides; the artwork above can be found at the top of the first page while the inventory of parts below (click to enlarge) is printed on the back of the last page. The quality of the printing isn't up to retail standards from the perspective of either sharpness or colour representation, which isn't altogether surprising in a promo set such as this.

Bag 1 contains the parts needed to build the display stand, which is of course designed to look like snowy terrain, and the tauntaun's feet. This stage of the build utilises common elements - only the six tan modified 1 x 1 plates with tooth which form the claws on the tauntaun's feet could be described as remotely uncommon, and even these have appeared in 20 sets to date.

Bag 2 contains the parts needed to build most of the tauntaun plus its harness. Once again, the parts used appear to be unremarkable - predominantly light bley slopes of various types with a few common plates, small bricks and clips thrown in for good measure. Certainly I don't think sourcing them would be too much of an issue for would-be builders. A number of SNOT bricks, specifically 1 x 1 bricks with a stud on one side, are utilised to hold the harness in the correct alignment and provide an attachment point for the tauntaun's puny T-Rex-like upper limbs. The tail is suspended from beneath the body and doesn't actually touch the ground, with the consequence that it's relatively fragile and liable to fall off if not handled carefully.

So far so good, but the magic really happens when the contents of Bag 3 come into play. First a brick-built reddish brown saddle with a couple of saddle bags is constructed (below) and it's here that sourcing the parts you'd need to exactly replicate the build starts to get a bit more challenging. The saddle incorporates a pair of reddish brown modified 1 x 2 plates with handle on side and free ends which have only ever appeared in eight retail sets. Worse still is the use of two reddish brown modified 1 x 1 plates with horizontal clip. These are used to attach the saddle bags to the saddle, and according to Bricklink they've never actually appeared in a retail set, so you might need to substitute these with equivalent elements in a different colour unless you have access to a LEGOLAND model shop.... I'm afraid that it's a similar story with the pair of reddish brown modified 1 x 1 plates with vertical clip used to attach Han's pack to the back of the saddle - these have also apparently never appeared in a retail set, although thankfully a close variant is available in reddish brown.

With the saddle complete it's time to build the tauntaun's head and carefully mount it on top of the neck. It's quite a job to wedge the pair of light bley 1 x 1 tiles into the clips on the top of the head to form the ears, and it places considerable stress on the clips which is why LEGO defines this as an 'illegal' building technique and doesn't normally permit its use in official sets. With the tauntaun now complete, all that's left to do is build the intrepid rider who is of course Han Solo. Han's dark tan legs are attached to his torso by way of a pair of 2 x 2 turntables; these allow the legs to be rotated outwards so as to adopt a more natural riding position. Once completed, Han can be carefully lowered into the saddle and handed the tauntaun's reins, at which point we're done!

You can see the completed build in the pictures above and below. Although the tauntaun is attached to the base, there is some scope for posing the model, albeit limited - the position of the tauntaun's upper limbs can be adjusted, and Han's head can be rotated and his arms bent. It wouldn't take much modification to enable the tauntaun to turn its head as well if desired

For all their rarity value and collectability, I've often felt that many of the LEGO Star Wars promo items aren't especially interesting in their own right, but that's certainly not the case for this model which is superb. I've always had huge admiration for builders who can transcend the crudeness which is inevitable at this scale and craft models which are elegant and immediately recognisable, and I'd say that this is a perfect example of that art. On the downside the build got a bit fiddly towards the end, and the completed model isn't as robust as a typical retail offering, but really these are trifling details; it's a lovely display piece and it'll take pride of place alongside some of my other LEGO Star Wars favourites.

I'd like to offer my thanks to fellow Bricksetter Mark a.k.a. smokebelch for selling the set to me for an amount which, while admittedly not exactly cheap, was still a long, long way short of the ridiculous sums being asked by sellers on Bricklink; in case you're wondering, at the time of writing there were only two of these sets listed for sale on Bricklink, and at $1,995 and $3,500 respectively they might remain unsold for a while yet.... Unless you're a lottery winner, your best best would be to just source the 336 parts needed to build the model yourself - the vast majority are fairly common and inexpensive, and those that aren't can be readily substituted by alternative parts; I'll aim to scan the instructions and upload them to the Gimme LEGO Flickr stream here over the next week or so which will make it easier for you to build your own copy if you wish.

A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy....

Whenever there's talk on the various forums (fora ?) about which Star Wars sets are ripe for a makeover, a few 'usual suspects' invariably emerge. One of those fan-nominated prime candidates, Set 4480 Jabba's Palace, has now been the subject of a pretty decent remake in the form of last year's Set 9516 Jabba's Palace.  Set 4501 Mos Eisley Cantina is another set which features prominently in such discussions; is it indeed crying out for a remake, or should LEGO leave it well alone ?

There are actually a couple of different versions of Set 4501, although the differences are purely cosmetic. The set first surfaced in 2003 (blue box version), with an Original Trilogy black box edition appearing a year later. Both versions utilise the same core set imagery on the front (picture above - click to enlarge), although the design is embossed on the black box version and this together with the absence of the unsightly sidebar of the blue box version gives it a clear edge in the style stakes IMHO. The black box version above features the parts count in the bottom right corner which suggests that my set might potentially have begun its retail journey in the U.S. where I believe there's a requirement for the number of elements within to be displayed on the packaging.

The back of the boxes (below - click to enlarge) share a number of images which provide an overview of the set overall, the play features and the minifigures. The blue box version includes an additional image, that of an alternate build which can be assembled with the elements contained within the box; while I'm generally a big fan of LEGO printing images of alternate builds on its boxes and instructions, I can't in all honestly say that the bizarre creation here is much to write home about; maybe LEGO just let the designer's child loose with the elements and told them to build something....

The boxes are designed to be opened via thumb tabs, although the previous owner of my used blue box example was kind enough to carefully open the box by sliding a sharp instrument under the left box flap exactly as I would have done. My black box version is still sealed, so it was the blue box version that I built for this review.  The set contains a total of 193 pieces, and these fill only a tiny fraction of the box which is around 11 inches square and 3 inches deep; the box could have been half the size and there would still have been more than enough room for the contents. In addition to the parts there's obviously an instruction booklet, but no DSS.

In the case of the blue box version at least, the cover of the approx. 8.5 x 6 inch instruction booklet (above - click to enlarge) mimics the front of the box, with only the recommended age range omitted. The booklet contains 32 pages, although it feels like less. In addition to the building instructions there's a single page showing a couple of other Star Wars sets (below - click to enlarge) plus advertising for a LEGO product survey and the LEGO Star Wars website, which I'll wager looks a bit different now to what it looked like back then....

Colour representation in the building instructions is horrible (picture below - click to enlarge). Those white-looking 2 x 4 bricks in the middle of the build are actually light bley, and the 1 x 8 bricks on either side of them are supposed to be black, while the 1 x 4 x 1 panels on the sides are dark bley. It's disorienting to begin with, although you get used to it.

Given the modest parts count, the set contains a surprising number of rare and/or unusual elements, and you can see some of them in the picture below. The dark bley engine and 22L flexible hose in the top left of the picture are unique to Set 4501, as are all five of the sand red elements in the middle. Sand red is one of the rarer colours in the LEGO palette; according to Bricklink, only 39 different elements have ever been produced in this colour (click here for details), and if you exclude the various minifig parts you're only left with 25 in total, so to find 5 of those 25 elements in one small set is pretty cool. The dark red 1 x 1 x 1 corner panel only appears in one other set apart from this one, as does the tan 1 x 6 x 2 arch with curved top, while a number of elements - the dark red 1 x 2 x 1 panel, the dark red modified 1 x 2 tile with handle, and the dark red 3 x 2 left and right wedges, as well as the sand blue jumper plate - only feature in three sets in total including this one. All 21 elements in the picture are found in 8 sets or less.

In addition to being a repository of rare elements, this set is also a veritable treasure trove from the perspective of the minifigures it contains. A total of five minifigures come with the set, with the undoubted star of the show being Greedo (below - click pics to enlarge). A used example of this minifigure commands upwards of £20 on Bricklink and eBay, reflecting it's status as one of the more desirable Star Wars minifigures. Although by today's standards his relatively complex moulded and painted head isn't necessarily particularly unusual, back in 2003 it would I think have seemed quite exotic, and his painted arms would also have been a fairly unusual feature. Greedo only ever appeared in this set, and in addition to this his head, torso and legs are all unique to this minifigure, all of which helps in part to explain why he's so prized by collectors.

LEGO have released lots of different minifigure versions of Luke Skywalker, but the version found in Set 4501 was the first. This version initially appeared in Set 7110 Landspeeder back in 1999 (the first year of LEGO Star Wars) prior to being included in Set 7190 Millennium Falcon in 2000. It made its final ever appearance in Set 4501. The head and hair were included in a number of other Luke Skywalker variants, but the tastefully printed torso and legs are unique to this figure. There's no backprinting on the head or torso. Luke comes complete with a lightsaber, featuring a nice shiny chrome silver hilt.

Next up we have Han Solo. While unique to this set, he's actually almost identical to the version of Han Solo which appears in Set 7190 Millenium Falcon, differing only by virtue of the colour of his legs which are standard blue in Set 7190 versus dark blue in this set; the dark blue legs, which feature a printed belt and holster,  are exclusive to this minifigure. The torso, which sports a white v-neck shirt and black waistcoat, and the head, with its smirking expression and brown eyebrows, adorn a few different versions of Han Solo spanning a number of different sets. There's no backprinting on the head, torso or legs.

The version of Obi Wan Kenobi below (click picture to enlarge) is another minifigure which is unique to this set. The torso and head, neither of which are back-printed, have only ever graced two minifigures, both of which are versions of Obi Wan. Strangely, while Luke is provided with a lightsaber in this set, Obi Wan is not, which could potentially cause problems should they encounter a scarred sociopath with the death sentence in twelve systems while they're visiting the Cantina....

The last of the minifigures is a Stormtrooper (pictures below - click to enlarge). While his legs, torso and helmet are pretty standard Stormtrooper fare, the addition of a cloth pauldron and the rebreather on his back makes this variant unique to the set; Bricklink alternatively describes this figure as a Sandtrooper on account of these additions. Unusually, the Stormtrooper isn't supplied with the regulation blaster, instead sporting what looks to be some kind of balance bar, presumably to help him stay mounted on his dewback ride (see later).

Aside from the clutch of rare minifigures, another highlight of the set is the one and only appearance of the dewback (below - click pictures to enlarge). This sand green monstrosity is made up of ten separate elements not including the saddle and harness. The head has a limited range of movement in the vertical plane, and the tail articulates at the body and also near the tip, which attaches via a rather unsightly light bley Technic half pin. Similar to the original version of Jabba the Hutt which can for example be found in Set 4480 Jabba's Palace, the dewback is rather plain and would have greatly benefitted from  some printed detail. Even so, once the saddle and harness are in place and the dewback has a Stormtrooper on its back it actually looks pretty cool, as you can see below.

Having put together the minifigures and the dewback it was finally time to get stuck into some proper building, and I started with the landspeeder. It'a a very simple build, occupying a mere ten pages of the building guide, and you can see the finished model below (click pics to enlarge).

Although far from perfect, it's not a bad rendition of the X-34 landspeeder (movie still from Wookieepedia below - click to enlarge). Of note, it's the only version of the landspeeder that LEGO have ever produced which tries to approximate the colour of the subject matter - all the other versions LEGO has released are predominantly tan in colour. The model is fairly crude and maybe seems a bit too long, but I do like the way that dark bley flexible hoses have been used to create a striated appearance on the side and front of the vehicle. The vertically-mounted engine at the back sits on a sand red 4 x 4 plate, and the whole assembly tips back on a couple of hinges to reveal a small hidden compartment; that's it in terms of play features, apart of course from the ability to swoosh the model around the room, and in truth that's the most important thing....

X-34 landspeeder from Wookieepedia

The Cantina itself completes the set, and you can see the finished structure below. It's made up of three distinct sections - the booth in which Han and Greedo 'work out their differences', an arched entrance and a tiny bar area. The sections are joined by brick hinges which allow some degree of flexibility in arranging the sections relative to each other. The tabletop between Han and Greedo (a tan 2 x 4 plate) tips up to reveal a hidden compartment that's just big enough to conceal Han's blaster - handy, that.... I have to confess to quite liking the sand blue, tan and dark red detailing even though it's almost certainly just an affectation - I'm pretty sure that in Star Wars : A New Hope no such decoration was visible inside or outside the Cantina.

Everything comes together as you can see in the picture below (click to enlarge). While the set has undoubted play value, at only 193 pieces there's obviously not much to it, and it was clearly never designed as a display piece. Given the limitations of the set, it's easy to see why the fan community is clamouring for a remake - there are few more iconic scenes in Star Wars than those which take place inside the Cantina, and the possiblities from a design and minifigure perspective are almost endless. In fact, bearing in mind LEGO's tendency to release updated versions of older sets (sometimes over and over again....) it's actually quite surprising that they haven't already remade this one. I certainly wouldn't bet against it.

Set 4501 Mos Eisley Cantina was available at retail between 2003 and 2005, at a RRP of £27.99 / US$30. It contains 5 minifigures, of which 4, including the popular Greedo figure, are unique to the set. It also contains the dewback, which is similarly unique to the set. Overall, therefore, it's not hard to see  why the set is prized by collectors, and why it commands such a hefty premium in the aftermarket - Bricklink prices for a boxed example start at around £90 / US$145. If you're lucky you might find a cheaper example on eBay, although eBay sellers are increasingly wise to the resale value of LEGO these days and price accordingly.

Mostly on account of the high aftermarket price, it's hard to recommend the set now unless you're a Star Wars completist and/or a minifigure collector. It's not that the set is especially bad, just that as previously stated there isn't really much to it, so unless you really can't help yourself, there are better sets to spend your hard-earned cash on.

A pair of landspeeders from Set 4501 & COMCON024