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….

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 

Jabba Dabba Doo !

Having regularly perused the LEGO Star Wars forums over at Eurobricks for the past few years now, not to mention keeping an eye on Star Wars-related comments on the Brickset Forum and elsewhere, it became quickly evident that Set 4480 Jabba's Palace was one of those sets which cropped up the most whenever there was a discussion about which Star Wars sets LEGO should remake.

Given this, it's no surprise that many rejoiced when LEGO announced that they would indeed be releasing a new Jabba's Palace set, and true to their word, Set 9516 Jabba's Palace was duly released in the Summer of 2012 to generally favourable reviews. 

Having bagged a copy of the new version, I was all set to dive in, but at the last minute I decided that it might be interesting to revisit the original version first. So here we go....

The original Jabba's Palace was released in 2003 at an RRP of £27.99 / $30.00. At only 231 pieces it's interesting to note that of the 19 different LEGO Star Wars sets released that year it was nevertheless the sixth largest in terms of piece count.

The front of the box (above; click to enlarge) provides a fairly simple overview of the contents of the box against a backdrop of what looks like a movie still of the interior of Jabba's Palace; there's some rudimentary Photo-Shopping in evidence as a blurry Luke Skywalker minifigure falls through the trapdoor of Jabba's throne room into a (non-existent) Rancor pit, and movement is also simulated for some of the other characters. The back of the box below features a number of panels; some of them show off play features of the set, others contain movie stills of the some of the characters which have been immortalised in minifigure form in this set, and there's even an alternate build picture. Finally, two panels highlight some of the other 2003 LEGO Star Wars releases.

The full roster of characters contained in the set is displayed on one of the sides of the box (picture below). I say "characters" rather than "minifigures" as it could be argued that the set only actually contains 3 minifigures in the true sense, with the rest being either larger moulds in the case of Jabba himself or brick-built characters. I won't get into the debate about whether brick-built characters constitute minifigures or not or we'll be here all day.....

Access to the box contents is provided via thumb tabs; it thankfully doesn't look as if they were used by the original owner of my pre-owned example, however, as the box is still in pretty good shape. As an added bonus, it appears that the previous owner included all the bags that the pieces came in - six bags to be precise, of various sizes. 

The front cover of the instruction booklet (below) is well-nigh identical to the front of the box, with only the age rating omitted. It's surprisingly slim, weighing in at only 32 pages cover to cover.

The back cover of the booklet (below - click to enlarge) suggests that Yoda has a penchant for surfing the Net when he's not battling the Sith; more specifically, he's been caught checking out LEGO's Star Wars microsite. The eagle-eyed might have spotted that the picture on the back cover predates the set by a good few years, as much revered Star Wars Set 7191 UCS X-wing Starfighter, released in 1999, is shown as being "NEW !"

The set contains 6 minifigures and characters, and a more varied line-up you'd struggle to find. At the more conventional, even glamorous, end of the spectrum we have Slavegirl Leia (below).  This set predates the appearance of flesh-coloured minifigures in licensed themes, so we're treated to a largely naked yellow torso complete with some subtle shading to indicate cleavage and belly button, plus a gold bikini to keep her decent. Leia's legs are printed, which was relatively unusual back in 2003.

The grey neck bracket you can see in the pictures allows a chain to be attached to the back of Leia's torso. There's no back-printing on the torso, and no alternate expression on the back of the head. This version of Leia is unique to the set.

The Luke Skywalker minifigure (below) is also unique to the set. It features a simple torso print, but there's no back-print on the torso nor printing on the legs or an alternate expression. He does however sport a black fabric cape. A nice touch is the option of either a tan hairpiece or an interchangeable cowl - both are provided.

EV-9D9 is the third minifigure which is unique to this set. According to Wookieepedia, this sadistic supervisor and interrogator droid is actually a 'she' rather than a 'he' - living proof that you learn something new every day, even at my age.

EV-9D9, from Wookieepedia

The LEGO version features a dark red minifigure head with a unique face print mounted on a dark red upturned 1 x 1 tile with clip, but it's otherwise put together pretty much the same way as a standard battle droid, albeit in light grey and dark red rather than tan.

Moving from minifigures on to characters we come to Jabba the Hutt (below - click to enlarge). Jabba is made up of three separate parts - a large body section and two pieces which form his tail. While his sand green body is undoubtedly suitably corpulent, and his face is appropriately repugnant, the lack of printing is nevertheless disappointing. Jabba's arms are moveable at the shoulder, and he has standard minifigure hands, but in contrast to standard minifigures they don't rotate at the wrist. This version of Jabba appears in one other set - Set 6210 Jabba's Sail Barge from 2006.

There are two 'brick-built' characters. The simplest is the humble GNK Power Droid, better known as a Gonk Droid. This version is unique to the set, although there have since been two alternative versions which can be found in Set 10144 Sandcrawler from 2005 and last year's Star Wars Advent Calendar. The body is a dark grey 2 x 2 x 2 container, and the printed door at the front, which opens, is unique in this colour.

Last up we have B'Omarr Monk. Wookieepedia tells us that the B'Omarr were a mysterious religious order based on the planet Tatooine; the B'Omarr monks believed that cutting themselves off from all physical sensation would free them from distraction and thus allow them to achieve enlightenment. Once enlightenment was achieved, the monk would have no further use for their senses or physical body; at this point their brain was surgically removed and transferred into a nutrient-filled jar where it could contemplate life, the universe and everything for the rest of its days. When it was necessary for it to be moved, the brain jar could be transported by a BT-16 perimeter droid (below). So now you know...

B'Omarr Monk, from Wookieepedia

The LEGO rendition consists of 13 parts. The obvious highlight is the 'brain', which is in fact a trans neon orange 1 x 1 round plate inside an upturned crystal ball globe, and the legs are katanas joined to the body by robot arms.

Some of the more interesting and/or unusual parts that you can find in this set are shown in the picture below (click to enlarge). Pride of place probably goes to the trans neon green plain minifigure head which is unique to this set. The old brown stairs only ever appeared in one set apart from this one, and the modified 1 x 2 brick with pin in old brown was included in just 3 sets in total up until the time that the old brown colour was phased out and replaced with reddish brown. The two different types of tan arch and the two sizes of inverted tan dish that you can see in the picture have each graced less than 10 sets to date, and the variant of tan 2 x 2 brick with dome found in this set can only be found in two other sets. Finally, the trans green frog at the top of the picture has appeared in a total of just 6 sets to date including this one.

The build is short and sweet, requiring just 25 pages of the instruction booklet to guide you through. There's no baseplate, the lower level of the Palace (below) comfortably resting on just a few standard plates. There's a nice printed 1 x 2 tile at the entrance which presumably represents the controls to the front gate, and you can just about see a brown 1 x 2 brick with hole on the right side of the photo halfway back; this allows for the attachment of Set 4475 Jabba's Message to expand the Palace. There's similar provision on the other side of the Palace to attach Set 4476 Jabba's Prize, albeit via a 1 x 2 brick with a pin, but you get the general idea.

Once the lower level is complete it takes just a few minutes to complete the build. Structures of note on the upper level include Jabba's raised light grey 'throne', and a trapdoor to cast the unwary into the rancor pit below. Jabba's throne, which features an arch, a transparent neon green bowl to store the transparent green frog I highlighted earlier, and a chain to restrain Leia, slides forwards and backwards a short distance; when the throne is pushed backwards as far as it'll go the trapdoor drops open. Once released, the throne springs back to its starting position thanks to a couple of elastic bands on the sides.

The front of the Palace is hinged, allowing it to be opened up (above) or closed (below). Closing the front of the Palace reveals the black 'iron' gates which provide access to the area under the upper levels. You can also better see the steps on either side which lead to the upper level.

You can see the completed Palace below (click to enlarge) populated with its full complement of minifigures and other characters. Luke is poised to plummet through the trapdoor into the rancor pit below, although luckily for him (although not us) there's no rancor down there....

So what's the verdict ? Well, this 2003 version of Jabba's Palace is distinctly modest in size and scope, even when the two small add-on sets mentioned earlier are factored in to the equation; certainly it's dwarfed by the 2012 remake. The set was surprisingly expensive when released, coming in at well over 10 pence / 10 cents per piece, and I'm sorry to report that it hasn't got any cheaper with time, either. The cheapest complete, boxed example on Bricklink right now will set you back around £85 plus shipping, and if you want a MISB example it'll cost you well over £100. This hefty price appreciation can in large part be explained by the inclusion of all the unique minifigures and characters, and the fact that collectors are willing to pay a premium to own them.

For collectors of the LEGO Star Wars theme this is a must-have set, of course - a no-brainer. Other interested parties would however probably be better off picking up the 2012 remake which has three times as many pieces, builds into a far more identifiable rendition of the subject matter, and comes with more minifigures. There seems to have been a bit of a run on the 2012 version in the wake of some recent controversy, but prior to that the set was available at a decent discount and I've no doubt that it will be once again prior to its eventual retirement.