Today we need a quick tour of the content of the LEGO Star Wars set 75355 Ultimate Collector Series X-wing Starfighter, a box of 1949 pieces which will be available as a VIP preview from May 1, 2023 at the public price of €239.99 before global availability announced for May 4.

In the bags, enough to assemble a new exhibition version of the X-wing which will finally take over from that of the set 10240 Red Five X-Wing Starfighter (1558 pieces) marketed between 2013 and 2015 at the retail price of €219.99.

If the X-wing regularly makes the heyday of the LEGO Star Wars range via many products intended for the youngest, this emblematic ship of the Star Wars universe is now what we could call a chestnut tree in the section. Ultimate Collector Series with three different interpretations on the counter.

This new version of 55 cm long by 44 cm wide is indeed the third in 23 years since the launch of the set 7191 X-wing Fighter (1304 pieces) in 2000 and if the version of the set 10240 Red Five X-Wing Starfighter only took over after 13 years from a first interpretation which had aged badly, it still delights many fans and collectors today. The 2023 version of this ship should therefore in principle take advantage of all the evolution of the LEGO inventory and associated techniques to try to renew the genre and bring its share of notable improvements.

I won't give you the details of the whole process of building the product, the photos available below speak for themselves and I hope you will keep all the pleasure of discovering the different techniques at work here. Just know that the mechanism for deploying the wings is for this time of a rather surprising simplicity with an easily accessible wheel placed on the cabin of the ship and two rubber bands.

I'm still a little distressed to see that LEGO persists in using these consumables on high-end models sold at full price knowing that the manufacturer does not even make the effort to slip a set of two replacement rubber bands into the box. The manipulation of the cam mechanism requires a little force and some creaks are heard but it is a pure exhibition product and the functionality will remain anecdotal once you have chosen the configuration that suits you. The junction between the two pairs of wings is not perfect in flight mode and you will have to help the mechanism a little by pressing on the two pairs with your hands to put them horizontally, you will have to be satisfied with that. No landing gear.

The cabin is made up of a few sub-assemblies to be fixed on side clips and there are clearly visible spaces all along the hull. It was probably the price to pay to obtain angles conforming to the reference ship and a shape of the front section a little more realistic than that of the previous model. More embarrassing for me, the duckbill effect of the nose of the ship at the end a little too flat reinforced by the space visible on both sides at the junction between the two sections which meet at the end. The set seems to me visually a little too clumsy and I preferred the previous solution which I found much more elegant.

The wings of the X-wing, which may seem a little short to some and which are in my opinion a little too "disconnected" from the fuselage frankly letting the integrated mechanism appear, have benefited from a very appreciable care with sufficient thickness and a skin on the inside that makes them less stark when deployed. The balance between visible tenons and smooth surfaces on the entire model seems convincing to me, you can see at first glance that it is indeed a LEGO product but the whole retains a certain elegance.

The presence of correctly sized air inlets for the engines is good news even if the three interior fins are simply wedged between a few tenons, the fact that the canopy is pad-printed is appreciable when one remembers the complex sticker supplied with the model of 2013, the inside of the wings benefits from a slightly more accomplished finish with a fixing on the body of the ship which is a little more discreet and the passage to pad printing for the exposure plate which includes some facts is obviously an interesting development.

The pad printing of the plate which presents some information about the vessel is well done but it reveals the large injection point placed in the middle of the element concerned. It will be difficult for LEGO to find a solution to this technical detail, the injection of this type of large part must allow a uniform distribution of the material in the mold and the positioning of the injection point is strategic. The solution proposed here is nevertheless still more interesting than the large sticker, difficult to position correctly supplied so far and which ages very badly under the effect of light and heat.

The display that allows you to stage this X-wing is well designed, it is rather discreet, the whole remains unfailingly stable and you can even place the ship in a diving position if your shelf is high. , just to admire the underside of the construction with its very basic finish. R2-D2 will remain in its housing, there is no space for the astromech droid on the display which can only accommodate the minifig of Luke Skywalker.

The product does not escape a small sheet of stickers, but the number of these stickers remains contained and those which take place in the cockpit are graphically very well executed. Too bad that these parts which will be exposed to the light are not pad printed, this high-end model intended for an adult public and sold for 240 € nevertheless deserved this effort.

The last visual of the second gallery above brings together the three versions of the X-Wing of the moment, I added that of the polybag 30654 X-wing Starfighter (87 pieces) which will be offered from May 1 to 7, 2023 from 40 € of purchase in products from the LEGO Star Wars range as well as that of 57 pieces from the bag supplied with April 2023 issue from the Official LEGO Star Wars Magazine. You currently have the choice according to your desires, your financial means and the space you have on your shelves.

As for the figurines provided, the new Luke Skywalker minifig benefits from all the technical refinements currently available at LEGO with legs injected in two colors and nice pad printing on the arms. the R2-D2 figurine with pad printing on both sides is not new, it is the one already seen in the LEGO Star Wars Diorama Collection set 75339 Death Star Trash Compactor marketed since last year.

It is also too small to convince when placed in the housing provided behind the cockpit, the dome of the version of the astromech droid seen in 2017 in the polybag 30611 R2-D2 could possibly have done the trick but it would then have been necessary to resolve to obtain only this element without the rest of the robot.

To tell you the truth, I'm a little torn after assembling this new X-wing: the model is generally in line with the reference ship when viewed from a certain distance, but there are still some finishing details that seem questionable to me. closer. LEGO strives to renew its aesthetic and technical choices with each new interpretation and this one combines good ideas with some approximations which in my opinion still do not make it the expected final version.

So much the worse for those who wanted to believe it, so much the better for those who collect all these boxes even if the subject treated is the same, there remains a certain margin of progression and evolution for the next version.

As an inveterate collector of the LEGO Star Wars range, I will be in line from May 1st to acquire this new version and take advantage of the various promotional offers announced. The version of the set 10240 Red Five X-Wing Starfighter However, it will remain my favorite this time around.

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at 6th May 2023 next at 23:59 p.m. Just post a comment under the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. 

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.

Today we take a quick look at the contents of the LEGO Star Wars set 40591 Death Star II, a small box of 287 pieces that will be offered on the official online store and in LEGO Stores from May 1 to 7, 2023 from 150 € of purchase in products from the LEGO Star Wars range. The inventory of the product allows, as indicated by the title of the set, to assemble a reproduction of the Death Star II about fifteen centimeters high to be displayed on the corner of a shelf.

No minifigs in this box, but we still get the pretty brick celebrating the 40th anniversary of the film Return of the Jedi. It's still taken even if this pad-printed brick is also delivered in several other sets marketed from May 1, 2023: the references  75356 Executor Super Star Destroyer, 75352 Emperor's Throne Room Diorama et 75353 Endor Speeder Chase Diorama.

For the rest, the assembly of the object will logically only take a few minutes with many identical sub-assemblies to be clipped around the central structure of the construction. LEGO promised us in the official product description the presence of a miniature replica of the throne room, it is there even if it remains very symbolic with Palpatine overlooking Darth Vader on one side and Luke Skywalker on the other. It takes a little imagination to see the characters in question in these little heaps of two pieces, but the wink is appreciable.

The Death Star II rests on a simple black base but of sufficient sobriety not to detract from the development of the construction while grayscale, the ray is embodied by a plant and a few very well chosen pieces and the greebs (details based on small parts) of surface are very convincing on the unfinished part of the ball. It was probably difficult to do better in terms of adjusting the different subsets to this scale, so we will forgive the few empty spaces here and there.

In my opinion, we get here a nice little display product that will not invade the living room or the room dedicated to LEGO activities and the presence of the anniversary brick really gives character to this micro-model. You will have to spend at least €150 on products from the LEGO Star Wars range to get this pretty box, which is always a little too big for what it contains, but we all know here that this minimum amount will be reached very quickly with prizes. relatively high audiences for some of the new releases expected to hit shelves on May 1, 2023.

I'll make the effort because this set is in my opinion a nice, neat and creative spin-off that I think is an acceptable reward. This is the product that manages this year to convince me to buy one or two sets at full price to get it, the rest will wait for more contained prices at Amazon, the doubling of VIP points offered elsewhere at LEGO not being not really likely to compete with the reduction percentages regularly practiced elsewhere.

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at 5th May 2023 next at 23:59 p.m. Just post a comment under the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. 

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.

Today we take a quick tour of one of the promotional products that will be offered at LEGO during the annual May the 4th operation: the reference 5007840 Return of the Jedi 40th Collectible. Valued at €14.99 by the manufacturer, the object will be offered to members of the VIP program from May 1 to 7, 2023 from €85 of purchase in products from the LEGO Star Wars range.

The official visual suggested a nice product with a successful finish, the reality is a little more disappointing: the packaging, a small black cardboard box, is of very poor quality, as is the insert that houses the blue plate and the coin. "collectors". It's sloppy, cheap, dusty, scratched and damaged right out of the box. Yet the packaging here is an integral part of the product since it is used in principle to expose the famous piece by tilting the interior insert.

The contents of the box also leave a little to be desired: the blue plastic plate is scratched upon unpacking and the scrap metal part has a more than questionable finish with burrs, especially around the logo of the LEGO Star Wars range present on one side of the coin.

We are far from the "collector" pieces offered elsewhere, the edge of this one is not even dressed to give it a little cachet. This item is as usual made by by Chinese company RDP which usually produces this type of goodies for LEGO, we can not decently say that the end result lives up to the elitist policy of the Danish manufacturer in terms of finish.

The minimum amount required to be offered the thing therefore seems rather high to me if we take into account the general level of quality of the object. It's cheap, the black box which is not even in a blister will not fail to be damaged a little more by walking around in the box containing the rest of your order and you will only be left with the part and the plate. blue that must be displayed elsewhere than in its original packaging.

LEGO should definitely be more demanding with its external suppliers, especially when it comes to derivative products that no longer have much to do with plastic bricks. I'm not sure that the proliferation of these slightly off-topic goodies brings anything in terms of image to LEGO even if it's probably cheaper than systematically offering sets or polybags and it seems that these products appeal to a certain part of the fans.

The general idea isn't bad, but there was probably room for improvement with, for example, a plastic box and a piece with a slightly more accomplished design. As it is, I'll settle for it because my order will exceed the required threshold, but it won't be the promotional product I'm most looking forward to in the package.

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at 4th May 2023 next at 23:59 p.m. Just post a comment under the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. 

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.

Today we take a quick look at the contents of the LEGO Star Wars BrickHeadz set 40623 Battle of Endor Heroes, a box of 549 pieces which will be available from May 1, 2023 at the retail price of €39.99.

I'm not repeating the pitch of the BrickHeadz range imagined by LEGO in 2016 to go hunting on the land by Funko, it is simply a question of bringing the subject treated into a cube to be then aligned on a shelf in the company of other equally cubic figurines. The most assiduous collectors already have the possibility of aligning more than 200 different ones, and it seems that this range is not ready to stop for the moment.

This year we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the film Return of the Jedi andt LEGO therefore currently has several products that pay direct or indirect homage to the film and among these derivative products, we are entitled to a non-exhaustive figurine pack grouping together some "heroes of the Battle of Endor".

No commemorative brick in this box as is the case in the sets 75356 Executor Super Star Destroyer, 75352 Emperor's Throne Room Diorama et 75353 Endor Speeder Chase Diorama and it's a bit of a shame for an anniversary product. However, it had its place for example in front of Luke or Leia, just to bring a little character to this pack sold for 40 €.

No specific pad printing either on the minifigure supports, LEGO misses in my opinion here the opportunity to offer us something a little sexier than a simple pack of characters placed on their usual black bases. collectors will probably not agree with me, the visual continuity of the range being assured.

For the rest, this pack of five figurines is rather correct if we admit that R2-D2 has also undergone a forceps conversion to allow him to enter the codes of the imposed format. We lose almost all the characteristics of the chubby droid, the robot's body becoming very angular and the dome being vaguely symbolized by a few flat parts and a dish. The pad printing of the Tile placed at the front saves the furniture a little, but there is nothing at the back.

Luke and Leia seem rather believable to me, with a special mention for Leia's poncho and helmet which I find really successful. Lando Calrissian suffers a bit on the caricatural side because of his big mustache in Sergeant Garcia mode even if the character's hair and outfit seem very well executed to me and Wicket is very cute. The latter really seems to take advantage of the format with an apparent simplicity but a judicious choice of parts which make this figurine a very convincing product in my eyes.

Regulars of this range know that there are no stickers in these boxes and all the patterned elements are therefore pad-printed. The color of Wicket's belly is suddenly a bit too dull to be perfectly matched with the bear's face, but it's passable.

The set works quite well on arrival and will make a very original gift for fans of the Star Wars universe who do not have any particular affinity with these cubic figurines. These are fun to assemble, LEGO also provides five instruction booklets that allow you to share the pleasure of assembly with several people or to space out the assembly sequences over several sessions, one character at a time. .

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at April 29th next at 23:59 p.m. Just post a comment under the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. 

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.

Today we are very quickly interested in the content of the LEGO Marvel set 76256 Ant-Man Construction Figure, a box of 289 pieces currently in pre-order on the official online store and which will be available from May 1, 2023 at the retail price of €34.99. We no longer present the concept of "figure construction" in LEGO sauce, each of these figurines more or less uses the same recipe as the previous ones and indirectly combines the same qualities and the same faults.

I was rather convinced by this version of Ant-Man when the first official visuals were available, I'm a little less convinced after assembling this 24 cm high figurine: children will probably find something to their liking with a few joints which allow more or less creative poses but the finish seems to me overall too succinct to make it an acceptable exhibition product: connection ball joints too visible from certain angles and gray articulation points with a bright red pine which stand out a little too much with the rest of the outfit, it's very sketchy.

The fact remains that LEGO does not include any stickers in the box and all the patterned parts are therefore stamped. So much the better for the commercial target of this product vaguely derived from the film Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania which targets the very young public, this figurine can therefore be handled for long hours without risking damaging any stickers. Nothing comes off during the manipulations, it will however be necessary to regularly readjust the respirator of the mask simply fixed on a ball joint to put it back in the planned position.

For the rest, we obviously recognize Scott Lang aka Ant-Man at first glance, knowing that he is also here accompanied by a microfig of Hope Van Dyne aka The Wasp. The latter is also provided in two copies in the box, so you will have the right to lose one before you start complaining.

The figurine is very quickly assembled and it benefits from many points of articulation whether at the level of the pelvis, the head of the arms or the legs. However, the mobility of the knees and feet remains very limited, no doubt to guarantee the stability of the character whatever the pose chosen. The arms allow a little more fantasy but it will be necessary to find the ideal pose to really highlight the figurine and they will inevitably come up against a fixed part which will determine the maximum authorized amplitude.

The character's head is a pad-printed piece that is aesthetically very well executed but whose proportions seem a bit rough to me if we compare the result obtained with the version of the outfit seen on screen. The back of Ant-Man's skull is sorely lacking in finish and it's a bit of a shame, even if it wants to produce this type of figurine, LEGO should consider a suitable mold to obtain a slightly more convincing head. The supplied microfig is very successful with a rather surprising level of detail for such a compact pad printing, it enhances the rest of the content a little.

This product could have "exist" more easily if LEGO had decided to market at least one other product derived from the film which would have made it possible to use the figurine in the context seen on the screen by destroying for example any micro-structure. This will probably not be the case.

For 35 €, we can conclude that LEGO finally provides only the minimum service with this action figure of "Giant-Man" which should however appeal to the youngest and lovers of dioramas. It's well done even if the usual recipe has its flaws, it's designed to play with and resist over time and we'll be satisfied with it on our shelves while waiting for a hypothetical version a little more accomplished. It's also a little too expensive, but we all know here that it will quickly be possible to afford this figure for a little less at the usual retailers.

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at April 28th next at 23:59 p.m. Just post a comment under the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. 

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.