by Ye Olde Republic » Sat Dec 26, 2009 6:34 pm
When I was 11 or 12, I looked forward to going grocery shopping with my mom as the store had this on the shelf, seemingly forever. She would go off and shop while I'd sit and stare, handle and generally drool over the box containing this set. Even back then I'd look at the pictures and use the parts to build something in my imagination or even run all the characters through situations or just mindlessly stare and wish I could take it home with me. I got it for Christmas later that year and what a Christmas it was, as so very few presents have ever had the same kind of affect on me. Probably not until 20 some years later when my wife gave me the Luke Skywalker ForceFX lightsabre has any one Christmas present meant as much to me (except of course my son Grady who was born on December 19, 2005, incidentally, the same year I got my lightsabre[my only present that year]). Of course I look at this set through rose coloured glasses! Why wouldn't I?
To this day, I look at this as my favorite set ever with #6929 Starfleet Voyager as very close second, also for nostalgic reasons. This set, while pretty sparse on interior details was the cat's meow. You can close it up for play with it as a stand alone concentric type castle or open it up to make one heck of a wall with gate flanking towers or completely tear it down and make one giant wall for the Falcons to try to get over. The figs with their printed armour, and new grilled helmets were so great and, HORSES! Looking back though, I can easily see that the gatehouse is too tall, or conversely, the walls are too short but they were working within the confines of a wall piece that was only five bricks tall. Hey, as with any LEGO set though, they are just starting off points. They do hope/intend that you'll buy more sets just so you can take the ideas they provide for you and make what you want(this sentence contains one of my AFOL peeve rants which I won't bring up just now).
I'll leave off here so I can come back and add some more comments the next time this set comes up in the WSR.
Trevor
Trust me, I think I'm funnier than you do.
Why do I have to add the word "minifig" to my spell checker
every time I use it?!
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