So euhrm, sorry for the double post but this is slightly embarrassing, 6 days after my above post, an annoyed looking postman dropped a huge heavy box on my doorstep.....the Falcon had landed!
Still sorta annoyed about never getting an estimate or an acknowledgement, only a shipping notice a day before, but you know, sod it, it's here and a lot sooner then expected.
Right, the box, it's huge, it's heavy and it's FULL, hell if Lego had done their normal thing with sizing boxes to be only filled 3/5th of the way, this thing would have been impossible to carry for an average sized person.
The build, I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but I think we reached the point where a Lego set is TO big, looking at the stacks of bags is daunting, and you are talking to the guy that rebuilt last years technic BWE in one sitting.
However the build IS fun, first comes the frame, which is just old Technic beams with plates holding them together really, but it does give you an idea about the size of this thing.
Next are the landing gears, 7 of em, all identical, that's the only time the build gets repetitive and after that you get the build the interior rooms, who are just a treat, they give you the first clue on just how detailed this thing is.
After that it's the engines, along with the frame for the front mandibles, and covering the bottom with plates, it's at this point the ship has it's shape, and you start to notice lots of detail, escape pod tubes are next, the main hull top cover, the cockpit, and finally the top gun turrent......
Holy crap that was a big build, never boring, always well thought out, but there is just so much of, it took all of my spare time minus working and sleeping for the better part of a week, and while the build is fascinating, near the end I was all legoed out...
If you can build this over a couple of weeks, maybee a month in a dedicated buildroom where it is not in your way, wonderfull. But I don't have that, and buildiing it, along with all the bags, the giant manual, it all takes up A LOT of space, so to get my living room (and the bloody kitchentable
) back I
had to finish it.....a bit of a slog, a fun slog, but a slog.
That all pales though when you see the thing, it's perfect, just plain perfect, as a StarWars fan I know and love the Falcon, and this is the best damn representation of it I have ever seen, greeblings, details, more greeblings, everywhere! Every visible surface is covered in details, and details on top of that, it all holds together well, straight, no drooping, hardly any gaps, it's the pinnacle of lego building techniques, it's like the Mona Lisa, Bohemian Rapsody or a Veyron.......it's the very best of what people can do within a given medium.
It all looks so damn good and so damn much like the 'real' thing, it's epic....and then there's the size of the thing, I have the original UCS Star destroyer (10030) and while a very early UCS set so not quite there on details and building techniques compared to modern sets, it's always managed to hold it's own against the likes of UCS Slave 1 on the awesome scale by sheer brutal size and bulk.
The falcon makes it look like a childrens toy.
Is it worth 800 bucks? Hard to say, the concept of a 800 buck building set is still batshit crazy, but let me tell you this: I work for a living, I'm not wealthy, there are a dozen things I sorta need and could have used that money on that would have a practical application, not something to just put on a shelf, but if I didn't get one I would never forgive myself, and if Lego does another UCS StarWars set in this pricerange, and it's that good? I'm so there again!