LEGO Star Wars Rogue Shadow

Review by Dhampir for LEGO Star Wars Rogue Shadow
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It’s from the new Force Unleashed video game that’s coming out later this spring. The model doesn’t look like much, actually, and the design of the model seems very poorly thought out. It’s fairly fragile. Lots of large pieces are held on only by one or two studs and easily fall off just by carrying the thing around.

The “wings”, you might call them, move together by a long technic piece through the middle of the ship; there are two gears that make them move with what I assume is supposed to be the engine; they are supposed to point up at one point and forward at the other, but when you point them forward, they actually point down, so I had to add an extra piece to stop it from dropping so far. In addition, the landing gear fall off very easily.

The “battle damaged Darth Vader” that comes with it is…well…stupid. For a battle-damaged helmet, they took a black facemask from the old “aqua raiders” sets and put the neck portion through the viewport in that. They include an intact Vader helmet, but his body is still battle-damaged, so it looks even more stupid.

It does include a spring-loaded missile launcher thingy. But, it’s other “weapons systems” don’t resemble anything from the Star Wars universe.

This set was hastily created as a tie in for the video game to try and drum up sales. If you’re a Star Wars nerd like me, it’s worth it I guess. But if you’re buying it for a child who will play with it, you’re better off finding one that won’t fall apart.

Review by L. Blanco for LEGO Star Wars Rogue Shadow
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I’m 20 years old, so I don’t use it to play around and throw it about. So to any parents reading these reviews, I wouldn’t recommend it for little kids.

Now, I read some of these reviews right before I bought it and I was concerned about the criticisms. But I bought it anyways and I’m really glad I did. I find it’s about as durable as can be expected for a Lego toy this big. I don’t know about others, but just putting it together was flat out fun. The instructions are pretty clear as long as you don’t just skim over it, I got the wings right on the first try (it’s very cool ’cause the “engine” spins in the opposite direction as the wings). The landing gear is more than adequate as far as supporting its weight and it stores nicely.

As I said, I don’t really play around with it, I like to have it around, this toy just looks cool, and I admire the design. It’s got tons of hidden compartments and moving parts. There’s very little gimmicks (just a launching missile, and even that’s pretty cleverly installed). It comes with 3 SW lego people, i don’t care much for them, i put em in some box, though you can fit one in the cockpit.

Anyways, for anyone that’s a Star Wars fan, or just a fan of building models/Legos, I really recommend this. Don’t worry about the negative reviews unless you’re gonna be throwing it around.

May the brick be with you!

Review by Jennifer Littlepage for LEGO Star Wars Rogue Shadow
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Before I purchased this Lego set I read reviews that other people had posted. They claimed that this product did not stay together. I purchased this set for an 11 year old boy. He was so excited because this was the set he had been wanting. He built it without difficulty and it has stayed together since. I guess he has better luck than the other reviewers.

Review by for LEGO Star Wars Rogue Shadow
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I love this set. All my friends like it too. One of my buddies threatened to beat me up if I took a piece off of it for any reason at all. I love all the pop-out weapons it has. The minifigures are really cool too. Some parts are really durable, but others are really fragile. In short though, it really is a fine set.

Review by Amy Hansen for LEGO Star Wars Rogue Shadow
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I buy a lot of star wars Lego sets and many other sets as well. I have never had a problem putting them together, even ones in the hundreds of pieces until I tried this one with my son. My son is 7 and can put together some fairly difficult Lego products, but this was too much for him, and too much for me.

First of all, the good thing about it is that each set of Lego pieces is separated by numbered bags, 8 of them, and you can build them one by one and attach them as shown in the 2 book manual set. Yes, 2 books.

However, following the directions very carefully, I was still unable to get all of the connector pieces in exactly the right place and if you miss just one (and the picture led me to believe it was correct), then the entire thing just falls apart. After deconstructing both sides of the wings and working on the center part by moving some connector pieces, I was able to rebuild and stabalize it. There are a number of pieces that are under the moving wing covers that aren’t shown well enough to get them right the first time, thus leaving you to take it all apart and start over.

So, after 6 hours of working on this until it’s completion (with a number of breaks to keep my frame of mind in tact), this is all together, and actually quite stable. My son watched the break down of this over and over during building time, and knows that he cannot play with it like his other ships. I will certainly consult reviews on Lego sets that look to be too big to be fun (where fun might not be just playing with it, but the ease of actually building), and stay away from the ones that are this difficult. I would not recommend this for a child unless an adult has an entire afternoon into the evening to dedicate to it. As for Star Wars Lego sets in general – they are still great when completed and awesome to look at (or play with if you can).