Set ID: 10225 R2-D2 (UCS)
Number of Pieces: 2127
Year of Release: 2012
Minifigs: None
Purchased Price: About SGD330
My collection of LEGO Star Wars sets has always been limited to the movie theme (Episode 1-6) and primarily scene sets or vehicle sets. Clone War series never interest me (too cartoon-ny) and the bust sets looks scary (think Darth Maul bust staring at you in the middle of the night). But when the news was released late 2011 that there will be a R2-D2 set, I told myself I will HAVE to break the rules and own this. This will be one of those set that will look impressive as a showpiece as well as a toy. From the video on youtube released by LEGO, the R2-D2 indeed looks good and is packed with features. For just slightly more than SGD 300, I reckon this will be too good to miss. So here we are.
I pre-order a set at my favourite local LEGO store where they offer a slight discount for early birds. Three weeks later, I got a call to collect it (together with the rest of my Avengers sets, but that's another story). Unfortunately the set that was allocated to me was slightly dented on a corner. Since I am not intending to cash in on this set in the future, I took the set with an agreement of a further discount. The size of the box kind of mislead what you will be having. At 30cm, this is certainly not one of the biggest and most majestic set you will find with more than 2000 brick counts. But somehow the blown up picture of the R2-D2 on the box makes you believe that you will be walking away with a 3-footer! Read the fine print please.
Ten packs of bricks. Yes, it was THAT many. Although the completed R2-D2 does look primarily consisting of only white, grey and blue bricks, I was surprised to find a whole array of other coloured bricks amongst the packs. Where the hell do these bricks belong to? I wonder. The building instruction comes in three installments and were nicely packed in a card-boarded plastic bag. Thank you LEGO, no more dog-earred instruction manuals! Another pleasant surprise greeted me when I opened the box - NO STICKERS!!!! Well ... almost. The only exception is the label for the display stand, which I can certainly understand.
The colours are all very distinctive in the instruction manual and therefore there should be no issue of mistaken identity. Since this is a 16+ set, do expect some difficult steps that will put your finger dexterity to the test. This is a very dense model, and by "dense" I mean weight-in-a-small-package. A child might find it challenging to hold up the model to fix certain parts especially towards the end of the building process, when most of the bricks are already in place.
The construction starts with the body, which is hollow in the centre and will house a variety of mechanisms. As hard as the LEGO design engineers may be trying, to re-create the cylindrical body of the R2-D2 is by no mean an easy feat. The way the bricks are designed to overlap layer by layer makes the body much more sturdy and compact than I thought it will. In fact, I did accidentally dropped the half completed body once during the construction and to my surprise, no bricks came off! A word of caution though. Do constantly check that each brick is pressed firmly to the last and leave no gap which will be a source of weakness in the structure. I know this is an obvious point, but more so for such a dense and compact set.
One of the packet of bricks is dedicated solely to the secret mechanism within the body. There are many technics parts in this pack and you will need to ensure that it is built to standard. The key purpose of this "engine" is to house lifting mechanism of the retractable third leg.
This third leg is deployed by moving a lever at the back of R2 using a gear like mechanism concealed within the body compartment. This maneuvre is by no mean easy at all. Despite making a few adjustment to the mechanism, I simply cannot get the middle leg to deploy as easy as seen in the video on youtube. On top of moving the lever, I have to always manually pull out the middle leg whenever I want to pose R2 in a different position.
Even on two legs (without deploying the middle one), the R2 is designed well to maintain its balance. With all three legs deployed, the model is most steady and gives you a sense of movement. Talking about movement. R2 is meant to be wheeling around in his quest to help the Jedi masters. So I was pretty disappointed to notice the absence of wheels in this model. In its place are the 2X2 round tab bricks that are commonly found at the bottom of a vehicle. In short, this model glides, not roll.
In the movie, R2 is well known for its resourcefulness and hidden tools. It is like a mobile swiss knife capable of holographic projection. Two tools are concealed behind the front panel of R2, one is a probe and the other is a rotating saw. Each of them is controlled by a rotating knob located near the rear shoulder of R2. Activating them will require the two front panels to be opened manually first, then you can rotate the knobs to erect the tool. Keeping them will just need to reverse the above steps.
The last part of the construction is the head. If creating a cylindrical body is hard, making a semi-sphere is much harder. I seriously cannot think of any other way to make the head more round and smooth than what is designed. This is why viewing the R2's head from a distance will help to create a better impression of the finished product. Attaching the head to the body is just a simple task of pushing the spherical head onto a spine in the center. Of all the movable parts of this R2, rotating the head is considered the most effortless. If I do have a wish list, I will like more movable features on the head, such as the extendable periscope as seen in the movie.
As with other UCS sets, this comes with a custom made stand with a label detailing the technical specs of the R2. This set even goes one up with a R2D2 minifig, which to me, is a nice touch. If anyone from LEGO reads this, can I request that this is a standard feature for future UCS sets?
The colours are all very distinctive in the instruction manual and therefore there should be no issue of mistaken identity. Since this is a 16+ set, do expect some difficult steps that will put your finger dexterity to the test. This is a very dense model, and by "dense" I mean weight-in-a-small-package. A child might find it challenging to hold up the model to fix certain parts especially towards the end of the building process, when most of the bricks are already in place.
The construction starts with the body, which is hollow in the centre and will house a variety of mechanisms. As hard as the LEGO design engineers may be trying, to re-create the cylindrical body of the R2-D2 is by no mean an easy feat. The way the bricks are designed to overlap layer by layer makes the body much more sturdy and compact than I thought it will. In fact, I did accidentally dropped the half completed body once during the construction and to my surprise, no bricks came off! A word of caution though. Do constantly check that each brick is pressed firmly to the last and leave no gap which will be a source of weakness in the structure. I know this is an obvious point, but more so for such a dense and compact set.
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| The engine room |
One of the packet of bricks is dedicated solely to the secret mechanism within the body. There are many technics parts in this pack and you will need to ensure that it is built to standard. The key purpose of this "engine" is to house lifting mechanism of the retractable third leg.
This third leg is deployed by moving a lever at the back of R2 using a gear like mechanism concealed within the body compartment. This maneuvre is by no mean easy at all. Despite making a few adjustment to the mechanism, I simply cannot get the middle leg to deploy as easy as seen in the video on youtube. On top of moving the lever, I have to always manually pull out the middle leg whenever I want to pose R2 in a different position.Even on two legs (without deploying the middle one), the R2 is designed well to maintain its balance. With all three legs deployed, the model is most steady and gives you a sense of movement. Talking about movement. R2 is meant to be wheeling around in his quest to help the Jedi masters. So I was pretty disappointed to notice the absence of wheels in this model. In its place are the 2X2 round tab bricks that are commonly found at the bottom of a vehicle. In short, this model glides, not roll.
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All the hidden controls are found behind |
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| Front panels open to reveal tools |
The last part of the construction is the head. If creating a cylindrical body is hard, making a semi-sphere is much harder. I seriously cannot think of any other way to make the head more round and smooth than what is designed. This is why viewing the R2's head from a distance will help to create a better impression of the finished product. Attaching the head to the body is just a simple task of pushing the spherical head onto a spine in the center. Of all the movable parts of this R2, rotating the head is considered the most effortless. If I do have a wish list, I will like more movable features on the head, such as the extendable periscope as seen in the movie.
As with other UCS sets, this comes with a custom made stand with a label detailing the technical specs of the R2. This set even goes one up with a R2D2 minifig, which to me, is a nice touch. If anyone from LEGO reads this, can I request that this is a standard feature for future UCS sets?