The sixteen identical battle droids feature one straight arm to hold their blasters, which are the same as the new clone blasters, upright. All of the other parts are the same to the older versions. The two pilot battle droids have blue bodies, one straight arm, and the rest of the pieces exactly the same as the battle droids. LEGO Star Wars will be celebrating its twentieth anniversary next year and most of the 643 sets released since 1999 have been excellent in my opinion, depicting numerous iconic vehicles, locations and characters. That’s the awkward thing about minifig scale. The Earhart plane has a fuselage that’s just four studs wide, but the bare minimum to seat two minifigs side-by-side is six (and even then they’ll need to roll down the windows so they can rest their arms on the sills). Based on height, cars scaled to a minifig end up looking like the polybag Elva that can’t even fit a whole minifig. Scale the model to their width, and that’s how you end up with Speed Champions producing 8-wide tanks. System-scale Thomas trains certainly has a potential, but personally I think Lego should stay far away from both Thomas, Cars and the other licenses listed as they all have a stigma of excessive merchandising.

Recent discussion surrounding 75309 Republic Gunship has prompted broader examination of minifigure-scale. This interesting topic undoubtedly warrants investigation and this article encompasses numerous significant vehicles, determining their approximate minifigure-scale. Notes: An alternative length of 9.60 metres is sometimes provided, but I find the shorter length of 6.90 metres more convincing. Viewing the onscreen vehicle and comparing the RZ-1 A-wing Interceptor with its successor, which measures 7.68 metres long and seems larger than the Rebel craft, provides compelling evidence.However, I think it would be unfair to ignore sets from the first few years of LEGO Star Wars entirely. Sets should be judged according to the context of their release and in that regard I think certain older models, such as those mentioned in the article, fare comparatively poorly in relation to other sets released in the same year. Also, from a purely practical perspective it would be almost impossible to identify a single year after which we are able to judge sets by modern standards. Notes: Three different lengths are commonly provided for the TIE Advanced x1. Detailed fan calculations have established that the length is nearest to the shortest of those canon measurements, which would match the design in 75150 Vader's TIE Advanced vs. A-wing Starfighter. There is actually also a thing about colors, that ends up looking inaccurate in smaller scales, making people mix lighter colors and create fake shadows, but that's a whole other can of worms, that scale modelers have to deal with.

At least in Lego form it's a lot easier to mask scale inaccuracies, because there is no actual solid point of reference scale wise. A minifig is intrinsically a really bad estimate of the human form factor, so everything else is a lot easier to sell as "somewhat in scale". Yeah, I can’t find actual dimensions, but it looks like the Skystriker was under 2’ long. At exactly 2’ it would represent a plane that’s 38’4” long compared to the action figures. The real F-14 is just barely narrower than that with the wings closed, and was nearly 63’ long. I’ve got “Battle of the X-Planes” on DVD. It’s a Nova episode about the real design competition for the Joint Strike Fighter project that produced the F-35. The plane it ended up beating for the contract was the X-32, a dinky little sci-fi styled single-seater plane that’s still 45’ long. So, yeah, the Skystriker would probably be smaller than the P-51 Mustang. I recently discussed the scale issues with the different Hailfire models, but I went by 1:48 scale. At that scale, every 1/4” represents 1’, and 6’ tall person would be 1.5”. A minifig, shaved and excluding the stud), happens to be 1.5” tall. At this scale, by the 22’/6.8m height I used for my calculation, the 8” tall Technic model is about 45% larger than it should be. If you go by the 8.5m length, the 9-1/4” long model is still 14” too long. By this same scale, the new X-Wing that people complained was too tiny is actually still 12.5% on the long side. But, unbelievable as it sounds, at 1:48 scale, the plane from the recent Amelia Earhart GWP is only off by a small fraction of a stud. In real life, this is a plane that seats seven. One pilot, and three rows of two seats below and aft. This is a plane that people complained should have been at least twice as long, but if you actually look up photos of Earhart with the plane, it’s spot on...based strictly on a minifig’s height. Say whatever you want, but calling licenced sets a bad thing just shows your ignorance of the wider market and how business works.

Minifigure-scale vehicles

As mentioned above, ascertaining accurate minifigure-scale is challenging because of their characteristic proportions. Scale ratios of anything between approximately 1:32 and 1:45 are therefore common, reflecting minifigures' width and height, respectively. However, I consider a much simpler method most successful on this occasion.

Once again, this issue can be attributed to the limited selection of colours available. Dark green pieces are ideally suited to Boba Fett's Slave I and have been used on every subsequent model of the vessel. Unfortunately, they did not appear until 2003 so the designer had to use the standard shade of green which is not at all suitable. This model also suffers from a severe scaling issue and its flaws become even more apparent when the set is compared with 7153 Jango Fett's Slave I which was released just two years later. 7257 Ultimate Lightsaber Duel The LEGO Star Wars range is primarily focused upon vehicles but it has also included some splendid location-based models. Unfortunately, 7257 Ultimate Lightsaber Duel is not among them in my opinion as the control rods around which the entire set is designed do not work particularly well. These rods for each minifigure are a nice idea but their execution is rather disappointing as the platforms tend to rotate freely, making them difficult to direct. I have selected ten sets which I believe to be among the worst ever released and have tried to explain my reasoning for each selection below. The following items have not been taken into consideration as I do not think they can be properly compared with conventional System sets. The "selling to parents" point definitely is important, but another reason people don't buy Castle and Space is because Lego doesn't sell them as they would "conflict" with licenses like SW, Harry Potter and LOTR. I'd love to see a well-built semi-realistic space theme (inspired by the type of illustrations you'd see in popular science mags) with sets based on locations in the solar system like the Moon, Mars, Venus, Titan and Europa. It would also be nice with a castle theme with a little more focus on "civilian" structures similar to Medieval Market and Mill Village Raid, too bad Lego has such a rigid attitude to religious buildings as a church really is the centerpiece of any medieval village.The first ever MTT was on my list until the 2007 version, and the only reason to get it now would be for completionist means for the older sets. I could have chosen something I knew was not good by word of mouth like the latest MTT and that AT-ST, but with all the mudslinging I saw at those older sets in the AT-ST review purely because they were old (I doubt most that crapped on them actually owned them. They have some fantastic functions and utilize great innovation in my opinion.), what are we going to do with the sets we have coming out now in ten years? While I may know that the sets I listed are considered bad, I do not know firsthand why they are bad. It's easy enough to do like knowing a Transformers movie is going to be bad, but how severe? The Ultimate Collector's Series represents the pinnacle of the LEGO Star Wars theme, usually valuing detail and authenticity over every other factor. 75098 Assault on Hoth was released in 2016 and does not adhere to those principles at all, instead containing an array of small models which would be far better suited to a standard retail set by the admission of the set designer in the instruction manual. These models are of mixed quality and combining them to form a focal point does little to improve the design. Thomas the Tank Engine would be a great choice for a system licensed theme. (the old tv show). Theres roughly 70 years of fans and the lego train fans would go crazy. (this is if there were parts included to remove the engine's faces). Yes, with the 1:41 scale of the article more emphasis is put on figure height. This works for most vehicles but the smaller walkers like AT-RT and AT-ST are missing width, especially the latters 2009 version can barely manage one pilot. This is why the common AT-ST mocs with Bionicle ball joints go the route of recent official sets and veer towards 1:32 or 1:35 scale which is frankly too large, especially when they then go on to put them next to 1:41 starships, but it easily allows 2 seats and interior. I think it is not fair to say those sets from early years are bad, because designers got limited amount of well designed slope pieces[1] and the idea of combining interesting building technics to create play feature revolves over times.[2]

Notes: Canon sources sometimes give a length of 23.40 metres, but that describes the fully armoured BTL-B Y-wing Starfighter deployed during the Clone Wars, rather than its later stripped-down equivalent. Using that figure and the following simple calculation, we can ascertain the approximate minifigure-scale for every vehicle. Maybe if the FO AT-ST had at least improved on the design of the legs by making them posable it wouldn't be as bad. Unfortunately it doesn't do that though so it easily gets my vote.

Conclusion

I definitely fall into the camp that believes comparing the builds from the first few years to sets from several years later is something of a pointless exercise. As already mentioned numerous times, the color palette, available parts, and experience in creating these sets was at a much lower level than later. For the most part, the best you could hope for was an approximation of what was being created. I think each of the three sets listed here actually do a good job in that respect. However, there are a couple of mitigating factors to be taken into consideration. Firstly, the designer probably only had access to limited material from which to take inspiration as the set was created while the film was in production. The range of pieces and colours available was also far less comprehensive than it is today. Elements such as curved slopes, which have been used to good effect in modern Sith Infiltrator sets, were not created until 2004. 7184 Trade Federation MTT Millennium Falcon is constructed at minifigure-scale, measuring 84cm in length. While perfect accuracy cannot be verified, I think the Millennium Falcon appears appropriate beside minifigures and am therefore satisfied with this scale. The onscreen vessel reaches 34.75m in length, giving an approximate ratio of 1:41.369 for 75192 Millennium Falcon. As for "accountants had taken over Lego and people only care about making money instead of bringing joy and creativity to children", any company nowadays is about money. Like it or not that's the world we live in. LEGO can't make sets if they don't bring in the money to do so. Star Wars brings in the money, and quite a lot of it.