Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buy it, love it., July 5, 2006
The Sail Barge was a highly requested set. I was a bit skeptical on how this set would work when I first heard about it. It works...and works well.
What a plethora of minfigs! I thought that the Gammorean Guard had been lost forever. Jabba was a no-brainer but I'm glad to see the Gammorean. Lando's helmet...It's like a thing of beauty. I was expecting a samurai helmet but Lego tricked me and pulled this awesome helmet. Cheers! We also got Slave Leia back! Yay! This was a nice jackpot of figures. It also has R2(With drink server), Luke, Han, and Boba.
Well you probably didn't want to get this for the figures,(or did you?)so how's the barge? One word: Beautiful. The barge is alot longer than what it looks like on the box. The stickers aren't all that bad. Don't hurt me... Well anyway my only two actual complaintes are the Boba Fett launcher and the sails. The Boba Fett launcher, is well, out of place. I don't like it. I took mine off, it's not a necessity anyway. The sails are always in the way when placing figures. It get's annoying. Those are my two complaints. The interior of the barge is quite comfortable and is ,well, just dandy.
The skiff is a MUCH better improvement from the original. The plank is now large enough for a figure to stand on. ou actually pull the plank out this time. It's an ingenious design. The skiff is great and nice little addition.
The sarlaac is rather plain and the figures don't fit in it's mouth. But meh. Im would have bought the set without the sarlaac anyway.
What a great set. It is definately worth $75. Heck, it's worth even more but we get it at this price range. This set is definately on the top 5 greatest star wars sets of all time. Get this as a birthday gift or christmas. I would get this over the new Imperial Star Destroyer anyday. Get this set and be glad you did.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Star Wars Lego Set, September 6, 2006
Star Wars Legos come in all shapes and sizes. This set is big with a lot of features. The sail barge is about 18" long, making this set one of the bigger sets in its price range. One of the best features of this set is that the sides of the barge open, permitting access to interior features and a good way of placing figures.
There is a convention's worth of figures in this set. Of course there is Jabba, but you also get Lando Calrissian, Han Solo, Princess Leia, though I was less than thrilled by her slave costume top, Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett, and a Gamorrean guard. You also get a Sarlacc Pit with swiveling jaws. The Sarlacc Pit is one of the lesser features in this set. The jaws are a bit too small to fit a character comfortably into the mouth. Some of the character details are excellent. I particularly enjoy Boba Fett and Lando's helmets.
In addition to the opening sides, the barge includes a swiveling gun and has lots of flat areas for figures. You could easily add many more figures to the decks of the barge. You may need to remove the sails for figure placement, but the sails are relatively easy to remove and replace. You could just leave one or both off for play, and return them for display. There is also a caged area on the barge. Numerous small details on the barge make nice touches. There are poultry legs, a variety of hand weapons, and a snake. The barge is full of features that will invite creativity in display or play.
Another nice feature of this set is the desert skiff. The skiff is about 8" long, and has a swiveling plank. The skiff also has its own stand that makes it easy to display or use in play.
This set is higher priced than many Lego sets. This set also has many more features than many Lego sets. This set could easily be a centerpiece to a Star Wars diorama or a collection of Star Wars Lego sets. Because this set is so large, even a collection with numerous larger sets will find that this set fits in well. I recommend this set highly for your Star Wars Lego collection.
Enjoy!
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32 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tips for construction by a special needs child, September 29, 2006
I quailed when a rash promise forced me to cough up $80 or so for this kit. I was wrong to grimace, the money was well spent. On a per hour and pride measure it was cheap.
It is not a trivial task to build this. One reviewer claimed their son put it together in an hour -- I suspect he's either a world champion builder or they posted on the wrong toy. A middle-aged adult novice builder would take many hours to finish this. In our case it took longer, as our son has some relative disabilities that required a special approach.
I was pleased with how well our approach worked. Over the course of about 7-10 1-2 hour sessions we have build the sail barge. These are the techniques we used to allow a special needs child to succeed: (excerpted from my blog 'be the best you can be':
# Never allow unmanaged access to the kit or the pieces. It is trivial to lose pieces. In our case even a few minutes of uncontrolled access would be lethal to the kit. We keep the assembled pieces in a plastic bin and the parts in other smaller bins -- all stored in an inaccessible area between build sessions.
# There are hundreds of parts. The biggest construction challenge is finding parts. Clear baggies are your friends - gallon and quart/liter sized. Divide parts up first by color (odd colors go together) then by size (big/small) and store them in baggies. Some colors may get partitioned into 3 sizes. Do this dividing beforehand, you don't want your modeler doing this.
# Consider putting similar parts together. This does help with search, though sometimes separating them is a nuisance. It's kind of fun though.
# Search for parts in the baggies, preferably without opening the baggies. This cuts down on lost parts. When a baggie has to be opened, secure the baggie and try to allow only the selected part to escape.
# Feed one part at a time. It's tempting to put together a pile of parts for a given project step, but this introduces too many distracting and confusing variables. Parts vanish.
# Speak sparingly. Use gestures and pointing to help with part location and assembly.
# Imagine you're assisting at surgery (I used to do this when I was a real doctor). Anticipate your surgeon's next step. Deliver the key piece with invisible grace just as it's needed.
# Work in many short sessions. Depending on your modeler's mood and strength they may do more or less part searching. We do 2-6 pages at a time.
# Sometimes my modeler wanted to find pieces himself, sometimes he wanted more help. Attentiveness, flexibility, patience and concentration are valuable. This model teaches more than one skill!
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