Lego Star Wars Resistance X-Wing Microfighter - Review

A slight change of pace today. As anyone who knows the real Darth Crux will know I'm an inner Lego geek and my addiction primarily focuses on the Star Wars themed sets.

Around the turn of the year Lego released some new The Force Awakens sets including both Resistance and First Order battle packs and two of the Microfighter range, an Resistance X-Wing and a snowspeeder. I noticed these kits while I was out shopping and decided to snap up the X-Wing.

The first question has to be are these sets worth the money. In the UK they retail at £8.99 which to me feels a few credits too much. After all these are only very small kits with one figure and 87 pieces. However I'm a sucker for a cool minifigure and the pilot you get with this set won me over. So I threw it in the basket with the weekly shop.

On opening the box you have two bags of pieces and the instructions.

As with all sets I first turned my attention to the minifigure. As I previously mentioned I have a large collection of Star Wars minifigures and this is one of the coolest.

The helmet is beautifully detailed and has a transparent yellow visor built in rather than being painted on to the face of the pilot, as with the Dak minifigure from the 2014 Snowspeeder (75049.)

I've done a couple of comparison shots here of the Resistance X-Wing pilot and Dak Ralter (essentially an Rebel style pilot) so you can see the further developments in just 18 months.

As you can see the older figure does look a bit old fashioned next to the more toned down colours of the Resistance pilot. The detail is certainly far better on the newer figure but the helmet is the real winner here. The detailing is fantastic and is one of the best lego helmets I've seen yet.

As you'd expect from such a small kit, the build is very basic and quite straight forward. The average adult shouldn't take more than 15-20 minutes to complete the X-Wing.

Once built the X-Wing is a really nice little kit which I can see really appealing to younger children. For us older children though, these microfighters miss the mark. I really enjoy building the bigger kits, not just for the actual enjoyment of construction but also for the finished model of a favourite Star Wars vehicle. However we do need to remember these are toys and as I said, young relatives of mine will love this as a collection to their Lego box.

Summary - A cool little set with an awesome minifigure creates an awesome toy but will leave the bigger kids wanting.

Kylo Ren, the greatest Star Wars bad guy?

Every film has its villain and Star Wars The Force Awakens is not short of them. Supreme Leader Snoke, General Hux, Captain Phasma and of course Kylo Ren. The First Order is not short of figure heads. 

Throughout the build up to TFA Kylo Ren has taken centre stage. Snoke stayed in the shadows and we only saw fleeting glimpses of Hux and Phasma. Understandably, Kylo Ren's appearance and the mystery of who he is have made him the poster boy of the First Order. 

And this bias doest alter at all in the film itself. Yes, we do get to see Snoke and he has a big role. Hux also makes several appearances and the hostility between  Hux and Ren is palpable. Phasma's lack of screen time was disappointing and her involvement didn't really do her justice. So it was left to Kylo Ren to steal the show and leads to the question. Is Kylo Ren the greatest Star Wars bad guy?

Kylo Ren may not be the all powerful being that Sidious was or the Chosen One like Vader. But few can match him for sheer cold, ruthless madness. 

In 1977 Vader was the ultimate bad guy but in the modern day he's not going to give anyone nightmares. He's the big bully in the school playground that pushes the other kids round because he's so much bigger than them. Kylo Ren is the villain for a new generation, sinister, evil and believes whole heartedly he is doing the right thing. 

Adam Driver's Kylo Ren is brutal. A villain up there with Heath Ledger's Joker. By all accounts Driver stayed in character all the time he was on set. That must have been one intense, movie set. With his mask on he is a smoldering, yet when that mask comes off Driver gives just as little away.

Watching Kylo Ren go loco and smash up the inside of the his Star Destroyer because his troops didn't bring the map back gives a glimpse of the madness and the sheer anger that lurks beneath. This is one unstable bad guy.


But it's a big claim to call Ren the greatest villain in Star Wars so lets consider some of the competition. 


Emperor Palpatine / Darth Sidious

There is no doubt Sidious is all powerful and has scant regard for people's lives. However he may have been a Sith lord but he rarely got his hands dirty. 


Darth Vader 

Vader is the chosen one and therefor is one of the most powerful force sensitive being the galaxy has ever seen. And while he is evil you know what you're getting with him. There's little unpredictability in Vader.  Barring a few force chokes we see very few of his really terrifying acts. 


Count Dooku

Count Dooku has to count as one of the biggest non-events. Both in terms of Lucas's storyline and Palpatine's vision Dooku was merely filler until Anakin Skywalker completed his turn to the darkside.


General Grievous

The general was certainly power hungry but even considering his appearances in The Clone Wars he's a one dimensional character. The cyborg comes across as nothing more than an over sized battle droid. 


Darth Maul

So much potential but it was never realised. Only really a terror to a couple of Jedi. He came, he killed master Qui Gon Jinn then got chopped in half by Kenobi. It may have been a mistake to kill him off but it was an even bigger mistake to bring him back with robo-legs. 

A new type of evil

Star Wars has always been for all ages and perhaps with the exception of the end of Revenge of the Sith (the whole Order 66 thing) has always played a little safe. We know Vader murdered thousands but we never saw it. We knew the emperor was evil but he was also a straight forward 'I'm going to blow up worlds' kind of bad guy.

Kylo Ren is different, we see him give the order to murder innocent villagers on Jakku, carrying out phsychological torture and showing he is not in possession of all his marbles. But while JJ Abrams has to be commended for creating the villain we all wanted and Star Wars needed there are a few minor gripes. 


Spoiler coming up - stop reading now if you've not seen The Force Awakens!! You have been warned 


It's a mind game

We see Ren use mind control to torture people yet Rey manages to enter Ren's mind while he is trying to read hers. Surely something as practised and powerful in the force would be able to block out someone with no force training.


Rey1 - Ren 0

We see Kylo Ren literally stop a blaster bolt in mid air but then gets bested by Rey (who has never held a lightsaber) in a duel. I know this was all done to emphasise how powerful Rey is with the force, even if she doesn't realise it yet. However as the first in the new series of films I would have preferred for the heroes to escape Ren by the skin of their teeth. It gives them something to aim for. We now already know Rey can beat Ren. What happens when Rey gets more powerful. 

Is it a contradiction to suggest Kylo Ren is the greatest Star Wars bad guy then say he's too weak? No necessarily, the weaknesses come from the storyline and the need for Rey to be the next great hope. As a combination of the character, the acting and the role he plays in the storyline there aren't many bad guys that can stand shoulder to shoulder with Kylo Ren.

Spoiler - coming up. Hold on tight and stop reading if you don't want to know.

Darth Maul was one of the few good things to come out of the prequels and it is one of the biggest travesties that he gets killed off so early. Maul was a brooding, killing machine and his death at the hands of Obi Wan was such a waste of a potentially great character.

One of my big concerns was Kylo Ren would suffer the same fate. JJ would create a villain the fans loved, only to see him killed off cheaply in the final scenes. At least Kylo will return to strike fear in to the people of the galaxy's hearts again.


So is Kylo Ren the best Star Wars bad guy? In terms comparison there are others with similar or more power. Yet few are as much of a mix of bubbling, unstable hatred. He's also got so much more to come. We now know he has few morals and isn't afraid of tough decisions. Kylo Ren was one of the stand out characters and it will be awesome to see where Episode VIII takes him. 

As the Joker so famously said, "whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you....stranger."

Simon Pegg is Unkar the junk dealer

Another Star Wars: The Force Awakens character is named as we reveal Simon Pegg is Unkar Plutt the junk dealer from Jakku.

From the early days we’ve known Simon Pegg would play a cameo role in The Force Awakens. Speculation was rife as to who the life long Star Wars fan would play and this only increased when pictures found their way out of Pegg in some form of costume that pretty much confirmed he would be playing some sort of alien being. In one interview he even went as far as saying the alien he played is “rather troll-like.. an angry-looking oaf [witha] huge downturned nose.”

 Then several weeks ago the Disney Channel released a short TV feature with an image of JJ Abrams and Daisy Ridley talking to an alien creature with a down turned nose and looking quite troll like. Suddenly everyone put two and two together, it looks likely this is who Pegg plays in TFA.

 Compare the suit Pegg is wearing in the first picture and the second photo and it certainly looks like it could well be his character (just without the shoulder armour). But still we didn’t know who this character was. Everyone assumed he would be a background character with no real role in the storyline.

Well now we know Pegg will play Unkar the junk dealer. Over the weekend Amazon Canada accidentally let a new Star Wars figure called Unkar Plutt slip on to their site. While it was quickly removed, a picture still found its way to Rule of Two.

This is quite clearly the toy of the character Daisy and JJ are talking to, who we believe Pegg is playing. We know he is a junk dealer (which seems to be a big commodity on a planet with nothing but sand and crashed Star Destroyers.) From the fact we know he has 'thugs' it can also be assumed he's not the nicest of chaps on the lawless desert planet of Jakku. So it looks like Pegg might have landed himself a little more than a bit part.

Unkar will definitely not be one of the key players in The Force Awakens, however expect him to appear in several scenes as the stage is set on Jakku.

Of course a much harder task will be identifying which Stormtrooper Daniel Craig is. When asked about his role Pegg let slip 007 is lending his services to the First Order in TFA. The filming of Episode VII and Spectre did over lap at Pinewood and it’s not out of the question. Of course it could just be a red herring by Simon Pegg to keep us guessing, Craig has certainly denied it.

Why not leave us a comment below, is Simon Pegg really Unkar?

Are the Sith all bad?

Do the Sith get a pretty raw deal? Constantly labelled as the bad guys the Sith have to sit back and watch as the Jedi swan around like the proverbial golden child.

Sure there are some bad eggs in the Sith order and no one is condoning genocide, oppression and blowing up the odd planet or two. Let's face it Darth Sidious has some serious underlying issues. But what if the balance between Good and Bad, Jedi and Sith wasn't so clear. What if the basis on which the Sith are founded was no more or less evil than the Jedi. What if we look at a few key factors 'from a certain point of view?'


The Jedi wanted control of the Republic
Pay attention, the Jedi were going to take control of the senate in Episode 3. Mace Windu himself declares Palpatine must be removed from power if he does not step down after Grievous is killed. Why? Palpatine may have played the game somewhat to get elected as Chancellor and then ensure the senate gave him executive powers. However it was all done democratically. To remove him with no vote, no discussion. Is that not a coup?

Windu with his version of fair justice

Even once Anakin tells Windu of Palpatine's true identity he still doesn't have any actual proof. Just the opinion of a slightly deluded, unstable young man. Yet he marches in to Palpatine's office and tries to kill him. Which brings me to another point. Aren't the Jedi all about compassion and doing things the right way but here is one of their Grand Masters trying to execute a political leader with no trial. Not very gentlemanly at all from a Jedi who has an impenetrable aura of passive aggressive.


Competition is healthy
The Sith believe conflict is the only true test of one's ability and the challenge conflict gave forced individuals and civilisations to grow and evolve.

This is simply an evolution of the survival of the fittest theory. It is also the reason the Jedi became almost extinct. By refusing to challenge themselves and grow and evolve they limited their ability while the Sith constantly pushed the boundaries of what is possible with the force and how it is used. As the saying goes 'Evolve or Die.'


How many clones died?
Yes Sidious may have had a role in the forming of the clone army but it was the Jedi who sent hundreds of thousands of them to their death.

Why didn't they supplement their army with droids to lessen the human / clone death toll? Surely with the wealth of the Republic they could have developed an army of droids equal to the Confederacy's Commando droids. Led by clone troopers the Grand Army would have been equally as effective with a much lower loss of life. Instead they just ordered them to their death.

Evidently for Jedi all life is not equal.


Why show no emotion?
The corner stone of the Sith's belief system was around emotions and the power they gave. Anger, Hatred and Fear may have been the perceived by the Jedi as negative emotions but by definition you must care about something deeply to be able to have these feelings. The emotions of anger, hate and fear are also extremes of very normal, emotions of love and caring.

By not caring how would you ever value what you fight for. Sith use their emotions to focus and strengthen their use of the force. As we all know, some who fights because they care is infinitely more powerful than a mercenary who doesn't care.

Surely Anakin turned to the dark side because he wanted to protect Padme. Now we all know that led to some pretty dark moments but his intention was to save his wife. How can loving someone be bad, for most people surely it makes them stronger not weaker

Someone who doesn't allow people to love doesn't sound like a shining beacon to us.


The rule of two
One of the corner stones of the Sith belief was there where only ever be two, a master and an apprentice. By enforcing this the control of power was much greater. Rather than having hundreds of powerful, force sensitive beings running around you have two. How many rogue Sith do you hear of? How many Jedi went rogue?

There were Dark Jedi, yet they like their light side counterparts weren't as powerful as the Sith. They couldn't focus the force through their emotions.

There's no doubt that by 40BBY the Jedi were generally compassionate and powerful peace keepers and the Sith were scheming to take control of the galaxy. Yet they are two sides to the same coin. It's clear the Sith started as force sensitives who embraced their passion and emotions. It's also clear the Jedi were not the whiter than white, monks they would like to appear as.

A clear subject this is not.

Why not give your opinions below in the comments box.

Who would wear a helmet like this?

It's a good question and one that immediately sprung to mind on looking at the Wired.com gallery of props from The Force Awakens. As you'd expect there are loads of First Order Stormtrooper helmets, updated blaster rifles and pistols that look like they've been made from scraps in a junk yard. There were also buckets of the new X-Wing pilot helmets (pun intended.)

In a number of different colour ways the new helmets looks just what you'd expect from an evolution of the classic rebel pilot's helmet we're so familiar with. My personal favourite is the white, blue and yellow with the classic Biggs chequer board design.

For many people though the inclusion of an original style rebel X-Wing helmet will have largely gone unnoticed. But it raises questions, why is it here? Whose is it? If the Resistance has new equipment including helmets who's the old stick in the mud who is still wearing an old helmet like this?

Could it be someone who hasn't had much contact with anyone for a couple of decades? Where ever Luke is hidden away, could he have taken an X-Wing to park up in the garage and polish? How great would it be to see Luke charge back in to the fray at the helm of his old skool X-Wing.  The colours on the helmet may be different to what we're used to but I'm pretty sure there aren't too many Resistance pilots in their new fancy X-Wings with the old bucket on their head.

Perhaps the inclusion of this helmet gives a subtle nod to the fact Luke has been out of touch for a few years. Whatever the reasoning and the ultimate story line what we can be assured of is the new Star Wars universe will look the part.

One of the key factors that cemented the original Star Wars films in our hearts was how beat-up everything looked. The Falcon looked like it had a few parking lot dings and the X-Wings definitely gave the feeling they had had a tough innings. Thankfully it looks like we're back in this second hand world. Gone is the polished, shiny finish of the prequel trilogy and back is the worn out, dusted up galaxy we all love.

Head over to www.wired.com to see the full gallery including Captain Phasma's helmet and blaster and Kylo Ren's awesome cross guard lightsaber.

Is Luke the Supreme Leader?

Ok bear with me, this is another crackpot internet theory with no basis and no 'insider knowledge'. Because of this it's probably total and utter rubbish. Probably.

But let's just have a look at the evidence to be on the safe side eh.

So there has been plenty written online about whether Luke Skywalker is actually Kylo Ren and do you know what there's some evidence that could back this up. But do I think he is? No, and to find out why feel free to go and watch the ace Collider Jedi Council who explain it perfectly.

But it got me thinking...

The Vader helmet

It's assumed Kylo Ren is the one holding Vader's helmet in the trailers but how do we know this? Does it not make more sense that the person with Vader's mask is the only person who was at Vader's funeral? How would anyone find the helmet otherwise?

If a funeral happens in a forest with only one person, do people know where to look?

What if it's Skywalker / Snoke holding the disfigured helmet of the Sith Lord? Is Kylo Ren on board to carry out Luke's bidding, is he related to Luke? Just because we hear what we think is Kylo Ren talking doesn't mean he's the mastermind.

Is this 'released' image a decoy in typical JJ style?

The power!!!

Ok so at the start of ROTJ we have three powerful force users. By the end of the movie we're down to one. So one person, the son of the chosen one, the son of a man with a definite dark streak a mile wide, even when he was playing for the Jedis.

Does three in to one go?

Is it not inconceivable the power got to Luke, haunted by his father's legacy he also turns to the dark side? Who would stop him?  Plenty of great men have fallen for temptation.

Following on from this, if Luke had gone to the dark side would he really be taking orders from someone else. No, in my opinion if Luke did take the red pill he is definitely the leader (Snoke) not the apprentice (Kylo Ren).

Where's Luke (and Snoke)?

JJ and Disney have been so careful to keep Luke and Snoke out of any of the promotional material. Is this a coincidence? JJ has recently said that Luke's absence from promotional material is to protect the plot line not a marketing ploy. From this we must assume that by seeing Luke it would reveal a major spoiler. Surely this must relate to his visual appearance.

Is Andy Serkis just a decoy to draw attention from Luke? It certainly wouldn't be the first time JJ Abrams has tried to pull the wool over people's eyes. Remember Star Trek In To Darkness?

In the second trailer released we hear Luke say "the force is strong in my family, my father has it, I have it blah blah blah." Notice the wording 'my father HAS it', present tense, not past. What if Vader / is still influencing Luke from beyond the grave to finish his work. 

Anakin's lightsaber

Similar to the Vader mask, who else would even know where to start looking? In the expanded universe there was a tale that it got caught in an air vent in Cloud City was found by a maintenance crew and eventually made its way back to Vader. If Luke / Snoke doesn't have his lightsaber back maybe he's is really attached to it and is sending the might of the First Order to retrieve it. 

Starkiller base

Another massive clue or a red herring. Anyone with more than a passing knowledge of Star Wars knows in early drafts of Star Wars there was a character called Annikin Starkiller who filled a Luke / Anakin style role in the story (Luke Skywalker was an old Jedi in the Obi-wan mould). George Lucas only changed in later versions to Luke Skywalker.being what we now know. Is it coincidence that they've now used this name for the First Order's HQ? Is it a simple nod to history? Many of the designs being used in Rebels are inspired by the original Ralph Mcquarrie designs. Is this just a neat little reference to George Lucas' original tale? 

Annikin Starkiller

As a young journalist I was once told there is no such thing as a coincidence.  In this case I'm inclined to agree. 

So was Aunt Beru right, does Luke have too much of his father in him? It's an outside chance but there is definite evidence that Luke could be the Supreme Leader of the First Order and in the 30 years between ROTJ and TFA there has been one major slide to the dark side for the Rebellion's golden boy. 

If you're doubting whether the simple moisture farmer from Tatooinecan be evil, just consider who Mark ham ill's other big character is. None other than the comedian of chaos himself, the Joker. Hamill can definitely do evil, in fact he has gone on record as saying he suggested to George Lucas that it would make a more interesting angle if Luke went bad.

Hell I've even managed to persuade myself. Brace yourselves folks, Luke really is Supreme Leader Snoke. You heard it at Rule of Two first.

Let me know what you think in the comments box below.