There’s the box. It’s got a landscape orientation to it with a shot of the completed set on the front and back and various panels to show the goodies that are included. It’s also got Darth Maul’s ugly mug on the right corner. Are we back to putting his face on everything again just because he came back for Clone Wars? That’s apparently the case, because they’ve even got his face on every other page of the instruction book. Blah! Inside the box you get the usual instruction booklet, three loose long bricks, and three numbered baggies containing a total of 213 pieces. The pieces build the Skiff vehicle, the Sarlaac and four minifigs. As always, we’ll start with the minifigs.

I don’t envy Lego trying to decide which four minifigs to go with in this set. There were lots and lots of options and whoever they went with, the roster was inevitably going to feel incomplete. In the end, they decided on Jedi Luke, Lando in Skiff Guard Disguise, Boba Fett, and Kithaba… Wait, Kithaba? Really, Lego? We couldn’t get a Weequay? I wanted a Weequay. Boo! But, hey… Boba Fett! I’m sure he’s been done a billion times, but since this is my very first Star Wars Lego set, I’m glad to have him. Let’s check out the good guys first…

Luke is nothing special, but then he didn’t really need to be. He’s got a black body with the robes printed on the torso. The head and hair are unremarkable, and he only has one printed face. I do dig his lightsaber, though, and he’s a competent enough minifig. Lando is a little more exciting. Lego did an awesome job with his helmet and pike. Unfortunately, he lacks a hair piece, so you can’t really display him sans helmet, but that omission is the only flaw in an otherwise excellent minifig.

Moving on to the pair of scum and villainy, we’ve got Kithaba and Boba Fett. I don’t have a lot to say about Kithaba. He’s ok. He’s got nice, bright red pants and a dewrag for his head. His printed face is good and he comes with a little holdout blaster. Boba, on the other hand, well he’s the man, and he’s downright awesome. Besides the printing on the body recreating his armor, he has his trademark jetpack and half-cape, sash, thingie. His helmet is amazing and it fits over a head with a printed unshaven face. The targeting arm clips into the helmet and can rotate. It looks a little big, but if it were any smaller it would get lost too easy. Lego generously provided four of the arms as replacements, because chances are you’ll lose this one too.

Let’s get the Sarlaac out of the way first because I’m not all that crazy about it. It was a nice bonus to round out the set from a play-ability standpoint, but I really hate the Special Edition version of the Sarlaac and this Lego interpretation kind of looks like Audrey II in a kiddie pool. I’m probably being way too hard on it. It does have a pair of poseable tentacles and the mouth does open up and you can fit a minifig inside it. I think a lot of my criticism of the Sarlaac doubles back to my feeling that this set should have been bigger, but I’ll come back to that thought later.

The Skiff is excellent. At first, I thought it would be undersized, but it seems to be scaled pretty well to the minifigs, particularly when I compare the way the Kenner/Hasbro toy was scaled to the 3 ¾” figures. The Skiff was a fun build, and hits all the major design points of the original vehicle model. It holds together really well (despite the fact that you can see a loose brick in my pictures) and comes with three short, clear pylons for it to stand on and give it a levitating look. You can also string them all together for one really tall, albeit precarious, stand. I really like the overall two-tone brown and tan color scheme as it’s suggestive of an animated version of the likes you might have seen in the old Droids cartoon.

The Skiff includes a couple of cool play features too. The box on the deck opens up to store weapons (two bonus holdout blasters are included), the rear rudders are completely articulated, and the gangplank swings out from one side. And no, I’m not going to bitch that it just doesn’t slide straight out, because obviously sacrifices had to be made. You have a pilot station on the back for Kithaba to stand and work the controls. I also really dig the little flick-firing missile launcher mounted under the vehicle. It’s a nice little added design bonus.

At $24.99, I think this is one of the better priced Lego sets I’ve picked up in a while and with all the Holiday sales going on, you can probably even do a little better on the price if you hunt around. The four minifigs and the great vehicle make me happy enough with the purchase, so the Sarlaac is just gravy. The set is a good enough value that I may wind up grabbing a second so that I can have two skiffs and an extra Kithaba and then trade away the figures and Sarlaac.

Truth be told, I’ve been admiring a lot of the recent Star Wars Lego sets, so I think today’s purchase was inevitable and I’m pretty sure  it will end up being some kind of gateway floodgate. As Obi-Wan said, “Let’s go! You’ve taken your first step into a larger world… a world where you sign away even more of your monies to some company in Denmark.” Or something like that. As for today’s set, I honestly wish Lego had gone a little bigger on this one. It’s not that the Skiff feels undersized, but they could have gone for two skiffs, more minifigs, and a larger Sarlaac base. As it stands, though, it is a fine set. You get everything you need to have a battle and while I still can’t approve of the “Audrey II” style Sarlaac, Lego did the Desert Skiff proud with this model.