LEGO Star Wars: A New Hope Mos Eisley Cantina 75290 Building Set, Master Builder Series, Model Kits for Adults to Build, Collectible Gift Idea

This was definitely a lockdown purchase that combined the fun of an intricate puzzle and my obvious love of Star Wars. Yes, price is high but once you finish the set you end up with a beautiful mini town that captures the movie feel better that any other toys. So here are the + and - : The design is genius as the bar completely opens and offers fun elements like the back door, Greedo & Solo “got shot” seats, the removable roofs. The figurines are gorgeous, exciting and replicate to perfection the Cantina atmosphere (although I would have loved one of the cosmonauts included as they are very weird and unique to the Cantina and maybe another R2 unit for the outside part) I disagree with some reviews saying the outside part and other buildings are disappointing. Once you completely open the bar, the back walls are very detailed and fun, with a “junkyard” effect plus that secret door. The extra buildings are different so they give a sense of variety and textures. But the BIG plus for me are those familiar mini towers that you can move around. They are so accurate and immediately enhance the Mos Eisley buildings. The 2 vehicules are very cool particularly if you add Luke's Landspeeder. You can also complete the set with Obi Wan's hut and get some extra Jawas & Tusken Raiders for a complete Tatooine experience. Some small critics though : LEGO needs to built movable legs for the short characters and I wish Chewbacca was toller also, ultimately I think they should offer 3 different lengths of movable legs. Also the drinks/ bottles design could have been a bit more creative. Final comment from someone who used to play LEGOs in the 80s : I used to love the LEGO floors, those big squares that would replicate the moon surface or the desert with their little dunes. They were so great to built sets and immediately create a landscape. Wish they would be back!

This purchase started with a simple search for a set with C3PO (I had 5 R2D2's but no annoying gold humanoids fluent in... you know). Could have chosen cheaper sets but fell in love with this one on sight. When it arrived I got so excited about most of the 21 characters. More about that later. The build was so fun, with tiny details like creating the imperfections in the walls, the seats that Han and Greedo use actually 'pop' up to make the freshly-lazered Greedo slump forward! The amazing unseen extra parts added by Lego with Disney/Lucasfilm blessings (i.e. the back-bar). I must have watched the 10-ish minute scene 100 times while making this model. I have to fight my children to stop playing with it, they can't pronounce most of the names (not can I) so their fave characters are bum-face, wonky-head, and long-nose-guy! The facts that come in the booklet are great as well. Apparently 47 characters in the actual scene, I'm happy with 21 of them, but wouldn't mind swapping R2D2 (yet another one) for the badger-sloth guy in the film! Love this set!