Lego Star Wars; The Clone Wars set number 7675; AT-TE: Six legs are better then four!

I, like many others, enjoyed Star Wars The Clone Wars when it was originally airing. I enjoyed the character interpretations, the story ideas, the story structure, to me, it is the best thing set in the Prequel era, the second being Revenge of the Sith. The pilot movie was honestly the first Star Wars film I saw at cinemas. Like many others, I am looking forward to the final season finally being made, even if it's for a streaming service. Do I think it's going to live up to the hype? No, mostly because we know they're sticking to the original plans for the season, and some of those episodes have already been released (albeit in a very, very unfinished state). Unlike some people, I'm not calling for Lucasarts management to be sent to the internet equivalent of the Gallows, and am not believing the "management's going to ruin Clone Wars". To take a stab at that fandom, it's hard to believe anything's "the worst thing to happen to Star Wars" now when the same thing has been said about a lot of things. Do I need to bring up the joke I made when I was reviewing the Flash animation version of Clone Wars where the "let's look at the version of Star Wars fans love to forget exists" could be said about Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 7, The Clone Wars, something I can't remember because this was when I was using linked imaged rather than uploading them so its now a dead link, the Christmas Special and Clone Wars? (Before anyone brings it up, the inclusion of Clone Wars and Episode 7 was a stab at the "Star Wars is only the original trilogy" crowd, and the review was actually done before Episode 7 came out, back in September 2015).

Back on topic, ever since 1999, Lego has been making Lego sets based on Star Wars and its films, original expanded universe, current expanded universe, shows, games, Lego made spin-offs, basically if you can name a vehicle in Star Wars that is somewhat recognizable to general audiences, there's a good chance Lego has made at least one set based on it and the more well known the vehicle is, the more versions of it Lego has made (on Brickpedia under Star Wars, there are 16 results of sets that have X-Wing in the name, just as an example). With the 20th anniversary next year, it's a safe bet Lego is going to keep this IP as long as possible and will try to renew the licence in 2022. For now though, let's look at the Prequel Walker five years in the making (the one before this one came out in 2003 for Attack of the Clones), let's look at The Clone Wars AT-TE.

Starting with the minifigs and... well... when your best one overall is the Battle Droid Lego still hasn't updated since they made it, you've got a problem. It should be said that a lot of the problems the minifigs in The Clone Wars line had was that they were trying to replicate the show's stylized animation style. I appreciate the effort, but it does not work on a minifig face. As a result, these aren't good versions of Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and the two clones you get in this set without their helmets. You get a generic Clone, and Captain Rex though who has another problem, his accessories. Captains, Commanders and other similar ranked clones have more elaborate armour, in the form of side skirt panels and extra shoulder padding. In the set, they are plastic pieces, which do limit the movement of the arms and make the legs impossible to move to any useful degree. While I got this second hand so I don't know if its shared between other clones, but this Rex Minifig also has a very tight fitting helmet, so tight in fact that there have been times when I've wanted to remove the helmet only to completely decapitate him. The regular clone trooper I had, and some I've owned from newer sets have helmets that aren't as tight to put on, so I don't know if this was something unique to the more detailed helmets or was something they fixed later on in the lines life. You also get a Rotta the Hut minifig, which is passable. He's more of an accessory with moving arms but does pull off the Clone Wars aesthetic a lot better than the humanoid faces. What's annoying is that the rest of the body for the figures are great, with relatively solid printing, it's just the faces that kill it.

Alongside the main vehicle, you get a STAP, a light flying vehicle used by Battle Droids during the prequels. I was not a fan of the intended way to build this vehicle originally. as the only thing holding the Battle Droid to the ship was a piece that makes up the turret. The next image down is a recreation of the modifications I made to the vehicle. The ship itself is fine and comes with a solid little clear plastic stand to give it the illusion of flight. While it was added in to bump the price up a bit more (another 30 pieces counting the stand and the droid), it is relatively accurate to the actual vehicle itself, and something like it wouldn't work on its own, so its a harmless inclusion. Due to its size, part count, and no unique pieces (that I know of), its something that's very easy to duplicate for army building as well which does please that side of the Star Wars collectors.

I will admit I have a few biases towards this set. Not only is it something I wanted to get when it was brand new, it's also a set based on one of my favourite vehicles in Star Wars. I love the look of the AT-TE in the film, and it is my favourite of the AT Walkers bar none (Sorry original trilogy fans, I'm not a fan of those, the legs are too long!). So, was the 10 years of "hype" worth it?... Kinda? The set itself does things I'm surprised it does but also doesn't do things I wish it did. For one thing, all six of the legs can move. The front and back legs have limited movement and will return to their default positions thanks to rubber bands, but there is movement in them. The middle legs are also surprisingly mobile as I thought they'd be locked in place for stability. Turns out that while they can move, they are somewhat dead weight, and don't contribute anything to the stability of the set. All the guns can move, though the main turret on mine is quite loose now, and needs a minifig sitting in it to act as a counterweight to the barrel. That's not the fault of the set though, that's just parts losing friction over time. One annoying thing though is that there isn't really any controls for a clone pilot to use the turret, not even something representing a control screen. There are also two hidden firing missiles up the front which are activated by moving the panels they are hiding behind, which does work, though its a little annoying to try and rearm them as its hard to see where the launchers are. The roof opens up in two places to reveal seats for other minifigs to sit down in, which is nice as there's a lot of room for minifigs and their gear, but they reveal one of the big issues that I have with the set. While it's large, its very hollow and there are gaps all throughout it, not something you want in a walking tank especially as the larger gaps are around the centre legs, along with large chunks of the floor completely missing. From a distance, the set looks fine, and thanks to a relatively hidden handle in the center of the walker along with the two compartments, there is a good amount of playability here, but the large gaps are a big disappointment, especially because they could be filled with no sacrifices to the set as a whole.

The set was also kind of boring to build, which does lower the experience of finally owning it a lot. A lot of the build process was just "do what you just did, but slightly different and put it on the other side of the set. It just felt like a drag, especially when doing the front and back legs. Filling in the gaps might have actually helped with this problem to an extent, or it could make it worse as the set is very symmetrical (overall at least). I am still glad I finally own one now, but I still wish there was more here, I don't know if that's asking for too much though, again, 10 years of kinda sorta hype.

What this set does do for me though is make me wish that Lego created some more of their high end "Ultimate Collectors Series" sets based on Prequel era Star Wars ships, because I think the AT-TE would look great in that scale. There have been odd ones every now and then, but most of them have been either expensive re-releases of sets, based on characters, or had the label put onto a really expensive standard set. The only original UCS set that I can think of that is based on a ship would be Obi-Wan's Starfighter, which is something I'm honestly kind of surprised by, mostly because there is one other set that, along with it, that they could do as a reasonable cheap to produce repaint. Repainting Obi-Wan's Star Fighter as Anakin's, or any other iconic Jedi, and repainting the Slave 1 into the colours it had in Attack of the Clones. I do think Lego is overlooking a market here, especially because kids that have grown up with Star Wars Lego did grow up with Prequel sets, the line launched with sets based on Phantom Menace after all. Besides, I'm sure some insane army builder with money to burn will buy tons of them to make a Republic army in UCS scale. For what we have though, this one is fine for what it is, but there's potential for it to be so much more. Even taking out the UCS dream, was it too much to ask for a complete floor and gapless armour? Next week, I'm gonna go back to the Combiner Wars, with my first experience with an iconic character in plastic, Megatron... or rather, the Armada Megatron repaint. Before then though on the main site, Digimon Adventure tri Chapter 2.