The design is quite imaginative. There are a variety of uncommon pieces which bring the entire build together. The completed product seems very durable, so I think this may be enjoyed by kids with little or no worry of restore often. Finding the finished product come together was incredibly fun.

Artoo is probably my favorite character in the Star Wars universe. Sometimes I think its because he’s the only one that never had a single line of bad dialogue! But really its because the design is one of the most iconic robots in cinematic history. I like Artoo so much that I joined the astromech builders club and am currently in the process of building my very own full size remote controlled aluminum droid. So needless to say, I’m one of the more ardent fans of this little guy and when I first saw the announcement of this Lego set I knew I’d have to get it one day.

At a whopping 2127 pieces, this has to be one of the largest Lego assemblies short of those crazy sculptures you see in Lego stores. It comes in bags marked with numbers 1-10. Be careful because one of the two “9″ bags is marked “9.” to help designate it from the “6″ bags, but the other does not have the period. Luckily it was fairly apparent right off and I repacked the “9″ bag before it got mixed up. It also takes three manuals, which for the most part are easy enough to undertand even though there is no text to aid in the assembly, only pictures. It may have helped if the previous assembled pieces were screened back while the new pieces for each step were full bright color. However, I made it through only having to go back a few steps because of mistakes once or twice.

The R2D2 LEGO has a small number of capabilities. It has a third leg that drops down via a lever on the rear. The left and right legs rotate backward. None of the legs have wheels, using smooth domed tiles instead (what the Legoscenti call “boat tiles”). It has an I/O port that swings out from the front-right (useful for disabling Death Star trash compactors), and a rotary cutting tool on the front-left; both of these tools are also controlled from the rear. For both tools, you must open their respective hatches by hand before deploying them. The blue horizontal arms on the front-middle swing open as well. The head has full rotation. The set comes with a display plaque and a mini figure R2-D2, just in case the large one is not enough.

I spread the assembly out over two weekends, taking my time and stopping whenever I got tired of being hunched over all afternoon. Plus I stopped and photographed each assembly step in order to make a time lapse video. So my assembly time may be a little bloated over some others, but it took in the neighborhood of 12-15 hours.

Overall this can be an enjoyable Lego set that could create an excellent addition to the Star Wars collection. Challenging yet fun. This set looks really good when all put together and has some cool functions as well.

R2D2 LEGO – Perfect Gift For Star Wars Fans is a post from: WiredWriter