Lego Cloud City Slave 1

LEGO has been producing large models in the Ultimate Collector Series of LEGO Star Wars sets since 2000, which was only the 2d yr of the LEGO Star Wars theme. But on October 1st, 2018, LEGO volition be releasing 75222 Expose at Cloud Metropolis, the kickoff in a new "Master Builder Series" focused more on playsets based on locations than on large vehicles similar the 7,500-piece 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon. This showtime set up in the series includes 2,812 pieces with 18 minifigs and will retail for $349.99 in the Us ($399.99 in Canada | £299.99 in the UK), and information technology'due south available early to LEGO VIP Program members today.

LEGO tells The Brothers Brick that the new Principal Builder Series branding will be applied to "complex" sets that include "many play features and functions, interior details also as a range of minifigures." Allow's dig in and find out if the set lives upwardly to that description.

The packaging & instructions

Like UCS sets, the new packaging for the Chief Builder Series has black bars surrounding the main production photo, with the production details (age range, fix proper name, set up number, office count, and so on) in white text within the bottom bar.

Besides like recent UCS sets, the Deject Urban center box includes an interior box printed with key quotes from the picture scene too as line fine art of the set itself. Unfortunately, LEGO's production procedure still baffles u.s. — the interior box includes alternating numbered numberless rather than the first bags.

After opening the interior box, y'all have 13 numbered sets of bags — well-nigh numbers have one big handbag accompanied by i smaller numbered handbag, plus another unnumbered purse with smaller parts inside the big handbag. The educational activity booklet is in its own wrapper, with the two sticker sheets.

And the instruction booklet itself mirrors the style of UCS booklets, featuring interviews with the LEGO Star Wars pattern squad. As we think nearly this ready in relation to UCS sets like the Falcon, it's notable that this set was created by the same squad backside the UCS Falcon itself (Design Director Jens Kronvold Frederiksen, Model Designer Hans Burkhard Schlömer, and Graphic Designer Madison O'Neil). Fifty-fifty if a different overall team was involved in the design, LEGO has chosen to highlight the same three team members in both instruction booklets.

The sticker sheets include many of the iconic details on groundwork walls seen in Empire Strikes Back, equally well as miniaturized hull patterns for Boba Fett'due south Slave I.

The build

Given 13 numbered sets of bags with multiple vehicles and distinct locations within Cloud Urban center, one would expect a highly modularized build, and your assumptions would exist largely correct. The first bag involves lots of brick and plate stacking to create the landing platform. Wedge plates manage to capture the platform's circular shape.

The 2nd prepare of bags includes the parts for Boba Fett'south Slave I, comparable in size and part count to the start version of the bounty hunter'due south iconic send released in 2000 (7144). Of form, this latest version isn't just a stack of brown and bright green slopes. Like 75060 UCS Slave I and the 2010 version earlier it, this mid-scale Slave I uses curved elements in dark carmine and night greenish to capture the spaceship'due south unique shape.

Similar many vocal fans in the comments, I wasn't entirely sold on this set based on the official production photos of 75222 nosotros shared recently in the declaration article. And that impression wasn't improved by the rather tiresome build from the first numberless. Simply this footling Slave I in the second batch of bags turns out to exist rather wonderful, with clever techniques like the bending of the long section below the cockpit.

Then we plow to the bags numbered 3, which are a literal pile of basic bricks.

All these bricks effect in a simple X structure that underlies the platforms on which the residue of the set up is congenital.

The offset quarter-section of Cloud Metropolis begins with more than basic bricks and plates in bags #four, higher up which larger plates are in turn attached.

The underside of this department comes together with vi "legs" built from basic bricks and inverted slopes.

This platform section and so attaches to the Ten-shaped base, leaving connection points for subsequent sections.

Fortunately, the teaching booklet designers seem to understand how tedious repeating the same blazon of build procedure over and over can get, and then you build the Deject Metropolis interior areas on this first platform using the parts in bags #5-6 before building another plainly platform. The model designers here meet a major problem in depicting Cloud City as an interesting LEGO fix — as important and iconic a location as information technology is plot-wise in Empire Strikes Dorsum, if you accept the time to look carefully at the living sections and corridors backside all the action, Cloud Urban center itself is rather plain and sparse. As a result, the white-on-white, modern-looking section of Deject Urban center doesn't actually have much detail beyond the occasional abstract wall art or continuing sculpture.

The doors throughout Cloud Metropolis either slide side to side or up and downward, and every room has one such door. The 6th set of bags includes the parts for the outside wall, with a sliding door out onto the landing platform. Most sliding doors congenital from LEGO have used stacked bricks. In Deject Metropolis, LEGO uses the unique shape of 2×two hinge brick tops to build the sliding doors from outward-facing plates instead. This allows the doors to have brick-built details that would be harder to achieve with studs-up building techniques.

The outer wall includes a row of lights as well as a low wall around the balcony area that connects to the platform.

This exterior wall department attaches via Technic pins to the previously built quarter of Deject City, and the landing platform hooks under the balcony (but doesn't actually attach).

Numberless #7 include the basic bricks and plates for the interior areas across from the white-on-white quarter-department. The platform uses the same techniques, and isn't worth spending much time on. Still, the detention block and recycling room are a bit more interesting than the rooms in the white section, then afterwards the eighth numberless you lot have a big gray, black, and dark red surface area with a completed detention cake, including Darth Vader's torture device. Bags #9 finish this section, calculation the recycling room where Threepio nigh gets incinerated.

The tenth numberless include a decorative microscale version of the Cloud City skyline that sits atop the playset, as well as the angled sections that split the urban center into quadrants. The skyline consists of a variety of spires and rounded structures, though I have to admit to existence a scrap distracted by the open studs at this calibration — perchance topping more of them with ane×1 round pieces or filling them with rods would have created a cityscape that looks less like a bunch of smokestacks. For example, note the clever apply of manifestly gray microphone pieces on a couple of the buildings. I also call back the fundamental spire could be quite a bit taller.

Four identical wedge sections adhere to the central core of Cloud City and create visual divisions between the iv sections.

The microscale skyline then drops onto the meridian of the centre.

We return to building another vehicle in the eleventh bags, featuring a revamped Twin-Pod Cloud Car — we'll accept a closer await at this airspeeder when nosotros hash out the finished model afterward in the review. Bags #12 include all the parts for the carbon freezing sleeping room, which begins with an intricate Technic mechanism.

Unlike the one-half-circular chamber in 75137 Carbon Freezing Sleeping room released nearly 3 years ago at the offset of 2016, Deject Metropolis includes a full platform, built from wedge plates continued with hinge plates.

The completed platform has no unnecessary details or play features like the 2016 version, and we'll render to its fantabulous working feature later in this review. Similar the landing platform, the carbon freezing sleeping accommodation simply hooks nether the staircase rather than attaching straight.

The final set of bags includes the parts for the gantry where Luke's parentage is fatefully revealed. The gantry is held upward by transparent panels attached to a black tile base of operations. We think this could have been accomplished with a Technic beam embedded into the master department (eliminating the need for the rather unsightly supports), but that might have precluded the hinged attachment point for the gantry that allows the whole thing to swing out to the side or swing in for a more meaty footprint.

The finished model

When completed, Cloud City measures 22″ wide, essentially identical to the UCS Falcon's primal saucer section (without the forward mandibles). Two of the quadrants include detailed interiors, while the other two quadrants feature other of import locations from the movie. The landing platform and carbon freezing chamber are fully detachable — in fact, they unproblematic hook under the main section and aren't fastened at all.

Viewed from to a higher place, information technology'southward easier to see how the various areas of Cloud City fit together, with the white-on-white living section opposite the prison and industrial section, with open areas on either side that include the landing platform, carbon freezing sleeping room, and gantry.

Unlike the UCS Falcon, the underside of Cloud Metropolis is not meant to be seen. The playset is very sturdy when picked upwards from underneath, but I tin't aid thinking it would accept been sturdier if more of the bricks were sandwiched past plates, and the interior of the base were built from a Technic lattice rather than criss-crossed basic bricks. Granted, most people aren't going to exist flipping Cloud City on its head like we did, but we can certainly anticipate builders who want to display it higher up or even engineer a central pylon for it to stand on. The wide-open underside certainly doesn't lend itself, at to the lowest degree out of the box, to such display options.

Despite the lack of detail on the underside, Deject City feels like it was definitely intended to exist raised upwards, given how amazingly well-balanced the whole structure is. Here, nosotros've placed the whole playset on a single colonnade on a 2×2 connexion (albeit minus the landing platform and carbon-freezing chamber, which aren't directly continued).

At that place is one detail that extends through the platform to the underside — a ladder presumably for Luke to hang down and call for Leia's assist after Vader cuts off his manus. The fact that at that place is an underside item like this actually exacerbates its unfinished look, since information technology focuses attention there.

As nosotros noted earlier, the gantry department swings out to the side then that Cloud City has a fleck more of a horizontal footprint. Doing and then disconnects the doorway from the gantry, but provides a unlike fashion of displaying and playing with the set up.

Fifty-fifty if the set looks rather thin during the build process, in one case you lot identify both the vehicles and all xviii minfigs on the set, it becomes a hive of activity and visual interest.

We'll have a closer look at each interior section in a moment, simply get-go let's focus on the 2 vehicles included with the set. After several larger versions of Boba Fett's Slave I, including the 1,996-piece 75060 UCS Slave I released at the beginning of 2015 (and the LEGO Star Wars set that both Chris and I have listed as our all-time favorite), this version feels rather tiny. All the same, it's incredibly well proportioned, with wonderful shaping and splendid detail for the size.

The wings swing upwards and down just similar the movie spacecraft and the larger LEGO sets, though the blaster cannons don't rotate and there's no doorway from the rear ramp into the ship.

Boba Fett does fit into the cockpit, evoking the offset Slave I set released eighteen years ago.

The underside of the ship includes engine details, also equally a large gap that hints at the answer to the question, "Merely how will Boba Fett transport Han Solo encased in his block of carbonite?"

The open department has clips, and the block of carbonite fits snugly into it.

There'southward room on the landing platform for Boba Fett to bladder Han out to Slave I.

Ships sit in the middle of the large landing platform in the picture, simply such an enormous flat expanse would be a waste of space in a set like this. For this scale, the landing platform fits Slave I very nicely, so nosotros wondered how the Midi-Scale Millennium Falcon (7778) released in 2009 would look on the platform. The Falcon is much more flat and longer with its mandibles, so it overhangs the landing platform a bit, simply the platform does provide a new fashion to display your smaller-calibration Falcon.

In fact, Slave I and the Millennium Falcon are fairly like in size (Boba Fett's transport is really rather large), so information technology'due south worth comparing these two ships side by side. I e'er thought the Midi-Scale serial was far as well brusque-lived, and the improver of other ships in the same calibration would have been fantastic. Well, hither nosotros take what is essentially a midi-scale Slave I.

The LEGO design squad addresses their colour choices for some of the outside sections in the interview in the instruction booklet, focusing in particular on the landing platform. In the motion picture, nigh of Cloud City appears with an orange hue, which turns out to be a reflection of Bespin's clouds rather than the underlying color of the structures themselves (we know LEGO works direct with Lucasfilm for reference info, so we'll take them at their word on this point). The designers acknowledge that the landing platform is actually gray like the rest of Cloud City, but they chose to build it in tan so it more closely resembles how viewers perceive the colour of the platform. Similarly, the micro city in the middle and the divider wedges are properly grayness rather than the orange that they appear on screen.

Excluding micro and mini versions, LEGO hasn't released a Twin-Pod Cloud Automobile since 7119 in 2002. That version was reddish and brown and included Lobot. This version replaces chocolate-brown with spots of orangish and nighttime cherry-red, but retains the overall red colour scheme. Re-watching Empire Strikes Back every bit nosotros worked on this review, Chris and I both agree that the deject car is actually orangish, not just from the reflected color of Bespin below.

This is confirmed by official reference photos as well equally the decisions made past numerous other toy makers over the years, including LEGO themselves with the Bespin planet set (9678) in 2012. The decision to return to red is a rather baffling one, though the shape of the vehicle itself is rather excellent, with engine details on the back and brick-built cockpits.

The cockpits open like a clamshell to let the pilots to enter and exit, though it's a petty cramped within once they're seated.

The cloud car fits neatly on its ain landing platform on the industrial side of Cloud City next to the detention cake.

Shifting focus back to the locations inside Deject City, the first interior scene features a rather obviously hallway our heroes walk through as they go out the landing platform. This hallway includes a pointy sculpture in the eye of the floor, replicated accurately in brick form.

As Han and Leia follow Lando, Threepio wanders off and finds himself confronted by (every bit nosotros learn afterward) an Imperial stormtrooper, who blasts him autonomously. We don't see much of that room, but the LEGO version includes some greebly pipe details.

Chewbacca finds C-3P0 on a conveyer belt, about to be fed into an incinerator past a bunch of Ugnaughts. The conveyer chugalug is built from Technic pins betwixt Technic liftarms, heading toward the orange glow of the incinerator (a 2×5 trans-orangish brick built behind the oven). This is also where we briefly glimpse IG-88 lying confronting the wall, faithfully included here by the LEGO designers — a wonderful easter egg for hardcore Star Wars fans (we'll explain in more detail when nosotros hash out the minifigures afterward).

The room where Leia and Han look for Lando includes a helical sculpture in the center of the room, captured remarkably well with a simple stack of transparent 1×1 tiles. This room in detail highlights the large stickers applied to panels throughout the set, with grayness lines evoking the shadows from white-on-white textured wall designs.

As we noted earlier, each room has at least one door that opens and closes, and this one illustrates the way that the up/downwardly doors work.

The conference room where Darth Vader and Boba Fett ambush Han and Leia includes a miniature version of the table, covered with trivial plates and mugs, along with what appears to exist a chocolate cupcake. Ane consequence I have with large stickers on large panels is when the sticker color doesn't properly match the underlying brick colour. The tan stickers in this fix do not match the tan panels to which they're affixed, and that results in big, obvious stickers like the ones in this room.

This is one room that doesn't skimp on interior details, with an interesting round sculpture (a model of Cloud City itself?) in one corner and a hanging sculpture on the opposite wall. These details are absent in the even more boring movie interior, then I can't fault the LEGO designers for adding some visual interest here and there. (The odd gap higher up the sculpture behind Han'south left shoulder is for the Technic pivot that holds the door up when information technology's raised.)

Next upwards in our chronological bout of Cloud City is the detention cake, where Darth Vader tortures Han Solo without fifty-fifty asking him whatsoever questions.

The torture device folds up and down and then you can shove Han'south face into a agglomeration of nasty needles, if that'southward your thing.

Han can't catch a pause, every bit he'south summarily carted off to be frozen in carbonite as a reward for Boba Fett, and equally a test of the bedchamber's capabilities in freezing Luke as a prize for the Emperor.
The carbon freezing chamber fits with a staircase built into the detention block section.

A pair of silver cupcakes act as knobs that claw under the staircase, holding it securely in place when Deject Urban center is on a apartment surface.

We mentioned earlier in this review that the carbon-freezing chamber includes an intricate Technic mechanism at its base. The purpose of this should exist evident from the large lever connected to the mechanism, also every bit the look of consternation on Han'due south face as he stands in the heart of the platform. In my rather negative review of 75137 Carbon Freezing Chamber, I wrote that the mechanism that just flipped Han in his carbonite cake front end to back was rather "fiddly," and suggested that the ready's other ii play features could have been eliminated in favor of a more proper carbon-freezing machinery. To quote myself, "It's not like Han disappears entirely and up pops the cake of carbonite in his place. Now that would be a remarkable play feature!" Well, fast forward nearly 3 years and behold the remarkable play feature that the LEGO designers have incorporated into this version of the same scene.

The lever at the base flips Technic liftarms up and down on Technic axles, moving Han as a minifig down into the carbon-freezing chamber itself, while immediately flipping him in frozen class back up to the surface. It's an ingenious machinery that'south brilliant in its simplicity and confirms my negative opinion of the previous incarnation in 75137.

The gantry where Luke's right hand meets its fateful finish is also brilliant in its simplicity, with well-nigh of the parts focused on the complicated sensor array at the end of the catwalk. LEGO even produced the Archetype Castle pitchfork in calorie-free grayness for the outset time in club to get the lower details right.

In the movie, the gantry extends out from an enormous, sail-like structure. Obviously, such a huge structure would be impossible to replicate in a LEGO ready this size, so the border of that canvass is alluded to with a slanted doorway that connects back to the primary sections of Deject City. I'm not sure I like the large gaps, nor the 6×6 radar dish serving as a window, connected solely via a click hinge that wobbles back and forth. Nevertheless, the overall outcome is solid, with lot of great item at the stop of the gantry and some nice guardrails made from flex tube.

The minifigures

The truthful departure between a UCS set like the Millennium Falcon and this new "Master Architect Serial" is axiomatic in the sheer number of minifigs. 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City includes 18 minifigs and 2 droids — Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and Lando Calrissian in the outfits seen on Cloud City, together with Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO; Han & Leia in their Hoth outfits as they get in on Cloud City; Lobot, a pair of Bespin guards and a pair of Twin-Pod Cloud Motorcar pilots, along with an Ugnaught; and finally Darth Vader, two stormtroopers, Boba Fett, and IG-88.

Lando and his fellow Cloud City residents are well-represented in the prepare, with vii out of the 18 sets. The 2 Bespin guards wear uniforms that are identical to the minifigs included in 75060 UCS Slave I, though they have different heads. Information technology'southward a bit of a shame that LEGO has never included the cuff blueprint since printing them on the artillery of the Bespin guard in the 2006 Slave I (6209). Similarly, Lobot is identical to the version included with the 2012 Bespin/Two-Pod Deject Machine planet set (9678). Lando is, of form, the real star of the Bespin crew, with an outfit completely redesigned from the very first Bespin Lando from the 2003 Cloud Urban center ready (notable as the very outset LEGO Star Wars minifig to feature an accurate skin tone).

All four minifigs have detailed printing on their backs.

Similar the cape that Billy Dee Williams wears then snazzily in the movie, Lando's LEGO cape is low-cal bluish on the outside with a swirly gold design on the within. Unlike many recent LEGO capes, this one uses the traditional stiff cloth rather than the newer soft cloth.

For Deject City, LEGO has produced Twin-Pod Cloud Machine pilots for the first fourth dimension. They wear unique white helmets with printed carmine details, and though the two minifigs are completely identical, they take reversible heads so yous tin switch them and distinguish them a bit. The Ugnaught shares its head blueprint with the Ugnaught included with 75137 Carbon Freezing Sleeping room, though this Ugnaught has dark-brown printed pilus details rather than white on the 2016 version.

Like the other characters, the pilots and the Ugnaught have rear printing on their torsos.

Along with Lando, ane of the standout new minifigs in this gear up is Han Solo in the outfit that he appears in every bit he exits the Millennium Falcon on the Cloud City landing platform, accompanied by Leia, Chewie, and Threepio. The latter two characters are common across many LEGO Star Wars sets, while Leia wears the same outfit that she wears in the UCS Falcon.

What makes this version of Han — the same character variant with a blue jacket and brown pants that appears in the UCS Falcon — so fantastic is that Han's legs are dual-molded, with printing on the sides. The black knee-high boots are made from black plastic, while the dark-brown pants are made from brown plastic. Han's distinctive military stripes are then printed along the side of his legs, with his holster hanging on his right hip. The overall upshot is stunning.

Han and Leia both accept reversible heads, different from the versions included in the UCS Falcon (which featured respirator masks).

This rear view of the Falcon crew shows how the dual-molding wraps all the style effectually Han'south legs, rather than just appearing on the front and sides. Dual-molding beginning appeared in LEGO Collectible Minifigure sets several years ago, and it'due south great to meet the technique used in more and more mainstream LEGO sets.

Leia and Han as well appear in the outfits they wear in later scenes on Cloud Metropolis. Leia in her long dress is the third standout minifig of this fix, taking advantage of the new curved clothes slice first produced before this summer in the Harry Potter / Fantastic Beasts Collectible Minifigures. This is some other grapheme variant that hasn't been produced since the original Cloud Urban center prepare in 2003. One disappointment is that Princess Leia has a distinctive hairstyle on Bespin, featuring looped braids, simply LEGO has not produced a hair slice that matches that hairstyle. LEGO does produce unique pilus pieces on a one-off basis, then Leia continuing to wear her Hoth hairstyle in her Bespin outfit should make all hardcore Star Wars fans like me a bit itchy. Luke Skywalker also gets a Bespin makeover, wearing a night tan jumpsuit, accompanied as e'er by Artoo.

The detail on Leia's long dress extends down her dorsum equally well, though Han's white shirt lacks any rear detail. Luke'due south jumpsuit has pouches.

All iii human characters have reversible heads. Although Leia'south head is identical to several other versions of the grapheme, Han has a new caput that shows him woozy from Darth Vader's torture. Similarly, Luke has a determined expression as well as one worse for vesture from his encounter with his newfound father.

Speaking of the Nighttime Lord of the Sith, Vader is accompanied past two generic stormtroopers. Vader himself is indistinguishable from all the versions included with recent sets that have featured him in his new, two-piece helmet.

The stormtroopers both feature identical Clone Trooper faces, and Anakin has a slight smile on his decrepit face up.

Cloud Urban center would not be complete without Boba Fett, who is identical to the previously exclusive version in the UCS Slave I, including the detailed arm printing. The set also includes IG-88. Now, why is IG-88 in this set at all, you may wonder. Well, in the scene when Chewbacca rescues the disassembled C-3P0 from the Ugnaught incinerator, there is an IG droid lying confronting the wall. There is cypher in the movie to indicate that this is IG-88 from before in the movie during Darth Vader's parade of bounty hunters, but not-motion picture sources say that IG-88 followed Fett to Bespin, where Bespin security caught the droid and left it for chip.

Under his helmet, Boba Fett has the same Clone Trooper caput equally the stormtroopers (which does brand sense, given that Fett is also a clone of Jango Fett). While it's a shame that this splendid version of Boba hasn't been included in smaller sets, it is prissy to have it available in something other than just the UCS Slave I.

Conclusions & recommendation

At $350 for just over 2,800 pieces, at that place are two means in which y'all're paying a premium for 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City. First, LEGO Star Wars sets are almost always more expensive on average than other sets due to Disney/Lucasfilm licensing fees that LEGO has to pay, and that they in turn pass on to us. Second, this set up includes 18 minifigures, and minifigs are more expensive to produce than the average 2×four brick. As a result, we can't recommend buying this fix solely on value for the book of brick. Similarly, it's difficult to recommend most of the set for innovative building techniques — with the exception of the remarkable carbon freezing bedchamber play feature, most of Cloud Metropolis itself is stacked bricks, plates, and panels. Where the set shines, though, is less in the underlying city than in the pair of vehicles and all the minifigures populating information technology.

I don't like reading LEGO gear up reviews that are merely lists of the pros and cons from the reviewer'due south perspective — that seems lazy on the part of the reviewer. But there are some LEGO sets equanimous of enough disparate parts that a rest of pros and cons is inevitable. 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City is just such a set, with 2 fantastic vehicles, several truly stellar new minifigures, and at to the lowest degree 1 absolutely fantastic play characteristic. Simply the loftier cost, adequately basic edifice techniques for the city itself, stickers that don't lucifer brick colour, and the common minifigs bulking upwards the 18-minifig count all work to counter the set up'south positive attributes.

Finally, it'due south worth considering this ready as office of a new Master Builder Serial within the LEGO Star Wars line. To epitomize LEGO's recent statement about the new branding:

The Main Architect Series models are large playsets and beside being complex builds they are characterized by having many play features and functions, interior details as well as a range of minifigures. Ultimate Collectors series will remain highly detailed display models providing complex builds with a focus on authenticity and both Ultimate Collectors Serial and Master Architect Series volition keep equally a way to highlight the unique characteristic of each style of model.

And then, permit's unpack this statement point past point:

"Large playsets:" Check — 75222 is undeniably a large playset.
"Complex builds:" Partial — 75222 includes some circuitous and innovative building techniques, but certainly not on par with whatever of the contempo UCS vehicle sets.
"Many play features:" Partial — it's hard to count doors that open and close as a play characteristic, so that leaves the torture rack and the carbon freezing chamber.
"Interior details:" Partial — 75222 has lots of interior spaces, though the very nature of the source textile means that the interior must follow a rather thin aesthetic.
"Range of minifigures:" Check — 75222 includes eighteen minifigs, with 6 that are new or redesigned.

In other words, Cloud Metropolis doesn't necessarily even alive upwardly to LEGO'south own definition for the new branding (though our assessment of complexity and play features may concur the set to a higher bar than LEGO themselves do). Correct or incorrect, hardcore LEGO builders — those who design their own models like the ones we characteristic every day here on The Brothers Brick — ofttimes look askance at LEGO fans who "but" collect and display official LEGO sets. Ironically perhaps, assigning the truly complex sets like the UCS Falcon, UCS Slave I, and UCS Snowspeeder to a new "Master Builder" branding akin to the "Creator Expert" brand for modular buildings like 10260 Downtown Diner while applying the "Collector" label to minifig-centric sets similar Cloud City and the much-reviled 75098 Assault on Hoth might have landed improve with builders. But and then again, I'm no market research proficient and I may just be reflecting my ain AFOL myopia.

Our announcement article generated quite a passionate discussion in the comments, based initially on the production photos and press release. Now that TBB has had a hazard to share more photos with yous forth with our ain impressions, what practise you recollect? Let us know in the comments!

75222 Betrayal at Cloud Metropolis includes 2,812 pieces and eighteen minifigures. The set will be available October 1st exclusively from the LEGO Store (USD 349.99 | CDN 399.99 | GBP 299.99), also as from third-political party sellers on Amazon.com, eBay, BrickLink, and elsewhere.

The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Read more than reviews from the current wave of LEGO Star Wars sets:

75203 Hoth Medical Sleeping accommodation
75215 Cloud-Rider Swoop Bikes
75216 Snoke's Throne Room
75217 Imperial Conveyex Transport
75218 X-wing Starfighter
75219 Imperial AT-Hauler
41619 Darth Vader & 41620 Stormtrooper