[REVIEW] 75301 Luke Skywalker's X-Wing Fighter

[JackJonespaw]

My father used to tell me “boy, ain’t nothing like an X-Wing.” At the time, I’m pretty sure he was talking about his perscription Dexedrine. He used to name all his medicines after Star Wars ships. Simvastatin was a TIE Fighter. Omeprazole, that was a Y-Wing. And Hydrochlorothiazide he called the Star Destroyer. 

Miss you, Dad.

Monday’s Pill: 75301 Luke Skywalker's X-Wing Fighter

Tuesday’s Pill: 474 Pieces

Wednesday’s Pill: 4 - Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, Princess Leia, General Dodonna

Thursday’s Pill: $49.99 | £44.99 | 49.99€

Friday’s Pill: Star Wars

So, the X-Wing. The most iconic ship in all of Star Wars. And one of my least favorite ships, design-wise. After a certain point you realize the rebellion skipped C through W when it came to naming their ships.Where’s my K-Wing, Rebels? Isn’t that just an X-Wing with two of its wings folded?

I digress. This is Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing Fighter, which is awfully possessive, as I always felt the Rebellion just lent him a spare ship for the Death Star assault. Hence why there’s no Red 6. But hey, what Luke wants, Luke gets. His X-Wing is doing one of two things it always does in LEGO sets: flying down the trench or being lifted out of a swamp. Imagine that being your ship’s legacy instead of, like, one of its wings becoming a door.

This ship can do all sorts of things. Lift R2-D2 out! Open the cockpit! Move them wings! Fire some missiles! And the back of the box sure depicts that with up to 90% accuracy. 

There’s 4 bags in this set. One for each wing, if we were being symmetrical with it. But we’re not, so the Wings are relegated to bags 3 and 4.

Our first minifig is Luke, surprise surprise. Did we stop doing the molded visor and go back to printing them on the heads? Did I miss that? Luke has his typical confident smile on both faces and - wait, confidence? Did LEGO watch the same movies as I did? When was this guy ever confident? Annoyingly aloof in Episode VI, maybe, but hardly confident.

We also get R2. I feel like sometimes LEGO just looks at an R2 figure and has to figure out how to change it in some way. Silver head? Darker blue colors? We gotta get these kids their money’s worth here with this here exclusive R2 fig!

Step 1, or 17, or something like that. I will say, it’s pretty cool to see some unorthodox building in these sets. To LEGO’s credit, they’ve gotten a lot more liberal with funky piece connections than they were in the early 2000s.

That’s Bag 1. The nose of this strange looking ship which...wait, couldn’t you call it a T-Wing? If you look at it from above? Naming it after an X really discounts a whole half of this ugly ship.

In Bag 2, a Princess for you! Or me, or whoever. LEGO really seems to remember these characters being more confident and smirky than they actually were. Like, never once did Leia make this face in all of the trilogy. Is there some EU reason I’m unfamiliar with?

Like, I don’t even know who this dude is, but, aside from looking like my dad, which is a plus, he’s also not smirking. That expression on the left mirrors me when water boil overs in a pot and it hisses on the burner and I’m worried it might set off the smoke alarm. Major worry. Hey, maybe that’s his name.

Bag 2 mainly consists of building this Technic thing, which has maybe more pins and holes than I’ve ever used in my whole life thus far. Better leave this kind of stuff to VBBN or mostlytechnic. I mean, they’re mostly technic! You’d figure they know what’s going on better than I do.

Anyway it opens like this. For the wings. I figured that one out, but I legitimately have no clue how it actually functions. I would’ve just used hinges and called it a day.

That’s Bag 2. Building out the booty of the ship. Now might be a good time to let you know this ship will be looking very bare. I have a strict no stickers rule. I have horrible memories of digging through old LEGO pieces and seeing a half-peeled sticker covered in hair and grime. No thank you, I will not desecrate this white ship with such sordid ideas.

Bags 3 and 4 are identical - just do the wings. It’s nothing special, and awfully boring, but I suppose we had to do it sometime.

So you can push in the top like this, and the wings expand. It’s extremely difficult to actually photograph that, however, so you’re probably going to have to take my word for it.

Luke goes here -

R2 goes here -

And the back looks like this! Huh, what a weird flow. I swear that was going to lead into a joke, but I didn’t actually have one.

Because it has to, this X-Wing has missiles! If you haven’t clicked with my missile-based comedy by now, then I think you might have missed that train.

I mean...it’s an X-Wing. I honestly try and critique every set I do, but I’m having trouble really buckling down a thesis on this. It’s just...fine. I don’t like the stickers, and I don’t really see the necessity of them when we’ve had so many great X-Wings before without stickers. The minifigs are definitely nice, and I remember the days where a Princess Leia figure was coveted. Still, it’s just...a fine set. Perfectly inoffensive. Same as the TIE Fighter, it’s only been two years since our last X-Wing, so I still fail to see the necessity of this when there are so many other ships to remake. Cheaper is always better, and I don’t think the set is bad because of the quality. I just don’t feel one way or the other about it.

Perfectly average gets you a perfectly average score of 3/5.

So what do you think? A good X-Wing, or a bad one? Or an average one? I’m trying to feel outrage or joy about this thing, but then I see it and I just...don’t really see anything at all.

Thanks to LEGO for providing me a review copy of this set. And thanks to Eurobricks, and you, for sticking with my very strange reviews all these years. I couldn’t do Eurobricks reviews without Eurobricks, so...thanks!

Hope you’re proud of me, Dad.

[Mylenium]

5 hours ago, JackJonespaw said:

Perfectly average gets you a perfectly average score of 3/5.

Pretty much nailed it. I'm not quite sure what to make of this new breed of SW sets. Sure, the more compact builds are nice for kids and make the models more swooshable, but at the same time the appeal of something more realistic is lost. By extension I'm also dreading that getting a "realistic" model now might end up meaning that you have to buy super expensive stuff at the UCS level. You know, that reaction-counter-reaction thing.

Mylenium

[JintaiZ]

Great review! As for the set, I honestly thing it is the best X-Wing ever produced...

[macaron35]

15 minutes ago, JintaiZ said:

Great review! As for the set, I honestly thing it is the best X-Wing ever produced...

The best playable x-wing for kids probably

but as a collectible x-wing, the 2018 one was better for adults imho

[Maple]

I actually think this is one of my favorite X-Wings ever. The details on the other newer ones aren't worth double the price and really don't add anything to me. However Leia's face is really weird.

One of the newer movies was going to have the awesome D-Wing from the video games but it was cut.

[Agent Kallus]

Great review, entertaining and fair.

The is a k- wing (because of course there is , it's pretty ugly imo), theres also an e-wing and lego made one of those, but they gave it a strange name like Jeff 40s sneaky ship ( aka JEK-14's Stealth Starfighter).

 

 

 

[Metagross555]

How you can you call yourself a Star Wars fan and not know that there is a K-Wing? :P

[Tariq j]

Great review! Love your style and comedy. 

[Yoshifan33]

1 hour ago, Metagross555 said:

How you can you call yourself a Star Wars fan and not know that there is a K-Wing? :P

Or that he's ackshually named General Dodonna?

[Commander_Rob]

1 hour ago, Metagross555 said:

How you can you call yourself a Star Wars fan and not know that there is a K-Wing? :P

Or know who General Dodonna is...

Anyway, a solid, slick X-Wing for 45-50 currencies units is a pretty good proposition. Sure, the 2018 model is great with some mods, but its RRP was also twice as much, and out of the box I think this one actually looks better.

[Pirean_Grammaticul]

wtf the giant technic module was great and it works like a charm; what are you on x-wings

[Sucram]

your reviews have been my favourite thing on this website since the Imperial Shuttle review, so glad youre back

[Calanon]

Whilst I don't care much for the actual X-wing in this set, the minifig selection is pretty nice indeed. Very nice to finally get General Dodonna.

[MKJoshA]

Thanks for the review! I personally think this is a great improvement over other X-Wings Lego has made. Can you show some more pictures of how the new engine mold fits in system with other Lego elements?

[Garmetrowolf]

Great review! Hurray for another x-wing... 

Edited December 25, 2020 by Garmetrowolf

[SteamSewnEmpire]

On 12/23/2020 at 10:03 AM, macaron35 said:

The best playable x-wing for kids probably

but as a collectible x-wing, the 2018 one was better for adults imho

This. I don't like them 'half assing' play scale ships like this. Either do it right, or don't do it at all.

[macaron35]

7 hours ago, SteamSewnEmpire said:

This. I don't like them 'half assing' play scale ships like this. Either do it right, or don't do it at all.

I agree with you but it's difficult for lots of people to spend $50-70 in a ship for a kid. Prices are always going up especially with SW sets. At some point, they have to release more affordable sets, that's what they are doing in 2021.

That's why I bought the 2018 x-wing. And I chose not to own every single x-wing they sell.

You might be disappointed if you collect them all

[Redroe]

I was hoping for some commentary on how rigid the wings are when open/closed? Is there significant flop? Clacketiness? I thought Luke holding his own ship's wing up might be leading up to a punchline. 

[makoy]

I am surprised your review did not even mention the rubber, or the disadvantage of the new technic assembly housed in the model which is responsible for the opening and closing of the wings.

I'll probably give +1 more point for the price because it is an X-Wing relatively the same size as the previous one, and yet the price is only 2/3 of the old ones. Really a great feat there... almost impossible 'feature' coming from LEGO Star Wars.

For that alone, I'll give it a rating of 8 out 10 because the value in this set is incredibly higher than what used to be, even if it is targeted more towards kids. But hey, LEGO has always been a toy aimed at kids anyway. Adults like me should not complain that it became more kid-friendly.

[jimmynick]

I think it's a fabulous little set at a great price point. I have no need for this one but I like the 3-wide nose, the canopy and the minifig selection. Thanks for the review @JackJonespaw!

[Another Brick In The Wall]

It's amazing how they were to get the correct droid orientation on such a small scaled, compared to some of the larger X-Wings (I know this was corrected in the 2018 X-wing).  If anything, this is a nice stop gap until the UCS X-Wing gets a refresh in 2-3 years time. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Another Brick In The Wall

[matterich]

I am mostly excited for the new pieces in this set for custom building. Since I have not been able to find this information anywhere else yet, can you tell me how many of the 1×1 brick with a Technic axle hole are included in the set?

[Hans1961]

Very nice !!

[KevinYoung]

Oh snap another  x wing 

[russs15]

Personally, I think this set is flawed and potentially dangerous, especially for the kids that the set is designed for. The front landing gear clip does not properly connect to anything and just sort of hangs in place falling off far too easily. With the nose facing the floor, two of the ends of the laser canons fell off. With the slightest of nudges, R2 falls out and the nose fell apart a couple of times just while I was holding the ship to fix on the wings. I would imagine after a good swooshing session that quite a few bits would be missing. These are all fixable and I hope that Lego do so quickly before someone's baby brother or sister finds the missing bits on the floor first!!!!!!! On a plus point, the wing mechanism is pure genius and worth the purchase price just to build that!