Random set of the day: Sith Infiltrator
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 7151 Sith Infiltrator, released in 1999. It's one of 13 Star Wars sets produced that year. It contains 244 pieces and 1 minifig, and its retail price was US$30.
It's owned by 5120 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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30 comments on this article
That printed piece on the rear end is beautiful! Nice Jang Review too.
Swooosh!
Man this thing is ugly.
This set has 244 pieces. That is the piece count of the A-wing or 6 wide Speed Champions car these days. So much more detail than 20 years ago in these sets.
Most sets from the 1999/2000 waves of Star Wars have aged quite well, I think. They introduced a large number of versatile new elements and colors that are still used today and applied those elements in clever ways to create instantly recognizable, surprisingly functional, and sturdily swooshable models that still embody a classic Lego look that goes all the way back to Classic Space. I'm particularly fond of the original X-wing, A-wing, TIE fighter, Millennium Falcon, speeder bikes, landspeeder, Naboo fighter, and Anakin's podracer.
This is not one of those. Even at the time, as a kid squarely in the target demographic, I could tell that this was a boring, blocky, shaky slab of bricks that barely looked like the spaceship in the movie. It sure wasn't much fun to swoosh when I got to play with it at my cousin's house. I'm sure the designers could have done better with the parts available at the time, but maybe they were handicapped by limited access to concept art. On the other hand, the Darth Maul figure was perfect. Would anyone care to tell us about how this ship was actually their favorite one to play with as a kid?
This thing is clunky and chunky, and it's 1999 Star Wars at its best. I love it so much.
In my opinion they’ve never quite mastered the Scimitar. Probably because of the spherical cockpit. Non the less an enjoyable set with classic Star Wars chunk
Nostalgia! I bought this and 7150 at the same time. I was so incredibly excited to see SW sets on the shelves. I had been building my own versions of SW ships and walkers since 1980, so it was amazing to see actual LEGO sets.
This set still has a prominent place in my Death Star room. First set in my collection.
I love this thing precisely because it looks so terrible! Correct me someone if I am wrong, but wasn't this literally the first Lego Star Wars set? I'm sure Lego did their best considering the lack of parts and technique we take for granted these days.
The first Star Wars wave released in 1999 was all Original Trilogy sets. The sets for Episode 1 were the second wave.
@iwybs I wouldn't say that this is my favorite by any measure. My favorite character is Darth Maul, his figure is great, his bike is great, the way they made the probes are good, and the main cockpit and how they store the bike in there is also really good. My biggest complaints are that the landing gear are just pistons that can be snapped off with incredible ease, and I guess how the set is a little shaky because of the odd technic pin connections they insisted on using for all the early Star Wars sets. So many sets use that idea, and on the one hand, it's nice for the sake of having modules for ease of building, but unless you build on top of the studs that are connected via the pins, it certainly doesn't feel sturdy as a finished model when things rattle. Of the 13 sets released in 1999, it probably would be ranked last, but it would be more from a standpoint of it not necessarily matching the source material as well as it could, as well as the ship just being obscure in general since the only times you see it are in the dark and landed (how exciting...), not because the set itself is actually bad. And to me, it has always looked better in person than it ever has in the box art because that storage compartment in the middle of the ship is open, which kills some of the shaping.
It's just a bit of an odd-looking ship. The colour-scheme always turned me right off. Although I'm sure I picked up that figure of Maul, somewhere.
As ugly as this is, I can’t help but love the old school STAR WARS sets. They have such blocky charm!
The onscreen familial relationship between the Scimitar and the TIEs continues on down to how this set was constructed. The build is sort of a flipped around version of the 1999 TIE Advanced, with the "TIE cockpit" element even being used for the back of this set. On the opposite side of the ball, the pin connectors joined the back fin on the TIE, while they connect the nose on the Scimitar.
The opening section on the nose was very cool, but it is a little weird that they decided to show it opening up on the box art. It kind of messes with the silhouette they are trying to sell. I think they were trying to tease out as much action and motion out of it as they could. Not only is there nothing for Maul to fight, he's the only minifig in the set.
When I was a kid, I modified the shape a little and wrapped the set in tinfoil to make a Naboo Royal Starship, haha.
@Brickwright said:
"When I was a kid, I modified the shape a little and wrapped the set in tinfoil to make a Naboo Royal Starship, haha."
Brilliant! Now THAT is what Lego is all about!
@iwybs Right there with you! Even in 1999, despite being extremely excited - as a young adult coming out of my very brief dark ages - about the novelty that was Star Wars Lego, this set stood out as pretty damn boring. Most of the others did age much better, including the small 7101 lightsaber duel between Maul and Qui-Gon Jinn.
@PJMcC Let's just say there are a lot of smaller parts in recent 250-parts sets like Speed Champions cars or the A-Wing. This one was basically a basic parts set of grey plates, slopes and bricks!
@Chills
“This set still has a prominent place in my Death Star room”
Wait you have a whole room for a Death Star? Care to elaborate? Cause that’s awesome.
I got couple of SW sets from the first wave. I was picky about it and honestly, none of the Episode 1 sets interested me. Not that I didn't like the movie, I did actually, but the vehicles didn't look all that good as Lego models. This set is the best example to prove that.
Classic Star Wars. So many new parts have been created for Star Wars sets. It's amazing what they built these early sets with. I feel it's more impressive to own these early sets than all these new expensive sets. I still get old and new though.
Anybody else wish Lego would give us Maul’s ship from Rebels? It was a nice consolation for him losing the Scimitar.
This one did not sell well in my local Toy Store, so I was lucky to buy it at 50% discount. Not pretty set, but a nice addition to the collection of early SW sets.
This was my very first Episode I set that I (or actually my parents) bought at Legoland Windsor on the occasion of my very first visit to such a park — and Britain — in August 1999. I remember building it in the coach on the way back home. I think it was not going to be available in Belgium before October, as the film was only released much later than in the USA.
Surely were due another one of these. Only had about 3 of them in the last 10 years
I definitely do have fond memories of playing with this particular set as a kid. I probably got it when I was 11 or 12, and after I had seen the movie. I decked mine out with extra guns. This ship would usually "lose" any of my Lego dogfights, then I'd detach the cockpit section with the solar wings as an escape pod/mini TIE Advanced, ha. Good stuff. Am still a big Lego Star Wars fan, but have never gone for a newer Sith Infiltrator set.
Many of the original '99 wave of Lego Star Wars sets have, in my opinion, a sort of charm to them despite their blockiness. That may just be nostalgia speaking, as they were my first introduction to the world of SW, so I had no mental image to compare them to; but there was something really appealing and charming about a lot of them, even to a non-SW fan.
This one... is not one of those.
Though I may be biased because I had the 2007 version of this set, which I found much more appealing. I think, mostly, that it's all in the nose shaping; the '07 version - despite, as someone said when it came up as RSotD a while ago, Lego not quite grasping the most effectively use of curved slope pieces at that point - still managed to capture the knife-like shape that it was famous for in canon, where this one more just... looks like a layer of bricks sticking out. Still, it was a valiant first effort on the part of the designers!
The thing that started to most bug me about the Lego Sith Infiltrators, though, is how off their size scale is compared to Maul. I get that they're scaled down for play; but when the printed exit hatch on the back is only half as tall as the minifigure... I could never quite look at the ship the same way again, once I realised that. Guess that makes them accurately scaled for little micro-figures, though...
I love these sets for the way they are built using a Classic Space design, but cast all the functionality out in search of the ‘movie accurate’ aesthetic- and reading today’s article on the Speed Champions wheel scale accuracy shows just how far we have come in achieving that. So the start of an evolution.
And every time a city set from this era comes up, be thankful that at the time Lego was at least making something out of blocks.
@Your_Future_President said:
" @Chills
“This set still has a prominent place in my Death Star room”
Wait you have a whole room for a Death Star? Care to elaborate? Cause that’s awesome."
Thanks!! I built a good sized room in my basement (31’x15’) that looks like the inside of the Death Star; light panels, walls, ceiling, are all like you’re in the battle station. I have 7 large display cases built into the walls filled with my LEGO and SW collection. I also put in a 100” move screen and a couple of home theater chairs with sound shakers. Soooooo much fun to watch the movies in there.
How does one post pics here?
I've always liked this set in spite of its inaccuracies compared to the source material. I've owned it for about 20 years, and the reason I like it is that it has a certain retro charm. To me, it's reminiscent of the old classic Space sets.
The Sith Infiltrator is my quintessential example of how LEGO design has evolved over the years, starting with this one, primarily studs-up and using mainly traditional parts. What's the ratio of "traditional" bricks or plates to "specialty" parts in the latest incarnation? I'll bet it's much lower than in 7150...
And as others have said: I was happy enough to have Star Wars sets come out to not worry too much about the accuracy of design. These early sets were LEGO sets that happened to be Star Wars; nowadays it's the other way around.
One of the last sets I got as a kid - loved it at the time. The Darth Maul figure was great.
Well, I'll be blunt. Though I was mystified as to what exactly the ship was when I first saw it on the shelves of Target in April 1999, I soon realized that it was a HORRIBLE rendition of the ship seen in the film, The Phantom Menace. Even as crude of times for set design as 1999 was, I felt Lego could've have done so much better. Imagine my disappointment seeing all the TIE ships for years also having that weird black and blue color scheme.
So yeah, wasn't a fan. I liked the 2007 better, but I never managed to get it before it got EOL'd. I got the 2011 version mainly to be a completist, but even now, I see that it still isn't the best possible way to depict the craft in Lego bricks. Maybe that is why Lego keeps remaking it. One day, they'll get it right. Though I hope they realize in order to do so, they have to scale it up!