Random set of the day: General Grievous Chase
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 7255 General Grievous Chase, released in 2005. It's one of 26 Star Wars sets produced that year. It contains 111 pieces and 2 minifigs, and its retail price was US$20/£14.99.
It's owned by 5544 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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28 comments on this article
Hello there!
What a set. People will probably complain about a lot of it, but man, I love Boga and how the Varactyl was made with the Dinosaur parts from 2000 with an elongated midsection. Yeah, you built the animal! Sure, you still hook some parts together for modern animals from time to time, but it's just nice to put together the parts of the body and it not be with completely huge molded parts. It may still be prefab, but there are more parts too it, making it more customizable if you so chose.
And General Grievous' vehicle is interesting because it's primarily Technic with the build. I will say though, the ball joints are very loose on mine, too much transformation between walk and wheel mode. And as for General Grievous himself, well, the arms always broke for me, but thankfully, there's tons of white droid arms, unlike the newer Greivous design, those arms broke on me, too, but they're so expensive. There was also a cool doublesided cape that was a dark red brown on the inside with the light gray and a dark gray parttern on the outside. A nice rare thing to see, even today.
I will say though, the set is not perfect. Light gray lightsaber hilts, the bane of 2005 that lasted through 2008. Chrome lightsabers were gone and the lacquered silver ones weren't in production yet. But other than that, an excellent representation of the Utapau scenes from Revenge of the Sith.
@MCLegoboy said:
"Hello there!"
General Kenobi...
I would've loved to hear the conversation between George and the special effects team when making this scene. Also we need a new varactyl in Lego soon
My oldest son got this set for Christmas that year. Pretty lame build for Grievous' machine and grossly oversized creature for Obi Wan to ride but it was a fun set for a 10-yr-old.
“You are a bold one”
Still the only Lego set to contain Boga
The evolution of the character of Grievous is interesting, though.
Hello there
Most interesting to me are the jackhammers as robot feet.
@MCLegoboy said:
"Hello there!
What a set. People will probably complain about a lot of it, but man, I love Boga and how the Varactyl was made with the Dinosaur parts from 2000 with an elongated midsection. Yeah, you built the animal! Sure, you still hook some parts together for modern animals from time to time, but it's just nice to put together the parts of the body and it not be with completely huge molded parts. It may still be prefab, but there are more parts too it, making it more customizable if you so chose.
And General Grievous' vehicle is interesting because it's primarily Technic with the build. I will say though, the ball joints are very loose on mine, too much transformation between walk and wheel mode. And as for General Grievous himself, well, the arms always broke for me, but thankfully, there's tons of white droid arms, unlike the newer Greivous design, those arms broke on me, too, but they're so expensive. There was also a cool doublesided cape that was a dark red brown on the inside with the light gray and a dark gray parttern on the outside. A nice rare thing to see, even today.
I will say though, the set is not perfect. Light gray lightsaber hilts, the bane of 2005 that lasted through 2008. Chrome lightsabers were gone and the lacquered silver ones weren't in production yet. But other than that, an excellent representation of the Utapau scenes from Revenge of the Sith."
Chrome lightsabers weren’t gone yet, but they were reserved for fancy sets and last appeared in 2010
Good thing that creature is one big piece, otherwise this would be a very costly set on the PPP end, even for 2005 standards!
Of course, it's STILL cheaper than 60248 in terms of PPP anyway lol!
I was excited for Grevious in LEGO form back in 2005, but when I saw this set...oof! As the kids nowadays say. My impression was unfavorable more due to the appearance of Boga than anything else, though. Not being spoiled in April 2005, I wasn't sure what that creature was, so the sideways, gray-colored feet seemed like an egregious error on the set designers' part. It made the creature look really goofy, and by extension, Kenobi riding it looked really goofy. Still being a Star Wars fan, though, 16 year-old me was willing to believe the actual creature and scene would play out far, far better in the film, "Revenge of the Sith", than in LEGO form.
And I was right! Take that, prequel haters! Boga had so much emotion and liveliness. Her attitudes towards Obi-Wan in their brief partnership made you really feel for the poor varactyl when the clone troops blasted her to smithereens. The novelization even goes so far as to tell that Obi-Wan, stunned as he was by the betrayal and fall to the water below, realized that Boga shielded him from the worst of the blast, sacrificing herself for the rider. But he wasn't just a rider to Boga! He was a friend, and before letting it pass over him through the Force, Obi-Wan had a private moment to grieve for his friend.
Sadly, it was only the first loss of many that Obi-Wan was about to endure over the next couple of days!
Anyway, I went for the Clone Scout Walker and Anakin's Jedi Starfighter and Vulture Droid. In the end, I don't regret missing out on most of this wave. The flesh-colored minifigure skins were still grating to me, and perhaps avoiding having a great number of them affected my entire outlook on the Star Wars theme for that year and well into the next.
Hey look, a reasonably priced set with Grievous!
The first Grievous figure looks so ugly compared to the second. I'm once again thanking myself for getting the 2014 Wheel Bike years ago, when Grievous' sets were still reasonably priced.
Holy crud, that's an awful PPP!
The creature looks pretty neat, but the walker looks a little strange. I mean, they used jackhammers as feet!
I mean.... they tried! The Wheel Bike and lizard BOTH seem exceedingly difficult to reproduce via Lego.
Also I SITH pretty much put the stake in the heart of my STAR WARS fandom so I have no warm feelings about any particular sets from this era.
@cody6268 said:
"Holy crud, that's an awful PPP!
The creature looks pretty neat, but the walker looks a little strange. I mean, they used jackhammers as feet! "
I'd say the creature looking as neat as it is, is the whole reason for that PPP ratio. The jackhammers for feet are hilarious though.
Well, Hello There!
I have the 2014 bike. That one is excellent and very well priced. Therefore I really don’t need the new Starfighter just revealed.
If Cody was included I might have considered it, but I already have 2 Airborne Clones from that Battle Pack a while ago.
Think about the beautiful job they did with 70612 Green Ninja Mech Dragon.
Now think about how great a brick-built varactyl could be...
Too bad, they never made a better version of the boga.
We still need a lot of big sw creatures
seen this in the shop I'm working at a few times. I think it's a weird set.
I can see why they did a revamp in 2014 with 75040, although for roughly the same price they missed out the opportunity to do a Ninjago style Boga which was disappointing.
This is a clear case of "You don't have to buy every Star Wars set". I wouldn't.
This is the set that singlehandedly pushed me into my first dark age.
My gosh, this set has aged horrendously. The Boga mold looks laughably dated, and so does the Grivious figure. There are a few good parts, like those printed trans-clear dishes, but other than that, this set really doesn't hold up with today's standards.
I wanted this set so much when I was younger; in fact, it remains the only 2005 Revenge of the Sith set that I wanted but didn't end up getting (not counting the Clone Turbo Tank, which I was interested in solely for the Mace Windu minifigure and certainly couldn't afford then). Sure, it's getting pretty well lambasted in the comments here; but at the time, none of the things mentioned troubled me in the slightest. I just saw a curious set with a minifigure who I really wanted.
Never got it in the end, I'm not altogether sure why. I did buy the Clone Scout Walker, Mustafar Ultimate Lightsaber Duel, and Wookiee Catamaran, though, so maybe I was just running out of steam for that wave by then. And I think, when I finally did think about getting this one, the new Bionicle wave was starting to come around so I let myself be diverted into buying the Visorak Battle Ram instead, since system-built Bionicle sets were unheard of to me at the time.
I think the Grievous minifigure was my main draw to this set. The fact that he was far from perfect didn't bother me: I already collected the Hasbro figures for detail and accuracy; the Lego ones I more liked because of their simplicity and stylisation. So on that count, this Grievous design was right up my alley; I honestly still prefer him to the newer version.
That said, I still like 2003!Clone Wars Grievous character far better than Movie!Grievous. When do we get more sets based on that series? xD (I missed the Azure Angel set due to my dark age, unfortunately, but would love to see more sets in that vein.)
@Vladtheb
Count Dooku's lightsaber has only been chrome, so it was the last true chrome lightsaber through Dooku's last appearance in 2013. I wonder if Lego's newfound aversion to chrome is why he hasn't appeared since.
I'd love to see this remade. Looking at how great the Ninjago Dragons have been, imagine what they could do with Boga!
I really wanted this set when it came out, but I'd been out of work for a year and was just starting to get back on my feet, so a _LOT_ of things from 04-05 passed me by. Thankfully I was in good shape once Batman came down the pipe a year later...
@Norikins:
All they'd have to do is cut a new mold for non-chromed ABS. Chances are, if it's been 7 years since the last time they made Dooku, the original mold has been scrapped. It was only cut for chrome, and there's no point in saving it if they're not doing chrome anymore.