Luke's Landspeeder... One of the most famous Star Wars vehicles. Remade by Lego multiple times now, with very little changes between the last few versions. You would think somebody like me who has collected Lego Star Wars since the start would have a model of this vehicle by now? Well, nope... This is my first purchase of this vehicle in Lego ever. So while many bemoaned the fact the model was only slightly modified from its last appearance in 2014, I was kind of happy to get my hands on it finally after having missed every single previous incarnation. As a kid my grandparents had the Kenner Power of the Force landspeed for Star Wars action figures in their toy bin for their grandkids to play with at their house; so I have a soft spot for this vehicle due to my memories of that toy many years ago.

Minifigurs

Considering most Star Wars Battlepacks are coming out for $15 USD right now with four figures, the fact we get four figures in this $20 set along with a nice model already makes this set feel a lot more substantial than most other Lego Star Wars sets on the market. For comparison the $30 Resistance Transport Pod that came out for The Last Jedi sets this year too only has two figures and a small astromech droid. The $20 Rey's Speeder from 2015's Force Awakens wave only came with two figures period! The four figures although somewhat common are great selections to recreate the scene in the canyon when Luke goes searching for the missing R2-D2 and is ambushed by Tusken Raiders. R2 is the only glaring ommision from the group, although he is currently available in Yoda's Starfighter and probably will be returning in 2018 in the Yoda's Hut set.

Luke Skywalker

My first Luke Skywalker figure since the 2007 Jabba's Sail Barge and my second rendition of him in his A New Hope clothes since the very first Millennium Falcon set! I am rather impressed, I know the level of printing is very standard for Lego now but there is something special about putting this new figure side by side with the old yellow faced figure from 2000 and seeing just how far Lego has come during the time I have been collecting! The hair piece is a perfect choice for the young farmboy look from that first film, and the double sided head is well done. My only complaint is the lack of accessories for the figure, the binoculars are nice but I would have liked to see him come with a Lego rifle or musket piece to represent the "slug thrower" he takes with him to face the Tusken Raiders in A New Hope.

"Ben" Kenobi

My second figure of Obi-Wan in my collection and the first I have of him in his "Ben" guise from A New Hope. Again very well detailed, and the inclusion of his lightsaber is a great accessory. My only complaint is the lack of a doublesided head for an alternate face for the figure.

Tusken Raider

This is my first Tusken Raider. A friend of mine as a kid had the old Tusken Raiders from 2002, and I am happy to say this new figure with his molded head is a great upgrade! The gaffi stick is well done too, and I can't wait to get more of these figures in the upcoming 2018 battlepacks.

C-3PO

The most common figure in the set is C-3PO. None of his parts have changed since the 2000-era figure I have, although his printing and color molding has been updated. Compared to the polybag Force Awakens 3PO, this one is a step down, considering he lacks the arm and leg printing his polybag counterpart has. Still, I am happy to have a "original trilogy" era Threepio as the Force Awakens one doesn't look to great in an OT display with that big glaring red arm! The small sliver of silver leg printing on the OT Threepio is a nice touch, although I'd hope to someday see his silver leg done using dual-molded gold and silver parts.

The Build

Most of the build is a simple method of stacking plates and bricks onto each other, without a lot of SNOT involved. I will say, the best part is the way the two flex-tubes are loosely mounted to curve around the hood which I think was a rather genius method to achieve that grilled look. The finished model looks great. The cab interior is detailed and smooth, somehow conjuring images of 1960's American Muscle Cars strapped with the three jet engines on the back of the Landspeeder!

Conclusion

Overall the model is well done. It is much larger than some other $20 sets of late (looking at you Rey's Speeder!). The Landspeeder seats two figures in the cockpit, and C-3PO and an R2-D2 (provided by another set since he isn't included here) can be posed onto the back of the speeder similar to how they rode on it into Mos Eisely in A New Hope. The figure selection is well balanced, while it would have been nice to maybe see something more exclusive (Uncle Owen or Aunt Beru perhaps?) than the four somewhat common figures, the four figures selected recreate an iconic scene from the film. While the four figures might be common to some collectors, they were new to me; so I am not complaining! Getting this set makes me wish I had some sort of Tattoine Diorama to display it in... it just captures the feeling of the opening scenes of A New Hope so well. I'd gladly recommend this to other Lego fans who have yet to get the Landspeeder as the best opportunity to obtain this iconic piece of Star Wars lore.

The landspeeder was one of the smaller sized sets from the Rogue One run of Lego, and at around 150 pieces it's actually small even by these standards. This took me roughly 25 minutes to build, so even young Lego fans would be able to put this together in a short amount of time.
The build is extremely straightforward; the landspeeder is such a basic model that there were no complicated steps, fiddly mechanisms or awkward pieces. For such a small set though it is quite sticker-heavy, which may put off some collectors and cause a slight struggle for particularly young builders.

Once assembled it's certainly a nice looking model, but kids might be disappointed by the lack of interactive parts. The rear of the speeder can be easily removed to store Luke's magnoculars and Obi-Wan's lightsaber, but that's where the interactive features end. Obviously it's effectively just a car and didn't do much in the movie, but a better "hovering" mechanism might have been a nice touch. The Rogue One Hovertank does the job by featuring transparent wheels which allow for it to be rolled across flat surfaces, but the landspeeder simply has a scattering of domed pieces on the underside of the vehicle to lift it up slightly.

The minifigure selection is fantastic, and my main reason for buying this set! For a small £20 set you're getting a great range. Obviously Luke's landspeeder wouldn't be complete without Luke himself, and for the first time in a while old "Ben" Obi-Wan Kenobi is available at a decent price. You also get C-3PO, a Tusken Raider, and a Womp Rat. Lego do enjoy including a "bad guy" in with their sets, hence the Tusken Raider, but I can't help but think it would have been nicer to include R2-D2 instead, completing the group for their Mos-Eisley run.

Altogether, a nice looking little model and wonderful minifigure selection, but I'd have to knock off a star for the lack of interactive parts, the very short build time, and the criminal lack of R2-D2.

Set #75173 Luke’s Landspeeder: The Landspeeder model has received three regular releases since 1999 and was also included in two Cantina inspired sets, which means that this particular vehicle has been released five times in total at Minifigure scale, in fact this set is a bit of a weaker offering if you have any of the past models. Though it is a good set to get for updated Tusken, Luke, Old Ben Minifigures and the model itself of course.

Box/Instructions

Box: The box is really actually kind of small by comparison to other sets of this price point, the internal space packs everything in quite tightly which can be a problem as the instructions may get bent or creased if not packed in just right, same goes for the sticker sheet which is included for detailing.

Instructions: A single booklet manual for two numbered bags, this particular manual features checklists in back for the Minifigures and the sets from this wave of Star Wars releases. It is pretty much what you’ve come to expect from LEGO.

Parts

This set has a few large rod elements, some nougat and dark maroon plates and pretty much a ton of pieces that are more than likely pretty common. Not much else to it for this set, I think the colour of the elements will attract MOC fans to it compared to the content of the set.

Minifigures

C-3P0: If you have one version of Threepio you pretty much know what to expect here, not much to say about him. He’s got all of the typical detailing, except for on the legs, I don’t know if it’s just mine or if LEGO actually forgot to maintain the print from top to bottom, but the print just seems to be cut off from the knees down.

Luke Skywalker: The Tatooine costume has been featured in quite a number of sets, Luke however still manages to look great, this particular version is included in the Death Star set, which makes this a much cheaper set to get this particular figure in. He includes the Macrobinocular accessory and the brand new hair sculpt LEGO has made for Luke’s Tatooine appearance.

Obi-Wan Kenobi: Old Ben as he’s more often called, this Minifigure is a huge upgrade from the original 1999 set, I have actually not owned any other Old Ben until picking up this new Landspeeder. His print detailing is very accurate to the old Jedi robes he was stuck wearing for 30 years since the fall of the Old Republic, unlike Luke he only has a single-sided head and still uses the classic LEGO hair piece. He has his lightsaber of course.

Tusken Raider: This is a brand new upgrade of the Tuskens, I haven’t seen them in a set since around 2002 or so when they were first made available in a LEGO Attack of the Clones based set. The print on the torso has been upgraded and new printing has been included on the legs, instead of a standard LEGO Minifigure head a brand new sculpted head piece has been made which captures the appearance of a Tusken quite appropriately.

Where the figure falls a little flat is in the choice for his accessory, instead of making a new piece to represent the Gaderfi Stick they chose to make a brick-built weapon which is almost perfect, where it suffers unfortunately is the choice to include the LEGO ice cream cone piece for the lower handle, which wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t grey in colour while the rest is brown.

The build

Bag 1: Luke and Threepio emerge from the bag to help construct the front portion of the Landspeeder. This build uses mostly bricks and parts, the only step that may require assistance is the step involving the placement of the LEGO rod elements, these long pieces need to be curved and inserted into the model without actually clipping onto anything.

Bag 2: Old Ben and the Tusken leap from this bag alongside the engines of the Landspeeder, I doubt the Tusken would help build the model, but you never know. Anyway, this portion of the build is very quick and easy, a lot more stickers to place here for the engine detailing. Overall the build throughout both bags is very fun and engaging unless you’ve already built this model in previous releases of the sets, then it will just be very repetitive with few minor changes to the model.

The completed model

Landspeeder: Compared to the original 1999 set this model is a very impressive evolution to a much more screen accurate interpretation of the vehicle. This one probably shares some build techniques which were used in the 2010 set which also featured a Landspeeder model, in fact looking at images of the 2010 release I can see that the basic build does seem to match up quite closely with this model.

However there are obvious differences as new parts have been introduced since then which better represent the detailing on the LEGO model, using curved tiles on the top instead of just 1x2 tiles in the dark maroon colouring.

The engines have been tweaked as well using different elements and stickers applied for the detailing work. Overall the model is a decent enough upgrade, and since I missed out on past iterations, this set is a nice addition to my personal collection with a much better detailed model.

Overall opinion

If you already own Luke’s Landspeeder from 2010 this set probably isn’t for you, unless you’d prefer to upgrade it into a more accurate colour scheme with slightly altered design elements. If you don’t already own this model it’s nice to see it being released again for folks to buy. Interestingly enough each release of this model has referenced a different scene in the movie, the 1999 set represents them heading to Mos Esiley, the 2010 set includes a Sandtrooper and so they are already at Mos Eisley, the 2004 and 2014 Cantina sets include the Landspeeder parked outside and this set from 2017 represents the first meeting of Luke and Ben during that moment when the Tusken’s attacked him near the rocks on Tatooine.

So it is nice to see all of these different moments of the film represented in the history of the Landspeeder’s release during the almost two decade long release of LEGO products. However, as I said, it’s pretty safe to skip this release if you already own the model in any of the other releases of this particular model. Recommended to folks who haven’t bought one already.

Summary

Luke's landspeeder is one of the more iconic vehicles of Star Wars - and hence one I liked to get for my collection. The build was OK, quick and easy. By far the most tricky part is applying the stickers to the three engines, as the engines are round and the stickers are highly visible, and it is easily spotted if they are not lined up properly. To me - admittedly NOT a Star Wars purist - this set does what it is supposed to do: looking like Luke's landspeeder. The four minifigures are nice, and yes, I have seen the complaints about R2-D2 not being included in this set. Personally I am not bothered by it. The big problem with this set - especially for continental Europe - is the price. Asking 30 euros for this set is simply indefensible.

Build experience

Building this set is easy and rather quick. As mentioned above, applying the three stickers on the angines is the most tricky part (and - using Glassex/Windex - actually took as much time as putting the set together). I liked the way the speeder is designed, including the use of flexitube, and the attachment of the compartment and top engine. Off-colour pieces are nicely hidden inside.

The minifigures

None of the four included minifigures are unique to this set. Personally I like them, with the Tuscan Raider being my favourite. All prints seem to be nicely in register.

Luke has a good looking print on the torso (front and back) that is nicely continued on the legs. He also has two face prints, one a more determined, the other a more unhappy expression.

Obi Wan has only one face print, and a very nice print of him wearing a long mantle - at least on the front of his legs. It would have looked better if that print had continued on the side and back of the legs, IMHO.He only has one face print, but it is a nice one of him wearing a beard.

The Tuscan Raider is my favourite minifigure of this set. The print on the front of his torso is continued nicely on his legs. The print of the double belt with pouches is continued on the back of the torso. His head is a hard plastic one piece, with multiple colours and very nice texture. I think it is extremely well done.

C3PO is another well done minifigure; the brown/silver/black printing on a pearl gold torso and legs works well. His head is also hard plastic. His eyes 'stare' a bit ('deer in headlights'- look), but that is probably unavoidable due to the printing techniques.

The build

As said in the summary, to me the vehicle looks like a landspeeder. The engines are well integrated into the body, I generally like the colour palette, and the mixture of plate and tile/smooth bars and the stickers make for a good texture. The proportions also seem OK to me. Overall, it looks like a well-finished product - I certainly do not see obvious places where improvements to the design can be made.

Play vs display

IMHO this set is a nice play set. The speeder is very swooshable (not in the least due to the 2x2 clear sliders underneath) The storage compartment works well, and there are enough minifigures to play out various scenarios. As a display set this one falls short IMHO: it is nice, but simply too small.

The verdict

This is a nice set and overall IMHO a pretty good set. The in big problem I have with this set is its price. The European prices - UK but especially those on the continent - are simply indefensible. The US price is acceptable (though still quite high, IMHO). The general quality of the vehicle, and the four included minifigures simply do not justify such a price tag. Personally, I can only recommend this set if found (in Europe) at a serious discount (25-30% off at a minimum).

Luke's Landspeeder is one of the few Lego sets released in 2017 based on a New Hope movie.
The set has 149 pieces, 4 figs and retails for $24.99 CAD

Minifigs:
1. Luke Skywalker: The figure is identical to the one released with the 2016's Death Star. He has the wavy blond hair, and feature two faces: smiling and an annoyed/angry face. He is wearing a simple white tunic with a bold brown belt. He is equipped with a pair of macrobinoculars.
2. Old Ben: The figure like Luke also appears in the Death Star. He comes with a classic hairpiece with a simple curve to one side. He has a very detailed face design with a grey beard and a kind expression. He is wearing a dark brown robe over his Jedi garb. The Jedi garb printing bleeds on the torso and is very pale. Back of the torso has the hood detailing. He is armed with a blue lightsaber.
3. Tusken Raider: Sand People are a rare figure in Lego. This figure was first released in 2015. He has a fantastic head mold with the shiny silver points and two silver eyes. He is wearing a simple tan robe with a brown breathing apparatus printing. He is equipped with a Gaffi stick that has a rare light bluish grey ice cream cone piece.
4. C-3PO: The iconic golden droid is among my favourites from the Star Wars universe. He has a molded head with crisp printing. He has the colourful power-bus cables printed on his torso akin to other protocol droids.

Build:
The Landspeeder is one of the iconic and instantly recognizable vehicles from Star Wars and has been rendered almost perfectly in Lego.
The build is very simple and straightforward and is very similar to the 2014's Landspeeder released in the Mos Eisley Cantina. The main difference is the inclusion of the macaroni tile pieces in dark red for the curved U in front of the windscreen. The seamless tiling is perfect IMO. The cockpit features seats for 2 people, stickered console and a steering wheel. The build has three engines topped off with a dark red R5 dome head piece. This looks very good as well. Each engine is stickered and the left one has the cover ripped off revealing the wiring.
Behind the cockpit is a small storage space where you can place the lightsaber(dismantled) and the binoculars. Underneath the speeder are 8 inverted trans-clear pieces used to provide a smooth sailing over carpeted surfaces.

Overall:
This set is perfect! $25 for 4 figs plus an iconic build is more than I can ask for. The build has been almost perfectly captured in Lego form and looks very sleek. A modification could be an accurate windscreen however.
The inclusion of a Womp rat is very cool IMO even if its a regular Lego rat.