So there has been this steady flow of sets specifically aimed at 4-year-olds in the past few years. Now you might be surprised, that I'm not a 4-year-old, so I clearly am not the target demographic here. I once too, was a 4-year-old though, so I hope to be able to give my thoughts on this myself.

The target audience:

I first off, honestly don't believe, this set is completely marketed at 4-year-olds. Sure, the packaging and the theme name might suggest that, but the decision to put 3 unique minifigs in these sets (one of which is the best rendition of a character to date), seems rather intentionally aimed at adult collectors with more money than judgement. (Yes I know, awareness to a problem is the first step to self-improvement). I won't speculate, if this is being done, to improve the figures on how many of these are being sold, because I'm neither a shop, nor do I have any data on this. However, I can't imagine they are selling a lot of these to actual parents, who are buying this for their kids.

The pricing:

Let's be honest here for a second, no matter how you slice it, 35 bucks for this is a rip off. Even at 20 bucks, this is a huge stretch (I bought it for 20 Euros at a sale) and my suggested price point would be closer to 15 Euros. There is just no way you can justify the price, even taking into consideration, the 3 very nice Minifigs, large parts and printed parts. There have been sets with large, specialised parts, that have been less expensive. You can't tell me printing is that huge of a deal, because there have been small 4$ Tiny Turbo sets, with high quality prints unique to them. And minifigs aren't that hugely expensive to produce either, because there have been battle packs nearly quarter the price of this, with pretty intricate printing.

The audience:

I personally don't really believe in the category "for 4-year-olds". Most of the smaller sets these days are absolutely fine for that demographic. Stickers might be a bit of an issue, but other than that, it's fine. Furthermore, I don't believe Star Wars should even be on the table when making sets for 4-year-olds.

I think canister sets, like those Creator canisters were the peak of sets suitable for that demographic, let me explain: So 4-year-olds aren't usually very mobile by themselves, they are getting lugged around by their parents and inevitably tend to lose pieces of their sets at their grandparent's, aunt's & uncle's, friend's, etc. It is a great idea, to make the packaging reusable for transportation, so pieces get lost far less often. A canister can also provide play value, like a garage for a car for example.

The "builds":

AFoLs don't have the best reputation, when talking about sets aimed at younger people, but know this, Lego hasn't been more AFoL friendly ever before, so there shouldn't be any problem right?

The whole thing with those 4+ sets seems almost boringly patronising to me. Most young children I have built Lego with (small cousins mostly) don't have problems with small pieces or even steps, that require a few pieces per step. They have problems with instructions taking way too long, making them bored and disinterested. With over 80 pages of instructions, this set becomes really tedious really quickly.

What arguably would've been a way better model for this kind of set, would be something like the 7127: Imperial AT-ST . It is not only a way more pleasant build (yes even for smaller kids), but it's also, way more playable! Smaller children would get so much fun out of the leg action of that set. The speeder could've just been one of those old battle pack speeders. They are not significantly more complicated to build and get the point across a lot better than this. The tree is alright, I guess, and the catapult provides quite a bit of playability.

The conclusion:

A set that completely misses the mark on pricing and engagement during the build, and leaves playability to be desired.