Featured set of the day: Droid Fighter
Posted by Huw,
Today's selection has been made by Johnny__Thunder97:
To date LEGO has produced over 400 ‘play-scale’ Star Wars sets, yet within that vast range of products one remains unique in my opinion, and for more reasons than simply because it was my first LEGO set.
I remember my Mum presenting 7111 Droid Fighter to me after returning from a trip away and being instantly confused. Being very young at the tme, unfamiliar with Star Wars, and unfamiliar with the word ‘droid’, I was curious.
Nowadays when looking at a new Star Wars set, the draws for me are usually roughly:
- How accurately does this depict its on-screen counterpart?
- Is it a cool ship anyway?
- How good/cool are the minifigures?
- Is there some degree of nostalgic draw for me?
And then of course, do I ultimately want this set…
I find it funny that back then, any appeal this set had to me was completely different. Having no reference material to compare this to, not really understanding the intended function of a ‘fighter droid’, not knowing about minifigures yet, and having zero nostalgic draw, the only appeal was purely ‘hmm, this looks weird, and different’.
But that seemingly small appeal was enough to initiate a lifelong love for all things LEGO and (most things) Star Wars! I was fascinated by the variety of bricks and their shapes, the odd prints on the 1x4 tiles, how you were shown how to make it via instructions, that pieces move and you can change the look and positioning off the completed model. I didn’t care what it was at all, I just remember loving it- and so my journey with LEGO began.
I adore the fact that this was my first ever set, because now looking back through the huge back-catalogue of Star Wars sets, this must be objectively one of the weakest, if not the weakest set of all time.
The set has one unique printed piece (the 4x4 wedge ‘head’), but that is probably the only positive thing going for it! At just 62-pieces its ranks comfortably within the 15 smallest ‘play-scale’ Star Wars sets. In terms of any function, in order to move from flight to attack position you essentially have to remove the wings and reattach them in the new position, and further to move the head’s positioning, you likewise must entirely remove this portion from the model before reattaching it in a new position.
Heck, if we really want to go in on the set, it isn’t even well named! Droid Fighter also happened to be the name of my 6-year-old cousin's latest MOC; the set very clearly retrospectively should have been called ‘Vulture Droid’, or something to that effect (though I do accept that this isn’t LEGO’s fault, as they probably didn’t know the name of the droid at the time of the set’s creation).
But most uniquely this set features no minifigures… As far as I am concerned this is the only ‘play-scale’ Star Wars set to boast such an unfortunate feature.
A shout out could perhaps go to 10026 Special Edition Naboo Starfighter from 2002, as it is roughly in minifigure scale. But this model was clearly intended for display and even bizarrely boasts a UCS label in spite of its measly 187-pieces meaning that to me at least, it doesn’t count.
The only other set to spring to mind would be 2003’s 4481 Hailfire Droid, because whilst oversized, it is probably about as close to minifigure scale as the later severely undersized attempts at depicting this odd vehicle (7670 Hailfire Droid & Spider Droid and 75085 Hailfire Droid). I personally don’t count this set to be truly ‘play-scale’ however, and as anyone who’s built this weird chapter of LEGO Star Wars history will tell you, this is not a normal Star Wars set… but perhaps this Star Wars and Technic love-child of a set warrants a separate article for another day!
Let me know if you would agree with my assessment of what counts as a ‘play-scale’ set that lacks minifigures in the comments! Did I miss any sets which you could make a case for being in this category? Which other sets can you think of which have unique or bizarre flaws?
In spite of its huge flaws, ‘Droid Fighter’ will always hold a special place in my heart; my first, and worst, set.
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30 comments on this article
The early Star Wars sets were a warm glow within a dark time for Lego. Even though they were largely before my time, I still have a lot of nostalgia for them, there's just a certain charm to the old Star Wars sets.
That said, yeah, this particular set is pretty mediocre, isn't it? Reminds me of that ugly OG Slave I...
I used to love reading the Phantom Menace Cross Sections book in the library as a kid. I don't think they were called "Vulture Droids" yet, that was a name added a few years later.
For all that later versions severely outclass this in how they resemble the source material and how practical they are to use, I'll always love the charm this has as a prototype. And even if its only in pieces somewhere in my collection I'm glad to have had one
The early Star Wars sets were all something I lusted after as a kiddo. Even this one.
I would like it if LEGO were to reproduce a vulture droid like this with no unescessary minifigs or pilot seat. The last 2014 one was ridiculously big and overpriced. Without minifigs it would be an excellent way to keep the price way down for army building.
Man this hits me in my heart, my family bought this on a Kmart close to home, I remember not wanting to wait to get home to assemble this on the car back home despite my mother warnings, I was afraid I lost some parts but I managed to complete this set and see the instructions in low light conditions, I disassembled this and now is stored with the rest of the CIS Army..... Thanks for this article.
I have bought a number of large job lots of Lego over the years. It has become a bit of a running joke that every one, no matter where it came from or how old it was, have all contained one of these sets! Must have a dozen of them.
Enjoyed the article. Thanks
Still enjoy mine to this day.
This brings back great memories. This set in walker mode was always a target for NERF blasting in my early droid army set up :)
I think the reviewer misses the strengths of this set, but yes it was the only "System" scaled set to not include a figure, which makes it a bit unique. Though, it was fine that there was no minifig, because the set itself is a giant droid figure, and I think it was cool of Lego to have realized this early on. It didn't need a figure to function or fly.
An accurate model of what should be a tiny ship. Remember how Mace Windu looks while riding atop one of these in the 2003 Clone Wars for a sense of scale. Droid fighter, or Droid Starfighter is fine and is how lots of media (Cross-Sections book, Starfighter games) referred to these fighters. I don't think they were called Vulture droids until Anakin opens his trap in the opening gauntlet of Episode III.
I think this set should be better appreciated in the context of the times. This was released before a lot of specialized elements had been created and unorthodox builds became more common. If you were a kid with the Cross-Sections book back then you could still convert this set from flight, to combat, to walker mode as depicted! And the wings even articulated in walk mode.
Far from being considered my "worst" set, this article makes me want to take mine out of storage and rotate it onto my display shelf.
My aunt gave me this set sealed, so it is the oldest set I’ve ever gotten sealed, which is a cool thing to think about.
This set is one of the cooler ones as it relied on different configurations that could be completed by removing a few parts. It was a great deal for the size of the set.
I’m happy this is the featured set of the day :)
That was actually the first (and only for many many years!) set that I had multiple copies of. I got a couple of them when they were on sale at local LEGO store with a thought of how valuable they will become in the future. How wrong I was.
Droid Fighter may be an ugly set but I wouldn't call it the one of the worst Star Wars sets ever, far from it, I look at it as a necessity if you were into the Phantom Menace at the time, or a cheap Separatist set, (six dollars), I still rebuild it to go with my Clone Wars sets to this day.
At just 62-pieces it is certainly one of the easiest sets to rebuild.
Wow! Blast from the past! It was the production of SW sets that brought me into buying Lego and ultimately ditching Hasbro-produced SW merchandise. Yes these 20+ year old sets are clunky compared to their more modern counterparts but I really enjoyed them when they were released. Droid Fighter was no exception. I remember getting a few from KB Toys when they would have some sick clearance sales back in the day.
Thanks for bringing this up. Makes me want to dig into my old sets like the original MTT and build them again.
I wish Lego still did tiny sets that are roughly scale-accurate and affordable for kids. I had the one that came in 7256 with the Jedi interceptor. The one improvement on that one was that the body could swivel, although you still had to take the wings and head off to change the configuration. I now have the bigger 2014 one which is a good set, but I prefer the smaller scales of the first four that they made.
@Norikins said:
"I would like it if LEGO were to reproduce a vulture droid like this with no unescessary minifigs or pilot seat. The last 2014 one was ridiculously big and overpriced. Without minifigs it would be an excellent way to keep the price way down for army building."
The last version of this was six years ago? We get an X-Wing every year surely we can get something like this a bit more frequently?
Interesting. Very good article.
I still wish LEGO would still do these types of sets for Star Wars. Not Microfighters or Battle Packs, but just small scenes from the films with three or four minifigures, like some of those Minecraft sets a few years ago.
An Escape From Cloud City or Jango Fett vs Obi-Wan could both possibly fit these in a $20 bracket. Then again, some sets like Duel on Starkiller Base have a similar concept, but are $30 instead.
Also I won’t consider the Droid Fighter the worst set; maybe the top 20.
@ItsTwentyBelow said:
"I think the reviewer misses the strengths of this set,
...
Far from being considered my "worst" set, this article makes me want to take mine out of storage and rotate it onto my display shelf."
To be honest, when I thought about writing this, I initially wanted to compare it with all the vulture droids that succeeded it, before concluding that this set is my absolute favourite of them in spite of its floors- partly due to its sizing, and mostly due to the nostalgia, and how I don't feel any of the more recent versions have perfected the vulture droid in Lego!
Unfortunately, I didn't go with that, mostly because the article would have been crazy long!
Instead I more wanted to give people a nostalgia trip, and to also remind us all that the sets teen and adult fans can be so easy to debate and criticise on awesome sites such as this one, may still be that spark for a kid who looks past that and just enjoys it!
In terms of where I regard it, Droid Fighter is never the WORST set... I more meant to suggest that when you take year of release out of context, there are reasons that it could be suggested as such- the main one being no minifigure (I don't really think it should have one to be honest)
But for me the nostalgia is far too great for me to actually believe this is a bad set!
@Brickalili said:
" @Norikins said:
"I would like it if LEGO were to reproduce a vulture droid like this with no unescessary minifigs or pilot seat. The last 2014 one was ridiculously big and overpriced. Without minifigs it would be an excellent way to keep the price way down for army building."
The last version of this was six years ago? We get an X-Wing every year surely we can get something like this a bit more frequently?"
The thing that surprised me most when I came to write this piece was how long it had been since a vulture droid was last released. Such was my surprise that I've actually bricklinked the pieces for the brickvault MOC to give that a go!
To be fair, they weren't called Vulture Droids, as far as I know, until Revenge of the Sith; back in TPM I think they were still just Droid Starfighters, at least on all the merchandise.
Never had this set, but did have the first RotS Vulture Droid: a possible improvement in that the wings were on hinges that could change position without removing them, although the head still had to be manually popped off and reattached. Didn't realise how different from this the build actually was though, I always assumed it was just a recolour of this model until I took a closer look at the pictures.
I completely get that first feeling you describe, too! The knowing nothing of the source material but still finding a set appealing just for being weird and different... that was me with my own first LSW set too, 7121 Naboo Swamp. I knew ZERO about Star Wars then except the minimal amount I'd learned from the two double-page spreads in the UK Lego Adventures Magazine; but the set itself just appealed to me even from that place of total ignorance of what it was based on, so I absolutely relate to your experience there :D
@Robot99 said:
"The early Star Wars sets were a warm glow within a dark time for Lego. Even though they were largely before my time, I still have a lot of nostalgia for them, there's just a certain charm to the old Star Wars sets.
That said, yeah, this particular set is pretty mediocre, isn't it? Reminds me of that ugly OG Slave I..."
Ugly OG Slave I!?!? I mean compared to the UCS one sure but for year 2000 I loved that version. The 1999 Sith Infiltrator I concur though...
@bearsfan2690 said:
"Ugly OG Slave I!?!? I mean compared to the UCS one sure but for year 2000 I loved that version. The 1999 Sith Infiltrator I concur though..."
I dunno, that Slave I just looks to me like a stack of green bricks; if I didn't already know it was that it was a Slave I (and didn't have Boba standing next to it) I probably wouldn't have guessed what it's supposed to be.
(EDIT: Wait, I just looked it up. It's better than I remember, I must concede. Still, parts of it look like random green-and-grey stacks.)
Sith Infiltrator, eh? That might've been a better example, I agree. I do think that set has some value if ignore how badly it compares with the real thing, though.
Cheers @Johnny_Thunder97 !
Well if it isnt the strike back of Ugly but Old lego star wars sets...
This was the first Star Wars set I ever bought.
I just built this set about 30 minutes ago. I like the printed 1x4 tiles, the build is a bit meh, but nothing terrible, and not long enough to get annoying.
I only got it a couple of years ago as I was purchasing something else from the same seller.
I would love to see what Lego could do to this set with their vast increase in parts and experience. Same kind of scale, and no minifigure would be great.
(Also, great username. Adventurers is one of my favourite lines.)
Loved this bizarre angular transforming arachno-robot spaceship as a kid, so much so that I bought a second one with my own pocket money.
I guess not having any minifigs is weird from today's/AFOL point of view, but I didn't notice or care back then. It was a fun thing to zoom around and transform, best feature being the printed parts hidden inside that would reveal themselves when you opened it up. It was a bit like the amazing cross section books: a look at all the mysterious but COOL technology inside. I used those printed parts a lot, most are gone or faded now.
The only thing I didn't like about this set were the large brown wing parts: they looked great on the droid but I always found them hard to reuse in my own MOCs, they're big and such a specific shape.
Anyway, to me this is a great a set. It's not a beauty, looks like a low poly 90s video game asset, but it's great fun.
I bought a lot of those early Star Wars sets, but held back on this one until it was discounted - I think the lack of a minifigure made it harder to relate it to the others in the series, though given that brown bricks were less common back then, I'm surprised I didn't grab it earlier just as a parts pack.
@Miyakan said:
(Also, great username. Adventurers is one of my favourite lines.)"
Thank you! Yeah, Orient Expedition is definitely still my fav original LEGO theme of all time! I think as a theme it challenged the number (and intelligence) of play features crammed into a set, bringing Lego into the modern era! In terms of saving Lego as a company, you hear so many stories about the Star Wars license- but I think that 2002/2003 period of set design transition into the modern era was a huge factor too!