Duel on Naboo

I saw this set at Walmart for $19.99 which is perfect PPP (Price per Piece), so I picked it up not being entirely too impressed with how it looked on the box. When I built the set, I was suddenly surprised at how much bigger it seemed (Don't get me wrong, it's not a huge set, just bigger than what it seemed on the box) and how many playable features there were. It took me straight back to being a kid reenacting battle scenes from the Star Wars movies. The Qui-Gon minifig that comes with this set is just fantastic looking from his headpiece to his prints (including leg prints). Darth Maul? This was the first Maul I have owned and ouch, I thought it would feel better. Once I saw his mouth print on his head I was turned off and the horns are black and there are none in the middle? The robe prints are standard, it comes down to the head with maul and LEGO failed. Change the color of his horns to a yellowish tan, get that ridiculous smile off his face and the red stripe pattern needs to go all over his head. Still, great to have an official Maul minifgure rather than put a Spiderman head on black robe minifigure body parts as a kid, but fix this LEGO, please. My first young Obi-Wan minifigure and also lacking because there is not padawn hair ponytail on the torso print and they for some reason thought it would be a good idea to include a second face print with hair that covers maybe half of it? The leg printing is the only nice part. Qui-Gon second face works due to his wonderful hair headpiece. Let's talk design. Where the final part of the battle takes place around the pit, it looks great. The set is built up high enough where it feels if a minifigure were to fall down that shaft, it would mean almost certain death unless you needed them to appear in a animated TV show to boost ratings. The play feature at the bottom of the pit worked my first try, it's where to smash down on the piece on the outside and it springs Obi-Wan back up on to the platform. Havem't got it to work well since, but since I'm writing this with the set next to me like I always do, let's give it a go! So it took me about 3 tries to get him to come up and land on the platform, but you have to remove his saber because he gets stuck too much, which is okay cause he doesn't have one until he's in the air. This set also has a wonderful mechanic to open and close the laser shield that blocks Obi-Wan from helping Qui-Gon Toast in his last moments. It's inaccurate the way the lasers swing out, but what can you ask from a $24.99 set? If you're serious about large scale building accuracy, you're a MOC builder anyway. Beneath Obi-Wan outside of the laser shield is 3 rare purple disc pieces en-housed in a half circle hinge hatch piece replicating the large vertical purple plasma stream we see in the movie that Obi-Wan falls down by. Not accurate in the least size wise or placement, but you can actually reach in an interact with the discs (why?) and have Obi-Wan fall next to them, so I give LEGO credit for adding it in and it added to my surprise of liking this set for the price I paid. The set uses one big sticker piece to add detail to the nice curved wall piece you get. It's very sturdy and is built up high enough to feel like there are multiple levels and platforms. Buy this set, it looks cool to have as a collectible of a great moment in Star Wars history. It comes with 2 rare minifigures, even if I don't personally like the design of two of them, you might. It wus a fun build and while the technic sections weren't hard to build, it was fun to finally build them and go "Oh! That's how that works!". more less

Duel on Naboo has a decent value per brick, but suffers from an expensive build time and largely uninteresting build. The saving grace of the set is the really nice Minifigures, and excellent brick-to-fig ratio. I bought this set exclusively for the Minifigures. I don't collect LEGO Star Wars for budget reasons, but I still like to have my favorite characters as Minifigs. This was a cheap way to get the Darth Maul that I was waiting for, and I got Qui-Gonn as well. more less

The Plasma Refinery Complex is an awe-inspiring location in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and a set of this size cannot be expected to adequately recreate its grandeur. However, what the model lacks in display value it makes up for in playability as a couple of fun features are included along with, most importantly, an excellent minifigure selection. more less

I think this is a decent set. You should only get it for the minifigures, but even the minifigures have some minor flaws. Personally, I feel it's a good set to get Maul, Qui-Gon, and Padawan Obi-Wan, but you should save the money to buy 75183 Darth Vader Transformation in the summer. more less