Someone cloned Lego’s Millenium Falcon, and it’s a new maker [Lepin Star Wars The Force Awakens Millenium Falcon]

Well. The allure of cashing in from a sure-fire merchandising behemoth like Star Wars produced a new entrant in the Lego clone scene, Lepin. Getting another maker isn’t exactly surprising, it’s that they jumped into the fray with huge sets from the get-go. To be honest, the Millenium Falcon isn’t the first of their kits to come over. The first I’ve seen from them is Kylo Ren’s Command Shuttle, an equally-huge set (but something I personally skipped, not being a fan of the ship design in general). So yeah, Lepin came in with a splash tidal wave, not being content in starting off with the usual 8-character themed minifig sets.

This seems to have been a good decision, too. Aside from the now-taken-for-granted marketability of Star Wars, being first to release full-sized clone sets from SW: TFA makes them the only choice for people looking for more than just Rey or Kylo minifigs. Believe me when I tell you that the initial shipments for the Falcon sold pretty quickly, and these are from resellers with markups, not just from retailers in Divisoria.

I personally got mine from a reseller in Greenhills, so the PhP 2,000 (~USD 42.08) I paid for it has markup tacked on to it. I will update this post later when I’ve confirmed Divisoria pricing for this.

Here are a couple of shots of the box art. Seems to me like they’ve decided to clone many of Lego’s own box art for the same item.

They saw it fit to not anger the powers-that-be (or something) because they went with Star Wnrs (winners? wieners?) with the logo. They’ve helpfully provided a handle at the top of the box, to help facilitate carrying the box.

Sure, it covers some of the minifigs advertised as included in the set, but you also have that same detail in the front art already, so it’s fine.

So, yeah. New manufacturer, aiming for the stars with their initial releases. The big question is, can they deliver?

Yes and no.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Lepin’s minifigs are pretty bad. Bad in the sense that the painted faces are larger than they should be, and bad in the sense that they don’t exactly provide you with the promised hair pieces on their box art.

Look, here’s Tasu Leech from the box art:

And here’s what’s actually included in the set:

Between the comical enlarged face and the totally-different hair, there’s nothing with this minifig that’s seemingly worth holding on to (unless you actually like the lulz).

They also provide a surfer dude hair for Finn, alongside giving arms that are colored differently from the torso, even though Finn is supposed to be wearing a jacket:

They did the same for Solo:

Here’s the whole set of minifigs included:

Rey obviously sports the wrong hair piece, too, and the gang member was provided with Clark Kent’s hair piece instead of a helmet. Only Chewie and BB-8 escaped certain reimagination. BB-8 itself looks pretty spiffy:

Why they can’t provide the same quality for the other minifigs, I have no idea.

The minifig issue is all the more unfortunate, because, hell, look at the actual Millenium Falcon:

It’s absolutely gorgeous. Lepin’s pieces are well-made. During the first couple of steps in the build, I wondered if some of the pieces have slight imperfections that will bite me in the butt down the line with slightly-off alignment, killing the build altogether.

Suffice to say, the pieces are fine. Look how tightly these pieces connect to each other:

Also of note, the particular set I got has all the pieces needed. There are times when some manufacturers fail to provide all the pieces in sets they sell, killing builds in those times that builders have no spare pieces on hand to cover for it, and in worse scenarios, kids crying.

I’d like to point out, though, that in spite of the seeming gorgeousness of this set, Lepin did cut corners where they can, possibly to save production costs. An example of this is seen in the stickers provided:

Had this been a genuine Lego set, we’d have decals with just the lines printed on clear backing. Lepin opted to print on less expensive generic opaque sticker stock and just print the supposed piece color alongside the line details.

To be fair, Lepin is not alone in this. That said, it does detract from the look.

In the grand scheme of things, though, opting to use sticker stock instead of decals is, for me, a minor niggle, because again, you’re getting a really good kit. I will let these photos speak for themselves:

They also did not skimp on the bottom (note the laser turret):

And yes, this is a huge model. Certainly the biggest model I’ve assembled so far, as the big original Lego sets were out of my budget as a child.

I spent a couple of hours building this. The build itself isn’t that hard, it’s just that there are a lot of steps involved, and if you’re not as organized with your parts (I know I’m not), finding the smaller pieces will eat up time.

I should mention here that Lepin also scrimped on the print quality of the build manual, so the bricks requested by a step are sometimes colored a bit differently in real life:

Over a couple of steps, though, you’ll adjust to it.

There you have it. Minifig issues considered, it’s still a fantastic start from Lepin. It’s always nice to see a capable maker join in, especially when they provide unique sets. Highly recommended.