Subject:
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AT-AT (#4483) - What were you thinking?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Sat, 15 Jan 2005 17:19:47 GMT
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Viewed:
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2586 times
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I had read reviews saying that this model was fragile, but I had no idea how
ridiculously fragile it was until I got one for Christmas. You literally can't
touch it except in a few special places, without something breaking off. A
quick run-down of the major design flaws off the top of my head:
- The heavy head is held on by a 1-stud-long piece of axel. Or rather, not held
on, most of the time.
- Even when the head stays on, it flops from side to side (there is no friction
involved in its position).
- The sides of the head are "flaps" which I suppose were intended to stay in
place by a little post hooking over a pointed piece. It simply doesn't work.
Whenever the head flops from side to side, the side flaps of the head just swing
open.
- Even when you carefully balance the side flaps in place, they don't come even
close to joining forces with the roof -- I notice that all your pictures of the
model are carefully taken from below, so the ugly gaps this produces are not
visible. Unfortunately, real people are taller than this model, and the gaps
look bad.
- The driver is sitting on a smooth tile, so he constantly falls over (and
often, right out the flopped-open sides). OK, this is minor, but come on, it's
so obvious to put in a seat (or at least a regular 2x2 plate), that it seems
somebody was TRYING to make this model suffer.
- The back flanks are (not) held on by two little tan pins, which simply don't
grip in the beam holes. I guess these are intended to swing open so you can get
the speeder bike out, but whenever you try, they invariably come off.
- Under the side flanks are wide pieces held on by only two studs. These are
right where you naturally want to grab to pick up the AT-AT. But touch them,
and they come off.
- The legs are actually pretty good, except for the actual feet, which again are
held on by a tiny piece of axel. They come off, and they're rather fiddly to
get back on, because there's an arch you have to thread back through a little
channel.
I've already fixed a couple of the smaller problems (gave the driver a seat and
added a couple pieces to the side of the head to hold them in place). Some of
the other design flaws will be more work but are certainly fixable. So I have
to wonder:
What were you guys thinking with this model? Is it intended to be a challenge,
i.e., you purposely made it flawed so we could have the fun of redesigning it?
Or was it simply designed by an inexperienced builder on the week the QA guys
were on vacation?
If it's intended to be a challenge, you need to market it differently. If not,
you need to fix it. As it is, the model is completely unplayable, and if
somebody who wasn't already a dedicated LEGO fan were to get this one, they'd
probably give up on the whole product line. To put that much work into a model,
and then have it fall apart every time you touch it, is very disappointing.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: AT-AT (#4483) - What were you thinking?
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| (...) SNIP (...) Dear LEGO, In the interest of equal time, it's important you know that not all of us feel the same about the AT-AT set. Personally, I love it. It looks great. It was fun to build. It captures much of the detail of the "real" (okay (...) (20 years ago, 15-Jan-05, to lugnet.dear-lego)
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