Subject:
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A good LEGO anecdote, and a bad one (A warning about buying Monster Studios sets)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Tue, 27 Aug 2002 19:03:40 GMT
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The Good:
I was with some friends at Toys R Us, and they had one of the Hasbro Ep II
Zam Wessel speeders on sale (it was complete and intact, but no packaging).
It was only $4 (down from $18)... can't go wrong with that sort of discount,
right? I'd never really seen it outside the box, and it wasn't till I held
it that I realized: accurate isn't necessarily better. Now, the Hasbro
version of the Jedi Starfighter from Ep II is a great toy (so detailed that
it was featured on the StarshipModeler site as the closest you can get to a
model kit of the fighter for now). But in the case of the 2 ugly speeders
from Ep II, accuracy wasn't necessarily a good thing. I stared at the toy
for several minutes before I decided it was simply too ugly: I wouldn't be
saving $14, I'd be wasting $4. I turned to my friend who's a major Star Wars
collector (I have some of the figures, and many of the vehicles. He's
collected every post 1996 figure so far, and many of the vehicles. That's a
*lot* of figures!!!)
Since he actually had the Zam figure, maybe he'd want the speeder? "Nah", he
said. He said the 2 speeders were too ugly as well, and passed on them as
well. So we both passed on an accurate toy that was nearly 80% off. I later
was talking to Bryan about this, and he asked if I was still getting the
LEGO versions. I said that I was, and he laughed, commenting that for once,
the lack of accuracy with LEGO would be a good thing then, making the
speeders look sleeker.
I bought the speeder chase set 2 days ago and that's exactly what happened.
I think the set looks good enough that I can't actually think of much to
improve upon. (As opposed to the original trilogy sets, where I saw them and
thought "Oh, this wing shape isn't quite accurate" or "This set should be
more monochromatic, the blue isn't *that* saturated). Besides, if I tried to
make the speeders more accurate I might end up with uglier models.
It's great that the toys look just like their on-screen counterparts (what
I'm usually striving for with LEGO creations). But yes, this was one time
where the inherent inaccuracies of the medium actually helped produce a
sleeker, more colourful result.
I guess this is one of the reasons we build with LEGO.
The Bad:
On the same day, I also picked up the Spider-man set, my girlfriend bought
me the Monster Studios set, "The Vampire's Crypt". I really like those
monsters minifigs. Pretty clever, medium sized sets with highly desirable
minifigs but otherwise a mostly throwaway set. Much more expensive than
releasing just the minifigs (especially Spidey), but not quite expensive
enough to rule out altogether.
Right after I built the lovely Ep II Speeder chase set, I wanted to crack
open the Dracula set and see the figs "in the brick". But there weren't any.
In fact, more than half the pieces were missing in it; All the minifigs, all
but 2 pieces of the cart. No coffin. Didn't even have all the pieces for the
3 structures in the set. It came with 3 polybags, all burst and leaking
pieces. The box itself was *sealed*... it's one of the newer boxes where you
have to rip along perforations and basically damage the box in order to open
it, so it's not as if it could be re-sealed. It had never been opened; from
the looks of it the bags inside burst before they were put in so all the
pieces leaked out.
I took it back to Zellers, telling them this was clearly LEGO's fault and
not theirs. They still took it back, and let me swap for another copy of the
set. I could've dealt with LEGO directly, but I wanted my vampire now and
didn't want to wait 6-8 weeks.
In 27 years of collecting LEGO, I'd purchased *one* set that was missing one
piece (UCS X-Wing)... and that was missing such a common piece it wasn't
worth bothering LEGO about (I have tons of 3 long dark grey axels with
hollow stud on the end). One piece missing out of hundreds of sets over that
time span. (I did watch a friend open up a Blacktron Battrax when we both
bought them waaay back in '89, and he was missing a 3x1 30 degree slope. But
his Battrax also came with a lot of spare 1x1 black plates... enough for him
to approximate the missing slope. My Battrax was complete though).
But missing all the major pieces, and I think about half the pieces overal?
In a sealed set? I was so frustrated the night I opened the Vampire's Crypt
set that I had to build the Spider-man studios set just to see if everything
was there (especially Spidey himself). Like the Speeder chase set, the
Spider-man set was complete.
That's when I realized the Vampire Crypt set was part of the newest slate of
releases... is this the level of quality control we can expect from LEGO
now?!??!?!
The UGLY:
When I exchanged my disturbingly incomplete set at Zellers, the 1st thing I
did was open the box in the store, and check for the minifigs. Good, all 4
were included this time... and there were 4 sealed polybags, not 3 leaking
ones. Looked promising.
When I got home and tried to build the set, (note the word "tried"),
unbelievably, it's still missing 1 piece. (Much better than the previous
copy though). And one of the faces is badly misprinted (the protagonist
figure is supposed to have 2 bushy brown eyebrows with black outlines. Mine
has 1 brown eyebrow and 1 hollow, uncoloured one.) Yes, I'll be calling Lego
about replacing the 2 parts (missing piece and the misprinted head) on this one.
In the past, I often bought sets that I wanted and built them later on a
rainy day. Apparently from now on, I have to immediately build the set or
check the parts inventory before my refund/exchange date passes. 27 years
with virtually no mishaps, and now 2 sets in the same line? Did they fire
the QA staff?
So now I can't buy a set in April for someone's birthday in say, November,
because if I do and it's missing pieces the receipt will have long-since
expired. And most of my 'LEGO-casual' friends simply can't be bothered to
track down LEGO customer service.
What in the world, LEGO?!?!
Mark W.
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