Lego Stormtrooper Landing Craft!

Okay it's really an Imperial Landingcraft, but let's face it, it carries Stormtroopers!

This is one of those rare, and I mean rare, instances that I liked the "improvements" that George Lucas did to the Star Wars films when he re-released them as the Special Editions back in the nineties. This ship was added into the scene in the New Hope, where all the Sandtroopers are looking for the droids. It was a background element, and did a sort of fly by off in distance. I really enjoyed and appreciated the look of the ship, being based on the Imperial Shuttle from Return of the Jedi, this version is a troop carrier.

So, with the special editions being out since the late nineties, I was sort of surprised that this ship did not make an appearance as a Lego until 2007. I will admit I still purchase Lego sets to build, sort of like puzzles, even to this day. Plus being that my wife told me that the Imperial Shuttle was her favorite ship from the movies, I thought getting this would be a slam dunk. So I picked it up and told her that we could build it one night when there was nothing else to do... which happened to be that night. She helped for a little while, but I stayed through out the project until the ship was complete.

I have to say, that the phrase "these aren't your father's, insert toy, comic, cartoon, etc. here!" has never rang so true. Though I really hate that saying, I'll make an exception in this case. This thing, being that it's a transport, is loaded with the gizmos! Working wings, bombs that drop, a payload section you can leave at a landing site, and two firing missiles ( that can fire pretty far!), a pilot, plus not one but four Stormtroopers! Two regular troopers and two Sandtroopers! I almost overlooked the most important upgrade, the debut of the new molded rifles and blasters, before you had to use existing Legos to make the blasters. Never have I seen so much Stormtrooper love in one toy!



The pictures I've included are from before all the damage to the house, so my completed transport in in storage, but I wait for the day that it can find it's way home (which should be soon!) and can claim it's rightful place among the troopers of the collection, until then here's to the memories and it's official entry into the Stormtrooper of the Week!