LEGO Star Wars Republic Frigate 7964

My son bought this set with his birthday money a few months ago. He is 10, and he's a rabid Star Wars fan. He had his eye on this set for a couple of months before he bought it, and that kind of anticipation can make or break a toy. I'm glad to say that this set has exceeded his expectations.Pros:The numbered bags and instruction booklets that allowed him to piece it together one section at a time. He assembled the entire thing himself with the excellent step-by-step instructions.The toy is sturdy. He plays with this thing every single day, and he has since August. A piece or two may pop off, but he knows right where they go.It is huge. Talk about getting bang for your buck. Over 1000 pieces for the price.Cons:It is huge. It's hard to find a place to store it where his little brother can't reach it.

Recieved the kit new, but instead of getting a bigger #2 bag of pieces, I got an extra big #3 bag. Not happy about this at all. Was able to complete all but the command bridge part...

Thank goodness we opened it. It was supposed to be a Xmas gift. Items were left out! Very disappointed in the inspection prior to sending.

My son is 5 years-old (I'm 45), so I appreciate that neither of us are within the posted target consumer range of this product ("9 - 15"), but we're both Star Wars Lego fanatics, so I reckon that's all good.It's an impressive model, and of course great fun to build. My son managed to build about 40% of it himself with me supplying the right pieces and offering the odd adjustment advice. Good father-son bonding time, outstanding. If you're involved in the Star Wars Lego universe (and I must admit it took me a while to come 'round), then this is a great addition to the pantheon. When it starts to fall apart, it will contribute a large number of super-cool hull-shaped lego pieces to our large collection, to inspire our own creative play.But that does introduce a minor complaint that's worth considering . . . Lego seems to have this misguided belief in what constitutes customer (child) engagement, where they insist on engineering these models to have moving pieces and compartments that open up to allow for 'play' within the ship . . . Lego seems to feel that kids want to take the figurines and move them around the interiors. This is true for virtually all Star Wars Lego spaceships. The trouble is that the hinges on which these moving parts rely are flimsy. They don't hold. They fall apart. I've already spent more time fixing the hinged compartments of the Republic Frigate than we've spent actually playing with the Republic Frigate. We've had exactly the same experience with the Fury Class Sith Interceptor (even worse: that thing has hinged and angled wings that NEVER stay attached) and other models. The compartments that these hinged panels reveal aren't actually big enough to really move the figurines around in, so there's actually not much 'play' to be done, so it's a waste -- you end up with flimsy wings and panels that unclip at the slightest provocation.The Republic Frigate has a number of these design flaws -- and the escape pod that sits under the nose (a great-looking design, btw) is particularly flimsy and is prone to falling off the 'hook' on which it rests.For all the playing 'inside' these spaceships done by my son, I think he'd be much better served by a solid construction where everything snaps into place and it done with -- no moving parts or panels. It's an empty complaint, of course, since Lego has a rock-solid monopoly on this category, but caveat emptor regardless.On a related note, it's also stifling to the imagination that the fixed size of a Lego figurine means that all ships end up being made to the same scale, even if that scale is absurd compared to the original Star Wars text. I'm sure the Republic Frigate must sail with a crew of around 2,000 in the Clone Wars universe (I haven't looked it up, but I'm sure an accurate number is online), but in the Lego universe, it fits 5 figures. I can see this forced scale play put with our personal models, when we're just playing around and building our own inventions: I build these 1:50,000 scale star annihilators and he slaps a figurine on them and instantly reduces them to 1:100. Interesting. I try explaining 'relative scale' to him but so far, he's just too young. One day.Overall model satisfaction from my 5-year old son? 5 stars.Overall satisfaction with engineering of hinges from me? 1 star.Would I buy again or do I suffer any regret? Absolutely, and not a bit.PS - the price of this model on Amazon is/was CRAZY cheap. What a deal! I've seen this priced up to $155 at Toys-R-Us, so if you find it here at less than $80, you're doing extremely well. Be aware though, that the price of Star Wars Lego spaceship models can drastically rise and fall from week to week -- for what reason I have NO idea.

I could spend way too long writing about the cleverness of this design, about the sheer size of the ship, about the delightful building experience (which btw took 2.5 hours), but I think I will sum it up with this:After two decades of the Lego life this was the best $83 I've spent on a Lego kit. Considering this is normally a $120 set, $83 is a steal. I would gladly pay full price!With that said I have two complaints.1) The bottom turrets don't swivel.2) Quite a few stickers.Hmmm, now I feel bad having numbered two complaints without numbering the positives. Okay so here we go...1) Great price per piece! Even if it's $120, GET THIS KIT!2) Enormous ship (the pictures don't do it justice)3) Modular design (it's a work of art when you put all the sections together.)4) LOTS OF FEATURES!!!__A. Cockpit opens__B. Fuselage opens__C. Rear gunner seat opens__D. Retractable landing gear__E. Bomb bay and release mechanism__F. Escape pod detaches__G. Plenty of guns__H. Discrete carrying handle (very well balanced too)Oh! I thought of another complaint! Not enough shelf space...Best wishes on your newest purchase! ;)p.s. I'm not a "swoosher"... this set will likely sit in one place for way too long while gloriously collecting dust. If I were ten years younger, my enjoyment of this set would be tenfold.

Good but falls apart very easily had to glue some parts.

Purchased this kit for my son, who is very experienced at putting together this type of Lego product. We had a similar negative reaction as the other critical reviews posted here.The thing is just too fragile to play with. It might be great for a collector to put onto a shelf, but for a kid who wants to play, it is just useless. Every time we needed to connect another section to the main part, several pieces would fall off and we would spend another ten minutes reattaching them. It was very disappointing for my son, who became very frustrated! You can't lift off the wings to use the rooms underneath because they will fall off; you can't open the back cockpit without it falling off; the antennas and missiles are always falling off, and so on. What a drag!Also, a key piece was missing from the set. We looked everywhere, through every single bag, and it just wasn't included! For $120, that is completely unacceptable.So, here is my son's description: "it is horrible! don't get it! unless you want to be ripped off for a useless Lego kit!"