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Star Wars: Episode III— | ||||||||||
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n Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith, the action begins with Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and the now-adult and unpredictable student Anakin Skywalker involved in a space dogfight. Obi-Wan and Anakin are flying Jedi starfighters, fighting Confederacy Droid tri-fighters over Coruscant. Flying fast and furious around the ships of the Trade Confederacy and Republican starships while Gen. Grievous attempts to escape with the kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, Obi-Wan and Anakin make it to Grievous' ship to recapture the chancellor.
The Jedi starfighters are designed as an evolutionary step between Obi-Wan's more spearheadlike starfighter in Episode II and TIE fighters from the first three Star Wars films. They feature fold-down solar vanes and the familiar octagonal portlike front window. Looking at them from the front, they resemble Vader's TIE fighter from Episode IV.
The Droid tri-fighter features three semicircular ribs surrounding a central spherical cockpit, which is seated in place on universal joints that allow the cockpit to spin like a gyroscope to face any direction. The tri-engine ship features a gun on each of the semicircular ribs, two missiles and a main front cannon.
AMT/ERTL, long in the business of fine model kit manufacturing, has reached the bar it set with these models. Each model kit is packaged in an open-faced box to show examples of some of the parts included and features its own screwdriver to assemble the screw-together Skill Level 1 (8 years and up) kits. No glue is required.
Each model kit includes parts made from die-cast metal and plastic, all prepainted where appropriate, and includes a display stand, screwdriver and set of screws of various sizes.
The Jedi starfighter is painted in a muted yellow and includes folding solar vanes and an opening cockpit. The Droid tri-fighter includes two detachable missiles and a central cockpit that rotates to any angle.
For kits of lower skill level, the aim is more to get kids interested in modeling, removing some of the tedium and resulting in a nice finished piece with less effort. This certainly describes this pair of model kits. Built from very nicely molded and painted die-cast pieces, each piece in these kits need only be assembled and the finished result is a nice toy starship that kids can play with or that serious collectors would be proud to display.
The two kits are not equal, however, in complexity. Though each is made of solid metal and tough plastic, the tri-fighter has over 40 parts, while the starfighter has 15 or so.
A spread of skill levels
Traditionally, model kits were hobby items intended to take a considerable amount of time to build and were meant more as display items than toys. Modelers would pry parts from skeletal frames, paint them and glue them together; the whole process was intended to take some time, to give pride to the final work.
As for the skill level, I built these kits with my 10-year-old daughter, and she had a lot of difficulty driving the screws into the die-cast body parts. Not to mention that the screws are so similar that I doubt the younger end of the target audience would be able to distinguish them, making it difficult to put these kits together properly without a lot of help. The starfighter has a metal hinge pin that is difficult to fit between several separate pieces in order to make the solar vanes work properly. (One is already constructed—the other has to be built to match.)
Still, the paint and detail are quite nice on these two kits. The Jedi starfighter especially has that dirtied-up used look, and the model includes a slightly weathered R2-D2. The cockpit is detailed and, though painted in only two colors, looks quite good. I would like to have seen a figure of Anakin to fit in the seat.
As for the Droid tri-fighter, I wouldn't consider this Skill Level 1—it has more than twice the parts as the starfighter and is far more difficult to assemble—requiring far more effort and manual dexterity to put the three ribs together properly.
And I should note that if you assemble the tri-fighter exactly to specifications, the display base will be backward and the ship will not be able to stand on its own—the instructions show the base plate being placed on backward. Luckily, rotating this piece post-construction is not difficult.
Also, while it is overlooked in the instructions, the three rib frames are not identical. Two of them have holes for missiles, and if you don't place those on the bottom of the model you'll have to disassemble it and reassemble it until they are in the right place. Nothing of this is indicated in the instructions in the section showing this step. This is only referred to at the end, when it shows the missiles being placed, which may be too late for many modelers.
Still, if you can get over the difficulty of screwing some of the parts together, the varying number of actual parts to assemble and the incorrectness of the tri-fighter's instructions, those who persevere will end up with two fine die-cast models that they can proudly display.
On the Jedi starfighter, I wish the cockpit were not pre-assembled ... within lies an opportunity for beginning modelers to apply a little effort and gain a nice reward. And as for the tri-fighter, the black spherical cockpit has no detail, so I don't see how it matters which direction it faces, requiring such a complex joint system, and the missiles feel like poorly thought-out unnecessary add-ons. — Sean
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