Ranking the best documentaries of all time Photos: Fashion Week takes London by storm The 53 best movies of the 1940s The Latest: 'Manchester' wins original screenplay Oscar Trump jabs fly at Oscars, awards go to 'La La Land,' Davis Late 5-point possession lifts Celtics over Pistons 104-98 Turris, Anderson lead Senators to 2-1 win over Panthers $7 DIY floating shelf Polar bear cub meets public at Germany zoo Duck Hunting the Migration in Nebraska 2016 DID HIS RACK JUST FALL OFF😳!?!?! Monster Nebraska Bowkill Bowmar BowhuntingThe Lego Rogue One: A Star Wars Story sets are coming September 30, and Heat Vision has a hands-on look at set 75154: TIE Striker, which is an all-new design for the first stand-alone Star Wars movie. The TIE Striker set has 543 pieces, including four minifigures. It will retail for $69.99. The set measures 2” high, 16” long and 9” wide. In total, Lego is releasing eight Rogue One sets ranging in price from $24.99 to $89.99.
(Also see an animated Lego Rogue One video and contest below). The set consists of five numbered bags and a dreaded sticker sheet (featuring eight stickers). The first two bags are for the basic cockpit. It is a fun build with lots of technic for the frame and some neat techniques to get the detailing right. Bags three and four build the wings. The wings are huge, which makes them fun to build, though the second time around it is a bit repetitive. Bag five adds supports for the wing and finishes the cockpit. Attaching the wings is a bit tricky, involving lining up some technic pegs and then building the supports (which are movable). It feels flimsy as it is being built. But the end result is solid and it feels satisfying when it is completed. A real sense of the ship emerges once the wings are attached. Most of the stickers are used in the last bag for cockpit detailing and are a bit of a pain to line up properly but from a distance it doesn't look bad even if it isn't lined up exactly.
Building time took a couple of hours. Fully built, the TIE Striker is pretty awesome. The long fanger wings are striking and give the ship a suitably menacing look. There’s a lever in the back to adjust the wings into two different positions. There are good play features, including three hatches (two for the pilot and one for the storage area) and two spring shooters. It is a big model, bigger than the Force Awakens X-wing fighters but one inch shorter than the new Rogue One Rebel U-wing fighter. The model feels very solid. The wings are well attached and they are well-reinforced so it feels like they will hold up well over time. TIE Striker vs. TIE Fighter For a comparison of scale, here’s a TIE Striker photographed with a First Order TIE Fighter from A Force Awakens. See also how the design mirrors traditional black/gray color scheme of the TIE fighters on the wings and has a similar cockpit and solar panel design. It tinkers with the familiar with its cylindrical cockpit (versus the traditional ball shape) and the long fanger wings.
(The ship is touted as an atmospheric fighter and for the defense of imperial bases). The set includes four: TIE Pilot, Imperial ground crew, Imperial Shoretrooper and a Rebel Trooper in Endor outfit. The minifigures are fine, a bit generic but not bad. The draw here is the ship not the minfiigures.The build process has some complicated (Lego recommends an 8-14 age range and it definitely feels like it needs a builder with experience) that keeps it fun. The finished model is cool to look at, has some nice play features with spring shooters and multiple cockpit hatches and feels like it will hold up well to repeated playing (or look nice on a shelf). Here's a Lego Rogue One video that just debuted. It is the fourth and final chapter in the "Go Rogue" series of videos made from Star Wars toys. For the "Go Rogue" contest users submit their own Rogue One inspired videos and the winner gets a trip to San Francisco to see Rogue One. LEGO Star Wars - Vader's TIE Advanced vs. A-wing Starfighter (lego 75150)
Then watch Vader take the control of the ship and aim it at the sun. While Cylo is panicking, the Dark Lord of the Sith calmly walks back to his ship and flies away as Cylo’s ship explodes. Back on the Executor, Vader is faced with the Emperor – and Aphra. I don’t know what Aphra expected, but Palpatine’s or, better said, Darth Sidious’ reaction is exactly what you can expect from the Sith. As Vader walks her to the inevitable conclusion, Aphra is trying to once again talk her way out of the situation. She says she didn’t disclose Vader’s relationship with Luke, but can’t change Vader’s mind. He has no mercy, not even in the form of quick death. It seems that Aphra has come to the end of her way. The Emperor ‘demotes’ General Tagge and gives Vader the Executor as well as command over the fleet (as we find him in the beginning of TESB). Tagge tries Aphra’s approach, but is introduced to Lord Vader’s new favorite sport, choking of his subordinates.
Admiral Ozzel (who will soon get a good choking of his own after prematurely jumping out of hyperspace) gets the task to get the Star Dreadnought ready in two weeks or face similar consequences. With everything in his hands, Vader turns to the future. With familiar face in his mind, he promises: “Soon.” In the grand Marvel tradition, we get a ‘post-credit scene’. We learn that Aphra tasked Triple Zero, Bee-Tee and Black Krrsantan to use the equipment from the Son-Tuul Pride robbery and possibly save her life. They manage barely and when Triple Zero asks what she would do if Vader did use his lightsaber, Aphra shows that she did learn some wisdom after all.That is not all, we also get a Coda. And, if I might say, it is the greatest display of irony you can imagine. If you remember, in one of the past issues, Vader was chilling on Tatooine waiting for bounty hunters and passed the time by killing the entire village of Tuscen raiders. Unbeknownst to him, one of them not just survived, but witnessed the entire thing.
He goes in the desert and calls for other Tuscens lead by some sort of shaman. The shaman reads the scene of Vader’s rampage and then tells the tribe about the event. The tribe gathers their dead and, together with the only survivor, burns them on the effigy – of Darth Vader. And, here we are at the end of all things or, at least, at the end of Marvel’s Darth Vader. After reading it all, I even more appreciate a decision to end the comic when the story is done. If I am being honest, the story might have been condensed even more. However, I am not complaining. For every opponent, cyborg or otherwise, Vader had to eradicate, we got his relationship with Palpatine, Vader killing hundreds of Rebels, discovering that he has a son and destroying the remnants of his past. At the end of all things, we got Darth Vader at the height of his power, the Dark Lord of the Sith, ready to lure his son and try his chances against the Emperor. We got Vader we will see in The Empire Strikes Back.
The final issue lacked a bit of oomph for me though I recognize that having Vader deal with Cylo and Aphra couldn’t be made more spectacular. They, after all, are no match for him. I immensely enjoyed giddy Palpatine and I could almost hear Ian McDiarmid in my head. After seeing Vader’s side of this relationship, I cannot help but want to see Sidious’ at some point. I am grateful that the great secondary characters, made up for this comic, all survived. It is possible now that we will see them again in other canon material. I always liked Larroca’s art, but it was Max Fiumara’s art of the Coda that really popped out, especially shaman’s visions. And the fact that the most hated beings in Vader’s life now worship him as a dark god is spectacular. As I am finishing my last Darth Vader review, I came to realize that, as the overall story of Star Wars moves on, there are less and less chances that we will see the Dark Lord of the Sith again. Once Rogue One is released, who knows when or if we will revisit Vader’s story.