Review of 9498 LEGO Star War Saesee Tiin's Starfighter

Hi everyone,

This is my first attempt to share my own reviews of the LEGO sets that I opened up to build. Please feel free to give your comments. You can also find more of my previous reviews in my blog.

For the few years that I've been collecting LEGO Star Wars series, I've noticed that LEGO has been pretty diligent in ensuring that there will be one version of a Jedi Starfighter annually. The past releases include, 8093 LEGO Star Wars Plo Koon's Jedi Starfighter, 7686 LEGO Star Wars Mace Windus Jedi Starfighter, 7751 LEGO Star Wars Set Clone Wars Ahsokas Starfighter and Droids and of course, the UCS 10215 LEGO Star Wars Obi-Wan's Jedi Starfighter, just to name a few more recent ones. IMHO, each release of a Jedi Starfighter does not really different that much except for the color scheme and the Jedi and droid involved. This would translate to a lower production cost for LEGO as the parts and moulds can be reused. Nevertheless, I'm still very much into collecting these Jedi Starfighters, just for "completeness" sake. :-D

The 9498 LEGO Star Wars Saesee Tiin's Jedi Starfighter comes in a square packaging having Darth Maul as the theme header at the top of the box. The color scheme for Saesee Tiin's Jedi Starfighter is green and while with R3-D5 as his Droid. Also include is Even Piell Minifigure which frankly, I don't have any idea how he comes about in this set or scene. :-p So who exactly is Even Piell? According to Brickipedia,

"Even Piell was a male Lannik Jedi Master who served during the Clone Wars. During the war, he was captured by the Separatists after recieving vital information that both the Republic and the Separatists needed to win the war and taken to the Citadel on Lola Sayu, a Separatist prison. He was later rescued by a taskforce led by Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. However, during the escape, Piell was killed by an anooba, but not before passing on to Ahsoka Tano his half of the information. The Jedi later mourned their loss and held a funeral by wrapping him and placing his body in a river of lava on the citadel planet"

Beside the close up shots of the "New" Minifigures, the rear of the box also shows the details and features of the set including the scene of the Starfighter escaping from the gun fire of the 9515 LEGO Star Wars The Malevolence also released in this season.





9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Box Front



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Box Rear




9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Scene
Moving on, on the inside, contains 4 packages and 2 instruction booklets. First thoughts that came to my mind were, why is there a need for 4 packages when it's such a simple set; and hey! no stickers? For both, I found my answers while flipping through the two thin instruction booklets. On the first few initial pages of booklet 1, it shows the breakdown of the 4 packages into the different components (Body, Cockpit, Left and Right Wings) that make up the Starfighter. Then while turning the pages, something drop out. Argh.. I knew it was too good to be true, there are stickers included in this set.



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Contents



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Instructions



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Why 4 Packs



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Stickers
The assembly of the 9498 LEGO Star Wars Saesee Tiin's Jedi Starfighter took around 30 minutes, give and take the number of times I stopped to make the pictures here and there. The size of this Starfighter is very much similar to those of the previous ones less of course the UCS 10215 LEGO Star Wars Obi-Wan's Jedi Starfighter. While the shape and design of the Starfighter is very much the same with previous ones, there are some interesting designs that makes this set unique by itself. Let me run through them with some pictures accordingly.





9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Completed



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Starfighter
In this set, there are the usage of some gold colored parts that we don't normally get to see. These gold colored pieces very much highlighted the area that the R3-D5 Droid is sitting in. It also gives a nice touch to the overall design of the Starfighter's dark green and white scheme.




9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - R3-D5 Cockpit



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Rear
Although the rear of the craft, especially that belwo the wings, is an area that not many people would pay much attention to, the LEGO designer still bother to put in some small details by including some nice transparent blue pieces into the engines of the Starfighter.




9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Engine
The other interesting design of the 9498 LEGO Star Wars Saesee Tiin's Jedi Starfighter is the incorporation of an ejectable cockpit. With a slight tug, you can slide and attach the cockpit out from the main body of the Starfighter. See how the two sections are cleverly held together by the two technics pins?




9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Occupants



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - After Detaching Cockpit



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Cockpit
Moving from the Starfighter to the Minifigures, there are three included in the 9498 LEGO Star Wars Saesee Tiin's Jedi Starfighter. For the two Jedi Knights, their construction are pretty much similiar with specially designed and moulded head wear to create the same look and feel of the characters in the real show. For Even Piell, he is must shorter so he came with the shorter legs of the minifigures. For R3-D5, it's a typical Droid design but with green in color to match that of the Starfighter. Something I noticed about the light sabers are that they seem to have air bubbles in them. Not too sure if it is due to the quality of the manufacturing but I would certainly feedback on these to LEGO.




9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - MiniFigures




9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Saesee Tiin



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Saesee Tiin



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Even Piell



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - Even Piell



9498 Saesee Tin's Jedi Starfighter - R3-D5
Overall, although the 9498 LEGO Star Wars Saesee Tiin's Jedi Starfighter is not the most fancy and biggest set of the 2012 LEGO Star Wars release, it does have it's own unique features that would still tempt a Star Wars AFOL to buy this set for the collection. Overall, I would give this set a 7 out of 10.

thank you for this great picture review.

to keep my wallet healthy, i gotta avoid any SW LEGO sets because the completionist in me will break it. so i m happy to see n read reviews of sets i know i will never own.

ps. i did break down n bought the new gungan sub, jabba palace n desert skiff.

A well-written review and an enjoyable one too. I will say that for all SW Starfighters collector who are loving the CW era, then this one is a must to collect. As I had avoided and decided not to collect any of those since the start of Anakin's version, I realised I can't afford to buy them all, even this set with the jedis tempting me a little.

Nice review!! Yeah I was sucked into the CW era ever since the first cartoon came out. Each starfighter has a slightly different modification to it. And its the unique jedis and droids that entice 'completist' to get it.

I've also begun to notice LEGO is starting to make almost all sets modular, even for medium sets like these.

Thanks for a great review.

One of the big changes LEGO has done is to include a full droid instead of just the droid head in other model. Imagine collecting just the droid head (which i did ).

To be frank, I have always thought that the starfighters were just money milking machines by LEGO.

But I think Discman did a great job with this review - I still won't get the set (Not really into space craft since I would have to display them hanging in mid-air) but I think he highlighted a lot of good points on the set. Excellent job!

Good review.....but the only ting interest me in this set is the R3-D5....trying to collect the different astromech droids....

Nice work for a first review!

Hope you'll share more in future. Thanks!

Yah, I am glad that CW came out. It does provide Lego to design sets which allows huge variation of clone troopers which would otherwise not be available and not to mention the different Jedis and Droids.

Anyway, the review is excellent. Keep up the good work!!

Thanks for sharing this great review!!

For a newbie in this hobby, this review rocks!
Thanks for all the effort put into the review.