LEGO Star Wars 4502: X-Wing Fighter

If like me you were a small child when the original Star Wars film was released, you will remember the excitement of the space battles between the evil empire in their Tie fighters, and the rebel alliance pilots in their X-Wings. Lego have capitalised on this nostalgia through their range of star wars products, which will appeal to children and the not so young.This particular set is taken from a scene in the Empire Strikes back, where Luke travels to the planet Degobah for training with Jedi master Yoda. Comprising an X-wing, Yoda's hut and 3 mini-figures, it contains over 500 individual lego pieces, and allows a very detailed model to be created. The X-Wing itself has an opening cockpit for Luke, and moveable wings which open into "attack" formation. Yoda's hut also opens up to provide access to the interior.Building the x-wing itself was quite time consuming (around 3 hours in total), and although this is part of the fun, younger builders may struggle to remain interested. The completed model looks fantastic, really detailed and true to the original, but it was quite fragile, and would be better on display than being actively played with. For these reasons, I certainly wouldn't advise this set for solo building to anyone under the recommended age of 8 years. That said, my 4 year old son has gotten hold of my set, and loves playing with the Luke, Yoda and C3PO figures, and building little space ships for them.This is a great set however, and although has limited play value as a completed kit, the many and varied lego pieces can be re-used to create all sorts of different models.Highly recommended for the older star wars fan - just don't let the kids get hold of it.