Set Review ➟ LEGO^® 40547 - Obi-Wan Kenobi & Darth Vader

2022-07-13 | Oton Ribić

LEGO fans interested in Star Wars are usually just as passionate as are Star Wars fans interested in LEGO, which makes LEGO Star Wars sets even more hotly debated in the community media. And there is no doubt that this one, the BrickHeadz rendition of the instantly recognizable mentor-apprentice-friend-enemy-murderer duet from the franchise, will be no exception. Being a LEGO publication that we are, we will primarily consider it from the bricky standpoint, though let's briefly begin with the starry one.

First things first: if you are not at all into Star Wars except for knowing that bad black guy who wears a helmet at all times and occasionally deals damage with a buzing neon lamp, a brief reminder. Obi-Wan Kenobi is an irreversible good guy, a wise and devoted mentor and friend to the other one, and appears in the movies at various points; in this set we see him in his middle-aged form. Darth Vader, Kenobi's former apprentice, started well and was known as Anakin, had a daughter Leia and son Luke (mentored by Kenobi as well), then turned dark, got nearly killed by Kenobi, joined the Empire, became an all-powerful master of evil, killed Kenobi's physical form, only to switch sides back at the key few last minutes of his life. If this is a spoiler for you still now in 2020's, you need some serious catching up to do. Anyhow, in this BrickHeadz double pack we have them both – former friends turned enemies. Mind you, this is not completely a first, since the first instalment of Darth Vader in BrickHeadz appeared in 2018 as the set 41619. But the Vader in this new double pack is not merely a blatant copy-paste of the previous one: it got improved in couple of areas.

"Double the pack for double the dosage of Star Wars."

"Double the pack for double the dosage of Star Wars."

Conveniently, both figurines' parts here are provided in separate bags, with correspondingly separate instruction booklets, making this set a possibly convenient duet activity. Other than that, nothing especially notable about the packaging – the usual (and perfectly fine) LEGO's recipe in all respects.

Well, BrickHeadz are a priori not intended to be historical masterpieces of LEGO engineering nor require a week to build: by the very fact you are reading this and being serious about LEGO, we could safely bet you will build them with ease. They don't differ much from the regular BrickHeadz structure, though they do have some neat tricks up their sleeves. These mainly apply to the building techniques: trying to recreate various important curves and details in the looks of the two gentlemen, interesting ways to connect pieces (with SNOT: studs not on top) are used all around. Expect to deal with lots of brackets, bricks with studs on the side, even some upside-down structures. If you are seasoned with such techniques already, probably nothing here will be astonishingly revolutionary for you, but if not – perhaps a few connections will be noteworthy.

"Some advanced building tricks made Kenobi's tight-but-not-too-tight collar possible."

While Kenobi is built from the usual generic parts, Vader would have been less iconic without his triangular mouth, the crease in his helmet, and the devices he wears in front. That's why these rely on the custom-printed parts – though the belt, the mouth and the helmet have been directly reused from the 2018's set. As said, the building process is quite straightforward, instructions aren't too condensed neither too slow, and none of the building phases are tediously fiddly. One advice, though: build under a proper, strong light, for two reasons. Firstly, Vader is build nearly entirely from black parts, and you will have a hard time finding the correct ones in the heap if you can't discern the detail. Secondly, and more importantly if your colour sight is not always most reliable, Kenobi is built from several different shades of brownish, earthy colours, which works well when built, but could make recognizing the correct part in the instructions, and picking it among the similarly-coloured neighbours, somewhat challenging.

"Many shades of brown and beige here: looks good, but requires a good eye to pick the correct one!"

Once finished, you can place them alongside each other, or facing each other – which would be more logical since they were enemies by this phase of the plot, and their cute little lightsabres just add to the tension. Vader turned out great – and not only because of this being his second BrickHead which took the opportunity to iron out any kinks of its predecessor. The Dark Lord has his characteristic helmet, colour scheme, face, and overall looks, differing from everyone else in the franchise and the overall movie world in general, making him easy to recognize. Even if some precise fans would point out, for example, that his eye coverings should have been darker, one definitely cannot mistake Vader for anyone else. On the other hand, Obi-Wan Kenobi is not universally (no pun intended) known, has no such easily recognizable special features, and relies on his forehead, beard (and perhaps a bit on clothing, though that is not in the focus of BrickHeadz) for recognition. Still, if alongside Vader, it should be more or less clear whom he represents – after all, there isn't an army of middle-aged short-bearded guys with lightsabres walking around Star Wars. Speaking of beards, it is probably the feature of Kenobi we feel could have been handled a bit different. A bright tile squeezed into a sandwich of two darker ones reminds of a drawer, or if you are old enough, a floppy disk drive. It is not bad, but the LEGO community has already earlier tested and shown several solutions which seem more "beardy" than what Obi-Wan wears here in 40547.

"Apart from the lightsabres, they are not perfectly symmetrical. Note Kenobi's hair!"

When considering this set as potential mining grounds, main points are easy to conclude right away from the first glance. At 260 parts, most of which are small, it is of course not a big set in number nor mass. But its colour selection distinguishes it: if you are looking for a handful of smaller generic parts in various shades of brown (details in the deserts, earthworks, soil, and a million other such things), this set could be interesting. Of course, there is a big share of black parts as well, though they are better obtained from more abundant sources. Custom parts are scarce, and either overly specific for Vader's mouth and helmet, or rather standard, in the case of his belt and life support.

"The set is not heavyweight, of course, but its colour selection may make it interesting as a parts source for some specific projects."

And if you are more into customization than disassembly, it should be fairly easy: the build is straightforward enough that a turntable and moderate skill will be enough to make any of the two guys turn their heads, lift their arms, or assume some not overly contortionistic poses.

Putting all that together, whom is this set for? Obviously, if you are a BrickHeadz fan, or a Star Wars fan, or both, you don't need us to tell you that you will eventually buy and build this: this set was made mainly for you. If you find Lord Vader cool but have a 41619 already, the minor changes probably don't warrant another purchase unless you want Kenobi as well. And in general, despite him being the antagonist most of the time, Darth Vader is simply an icon of pop culture, and possibly the best known character in science fiction, period.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is good, probably would not leave a spectacular impression on his own – but paired with his former friend turned enemy, he's both more recognizable and gives the set a familiar "good vs. evil" vibe. That's likely what drove LEGO to offer them in this double-pack.