Set Review ➟ LEGO® 75397 - Jabba's sail barge UCS
Wow, finally a UCS edition of Jabba the Hutt's ship. A set with just under 4000 pieces, 10 minifigures although I count 11 ^^ and a price of 499,99€. At least 2 of these minifigures are unknown to me, the rest are reeditions of old characters, but be careful, some of them are quite coveted. Just look them up on bricklink and we can't help but wonder. In October this set will be on sale. Let's take a good look at all the construction, and see what you think of this new edition.
Incredibly cool and it looks big, doesn't it? Let's get to the nougat, let's take a look at the contents... Wonderful! The box has the closing folds with images of the scene from the film... and the inner boxes are also printed! :D
A tasty pile of paper bags awaits us and bodes well for some good building moments. I also tell you, 2 manuals and a sticker sheet.
As you might guess, the first steps will be a technic base to give rigidity to the construction. It's certainly a rather tedious part of inserting pins into technic bricks, but thank goodness C3-PO was there to brighten up those minutes!
We will continue to enlarge the structure. My God, what an insane size!
We will now fit reinforcing plates.
We also reinforced the lower part with plates and built Bib Fortuna.
The floor is now mostly prepared with tiles from the middle of the ship.
Well, from now on it looks like we'll start building more upwards :)
At last one of the three new minifigures in the set appears. This character is called Wooof. It would have been much better with the legs also printed but it's still a very cool figure.
In the next steps we will carve the sides and build the front part of that level with hinges. The resulting shape is simply perfect.
In the next bag, the contents are brief. The anchorage areas on the sides are prepared and the openings in the hall floor are covered.
Now we will focus on the rear. This is where the musician Max Rebo will go.
We now attack the lower rear part of the nave to give it that characteristic extension. The side sections are a bit weak and slightly droopy. The fastening only with a technic cross pin seems to be insufficient.
In this part we are going to create the pallet where Jabba and Princess Leia will be placed. I love the configuration. SNOT technique with rust flavoured details. And there will also be Max's musical apparatus, which is a real cutie.
Here are the interiors of the kitchen not yet detailed and part of what will be the armoury. I will definitely keep the construction of the silversmith :)
And here are the details of both rooms as well as the sliding door. Very well made and functional.
As I mount the poor slave R2-D2 I notice that one of the cups seems to have something like... chocolate in it. Mmmmmm, delicious. Here we'll finish that curved back side where the musician goes, as well as reinforcing the interior ‘arches’ and placing details like the torches.
The ladder that goes up to the surface from the kitchen is very nice, but unfortunately it is difficult to play with it, so the attachment to the floor is clickable and not on any stud. Play is very important, so making it easy to remove.... is something very well done!
Then a cell with a removable back wall is made, small but sufficient for a figure like Han Solo, on the sticker is written in characters ‘Han was here? :O
In the last bag of the first box we will build a pair of very cool and ergonomic pilot seats as well as the steering panels of the ship. Of course, the last minifigure in this part is Kithaba, another of the 3 minifigures that the manual says are new. What a mean face!
Well, so far we have built the base, walls and interior of the ship, so in the second part we will put the opening panels on the sides and the top floor, sails, etc... The first thing will be to build the 3 bases that will be the base of the ship. This will also give us the feeling of floating on the sands of Tatooine.
Well, here comes our chubby little olive. There is hardly any difference with the last edition of the character. Only the print changes a bit, but basically the Jabba figure is the same.
Now we are going to build the exterior paneling that is right in front of Jabba. A whole network of plates of different sizes that gives a hardness and at the same time a quite good playability. The next two bags will make the mirrored part.
Bag number 24 features Max Reboo. Compared to the first edition of this character there is no difference at all, so I would say it is exactly the same minifigure. Of course we will continue to enlarge the exterior paneling of the ship on both sides.
Next up is the new re-edition of Leia - what a wonderful hair and detailing, her face when she manages to drown Jabba has a great expression!
And so, step by step, we are extending the exterior panelling. There is one detail in particular that I really liked. It is how they have been inclining the panels as they belong to the front part of the boat. A picture says more than a thousand words. Where you see the orange plates you can see that the inclination differs from one panel to another.
Well, all that remains is to panel the nose of the ship. But first, let's take a look at the Gamorrean. Comparing it to the version we got in Jabba's throne room from ‘The Book of Bobba Fett’ set, it is exactly the same. A nice version that is worth having several units. Regarding how the nose of the ship is connected you can see what the connector from the panel to the body of the ship looks like. One hinge with ball, two for each side panel.
And here you can see the ‘guts’ of the nose from the inside and also from the outside - the shape is tremendous! :O
The part of the boat is already finished, so now we have the roof and sails. There is not much mystery here except the enjoyment, the opening from the galley with some very cute little doors and attention! the technic rubbers for the anchoring of the rear panels.
Here comes Vizam, another of the new minifigures. We can now put this area on the roof. It's particular that they have thought of dividing the area to be able to extract it without damage and to be able to play from above as well. The cannon is not to be missed either. I love how they have solved the fitting of the side panels of the rear part to the body of the ship. A rubber cross shaft on the roof side of the ship, which can take 1x4 plates with a bar. It's brilliant because they really fit great.
The next part of the ship's roof is lighter as it does not have the step that the previous one had. Here it is provided with details and functionalities such as the access from the armoury. The overall impression is fantastic.
Then those characteristic rear flaps are built, which are so necessary to stabilise the boat. They have great mobility. By folding them up, you can open the access panel to the interior very easily and safely.
As you can imagine, we are finishing the set and we still have the candles and the bases of the figures. Here you can see the detail of the candles, one naked and the other dressed. Impressive how good it looks. I really liked the system of inserting the fabric of the candles. It makes the operation much easier.
The display stands are simple, but they give the figures a beautiful highlight.
Without a doubt this set should be in the Star Wars UCS collection of every good fan of both the saga and LEGO AFOL. Mainly one of the things that has caught my attention about this set is that even though it is rated 18+ I don't think a child would have any difficulty building it and that is a plus. My 3 and a half year old son has been playing with it for several days and is fully capable of removing the cell and locking up and freeing C-3PO, taking Jabba's ‘slug’ out and putting it in, or drinking chocolate in the kitchen with R2-D2 by removing the stairs beforehand... and, mind you, without having dismantled anything at all. Obviously the price of the set is not for everyone, but as a fan of LEGO and especially Star Wars it's worth leaving other sets aside to get what is undoubtedly the best Jabba's boat. The reedition of figures such as Max, Salacious, Jabba, Leia or the Gamorrean make the set even more appealing, we all know that the price of these figures is exorbitant in markets such as Bricklink. Plus the new 3 figures make it even more desirable. But to be honest, as a collector of Star Wars figures, this time the most striking thing is the ship. Impressive for the relatively simple techniques and the very good result obtained. We thank LEGO for sending us the set for this article, but LEGO does not endorse or support the opinions expressed in this article, as they are ours alone.
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