Review: 75333 Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Jedi Starfighter (2022)

August 31, 2022 | 0

The LEGO Star Wars summer sets are now widely available, and some sets have garnered high praise from LEGO Star Wars fans. It’s the first wave in a while to have multiple Clone Wars-era sets, which will undoubtedly please Star Wars prequel fans.

Today, we take a look at the smallest set of the summer wave, which coincidentally recreates the scene involving the beginnings of the Clone Army – 75333 Obi-Wan’s Jedi Starfighter.

Based on Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, 75333 is a run-of-the-mill Star Wars set, with 282 pieces and a retail price of US$29.99. Let’s see if it’s worth purchasing, or if you should divert your focus toward bigger sets in the 2022 summer wave.

This is another guest review brought to you by LEGO Star Wars megafan and correspondent, @vaderfan_2187. Follow him on Instagram and check out some of his previous Guest Reviews and articles

75333 Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Jedi Starfighter (2022) Set Details

Set number: 75333
Pieces: 282
Minifigures: 3
Price: US$29.99 [US] / AU$49.99 [AU] / £29.99 [UK] [Amazon] [Amazon Australia]
Theme: Star Wars
Release Date: 1 August 2022

Unboxing

The front of the box has the normal LEGO Star Wars box design, with the three minifigures included on the bottom right corner and a graphic of the Starfighter flying through the stormy Kaminoan weather.

The back of the box just shows off a couple of play features, plus an alternate view of the model. Unfortunately the box uses thumb tabs to open, but that’s quite normal for sets at this price point.

This is my first time getting a set with the new style of instruction manuals, which has a much simpler design on the cover. This new design has been getting a lot of criticism, I definitely am not thrilled by it, but at the same time it doesn’t bother me that much – it just looks a bit cheap.

The sticker sheet included in the set is unfortunately quite large. Not Speed Champions level, but still plenty of stickers for a set at this price and size. That said, they aren’t extremely difficult to apply.

Minifigures

The first minifigure included is an Episode II version of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He has brand new torso and leg printing depicting his Jedi robes, which I think looks excellent.

He has the standard Aragorn-style hairpiece in dark orange, which he has been used since 2013, but has a new double-sided head.

This side has the golden Jedi pilot headset printed on, handy for when he’s flying the Starfighter, but the reverse side of the head has a normal face print with no headset. I really appreciate the versatility that provides.

The back of the torso just has some printed lines to add some texturing for his Jedi robes.

Obi-Wan also comes with his trusty blue lightsaber and a reddish brown hood piece. The hood element is the new design and is the first time appearing in this colour, while the lightsaber blade uses the newer cloudy style of translucent blue.

The second figure in the set is the R4-P17 Astromech Droid (better known as just R4), who according to LEGO’s inventory has been updated for 2022 with new head and body prints. The front looks excellent, with plenty of printed details.

Unfortunately, the back of R4’s body is still unprinted. LEGO introduced back printing for astromech droids in the 2022 Star Wars Diorama sets, so I was hoping they would include it here too, as the figure looks a very plain without it.

The final minifigure is probably one of the set’s biggest draws, our first ever Kaminoan minifigure – Taun We! This figure has a brand new head piece with an elongated neck that allows it to stand a head taller than the average minifigure.

Sand blue and white details are mixed throughout her torso and skirt piece to good effect, making this an effective and desirable figure.

The back view of the figure shows more details of the new head mold, including a printed silver band on the top that wraps around the whole head.

There is also back printing for both the torso and skirt. Some fans wanted LEGO to use minidoll bodies to represent the Kaminoan’s skinny body design, but I think Taun We has been represented excellently in minifigure form.

I think the minifigure selection in this set is definitely strong. Episode II Obi-Wan and R4-P17 are both well-done minifigures that aren’t super common, and getting a new Star Wars species (especially one as significant as a Kaminoan) is always a treat.

Builds

There’s only one build included in the set, which is the titular Obi-Wan’s Delta 7 Aethersprite Jedi Starfighter, sporting a nice white and dark red color scheme.

This is the third time fans are getting this ship in minifigure scale, and there was actually a UCS version back in 2010 as well, so there is some tough competition. Fortunately, it looks pretty good thanks to the clever use of new wedge plates recently introduced by LEGO.

The cockpit uses a clear round bubble canopy piece that hinges forward, with room for Obi-Wan to pilot the ship. He gets a nice brick-built seat with headrest, and a printed 1×2 slope for controls.

The back of the ship has some lime green accents and two 2×2 round yellow thrusters, attached via Technic pins. Also, I love the way the rear fin is built using two 4×4 plates facing opposite directions – it’s not a new technique but it works well and is pretty clever.

R4-P17’s head is mounted on a turntable on the left wing of the starfighter, allowing it to rotate around. The designers also cleverly included a space to store R4’s body in the center of the ship, so you don’t lose half an astromech body when swooshing the ship around.

This feature was first introduced in the previous version of Obi-Wan’s Jedi Starfighter, and it works quite well, although it does affect the overall silhouette of the ship slightly.

While some other LEGO starfighter models, allow the entire astromech body to be inserted into the relevant location, this heads-only design is actually accurate to the movie – the Delta-7’s wings were too thin to incorporate a full astromech droid so the astromechs were modified and hardwired directly to the ship with only their dome intact in-universe.

It would be quite unrealistic to expect LEGO designers to achieve what Lucasfilm’s own model designers could not!

Two of the newer-style stud shooters are mounted towards the front, with translucent light green ammo. These come in a gunmetal grey color, which is awkward and stands out, plus their shape is generally clunky.

I’m still not sure why LEGO opted for this newer design of stud shooter, as it generally seems like a downgrade in most aspects.

The underside of the ship shows off some details, including the one retractable landing gear leg and two clips for Obi-Wan’s lightsaber.

As you can see, the wings are also mounted via Technic axle connector beams at an angle, which gives them a very secure connection but creates a problem that I’ll elaborate on later.

Here you can see the landing gear in its retracted form, while the rear of the model just sits on a couple of black inverted slopes.

Despite looking good overall, the starfighter has some issues shaping-wise. Unfortunately the nose of the ship does not narrow to a point like the in-universe version; hopefully in future we will see some new wedge plates from LEGO that would allow that to happen.

More glaring though is the gaps between either wing and the middle section.

Due to the use of Technic connectors for mounting the wings at an angle, there are gaps along the wings that run down the entire length of the ship.

The ones at the front are particularly bad, as you can see straight through the ship. I wish LEGO had included some plates with rails to cover up some of the gaps, as this really isn’t something you’d want to see.

Also, the side view shows the sloping from the cockpit to the nose to be a little bit clunky – it slopes down quite dramatically around the middle and is completely flat around the nose area.

However this is a minor issue, partially caused by the need to fit the astromech body in the middle of the ship.

What I liked:

• Strong minifigure selection
• Ship looks good overall
• Well sized for the price

What I didn’t like:

• Relatively high number of stickers
• Gaps around the wings
• New stud shooters are a downgrade

Final Thoughts

On the whole, I think this set is pretty good. The build looks good despite some minor flaws, and the minifigure selection is strong – the first LEGO Kaminoan minifigure will be a huge draw for Star Wars fans.

The Obi-Wan Kenobi and R4-P17 figures are well-done too (although back printing for R4 would’ve been nice), and this set provides an affordable way for fans to get their hands on a Jedi Starfighter piloted by one of the most popular Jedis.

US$29.99 is also a fairly reasonable price for Star Wars sets around this size and piece count, so I don’t really have issues with the price, especially when it goes on sale on Amazon or Amazon Australia.

Rating:

Build: 3.5/5 – A good-looking ship, letdown by gaps in the bodywork.
Minifigures: 4.5/5 – Strong minifigure selection, and the Kaminoan will undoubtedly be popular.
Coolness: 3/5 – Nothing unusual, fairly run-of-the-mill LEGO set.
Price: 4/5 – Reasonably priced, especially when compared to other modern Star Wars sets.
Keepability: 3.5/5 – A good-looking set of a fairly famous ship, but nothing outstanding.

Rating: 4/5

Thanks for reading my review of 75333 Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Jedi Starfighter! Do check out some of my other guest reviews for some of my previous work.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, including if you plan to pick this set up!

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