Review: LEGO 75383 Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator (2024)
April 9, 2024
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Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator was one of the first LEGO Star Wars sets ever released in 1999, so it’s only fitting that it returns for the LEGO Star Wars 25th anniversary with 75383 Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator.
It also coincides with the 25th anniversary of The Phantom Menace, commemorating two occasions with one set. This particular variant appears to be smaller than previous models, but with only a slight reduction in price. Let’s take a closer look and see if this set does a good job of celebrating 25 years of the iconic and beloved LEGO Star Wars line.
75383 Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator will be released worldwide on 1 May 2024 and will be available from LEGO.com, your local LEGO Store and most toy retailers.
This is a guest review from our LEGO Star Wars correspondent Vaderfan. We’ll be taking a look at the entire May 2024 LEGO Star Wars wave in the next few weeks!
Special thanks to LEGO for sending this review copy over.
75383 Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator Set Details
Set Number
75383
Set Name
Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator
Minifigures
4 (Darth Maul, Qui-Gon Jinn, Anakin Skywalker, Saw Gerrera)
Pieces
640
Retail Price
US$69.99 / AU$89.99 / £59.99 / €69.99 / CAD$89.99
Theme
Star Wars
Release Date
1 May 2024
75383 Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator Set Details
Set Number: 75383
Set Name: Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator
Minifigures: 4 (Darth Maul, Qui-Gon Jinn, Anakin Skywalker, Saw Gerrera)
Pieces: 640
Retail Price: US$69.99 / AU$89.99 / £59.99 / €69.99 / CAD$89.99
Theme: Star Wars
Release Date: 1 May 2024
Unboxing
The box is surprisingly small for a US$70 / AU$90 set, but it is also unusually thick. It sports the new metallic blue border design for the 25th Anniversary sets, with a cutout of the exclusive Saw Gerrera minifigure to tempt you in.
The back of the box shows the Sith Infiltrator in its landed mode, along with a recreation of the scene where Maul charges at Qui-Gon and Anakin on his swoop bike. Some additional photos of the play features are also included.
Inside are seven numbered plastic bags and an instruction manual. Thankfully no sticker sheet is included, although I am starting to wonder when we will start to see the new paper bags in LEGO Star Wars sets.
Building Process
Bag 1 is the smallest bag, building Darth Maul, his swoop bike, and three probe droids.
Bag 2 begins construction of the base of the Sith Infiltrator, using some Technic bricks for stability.
Bag 3 includes Qui-Gon and adds some more plates to the model.
Bag 4 fleshes out the front of the nose section.
Bag 5 includes Anakin Skywalker, and adds some more detail around the cockpit area.
Bag 6 finishes off the cockpit and the surrounding bodywork.
Finally, bag 7 includes Saw Gerrera and finishes off the model by adding its four winglets.
75383 Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator Minifigures
First up are Qui-Gon Jinn and young Anakin Skywalker, both of which have been updated slightly for this set. Qui-Gon uses the same hair piece from 1999, but has a new face print with a slight smile and some grey highlights on his beard.
Anakin uses the newer Harry Potter hairpiece in dark tan which looks fantastic, and has a smiling expression as well.
Both of these minifigures come with alternate expressions for when they are ambushed by Darth Maul.
Qui-Gon comes with a dark tan cloth poncho, but still has his robes printed on his torso and legs underneath in case you want to use the minifigure without the poncho.
Unfortunately, the colour matching for the skin tone on the torso and the tan robes on the legs leave much to be desired – printing errors like these have plagued LEGO minifigures for years and it is disappointing to see they still have not been fixed.
There’s a new Darth Maul minifigure as well, and the graphic designers made the interesting choice of removing his pupils, to match other minifigures with colored eyes (Ahsoka Tano, Hera Syndulla).
I think it looks reasonable, and the rest of his robes look good too. His rubbery horned headpiece originated in 2011 but still works brilliantly today.
Maul is armed with a double-bladed lightsaber, though some fans have expressed they would like the new Monkie Kid hilt element to be used instead of the regular lightsaber hilt piece, since Maul’s lightsaber hilt in-universe is longer than your typical lightsaber hilt.
Saw Gerrera is the exclusive 25th anniversary minifigure included in the set, and funnily enough, he does use the Monkie Kid hilt element for his staff.
His face print and hairpiece both work well, and his armour has really nice printed details, though the accuracy of the dark green base colour is debatable.
In addition to his chest armour piece, Gerrera also comes with a printed cloth element that looks really neat.
Unfortunately the design of the chest armor piece means that the cloth cape tends to stick out way too far back, which looks kind of odd from most angles.
Saw Gerrera comes with a black display stand with a printed 4×6 plate showing the 25th Anniversary logo.
On the whole, the minifigure selection is alright. The included minifigures are good, but for a US$70 set I would have liked one or two more – maybe Captain Panaka, Padmé or Shmi Skywalker?
The Completed Model
Moving on to the builds, let’s start with Darth Maul’s swoop bike. It has an accurate dark tan colour scheme, but is a very simplistic build, made up of only 17 pieces.
While some curved slopes are used, it still fails to recreate the smooth rounded shape of the in-universe Bloodfin speeder.
Darth Maul can sit on top, but there aren’t any stud connections for the legs so he has to be clipped onto the handlebar. At least the scale is pretty reasonable between the figure and the speeder.
Now on to the Scimitar, or the Sith Infiltrator. This version is smaller than the last couple of iterations, measuring just 27cm (11″) long, but I think it works – there’s no need for the model to be unnecessarily large if the smaller version still fits all the necessary features.
The front view looks great, and several relatively new pieces have been used to create more accurate shaping for the two-colored design.
Here’s a comparison of the in-universe ship. The designers did a pretty good job mimicking the patterns and shapes of this complex craft design, although the nose is a bit too thick.
Still, the model looks reasonable from a low angle considering the designers had to pack in Technic pieces for stability and include some play features.
The rear of the model is finished off nicely too, and there are a pair of trans-lime green engine thrusters around the rear hatch.
The Sith Infiltrator has folding landing gear at the front, with one landing strut on each side. These support the model when the winglets are folded into the landing configuration.
These landing struts can be folded away for flight mode, and they look good in either layout.
The rest of the nose is also quite sleek, using some gentle curved slopes for shaping.
This area hides another play feature – a pair of spring-loaded shooters are integrated into the nose.
Pressing on a pair of ingot tiles on the top of the bodywork will fire off the missiles – a great feature that has been integrated smoothly without comprising the Sith Infiltrator’s sleek aesthetic.
The trigger tiles that launch the missiles are integrated perfectly into the body design – you wouldn’t even know they were part of a play feature!
Higher up on the bodywork sits this strip that leads to the cockpit.
This section hides another play feature – hinge the sub-assembly forward and it reveals a place to store the three Sith probe droids.
These fit in smoothly with no issue, and the feature is nicely integrated.
The underside of the model reveals a trapdoor mechanism, held back with a unique mechanism that I have not seen in an official LEGO set before.
Pulling back on this 1×2 rounded plate releases the trapdoor and causes the probe droids to fall out of the ship’s underside.
A closer look at the underside reveals this subassembly is spring-loaded thanks to a rubber Technic connector towards the front. The dark red tile sticks out just slightly over the edge of the trapdoor, ensuring it stays shut.
When you use your finger to push back on the 1×2 rounded tile, it temporarily pushes down on the rubber Technic connector, moving the dark red tile back just enough for the trapdoor to clear it.
It’s a unique redesign of the commonly seen trapdoor play feature, and takes up less space than a traditional axle-below-trapdoor design would need.
The probe droids themselves are very simple and unremarkable builds, but they do their job fine.
The Sith Infiltrator has four winglets at the back that can be folded outwards for flight mode. While these lack the curvature of the in-universe craft, the model still looks quite good overall.
The rear looks neat as well – reminds me of the TIE Advanced Prototype.
There is a narrow section of the bodywork just in front of the cockpit that is perfect for your fingers to grab, making the model suitably swooshable.
The winglets themselves are asymmetrical and are fairly simple assemblies, just connected via click hinges.
This section of the model is nicely detailed, with some curved slopes and a lot of smooth, tiled surfaces.
The cockpit itself also looks reasonable – the trans-red tiles represent the cockpit glass and the 6×6 printed dish on the top looks good.
The spherical shape has been recreated well at the rear, thanks to some 3×3 corner curved slope bricks.
The cockpit opens up by hinging open four sub-assemblies – this grants you better access to the interior.
Inside there is space for Darth Maul, his swoop bike, and his lightsaber.
The speeder bike actually slots into the cockpit with Maul attached, a feature available on previous versions of this ship but one that still works nicely.
Inside the cockpit there’s a printed 1×2 slope for the controls, along with a pair of clips for his lightsaber.
With the swoop bike placed inside, the handlebars double as a control yoke for the Sith Infiltrator – a neat integration.
Final Thoughts
There are many positives for this set – the model looks good, integrates all the necessary play features well despite its reduced size, and it has some nice minifigures (especially the 25th anniversary Saw Gerrera figure).
However, a huge limiting factor is the price. US$70 feels far too expensive for a set of this size – even the box and minifigure selection is smaller than you’d expect from a US$70 set.
This feels like it would’ve been a US$50 set a couple of years ago, maybe US$60 at a stretch, but I cannot recommend this set at full price.
Nonetheless, this is still a good rendition of the Sith Infiltrator, with nice aesthetics and play features.
Final Score
3
Build
The model is designed well and looks good, plus has some fun features and almost no wasted space.
3
Minifigures
Four minifigures in a set of this size is too low. The Saw Gerrera minifigure is a highlight, but the other three have room for improvement.
2
Value
Much too expensive for US$70. The Australian price (AU$90) is more reasonable, but this set feels overpriced in most regions.
3
Innovation
Nothing super crazy but the included play features are good and I like the unique design of the trapdoor feature.
3
Keepability
A decent set that will be remembered for being part of the 25th Anniversary lineup, but I do expect LEGO to release better and improved versions of the Sith Infiltrator in future.
Audience rating
Thanks for reading! 75383 Darth Maul’s Sith Infiltrator will be available starting 1 May 2024 from LEGO.com and from most toy stores.
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