Lego Star Wars: Jabba’s Sail Barge – 75020 Review

• 7th Oct 2013

Star Wars: Jabba’s Sail Barge

Pieces: 850

Ages: 9-14

Mini Figures: 6

• Jabba The Hutt
• Princess Leia – Slave Outfit
• Ree-Yees
• Weequay Skiff Guard
• Max Rebo
• R2-D2 with Serving Tray

Price: £99.99

What’s inside

7 numbered bags of Lego bricks

2 Instruction booklets

Lego Star Wars Poster with the latest Star Wars minifigures on one side and a drawn action scene from the sail barge on the other side.

Background

Jabba’s Sail Barge is the only set among the latest Lego Star Wars release based on the original trilogy. It also follows the theme of Jabba related sets that Lego has been releasing in the last few years with 9496 Desert Skiff and 9516 Jabba’s Palace in 2012 and 75005 Rancor Pit in the first batch of new sets in 2013, all still available to purchase.

Jabba’s Sail Barge or Khetanna is the large ship evoking a tall ship with its masts and sails, raised rear deck and long brown hull that Jabba uses to observe the execution of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Chewbacca at the pit of Sarlacc. On board the ship Leia finally kills Jabba by strangling him with the chain she is tied to and the ship is finally destroyed when Luke shoots it with the ship’s own cannon.

Lego have done a good job of spreading all the characters across these four sets so that we get surprisingly little repetition of minifigures and instead making figures available of the more obscure characters to the delight of anyone who is lucky enough to own all these sets. Across these sets it seems all of the memorable characters from the Jabba scenes in the Return of the Jedi have now been covered.

The first figure then is the only direct repetition in the set, Jabba The Hutt himself, which is the same excellent model from Jabba’s Palace set last year. The Slave Leia figure has been completely updated with new fully printed legs and torso, double sided face (the same as in the most recent Millenium Falcon release) and a new rubberised hair piece with lots of nice detail. R2-D2 with a serving tray is technically unique, though really it is just the regular R2-D2 with a 2×4 plate and some bottles and glasses placed on it.

The other three are figures never before released by Lego. Ree-Yees is the three eyed member of Jabba’s entourage probably not remembered for much else than being one of the characters betting on the fate of Luke with the Rancor. Ree-Yees has a printed torso and a unique rubberised head with a nice likeness to the films. Weequay are the ugly ‘pirate’ guards aboard the Khetanna against whom most of the battle on board happens. The minifig has a printed torso and head including the characteristic ponytail starting from the head and continuing on the back of the body. Finally we have Max Rebo, the blue keyboard player of the Max Rebo Band who survived the re-mastered song and dance scene at Jabba’s palace when George Lucas decided to change the song and computer animate the singer. Max has a fully blue body, short legs and also a rubberised head.

Building

The 850 pieces build a pretty impressive size ship at about 17 inches long when built. It’s not the most exciting model to look at with its two shades of brown, but it does have good likeness to the films and is better than the old 2006 Sail Barge set 6210.

The build starts with a technic base including some wheels giving the set nice playability and a slight illusion of the ship hovering. The interior is built as a play area with hinged walls that can be opened for full access, and even the deck can be lifted up if needed. The interior includes a barred room for the prisoners, a small restaurant/kitchen type area for the guests, a platform for Jabba and Max’s organ at the rear for the entertainment. The front of the ship opens with a simple mechanism pushing a cannon out.

The deck has the hardest to build areas with the hand-railing which is made of single bent stick, the adjustable technic masts and the thin plastic sails which can be a little fiddly to install for the youngest builders.

Finished product

As mentioned above, the set has a nice likeness to the films and as  an adult fan that is pretty much all you can hope for as well as a nice set of minifigures. The minifigure selection is great for collectors who prefer to have something new and adds to the pre-existing Jabba sets rather than repeating them which would have been much cheaper way of doing things for Lego.

The scale of the ship is perhaps understandably a little small. This is probably for the best considering the already pretty high cost of the set but it does look a little funny particularly next to the skiff set which  is closer to a minifigure scale. The set therefore looks better displayed without the minifigures on it therefore taking away the scale reference which makes it look more like Jabba’s rowing boat than the large ship it is supposed to be. In fairness though, this is probably more to do with the Jabba figure itself being a little oversized when comparing to normal minifigures.

From playability point of view the set is good with all the interiors accessible and the wheels allowing the set movement. It is not the sturdiest set with the thin masts and all of the walls being on hinges, meaning care must be taken when the ship is picked up and stored. The minifigures are a mixed bag for children. Jabba and Leia are always a cool figures and tray table R2-D2 and Max Rebo are undoubtedly cute, but Ree-Yees and the Weequay guard are probably a little obscure.

In conclusion, this is a set you will want if you want to complete your Jabba theme whether for collecting or playing. If you are not already invested in the theme though, the ship is in the middle-ground between an affordable play set and a high price collectors set which could mean it doesn’t fully fit either target market. Suffice to say, this is a set that really would only appeal to the fans of the original trilogy of Star Wars, but luckily for Lego, there are plenty of us around.

Marko Hyypia