IPMS Kit Review: Revell Darth Vader's Tie Fighter

Revell

Darth Vader's Tie Fighter Snap-Tite

Kit Number: 85-1857

Reviewed by Joe and Madalyn Staudt, IPMS# 39453

MSRP: $26.50
Web Site: www.revell.com

I don't think there's a single person under the age of 50 in this country who doesn't know anything about George Lucas' Star Wars series. I was 16 when the first movie came out, and my friends and I had been eagerly anticipating its release for months. We saw the first showing in our local theatre, which was nearly empty. The lights came down, the screen lit up with the now-famous line "Long ago, in a galaxy far, far, away…" and within moments we were transported to that galaxy. I saw it again in that same theatre a few weeks later; this time the house was packed. Six months later it was still playing, and still drawing good crowds.

The magic of Star Wars has lasted 30 years now, and new generations of kids are discovering it for the first time, my own daughters among them. There have been countless books written about the Star Wars universe and its inhabitants, and equally countless numbers of toys, games, action figures, and model kits. Revell has recently released a series of Snap-Tite kits of various ships and vehicles from all 6 of the movies, and my daughters are all over them. So when the opportunity to review one the kits came up, I decided it would be the perfect chance to get a review from a member of the kits' target audience: my 11-year-old daughter Madalyn.

Before I hand over the reigns of this review, just let me give a quick, "out-of-the-box" description of the kit. Each parts tree is individually bagged. The parts are molded in gray and clear, with lots of tampo-printed detail. A seated Darth Vader figure is included, as is a display stand. There are no mold lines, sink marks, or anything else to mar the final appearance of the model, other than a few inevitable sprue attachment points. The top hatch is hinged. The instruction sheet consists of clearly drawn and labeled line diagrams; there are no decals. The kit appears to be approximately 1/32 scale. Now over to Madalyn:

When I looked into the box, the first thing I thought was "This is BIG!" and then I thought, "This is not going to be easy." I was sort of right on the second thing. A lot of the pieces fit very tightly and were difficult to push together. I needed my dad's help to get them to go together.

The instructions had dotted lines to show were everything went, but sometimes the lines twisted and turned, and so I had a hard time understanding where things were supposed to go.

Almost everything worked well. But I thought this was funny (Dad thought it was normal): The TIE Fighter has 2 laser guns on the front. One slid in easily and the other was hard to get in. We had to glue the one in to get it to stay.

I was disappointed that the cockpit wasn't more colorful (like in the movie), but the finished kit looks really cool. The display stand was a pleasant surprise for me. I was excited that I could display my creation. You can open the top hatch and see Darth Vader inside, but he's rubber and he smells, so I leave the hatch closed.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate this a 9 because it looked really cool and was fun to build, but I couldn't put all of it together myself as I had hoped to.

As Madalyn said, some of the parts were a very tight fit. This is great for keeping it together, but makes it difficult for younger fingers to assemble. Some of the other kits have very small and fragile parts as well. The instructions were pretty clear for an old hand like myself, but I can see where they could be a little confusing in places for someone with very little modeling experience. And the finished kit does look way cool on its display stand.

Madalyn gave this kit a 9, and I'd have to agree with her. She and I spent a good hour together working on it, and the results were quite gratifying. My thanks to Revell for the opportunity to review this kit.

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