LEGO Star Wars 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City – the first Master Builder Series set [Review]

LEGO has been producing large models in the Ultimate Collector Series of LEGO Star Wars sets since 2000, which was only the second year of the LEGO Star Wars theme. But on October 1st, 2018, LEGO will be releasing 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City, the first in a new “Master Builder Series” focused more on playsets based on locations than on large vehicles like the 7,500-piece 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon. This first set in the series includes 2,812 pieces with 18 minifigs and will retail for $349.99 in the US ($399.99 in Canada | £299.99 in the UK), and it’s available early to LEGO VIP Program members today.

LEGO tells The Brothers Brick that the new Master Builder Series branding will be applied to “complex” sets that include “many play features and functions, interior details as well as a range of minifigures.” Let’s dig in and find out if the set lives up to that description.

The packaging & instructions

Like UCS sets, the new packaging for the Master Builder Series has black bars surrounding the main product photo, with the product details (age range, set name, set number, part count, and so on) in white text within the bottom bar.

Also like recent UCS sets, the Cloud City box includes an interior box printed with key quotes from the movie scene as well as line art of the set itself. Unfortunately, LEGO’s production process still baffles us — the interior box includes alternating numbered bags rather than the first bags.

After opening the interior box, you have 13 numbered sets of bags — most numbers have one large bag accompanied by one smaller numbered bag, plus another unnumbered bag with smaller parts inside the large bag. The instruction booklet is in its own wrapper, with the two sticker sheets.

And the instruction booklet itself mirrors the style of UCS booklets, featuring interviews with the LEGO Star Wars design team. As we think about this set in relation to UCS sets like the Falcon, it’s notable that this set was created by the same team behind the UCS Falcon itself (Design Director Jens Kronvold Frederiksen, Model Designer Hans Burkhard Schlömer, and Graphic Designer Madison O’Neil). Even if a different overall team was involved in the design, LEGO has chosen to highlight the same three team members in both instruction booklets.

The sticker sheets include many of the iconic details on background walls seen in Empire Strikes Back, as well as miniaturized hull patterns for Boba Fett’s Slave I.

The build

Given 13 numbered sets of bags with multiple vehicles and distinct locations within Cloud City, one would expect a highly modularized build, and your assumptions would be largely correct. The first bag involves lots of brick and plate stacking to create the landing platform. Wedge plates manage to capture the platform’s circular shape.

The second set of bags includes the parts for Boba Fett’s Slave I, comparable in size and part count to the first version of the bounty hunter’s iconic ship released in 2000 (7144). Of course, this latest version isn’t just a stack of brown and bright green slopes. Like 75060 UCS Slave I and the 2010 version before it, this mid-scale Slave I uses curved elements in dark red and dark green to capture the spaceship’s unique shape.

Like many vocal fans in the comments, I wasn’t entirely sold on this set based on the official product photos of 75222 we shared recently in the announcement article. And that impression wasn’t improved by the rather boring build from the first bags. But this little Slave I in the second batch of bags turns out to be rather wonderful, with clever techniques like the angle of the long section below the cockpit.

And then we turn to the bags numbered 3, which are a literal pile of basic bricks.

All these bricks result in a simple X structure that underlies the platforms on which the rest of the set is built.

The first quarter-section of Cloud City begins with more basic bricks and plates in bags #4, above which larger plates are in turn attached.

The underside of this section comes together with six “legs” built from basic bricks and inverted slopes.

This platform section then attaches to the X-shaped base, leaving connection points for subsequent sections.

Fortunately, the instruction booklet designers seem to understand how boring repeating the same type of build process over and over can get, so you build the Cloud City interior areas on this first platform using the parts in bags #5-6 before building another plain platform. The model designers here run into a major problem in depicting Cloud City as an interesting LEGO set — as important and iconic a location as it is plot-wise in Empire Strikes Back, if you take the time to look carefully at the living sections and corridors behind all the action, Cloud City itself is rather plain and sparse. As a result, the white-on-white, modern-looking section of Cloud City doesn’t actually have much detail beyond the occasional abstract wall art or standing sculpture.

The doors throughout Cloud City either slide side to side or up and down, and every room has one such door. The sixth set of bags includes the parts for the exterior wall, with a sliding door out onto the landing platform. Most sliding doors built from LEGO have used stacked bricks. In Cloud City, LEGO uses the unique shape of 2×2 hinge brick tops to build the sliding doors from outward-facing plates instead. This allows the doors to have brick-built details that would be harder to achieve with studs-up building techniques.

The outer wall includes a row of lights as well as a low wall around the balcony area that connects to the platform.

This exterior wall section attaches via Technic pins to the previously built quarter of Cloud City, and the landing platform hooks under the balcony (but doesn’t actually attach).

Bags #7 include the basic bricks and plates for the interior areas across from the white-on-white quarter-section. The platform uses the same techniques, and isn’t worth spending much time on. However, the detention block and recycling room are a bit more interesting than the rooms in the white section, so after the eighth bags you have a large gray, black, and dark red area with a completed detention block, including Darth Vader’s torture device. Bags #9 finish this section, adding the recycling room where Threepio nearly gets incinerated.

The tenth bags include a decorative microscale version of the Cloud City skyline that sits atop the playset, as well as the angled sections that split the city into quadrants. The skyline consists of a variety of spires and rounded structures, though I have to admit to being a bit distracted by the open studs at this scale — perhaps topping more of them with 1×1 round pieces or filling them with rods would have created a cityscape that looks less like a bunch of smokestacks. For example, note the clever use of plain gray microphone pieces on a couple of the buildings. I also think the central spire could be quite a bit taller.

Four identical wedge sections attach to the central core of Cloud City and create visual divisions between the four sections.

The microscale skyline then drops onto the top of the center.

We return to building another vehicle in the eleventh bags, featuring a revamped Twin-Pod Cloud Car — we’ll take a closer look at this airspeeder when we discuss the finished model later in the review. Bags #12 include all the parts for the carbon freezing chamber, which begins with an intricate Technic mechanism.

Unlike the half-round chamber in 75137 Carbon Freezing Chamber released nearly three years ago at the beginning of 2016, Cloud City includes a full platform, built from wedge plates connected with hinge plates.

The completed platform has no unnecessary details or play features like the 2016 version, and we’ll return to its excellent working feature later in this review. Like the landing platform, the carbon freezing chamber simply hooks under the staircase rather than attaching directly.

The final set of bags includes the parts for the gantry where Luke’s parentage is fatefully revealed. The gantry is held up by transparent panels attached to a black tile base. We think this could have been achieved with a Technic beam embedded into the main section (eliminating the need for the rather unsightly supports), but that might have precluded the hinged attachment point for the gantry that allows the whole thing to swing out to the side or swing in for a more compact footprint.

The finished model

When completed, Cloud City measures 22″ wide, essentially identical to the UCS Falcon’s central saucer section (without the forward mandibles). Two of the quadrants include detailed interiors, while the other two quadrants feature other important locations from the movie. The landing platform and carbon freezing chamber are fully detachable — in fact, they simple hook under the main section and aren’t attached at all.

Viewed from above, it’s easier to see how the various areas of Cloud City fit together, with the white-on-white living section opposite the prison and industrial section, with open areas on either side that include the landing platform, carbon freezing chamber, and gantry.

Unlike the UCS Falcon, the underside of Cloud City is not meant to be seen. The playset is very sturdy when picked up from underneath, but I can’t help thinking it would have been sturdier if more of the bricks were sandwiched by plates, and the interior of the base were built from a Technic lattice rather than criss-crossed basic bricks. Granted, most people aren’t going to be flipping Cloud City on its head like we did, but we can certainly anticipate builders who want to display it higher up or even engineer a central pylon for it to stand on. The wide-open underside certainly doesn’t lend itself, at least out of the box, to such display options.

Despite the lack of detail on the underside, Cloud City feels like it was definitely intended to be raised up, given how amazingly well-balanced the whole structure is. Here, we’ve placed the whole playset on a single pillar on a 2×2 connection (albeit minus the landing platform and carbon-freezing chamber, which aren’t directly connected).

There is one detail that extends through the platform to the underside — a ladder presumably for Luke to hang down and call for Leia’s help after Vader cuts off his hand. The fact that there is an underside detail like this actually exacerbates its unfinished look, since it focuses attention there.

As we noted earlier, the gantry section swings out to the side so that Cloud City has a bit more of a horizontal footprint. Doing so disconnects the doorway from the gantry, but provides a different way of displaying and playing with the set.

Even if the set looks rather sparse during the build process, once you place both the vehicles and all 18 minfigs on the set, it becomes a hive of activity and visual interest.

We’ll take a closer look at each interior section in a moment, but first let’s focus on the two vehicles included with the set. After several larger versions of Boba Fett’s Slave I, including the 1,996-piece 75060 UCS Slave I released at the beginning of 2015 (and the LEGO Star Wars set that both Chris and I have listed as our all-time favorite), this version feels rather tiny. Nevertheless, it’s incredibly well proportioned, with wonderful shaping and excellent detail for the size.

The wings swing up and down just like the movie spacecraft and the larger LEGO sets, though the blaster cannons don’t rotate and there’s no doorway from the rear ramp into the ship.

Boba Fett does fit into the cockpit, evoking the first Slave I set released 18 years ago.

The underside of the ship includes engine details, as well as a large gap that hints at the answer to the question, “But how will Boba Fett transport Han Solo encased in his block of carbonite?”

The open section has clips, and the block of carbonite fits snugly into it.

There’s room on the landing platform for Boba Fett to float Han out to Slave I.

Ships sit in the middle of the large landing platform in the movie, but such an enormous flat expanse would be a waste of space in a set like this. For this scale, the landing platform fits Slave I very nicely, so we wondered how the Midi-Scale Millennium Falcon (7778) released in 2009 would look on the platform. The Falcon is much more flat and longer with its mandibles, so it overhangs the landing platform a bit, but the platform does provide a new way to display your smaller-scale Falcon.

In fact, Slave I and the Millennium Falcon are fairly similar in size (Boba Fett’s ship is actually rather large), so it’s worth comparing these two ships side by side. I always thought the Midi-Scale series was far too short-lived, and the addition of other ships in the same scale would have been fantastic. Well, here we have what is essentially a midi-scale Slave I.

The LEGO design team addresses their color choices for some of the exterior sections in the interview in the instruction booklet, focusing in particular on the landing platform. In the movie, most of Cloud City appears with an orange hue, which turns out to be a reflection of Bespin’s clouds rather than the underlying color of the structures themselves (we know LEGO works directly with Lucasfilm for reference info, so we’ll take them at their word on this point). The designers acknowledge that the landing platform is actually gray like the rest of Cloud City, but they chose to build it in tan so it more closely resembles how viewers perceive the color of the platform. Similarly, the micro city in the center and the divider wedges are properly gray rather than the orange that they appear on screen.

Excluding micro and mini versions, LEGO hasn’t released a Twin-Pod Cloud Car since 7119 in 2002. That version was red and brown and included Lobot. This version replaces brown with spots of orange and dark red, but retains the overall red color scheme. Re-watching Empire Strikes Back as we worked on this review, Chris and I both agree that the cloud car is actually orange, not just from the reflected color of Bespin below.

This is confirmed by official reference photos as well as the decisions made by numerous other toy makers over the years, including LEGO themselves with the Bespin planet set (9678) in 2012. The decision to return to red is a rather baffling one, though the shape of the vehicle itself is rather excellent, with engine details on the back and brick-built cockpits.

The cockpits open like a clamshell to allow the pilots to enter and exit, though it’s a little cramped inside once they’re seated.

The cloud car fits neatly on its own landing platform on the industrial side of Cloud City next to the detention block.

Shifting focus back to the locations within Cloud City, the first interior scene features a rather plain hallway our heroes walk through as they leave the landing platform. This hallway includes a pointy sculpture in the middle of the floor, replicated accurately in brick form.

As Han and Leia follow Lando, Threepio wanders off and finds himself confronted by (as we learn later) an Imperial stormtrooper, who blasts him apart. We don’t see much of that room, but the LEGO version includes some greebly pipe details.

Chewbacca finds C-3P0 on a conveyer belt, about to be fed into an incinerator by a bunch of Ugnaughts. The conveyer belt is built from Technic pins between Technic liftarms, heading toward the orange glow of the incinerator (a 2×5 trans-orange brick built behind the oven). This is also where we briefly glimpse IG-88 lying against the wall, faithfully included here by the LEGO designers — a wonderful easter egg for hardcore Star Wars fans (we’ll explain in more detail when we discuss the minifigures later).

The room where Leia and Han wait for Lando includes a helical sculpture in the center of the room, captured remarkably well with a simple stack of transparent 1×1 tiles. This room in particular highlights the large stickers applied to panels throughout the set, with gray lines evoking the shadows from white-on-white textured wall designs.

As we noted earlier, each room has at least one door that opens and closes, and this one illustrates the way that the up/down doors work.

The conference room where Darth Vader and Boba Fett ambush Han and Leia includes a miniature version of the table, covered with little plates and mugs, along with what appears to be a chocolate cupcake. One issue I have with large stickers on large panels is when the sticker color doesn’t properly match the underlying brick color. The tan stickers in this set do not match the tan panels to which they’re affixed, and that results in large, obvious stickers like the ones in this room.

This is one room that doesn’t skimp on interior details, with an interesting round sculpture (a model of Cloud City itself?) in one corner and a hanging sculpture on the opposite wall. These details are absent in the even more boring movie interior, so I can’t fault the LEGO designers for adding some visual interest here and there. (The odd gap above the sculpture behind Han’s left shoulder is for the Technic pin that holds the door up when it’s raised.)

Next up in our chronological tour of Cloud City is the detention block, where Darth Vader tortures Han Solo without even asking him any questions.

The torture device folds up and down so you can shove Han’s face into a bunch of nasty needles, if that’s your thing.

Han can’t catch a break, as he’s summarily carted off to be frozen in carbonite as a reward for Boba Fett, and as a test of the chamber’s capabilities in freezing Luke as a prize for the Emperor.
The carbon freezing chamber fits with a staircase built into the detention block section.

A pair of silver cupcakes act as knobs that hook under the staircase, holding it securely in place when Cloud City is on a flat surface.

We mentioned earlier in this review that the carbon-freezing chamber includes an intricate Technic mechanism at its base. The purpose of this should be evident from the large lever connected to the mechanism, as well as the look of consternation on Han’s face as he stands in the center of the platform. In my rather negative review of 75137 Carbon Freezing Chamber, I wrote that the mechanism that merely flipped Han in his carbonite block front to back was rather “fiddly,” and suggested that the set’s other two play features could have been eliminated in favor of a more proper carbon-freezing mechanism. To quote myself, “It’s not like Han disappears entirely and up pops the block of carbonite in his place. Now that would be a remarkable play feature!” Well, fast forward nearly three years and behold the remarkable play feature that the LEGO designers have incorporated into this version of the same scene.

The lever at the base flips Technic liftarms up and down on Technic axles, moving Han as a minifig down into the carbon-freezing chamber itself, while immediately flipping him in frozen form back up to the surface. It’s an ingenious mechanism that’s brilliant in its simplicity and confirms my negative opinion of the previous incarnation in 75137.

The gantry where Luke’s right hand meets its fateful end is also brilliant in its simplicity, with most of the parts focused on the complicated sensor array at the end of the catwalk. LEGO even produced the Classic Castle pitchfork in light gray for the first time in order to get the lower details right.

In the movie, the gantry extends out from an enormous, sail-like structure. Obviously, such a huge structure would be impossible to replicate in a LEGO set this size, so the edge of that sail is alluded to with a slanted doorway that connects back to the main sections of Cloud City. I’m not sure I like the large gaps, nor the 6×6 radar dish serving as a window, connected solely via a click hinge that wobbles back and forth. Nevertheless, the overall effect is solid, with lot of great detail at the end of the gantry and some nice guardrails made from flex tube.

The minifigures

The true difference between a UCS set like the Millennium Falcon and this new “Master Builder Series” is evident in the sheer number of minifigs. 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City includes 18 minifigs and 2 droids — Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and Lando Calrissian in the outfits seen on Cloud City, together with Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO; Han & Leia in their Hoth outfits as they arrive on Cloud City; Lobot, a pair of Bespin guards and a pair of Twin-Pod Cloud Car pilots, along with an Ugnaught; and finally Darth Vader, two stormtroopers, Boba Fett, and IG-88.

Lando and his fellow Cloud City residents are well-represented in the set, with 7 out of the 18 sets. The two Bespin guards wear uniforms that are identical to the minifigs included in 75060 UCS Slave I, though they have different heads. It’s a bit of a shame that LEGO has never included the cuff design since printing them on the arms of the Bespin guard in the 2006 Slave I (6209). Similarly, Lobot is identical to the version included with the 2012 Bespin/Two-Pod Cloud Car planet set (9678). Lando is, of course, the real star of the Bespin crew, with an outfit completely redesigned from the very first Bespin Lando from the 2003 Cloud City set (notable as the very first LEGO Star Wars minifig to feature an accurate skin tone).

All four minifigs have detailed printing on their backs.

Like the cape that Billy Dee Williams wears so snazzily in the movie, Lando’s LEGO cape is light blue on the outside with a swirly gold design on the inside. Unlike many recent LEGO capes, this one uses the traditional stiff cloth rather than the newer soft cloth.

For Cloud City, LEGO has produced Twin-Pod Cloud Car pilots for the first time. They wear unique white helmets with printed red details, and though the two minifigs are completely identical, they have reversible heads so you can switch them and distinguish them a bit. The Ugnaught shares its head design with the Ugnaught included with 75137 Carbon Freezing Chamber, though this Ugnaught has brown printed hair details rather than white on the 2016 version.

Like the other characters, the pilots and the Ugnaught have rear printing on their torsos.

Along with Lando, one of the standout new minifigs in this set is Han Solo in the outfit that he appears in as he exits the Millennium Falcon on the Cloud City landing platform, accompanied by Leia, Chewie, and Threepio. The latter two characters are common across many LEGO Star Wars sets, while Leia wears the same outfit that she wears in the UCS Falcon.

What makes this version of Han — the same character variant with a blue jacket and brown pants that appears in the UCS Falcon — so fantastic is that Han’s legs are dual-molded, with printing on the sides. The black knee-high boots are made from black plastic, while the brown pants are made from brown plastic. Han’s distinctive military stripes are then printed along the side of his legs, with his holster hanging on his right hip. The overall effect is stunning.

Han and Leia both have reversible heads, different from the versions included in the UCS Falcon (which featured respirator masks).

This rear view of the Falcon crew shows how the dual-molding wraps all the way around Han’s legs, rather than just appearing on the front and sides. Dual-molding first appeared in LEGO Collectible Minifigure sets several years ago, and it’s great to see the technique used in more and more mainstream LEGO sets.

Leia and Han also appear in the outfits they wear in later scenes on Cloud City. Leia in her long dress is the third standout minifig of this set, taking advantage of the new curved dress piece first produced earlier this summer in the Harry Potter / Fantastic Beasts Collectible Minifigures. This is another character variant that hasn’t been produced since the original Cloud City set in 2003. One disappointment is that Princess Leia has a distinctive hairstyle on Bespin, featuring looped braids, but LEGO has not produced a hair piece that matches that hairstyle. LEGO does produce unique hair pieces on a one-off basis, so Leia continuing to wear her Hoth hairstyle in her Bespin outfit should make all hardcore Star Wars fans like me a bit itchy. Luke Skywalker also gets a Bespin makeover, wearing a dark tan jumpsuit, accompanied as always by Artoo.

The detail on Leia’s long dress extends down her back as well, though Han’s white shirt lacks any rear detail. Luke’s jumpsuit has pouches.

All three human characters have reversible heads. Although Leia’s head is identical to several other versions of the character, Han has a new head that shows him woozy from Darth Vader’s torture. Similarly, Luke has a determined expression as well as one worse for wear from his encounter with his newfound father.

Speaking of the Dark Lord of the Sith, Vader is accompanied by two generic stormtroopers. Vader himself is indistinguishable from all the versions included with recent sets that have featured him in his new, two-piece helmet.

The stormtroopers both feature identical Clone Trooper faces, and Anakin has a slight smile on his decrepit face.

Cloud City would not be complete without Boba Fett, who is identical to the previously exclusive version in the UCS Slave I, including the detailed arm printing. The set also includes IG-88. Now, why is IG-88 in this set at all, you may wonder. Well, in the scene when Chewbacca rescues the disassembled C-3P0 from the Ugnaught incinerator, there is an IG droid lying against the wall. There is nothing in the movie to indicate that this is IG-88 from earlier in the movie during Darth Vader’s parade of bounty hunters, but non-movie sources say that IG-88 followed Fett to Bespin, where Bespin security caught the droid and left it for scrap.

Under his helmet, Boba Fett has the same Clone Trooper head as the stormtroopers (which does make sense, given that Fett is also a clone of Jango Fett). While it’s a shame that this excellent version of Boba hasn’t been included in smaller sets, it is nice to have it available in something other than just the UCS Slave I.

Conclusions & recommendation

At $350 for just over 2,800 pieces, there are two ways in which you’re paying a premium for 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City. First, LEGO Star Wars sets are almost always more expensive on average than other sets due to Disney/Lucasfilm licensing fees that LEGO has to pay, and that they in turn pass on to us. Second, this set includes 18 minifigures, and minifigs are more expensive to produce than the average 2×4 brick. As a result, we can’t recommend buying this set solely on value for the volume of brick. Similarly, it’s hard to recommend most of the set for innovative building techniques — with the exception of the remarkable carbon freezing chamber play feature, most of Cloud City itself is stacked bricks, plates, and panels. Where the set shines, though, is less in the underlying city than in the pair of vehicles and all the minifigures populating it.

I don’t like reading LEGO set reviews that are merely lists of the pros and cons from the reviewer’s perspective — that seems lazy on the part of the reviewer. But there are some LEGO sets composed of enough disparate parts that a balance of pros and cons is inevitable. 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City is just such a set, with two fantastic vehicles, several truly stellar new minifigures, and at least one absolutely fantastic play feature. But the high price, fairly basic building techniques for the city itself, stickers that don’t match brick color, and the common minifigs bulking up the 18-minifig count all work to counter the set’s positive attributes.

Finally, it’s worth considering this set as part of a new Master Builder Series within the LEGO Star Wars line. To recap LEGO’s recent statement about the new branding:

The Master Builder Series models are large playsets and beside being complex builds they are characterized by having many play features and functions, interior details as well as a range of minifigures. Ultimate Collectors series will remain highly detailed display models providing complex builds with a focus on authenticity and both Ultimate Collectors Series and Master Builder Series will continue as a way to highlight the unique characteristic of each style of model.

So, let’s unpack this statement point by point:

  • “Large playsets:” Check — 75222 is undeniably a large playset.
  • “Complex builds:” Partial — 75222 includes some complex and innovative building techniques, but certainly not on par with any of the recent UCS vehicle sets.
  • “Many play features:” Partial — it’s hard to count doors that open and close as a play feature, so that leaves the torture rack and the carbon freezing chamber.
  • “Interior details:” Partial — 75222 has lots of interior spaces, though the very nature of the source material means that the interior must follow a rather sparse aesthetic.
  • “Range of minifigures:” Check — 75222 includes 18 minifigs, with 6 that are new or redesigned.

In other words, Cloud City doesn’t necessarily even live up to LEGO’s own definition for the new branding (though our assessment of complexity and play features may hold the set to a higher bar than LEGO themselves do). Right or wrong, hardcore LEGO builders — those who design their own models like the ones we feature every day here on The Brothers Brick — often look askance at LEGO fans who “just” collect and display official LEGO sets. Ironically perhaps, assigning the truly complex sets like the UCS Falcon, UCS Slave I, and UCS Snowspeeder to a new “Master Builder” branding akin to the “Creator Expert” brand for modular buildings like 10260 Downtown Diner while applying the “Collector” label to minifig-centric sets like Cloud City and the much-reviled 75098 Assault on Hoth might have landed better with builders. But then again, I’m no market research expert and I may simply be reflecting my own AFOL myopia.

Our announcement article generated quite a passionate discussion in the comments, based initially on the product photos and press release. Now that TBB has had a chance to share more photos with you along with our own impressions, what do you think? Let us know in the comments!


75222 Betrayal at Cloud City includes 2,812 pieces and 18 minifigures. The set will be available October 1st exclusively from the LEGO Shop (USD 349.99 | CDN 399.99 | GBP 299.99), as well as from third-party sellers on Amazon.com, eBay, BrickLink, and elsewhere.

The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.


Read more reviews from the current wave of LEGO Star Wars sets:


14 comments on “LEGO Star Wars 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City – the first Master Builder Series set [Review]

  1. Guido

    “Master builder series” – obviously a reaction to the massive negative feedback they received for their Hoth “Ultimate collector series” playset.

  2. Jeru

    Boba mini fig in UCS Slave 1 has a unique face…better than the generic clone face even if it makes sense. +1 for the Slave 1 version.

  3. Max Coponius

    Great review, but this seems as attractive as the Hoth one.This one in particular struggles to who is the audience. It’s not very pleasing as a display for AFOLs and the for kids not sure how much Cloud City will resonate as it’s a 30+ year old movie. Good fo the bricklink minifigs and parts though.

  4. Exxos

    This is about as far from what I would want for a Cloud City set to be. I would have liked a UCS or preferably a new form where it crosses over with architecture from fiction — small, high detail, affordable sets. Imagine that, a tabletop Cloud City about 22cm across and 15cm tall, Theed for the people that somehow think the prequels are acceptable, the Emerald City from Wizard of Oz, a teency ghostbusters firehouse.

    But this? This is child’s playset on an adult’s budget. It is too much and too dated for most kids and too juvenile and poorly implemented for most adults. So this is likely aimed at the small subset of children that prefer pre-1998 Star Wars and come from obscenely wealthy families where lego is a substitute for love/parenting?

    I like the compact Slave I, but that could have been sold as a set of its own.

  5. Hobbythom

    Excellent review. Just the right mix of depth, honesty and enthousiasm. I Don’t really have an opinion about that set other than that the ‘stache face on that guard is terrible.

  6. Yanick Lang

    J’étais très impatient d’apercevoir l’ensemble une fois monté. Et vu que je dispose d’un Légostore à coté de chez moi, j’ai pu vraiment me rendre compte. Je suis immédiatement tombé sous le charme. Je comprends que pour la somme de 350€, les fans exigent un rendu fidèle à la réalité. Un peu comme l’était à l’époque le vaisseau impérial de l’empereur. Je suis convaincu que si les ingénieurs ont conçu ce set dans le même esprit que l’étoile de la mort, c’est parce qu’effectivement le nombre de compartiments, de scènes octroient une quantité d’heures de jeu vraiment inépuisable. Pour avoir acheté il y a 9 ans la dernière étoile de la mort (celle qui encore aujourd’hui se vend 500€), je me retrouve parfaitement dans ce nouveau set. Et puis toutes ces figurines… Il me tarde de le terminer. Rappelons que Légo reverse 30% pour la licence. Si on déduit tout avec la TVA, ce qui revient à Légo correspond a peu près la moitié. Depuis douze mois est apparue une quantité astronomique de boîtes exclusives. Je ne compte pas les fois où il m’a fallu me retenir. J’ai tout de même craqué sur manoir wayne parce que j’ai adoré Légo Batman. Je ne cache pas aussi que la 71043 ça a été dur. Mais je ne regrette pas en définitive d’avoir attendu. Car pour ceux qui ont raté la 10123, honnêtement, c’est fabuleux. Et franchement, si vous avez de quoi vous l’offrir, n’hésitez pas. Et ne vous posez pas toutes ces questions sur comment les ingénieurs auraient pu faire autrement, réaliste ou plus grand. Faites vous plaisir et achetez là avec le même regard qui brille lorsqu’à l’époque vous auriez aimé la 10123, mais que vous ne pouviez pas. Et encore moins plus tard à 1500€ sur Ebay. La cité des nuages est de retour, elle est là, en mieux, en plus grand, et pour 5 fois moins cher que l’ancienne!

  7. stingraymd

    Thanks for the great review, a nice addition to the official introduction of the set.
    You actually succeeded to make it more attractive, but… I am still not happy with it. Limited play features, a not too attractive design, nothing really knew, way overpriced for a couple of cool minifigures…
    The UCS Millennium Falcon has shown that there is a market for expensive products of outstanding themes an design. TLG understandably wants to ride that wave.

    Unfortunately this this version of Cloud City isn’t outstanding in any way.

  8. Andrew

    This set is a dumpster fire. They simply took the top of the Death Star and changed the rooms to cloud city, while wasting piece count on micro versions of ships for a minifig scale set. These designers should be fired.

  9. GJBricks

    Great review! I think for this I’d have preferred a series of small play sets like the Harry Potter ones that all connect together, perhaps with each set containing some of the underlying frame. There’s definitely some bit of this that are attractive and appealing, but as a whole, this very pricey set, is a no thank you. It’s not really a master set either.

  10. Mr Classic

    Many thanks for this excellent review with so many great photos!

    As for Lobot, it’s actually not the same version as in 9678, both the head and torso prints are updated.

  11. torso

    I believe apart from the price there is enough to like about this set. Granted by default its not a display set but all of the playsets I own I have modified to make them feel fuller, more complete and displayable. Similar to the Hoth set, I used that as the basis for building the whole base. I will be doing the same with this. I don’t expect Lego to hand over the complete picture but give the correct ingredients so people can add there own parts to build something unique. In my opinion there is no emission to the ingredients. Kids will love it to play with and AFOLs have an opportunity to do what they love, build there own version utilising the part provided. I have built full Jabbas palace, Mos eisly, Ewok Village, Hoth all this way and I love it. Once I have finished the Death Star I will move onto this. This is what I love about lego. I will wait for a sale (20% off ideal) then my new project will begin :)

  12. Jon Hall

    I always thought the best way to do a new Cloud City set would be to have several (maybe 3 or 4) separate sets that would join together like the Jabba’s palace (9516) and Rancor Pit (75005) did. That way kids could buy the smaller sets (e.g. Carbon freezing chamber or Vader/Luke duel) and if you wanted to get all of them you’d have the satisfaction of completing the collection and having a huge playset.

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