It’s almost become a tradition – insofar as LEGO has traditions – that we get two Ultimate Collector Series Star Wars sets every year. Usually, these come in May (for May 4th) and some time in the autumn. But this year, 75417 AT-ST Walker is bucking that trend! This latest UCS set releases this August 1st alongside a host of other Star Wars sets. It’s the second time the Imperial walker has been tackled at this scale – but this time, your US $199.99 | CAN $259.99 | UK £179.99 gets you 1,513 pieces. Pre-orders are open now, and after its release date, it may also be available from third-party retail sites like eBay or Amazon.
The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
The box and contents
Befitting the AT-ST’s height, the box is in portrait, with a green hue evoking the forest moon of Endor. The reverse features a shot from Return of the Jedi in that very location.
Inside: 14 paper bags, instructions, the information plaque, and a sticker sheet. Yes, there are stickers – but only five of them.
The instructions feature four double-page spreads of background on the AT-ST and the design of this set (including a little nugget of information we’ll come back to later). I didn’t take a photo of it, but there is also a double-page spread of some Ralph McQuarrie concept art before we start building. I love me some McQuarrie art, so that was a nice surprise!
The build
Let’s attack the build then. The base is made up of plates and brackets – but pay attention to those rounded 1×5 plates!
The legs of the walker are placed at an angle (to help with stability, according to the preamble), and said angle is achieved with a bunch of rounded plates. The rear joint is a single pivot, but the front one is double-jointed.
Since it’s all sandwiched in with more plates, it’s nice and strong. A nice way to go off the LEGO grid!
The following steps involve adding some detail to this bley base. There are a couple of nifty stud inversions, and a whip used for detailing, but otherwise, nothing too crazy.
One of the more unusual details that some eagle-eyed builders spotted when this set was released is a tyre. Whether this serves any function or is just for detailing, I’m not sure. But here it sits at the end of our second bag.
We’ve seen more tyres than we have legs so far. Bit odd for a walker! Let’s change that. The Technic beams are coming out in force for the AT-ST’s limbs.
Underneath the chicken walker’s size 12s are some rubber pads – a fairly unusual part in the Technic realm. They serve an important purpose: the grip they provide will be invaluable from a stability point of view.
The rest of the leg is built up fairly quickly. There is a subtle angle to the top joint that’s difficult to capture in pictures – it’s not horizontal. That may change when it has the weight of a command cabin on top of it though!
The connection to the body is a simple studded one, which is then shored up with the parts in bags 7 and 8. Among the greebles that go on here is a paint roller, and our first pair of stickers.
Setting the body aside, we’ll focus on the cockpit for a bit. There’s another lesson in Technic geometry, and that’s where the front panel will go.
This is the second UCS AT-ST, following in the footsteps of 10174 in 2006. One of the major differences design-wise this time around is the inclusion of a detailed interior. Two more stickers used here. The design on the black stripe mimics that of the LEGO ingot which is used further up the seat, which is a nice touch.
The last sticker gets used up before long, too, as the front is made: first the chin cannons, then the front face of the command module.
Is it just me, or is there a touch of MF Doom to that front panel?
Anyway, the viewport covers (or eyelids, if we’re keeping the anthropomorphism up) are the last bits to go on from bag 11.
Side walls next! Not much to see here – just layers of grey plates and tiles, plus a yellow turntable for more armaments. I don’t think that’ll provide much protection against a crushing log trap.
The Technic assembly at the lower face is placed on to this panel on an angle, which allows the walls to taper towards the front. So that’s the bottom sorted, but how do we connect the top?
Quite simply, with a rubber Technic bush taking up the slack. This isn’t a new technique, but it is neat. In fact, it’s not even the first time rubber has been used for a UCS AT-ST’s side walls – the 2006 model used rubber bands to pull them together!
Nothing spectacular about the rear face, which is just attached to some SNOT brackets.
With all the side armour in place, it’s time to bring the legs back. Nearly finished now!
The last bag includes parts for the roof, which includes the access hatch…
… And for the side-mounted weapons. Ski poles make up the light blaster cannon, while another wheel is used in the concussion grenade launcher. Blue 4×4 round plates will allow those glorious 8×8 dishes to connect to our yellow turntables.
That’s the walker done – we’ll look at that after we’ve seen the minifigure, which also comes in this bag. Last but not least, a handful of black plates make up the stand. These don’t vary much across UCS/18+ sets, so not much to say here. All told, it wasn’t a terribly long build: somewhere between 7 and 8 hours across two evenings, and that’s including breaks.
The minifigure
AT-STs normally have a crew of two (or three, if we’re talking Wookiees and Ewoks), but we only get one minifigure in this set. It’s a doozy though. The helmet is printed with goggles which would look perfect on a General Veers minifigure.
There’s printing not only on the back, but on the arms too! The Imperial shoulder emblem is a nice touch.
The finished model
Ewoks beware! This walker is no chicken. It stands very tall – almost 16 inches.
Imperial light-bluish grey doesn’t make for the most exciting colour scheme, but there are a few dark tan blemishes to make this walker a little more battle-worn. They’re sparsely used, though, which I think is a good thing. The Empire keeps their kit clean, unlike the rag-tag Rebel Alliance!
You won’t see much through the opening hatch at the top, but fortunately the top angles up so that you can look inside. It’s not exactly rammed with detail, but it’s nice enough.
I thought the hatch was a little small at first, but on closer inspection of the source material it actually looks about right. Clearly too big for our pilot, though.
The weapons are nicely detailed, and have a decent range of motion.
So, too, does the head rotation.
That clip does hint at something though – and that leads me on to what I mentioned while unpacking the instructions. The LEGO Star Wars design team “experimented with proportions and tweaked the design to find the optimal centre of gravity”. They certainly found it: the model is very stable, if alarmingly wobbly!
But it’s the “experimented with proportions” bit that I’m not so sure on. Even the props used for Star Wars varied in their size and proportion, which is a boon for model makers the world over, as you can adapt your model based on the medium and still make a technically accurate model. Even so… I’m not sure whether it’s the chunkiness of the legs, or the head being a little short, but something about the proportions of this walker doesn’t quite look right.
It’s a case of damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t for the designers – and to be fair, I think opting for stability first is the right call. It does look good without a stand holding it up. Nonetheless, it’s not something I can draw a blind eye to…
Conclusions and recommendation
This is the second Imperial UCS set I’ve built in as many years for TBB, following last year’s TIE Interceptor. The price point between them is in a similar ballpark; $230 for the Interceptor, $200 for the AT-ST. They have similarly mediocre price-per-part ratios (11.9 and 13.2 cents per piece, respectively). And yet I feel the former is a better deal than this walker. The build is fairly unremarkable, bar a couple of interesting ways to make angles. It’s not an inaccurate model, but nor is it the most faithful. And – although this is the curse of many Star Wars models – the grey makes it really rather bland to look at. A modest discount – say 10% – would make it merely passable value for money. Otherwise, unless you’re a completionist, I would skip this one.
LEGO Star Wars 75417 AT-ST Walker contains 1,513 pieces and one minifigure, and is available for pre-order now for US $199.99 | CAN $259.99 | UK £179.99, with shipping and general availability starting from August 1. It may also be available from third-party retailers like eBay or Amazon.
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.
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