Despite being an iconic location from the Star Wars universe, the Cantina found on the Tatooine hasn’t really been done justice in LEGO® form. The nearest we’ve got to capture the full force of the Cantina’s scum and villainy is the 2014 version but that’s about to change with the latest addition to the LEGO Star Wars range. The Master Builder Series Mos Eisley doesn’t do things by halves. For the first time, the entire Cantina has been recreated along with two Landspeeders, a workshop and an impressive 21 Minifigures. When combined you get the ultimate brick-built version of the Mos Eisley Cantina. LEGO has kindly provided a set to review so I’ve been busy building it and here’s my review.
Product Description
Enjoy quality me-time and relive iconic Star Wars: A New Hope moments with the awesome LEGO® Star Wars™ Mos Eisley Cantina (75290) construction model for display. This 3,187-piece Master Builder Series set features the Cantina with lots of authentic details to delight fans, plus attachable buildings to recreate a Mos Eisley city scene.
Build and display
This immersive build is a great way to relax and reconnect with your Star Wars passion. A Dewback LEGO figure and 2 Landspeeders complete a wonderful display piece. Bring your Tatooine scene to life with 21 LEGO minifigures, including Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and C-3PO, new-for-October-2020 Ponda Baba, Garindan and Labria, plus an R2-D2 LEGO droid figure.
- Set Name: Mos Eisley Cantina
- Set Number: 75290
- Pieces: 3187
- RRP: £319.99/$349.99/349.99€
- Measurements: measures over 7.5” (19cm) high, 20.5” (52cm) wide and 23” (58cm) deep when opened up
- Minifigures: Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2. Imperial Sandtroopers x2, Garindan, Wuher, Greedo, Ponda Baba, Dr Evazan, Modal Nodes x3, Momaw Nadon, Kabe, Kardue’sai’Malloc (Labria), Jawa & Hrchek Kal Fas
- Availability: VIP Access September 15th from LEGO Stores and LEGO.com (General Release October 1st)
The Set
The main focus of the set is the Mos Eisley Cantina building with houses Chalmun’s spaceport watering hole. With the actual building being split into three sections. Starting with the bar, the central point of much of the action in A New Hope. This may only be a small section of the overall set but it’s got plenty of detail going on. The various pipes and drinks are achieved with a mixture of elements. Often these little details look great but are quite unstable, that’s not the case here. All the little elements are well connected and solid. The bar also acts as an anchor point for the rest of the building, with each side of the Cantina connected to the bar by a series of hinges.
The Cantina is a dark and dingy place, perfect for all sorts of shadowy activities. Which is why there are so many self-contained booths, the most famous of which sees Han have a civilised chat with Greedo. Over the years their confrontation has changed somewhat, which has given fuel to a fun little feature. The two seats where Han and Greedo meet can be flipped via a handle found outside the Cantina walls. Leaving it up to you who shot first. This is a fun play feature which has been well incorporated into the build and not tacked on or included for the sake of it.
The rest of the Cantina is a mix of what was seen on screen and areas where the LEGO Design Team has been given a little creative freedom. So you’ll find the entrance where Droids are turned away, plus plenty of nooks and crannies to hide away some of the various Minifigures. Along with a stage area for the Cantina band to perform. In fact, there is plenty of space to add many more Minifigures beyond those included with the set. You could even switch out some characters in place of those featured in The Mandalorian. The Star Wars universe is famed for its ‘lived in’ feel and the build embraces this, with a mixture of aptly named brick and sand yellow elements. there are also ‘bricks’ made up of a couple of 1×1 plates and studs to bring even more texture to the outside of the Cantina. I’m glad this route was chosen over stickers. Speaking of which, the set features a surprisingly low amount of them. In fact, most of the stickers are used on the two Landspeeders, with only a few used beyond that. Printed elements are also quite scarce, with only a couple of Imperial-branded crates joining the generic control panels, which work so well in the LEGO Star Wars sets.
The Cantina perfectly blends features of a set which can be played with and something which can be displayed. As well as something which could form the basis of an epic Star Wars display. When opened you can access the inside structure quite easily, this is helped by the roof sections being removable. But when closed it’s a solid structure and can easily be moved around. Even the roof struts, which are fitted to the Cantina once it’s enclosed, sits nicely in place. This for me for is a big draw, it’s not very often a LEGO set manages to have great features and details but also be something which stays connected and isn’t fiddling to transform between play and display states.
The set is the most authentic LEGO take on the Cantina yet and I doubt it could be improved without making it bigger or adding more Minifigures. Which is something I’ll love to see introduced in the future with these Master Builder Series sets. Other LEGO Star Wars sets could be created as add-ons. Although they would be perfectly decent sets on their own, they could also be incorporated into sets like the Cantina. Just imagine a ‘Battle Pack’ style set with a few more Minifigures and another Mos Eisley building, creature or small craft. As much as I enjoy UCS sets, I would certainly welcome more Master Builder Series sets if they are as good as the Cantina is. Jabba’s Palace, the Dagobah Swamp, the Yavin 4 Rebel Base, would all make great sets in the same style.
Tatooine is a bustling hive of activity, beyond the Cantina in the movies and TV shows. This has been partly captured by a couple of additional smaller buildings, which include a Jawa’s workshop and a hut. Although not directly seen on screen during the Star Wars movies, the overall look of these outer buildings wouldn’t look out of place on Tatooine. Both buildings are filled with little details and accessories, you’d expect a Jawa to have including ship parts, tools and a Kyber crystal. The slighter chunkier building can be connected together or opened out and both of these smaller building can be added to the Cantina various a couple of different connection points. But this only adds to the sets already large surface area and they look better separately, to be honest.
The set contains two Landspeeders – a V-35 and Ubrikkian 9000. The V-35 makes its first appearance in LEGO form and looks like what you’d expect a traditional Star Wars Landspeeder to. Although it features an enclosed cockpit and an open area to the rear of that. I love the way the rear spoiler has been achieved, mostly thanks to a few reverse connected elements. It may only have appeared on screen for mere seconds but it’s nice for a Star Wars set to offer something different. I’ve seen a couple of people question why it was included over Luke’s Landspeeder, we’ve had plenty of those over the years, I’m sure you’ll agree an entirely new craft is better than one we’ve had loads of.
The second Landspeeder is a little more unusual but has appeared in a much smaller version of the Mos Eisely Cantina. The Ubrikkian 9000 is a domed one-person craft and has previously appeared in the most recent (and much smaller) version of Cantina. Both versions are fairly similar in their builds and detailing, with the version. here ditching the stud shooter and switching out clear disc ‘windows’ for black ones. It’s an extremely tricky craft to recreate perfectly in this scale, but it’s wacky enough looking vehicle to fit nicely with the ragtag feel of the Cantina.
Imperial Forces are often patrolling the dusty streets and sandy dunes of Tatooine. But the arid atmosphere means the Sandtroopers use Dewbacks to help them cover greater areas. The Dewback is a huge thick-skinned reptile native to Tatooine and is more associated with the jazzed up Special Edition of the original Star Wars movie. The version here is identical, in terms of the mould, to the one featured in the 2014 Cantina. But there is a slightly different style reins and the print detail featured on the Dewback is slightly different. It includes a saddle, which can be removed and replaced with a section to complete the creature’s body.
The Minifigures
With the Minifigures being such a big part of this set, I’ll be taking a closer look at them all in a separate review. But it’s nice to see not only so many included but also some new faces. The creatures featured in the original Cantina scene are a unique looking bunch, which means the best way of capturing them in Minifigure-form is by creating new and recoloured elements. Some of the newbies include Ponda Baba, Garindan and Labria. They join a number of familiar faces, some of which have had a little visual tweak compared to past versions.
Overall
The Star Wars universe is filled with a rich array of characters, ships and locations many of which have been the source for numerous LEGO sets. The theme relies heavily on cool looking ships and vehicles which blast around that galaxy far, far away. As much as I enjoy building a 7541-piece Falcon and collecting the cute little Microfighters, I’m quite the fan of LEGO Star Wars sets which tackle buildings and locations. The Ewok Village set from a few years ago is still one of my favourite LEGO Star Wars sets because it offers something a little different and the same can be said for the Mos Eisley Cantina. The scene in which we are introduced to the Cantina helped to bring life to the Star Wars universe and show it’s inhabited by a strange bunch of creatures. It’s such an iconic part of the Star Wars stories, it’s appeared in various games, animated TV shows and most recently the amazing Disney+ series, The Mandalorian. So I’m delighted to see the Cantina finally done justice in brick form. I understand that some LEGO Star Wars fans are not that interested in these sort of large-scale playsets and would rather have a UCS ship. But you’ll be missing out on a fun build, which captures the rundown and worn feel of the Mos Eisley Cantina. Plus manages to bring it to life with fun details, great use of elements and an impressive gang of Minifigures. The only downside for me is the size of the set, it’s certainly a tricky one to display, due to its sizable footprint. However, you can remove some of the various sections found outside the main building, such as the Dewback paddock, which helps a little when displaying.
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This set was provided to BricksFanz.com by the LEGO Group for purposes of review. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
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