First review of LEGO Star Wars UCS Tie Interceptor: nostalgia good, change bad

The first review of the LEGO Star Wars 75382 TIE Interceptor has landed online, praising the newly-revealed UCS set for its nostalgic approach – while criticising a change to its info plaque.

The LEGO Group only officially unveiled 75382 TIE Interceptor yesterday, but YouTuber MandRproductions has already published an early review of this year’s headline May the 4th release, giving us our best look yet at the model in hand – along with the clearest look at its exclusive TIE Fighter Pilot minifigure, which is not shown close-up in any of the official LEGO Star Wars set images.

First up, though, there’s the set’s instructions – which reveal that 75382 TIE Interceptor was actually designed by Henrik Andersen, who was also responsible for the original UCS TIE Interceptor that arrived on shelves in 2000 (and both the first and latest UCS X-wings). It’s a full-circle moment for a veteran of the LEGO Star Wars theme, and completes the consecutive remakes of the very first LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series sets.

The TIE Fighter Pilot minifigure is ‘currently limited to this set’ (so says the press release), and includes new and exclusive arm printing. Ryan’s review gives us a close-up of both that minifigure – which is still rocking the same TIE Pilot helmet we’ve seen in use for several years now – and the buildable MSE droid, or Mouse Droid, which joins it on the ship’s display stand, alongside a 25th-anniversary logo brick and the customary info plaque.

It’s here that Ryan first finds fault with 75382 TIE Interceptor, suggesting that the LEGO Group has overloaded the display stand. “Everything they’ve got at the foot of the TIE Interceptor here just adds up to be a lot,” he says. “It becomes a bit messy at the front of the TIE Interceptor and I don’t think I love that they put all of this stuff right in front of the Interceptor stand and plaque. It just feels a bit crowded.”

Ryan’s chief criticism here though is that the LEGO Group has changed the material used for the large 8×16 tile. Like last year’s 75355 X-wing Starfighter and 75367 Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser, this new UCS set includes a printed rather than stickered plaque, but here it has a glossy rather than matte finish – which is seemingly more prone to smudges and scratches.

“I’ve tried to clean it,” he says. “It does not clean off. This thing looks ugly and it’s going to continue to look uglier over time as it wears. The matte finish version of this 8×16 plate though does not have the same problem. These things still look clean after many months, and in my X-wing’s case it’s been out in the elements for a year [and] it literally looks better than my day-one TIE Interceptor plaque.”

Moving on to the model itself, Ryan first demonstrates how it lifts away from the display stand – you need to grab it from the underside of the cockpit rather than the wings – and says it’s both easily removable and sturdy. The ship can’t be placed on a flat surface on its wings, however: if you want to show it off sans stand, the only way to do so is to rest it on the rear of its wings, pointing into the sky, which doesn’t look great.

Perhaps the trickiest part to pull off in any LEGO TIE (regardless of scale) is its spherical cockpit, and Henrik has aimed for something different here to 2015’s 75095 TIE Fighter – with mixed results, according to this review.

“There are some insane techniques going on inside to make this as round as possible,” Ryan explains. “However, it comes with drawbacks: it is a little bit lumpy looking. While it does achieve a smooth look with very few studs, there are still a bunch of lumps and maybe even worse to some people, little gaps here and there. I like the cockpit, but at the same time I look and it and I think it’s an absolute mess sometimes.”

Ryan also calls out the technique used for the laser cannons beneath the cockpit as ‘interesting’ and ‘fresh’, but ultimately too different from what we’ve seen before, although he is full of praise for the printed windscreen element and the printed dish on top of the cockpit. The interior looks pretty good, too: “The level of detail inside this cockpit may be second to none. It feels like everything is facing in towards the pilot. This is an incredible interior with some incredibly detailed stickers.”

He’s similarly complimentary towards the wing pylons, which manage to support the hefty wings without any visible sagging and with a seamless (and detailed) connection. But it’s the wings themselves where 75382 TIE Interceptor really shines for this reviewer, not only for the Easter egg of using tiny shovels for the targeting system (a nod to the same parts usage in 7181 TIE Interceptor), but also for how nostalgic they are.

“The wing design is easily my favourite part about this set,” Ryan enthuses. “The way it looks just totally reminds me of early 2000s LEGO Star Wars. Having the all-studded look with essentially no tiles on the outside is just crazy. It’s something you really don’t see these days and I really appreciate that from this set… Even the way these wings are connected on to the set screams classic LEGO Star Wars. It’s just so simplistic. You don’t see a lot of that these days.”

Ryan wraps up his review by comparing 75382 TIE Interceptor to a few other relevant LEGO Star Wars sets, including the smaller play-scale version of the same ship from 75348 Mandalorian Fang Fighter vs. TIE Interceptor – the tiled-off wings of which really highlight the all-studs approach of the UCS set – and last year’s 75355 X-wing Starfighter, which sits very well next to its original trilogy counterpart.

On the whole, Ryan is pretty favourable about 75382 TIE Interceptor, recommending it above the UCS X-wing and rating it 8.8/10. You’ll be able to check it out for yourself come May 1, when the latest LEGO Star Wars UCS set launches alongside a bunch of other new releases for this year’s May the 4th promos. Head here to check out all the LEGO Star Wars May the 4th deals happening in 2024.

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