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Death Star

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Category: Star Wars
Subcategory: 1/10000+

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Manufacturer:AMT/Ertl
Medium: Styrene
Parts: 10
Status: Discontinued
Release Date: 2005
Skill Level: Beginner
“That’s no moon. It’s a space station.” With those words, viewers of the “Star Wars” movie in 1977 got their first look at the Empire’s ultimate weapon, a space station with enough firepower to destroy an entire planet.

AMT/Ertl released this kit, and later Racing Champions reissued it in 2005. The kit has a total of 10 parts – four wedges for the upper half, four for the lower half, and two parts for the stand. The kit can either be mounted on the stand for display on a bookshelf, or part of the stand can be used to mount the kit to a wall.

The question is . . . why did they even bother? This kit is crap, to put it mildly.

The parts fit is terrible, and even the model box photo shows a great big seam right below the laser dish area where the professional builders couldn’t even get the parts to fit properly. Heck, you can even see traces of the putty that they used to try to join the upper and lower halves of this styrene hell. The only way to put the wedges together is by taping them together on the interior – and that’s what they show in the actual instructions!

There is also absolutely no surface detail on this thing, other than the basic exterior paneling. If you even wanted to make this look like the Death Star, you’d have to spend hours drilling out holes for fiber optic lighting, and even then you’d have to deal with all the light bleed issues because of the poor parts fit.

Oh, and finally . . . for painting instructions, AMT/Ertl refers the builder to the box top and color photos, which show a two-tone Death Star, painted light gray for the main color and a slightly darker gray for the raised panels.

This kit is not worth the money, and I’m glad that I picked up my copy on clearance at Toys R Us. As it is, I’m going to be selling it sometime soon. I haven’t seen any of these kits built as Death Stars, and the only one I have seen completed was kitbashed into the planet for Mystery Science Theater 3000, with so much putty and added detailing that you couldn’t even tell the original shape was the AMT/Ertl Death Star kit.

Review by: Rich “Lonewolf” Dula

Entry created: November 15, 2010
Comments: 0 | Rating (1-5): -- No rating -- | MSRP: $19.99

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