When word first came out that LEGO would be producing a Podracing Bucket, I was very, *very* excited. I consider Mos Espa Podrace to be one of the better sets that LEGO has made for this line, and the thought of adding to the three great pods from that set had me looking forward to this bucket.<br>
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Then, the &quot;infamous&quot; pic hit . . . and I was quite honestly stunned. Here LEGO had this fanastic concept, and they fumbled the ball, badly. The pods this bucket made were heavily &quot;juniorized&quot;, and even worse, we were stuck with *another* Jar Jar and Anakin.<br>
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Now, it's no secret that I love this product line. So upon getting one of these I was determined to find the good in this set - there had to be *something* redeeming to it. The four pods it builds (with instructions) are loosely based upon the pods for Anakin, Clegg Holdfast, Neva Kee and Aldar Beedo. (Thanks for the resource, Hunter) It also comes with a simple &quot;starting gate&quot; for the Boonta Race Arena. Oh, and four tires too (?!?)<br>
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You get the two aforementioned minifigs, as well as . . . well, I'm not sure what it's supposed to be. It's a Battle Droid minifig with no head, with a 1x2 tan slope on it's back to which you mount an Aquanaughts head. Where the Battle Droid head is supposed to go, you attach an arm. It ends up looking like something that was just thrown together.<br>
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So, I hate it, right? Well, not really. I don't think this bucket is made for someone like me. This occurred to me when I opened the set up and started to remove the pieces from their baggies, and my 3yr old daughter came running over and asked &quot;I help?&quot; I'm always obviously leery of letting her get into sets when I'm putting them together, but it's pretty obvious that this bucket is made for the little kids (and for the record, I'm not telling anyone to let their 3yr old play with these - I was sitting next to her the entire time she was playing). In fact, isn't this entire line outside of the UCS made for little kids according to LEGO?<br>
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In the end, think of this at the opposite end of the spectrum from the UCS - it really is for the 5-8yr olds like the bucket says, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.