I was a bit apprehensive to review 75095 UCS TIE Fighter, since when I first saw the ship in Ace’s Toy Fair coverage, I thought it was a bit of a blocky mess. The TIE fighter is long overdue for some UCS love, though. The TIE Advance was one of the first UCS sets, owned by a few collectors and sat on by a bunch of people that scooped them up on clearance and hope to sell them someday to pay for their kid’s college tuition. Vader’s TIE Advance was a unique ship, and minus the cockpit and sticker plate, something you can likely build out of leftover parts sitting around. But the TIE Fighter, the backbone ship of the Imperial Navy and probably the most iconic fighter not called an X-Wing, went for 16 years before finally getting it’s due.
I only got into collecting the UCS sets with the Falcon, and that wasn’t even a first-run purchase for me (I think I got it in late 2008/early 2009). I’d owned a couple of other sets before that, like the Naboo Starfighter and Vader’s TIE, but they’d never impressed me all that much. Even for display pieces, they were absurdly fragile things that took up a lot of space. I sold them off… and I’ll admit there’s a bit of remorse to Vader’s given the crazy aftermarket prices on it now, but it was never a huge deal that I missed out.
Of course, fast-forward seven years, and I’ve purchased several of the things. The Falcon was like a glorious gateway to addiction that has been joined by the SSD, X-Wing, B-Wing, R2-D2, and Slave I. I don’t even like Boba Fett, but you have to admit that his ship looks cool, and it looks great sitting on a shelf. The UCS sets are a big investment in space though, something that my current situation leaves in very short supply (everything in Texas is bigger… except apparently apartments).
I’m also happy to report that my first impressions of the set, from those Toy Fair pictures, were absolutely wrong.