Star Wars summer 2012

Two different Eurobricks threads have photos, seven in detail and all eight at once. My reactions:

9525 Pre Vizsla's Mandalorian Fighter (small photo only, details from Brickset). Presumably from, but I don't recall seeing, The Clone Wars. With those vertical fins, does it have a rotating fuselage, as with the T-6 Jedi Shuttle? Distinctive shape. Good color blocking and terracing -- white, grey, with small blue parts. Probably some stickers on the fuselage.

9496 Desert Skiff: This is, what, the third version? But you can get boar-tusked Lando and detailed-printing Boba Fett in a reasonably-priced set. Note the use of the SNOTted curved half-panels after (left), the airplane tail upper-hull as the nose (right) (also used in 4641 Speed Boat in red), and the canopy in dark-tan for the Sarlacc.

9497 Republic Striker-class Starfighter. The box indicates it's from The Old Republic (SWTOR), joining a few other sets based on video game sections of the EU. Possibly the ugliest official Star Wars set I've ever seen -- the color-blocking, with a mix of rectangular tiles atop angle-plates, using dark red/red/orange/white, has no unity at all. This would be roundly scorned were it posted as a MOC.

9498 Saesee Tiin's Jedi Starfighter. Variation on the Delta-7 Aethersprite number, what, five? Good color blocking. Appears to have several elements newly molded in dark green, plus regular-green Artoo parts. And we get heads for two of the freakier-looking Jedi.

9499 Gungan Sub (i.e., Bongo). I own the first iteration of this model, which shares little with this one aside from the blue flex-tube helical tail and the anchor-nose. Is that a 4x4 faceted dome on the tail, in trans-orange? Unlike the first version, they did not print the three domes with the forcebubble-emitting filigree of the onscreen namesake. I don't know why there's an orange (starfish? jack? mine?) in the left-aft bubble. Features an Amidala minifig with the most elaborate headpiece and skirt I've ever seen, in shape and multiple colors -- more so even than the PotC headpieces.

9500 Sith Fury-class Interceptor. Also from SWTOR. A hull made of hinge-angled plates that manages to look solid. The three minifigs have new helmets and shoulderpads, which are probably not-broadly-recognized and therefore suitable for MOCing.

9915 The Malevolence. A Separatist capital ship from The Clone Wars series with an oversized ion cannon. Three minifigs plus three brick-figs, but decidedly microscale -- it probably lacks even the playset interior of the Star Destroyer sets. Suffers from a namesake that's none too distinctive to begin with, further from the necessary contour approximations, and the usual "subtle color gradations are impossible" palette. Rather like a larger "Cad Bane's Speeder." But it might be swoopable.

9516 Jabba's Palace. New olive-green Jabbafig and Gamorrean Guard, five other minifigs, and Salacious Crumb anifig. I think this is the first use of the Twi'lek head mold (green) since Jedi Aayla Secura (blue)? Some nice architectural tricks at this scale -- same TLG designer as PoP? But you could design an entire line of modular sets around Jabba's palace, similar to Hogwarts.

Thanks for the links! I have to agree with you on that republic fighter. It's just a cobbled-together mess. Add to that my personal hatred for the canopy, as well. I really like the x-wing this year, but I can't stand that they're still using that canopy for it.

Jabba's Palace mostly seems to be a shiny package for minifigures but I won't lie, for the first time in a while, I kind of want those minifigures.

Is that a new canopy element on the bongo as well?

Skiff looks great- never got the first, so I'm hoping to grab this. And Jabba's Palace. And the Jedi Starfighter. And maybe the bongo.