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Seriously, you’d think with all the major entertainment brands out there, they would make more credit cards out there featuring those brands.

So far I’ve found:

• Bank of America’s Star Trek Mastercard, featuring the Enterprise NCC 1701 from The Original Series
• Bank of America’s Star Wars Mastercard, featuring your choice of Yoda or Darth Vader
• FirstUSA’s KISS Visa, featuring mug shots of the four band members.
• First National Bank of Wamego’s Wizard of OZ card, featuring the Tin-man, and part of the proceeds from this card support the OZ Museum in Wamego.

Of course, its totally easy to go wrong, and back the wrong brands:

• MBNA’s Hello Kitty Visa. Although, it does feature the MyConcierge service which is typically only offered on MBNA’s more prestigious cards, it may be worth carrying if you can stomach the pink demon herself.
• Commerce Bank’s Garfield Visa, only the Jon Arbuckles of the world would carry something like this.

Rrreeeeeoooowww!¹ The TIE Interceptor is a fearsome beast, and a complete improvement over the original death trap. Quad-linked laser canons on the tip of each wing, and a stronger hull, it gave the Rebellion’s X-Wings a run for their money.

The 212 piece Lego kit, the 6202 TIE Interceptor, comes with one TIE pilot minifig, a dish with the TIE cockpit hatch art painted on it, a TIE cockpit canopy, and two 2×2 round tiles with the Imperial logo on it. No stickers.

This kit shares much of the design of the 7263 TIE Fighter, the cockpit builds exactly the same way with very little in difference. However, the wings are far more detailed than in 7263, making the TIE Interceptor look a lot more realistic, and less like a simple toy.

Build-wise, the instructions are easy to follow, and the produced model has no major quirks or other problems. The single real flaw in the build process is that the light grey 2×4 plates applied on each winglet (step 10 for the wings) should be attached before attaching the winglets to the center wing section, otherwise the winglets pop right off while you’re trying to do it.

Compared to the A-Wing (which has a few minor flaws otherwise marring a good looking kit), I give the 6202 Tie Interceptor a 4.5 out of 5.

_{[1]: Yes, that’s the sound of a TIE fighter flying by (well, at least as well as one can do in text). The memorable screetch of a TIE fighter’s engines came from sound designer Ben Burtt mixing the sound of cars streaking by on a rain covered road and the trumpeting of an elephant.}

Well, for less than $20, I’m actually quite surprised at how well this kit builds. Lego’s 6207 Star Wars A-Wing is 194 peices, comes with two minifigs, and a little military cargo hover-transport, and a sheet of four stickers.

It takes about 30-45 minutes to build, and easily stands up to playing with it (which not all the Star Wars models can, the ARC-170 Starfighter is on the other end of the specturm, and falls apart if you even look at it), and accurately looks like the A-Wing. The only flaws are completely minor ones.

Flaws

• It uses stickers. I refuse to use stickers, as they peel back off the plastic, and stop being sticky shortly after, when they land on the floor and attach themselves to dust and fuzz.
• Step 3 of the cargo transport doesn’t clearly state what the three peices in the front actually are (two 1×1 slope bricks, one 1×2 plate). They look like one single peice, and I was off looking for such a peice for a couple minutes until I realized what it really was.
• The additional large plates added by Step 3 of the A-Wing, attached to the construction in Step 4, don’t stay on easily until around Step 7 or 8, and is actually quite annoying unless you’re building on a flat surface and don’t pick it up.
• The tail-fins built in Step 24 look unfinished. They’d look a lot more finished if they simply had a 1×3 tile on top. Also, those three bricks on the top tend to “chip” off, and a 1×3 tile would easily keep them in place.

Other than that, it is still a great kit, and quite worth the money I paid for it. I give it 4 out of 5 death stars.

Wow, I missed this important peice of news.

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Feb. 11, 2006–The LEGO Group, world leaders in the construction toy business, today announced that it has reached agreement with Lucasfilm Ltd. to extend its Star Wars franchise license to 2011. Under the agreement, the LEGO Group will continue its construction toy rights to the entire Star Wars galaxy, including an all new Star Wars animated television series currently in development.

Read more.

Has anyone noticed the box on the 7263 Tie Fighter how thick the cardboard is, and the fact it also has a thick cardboard inner frame as well? I’ve never seen a Lego box this well produced.

Compared to, say, the 7259 ARC-170 Starfighter (I couldn’t help but buy two of these, they’re so amazingly detailed, with real moving attack wings) or the 6205 V-Wing Fighter (which is sitting next to my ARC-170 now), they use normal boxes. Was the thicker boxing just for the 2005 Classic line of Star Wars kits or what?

Pictured: General grievous vs Obiwan Kenobi (from 7255 General Grievous Chase) in front of an ARC-170 Starfighter that happens to have landed on the January 2006 Lego Shop@Home Catalogue, taken with my Rebel XT.