LEGO Star Wars Republic Gunship

Some people have been saying that this set is not very durable, and falls apart esily. I don't want to be rude, but all the reviews saying this occured when the set belonged to a fairly young child. This set is very durable, and meant for MILD play. This is definately one of LEGO's best SW sets ever!

The lego was given as a birthday present and he loves lego and star wars.1,034 pieces and he has put the 5 figures together already.

My son bought this with his birthday money (11 years old) and wishes he never did. It falls apart easily and isn't playable. It took him 3 days to build it and after only playing with it one time it's sitting in pieces on his bedroom floor. Unless you're looking to build this and use it as a display save your money and buy something else.

This toy has been a heartache for my son. It was for his 12th birthday. It falls apart very easily and is not durable or playable at all. He is literally in tears over this. His best friend up the street has the same one and is very durable I am wondering if he has done something wrong maybe, but he has at least 20 different Lego star wars sets like this and the others all seem to hold up well. I think I will be contacting them.

I am actually a 28 year old Star Wars geek who animates LEGOs as a hobby (6th Grade Math teacher by day) who got this for his birthday from a very patient and understanding wife. I've been waiting 3 years for Lego to bring back the Gunship and it's back with mixed results.

The construction method is genius. The cockpits, wings, doors, cargo bay, and nose section are each separate sections that snap together upon completion. The only problem came when the nose section snapped to the cargo bay section, the columns were not sturdy and fell apart twice before snapping together. Together, however, they were very sturdy. As a completed gunship, the set is very sturdy and built with finger grips so a child could easily hold it.
The two weakenesses in the set design are that there are not enough knobs in the cargo bay to hold several clone figures and that the rear of the ship is wide open and not closed. The ramp is not anywhere near wide enough to protect the rear cargo bay. That can easily be fixed by adding some pieces of your own to it.
My main complaint is that for a $119.99 set you only get 5 minifigures. Amazon's product description says 4 clones. You really only get 2, Cody and another. The point of the Gunship is to carry a platoon of troopers into battle. The set only comes with enough to pilot it. Hopefully, LEGO will release more $9.99 sets at the end of December that come with 4 troopers and a small vehicle so you can load your gunship.