Two big clues that suggest LEGO Star Wars 75347 TIE Bomber is designed for adults

Ignore the 9+ rating on its box: two big clues suggest the newly-revealed LEGO Star Wars 75347 TIE Bomber is actually designed for adults first and foremost.

Launching in January 2023 alongside three other LEGO Star Wars sets, 75347 TIE Bomber is the first minifigure-scale version of the ship since 2003’s 4479 TIE Bomber. It packs in 395 more pieces than its predecessor, but is still roughly the same size, speaking to the LEGO Star Wars theme’s gradual shift towards more detailed and densely-packed models.

That’s not why the 625-piece Imperial ship feels like it’s designed for adults, though. (That logic would then apply to pretty much every LEGO Star Wars set.) Instead, 75347 TIE Bomber’s skewing towards an older audience comes through in two key areas of its build.

The first of those is the cockpit for the included TIE Bomber Pilot to sit in. Not for him to actually pilot the ship, you understand, because the trans-black windshield piece sits on top of curved corner slopes, which in turn are attached to a 6×6 round plate. This sub-assembly gives the TIE Bomber a perfectly-round cockpit with a wider bezel, which is totally accurate to the on-screen ship. But it also means the pilot can’t see through the canopy.

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That’s not an important detail if you’re buying this set for display, but it’s surely an immersion-breaker for anyone trying to play with it (see: the 9+ target audience on the box). The LEGO Star Wars team could likely have come up with a solution that allowed the pilot minifigure to see through the cockpit, but – as with its standard TIE Fighters – at the expense of total accuracy. That it went with the solution it did suggests it’s prioritising display value over play in 75347 TIE Bomber.

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So that’s clue number one. The second can be found in the other of the bomber’s cylindrical twin hulls, which contains the bombing mechanism integral to any LEGO version of this ship. Whether for play or display, you can’t leave out the core function of a TIE Bomber: but it’s so simple in 75347 TIE Bomber that it again feels like the LEGO Group has prioritised aesthetics over functionality.

The bombs are genuinely just flick-fire missiles loaded by pushing up through the bottom of the hull, and then fired by pushing down from the top. They have no connection to the targeting system or bombing chute, which are still both replicated in the set, and of course we wouldn’t expect them to at this scale.

But that there isn’t a more complicated method for dispensing the TIE’s bombs – pulling a lever to let them loose, for example – again suggests the LEGO Star Wars team wanted to get the look of this set right above all else. And as we pointed out in our review of the 2023 set, we’re certainly not complaining, because the results are awesome. 75347 TIE Bomber really does look brilliant, and should be top of your LEGO Star Wars list come January 1.

With all that in mind, though, we can’t ignore the two clues that speak to the LEGO Group’s core target audience, and the one signalled on the box. First, the small transport for carrying extra bombs is clearly intended to be a play starter, giving the included minifigures something else to interact with. Adult fans are more likely to consign it quickly to the parts bin.

The second and more obvious clue is the scale of 75347 TIE Bomber: this set more closely matches 2021’s accessible and affordable 75300 Imperial TIE Fighter, rather than 2018’s larger and arguably more accurate 75211 Imperial TIE Fighter. That’s seemingly a consequence of the LEGO Group’s concerns around delivering a TIE Bomber at a reasonable price point relative to the obscurity of the ship – a set to scale with the 2018 fighter could have easily ballooned in price.

Keeping 75347 TIE Bomber affordable (to a degree) feels like a move made with younger fans in mind. But even then, it’s a bonus for adults too – not all our shelf space needs to be handed over to a massive TIE Bomber (unless it’s a UCS version), so keeping things more accessible and affordable definitely isn’t a bad thing.

Yet while 75347 TIE Bomber is perhaps trying to satisfy too many people at once, it never really feels like it’s getting pulled in too many different directions: instead, it makes its choices and sticks with them, even if it’s at the detriment of (for example) more immersive and complex play features. The result is that it perhaps works better on display rather than for play, which is good news for adult fans, but also an interesting reflection of the direction of LEGO Star Wars in 2023 and beyond.

Check out our full review of 75347 TIE Bomber by clicking here.

Every LEGO Star Wars set confirmed for 2023 so far

LEGO setPricePiecesRelease date
40615 Tusken Raider£9.99 / $9.99 / €9.99152January 1, 2023
75344 Boba Fett’s Starship Microfighter£8.99 / $9.99 / €9.9985January 1, 2023
75345 501st Clone Troopers Battle Pack£17.99 / $19.99 / €19.99119January 1, 2023
75347 TIE Bomber£59.99 / $64.99 / €64.99625January 1, 2023

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Chris Wharfe
I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.

Chris Wharfe

I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.

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