This $700 Lego Star Destroyer is as close as you’ll get to the real thing

0 Posted by - 8th September 2019 - Technology

  • This is the $699, 4,784-piece Ultimate Collector Series Imperial Star Destroyer.

    LEGO

  • Lego UCS sets come in a big fancy box. Because they’re for collectors, you see.

    LEGO

  • I think the Devastator works out to be a 1:1600 scale model. Unfortunately, a minifig-scale Lego Star Destroyer would be nearly 900 feet long.

    LEGO

  • When my wife and I started dating, she used to ask if the film we were going to watch was the one with the round space ships or the pointy space ships. This is a pointy space ship.

    LEGO

  • If I hadn’t just spent the long weekend rewatching the entire saga from Episode I onward (yes, including Solo and Rogue One) I’d be about to sit down to do just that.

    LEGO

  • The surface details are known as ‘greebles.’ These are swiveling gun turrets.

    LEGO

  • “Commander, tear this ship apart until you’ve found those plans!”

    LEGO

  • When the Tantive IV got swallowed by the Devastator, that really brought home just how big a Star Destroyer really was.

    LEGO

  • If these two Lego minifigs end up being super-rare, you’ll be able to find good deals on second-hand UCS Star Destroyers where someone kept the two minifigs but doesn’t want the rest of the set.

    LEGO

  • The first little dude does all the ordering about, this little dude is the one who has to do all the actual work.

    LEGO

You probably remember the first time you saw Star Wars, the first time you saw that opening crawl give way to a star field above Tatooine as the Tantive IV tried desperately to escape the clutches of an Imperial Star Destroyer as it filled the screen.

I do. I remember in particular how the sheer size of it made me feel. This was one big ship—a mile long from the pointy bit at the front to those three huge engines at the back, I’d later learn. Afterward, you may have gone straight for the Lego bricks to recreate it. If not, now’s the chance, because Lego is bringing out a new Ultimate Collector Series (UCS) edition of the Devastator, the Imperial Star Destroyer from the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope.

The specs are not for the faint-hearted. Made from 4,784 pieces, the model is 43 inches long (110cm), 26 inches (66cm) wide, and 17 inches (44cm) tall, so it will need a fair amount of room on your shelf (or above your bed). Lego says the model features a tilting radar dish and swiveling guns, and as you’ll see from the images above, the build looks like it involves plenty of greebling to keep you busy for hours.

In addition to the Devastator and its display stand, there are also parts to build the rebel blockade runner the Tantive IV at the same scale, and two minifigs, an Imperial officer and an Imperial crew member. Be warned: like all of Lego’s UCS sets, this one doesn’t come cheap, although the $699 price tag is $100 less than the UCS Millennium Falcon.

As Ars’ resident Lego Star Wars obsessive (no, really), if I were about to drop that kind of wedge on a new box of bricks, I think I’d save up another Benjamin and go for the UCS version of the ship that did the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. For starters, with 7,541 pieces the dollar:brick ratio is a lot higher. And more importantly, the UCS Falcon is built to the same scale as the minifigs it comes with. Sadly, a minifig-scale Imperial Star Destroyer would be about 874 feet (267m) long.

Listing image by LEGO

read more at https://arstechnica.com by Jonathan M. Gitlin

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