And yes, it is excessive in price. The LEGO Death Star costs $1,000, making it the most expensive set in LEGO's history. Thanks to LEGO and Disney's third-party licensing agreement, it is at least $100 more expensive than conventional wisdom would dictate.
I do believe there is – in the theoretical realm of possibility – a LEGO building experience that is worth $1,000. But this set falls short of that.
The psychological impact of crossing the $1,000 threshold demands something unprecedented, the likes of which we've never seen before. Perhaps, it could pose a formidable challenge for the advanced LEGO builder, like 2021's R2-D2. Or perhaps it could embody the decadent detail of 2024's Jabba's Sail Barge, a massive, transcendently incredible set which manages to justify its price tag. Or perhaps it could slide by on sheer nostalgia and visual accuracy, like 2024's TIE Interceptor.
The LEGO Death Star, however, is standard stuff (high standard, but still standard), and the piece count just means there's a whole lot of it. One element of this build is truly next level: a working turbolift that moves, via turning gears, to all six floors of the set. The rest of the set's features are anywhere from "good" to "very good." But "good" isn't what most people are looking for when evaluating a set this prohibitively expensive.
The LEGO Death Star comes in a massive box with three smaller nesting boxes, which combine to form an image of Darth Vader. There are 81 bags in this build, with anywhere from 25-27 bags per box. The first box contains a single sticker sheet, although the designers also scattered several printed tiles throughout the build as well.
The first thing you'll notice (or have already noticed) about the build is that it's not a sphere, even though all prior LEGO Death Star iterations have been spheres. This Death Star model is more akin to a thick slice – a cross-section of a sphere – that gives you a shadow box view of the scenery. If you view the Death Star from the back:
You get a look at how the elevator works, but not much else. But if you view it from the front:
You can see everything. Along the model's bottom is the ship hangar, which also includes a separate Imperial shuttle craft. To the left of that is the trash compactor room, which you can compress and expand with the turn of a knob. Above that is a generic hallway, which Han runs down in order to escape the Stormtroopers. On the right end of that hallway is a chute where, if you drop a minifigure into it, he'll end up in the trash compactor, which is a neat bit of narrative consistency.
Above that is the detention area, where Vader keeps Leia after her interrogation. The interrogation droid is actually stored in the leftmost room at the end of the hallway, one floor down. But you can easily move it upstairs and clip it into Leia's holding cell if you're roleplaying torture.
The LEGO Death Star contains multiple control rooms. There's one for the massive Superlaser on the left side, which also contains a flippable display of Alderaan, both "before" and "after." There's another control room for the detention block in the middle. Lastly, there's a hangar control room all the way on the right, which directly overlooks the hangar bay.
Above this third control room is Darth Vader's meditation chamber. To the left of that is the narrow walkway that leads to the tractor beam controls, which Obi Wan shuts down to escape the Death Star. Above that is a retractable walkway, with a straight rod attached to the ceiling that turns on a gear. Here, you can recreate the scene where Leia and Luke swing across to make a daring escape. To the right of that is the Imperial officer conference room, where Vader force choked the officer who dared to insult his religion ("I find your lack of faith disturbing.").
Nearly done. In the top left corner is a cool Easter Egg: a rec room for a LEGO Star Wars Stormtrooper, featuring a hot tub and a karaoke machine. There's a secret compartment containing a massive laser cannon all the way on the right. And lastly, the Emperor's Throne Room, where Luke and Vader have their climactic duel in Episode VI, takes up nearly a floor-and-a-half by itself. Back in 2023, LEGO sold a small-scale diorama of the Throne Room to celebrate Return of the Jedi's anniversary.
So imagine if you built more than one of these miniature Star Wars dioramas – one for the trash compactor, one for the throne room, and one for the meditation chamber, for example – and then stacked them up. That's the best way to explain what the LEGO Death Star is. It's a massive diorama composed of smaller dioramas; they share a common theme, but they're islands unto themselves. There's no real attempt to create narrative or practical coherence between the rooms, which are too cramped to roleplay without first taking the model apart.
Make no mistake: each room is nice enough. But I never felt like I was building a massive Death Star – just individual setpieces arranged in the appearance of one. Or, to paraphrase Palpatine: This is not a fully operational battle station.
Thus, the LEGO Death Star is for hardcore Star Wars fans with disposable income – enough disposable income that the price tag is a literal non-factor. Put another way: if the thought of buying this set makes you wonder, "Is it worth it?" then you're probably not its target audience.
If you are in the target audience for the LEGO Death Star, you'll have fun with this. Just know that this is not a playset; it is a room centerpiece designed with display in mind, and it will dominate whatever space you put it in. It's big enough and fragile enough that one should not buy it without a predetermined spot to display it and a reinforced shelf to hold it steady.
As for the rest of us: the best LEGO Star Wars set this year, believe it or not, is the new LEGO Gingerbread AT-AT! It's a holiday-themed build with candy canes for cannons and Christmas lights and sugar for surface detail. It opens up to reveal a Christmas scene, and it comes with a gingerbread Darth Vader. I loved building this set, and it's only $60 – a mere 6% of what the LEGO Death Star costs, for even more of the charm.
LEGO Star Wars: Death Star, Set #75419, retails for $999.99, and it is composed of 9023 pieces. It is available now, exclusively at the LEGO Store.
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