Lego Millennium Falcon Goes On Sale

An anonymous reader writes "Lego just released its ultimate Millennium Falcon model for pre-order. This item should make any SW fan jump with joy. Some of its features include; over 5,000 pieces, 33" long, 22" wide and 8" tall, and it includes 5 minifigures: Han Solo, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa."

Ummm....

[PadRacerExtreme]

This has been in pre-order since the Spring catalog, so at least 4 months....

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[roadkill_cr]

Description is slightly off; it's been available for pre-order for a while, but people have actually been receiving their copies recently (see here [gizmodo.com]).

Don't underestimate the Lego

[Fierythrasher]

It looks sweet. If there's one thing I've learned doing our Star Wars Collecting Podcast it's that I have always underestimated the loyalty of the Star Wars Lego collector. I thought the people were cute, but would never have guessed how many would buy a $300 or $500 lego set.

Me, I'd rather spend that $500 on something that looks movie-accurate, like a ship from (now defunct) Code 3 Collectibles or (no longer holding the Star Wars license) Master Replicas, since to me Legos are kind of like a modern art...it looks like the Falcon but it still always looks like Legos. But that said I've spent several thousand on Lego sets for Star Wars and will eventually pick this one up. Someday. Hopefully for under $500

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[srmalloy]

I agree; you'd do better buying one of the Fine Molds plastic model kits of the Millennium Falcon (example listing on the Hobby Link Japan [hlj.com] website), which runs around $170 and has much better fidelity to the original.

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[fractoid]

You fail at being a geek. Lego is automatically cool. Please leave your calculator and soldering iron on the desk to your left as you exit the club. :P

...just another lego fanboy here ;) ...

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[Veetox]

Someday, son, you'll understand, once you're able to progress past playing with your juvenile genitalia...

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[yroJJory]

What you fail to understand is how much fun putting together a $300 Star Destroyer is. I didn't expect to ever get one, but my fiancee bought it for me for X-mas a couple years ago. It took 3 solid days to assemble and is friggin' schweet!

$500 is pushing it, though, and I won't likely get the Falcon. I didn't do the Death Star, either, since I didn't feel $300 justified assembling a ball. :-)

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[HalWasRight]

The bigger one better be more stable than the old one. We found it to be mighty shaky at best. It rapidly falls victim to the cats, let alone Empire Tie Fighters.

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[hurfy]

But any cat will tell you, they are much better than some tie fighter....they can destroy the whole suit....

Never cared for the Lego models. Not quite Lego and not quite a model :(

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[Ucklak]

I'd actually like to learn how to make the models that Joe Johnston and the other early crew at ILM made.
I'm sure that some tank and airplane model parts and a dremel tool come in handy but damn, the detail on the X-Wing and Falcon models is just crazy.

That's no moon...

[Aphrika]

...it's just a really large toy!

$500? Serious?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't even come assembled. The price of all those mass produced pieces can't even cost half that, let alone the price you'd pay with unlimited virginity were you to actually assemble that.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Word has it you can also build a 1:50 scale model of Mom's basement with the spare parts.

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[jedidiah]

That's nothing.

You can even work out the design online and have them send you all the necessary parts.

Legoland Mom's Basement. Limited Edition. Limited time only...

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[Veetox]

Yeah, but at least with the Falcon, you can smuggle 10 oz. of goods under the floor boards... Mom's Basement only features a used hooka and a hemp rug.

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[spckdt]

Well, as I received mine yesterday, I can say it is probably the darn instruction book that makes the cost so much. 314 large format pages with a spiral binding. The whole box weighs 24 pounds and the book is probably 10 of that...

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[chrysrobyn]

The price of all those mass produced pieces can't even cost half that, let alone the price you'd pay with unlimited virginity were you to actually assemble that.

Unlimited virginity? Damn, my wife's going to be upset. Wait, mine, or hers?

Jump for joy ?

[garett_spencley]

Perhaps if the price weren't completely laughable.

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[Rhys]

The price:piece ratio of the falcon is within the "normal" range for other lego sets, so I'm not sure where you're coming from. Go buy 5k of bricks from other sets and let me know your total. Biggest problem I see with it is actually managing to find a large flat surface sufficient to display the completed model. The lego ISD has similar issues.

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[garett_spencley]

What does the normal price range have to do with anything ? I'm sure there are a few people who would pay that much for the set but they are obviously either wealthy collectors with nothing better to do with their insane amount of money or they're die hard fans who ruin it for the rest of us by saving up for ages to be able to afford it rather than protesting the ridiculously over priced piece of plastic by not buying it.

The simple fact is, despite the fact that I LOVE star wars and lego, I'm all kinds of n

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[Kymri]

Somehow I doubt the 'similar' Batman sets had anywhere near the number of pieces (though I admit that might be possible) since, at 5000 pieces, this is the biggest Lego set of which I am aware. $500 is a lot of money for some people and a little for others (I fall into the former camp, and I still want one, though I doubt I'll buy it, as the cats would destroy it...)

$0.10 per piece doesn't seem too bad for me. This is a FIVE THOUSAND piece set. That's a big friggin' set.

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[GeckoX]

I'll bet you one Lego Millennium Falcon set that you can't prove the existence of any 5000 piece Lego set that has retailed for $50 in the last 20 years. Care to take me up on that?

Nah, didn't think so.

Further, you conveniently gloss over the fact that this is part of the Ultimate Collectors Series. It isn't meant to get into everyones hands. It exists because there is actually a demand for these large scale sets.

Don't want to pay for the giant 5000 one? Then don't. But why bitch about it?
There is a smaller

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[Rhys]

Well you're right, you could have gotten 5k pieces a few weeks ago -- I ordered 1350 bricks (on sale) for a grand total of $12.45. All 1x1 (light,dark) grey plates. Triple that plus a touch and you'd be under $50 for 5k bricks. Of course trying to construct much out of them might be a challenge.

Now if they'd just do some white and black I'd have all the goods for a mosaic or two.

This is said to be the first Lego model...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that has done the Kessel Run in 8 parsecs or less.

I'd swear Han says *12*.

[wild_berry]

Is that eight instead of 12 because it's a scale model?

Star Destroyer

[Grizpin]

I'm waiting for the Lego Imperial Star Destroyer of the same scale as this Falcon.... based on specifications found online the star destroyer would be 165 feet long. How many Lego's is that?

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[KGIII]

How many Lego's is that?

Three but they're very large Legos. (Sorry, I was reminded of the old tootsie-pop commercials.)

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[Grizpin]

It's actually over 300,000 Lego's. 33 inches = 2.75 feet, 165 feet / 2.75 = 60, 60 x 5,000 = 300,000 .... more when you consider the volume of the destroyer..... that's a lot of Lego's.

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[The_mad_linguist]

It's over nine thousand!

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[MooseMuffin]

Enough to fill the Library of Congress!

What? Is that the wrong way to use that unit?

Boring

[orkysoft]

It looks kind of boring to me, but then again, Star Wars is kind of boring to me.

I mean it looks like there's a lot of repetitive assembly required, with lots of similar ship sections.

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[LordVader717]

I mean it looks like there's a lot of repetitive assembly required, with lots of similar ship sections.

Welcome to the discipline of engineering.

My personal views?

[KGIII]

I am not really that much into the expense or the Legos these days and 500 clams is a lot for a toy of that type but the market value has changed in so many ways that I pay other inflated prices for the toys for my children.

I guess the point I was trying to make is that the hours spent putting it together would justify the costs and the time spent with my son to put it together (and introduce him to the culture) would be priceless.

The question then becomes not a matter of price in my case but a need to b

WHO?!

[Kim Jong Ill]

What the hell is an aluminum falcon??!

Not a Pre-Order

[jlf278]

According to the website these are "Available Now." According to eBay auctions, yes people did Pre-Order as long ago as 4 months, but they have started receiving this set already (to sell on eBay).

The Thing about Star Wars Ships that Bugs Me

[$lingBlade]

OK, to be on topic, I'd say this thing is a work of art. Extremely cool, but extremely expensive. Holy shit, I never realized Lego stuff could sell for that much ($499.99).

Now, slightly off-topic, one thing that bugged me about the Star Wars prequels (among many many things) was the ships. They were all polished, aerodynamic, made of what seemed like crazy materials, etc. Yes I know they were going out of their way to show off the design capabilities and to add something fresh, but it made the ships all look so cheesy and fake. I mean, I remember one ship, though I don't know what it's name is, that looked like it was dipped in chrome. Not just parts of the ship, THE WHOLE THING. But it wasn't just that ship, it was almost all of them.

That irritated me because these were movies that were *supposed* to be about the past, the past in the Star Wars universe, PRIOR to IV, V and VI. And almost ALL of the ships in IV, V and VI all had rough edges, weird, not-always-symmetrical geometry, etc. They looked real, like real physical objects (yes I know they were, or were models), they looked like something someone would put together.... not some draftsmans proto-type look-alike for the latest rehash of super slick, polished turds that were the ships of I, II and III. In other words, we're expected to believe (in the Star Wars Universe) that designers and engineers decided that all these super polished and aerodynamic ships weren't up to snuff, so they scrapped and took 4 steps backwards design-wise to create the ships in IV, V and VI.

OK, I'm done ranting....

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[hondo77]

The rebel ships looked beat up because that's how rebels usually look. If they had money for shiny new ships, they'd be in power. MHO.

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[SatanicPuppy]

It's more about the rendering...It's a hell of a lot easier to do a shiny smooth CG ship than it is to do a big chunky one. Pretty much broke the metaphor for me, with everything being way smoother and cleaner than it would ever be if it were "real".

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[berashith]

the easy explanation is that the rebels had been at war for 15 years or so. The last thing on their minds was waxing and buffing the planes, the goal was to get it up and flying to go blow stuff up.

Aside from that, i completely agree. The original ships were much more entertaining.

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[Fierythrasher]

Lucas had said back when he was making The Phantom Menace that the ships in the OT all had a certain look to them that he wanted to get away from; he wanted the ships in the prequels to be more retro, like 50's sci-fi. Truthfully, reading that statement before the movie came out, I thought that you'd have flying saucers, etc. But he did return to the "rounded edges, mirrored survace" asthetic found more in old Flash Gordon serials, etc. with The Phantom Menace.

What he did (or more realistically, what th

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[Telepathetic Man]

I'm not a fan of they way the Star Wars prequels were done either. Yet I think I can help you with your ship style problems.

Consider this...

Many things can explain the changes in ship design. Aesthetics and fashion can explain the changes in the civilian and government owned ships used. There could also be some complex advantages and disadvantages to having a chrome ship. At first one would think that chrome is somehow a futuristic characteristic, but not neccesarily so. The chrome can just be a fashio

The explanation I've heard is

[complexmath]

that the victory of the Empire ushered in a new era of industrialization. So the ships you see in Ep. 4-6 are the product of early industrial engineering (ie. assembly lines for spaceships). By comparison, Ep. 1-3 were largely hand-made, and thus far more elegant and customized.

The two strongest arguments against this are:

1. It seems odd that things technology and trading could have progress so far if most or all ships were custom made.
2. It doesn't make sense that every Ep. 1-3 era ship would be out of c

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[eth1]

Ok, I do agree with you, and it annoys me, too... But I think it could be plausible story-wise

Episodes I-III took place during essentially peacetime - people probably had the time and money to make pretty spacecraft.

Episodes IV-VI took place during a long drawn-out war. Function over form would be the order of the day.

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[imr]

To me, another plausible explanation is that in ep IV-VI the non military ships we see are pretty much like the falcon millenium, ships of smugglers living on the fringe of the empire.
So yes, scavenged parts hacked together, and pretty battered stuff.
But in Ep V, when they get to the mine, they're still off-track, so the ships around still look battered, but the design of the floating mine ships look a lot like the prequels stuff: Curvy Flash Gordon stuff.

On tne oppsite, in the prequels we get to see some p

Others have pretty much said it

[vecctor]

Others have pretty much hit on the "canon" explanation, but I'll add my own 2 bits.

Your idea of a progression of technology is not what they were really going for. The stuff you see in all the movies (blasters, ftl travel, whatever) were invented a couple thousand years before any of the movies, and haven't changed a whole lot since, or have been evolutionary changes. In fact, if you go into some of the expanded universe stuff, you see some cyclical things or "long lost" technology - a concept you find in a lot of other science fiction. A progression from Golden Age -> War -> Dark Age -> Rediscovery.

So, to bowl it down: The reason all the stuff in the prequel looked nice, was because it was "The Golden Age" in the Star Wars universe. People with lots of money were flying around in fancy ships. It was the roaring twenties, and then there was 30 years of war and most people went more utilitarian. Hell, maybe there were still some rich people flying around after that, but nobody the camera was following around in Eps 4-6 were in that group.

In Eps 4-6 they talked about how great the old republic was (ie. the "more civilized age" quote) and the prequels were supposed to show this "golden age" and then show it fall apart. Now whether anyone thinks the movies suck or not (I was not super hot on them) is a seperate issue, but the reasoning behind the "nicer stuff in the past" is perfectly sound imo.

The Old Republic was more prosperous and stable, the civil war years less so.

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[Jarik C-Bol]

on the exact same note, the part of this that stood out most to me, is the controls. in episodes I II and III, they are all star trek TNG touchscreeny things which get replaced by switches and levers in the last 5 minutes of episode III, to match up with the original episodes.

lego "kits"

[foodnugget]

Sure, this isn't the point of the sale, but i never appreciated lego "kits", where you see what it is "supposed" to be.

I always preferred the big box of parts (never with enough 8 and 10 long pieces!!!) and unlimited possibilities.
I wouldn't want my kids to start off with "this is what it is supposed to be like"
You always had a few silly custom parts with no use, and after you combined your stash with a new custom kit, it was always odd, as the colors never matched, and you had some weird-ass parts in t

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[The_mad_linguist]

What you do is build it according to instructions, play with it until it starts to fall apart, then take it completely apart and build something else.

Not a bad price, really

[palladiate]

Legos in sets have always gone for between 8 to 12 cents a piece. 5,000 pieces at 10c a piece is $500, which is about right.

Remember, a 200 piece set goes for between 18-22. The generic boxes of blocks are usually cheaper, running as low as 5c an element.

If you wanted to build a Falcon, this is probably the cheapest way to go. And you get 5000 elements that would work great on other spaceship projects, like the infamous Serenity.

yikes!

[hawk]

>Legos in sets have always gone for between 8 to 12 cents a piece.

One of my quests right now is to come up with at least a couple of cubic feet of lego for my little ones. The standard little blocks, not the sets that tell you what to build. I'm not wedded to Lego brand; the off-brand stuff would be fine (well, the non-crummy-chinese-soft ones :)

btw, I've been amazed at the differences in how little girls & boys play with lego. My daughters almost always make something for a doll, horse, or stuffe

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[kent_eh]

One of my quests right now is to come up with at least a couple of cubic feet of lego for my little ones. The standard little blocks, not the sets that tell you what to build. I'm not wedded to Lego brand

I've been trawling thrift stores and have scored a couple of large lots of Lego (as well as
Megablocks, K'nex...) for cheap. I also picked up a complete Mindstorms RCX kit for $9.99.

Cheap as in $5 for a bag weighing just over 8 pounds. A quick sloshing in soapy water, rinse, and air dry, and the kids have

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[GeckoX]

Buy it used, but whatever you do, buy LEGO. I have never come across off-brand 'lego' that wasn't complete crap. Megablocks is the closest, and it's not that much cheaper, and it's garbage. LEGO will last decades.

Got a half dozen big rubbermaid boxes full of it, son's just about old enough to start inheriting it. Some is almost 40 years old, some is no more than a few years old. All of it works together perfectly :)

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[hawk]

We've had the truly horrible stuff, but we also ended up with a pastel set years ago that worked remarkably well. Held the girls' interest better, too :)

hawk

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[tlhIngan]

Legos in sets have always gone for between 8 to 12 cents a piece. 5,000 pieces at 10c a piece is $500, which is about right.

Remember, a 200 piece set goes for between 18-22. The generic boxes of blocks are usually cheaper, running as low as 5c an element.

If you wanted to build a Falcon, this is probably the cheapest way to go. And you get 5000 elements that would work great on other spaceship projects, like the infamous Serenity.

Don't forget you also get a nice massive 4 lbs (just under 2kg) manual telling

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[deek]

My only concern is - what do you do if you're missing a piece? Cataloging 5000 pieces is a huge task in and of itself...

You go to Lego and ask them to send you the missing piece [lego.com]. Lego are pretty good that way. You don't need to catalogue the pieces. You start building, and any missing pieces are pretty obvious after a while.

The funny thing about Legos....

[ChinggisK]

...is that you don't have to build what it tells you to build on the box, meaning you could probably build this thing out of random pieces from other sets and save yourself a couple hundred bucks.

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[Carnildo]

...is that you don't have to build what it tells you to build on the box, meaning you could probably build this thing out of random pieces from other sets and save yourself a couple hundred bucks.

Good luck on that. I've got four 25-gallon bins of Lego bricks, and I'm not sure I've got the parts to build it -- the Millennium Falcon has a lot of non-square surfaces, and those take unusual parts to build, and a great many hinges to hold everything at the correct angles.

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[Deaney]

I've got four 25-gallon bins of Lego bricks

If you're looking for a friend, I'm willing to oblige...

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[Bigboote66]

Where do you see it weighs 500 pounds? That seems a little excessive for a life-sized figure made of mostly-hollow plastic lego bricks. Maybe 50 pounds.

And that $2700 "shipping" charge is "shipping and handling". Given that the set comes pre-assembled (well, in 3 parts), I'm guessing that $150 is shipping and $2550 is what they're paying someone to put together the kit, although you'd think that would be included in the price of the item. I never understood this logic anyway. Why not just charge $30,00

Oblig Robot Chicken

[da3dAlus]

What the hell is an "aluminum falcon"?!

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[Necreia]

Who's "they" ?!?

Lego pieces average a dime each.

[Russ Nelson]

Lego pieces average a dime each, so with slightly over 5K pieces, yeah, this kit will cost $500.

$679 Canadian???

[crossmr]

Obviously Lego hasn't been following the currency markets lately...

Pricing

[edwardaux]

They must been using Excel 2007 to calculate their exchange rates... here are some of their international costs:

• GBP = 349.99
• CAD = 679.99
• AUD = 979.95

Based on actual exchange rates [xe.com], converting from USD$499.99 those prices should be:

• GBP = 248.02
• CAD = 502.25
• AUD = 570.77

Nice way to gouge your international customers...

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[GeckoX]

Er, CAD doesn't include tax either, and we're at parity with the US now for all intents and purposes.

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[Torodung]

Um. The U.S. are also "international customers" to Lego. Lego is a Danish-owned company.

The name 'LEGO' is an abbreviation of the two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well". It's our name and it's our ideal.

The LEGO Group was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen. The Company has passed from father to son and is now owned by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, a grandchild of the founder.

It has come a long way over the past 70 years - from a small carpenter's workshop to a modern, global enterprise that is now, in terms of sales, the world's sixth-largest manufacturer of toys.

(Source: Lego corporate website)

--
Toro (whose grandpa was named Torvald)

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[imr]

again? [slashdot.org]

What's wrong with you people? Commonwealth again?

It's 549 too.

Joke apart, if they sold items online at a too low price, they would be doing unfair competition to their local retailers.

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[damn_registrars]

I don't think I would call that gouging. Most companies that do business in mutliple countries, using multiple currencies, only do conversions every year or less. A good example can be found at your local newsstand - next time you're there, pick up a magazine. Most magazines sold in the US (at least in Northern states) have prices in US and Canadian dollars. But most of them are based on old conversions of $1US = $1.25CA. Some are even worse, based on $1US = $1.50CA.

Ultimately, though, they are pro

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[edwardaux]

I don't think I would call that gouging. Most companies that do business in mutliple countries, using multiple currencies, only do conversions every year or less.

You think? They're either gouging or they're incompetent. According to monthly data from the Reserve Bank of Australia [rba.gov.au], there have only been seven(!) months since 1969 when the USD/AUD exchange rate is equivalent to Lego's purported exchange rate (and they were all in 2001.) Maybe they think we're all backward yokels that don't understand such complex things as foreign exchange rates....

Ultimately, though, they are probably most concerned about getting their margins right for the US price, since it may well be their largest market. Even when the US economy is rocky, it is still a country with hundreds of millions of consumers, and a pretty significant per capita wealth.

I've no problem with their decision to charge a USD$499 price point. What is annoying is that the exchange rates

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[damn_registrars]

seven(!) months since 1969 when the USD/AUD exchange rate is equivalent to Lego's purported exchange rate (and they were all in 2001.) Maybe they think we're all backward yokels that don't understand such complex things as foreign exchange rates....

Did you consider that perhaps they made their pricing decision in 2001? Obviously I don't sit on the board at Lego, so I can't tell you how often they may decide to adjust their pricing for international markets. Nor do I know how large or small the Australian market is. But perhaps, just perhaps, they may have felt that the 6 year old exchange rate was close enough.

And beyond that, we're not even considering the additional costs of getting it to you. If Lego's are all made in Europe, they need to

Grow up

[Pope]

Oh my god, things cost different amounts in different countries and are not directly related to currency exchange values, call the National Guard!

Millenium falcon vs star destroyer debate ...

[damn_registrars]

You can have that debate to yourself. We already know the result of the more important debate.

Mohammed Ali is his prime was way better than anti-lock brakes!