The newest and biggest Lego Millennium Falcon was completed yesterday at Legoland Malaysia, just minutes away from Singapore. Although it might not have a parts number, it’s made completely of Lego bricks and, of course, recognised by Lego. It was completed just in time for Star Wars Day 2016. Most importantly, it’s huge, and would take at least 40 UCS Millennium Falcons to build!
Master Builders
The two Master Builders who headed the project were Dan and Chris Steininger, a father-and-son team who are in their 60s and 30s, respectively (being polite here and not revealing their ages). But they’re proud to be AFOLs (Adult Fans of Lego), and it shows in their glee when it came to talking about their massive project and interacting with younger Lego fans.
The duo had considered other Star Wars spacecraft when choosing a ship to build, but settled on the Millennium Falcon as the most iconic of the ships (though I’d have preferred the Death Star). Dan said that it appealed to “older fans like me,” and “younger fans” who’ve watched the Millennium Falcon in action in the new Star Wars film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Both Dan and Chris are Master Builders, a special class of Lego superheroes, of which there are only eight. They’re all full-time employees who work at Lego shops around the world.
The Biggest Lego Millennium Falcon in the World
Made of over a quarter million Lego bricks, the mammoth project took nearly 30 hours over three days to build. If you’re counting, that means they worked 10-hour days to complete the project. It’s just like regular working hours in Singapore (admit it you spend 10 hours a day at work, more if you count the countless Whatsapp messages) except they were building a Lego Millennium Falcon!
They had assistance from fans the world over, but of course, things would get messy if everybody got to lay a piece on the Millennium Falcon. So what they did was to commission fans to build large blocks from grey Lego bricks, and then use those pre-built blocks as giant-sized “bricks” to complete their Lego Millennium Falcon.
If you’re wondering whether it’s completely solid inside – nope. That would probably ramp the parts count to a million! Instead, it’s sort of like a honeycomb inside, with many mini “pillars” supporting the roof the structure. From the outside it looks pretty solid though, and it’s still pretty heavy!
The Millennium Falcon is also supported by several black Lego stands, so you can bend underneath and peek at its underside.
The Millennium Falcon is the fastest ship in the galaxy, “owned” by Han Solo and Chewbacca (although the legality of their ownership is… questionable) in the classic trilogy. It made its reappearance in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” piloted by Force-wielder Rey. There were several implications that Han Solo and Rey might be related, but whether that’s the case will be seen in later movies.
Yes, it made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. But we all know that’s hyperbole because a parsec is a unit of distance (similar to how a light year is a unit of distance), so it’s the equivalent of saying it made the Kessel Run in less than twelve kilometres. Then again hyperspace is involved so perhaps it’s justified, although IMHO that’s a bad retcon.
Lego Millennium Falcons
So if you collect Millennium Falcons, there are no less than nine different sets to collect! The most coveted one is the Ultimate Collector’s Edition Millennium Falcon, but there’s a size for every collector. If you think that the normal-scaled ones are all recolours of each other, you’d be pleasantly surprised to know that they’re all different (with significant differences too). So yes, got to catch them all!
7190 – Millennium Falcon (2000)
This looks super obiang right? Released in 2000, it looks a bit plain and the engineering looks dated (check out those odd curved hulls). It comes with many, many stands.
4488 – Mini Millennium Falcon (2003)
It’s the ancestor of the Microfighters Millennium Falcon, and works well for kids who just want to throw the ship at people (not me, not me!). It’s even got a little antenna shield that always breaks off! The cockpit looks odd though, like a grey Lego head.
4504 – Millennium Falcon (2004)
Just a year after they released the Mini Millennium Falcon, another regular-scaled one appeared! It’s the Hoth version, and this is where it starts the “pizza” look for the hull. It works much better than 7190’s attempted curves, although admittedly it takes a while to get used to it at first.
10179 – Ultimate Collector’s Edition Millennium Falcon (2007)
And so for the fourth appearance of the Millennium Falcon, we got a UCS! When it came out, it was the largest Lego set ever produced at 5195 pieces (and also the largest Lego Millennium Falcon ever, though we now have a 200,000 piece one to contend with). Oddly, it didn’t come with that many minifigures (only Luke, Han, Chewie, Leia, and Obi-Wan).
7778 – Midi-scale Millennium Falcon (2009)
Then we got a tiny Millennium Falcon that’s got much better detail than previous smaller scaled ones, in terms of details and aesthetics. It was an exclusive, and seriously, why wouldn’t it be? It’s so tiny and cute (and probably cheaper) that if you ever wanted a Lego Millennium Falcon, you’d get this too.
7965 – Millennium Falcon (2011)
This is the Millennium Falcon that I got and built. There are significant differences between this and the 2004 version, especially on the front hull. But then it had been 7 years since a regular-scaled Millennium Falcon was released. For some perspective, it means if your kid was born when the previous regular-sized Millennium Falcon was released, this would have come out when your kid hit Primary 1.
7958 – Star Wars Advent Calendar (2011)
Instead of going larger, the next Millennium Falcon went in the opposite direction to become super small, the tiniest of all the Millennium Falcons so far. It came as a set, but I don’t really know how it could have been sold by itself anyway. It’s so small! It’s literally the size of a Lego saucer.
75030 – Millennium Falcon (2014)
I’ve got this Millennium Falcon also, because it’s small but has space for Han Solo to sit on. It’s palm-sized and super fun to play with, especially since it has enough parts that things will fall enough if it crashes, but substantial enough to survive any accidents. It’s from the Microfighters series, and I think it’s still on sale now!
75105 – Millennium Falcon (2015)
This new Millennium Falcon takes its cues from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and has new detailing and parts that show it. It also has firing missiles! It’s also one of the few places you could get a Rey figure, since the regular action figure saw limited distribution (if at all). Sadly, Rey has no lightsaber in this one.
Happy Star Wars Day everyone! May the 4th be with you!
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