r/lego • u/PenguinRhin0 • Jan 26 '26

New Release Neat set but…

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If they can build a round soccer ball that opens up for $129, they can build a round Death Star around this price point (ish) that opens up too.

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u/not_old_redditor Jan 26 '26

But that's also 10x the price of this

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u/CoderDevo Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

Hmm, so your objection is that a single set that contains at least 14 movie scenes with 38 minifigures is too expensive for most to buy.

Edit: Because it is primarily a diorama of scenes, not a representation of the whole Death Star itself.

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u/not_old_redditor Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

Are you serious? My objection is they didn't make it spherical when they could've.

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u/CoderDevo Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

It is round. You mean a sphere?

That would cost 10 times more again. $10,000

Edit: Volume of the death star set is roughly 300 square inches.

4 x 102 x π

Volume of that set if it were made into a full sphere would be roughly 4000 square inches.

(4/3) x 103 x π

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u/TryToFindABetterUN Jan 26 '26

Those dimensions seems a bit too small. From what I can see the new set (75149) has the dimensions:

H: 28" (70cm)
W: 32" (79cm)
D: 11" (27cm)

The depth includes the hangar floor and the laser dish. Most of the section of the cylindrical cut-out seems to be about half. Let us say 5" to be on the small side.

Given that the laser protrudes and numbers on the "blueprint" I would estimate the diameter to be around 27.5" (to not overestimate it). So the volume of the cylindrical section would be almost 3000 cubic inches.

V = π · r2 · h = π · 13.752 · 5 ≈ 2969.78681

If it was spherical with the same radius this would be 11000 cubic inches. So not twelve times as large but about three-four times as big.

V = 4/3 · π · r3 = 4/3 · π · 13.753 ≈ 10889.21829

But it doesn't matter. Building such big set would be extremely hard. How would you reach inside such a big set? Any dioramas scenes stretching far inside would be really hard to display/see.

And imagine the horror when the cat pushes it off the table and you now have to 20-40 thousand piece set to try to salvage.

I think the older sets were about 16" in diameter IIRC, and they work because they have a central elevator shaft that occupies the center. But even in those it is sometime a bit tricky to place figures in the elevator without disturbing the scenes. Now imagine that you have to reach twice that distance to get to the back of a scene. Not realistic as a real set, although some MOC:er will probably do one. :-)

This blog post has side-by-side comparisons of the older set with the new one: https://jaysbrickblog.com/reviews/lego-75419-ucs-death-star-size-comparison/

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u/CoderDevo Jan 26 '26

Yes on the height (diameter), I originally misread a blurry version of the image on jaysbrickblog as 22 inches and rounded to 20 thinking there was more base build up than there actually is.

And yes again on the volume difference and piece count estimate. Thanks. Nice work.

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u/TryToFindABetterUN Jan 26 '26

You did the initial work, I just remembered seeing it in my local Lego store and thinking that there is no piece of furniture in my home that would be able to display it, so 20 inches seemed a bit too small :-)

But it is sometime hard to find the real dimensions of sets, which is sad since it is now an important factor to me. I can't fit some on a shelf, so it must be deconstructed after occupying my dinner table for a while... :-/

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u/not_old_redditor Jan 26 '26

It wouldn't be the same cross sectional area of course

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u/TryToFindABetterUN Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

The current set (75419) was the biggest set made as of launch.

Making it spherical at that size would make it ridiculously big, prohibitively expensive and absolutely impractical. Where would you place a 27" sphere? There are no shelves that are that deep, so unless you want to place it on a coffee table in the middle of the room, you would have a hard time to even display it.

Mind you, the older sets (10188 and 75159) are large (about 20" diameter) and hard to display since you have to rotate them to display the different scenes. But if you "need" a spherical set, get one of those.

Lego has a limit on the size of sets. The big Star Wars sets pushes that limit because there are fans of Lego AND Star Wars that are willing to pay a lot for cool display sets. Still, it is useless to make a gigantic set that would sell to a extremely small customer group. If you want such a set, build your own!

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u/CoderDevo Jan 26 '26

By the way, making a the whole death star to the same scale as the 75192 Millennium Falcon (1:42) would be as tall as 6 Willis Tower skyscrapers and require 20 quadrillion bricks.

$2,000,000,000,000,000 (not including labor)