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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."
This has been in pre-order since the Spring catalog, so at least 4 months....
Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
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
...it's just a really large toy!
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.
Perhaps if the price weren't completely laughable.
...that has done the Kessel Run in 8 parsecs or less.
I thought the article said 33 inches long, 22 inches wide and 8 feet tall!
Man, I better get a new pair of glasses before I get into some serious trouble!!!
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?
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.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
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 be able to afford the time that building it would require.
Oh - am I missing something or does it not state what the exact total of the "production quantity" is?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What the hell is an aluminum falcon??!
I don't want Karma, I just want to be a smart ass. All in favor, mod me up.
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).
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....
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 there.
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.
...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.
Is that eight instead of 12 because it's a scale model?
While the MF might be the largest and most expensive set available thru Lego itself, it pales when compared to the life-size Batman available thru FAO Schwarz.
http://www.fao.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=6649
Doesn't say how many pieces, but the finished "model" is 6'6" tall and weighs 500 lbs!!
Price? Try $27,000, plus another $2,700 for truck shipping...the shipping alone is over 5 times the cost of the MF set.
What the hell is an "aluminum falcon"?!
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
I preordered this months ago and it came in on Monday. I'm spending about 4 hours a day on it, and I'm about 1/4 way through the instruction book right now (2 days in). I figure it flies on Friday.
The skeleton this thing is built on is massive. They have parts and assemblies I haven't seen before, just to strengthen this thing so it doesn't collapse under its own weight, and I've done the previous Star Destroyer and Blockade Runner models. There's a lot about this kit that impresses me as an engineer, since LEGO sets aren't built with rivets, lock washers, or Loctite.
I have most of my living room (including couch and coffee table) covered with the sorted piles of parts. Thank God I don't have pets, children, or a spouse to mess it up.
The Star Wars mega-kits just keep getting bigger, bolder, and more expensive. I was wondering what would come after the Death Star II; this is it. The summary does not point out that this Millennium Falcon is done to the scale of the mini-figures, so about 1 meter = 2 LEGO grids.
Personally, I enjoy building these the way I enjoy building other model kits. They're not "toys" any more than the materials of other hobbies (model rockets, oil paintings, private aircraft, whatever) are toys. My main problem is finding places to put things when I'm done building them.
Lego pieces average a dime each, so with slightly over 5K pieces, yeah, this kit will cost $500.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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 commission by Ep. 4-6, or that we wouldn't see any of them around.
Still, this is the most acceptable explanation I've heard.
>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 stuffed animal, rather than something that stands on its own. It will be interesting to see if that holds up with the mindstorms I just picked up (and how).
hawk
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.
Why, yes I have been touched by His noodly appendage. And I plan to sue.
Obviously Lego hasn't been following the currency markets lately...
They must been using Excel 2007 to calculate their exchange rates... here are some of their international costs:
Based on actual exchange rates, converting from USD$499.99 those prices should be:
Nice way to gouge your international customers...
Compared to the Australian price: 979.95 AUD = 858.115 USD.
Ok it isn't a good deal, but is less insane than what Aussies pay.
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!
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Oh my god, things cost different amounts in different countries and are not directly related to currency exchange values, call the National Guard!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Check out this guy: http://www.buymealego.com/ -- a little funny, but I guess 65 cents isn't a whole lot to get a link on the site. Got a ways to go, though. He's definitely counting on numbers.