I finally fulfilled one of my longterm dreams and bought the LEGO Super Star Destroyer whilst it was on offer for Star Wars Day (May 4th). The Super Star Destroyer (also known as ‘The Executor’) is a complete beast; it measures in at around 4.2 feet long and 8 pounds in weight. It’s the most expensive set LEGO currently sell but is 3rd in terms of number of pieces (it has 3152 pieces compared to the Death Star with 3803 and Tower Bridge with 4295 - I don’t really like either of those sets).

You can see some photos of the build process and completed model in my Flickr set but I will include a few shots here to highlight some of the best (and worst) bits of the build:

The Emperor

It wasn’t until I started building the set that I realised this is, amazingly, the first LEGO Star Wars set I’ve built (not counting the LEGO Star Wars Advent calendars in 2011 and 2012). This was, therefore, the first Darth Vader minifig I’ve collected but even better than that was the Emperor hologram that I didn’t know existed, let alone was in this set. A really nice touch.

Manual and boxes

Most modern LEGO sets come in numbered bags so that you can build the model in stages. This is useful for all sets but especially important for the models with thousands of pieces as you don’t want to open them all and spend days foraging around for the bit you need. This is the first set I’ve seen that comes not just with bags, but numbered boxes! The manual is also worth mentioning as it is spiral bound and weighs a ton. It also came in its own box.

Star Destroyer

This is another nice touch, a Star Destroyer in scale with the rest of the model so you can understand just how huge the Executor is supposed to be. Even when watching the films I hadn’t really noticed how huge this ship is supposed to be but the detail placard points out that it would have a crew of 280,735. This is a nice way of showing the scale and the miniature model is quite clever with hinges to form the shape and clear plastic arms to hold it to the side of the Super Star Destroyer.

Control Room

This is the only negative in the set in my opinion. It’s the control room of the ship where a lot of the action in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ takes place (particularly the scene where Vader briefs the bounty hunters, several of whom are minifigs in this set). The nice part is that it replicates this room perfectly with the walkway, sub-level computers, and sliding doors. The problem is that it uses a lot of stickers (which I hate) and that it is completely off scale with the rest of the model. In proper scale, this should be about 2x3 studs (or smaller) but it has been designed so minifigs can fit inside. Fortunately the whole thing is hidden under a beautifully designed lifting piece but I just dislike that this has been added to give it a ‘play’ element when it is clearly a collectors build rather than a toy.

Conclusion

This is an absolutely fantastic set. It took me around 3 days to build (due to being slightly ill and having other things to do) but is probably 6-8 hours worth of solid building. There are so many cleverly designed elements that it is bound to be unique for many LEGO builders. I particularly liked the use of coloured bricks in the interior sections in order to break up the grey making it easier to see where you were in the instructions.

The set is an absolute beast and I’d encourage you to take a look at the full photo set which shows it being built from start to finish. Now it’s time to wait until July for my next projects; the Lone Ranger sets and the new Lord of the Rings sets (including the Tower of Orthanc… can’t wait!)