I've been a diehard Lego nerd for years, but even I'm turned off by the new Death Star's rumored $1K price

There have been whispers about a new Lego Death Star for months now. I suspect many of us have heard about how massive it'll be, and how it'll dwarf everything that came before; it sounds like an absolute giant. And judging by recent, supposed leaks, it seems as if it could live up to that reputation. However, one thing is raining on my parade: the long-rumored price.

Although nothing's been confirmed just yet, rumblings about it costing $1,000 have persisted for as long as the rumors themselves. In other words, this new Lego Death Star would be the biggest Star Wars Lego set ever made… but also the most expensive by around $300. Even for a superfan of the best Lego sets like me, that might be pushing it.

Earlier this month, Reddit user Waltuhhhhhhhhhh dropped info on this behemoth kit. The post has since been taken down by moderators on r/Legoleaks (potentially suggesting that the details might be real), but images courtesy of user terrible-savings-529 have since been reuploaded elsewhere. These seem to confirm a lot of stats we've been hearing up until now, including a purported $999.99 US price.

On the one hand, I understand why it'd cost so much. This thing packs 9,023 bricks according to those photos, so even though it's not the biggest Lego set ever made (that honor goes to the monster-sized World Map at more than 11K pieces), it's definitely in the top five. Indeed, it sits just below the Lego Coliseum at 9,036. It also seems to feature a battalion of at least 30 minifigures, with my personal count being around 37 if you include R2-D2. These draw from across the original trilogy and Rogue One, and they fill dioramas of iconic moments like Luke and Leia's swing across the ravine, Luke's final showdown with the Emperor and Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin's meeting with other Imperial bigwigs in the board room, the trash compactor, and Han's run in with a squad of Stormtroopers. Suffice to say, there's a lot going on.

But $1K? Phew. From what I can tell, and based on models Lego sells rather than the resell value of long-gone kits, that'd make this new Lego Death Star its most expensive release at the time of writing… or maybe ever. Even the next biggest kits that are still available, the UCS Millennium Falcon and the Titanic, are much less at $849.99 and $679.99 respectively. Don't get me wrong, those are still a lot of money. Plus, anyone willing to spend over $800 on a kit such as the Falcon probably won't mind stretching the budget a little further. But for me, $999.99 is enough to make me fold my hand of cards and say "I'm out."

from r/Legoleak/comments/1mm3ecd/75419_ucs_death_star_full_box_source

I appreciate that I'm not the target audience here. This model (if it is indeed real) will presumably be made for the dedicated uber fans amongst us, the ones who create the most impressive dioramas, builds, and collections you've ever seen. And that's great! Not everything has to be for everyone. Nevertheless, I would have preferred a series of cheaper dioramas that can be combined to create this mega model – a bit like how Lego has been releasing individual parts of a super-size Hogwarts over the past few years. Seeing as the rooms are just individual, boxy scenes, that would have worked nicely and offered the best of both worlds. If you want to collect them all for the full cost of $1K, you absolutely can. But if you just want certain scenes, that's an option too.

Even said uber fans aren't entirely happy with the build. Not all of them, anyway; opinion seems fairly split judging by forums. On that original Reddit thread, some are decrying the cutaway design. Moist_Tap_6514 goes so far as to say it's a "Nightmare design. Not even a sphere" with over 300 upvotes, while Timotej22 chimes in with "Not even HALF a sphere."

Personally, I'm with B_Wayne_8833's assessment that "it's not the worst choice. At least like this you can see all the rooms on display. I can understand why people are upset, but I also don't think anyone would pay 1000$ for a fully paneled Death Star that’s just a big ball."

I agree. I feel like adding any more weight for a full half-sphere would make the model unwieldy and dangerously overloaded as well, to the point that it'd be hard to display without the whole thing collapsing under its own weight. (As is, I suspect it'll need to be displayed on a wall via very sturdy screws/brackets and handled with the utmost care anyway.)

What I'm more interested in is how the other side of the kit looks, to be honest. Is it flat plastic, or a slight curve? My money's on the former, because I'm simply not sure how it'd be displayed otherwise – short of being in a museum and shown off in the round, that is.

According to these leaks, the new Lego Death Star will drop out of hyperspace this October 1. Will you be in line to grab it? Personally speaking, I think I'll have to sit this one out.

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