Posted in: Collectibles, Games, Toys | Tagged: emperor palpatine, emperor's royal guards, lego, lego bricks, lego death star, lego star wars, Luke Skywalker, the emperor

Building The LEGO Death Star Part 2- Lots And Lots Of Grey As The Shell Takes Shape

The ultimate show of power in the collecting galaxy, the LEGO® Death Star has been a holy grail of collecting for me since I heard it existed. All those bricks! All the mini-figures! I could not even wrap my head around it. I missed the boat on the very first release, and also the Death Star 2, and it has been retired and taken out of retirement so many times that the timing never seemed to line up. The secondary market is always insane on these when in retirement, so once it came out again with the release of Rouge One, I knew this was my shot. This third version, set number 75159, features scenes from both Death Stars from A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. It is almost the same as the first release, but with more updated mini-figs and some extra updates to things like the superweapon. It is the biggest LEGO Star Wars set available, and one of the biggest sets period. And now it is mine! Over the next few weeks I will be chronicling the building of this battle station, so let's dive in!

In Part 1, we covered the construction of many mini-figures, a mini Darth Vader TIE Advanced fighter, and the first four rooms on the bottom layer of the Death Star. In this part, bag sets 4-6 will be covered. Or as I came to call it to myself: Grey Apocalypse.

As you can see from the pictures, there is a ton of grey. A TON. As I said in part 1, and I can't stress this enough, take your time. Do not rush at all, count the nubs, and then place the pieces. Every single time I tried to try and speed the process up, I would make a mistake and have to retrace my steps. Basically with these bags, you are building the middle layer baseplates for the second level of the Death Star. All it takes is one wrong piece in the wrong area and it will throw off the entire floor. It looks so cool to have the top layer all complete!

Some of the little touches are added to the lower rooms as well, with trash added into the compactor room, the Tractor Beam control that Obi-Wan takes care of in A New Hope, the giant laser cannon, and the elevator… Word to the wise: when you originally tie the string for it onto the brick in bag 3, make sure you give it a ton of slack. I had to take that entire wall apart and retie the string so the elevator would go all the way up. I love the look in the trash compactor room, it looks so awesome with all the little bits of trash in it. And the chasm that Leia and Luke swing across looks pretty damn cool as well.

Once you have the next layer done: time to build more rooms! I am sure you all recognize the room being built down below, as The Emperor's Throne Room from Return of the Jedi is fully realized in  bag set 6. I already had the throne Room set from a year or so ago, so a mini-version in here is a build I was pretty familiar with. I also like that this version of the Death Star has both versions combined into it. The throne area is by far the coolest part to build here, it is such an iconic scene. I had the dialogue between the Emperor and Luke running through my head the entire time it was being put together.

Only four mini-figs in this set of bags, and they were all in the last ones! As I said before, the cloth capes for the Emperor's Royal Guards and the Emperor himself. They just look so much better than the standard ones, and make it feel that much more special. Jedi Luke is always a welcome edition, no matter how many versions we get. I really love the Force Lightning pieces as well, while I won't be using them when I place the Emperor on his throne, they look awesome jetting out of his hands.

Overall these bags were a lot like the last sets. Lots of structure building that takes awhile, and some fun stuff thrown in to break up the monotony. That elevator is a pain in the butt if you screw it up, so make sure you do not repeat my mistake!

Next week, bags 7-10! That will complete our journey, and the space station will be fully operational.

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