LEGO Star Wars: Super Star Destroyer – 10221 review

• 2nd Jul 2013

Star Wars: Super Star Destroyer

Pieces: 3152

Ages: 14+

Mini Figures: 5

• Darth Vader
• Bossk
• Dengar
• Admiral Piett
• IG-88 (brick built droid with a specially printed face)

Price: £349.99

What’s inside

Box with large instruction books

Sticker sheet

3 boxes of Lego bricks divided into bags with 5 numbered stages

Background

The Super Star Destroyer Executor was the flag ship of the Imperial army and the command ship of Darth Vader which appeared in the original Star Wars trilogy films The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi where it finally had the embarrassing fate of crashing into the Death Star during the final battle.

The Lego set of the Executor is part of the Star Wars Ultimate Collectors Series and is perhaps the most extreme adult only show piece of the Star Wars theme spanning an incredible 49 inches or 1.25 meters when built and being the third largest set by piece count on sale by Lego today after the Tower Bridge and Death Star sets.

Building

The set is built in three phases being the central core from the bottom to the ‘city’ on top and the two mirror image ‘wing’ sections which are attached by snapping them to the main body. The instruction manuals suffer from the similarity of the element colours being black, dark gray and light gray which can cause confusion during building.

The central section is built of a flat layer of plates and wing parts giving the outline of the ship and then secured by a skeleton of Lego technic pieces. This creates a sturdy construction which never feels flimsy or in danger of breaking which is perhaps surprising in such a large and heavy set. The city on the top is fairly repetitive build made up of a handful of small pieces in various different configurations but creates a pretty convincing looking result considering the scale.

On top of the city section is the most mystifying decision that Lego have made with this set. A small section lifts up to reveal a badly scaled command bridge which given the minifigures included presumably depicts the scene from The Empire Strikes Back where Darth Vader summons the bounty hunters to find Han Solo who has just escaped in the asteroid field. The minifigures include Vader himself, Admiral Piett and two bounty hunters Bossk and Dengar, but curiously not Boba Fett who actually ends up capturing Solo. The minifigures have clearly been included to add more collectability to the set with Dengar and Piett being exclusives and Bossk only appearing in the Slave I set from 2010 which is no longer available from Lego. The bridge section can be used to store the minifigs, but there isn’t even enough space for them to stand inside once the top is put back on.

The two wing sections are the most repetitive parts of the set to build. Attaching them to the main body is also very tricky and is the one part of the whole set likely to infuriate the builder although once on, at least there is no danger of them accidentally dropping off while being handled unlike in some of the previous versions of star destroyers made by Lego.

Finally the engine parts are attached to the underside of the rear of the main body and do a good job of hiding any connections and are probably the best looking section of the whole set. Two sets of stands are also provided which allow for a nice stable display position for the set.

Finished Product

The Super Star Destroyer set is one of the most polarising sets around amongst Lego fans. Yes, it is just a big lump of few shades of gray, the scale is incompatible to any other Lego sets and there is absolutely no playability in a set which a small child would struggle to even move. The minifigures do not really belong to the set and it is a little shame that there is no detail on the underbelly of the ship which has just been made flat unlike in the films. Finally, the price of the set is undoubtedly high even compared to other Star Wars sets which generally suffer from the film licence mark-up. On the other hand, it is one of the most memorable ships from the movies and the pure size makes it a very impressive display piece for the few lucky people who have the space to display it.

http://shop.lego.com/en-GB/Super-Star-Destroyer-10221

Marko Hyypia