Key particulars
- Worth: $399.99/£349.99
- Mannequin quantity: #10356
- Variety of items: 3600
- Dimensions: H: 11″ (27cm), W: 19″ (48cm), D: 24″ (60cm)
- Beneficial age: 18+
Transfer over, Star Wars, and get out of right here, Marvel, as a result of there’s lastly an official Star Trek Lego set… and what a set. The primary Star Trek Lego set was all the time going to be some variation of the USS Enterprise, however as an enormous The Subsequent Technology stan, I am glad that it was my beloved: the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D.
It’s also a hefty $400 — a price point that will make you yearn for the moneyless society of the show. So, was it worth the wait, and is it worth the money? Let’s head into the review at warp seven and find out.
Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D: Build
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- Body constructed with two mirrored halves
- 3600 pieces
- Some easy-to-apply stickers and printed pieces
The Lego Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D is made from 3600 pieces, split across 30 different bags and two instruction books. The first book covers the ship’s main body and the flight stand, while the second book is devoted to the saucer section.
To make it so, the build starts with the main body and wings that hold the nacelles (aka the ship’s warp engines). You actually construct the body from two mirror halves, which are then attached using several long cross-axle pieces (the long plus-shaped bars). I was especially impressed with how the designers crafted the main deflector array — that blue oval on the front of the ship that’s always firing off tractor beams and tachyon pulses — which is made from two, custom-printed cockpit windscreen pieces that you invert, creating the concave shape of the array.
With the body constructed, it’s time for a quick detour to assemble the flight stand, as the fixed position it offers makes attaching the engines much easier.
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Speaking of which, you’ll move on to building the nacelles themselves, which make good use of blue and red transparent pieces to recreate the iconic look of the ship’s glowing engines. Once assembled, the nacelles slot into place nicely, and by this point, you’ve got a working ship… as long as you don’t mind commanding your daft-looking ship from the battle bridge.
The back half of the build is a lot more technical, as you’re building a larger circular disc out of square and rectangular Lego pieces. This feat is achieved by first constructing a central frame, similar to the spokes of a wheel, and then attaching it to the main body. I ran into an issue here, as I discovered I’d made a mistake in section 1 that only reared its ugly head here. A single piece was rotated 90 degrees in the wrong direction, and it stopped the saucer from slotting in. Fortunately, I was able to repair it without disassembling the entire thing, but my heart did stop for a second when I discovered my mistake.
Once the frame is in place, you then attach the top panels, which use angled pieces and hinge attachments, slotting together into a damn impressive approximation of a circle.
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Things get trickier from here, though, as the final stretch has you repeating this process on the underside of the ship. The instruction book seems to imagine that you’ve got infinite room to work underneath the ship while doing this, but in practice, it’s quite tricky. I gave up in the end and just flipped the whole thing over, which felt very sketchy, and I ended up knocking a few random pieces off during the operation.
Despite my brief (and self-inflicted) cardiac episode, I had a fantastic time building the Enterprise. The nine minifigures are scattered throughout the build, providing a nice palette cleanser as you work through this sizeable build. They’re all simple to construct as you’d expect, though Riker’s trombone is an impressive — and rickety — piece of engineering.
Some mirror sections effectively call for you to build the same thing twice, but the fact that it’s mirrored — and not identical — keeps you on your toes. There are some special printed pieces, along with some stickers scattered throughout the build, but they’re all easy enough to apply.
Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D: Design
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- Great display model
- Comprehensive collection of minifigures
- Can be a little fragile to handle when completed
I’ve been waiting a very long time for a Lego Star Trek set, and I’m thrilled to say the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D was worth the wait. The design team has perfectly replicated the iconic starship in exquisite detail — no small feat given its awkward size and shape. I was skeptical of how the circular saucer section would look when built out of flat-edge pieces, but it looks stunning.
Some easter eggs are hiding around the ship that fans will appreciate, including the dedication plaque that emblazons the back wall of the Enterprise’s bridge (complete with a hilarious typo). Sadly, this set is not large enough to have a minifig scale bridge hidden inside it, so the plaque lives in a hidden compartment as an alternative.
Talking of minifigures, the gathering included right here is complete, with nearly your whole favourite characters from the present (dangerous luck to the Tasha Yar and Chief O’Brien stans on the market). All of them look fantastic, every with their very own distinctive equipment starting from Worf’s phaser via to Riker’s ridiculous trombone.
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There are some distinctive Lego items used right here, too, together with Worf’s “hair” and Guinan’s flamboyant headpiece. There’s a platform to retailer the minifigs on, and a printed show piece with cool information and figures in regards to the Enterprise on it, too.
One other neat contact is the “pin” that locks the saucer part in place, which is cleverly disguised as a shuttlecraft approaching the shuttlebay. It is a cute piece of design, although the removable saucer part itself is — very like within the present — a gimmick that you’re going to hardly ever use.
The mannequin is simply too fragile to deal with (since finishing it, I knocked a chunk off whereas exhibiting it off on webcam and cannot for the lifetime of me discover the place it got here from). Past that, there isn’t a show stand to carry the saucer part by itself, so until you are recreating the top of Star Trek: Generations, it is not price detaching.
Should you buy the Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D?
If you’re a Star Trek fan and a Lego collector, of course, you should buy this set. And by the looks of it, a lot of you already did because the Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D sold almost immediately out on launch day. If you missed the first wave, don’t worry, because we’re sure it’ll be back in stock at warp speed.
The Enterprise is a brilliant set to build and a gorgeous display piece when it’s done. It’s expensive, as you’d expect from a 3,600-piece Lego set, but I think it’s well worth the price of admission for Trekkies. Your wallet’s shields never stood a chance.
Other Lego sets to consider
As we said in the intro, the Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D is the first and only Star Trek Lego set out there for now (unless you count the Type-15 Shuttlepod that got here with the pre-order), so we have no different Trekkie units to advocate to you.
In case you’re agnostic within the Trek vs Wars divide, there are many wonderful Star Wars Lego units to think about, although. My private favourite is the Venator-Class Republic Assault Cruiser, an infinite 5,374-piece monster that dwarfs even the Enterprise.
If the $649.99/£559.99 price ticket on that set has triggered a pink alert out of your financial institution, there are some cheaper units we love too; particularly, the Mos Espa Podrace Diorama and the lovely Grogu with Hover Pram, each of which could be had for beneath $100.
