The Lego model that puts all other Lego models to shame was proudly displayed in New York's Times Square last week. The life-size Star Wars X-Wing fighter replica is being dubbed the world's largest Lego model and apparently took 32 "master builders" to put together. The model -- which reportedly weights 46,000 pounds -- took 17,000 combined hours to build, according to Businessweek. It was on display in New York for three days through May 25 and will now be moved to LEGOLAND in California. In case you missed it, here are some photos of the model in Times Square: The Morning Email helps you start your workday with everything you need to know: breaking news, entertainment and a dash of fun.Up Close with Giant LEGO X-Wing It's a dream come true for fans across the entire nerd spectrum: a life-sized X-Wing fighter built entirely of LEGOs. (Just take a second to let the awesomeness of that sentence sink in. In celebration of the upcoming Cartoon Network series The Yoda Chronicles, the LEGO Group unveiled the iconic Star Wars ship — the largest LEGO structure built to date — in New York City's Times Square on Thursday.
The ship will remain on display in New York for three days, then be transported to the LEGOLAND California Resort in Carlsbad, Calif., for the rest of the year. The huge structure is comprised of 5,335,200 individual LEGO bricks. At 11 feet tall, 43 feet long and 44 feet wide, it weighs almost 46,000 pounds (that's including the steel infrastructure designed to hold the pieces in place.) It's a one-to-one replica of the traditional X-Wing retail model, only 42 times larger. From conception to completion, the plane took more than one year to make: After months of brainstorming and computerized design, a 32-person team completed construction over the course of four months in Kladno, Czech Republic. Then, the X-Wing was broken up into 32 pieces and transported to Long Island, N.Y., by freight ship. SEE ALSO: Brickstagram: A Man's Journey Through Cancer With LEGO We got a sneak peek of the plane last week at an "undisclosed location" (Long Island) and met a few of the project's consultants and creators.
One of them, Erik Varszegi, who holds the title "LEGO Master Builder," said the designing process was fairly easy. "Essentially, it's just a blow-up of our existing model," he told Mashable. "The real feat of engineering here is the steel truss frame that's holding it all together." The plane's travels through New York, and eventually to California, will resemble its original journey. The plane will be broken into pieces and reassembled over the steel frame. Varszegi said the model and its infrastructure are specially engineered to withstand movement, so the rumble of the subway system below Times Square and the potential seismic activity in California won't pose any problems. Visitors in Times Square will get a chance to climb into its cockpit, too — which, again, the ship is made to withstand. SEE ALSO: Artist Uses 200,000 LEGO Bricks for Masterpiece "Aside from the Millenium Falcon, the X-Wing is probably the most iconic ship from the series," Varszegi said. "With all of our retail redesigns of the ship — there have been about four or five since it was first introduced — we always come back and try to outdo ourselves.
I think this one definitely accomplishes that." Thursday is a particularly special day for the unveiling: Exactly 30 years ago, on May 23, 1983, Return of the Jedi opened in theaters. Be sure to check out the plane if you're in New York this weekend. If not, it will reside in California for the rest of the year. The first of three episodes of The Yoda Chronicles will premiere on Cartoon Network at 8:00 p.m. EST on May 29. Take a look through the photos above. What do you think? Which structure would you like to see recreated in LEGO form? Tell us in the comments below. Post image via The LEGO Group/AP; gallery images by Mashable For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. Battle the forces of the First Order with Poe's X-Wing Fighter. This customized starfighter is packed with features, like the 4 spring-loaded shooters, 2 stud shooters, retractable landing gear, opening wings, opening cockpit with space for a minifigure and space behind for the BB-8 Astromech Droid.
There’s even a loader with weapon rack, extra missiles and ammunition, and a seat for a minifigure. So climb the access ladder, strap in and get ready to recreate your own great scenes from Star Wars: The Force Awakens! • Includes 3 minifigures with assorted weapons and accessories: Poe Dameron, Resistance ground crew and a Resistance X-Wing Pilot, plus a BB-8 Astromech Droid • Features Poe's X-Wing Fighter, loader and an access ladder • X-Wing Fighter features 4 spring-loaded shooters, 2 stud shooters, retractable landing gear, opening wings, opening cockpit with space for a minifigure and space behind for the BB-8 Astromech Droid • Loader features a weapon rack, missiles, ammunition and a seat for a minifigure • Weapons include 2 blaster pistols and a wrench • Accessories include 3 helmets • Open the wings and get ready for combat! • Resupply with the loader • Fire up the engines, retract the landing gear and launch! • Recreate fantastic scenes from Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• The perfect addition to any LEGO® Star Wars collection • Play out exciting snow-planet battles against the 75100 First Order Snowspeeder • Measures over 4” (11cm) high, 14” (37cm) long and 12” (32cm) wide with wings open and over 3” (8cm) high with wings closed For Ages: 8 - 14 WARNING: Choking Hazard - Small Parts. Not suitable for children under 3 years old. Limit 5 per customer 7 - 12 Years Most Helpful Customer Reviews See all customer reviewsOur week of LEGO Star Wars reviews continues today with 75102 Poe’s X-wing Fighter from the Force Awakens. Poe Dameron and his T-70 X-wing starfighter have featured prominently in all of the teasers and trailers for the new movie, so there doesn’t seem to be much risk of any spoilers in this set (that, and it’s been out in stores since September). Nevertheless, I’ll go ahead and bury the actual review below the fold, as I did with yesterday’s review of 75140 Resistance Troop Transporter.
Full disclosure: I’ve only ever owned one other System-scale X-wing, the original 7140 X-wing from 1999. I apologize in advance if I miss any key comparisons with the 2004, 2006, or 2012 redesigns (dark post-Prequel, post-fleshie years in which I had no interest in Star Wars). Poe’s X-wing comes in 5 numbered bags, with a 120-page instruction booklet. You start with the generic Resistance pilot, ground crew staff, and ground crew equipment, followed by the first bit of the X-wing’s main body. Sixteen steps in, you’re already starting to build the Technic mechanism that will enable the S-foils to open and close. Things get interesting again after you open the second bag, around step 40, when you start building the X-wing’s nose. The long nose is built around a Technic core, with 1×2 jumper plates attached by Technic half-pins to a series of axle/pin connectors. The exterior sides of the nose are subtly angled using hinge plates. The nose cone connects via Technic axle to the end of the Technic core, with a 2×4 tile securing it to the rest of the nose via half-stud offset on a jumper plate attached to the core.
We then return to the S-foil mechanism and the remainder of the X-wing’s main hull through the third bag and step 89. The first stickers show up at step 83 — and yes, all but the X-wing canopy is stickered. Speaking of the canopy, mine appears to have been mis-molded by a fraction of a centimeter, and the canopy would not close properly. I reported this to LEGO Customer Service, who requested proof of purchase via a code on my instruction booklet, and quickly sent out a replacement. The canopy is gorgeous, and appears to be essentially a miniature version of the canopy in the UCS X-wing sets. In Bag 4, we finally get Poe himself, along with BB-8, at which point we begin building the wings. All four wings are mostly basic plates, slopes, and tiles, with an articulated joint on the rear of each wing to attach rubber bands for the opening/closing mechanism. The end of each wing includes a 1×4 flick-fire missile brick, but I’ll come back to that when discussing the finished model.
Technic axles hold the wings in place, and once all four wings are attached, you wrap rubber bands around the articulated joints. Building the four wings does inevitably get a little repetitive, since the wings alone are two full bags and nearly 40 pages of instructions. Overall, it was a fun build, with some rather interesting techniques for the nose in particular. I also always enjoy interior Technic mechanisms, since I’m not much of a Technic builder otherwise and enjoy learning new techniques for working play features. Poe’s X-wing includes 717 pieces, 3 minifigs (plus a droid), and retails for $79.99 in the US. This is a typical price for Star Wars sets of this size, but always worth noting that you get more brick for the buck in non-licensed sets. I’m writing this review more than three months after the set’s release, after new (to me) parts have started appearing in 2016 sets like 21304 Doctor Who and the Resistance Transporter I reviewed yesterday. Given that, the lack of interesting new parts — other than the fantastic new X-wing canopy — is mildly disappointing.
Similarly, I don’t use my black LEGO very much, so the huge amount of black pieces in this set doesn’t work well for my personal building preferences, from a parts perspective. Still, I do like orange, and there’s a good amount of orange for all the accents and highlights on Poe’s X-wing. It would be hard for me to recommend this set at full price for the bricks alone, and given that the set is starting to become scarce and creep up in price, you’re unlikely to find it on discount to buy as a parts pack. Where this set shines is as a completed X-wing. The Halloween color scheme works beautifully, and the sleek angles of the nose are especially lovely. That said, the “real” T-70 X-wing has a slope down the nose, as well as a tapered angle along the sides, and it’s a little disappointing that the LEGO X-wing lacks this downward angle. With rounded curves, the engines also look great, particularly with the S-foils closed. Naturally, the S-foils do lock in attack position, by turning the knob behind BB-8.
Turning the knob flips the lever between each pair of wings from horizontal to vertical, forcing the wings open against the force of the rubber bands holding them together. I have to admit that forcing LEGO pieces to scrape against each other due to friction from rubber bands grates on my nerves a bit… Similarly, those blue rubber bands (clearly visible in the rear shot earlier in this post) certainly detract from the overall look. Even more so, the four flick-fire missile bricks on the end of the wings make the ends look far chunkier than they should be — an easy mod to remove them, though. The set includes three minifigs and a droid — Poe Dameron, an unnamed Resistance pilot, a non-human ground crew member, and BB-8. As great as I think the X-wing itself is, I love these minifigs. (To be fair, these may be the first Star Wars figs I’ve bought in ten or twelve years, so the contrast with those older figs is fairly high…) All three minifigs have printing on their backs.
The pilots’ helmets are stunning, with detailed printing all around and a trans-yellow visor built in. Any readers out there care to translate the Basic/Aurebesh on the helmets? The intervening years since I last bought Star Wars sets — with the improvements to minifig printing LEGO has made — results in very strong contrasts with the pre-fleshie figs from that first era of LEGO Star Wars. Perhaps it’s also that so much of the last 12-15 years of LEGO Star Wars has focused on the Prequel Trilogy and (more recently) Expanded Universe. But I think these are objectively great minifigs. The alien ground crew member in particular is interesting, with parts that would fit well in just about any near-future or sci-fi context. Despite my aversion to black LEGO parts, fleshie minifigs, flick-fire missiles, and rubber bands, this is a great set. It’s sturdy, swooshable, and sleek, with all the functionality you’d expect from an X-wing. And with stunning minifigs, I can heartily recommend this set to even the most casual of Star Wars fans.