The Brick Connection – A novice Lego fan explores the great brick world of LEGO

Hey, LEGO fans! Do you love politics??

No? You think politics and politicians are the work of satan, trying to destroy the human race one election at a time?

Well that seems extreme, but also accurate.

Don’t worry, no politics here. You get enough of that on your Facebook newsfeed.

But we are going to talk about the debate......


No, not that debate.

The great LEGO debate! Yes, I’m trying to be topical, but with a LEGO spin. So I wanted to discuss something that LEGO fans debate about.

Is it whether or not you’re allowed to say legos? No, because TLG themselves have said firmly that the plural of LEGO is in fact LEGO. So there’s no legitimate debate there?

Is it whether or not the newer LEGO gray color (which is kind of a bluish-gray) is better than the old gray color? (This is a LEGO-related issue I remember learning about when I first started this blog over a year ago.)

Um no, that’s a really lame debate, and irrelevant to anyone born after 2003. Suck it up AFOLs!

No, I think the most interesting debate LEGO fans could have is what is the best LEGO set?

Now obviously this is a very subjective debate. Sets can be great for many different reasons and it depends on what an individual likes in a set (fun build, playability, size, detail) on whether or not they like the set itself.

I’m not here to make a definitive statement about what the best LEGO set is because it’s all just opinions, but I did research what other people think are the best LEGO sets.

I looked at lists for best LEGO sets, coolest LEGO sets, most valuable LEGO sets, biggest most challengingly awesome LEGO sets, most gorgeous LEGO sets, and more. There were top 7 lists, top 8, top 10, top 17, and more.

I went through them all, plus checked out Reddit forums and other LEGO fan forums discussing “the best sets” to find any sets that were mentioned over and over. I then ended up with a top 10 of my own. 

This is the average of all the “best” lists out there. Okay, not all, but a lot of them.

I determined the top 10 by seeing how many times a set appeared in one of these lists that I looked through. Some of the sets appeared the same amount of times, but maybe not in all the same lists.

Who am I to decide what breaks the tie between sets? Therefore, I’m not going to really number this list.

I will however name the set that seems to have the most favorable reviews and was mentioned on practically every list I looked at, usually at or near the top.

Do you think you know which LEGO set it is?

It's 10188!

The Death Star

A Star Wars set “winning” doesn’t seem too surprising. And of course it’s a set based on the original trilogy. In fact this Death Star includes rooms from the original Death Star in the first film and the Death Star II from Episode VI.

This set has it all. Like it literally has a minifigure for every major character in the film: Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Darth Vader, Ben Kenobi, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO. There are three different versions of Luke and two versions of Han. In total, there are 24 minifigures.

It’s 25 if you include Dianoga, the trash compactor monster. As you can see, Dianoga is not a typical LEGO figure. He (she?) is made up of 14 pieces.

There are 3,803 pieces in total for this Ultimate Collector Series Star Wars set. When completed, it measures out to 16 inches high and 16.5 inches wide at its diameter.

According to Brickipedia, you can play out almost every scene that happened in one of the Death Stars from both A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.

Here is the list of rooms from the Death Star brickipedia page:

Let’s go through a few of them...

My personal favorite is the trash compactor room. It even has walls that move in and of course the monster.

The detention block where Princess Leia was being held is even located directly above the trash compactor room with a hole to jump down through just like they did in the movie.

Superweapon firing room. Aaaahhh! #RIPAlderaan

Hangar bay with Darth Vader’s TIE, which he escapes on in Episode IV before the Death Star is destroyed.

Chasm that Luke and Leia swing across in Episode IV, with a completely platonic kiss on the cheek for good luck.

Emperor’s throne room where Luke fights with and then is saved by his father from Emperor Poopyhead.

Pictures not enough? How about a 30 minute video of a speed build. Yes, it is a "speed" build despite the length. This set takes even the most expert of builders 15 hours or more to complete.

This set by the way came out in 2008 and was sold for 7 years until it was finally sold out on LEGO’s site last year. A set being available for 7 years is pretty unheard of for LEGO, but I guess it goes to show just how popular this set was. Apparently LEGO decided to finally retire it last year because they had a new Death Star in the works to be released this year.

In fact the new Death Star will be released tomorrow, September 30^th. What a crazy coincidence! I swear that I did not plan this at all.

The new Death Star is set #75159. It has 4,016 pieces, about 200 more than the original set. According to brickipedia, this set is 95% the same as 10188. The main update was to the minifigures. I believe all the rooms are the same; there might just be some different or extra pieces used in some places.

The original set (10188) was sold for $399.99. (You actually can still buy it from Amazon.) This new set will be sold for $499.99, which seems kind of ridiculous. But LEGO knows people will buy it anyway, so what do they care?!

Here is a video review of the new LEGO Death Star:

So there you have it! The unofficial best LEGO set according to my thorough research is the 10188 Death Star. Do any of you own this set? Can you attest to its awesomeness?

And that was just 1 of the sets in my top 10. What are the other 9 sets that made it into The Brick Connection top 10? Well you’ll have to come back next week to find out.

Any guesses? And which sets do you think are the best? Leave a comment!

Until next time…….............………orange you glad I didn’t mention Donald Trump?

Ah crap! Sorry!

#LeiaOrgana2016

*Compliments, general feedback, and constructive criticism are welcome. Any haters that are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate can go step on some Lego with their bare feet.*