Lego markets a board featuring the Milky Way. A collector’s item to hang on the wall, it stands out for its inventory of rather improbable pieces. It once again underlines the ingenuity of the Danish company.
When you go to a Lego store, you come across the many themes marketed by the Danish firm. If, today, its success is mainly fueled by the exploitation of large licenses (Star Wars, Harry Potter,Marvel, The Lord of the Rings…), we should not put aside the more general themes, which have existed since the dawn of time. We think of pirates, knights or even space.
In 2024, Lego has decided to make space a strong pillar of its catalog, with products designed for everyone. For example, there is a reconstruction of the Milky Way in the form of a painting that you can hang on your wall. The box contains more than 3,091 pieces, which bring our galaxy to life. Enough to make it a decorative object with a 3D effect (we will come back to this), measuring 60 centimeters long and 40 centimeters high.
Comb, roller helmet, frog, ruby… It’s the Milky Way in Lego
The construction of the Milky Way is divided into different stages explained in six separate booklets. We start by assembling the black frame, on which the plates will be attached which, glued, bring the galaxy to life. The process can be tedious, in the sense that it consists of placing pieces on black plates, taking care to place the correct ones (some colors can be confused depending on the bags). But Lego has found a way to make the experience more fun.
Thus, the Milky Way is represented with a depth effect. Up close, it looks strange and it’s not immediately clear where the engineers were going with this. But, from a distance, the magic happens with excellent work on the colors and a fairly astonishing impression of thickness. We are as if sucked in by this artistic adaptation of the Milky Way. To achieve this dizzying result, Lego recycled many pieces from its history, and some of them are truly improbable. Sometimes we even wonder if we’re putting everything and anything together, praying that the end result will look like something.
The improbable pieces of the reconstruction of the Milky Way in Lego :
- Food. Carrots, cherries, cupcakes, ice cream… You can easily find something to eat in the Milky Way. Even if the color of the food doesn’t make you want to eat it.
- Utensils. To eat, you need a fork. To drink, you need a cup. To cook? With a whip. And you can even comb your hair – or clean your carrots – with a brush. The Milky Way is full of surprises.
- Flowers. In Lego, the galaxy is covered with flowers of different colors and shapes. There are also leaves, stems and shrubs.
- Precious stones. Rubies and diamonds: that’s how you get rich when you travel the Milky Way. You can spot them from afar with binoculars and go pick them up while protecting yourself with a roller helmet.
- Flags and flames. In some bags, you may come across flames of two colors (white and transparent purple). There are also flags. These parts are used to give movement.
White flame
Violet Flame
- Hearts. Because the Milky Way is ultimately just love.
- Animals. A frog is hiding in the building, as well as a hermit crab. The latter is not there by chance: it symbolizes the Crab Nebula. You had to think about it.
- The “You are here” plaque allows you to place yourself in this immense painting. Yes, we are tiny in the galaxy.
- The green coin symbolizing an extraterrestrial, the great mystery of our universe.
- Phosphorescent pieces, to impress your guests when they go to the toilet at night.
Note that this Milky Way in Lego has other easter eggs. This is how the famous Gaia satellite telescope, which has mapped more than a billion stars since 2013, is there. As well as Trappist-1, a dwarf system whose size is roughly equivalent to that of Jupiter. Suffice it to say that space enthusiasts will love this product, which will not rot in a cupboard, but will be proudly displayed on a wall.
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