Star Wars

Imperial Star Destroyer

The wedge that made everyone gasp, finally built to actually play with.

Brick Rated Score

4.2/5

Set 75394 · 2024

Pieces1,555

Minifigs7

Year2024

Set number75394

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The verdict

This is the first proper playset Star Destroyer in a decade, and the swooshy little Technic handle tucked underneath tells you exactly what LEGO wanted here.

It's a gorgeous grey arrowhead with an interior you can pop open, seven figures including the debut of Cal Kestis, and turrets that swing in sync when you nudge a tab at the back. The price stings and the underside feels a little flimsy, but the shape and the play value are genuinely lovely. If you grew up doing spaceship noises, this LEGO® set knows exactly who you are.

Best for: Star Wars fans who want a display piece they can also swoosh

The full review

What it is

There's a reason the Star Destroyer is the shot every Star Wars montage opens with. That endless grey wedge rumbling overhead is pure intimidation, and getting it to read right in brick form is genuinely hard. This 2024 set nails the silhouette. At 18 inches long it's not huge, but the proportions are so clean that it looks meaner than the chunkier 75055 from 2014 ever did. This is the first time in ten years LEGO has done the Star Destroyer as a playset rather than a pure display model, and you can feel that intention in every panel that lifts off.

The catch

Now the money. This is where I have to be straight with you. At 159 dollars for 1,555 pieces, it's both the most expensive and the physically smallest playset version of this ship LEGO has made, and the price-per-piece math is not doing you any favors. A big chunk of what you're paying for is the seven figures and the shaping, not raw part count. The interior is fun but a little sparse once you've opened it a few times, with a bridge, an armory, a break room and a cargo bay that feel more suggested than fully furnished. And the real gripe builders keep raising is the underside. To keep the model light and swooshable, the belly is thin, so if you set it on something soft or press too firmly while posing figures inside, bits can pop loose. It holds together fine on a hard shelf, but it's not the tank-solid base you might expect at this price.

Who it's for

So who's this really for. If you want a Star Destroyer you can actually pick up and fly around the room while making engine noises, this is the best one LEGO has ever made for that, full stop. The handle is hidden so cleverly you forget it's there until you need it, and the synchronized turrets are a genuinely delightful touch. If you're chasing a large, museum-piece centerpiece to sit untouched on a shelf, the UCS-scale ships or a bigger build will make you happier for the money. And if you're here purely for Cal Kestis, know that he's lovely but bare-bones. For the fan who loved doing spaceship noises as a kid and never quite stopped, though, this one is easy to love.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build moves in clear stages and it's a satisfying couple of afternoons. You start with an internal skeleton and the Technic frame that carries the handle and the turret mechanism, then work outward laying the long angled panels that give the ship its wedge. That paneling is the heart of the experience, lots of slopes and angled plates locking into a shape that slowly reveals itself, and it's the sort of building where you keep turning the model to admire the line forming. The synchronized turbolasers are the clever bit: push or pull a tab at the stern and the quad turrets sweep side to side together, driven by a hinge piece wedged between a pair of 1x1 inkwells with no visible gears. The lift-off top and foldout side panels for the interior come last, and they're engineered so everything closes flush even with figures posed inside.

This isn't a set stacked with rare new molds, it's more about clever use of familiar grey slopes and wedge plates in dark bluish grey and light grey to get that hull. The real collectible parts here are the figures. Cal Kestis is a brand new print and a 25th anniversary release, and on the secondary market that single figure already trades around 50 dollars, which quietly reframes the value story of the whole box. You also get Darth Vader, Commander Praji, an Imperial Gunner, an Imperial Navy Trooper and a Stormtrooper. The spring-loaded shooters and printed control panels round things out. Part-count value is only okay in isolation, but factor in that figure lineup and it lands closer to fair.

Fun facts

01This is the first playable Star Destroyer LEGO has released since 2014's 75055, ending a full decade gap for the model type.
02The set marks the very first LEGO minifigure of Cal Kestis, the hero of the Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor games, released as a 25th anniversary Star Wars figure.
03The turrets swing in unison with no visible gears, using a hinge piece wedged between two 1x1 inkwell parts to transfer the motion from a stern tab.
04At 18 inches long it is actually shorter than the 2014 version's 20 inches, making it the smallest and priciest playset Star Destroyer to date, yet reviewers widely felt its cleaner wedge shape looks better.