Classic

Mission to Mars

A rainbow tub of bricks with a birthday candle stuck in it.

Brick Rated Score

3.8/5

Set 10405 · 2018

Pieces871

Minifigs3

Year2018

Set number10405

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The verdict

This is not really a spaceship set, and the name led me astray for a second.

It is the biggest of the five Classic tubs LEGO put out for the brick's 60th birthday in 2018, 871 pieces of pure open-ended possibility with a little printed anniversary tile tucked inside. If you want a finished model to display, this will frustrate you, because there isn't one. If you want raw building fuel and a pile of colours to make your own rocket, monster truck or sea snake, it is honestly one of the better value tubs LEGO has made.

Best for: parents and builders who want a big colourful parts bin, not a display model

The full review

What it is

The first thing to understand about Mission to Mars is that the name is a bit of a fib. There is no grand red-planet base or rover waiting to be assembled here. This is a LEGO Classic tub, the largest of the five that LEGO released in 2018 to mark the sixtieth birthday of the brick, and what you actually get is 871 pieces in a big cheerful spread of colours. Tiago Catarino designed it, and the box shows off a rocket shuttle, a flame-covered drum kit, a monster truck, a pink sea snake and a little brick-built pull-along duck, all as ideas rather than instructions you must follow. The moment it clicked for me was realising this is the good kind of LEGO chaos, the tip-it-all-out-on-the-carpet kind, and once I stopped expecting a model I started enjoying it enormously.

The catch

I do have to be honest about who will be disappointed. If you are the sort of builder who loves following a clever set of instructions to a satisfying finished thing you can put on a shelf, this set is not for you, and no amount of colourful bricks will change that. The included ideas have simple guides, but the whole point is that you invent your own creations, which is wonderful for imagination and less wonderful if you wanted a trophy build. The other catch is price. It was very reasonably priced when it was on shelves, but it has retired, and the secondary market has pushed it up to around ninety-odd dollars, which is a lot more than a tub of general bricks used to cost. At that inflated figure the value math gets shakier, so I would hunt for a fair deal rather than pay peak collector prices.

Who it's for

So who should actually grab it? Parents building a family brick collection from scratch will get huge mileage here, because a big varied parts bin is the single most useful thing you can own if kids want to build freely. Adult builders who need bulk basic elements, wheels, eyes and odd shapes will find it a handy top-up too, and the anniversary tile is a genuinely sweet little keepsake for anyone who cares about LEGO history. The people I would steer away are display-and-forget collectors and anyone chasing a specific themed model. This is a sandbox in a box, and judged as exactly that, it does its job with a big grin.

The parts story

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

Building this is less a sit-down project and more an afternoon of tinkering. You can follow the printed suggestions to make the shuttle or the duck, but most of the fun is dumping everything out and seeing what the pile suggests to you. Because it is a Classic assortment, there is no fiddly technique to master and no fragile sub-assembly to protect, just brick after brick in every colour, which makes it a lovely low-pressure build to share with a child or to graze on while your brain is elsewhere.

The headline piece is the printed 2x4 tile celebrating sixty years of the brick, which is the only element here you cannot get in a plain pack, and it is the thing collectors actually chase. Beyond that the real value is breadth: three plain minifigures (blank torsos and heads that are surprisingly handy as bases for your own characters), plus a proper grab-bag of accessories including a parrot, a snake, a knight's sword, a pirate sword, wigs, pirate hats, two helmets with swappable space and diving visors, flippers and even a stick of dynamite. As a per-piece proposition an 871-part Classic tub was strong value at retail, and even now the sheer variety of usable basic elements is what earns its keep.

Fun facts

01Mission to Mars was the largest of five LEGO Classic sets released in 2018 for the 60th anniversary of the LEGO brick, all under the 'Building Bigger Thinking' banner printed on the box.
02Each set in the anniversary run included a special printed 2x4 tile marking 60 years of the brick, and this tub was the biggest way to get one.
03The set was designed by Tiago Catarino, who later left LEGO and became a well-known LEGO YouTuber and MOC creator.
04Despite the space-flavoured name, the set contains no dedicated Mars base or rover, it is a general Classic parts tub with a rocket shuttle shown as just one of many idea builds.