The LEGO Movie

Sweet Mayhem's Systar Starship!

A round little starship that hides one of the best parts packs of the whole LEGO Movie 2 line.

Brick Rated Score

4.0/5

Set 70830 · 2019

Pieces502

Minifigs3

Year2019

Set number70830

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The verdict

The shape is what got me first, this ship is almost spherical, and LEGO pulled that off using curved hot air balloon panels borrowed from Friends and NINJAGO.

It is one of the best builds in The LEGO Movie 2 range and quietly one of the best parts hauls of that whole wave. The catch is the price, because at 502 pieces for a $69.99 RRP it was one of the steepest per-piece sets of the line. If you love clever part usage and pastel space designs, you will be very happy here.

Best for: Bright-color parts collectors and LEGO Movie 2 fans who love a ship with a genuinely unusual shape

The full review

What it is

There is something instantly charming about a starship that is basically a ball. The Systar Starship is round in a way LEGO ships almost never are, and the trick behind it is what won me over. The designers reached for curved wing panels that first showed up as a hot air balloon in Friends and NINJAGO, and wrapped them around the hull to get that smooth spherical body. It ends up bigger than the box photos suggest, and it swooshes beautifully, with an opening cockpit that fits a minidoll or a minifigure, retractable landing gear, a disc shooter and a little opening prison cell for the kidnapped Master Builders.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the money, because this is the part every reviewer flagged. At 502 pieces for a $69.99 recommended price, this was one of the highest per-piece sets in the entire LEGO Movie 2 lineup. You are not buying it by weight, and if you judge sets purely on brick count for your dollar, this one will sting. A chunk of the detail also comes from a sticker sheet rather than printed elements, which is always a small letdown on a set at this price. And while the minifigure selection is genuinely nice, it is another set that leans on Emmet and Lucy when the movie gave plenty of other faces to choose from.

Who it's for

So who ends up loving this one. If you collect parts, especially bright bluish green, this is an easy yes, because the value here is in the elements, not the count. If you like ships with real personality and you enjoyed the pastel weirdness of the Systar System, it will look wonderful on a shelf and plays well for kids too. If you are chasing maximum pieces per dollar, or you already own a shelf of Emmet and Lucy figures, you can comfortably wait for a discount or skip it. It retired at the end of 2019, so these days it is a secondhand hunt rather than a shop pickup.

The parts story

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

The build is split into three clear stages, first the internal structure, then the basic rounded shaping, then the exterior detailing, and it moves along nicely without ever feeling repetitive. Experienced builders will find it fairly straightforward, but the shaping section is the fun bit, because watching that spherical hull come together out of curved panels is genuinely satisfying. It is compact but dense, and it never drags.

This is where the set really earns its keep. It carries around 31 new elements, which is a lot for a set this size, including roughly 22 recolors mostly in bright bluish green, four notable new non-minifigure molds, and five all-new printed parts. Those curved balloon panels doing the heavy lifting on the hull are the clever reuse everyone talks about. Add Sweet Mayhem's unique helmet and hairpiece, Lucy's new goggle hair with a neck scarf, and that pastel color run, and you have a small set that punches well above its size for anyone who builds with parts in mind.

Fun facts

01The rounded hull is built largely from curved panels that debuted as a hot air balloon in Friends and NINJAGO sets, repurposed here to make a nearly spherical spaceship.
02Sweet Mayhem is a minidoll rather than a minifigure, with a two-sided head that switches between a sweet smile and a frown, and most of her outfit pieces are unique to the character.
03The set released in December 2018 and retired around the end of 2019, giving it a shelf life of only about a year.
04Despite being one of the smaller and pricier sets of the LEGO Movie 2 wave, it was widely singled out as one of the best sets in the range for new and recolored parts.