Star Wars

Tantive IV

The very first ship you ever saw in Star Wars, finally done justice in brick.

Brick Rated Score

3.8/5

Set 75376 · 2024

Pieces654

Minifigsn/a

Year2024

Set number75376

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The verdict

This is the CR90 corvette that opens A New Hope, and the shaping is what got me.

Those bulky rear engines and the long tapered nose actually read as the ship on screen, which the old Rebel Blockade Runner never quite managed. I love it as a shelf piece and the build has real cleverness in it. The catch is the price and the ten stickers, so I'd tell you to grab it on a sale rather than at full sticker price.

Best for: Original-trilogy fans who want a sleek midi-scale display ship, not a playset

The full review

What it is

The Tantive IV is the ship you saw before you saw anything else in Star Wars, the little corvette being chased across the top of the screen in the very first seconds of A New Hope. LEGO has given it the midi-scale display treatment here, and honestly the shaping is what won me over. The nose tapers the way it should, the fat cluster of rear engines gives it that top-heavy silhouette, and when it sits on its little black stand it genuinely reads as the CR90 corvette rather than a vague grey wedge. Anyone who grew up with the original trilogy will feel that flicker of recognition, and that counts for a lot with a set like this.

The catch

I have to be straight with you about the money, though. At an RRP of $79.99 for 654 pieces, this is not a generous set, and reviewers across the board scratched their heads at how that number was reached. It leans on ten stickers where printed tiles would have felt so much better at this price, and it arrives with no minifigures at all. That last part is the one that really nags. This is Princess Leia's ship, the ship where she hides the Death Star plans, and there is not so much as a tiny Leia or an R2-D2 to stand beside it. A single grey stud tucked among the white engine studs is LEGO's cheeky nod to the ejected escape pod carrying the droids, which is lovely, but it is no substitute for an actual figure.

Who it's for

So who should get it. If you want a clean, accurate, shelf-friendly corvette and you are buying it to look at rather than to play with, this is an easy yes, especially now that it has retired and turns up below RRP on the secondary market. If you are a minifigure collector, or you measure a set by pieces-per-dollar, you will feel the pinch and you should wait for the deepest discount you can find. It is a good model held back by a price tag that never quite matched what is in the box, and that gap is the whole story of whether it is right for you.

The parts story

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

The build runs across seven numbered stages and takes a comfortable hour or so, which is about right for the piece count. It starts deceptively plain, because the central body of such an oddly shaped ship is fairly simple, and the front section just slots straight into it. The real interest arrives at the back, where the engine blocks are built as separate sub-assemblies and then layered with a run of smaller sloped plates that define the whole tapered shape. It is the kind of building that feels tidy and considered rather than repetitive, with articulated turbolaser batteries adding a bit of fiddly reward near the end.

There are no exotic new molds hiding in here, this is a set built from smart use of familiar parts rather than showpiece elements, and the shaping is all in the technique. The standout inclusions are the presentation pieces: a black display base with Technic pins to lock the ship in place, a printed nameplate, and a decorated brick marking the 25th anniversary of LEGO Star Wars. The value story is honest though. For 654 pieces you are paying largely for the design work and the licence, not for a heavy or unusual parts haul, and the ten stickers are the part almost every builder wished had been printed instead.

Fun facts

01The Tantive IV is the very first ship shown on screen in the original 1977 Star Wars, the corvette being pursued by the Star Destroyer in the opening shot of A New Hope.
02LEGO hid an easter egg in the engines: a single grey stud among the white round studs stands in for the ejected escape pod carrying C-3PO and R2-D2 down to Tatooine.
03The display stand includes a decorated brick celebrating the 25th anniversary of the LEGO Star Wars line, which launched back in 1999.
04This midi-scale model is far sleeker and more screen-accurate than LEGO's earlier take on the ship, the 2001 set 10019 Rebel Blockade Runner.