Lego Review : Lego 7965 Millennium Falcon

Next to the X-wing fighter, my next favourite vehicle from the Star Wars Franchise is the Millennium Falcon! 

“You’ve never heard of the Millennium Falcon? … It’s the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.” so boasts Han Solo when he first meets up with Luke Skywalker and Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars IV: A New Hope.

Lego-wise, this is the biggest set that I have attempted to build so far since my return to the Lego-fold. So let's get cracking!!!

Box and Contents

The Box

The box itself is quite impressive and has definite heft to it. Emptying the contents from the box, you would find:

15 Parts packages, 2 manuals (Part 1 and Part 2) & 1 sheet of stickers

You get a total of 15 packages of parts numbered 1 to 6 accordingly (a total of 1254 pieces), a sheet of stickers and 2 building instruction manuals.

Minifigs

You get a total of 6 minifigs with their respective weapons i.e. lightsabers, blasters, or crossbow, which is great! You get most of the important figures related to the Falcon minus the droids. See below:

(L to R): Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker & Obi-wan Kenobi

Darth Vader and Obi-wan come with paper capes that you are to attach before adding their heads. Just to point out the Chewbacca figure slightly differs from the rest as you don't attach just the head to the torso. Instead, you attach the top half i.e. his head and hairy chest and belt which are in one piece.

Chewie: Top half and torso

 Assembling

Starting with the base as below:

Laying the Falcon's Foundation

Adding more pieces as I go along, now there is a hatch and the base of the outer wall is starting to form up: 

Hatch added and base wall foundations

Next, you can see part of the engine assembly, the chess table and some chairs in the next photo:

Engine Assembly, Chess table and chairs added

The Central Computer console is next up:

Central Computer console added

Next, the front walls of the hull and the side support structures are taking shape

Front Walls, Side support structures are taking shape nicely.

After adding the back walls of the hull, Lego ingeniously came up with this method to create the look of the blue light from the Falcon's Jets i.e. a light blue plastic tube is added to 2 securing joints at each side and attached to the back as below: 

Ingenious use of a plastic tube

Next, the side support structures are built up and reinforced 

Reinforced support structures

Next, you can see on the left, the formation of the cockpit and the side structures are close to completion

Cockpit being built on the left 

Turning it over, you can see the twin missiles (red tipped tubes near the front), the rotating laser cannons in the centre and the landing gear.  

Of Missiles and Cannons

Next, construction continues with the adding of the back hull plates. Use your steadiest finger to stick on the round stickers here.

Continue with the rest of the hull plates as below

The great cover up

Add the front most hull plate and the cover the hatch with another rotating laser cannon.

I've got it fully covered

Next, you have to attach the front triangular sections, the first one is shown below:

Finally, add the remaining front section and the cockpit cover and Voila! You have a fully built Falcon!

Falcon ready for action!

A close-up showing Han Solo in the cockpit below. Do note, you have to pry open the front section to release the minifig.

Chewie! Get me out of here!

Though not movie accurate in that the top half of the hull is not sealed (in fact they would've died from being exposed to space), the opening hull plates allow you to assess and place your minifigs easily around the ship:

Falcon in bloom

Recreating Classic Scenes:

Luke's Lightsaber training:

"I can't breathe in this thing!"

Chewie and R2D2's chess game: (Note C3P0 and R2D2 have been borrowed from my Droid Escape set, no droids or wookies were harmed in the setup of this scene)

"Let the wookie win!"

Luke and Han manning the Laser Cannons:

This scene is not so straight forward as the tunnels don't allow proper access to the guns. So you need to do it in 3 steps:

Step 1: Remove the top laser cannon guns and attach Luke and Han to the platform that has the controls (as below)

Literally back to back action

Step 2: Lower them in the tunnel like so:

"Dude, I forgot to tell you I had onions at lunch" 

Step 3: Attach the laser cannon guns to close off the hatch:

"Oh crap!"

Obi-wan vs Darth Vader:

"I see your Schwartz is as big as mine. Now let's see how well you handle it"
Oops ..that's from Spaceballs

Size Comparison

Placing it side by side with my X-wing, you can see that the scale isn't movie-correct. The Falcon is much larger than the X-wing in the film but I guess it would probably mean a very expensive set too if it were built to scale.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this is an extremely fun and challenging set to build. I took about 4 and a half hours to complete it. This is probably the best version of the Falcon you could get without forking crazy money (Upwards of US$2000)  for the UCS version which is long out of print.

My main feedback/suggestions for this set are: 

1. Lego, please consider making capes out of nylon or cloth material, paper is way too fragile.
2. Obi-wan minifig's head needs to include his hair, then you can add the hood on top else you cannot do the scenes without his hood.

I got this set off an Amazon Warehouse deal, Condition:  used-Like New which kind of explains the slightly dented box. However, it came nicely taped up. There were no missing pieces and all the packages were sealed and did not show signs of being opened before. You are welcome to try this method to get it cheaper but it is at your own risk. Thanks for reading ! 

Available (should be) at Toys R US outlets and major stores wherever Lego is sold. Of course, you can also check out Amazon US, Amazon France or Amazon UK.