One aspect of LEGO 75419 Death Star that surprised fans was the reveal of the battle station’s shape, which the designers have commented on.
If there’s one thing that most LEGO Star Wars fans can probably agree on when it comes to 75419 Death Star, it’s that the set isn’t quite what they may have pictured when it was officially revealed. Instead of a traditional sphere created for previous versions of the UCS Death Star, the design team behind the upcoming build opted instead for a curious cross-section, delivering an almost dollhouse-like building experience.
However, the decision to go down that particular route with 75419 Death Star was in fact planned from a very early stage in the model’s development, as discussed in a recent roundtable interview with Brick Fanatics and other LEGO fan media.
“We've done two Death Stars before, and we wanted to make something different,’ explained LEGO Star Wars Creative Director Jens Kronvold Frederiksen. “We have some design boost sessions, and the first sketch model was created there with this cross-section version of the Death Star.
“We could just see, wow, there are some great opportunities with this. And one of the things that is really great about it is, even though it's bigger and has more pieces than the previous Death Stars, it actually doesn't require as much space. So that's really the beauty of the cross-section, that you can actually display it on a relatively smaller place than a big sphere.”
“It's also nice to have everything in one place,” agreed 75419 Death Star’s designer, César Soares. “You don't have to turn it around. But to answer your question, yeah, since the beginning of this model, the concept was always this one.”
While the decision to go with a cross-section build instead of a sphere to replicate the unique look of the Imperial battle station may have made sense to the LEGO Star Wars design team, it’s one that has proved extremely divisive with fans of the theme.
“To be honest, I'd rather it be smaller in diameter, but a sphere you can open up as a cross section,” wrote Redditor, WhiteRun. “Even a simpler cross-section. It looks big, and awkward and doesn't make you think ‘Death Star’ at all."
That sentiment was echoed by many comments on Brickset, with KingTyrannos stating, “A half-sphere would have been a reasonable compromise as a full sphere is somewhat difficult to display, but a fairly flat disc which can’t properly represent that key aspect of the Death Star from any angle doesn’t seem fitting of the ‘UCS’ label. It’s quite unfortunate.”
Not all were as negative regarding 75419 Death Star though, with Brickset commentor B-Space_Man noting, “I think the concept is better than many people give it credit for. It's a mega-diorama. Any attempt at making it spherical would make it harder to display and it would be smaller or even more expensive. I'm not saying it's a good value. The price is crazy. But I think the idea is a good one.”
It seems to some fans that by opting to stick with the initial sketch model look, the LEGO Star Wars design team may have limited themselves to what might have been possible with the UCS model, but that doesn’t appear to have been the case.
“We did have a sketch model coming out from the boost,” César elaborated, “and the size was more or less this one. So we were immediately impressed by that size and by going that size, you could have a lot of the rooms that we wanted to incorporate.
“I think that if you had something that was covered with panels, you would lose a little bit of both worlds, because you would have something that would have the rooms hidden, or you have the panels open, so you couldn’t have the best of both worlds anyway. So we do believe that this was the best possible version we could have.”
“Yeah. And also, if we had to do a panel sphere with full interior,” added Jens, “that would require a lot of elements, meaning the model would be way smaller than what you see here. So that was ruled out very early.”
75419 Death Star will be available for LEGO Insiders to add to their collections on October 1, 2025, with a wider release for all from October 4. The LEGO Star Wars set is priced at £899.99 / $999.99 / €999.99 and comes with a free 40771 TIE Fighter with Imperial Hangar Rack GWP for Insiders members until October 7 (while stocks last).
You can find out just what we thought of 75419 Death Star in our full review of the LEGO Star Wars UCS set right here.
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