LEGO explains how 75192 Millennium Falcon ‘opened new doors’ for the company

The LEGO Star Wars team explains the impact and influence of 75192 Millennium Falcon on the wider LEGO portfolio – and how it helped to pave the way for the company’s current direction.

When it cruised on to shelves in 2017, the second Ultimate Collector Series Millennium Falcon marked multiple firsts for the LEGO Group: at the time, it was the biggest LEGO set ever, and remains to this day the most expensive (now tied with 75313 AT-AT). It’s no longer the most part-intensive LEGO set, however, as it’s since been surpassed by the likes of 10276 Colosseum and 10294 Titanic.

Without the Falcon before them, though, those sets would arguably never have made it into production. When 75192 Millennium Falcon debuted, it was a full £240 more expensive than the current costliest set, 75159 Death Star. The giant leap forward into unprecedented territory was driven by the LEGO Star Wars team’s desire to create the ultimate Millennium Falcon, no matter the price – and it meant redefining the parameters of LEGO sets in general.

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“It was kind of setting a new standard for how big a LEGO set could actually be,” LEGO Star Wars Creative Lead Jens Kronvold Frederiksen tells Brick Fanatics. “Now, we’re making a lot of these big sets, but [the Falcon] was the first. I also remember the logistics around it – making a building instruction book of that size, and packaging it, we had to rethink the whole manufacturing [process] to be able to do that. So it opened some doors for making much bigger sets than ever before.”

Five years later, the LEGO Group now has four sets above the £500 mark in its catalogue, and another four that have surpassed £400. There’s a clear target demographic for sets of that price, too, because very few kids have that kind of cash lying around. (All those released since 2020 carry an 18+ tag, just to hammer it home.) And Jens says the LEGO Star Wars line – including 75192 Millennium Falcon – played at least some part in driving the LEGO Group to focus on its wider adult audience.

“It came from an acknowledgement that there are a lot of adult LEGO fans out there who have been fans their whole life, or want to go back to their childhood memories and bring that back by building with LEGO,” he explains. “But I think we’ve actually been aware of this ever since we started [the LEGO Star Wars line] – we launched the first UCS models in 2000, with the X-wing and the TIE Interceptor.

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“Already at that time, we knew that there were a lot of adults out there that really enjoyed [LEGO]. I don’t even know how many UCS models we’ve done now, but it’s a lot! So we’ve actually known all the time that adults also enjoy it, but I don’t know if it might have had an impact on [the LEGO Group’s] overall strategy, our ‘Adults Welcome’ campaign and products that are specifically targeted towards adults.

“I think we have definitely been a part of it because we are a product line that we know a lot of adults out there really enjoy.”

Without 75192 Millennium Falcon pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with LEGO sets, and what the adult market can bear, we might never have seen a 9,000-piece Colosseum or Titanic. Star Wars helped to bring the LEGO Group back from the brink in the early 2000s (alongside BIONICLE), and it’s still leading from the front two decades later.

Check out all our celebrations of the UCS Millennium Falcon’s fifth birthday here. If you haven’t yet picked up the 7,541-piece set, it’s available now at LEGO.com – and will qualify for double VIP points, 40566 Ray the Castaway and (in the UK and Europe) 40484 Santa’s Front Yard at the time of writing.

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