Set Review - #75950-1 - Aragog's Lair - Harry Potter - Wizarding World

You can tell I’ve been on a trend lately as here is another one from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This one is #75950-1 - Aragog’s Lair. It was released in the US on 24 August 2018. It has 157 pieces and 2 minifigures. This puts it at $0.095 per piece. I picked it up on Amazon.com for 14% off or $12.92. Not a huge savings, but I’ll take it. If you can be patient, I’ll bet the savings will be better closer to the end of its shelf life.

This set depicts a scene from “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.” Hagrid tells Harry and Ron that they should follow the spiders to get answers (there’s more to it, but that’s the shortened version). They follow the spiders and end up meeting Aragog and a myriad of Aragog’s offspring. If you’ve never seen the movie before and you don’t like spiders, I would advance through that scene. If you have seen it, you know what I’m talking about.

Onto the set… The box is pretty standard. The front shows what you get and the back shows some play features.

This set contains 3 parts bags that are not numbered and an instruction booklet. Best of all, there are no stickers. Yay!

Due to the low piece count, it’s a pretty quick set to build. You start with minifigures of Harry and Ron. Both figures have 2 faces. I took the picture with the content faces and you can see the distressed faces on the box. The build starts with the tree and then finishes with Aragog. Nothing too special about the tree, but Aragog was an interesting build. I’m impressed with how realistic the builders got it to look in such a small set. Also, you can adjust the legs and abdomen to move Aragog around. The set includes 5 smaller spiders (2 black, 3 tan) and while it’s not completely accurate compared to the number of spiders from the scene in the movie, you can get the idea that there were a lot of spiders.

For play purposes, you can add this to #75953-1 - Whomping Willow as they are from the same movie. The Weasley family car plays a big part in the scene in the Enchanted forest with Aragog.

Overall, it is not a bad set. Considering the piece count, you get a bunch of details and 2 minifigures. It’s under $0.10 a piece which is good considering it is a licensed set and if you pick it up on sale, even better. Definitely shop around to see where it is cheapest. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, I would look to add this one to your collection.

What are your thoughts?

Set Review - #75953-1 - Hogwarts Whomping Willow - Wizarding World - Harry Potter

I reviewed the collectible minifigure series and some Brick Headz for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Now it’s time to look at one of the sets that was released. #75953-1, Hogwarts Whomping Willow is a recreation of a scene from the movie “The Chamber of Secrets” where Ron and Harry are in Ron’s family’s car on their way to Hogwarts. They end up landing in the tree and the tree seems to get upset that they are there (this shouldn’t be a spoiler, the movie and book have been out for a while). Anyways, this set was released on 24 August 2018 in the US. It retails for $69.99, but Amazon.com had it on sale for 15% off or $59.68. It has 753 pieces and 6 minifigures. If you get it at full retail in the US, it works out to $0.093 per piece so not too bad for a licensed theme.

The box front is pretty standard. It shows the whole set, provides details about age, set number, title, and number of pieces, shows the minifigures in the set, and has a picture of the actors from the movie. The back shows the play features of the set and how it was made to be connected to set 75954-1 Hogwarts Great Hall.

The contents of the box are 5 bags of bricks, 2 instruction booklets, and a sticker sheet. I’m not a fan of stickers, but they aren’t tiny so while the sheet is bigger, it’s not a lot of stickers.

Bag one is the Weasley family car and minifigures for Ron and Harry. The build is pretty simple. The doors swing open and so does the trunk. The trunk fits 2 minifigure suitcases. Since the minifigs have the shorter legs, they can’t actually sit in the car. So Ron has to stand to drive and if you position them correctly, you can fit the 2 minifigures in the car at once. And just for reference, bag 1 includes a piece separator.

Bag 2 builds the Whomping Willow itself. The build starts with the base that has Technic elements. I wasn’t expecting that, but it made sense as it went on. The Technic elements allow you to rotate the tree similar to how it moves around in the movie. The branches of the tree can be re-positioned as well. I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan, so I can’t tell you the significance of the door underneath the tree, but I do recall it being used in one of the movies to go somewhere. I think the tree itself lacks detail, but the LEGO designers probably had to do a cost-benefit analysis to determine if it was really worth it to put more effort into making the tree look more realistic versus increasing the price with more pieces. The tree does hold the car for play purposes although there are some green flower stem pieces that do not stay in real well.

The third bag builds what I think is Gryffindor tower. Maybe… It includes a sleeping area, an area on the bottom floor that is (I’m not sure), and then space in the tower at the top where Hedwig is placed in the instructions.

The next bag adds a potions mixing room and an outdoor walkway area. These areas attach to the main area with Technic pins. While I’m not a huge fan of this part of the build, I realize that this set is meant for play and not detail. For a detailed set, I should probably buy Hogwarts Castle (#71043). For play features, I think this set is fine.

Bag 5 completes the build. It adds Professor Snape and his office. Considering the size of the set, I think the designers packed some good details into this area along with some fun pieces to include potion containers, a lamp, and a copy of the Daily Prophet.

Here is the final set with all of the minifigures. It has some great play features, a lot of great pieces, and I like how the set can connect to 75954. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, I would pick this set up if you can find it at a discount like I did. As Christmas approaches, it might come down even more so watch for it.

The minifigs are (top to bottom, left to right) Professor Snape, Filch, Seamus Finnigan, Ron Weasley, Harry, and Hermione. They all have dual faces, but I am only showing one side on this review. Except for Filch, everyone has a wand. Filch has a lantern which is cool looking, but about half as tall as he is. The 4 students are all shorter minifigs. Hermione and Seamus have on their uniforms, but Harry and Ron are in their street clothes. I don’t own any of the old Harry Potter sets so I don’t have much to compare these to, but I’m impressed. In my opinion, they resemble the characters from the movie pretty well.

I have never read the Harry Potter books, but I have seen all of the movies. I enjoy the plot line and while I’m not a super fan, I find it entertaining. I never purchased any of the older releases, but this release impresses me so far. While it is not the most detailed build, it lines up fairly well with the movie. If anything, I think the pieces included are good and can be used for other builds if you want to take this one apart. The minifig selection is good for this set with 6 included and the stickers aren’t too daunting. Overall, I call this one a buy if you are a Harry Potter fan.

Sustainable Bricks

LEGO bricks are made out of plastic which comes from oil that is removed from the ground after it is refined. And that’s about as technical as I’m going to get… I applaud the LEGO Group and their efforts to move away from oil. When your main product is derived from oil, it puts a lot of pressure on to make changes and LEGO has done it. Set 40320, Plants from Plants was released as a promotional set back in August.

It included 29 pieces of foliage made from sugarcane. I realize I’m a bit late in reviewing this set, but I had to do it because I was a bit skeptical. LEGO has high standards on quality and I wasn’t sure if they’d hold up to those standards.

LEGO proved me wrong. I am impressed that the pieces feel the same and look the same. I am unable to see any major differences and I don’t see any issues with quality. I guess the real test will be to see whether they hold up over the years like the plastic pieces do.

It looks like LEGO is going to start rolling this material out into sets too. The Vestas Wind Turbine (#10268) being re-released this November (2018) is reported to have some plant based plants too. I’m guessing we’ll see more appear as TLG continues to produce them.

Bravo to The LEGO Group for following through this this initiative!

Brick Harry Potter is Back

Harry Potter themed LEGO sets first appeared in 2001 and new sets last appeared in 2011. In case you’ve been living under a rock or maybe you’re like me and you’ve been through a move, Harry Potter is back in brick form, but there are some new things that haven’t been seen before.

First off are Brick Headz. I haven’t talked about this theme at all on the blog yet and this is my first step into the theme. I personally have not been impressed with the theme thus far. It appears as though LEGO has just taken all of its licenses and used this building method to sell more items that collectors might be interested in. You can collect from sub-themes like Disney Brick Headz or Marvel Super Hero Brick Heads or even try and get them all. These 5 are the first ones that I’ve build. They are 41621 Ron Weasley and Albus Dumbledore (245 pieces, $19.99 in the US), 41616 Hermione Granger (127 pieces, $9.99 in the US), and 41615 Harry Potter and Hedwig (180 pieces, $14.99 in the US). I did not get any of these on sale although Amazon.com had 41615 for 20% off recently (after I purchased it from LEGO Shop at Home for full price). My guess is there will be a Black Friday 2018 sale and then they will go on sale at Amazon.com or elsewhere towards the end of their shelf life similar to many of the other Brick Headz sets.

I am not going to go through the builds of these like I often do as they are all pretty similar. They all use some SNOT techniques to come up with similar designs. Other than some of the original or creative ones like the Valentine Bee (40270) or Easter Bunny (40271), these are all fairly similar. To be honest I’m rather disappointed and I don’t think I’ll be purchasing any more Brick Headz sets.

Is anyone else into Brick Headz? What do you like about them?

Part 2 is the Harry Potter Collectible Minifigure series (#71022) that came out in the US on 1 August 2018. They retailed for $3.99 each and there are 22 minifigures total in the set. The Collectible Minifigure series used to always have 16 each so it is interesting to see LEGO adjust the number in a series. I haven’t found anything on the reasoning yet.

Another difference in this series is in the break up of the minifigures. The movie “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is supposed to come out in the US in November 2018 which is probably part of the reasoning for the return of Harry Potter in LEGO form. There are 6 minifigures from the Fantastic Beasts series of movies while the remaining 16 are from the original Harry Potter books/movies.

The first 16 I’ll discuss are from the Harry Potter books/movies.

I was trying to pick out which movie these are from, but it is a mix. For example, Luna Lovegood is introduced in “The Order of the Phoenix,” but Cedric Diggory is from “The Goblet of Fire.” Dobby the House Elf is introduced in “The Chamber of Secrets” and Professor Flitwick is first in “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” but his appearance like the minifigure isn’t until “The Chamber of Secrets” (thanks Google). So the minifigs are from a smattering of movies in the Harry Potter series.

The complete list of minifigures are (from front to back and left to right from my picture) Harry Potter with Hedwig, Professor Flitwick, Harry Potter with the invisibility cloak, Hermonie Granger with her cat named Crookshanks (another score for Google), Professor Albus Dumbledore, Cho Chang, Neville Longbottom, Cedric Diggory, Luna Lovegood, Professor Sybill Trelawney, Voldemort, Dean Thomas, Ron Weasley with Scabbers, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, Dobby, and Draco Malfoy. In my opinion, it’s a pretty decent set of minifigures across all of the movies. There are a few key ones missing, but I guess that opens it up for LEGO to do another set. Maybe include Professors Snape or McGonagall, Hagrid, some of the Weasley’s (Ginny), Beatrix Lestrange… the list could go on for a while. It will be interesting to see if LEGO does another series or not.

Next up, the Fantastic Beasts minifigs.

I have seen “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” only once and I have not read the book. There are 6 minifigs from this movie and besides Newt Scamander (center front in the picture, I am not familiar with them all. So from left to right, front to back, there are Percival Graves, Newt with his Knarl, Tina Goldstein, Jacob Kowalski, Queenie Goldstein, and Credence Barebone.

Overall, I think this is a good set of minifigs between the two movie themes. It gives a good variety of minifigures, the accessories that come with them are good, it adds some new characters/elements not seen before, and it does a decent job of capturing the likeness of the movie characters. If you are a Harry Potter/Wizarding World fan, I recommend getting these. If you’re a glutton for punishment and LEGO has sucked you into collecting all of the CMFs since series 10 (or earlier for some of you) like me then plop down your funds for 22 of these. Locally in Germany, I have not seen these out much. Either they sold fast or the retailers don’t have them. I had no issue getting them online and am looking forward to being able to sell my extras in the store once it re-opens in a few years.

I have a few reviews of the Harry Potter sets on the way so stay tuned.

Happy building!

Brick le France - with beaucoup de retired sets

If you’re an American AFOL, you’ve probably glanced at notices for new sets and have seen pricing in other countries listed. You’ve probably also seen AFOLs from around the world complaining about how sets are priced in their country as compared to US prices. As an American AFOL living in Germany, I figured I would take a look to see what I could learn.

Before I go into a specific example, I wanted to point out a difference in taxes. In the states, depending on where you are, you pay a sales tax. This tax is priced in after you make the purchase. So LEGO sets its retail price (or Walmart, or Amazon.com, etc.) and then you pay an additional percentage at checkout. In Europe, from what I’ve seen, the Value Added Tax or VAT is built into the price. Your receipt tells you how much the item actually was and what you paid in VAT. So keep that in mind for those Americans who forget the sometimes 8% to 10% sales tax that gets added onto purchases.

Back to my main point… I stopped at a Cora store in France a few weeks back. For those of you in the US who have never been, Cora is kind of like a Walmart only the one I went to was much nicer than a Walmart. While there, I of course had to check out the LEGO selection.

First off they had a lot of retired Collectible Minifigures, but not the current Harry Potter Collectible Minifigure series.

As you can see from the pictures, they had the Ninjago movie minifigures still on sale for €3.99 each. These were released back in August 2017 in the EU and apparently they still have them at retail price. Next you can see the Batman Movie Series 2 minifigures. These were released in the EU on 1 January 2018 and Cora had them for €3.50 which is less than the original retail of €3.99. Finally they had the Series 18 minifigures for €3.50. They were released back in April and again Cora had them for less than retail. I’m wondering if this is a trend in Europe or an anomaly. At Walmart or Target, usually collectible minifigures go fast so I was surprised to see so many options

Next up were a few City sets.

You can see #60104-1 - Airport Passenger Terminal - Retired in France in November 2017. Retail was €99.99, but selling for €94.99. Also #60051-1 - High-Speed Passenger Train - Retired in France in June 2018 and selling for €10 under retail. #60052-1 - Cargo Train is right next to it. It retired in June and they still have it selling at the original retail price. The last one I’ll mention is #60103-1 - Airport Air Show which retired in France back in January 2018. I have no idea on pricing from the picture I took because the label does not match the set. Anyways, interesting to see some retired sets still out there.

I didn’t go nuts taking pictures of all of them and I didn’t buy any either, but one that stood out was #75105-1 Millennium Falcon. It retired in France back in January 2018 and was done in the US back in November 2017. It was still at Cora and there were multiple copies. I know I have seen the price of that set going up on BrickLink.com and I may have been one of the sellers of those a few months back.

If any Americans are reading this, should I have bought some of the retired sets you can’t find in the states anymore? Even with the exchange rate of around $1.20 to the Euro, would it be worth it? What do you think?

A Visit to Gartenschau Kaiserslautern and the Awesome LEGO Display (Summer 2018)

As an American AFOL living in Europe, I had to store some of my collection back in the USA and I have relied on reading fan sites and listening to the Bricks King podcast to stay in tune with the hobby.  My NLS and I decided to take our kiddos to a park and I ended up hitting the jackpot.  The Gartenschau (Google Translate says it means "garden show”) Kaiserslautern is what my kids refer to as the dinosaur park.  It has lots of great garden areas surrounded by large sculptures of dinosaurs.  It also has a lot of playground equipment for kids and a bunch of other things to do.  Here is the link to the site if you want more info (it's in German, but Google Chrome asks if I want to translate it).

As we walked into the park, we saw a sign advertising a LEGO display so we went into the building where it was located.  And then I started to drool...  Wow!  It is advertised as creations and builds from builders from Germany and Luxembourg and boy is it ever.  There were glass cases stacked with MOCs and sets from LEGO.  Then there were huge display areas with some giant creations.  At the end was a kid play area with LEGO System bricks, DUPLO, and some large toddler friendly rubberized LEGO bricks.  To top it off, there was a LEGO store with some sets on sale (that wasn't open when I was there).  The display is on site until the garden closes at the end of October 2018 (not sure it comes back regularly or not).  If you're in the area, definitely check it out.  If not, here are a few pictures of what is there.  The lighting is not super great for pictures so my phone didn't capture the best shots for a website (sorry).  

You'll notice in the one case on the top left there is a brick build sign that says Lauter Steine EV.  This is a LUG in the local Kaiserslautern area that is connected to a LUG in Luxembourg (per LEGO's web site).  

A few more display cases... I won't show them all, but you get the idea.  

There were also a few MOCs of existing buildings.  This first one is of St. Michael's Basilica in Mondsee, Austria.  Here's a link to an Austrian web site with a picture of it.  As an AFOL, I wish they had more info about the builder, some of the techniques used to build it, total brick count, etc.  You know, all those geeky AFOL things that we're into.  I realize the display is meant for non-AFOLs so it's all good.

I'm not an expert of the area yet, but I'll find out where these buildings are and post some actual pictures or links.

The Statue of Liberty at around 6 feet tall.  I left the case next to it so you could get an idea of the size.  I also threw a picture in of the train case next to it just because I'm a big LEGO train fan.

Ok... I was not expecting to round the corner and see this on display.  WOW!!!!!  The Cologne Cathedral looks phenomenal.  If you believe the Wiki page I found, it took 2 years and 900,000 bricks to build.  Another site I saw said it was more like 500,000  If anyone can find other references, please let me know.  I could spend a whole post talking about this build, but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  If you want to see more, definitely Google it.  There are tons of additional photos and some videos if you want to see more detail and close ups (with better lighting).

The display also includes a few dioramas. Here’s a picture of the pod racing scene from Star Wars episode one..

This picture doesn’t do it justice, but here’s the fight scene from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi on the moon of Endor.

This picture doesn’t capture the whole scene either, but here is a LEGO Space display.

And of course, they have a giant LEGO city. Here are only a few pictures of the many I took. It’s quite an impressive scene with a farm area, a fairground, a train, a giant town square, construction, and plenty of buildings ranging from MOCs to some of the modular buildings from the Creator Expert line.

I’m hoping they do this setup again next year because it’s awesome! Thanks to my new neighbors in Europe for putting this together!

Listening to Bricks - A LEGO Fan Podcast

Hello again!  It's been a long time since I posted.  I finished my move to Germany and it took a long time to get established.  For those of you in the US who complain about the cable and internet companies with bad customer service, we had to wait over a month to get internet and then have 2 visits from company technicians to get it set up correctly.  It was pretty painful, but thankfully we are now connected and ready to go!

While waiting for internet and for the part of my LEGO collection that I shipped here to arrive, I got to stay connected to the Lego fan community through a different medium.  A few years ago I got into listening to podcasts.  I found that driving around in my car and listening to local radio stations was getting annoying.  I could never find a station that I was willing to listen to for more than a few minutes.  With smart phones now and the ability to link them into your car, I can now listen while driving which is awesome.  The best part is that there are a huge amount of options for shows you can listen to now. 

While it's not the first LEGO themed podcast out there, a few months ago I stumbled upon the "Bricks King Podcast."  This podcast is run by LEGO fan Matt King.  As he states on his site, "We dig deep into the Lego world and interview Lego artists, and review Lego models."  I'm a few episodes behind right now, but so far I have had heard about new sets coming out, some information about what members of the LEGO fan community are doing, information about some of the builders made popular on the web, and a few interviews with the BrickBlogger's Will Reed.  While often the sets Matt introduces are not new to me, it is interesting to hear someone else's take on them.  He's been overly excited about a few sets that I am not interested in at all so hearing a differing opinion has been a good balance for me.

Overall, I am a fan!  Especially with the move that I have gone through recently, the Bricks King podcast has been a great way for me to stay connected to the LEGO fan community.  I enjoy being able to hear about LEGO despite driving in my car or doing work around my house.  If you're looking for a podcast to check out, definitely give the Bricks King a listen.  

You can find him on PodBean here or on iTunes here.  The podcast is on other platforms too, but I'm not going to list them all.  If you are not quite sure yet, you can check out his Twitter page or YouTube page or FaceBook page.  And if you don't want to take my word for it, Will Reed wrote an article about the podcast on the BrickBlogger so you can read his opinion.

Thanks Matt for the great work and keep publishing more!

Set Review - #75192 - LEGO Millennium Falcon - Star Wars - Ultimate Collector Series

You can see part 1 HERE.

Part 2 - Assembling the Ship

Time to put it together.  As mentioned in part 1, there are 17 sets of bags.  Normally, I take pictures after each step, but this time I did not as if you want a really detailed review, you can go to some of the sites where they analyze by pieces, build techniques, and differences between other LEGO Millennium Falcon sets.  My plan is to cover the high points and then give my opinion at the end.

The set starts with construction of the internal substructure.  There are many Technic pieces and pins put together to form a pretty solid skeleton for the ship.

Next up was the addition of the... okay, I'm not an official Star Wars fan... are they legs?  Feet?  Stands?  Whatever they are called, you build a bunch of the same assembly over and over to make the legs.  

I skipped a few pics to show the assembly of the skeleton with the legs and the internal rooms.  The rooms themselves were all attached via Technic pins.  This was a bit challenging as there are a ton of holes where you could insert pins, but we ended up getting them right.  Once you find the right positioning, they are easy to install.

I'm not going to spend a ton of time here, but here are the 4 rooms up close for your viewing pleasure.

Next up, the back gets it's shape.  The Falcon does not have a standard shape so I was curious how the designers made all of the curves.  The next bag helps to get the unique shape started.  It also adds the engines in the back with the use of some light blue colored tubes.  You probably could have done the engines with translucent blue pieces too, but the tubes work just fine.

The shape of the front comes out next.  What I found most interesting about this part of the build was attaching all of the random nick-knack pieces to create the detail on the outside of the Falcon.  A lot of this portion of the build was attaching these pieces to the outer frame.

Next up is attaching the bottom of the ship.  I didn't flip it over to take a picture because it was just too challenging to do so given that there aren't a lot of good ways to hold onto the unfinished top.  

Okay so the next 2 pictures aren't super exciting, but let me explain the first one.  The first one is a picture of the ramp.  The design is pretty complicated, but very impressive.  One reason... you build it outside of the ship and then attach it to the frame.  Another reason, it doesn't require a locking mechanism to stay down or up.  It's designed to stay up or down without any switches or locks.  Pretty cool in my opinion, but maybe I'm overly geeking out over this part.  The second picture is just the ship with the bottom completed and the top on the front started.

Now for attaching the top.  Again, the pieces are built off of the ship and then attached after the fact.  Most of them are pretty easy to attach although I had trouble attaching a few as there wasn't an easy spot to hold onto the frame to snap some of the sections into the frame.  The ones shown in pictures 1 and 2 are permanently attached versus later on in the build where sections can be removed to see the internals in pictures 3 and 4 below.  

Almost there... next up is the cockpit.  I found it impressive that the hallway leading to the cockpit does not lock into place via studs or Technic pins.

Whew!  All done!  I didn't record how long it took me to do.  I also didn't take a separate picture of the minifigures.  You can look them up elsewhere if you want to see them in detail.  

Congrats if you scrolled down this far... I realize I'm not the first one to post a review, but one more opinion doesn't hurt.  Should you buy this one?  It's pretty pricey.  The price per piece is decent and the build experience was fantastic (in my opinion), but you have to weigh whether you want to spend $800 (or more with tax) if you buy one of these.  Also, you have to decide what to do with it when you are done.  Do you have space to display it?

I enjoyed the build and am glad I bought it.  I was financially able to using some VIP points and profits from my store so it didn't hurt my wallet much.  If you are in a position where you can do it, go for it!  If not, there are a few other options.  You can use one of the various brick rental services on the web.  I have never used one, but it allows you to build the set at least.  Another option is to team up with some friends to build it all together after you each pitch in.  What do you do with it when you're done?  I'm not sure...

What are your thoughts?  Are the costs worth the build?  Should LEGO stop making such huge models that price a lot of fans out of the market?  Leave a comment and let me know what you think or send me an email at store@bricksforbricks.com.

Thanks for Supporting Brick Dreams!

From 1 January 2018 to 31 May 2018 we gave 15% of our profits to Brick Dreams.  That worked out to be $130.  We bought 2 large LEGO Classic large creative brick boxes (#10698) and 1 LEGO Classic medium creative brick box (#10696) for them.  We hope they can use those bricks for a lot of great kids who like to build.  You can find out more about them at: http://www.brickdreams.org.

Thanks for supporting and happy building!

They mentioned us on their site here.

Set Review - #75192 - LEGO Millennium Falcon - Star Wars - Ultimate Collector Series

Part 1 - Unleashing the Falcon

You can see part 2 here.

It's been a bit since I've posted because I broke down and bought the LEGO Millennium Falcon.  I had $155 in VIP points and I used EBates to get another $20 back.  Besides the discount I also got a Darth Vader Pod polybag (#5005376-1).  I ordered it from LEGO Shop at Home, but at the time of ordering it in early May 2018, it was also available at Target, Walmart, and Amazon.com in the US.

LEGO Shop at Home shipped it off pretty quickly and I got a notice from FedEx that we would have to sign for the package.  I think this is the first ever LEGO order that someone had to sign for.  The email I got said that the package would be 34 pounds.  Whoa!  Here it is:

Like many of the other big sets these days, the LEGO Group has packaged the set inside another box.  The first time I saw this was in the Porsche 911 GT3 RS (#42056).  It is a great way to protect some of the sets that cost a bit more.  If you're going to put a bunch of money into a LEGO set, it had better show up in pristine condition.  This set up helps to make it happen and I'm glad the LEGO Group made this change to their product.

The inner box had a few labels.  Of note to me was that this set was made in April of 2018 and I purchased it in early May 2018.  Considering the LEGO Group's trouble in keeping up with demand for this set, they definitely made up for it with some sped up production.  Also of note is that this set was made in Mexico which I'm pretty sure most sets sold in the US are made there.

Here are some pics of the set box itself.  The front shows a good illustration of the set from Episode VI: Empire Strikes back with a Tie Fighter and Cloud City.  On a side note, there were rumors about this set on other earlier sets and there have been a lot of rumors about a Cloud City set coming out.  Could this picture be a rumor for it?  The back side shows the set itself with some of the details.  

The sides have a schematic, the minifigures, and the other side has a picture of the set with a write up about the set itself.  

I included the top just because.  Nothing really special there.

Inside the big box are 4 smaller boxes with some Falcon art and a few quotes from the movies.  I did some reading of other reviews prior to building and learned that you have to open them all to sort out the bags.  I opened them all and with my helpers, sorted bags 1 through 9.  We put 10 through 17 back in the boxes for later.  I didn't take a picture of all the contents like I usually do because of lack of space to take a giant picture with all of the bags.  I think everyone gets the idea anyway.

A set this big and they had to include a sticker sheet.  Thankfully there are only 12, but still for the price, couldn't they have printed on the stickers?  Most are fairly small and easy to put on, but the big label is a pain as you'll see.

Okay so there is the opening... next up will be the build.  I was up against a move so I had to get it built quickly.  Thankfully a friend and 2 of his boys pitched in to help and made sure we could get it done beforehand.  The build will be up next so stay tuned...