LEGO's Milky Way Galaxy Review: Your Next Great Art Piece

We all have one: The Ziploc bag that sits on the table as we build a new LEGO set. It's a hodgepodge of one-by-ones, gems, flames, horns, and flags. These extra pieces are always tiny, and tend to be some of the most unique in the entire set. I've spent many days wondering what to do with these extras LEGO offers in case your 3-year-old decides to lose one. It finally became clear during my recent conquest of LEGO's The Milky Way Galaxy. This set is 3,901 pieces of pure wonder. It looks as if a magician dumped out my Ziploc bags, waved their wand, and constructed this truly mesmerizing 3D look at our galaxy.

This new set from LEGO is hangable wall art, with two technic pieces that screws or nails can slide into for safe support. The only place the Milky Way Galaxy set deserves to be is on a wall and it's sure to be a conversation piece with guests in your home. LEGO's space-themed set costs $199 and is worth it for any astronomy admirer or loyal brick builder. 

The LEGO Milky Way Galaxy is a fairly decent size, and takes up a bit of space on the wall. Measuring 16" high, 26" wide, and 2" deep, this piece of art is perfect to stand alone or be part of a gallery if you're dealing with a bigger blank space. Its 3D effect gives the perfect dose of depth, and you'll find yourself admiring it from the side more than head-on. The 3,901 piece count is a lot for its size, but most of these pieces are small one-by-ones which eventually take a toll on your index fingers if you don't space out your building. This also might be a tough build for someone with long fingernails, so I suggest a prune beforehand. The biggest bricks comprise the frame, but the contents of the art itself are small accent pieces. This set contains six guide books: One for the frame, and five for the separate panels that come together to make the galaxy. You can work on this build in any order you like. You could start with book 6 if you wanted to, and a friend could begin on book 3. 

It's not obvious, but there are specific references to actual space objects in the build. The Gaia Space Telescope, which makes a small but mighty appearance, is featured. Launched in 2013, the telescope has photographed over a billion stars. TRAPPIST-1 also appears in The Milky Way LEGO set, in the form of a small maroon bubbled-brick. The Pleiades, The Crab Nebula and The Pillars of Creation are also featured in their proper locations. For fun, there is a text brick reading "You are here" with an arrow piece that points to our location in the Milky Way.

One of the most exciting parts of this build was taking a trip down memory lane. I came across so many tiny bricks that I recognized from other builds. A carrot from Rivendell; a frog from the Sanderson Sisters' house; steps from outside of Hogwarts; and so many more. I also found it particularly intriguing to see where some of the small bricks I had never seen before came from. I've never put a set together yet with a fork or a hairbrush, and it had me exploring more of what LEGO has to offer.

This set also screams potential. It's inspiring to see what can be done with what's left over from former builds. Many LEGO fans have thousands of tiny pieces sitting around that are perfect to accent their own unique builds, but this set shows what can be made of those, as these pieces are more than just extras. The Milky Way Galaxy is a one-of-a-kind build that flies by due to it's small frame-by-frame approach. It's a LEGO set you shouldn't sleep on.

You can buy The Milky Way Galaxy set on LEGO's website, here.

LEGO Group conducted a study which found that 86% of children are interested in space, many of whom the study found wanted to travel in space as well. The Milky Way Galaxy set is part of a bigger initiative at LEGO. They are helping kids become more interested in space, and using LEGO to help these children express their curiosity about the cosmos. In addition to The Milky way, LEGO has launched many space-themed sets including the Friends Stargazing Camping Vehicle, City Space Explorer Rover and Alien Life Playset, and NASA Artemis Kit.

LEGO is beyond committed to their new initiative and even took over the New York City skyline on May 23, which you can view in the video above. LEGO Group asked children to think about how they want to explore the universe. Associate Master Builder at the LEGO House, Didac Perez Soriano, helped these visions come to life and displayed the kid's artwork as UPOs (Unidentified Playing Objects) in the New York night sky!