LEGO says ‘the back was not our main focus’ for the $1,000 Death Star

LEGO Star Wars 75419 Death Star has one less-flattering angle, and the designer behind it has explained why it looks so unattractive.

The upcoming $1,000 Death Star looks good from the front, but there have been concerns in the community regarding its appearance from the back. Compared to the intricate front, the cross-section of the space station has a bare back, which is certainly not intended to be seen when it is on display.

This is despite a couple of Easter eggs being hidden back there, but either way, this side of the build has caused a stir online following its reveal. The designer behind the set has an explanation for why it looks the way it does, as discussed in a recent roundtable interview with Brick Fanatics and other LEGO fan media.

“We always discuss everything about a model, including the back side of the model," stated 75419 Death Star’s designer, César Soares. "With this particular one, from the very beginning, we decided that the back was going to be on the background – no pun intended – because by going with the slice of a Death Star, most people will put it against the wall, on the shelf or on a piece of furniture or whatever. So the back was not our main focus.

"Also, the activation of most of the features can be done from the side or very close to the side, so you don't have to put your hand all the way back, again with the intent of being able to put it against the wall. So to answer your question, we discussed it, but from the start, we decided not to prioritise the back. Also, a model like this, where so many colours are the same, like dark grey, light grey and black, it's nice to have other colours and other elements that can contrast that, so the build flow and experience is better.”

The note about the building experience is a good point, since the last thing you would want a 9,090-piece model to be is repetitive. Whether a balance between a varied building experience and an attractive rear could have been struck is still up for question. The likes of 76178 Daily Bugle and 76269 Avengers Tower offer a repetitive building experience with their many windows, but they're detailed all the way around.

César continued, offering another explanation for why 75419 Death Star has an unattractive back – the hangar bay and the starry void outside the space station.

“I can share a little bit of curiosity regarding the black panel with the stars in the hangar," explains César. "In the beginning, I had it open, so if you don't have it against the wall, you could fly the shuttle through it. But then I thought, what if somebody has wallpaper with pink stripes or something? Then it would look a bit awkward. So the decision to add something there was made.

"In the beginning, that wall was actually removable, and you could choose to have it there or not, but fairly late in the process, we discovered that the panel was not fitting very well for some reason. And then we realised that without the panel, the whole Death Star was skewing a couple of millimetres to the left. So, having a big gaping hole there was not a good idea, and we had to incorporate it to stabilise the whole structure quite a bit.”

While you would definitely want a $1,000 LEGO set to be completely sturdy and sound, you might also expect it to look good from every angle. This wasn't the intention for the set at any stage, though, and 75419 Death Star is meant to only be viewed from one angle.

75419 Death Star will be available for LEGO Insiders on October 1, 2025, with a wider release 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 LEGO 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 set right here.

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