LEGO rarely slashes the prices on its Star Wars sets aggressively since they sell at full retail throughout most of the year. This R2-D2 building set just became the first major Star Wars release to see a substantial Black Friday discount, now sitting at $79 instead of the usual $99 price tag. That’s a new all-time low on a set that already flies off the shelves with its nearly perfect 4.9 out of 5 stars rating across thousands of reviews.
1,050 Pieces That Build an Iconic Droid
This completed model of R2-D2 is over 9 inches tall, with a 6-inch width and a 4-inch depth, and offers significant desk or shelf presence without dominating entire surfaces. The cylindrical body features curved bricks and plates to achieve R2-D2’s characteristic dome shape and blue-white color scheme. The detail work features printed tiles for control panels, sensor arrays, and characteristic red and blue panels that help define R2-D2’s look throughout the Star Wars films.
Functional features add play value beyond static display: The dome head rotates 360 degrees with smooth action, letting you position R2-D2 looking in any direction. A detachable third leg extends from the body, recreating the droid’s mobility configuration seen throughout the original trilogy. An attachable periscope replicates the scanning device R2-D2 deploys in various scenes and additional tool attachments represent the droid’s utility arms and mechanical appendages.
Accompanying the set is a bonus 25th Anniversary Darth Malak mini-figure to commemorate LEGO Star Wars’ quarter-century of releases. Darth Malak originates from the Knights of the Old Republic video game era and represents deep-cut Star Wars lore instead of the usual movie characters that casual fans may be more familiar with. The minifigure sports unique printing, with Malak’s distinctive metal jaw prosthesis and Sith robes.
The building complexity is firmly in the intermediate range and thus appropriate for the 10-plus age recommendation. The instruction manual breaks construction into clearly numbered steps across multiple bags, letting you build the model over several sessions without losing track of progress. Younger builders might need adult assistance with some of the curved sections where brick placement becomes less intuitive. The 1,050-piece count delivers several hours of building time, and lands between a quick evening project and a multi-day marathon build.
Color accuracy matches R2-D2’s on-screen appearance using bright blue, white, and light gray elements. Recent improvements to LEGO’s color palette mean that the blues match between different batches and piece types, avoiding some of the color variation issues that affected some of their older sets. Specialized curved and angled pieces create smooth surfaces rather than a stepped, pixelated look, common in early LEGO character attempts.
At $79, you’re paying roughly $0.075 per piece which falls below typical LEGO Star Wars pricing that usually hovers around $0.10 per piece. Licensed sets command premium pricing compared to generic LEGO themes which makes any discount on Star Wars releases noteworthy.
