We Build the LEGO Project Hail Mary Ship: A Mechanical Marvel

Upon first glance, I wouldn’t blame you if thought the Project Hail Mary set was just another static display piece like many other LEGO sets for adults. Sure, it comes with a detailed recreation of the Hail Mary spacecraft, vignettes of minifigures Grace and Rocky, a robust display stand, and marquee detailing the mission. But this build is so much more than that. To my surprise, the entire build is centered around attaching the ship onto a mechanical gear system, all brick-built, that’s attached to a crank at the base of the display stand. When you turn it, the ship starts to rotate, simulating the ship’s centrifugal gravity system like in the movie.

And let me tell you, it’s bad ass. It’s simple on the surface, but my roughly 2-hour build time with the 830-piece set was some of the most fun I’ve had doing a build for IGN, and I’ve done my fair share. I started with building up the base, which is just a few basic black bricks slapped together. But once I got into the mechanics of the gear system, it was clear just how intricately designed this set was. The gear system is a part of the build up until the very end, with all the rotating parts attaching all at once after all of the components are finished.

This set comes with two minifigures. One for Dr. Ryland Grace and a brick-built version of Rocky the Eridian. The red spacesuit Grace has is pretty detailed, and the minifigure head comes printed with reversible facial expressions; one with glasses and one without. Rocky’s figure left a little bit to be desired upon first assembling him, but after I’ve had a few days to see it displayed on my shelf I’ve warmed up to the design a bit more.

It’s not every day I get to say this, but set #11389 includes a couple different brick styles I haven’t seen before; Rocky holds a new crystal-like piece that represents his Xenonite containers. Another piece is less shiny, but still interesting. The gear system is supported and made stable by rubber tire pieces (which aren’t new), but those are attached to an interesting new axis piece that gives the configuration a rollercoaster-like feel. None of this is exciting to anybody except giant LEGO nerds like me, but I just had to share.

Both Grace and Rocky get their own modular brick-built Xenonite display bases. You can attach them together with a glass screen in between them to recreate the scenes from the movie, or click them into place on either side of the display base if you prefer to keep the set together. Even their display bases are detailed and intricate, with uneven Xenonite terrain at their feet. For such a simple square display, I appreciate the level of detail the designers took with every aspect of this set.

The ship itself is most made up of white cylindrical bricks and is a faithful recreation of what we see on screen. The Astrophage-powered engines are the biggest part of its structure, with the centrifuge in the middle. Assembling the ship also uses atypical attachment techniques, and I was in awe when putting it together during the back half of my time with it. For a set with under 1,000 pieces, it’s pretty impressive how much they were able to achieve here.

I wouldn’t necessarily call this a difficult build, but there were times when the instructions became a bit unclear, mostly due to small brick placement mixed with a busy image on the page. I had to retrace my steps a couple times, mostly when dealing with the gear systems, but this was mostly smooth sailing throughout. The box says it’s for ages 18+, but I think LEGO fans of any age can find something to enjoy with this set, especially with how much interaction goes into the final build.

The crank and ship rotation mechanics are genuinely one of the coolest things I’ve seen when building a LEGO set, aside from the LEGO Nintendo NES set which admittedly blows this out of the water, but it’s hard to deny the ingenuity that goes into achieving such a technical marvel within certain limitations. I just wish I had the opportunity to build this for the first time once the film is available to stream at home, since throwing that on in the background while putting this together would be the perfect night in.

We’ve attached a GIF of the crank mechanics below, and if you’re curious about seeing the step-by-step build process, there’s a full slideshow so you can see the build in action.

Myles Obenza is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Bluesky @mylesobenza.bsky.social.