75405 Home One Starcruiser represents something new for LEGO Star Wars while testing the scope and appeal of the midi-scale subtheme.
The collection of midi-scale LEGO Star Wars ships has two more additions to it this January 2025 in the form of 75405 Home One Starcruiser and 75404 Acclamator-class Assault Ship. Very much building on what 2024 produced with the intriguing selection of 75375 Millennium Falcon (review here), 75377 Invisible Hand (review here) and 75376 Tantive IV (review here), as well as 75356 Executor Super Star Destroyer from the year before (review here), 75405 Home One Starcruiser and 75404 Acclamator-class Assault Ship introduce two more ships from a galaxy far, far away, both of which we’ve never built before.
We’ve reviewed and celebrated all that works about 75404 Acclamator-class Assault Ship separately, so how does 75405 Home One Starcruiser shape up?
Release: January 1, 2025 Price: £59.99 / $69.99 / €69.99 Pieces: 559 Minifigures: 0 LEGO:
Homeward bound
LEGO Star Wars 75405 Home One Starcruiser feels like it’s been a long time coming. The first 15 or so years of LEGO Star Wars ran through almost all ships and vehicles from the original trilogy of films and revisited a number of them, but Home One was never touched on as a buildable ship.
We had 7754 Home One Mon Calamari Star Cruiser (is anyone else unsettled by the shift between Star Cruiser and Starcruiser?) in 2009 to mark the 10-year anniversary of the theme – the result of a fan vote – but that was just a couple of interiors to Admiral Ackbar’s ship. We’ve had no other mention of a LEGO Home One since then, until this January’s 75405 Home One Starcruiser.
Quite honestly, there’s probably no other way we could have ever had this ship in LEGO form, bar a tiny polybag or advent calendar build – we can’t see a UCS or playset version carrying enough of the audience to justify its place now. So just as with the Invisible Hand and Accalamator, Home One debuts in midi-scale.
It’s a fitting debut, offering up the most adult and engaging build experience possible for what is otherwise an odd, somewhat polarising final model that you’ll either feel like you’ve waited decades to add to your collection, or you are completely indifferent to.
Home is where the heart is?
In any case, the build experience continues the fine form of every other midi-scale ship of late from LEGO Star Wars, throwing in a lot of unusual and clever techniques to piece together this bubble-like cruiser and very smartly capture the quite unique shaping and details that form it.
Internally there are a few little tricks too that at first glance even feel unnecessary until it all comes together and the seamlessness of the final model is fully realised. And ultimately it is these moments that teach you something and that can make such building experiences memorable and leave you appreciating the finished piece that little bit more.
Stylistically, a little bit of colour is used to break up the otherwise all-grey cruiser, whilst a little model of a frigate is also included so as to provide some nice context to the scale of this ship. Along with the printed name tile 75405 Home One Starcruiser ticks all the boxes that it can so as to offer that same high-quality, adult LEGO experience that LEGO Star Wars fans aware and appreciative of the midi-scale collection will be hoping for.
Popping the bubble
That being said, 75405 Home One Starcruiser is probably one of the least interesting midi-scale sets to release so far. It’s perhaps telling that this has a completely removable side portion to reveal some (out of scale) interior rooms, because for however smart and engaging the model is to build – and it really does pull you in, just as the other midi-scale sets do – the end result is not so dynamic to take in.
It’s through no fault of the LEGO Star Wars design team – it’s what it should look like, and the design expertise on show here is again of the highest level (this sub-collection is where you see them flex their LEGO muscles), but as source material goes, Home One isn’t the most action-packed, dynamic or story-based ship from a galaxy far, far away.
It’s why we’ve not really had the chance to build it out of LEGO before, and it’s why the most adult building experience to come out of the theme presents us with the first opportunity, so at least putting it together can serve LEGO Star Wars fans a level of enjoyment that will likely fade a lot quicker from the finished set when compared to any of the other midi-scale creations currently available.
Combined with the higher price, LEGO Star Wars 75405 Home One Starcruiser is a tough recommendation. It is just as excellent as other LEGO Star Wars midi-scale ships to build, but certainly not interesting enough to fork out that much for. Perhaps we are wrong and this set will be a success – either way, it feels like a move from LEGO Star Wars to see where the audience may be at the moment.
Our honest opinion: An excellent attempt from the LEGO Star Wars designers to make Home One an engaging LEGO set, but it’s not enough to save the finished model from mimicking the source material’s rather bland nature, particularly at that price.
This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.
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