Photo: LEGO Ideas/G1mliDesigns
LEGO Ideas is a never-ending source of astonishment at what imaginative people can do given enough time and the prospect of their ideas being turned into series-production sets. Just visit the program’s official page, and you’ll be instantly assaulted by anything from flowers to black holes.
That’s right, black holes. Actually, just one black hole, as far as I can tell, but not just any other black hole. I’m talking about a humongous space object called Gargantua, which in Christopher Nolan’s movie Interstellar marks the thin line between humanity’s extinction and its spreading out into the stars.
In mid-October, I stumbled upon an Interstellar-related set that tried to replicate the Endurance spacecraft. In all fairness, at that time I believed this ship, and maybe the two oddly shaped robots and the smaller spacecraft called Ranger and Lander it carried along, were the only things in this movie that could be replicated in LEGO form.
I stand corrected. Someone out there, who goes by the name G1mliDesigns on LEGO Ideas, believes LEGO plastic bits could easily be used to replicate Gargantua without looking ridiculous in the process.
Imagined as a diorama set, the design, which is simply called Interstellar, shows another version of the same Endurance I mentioned earlier moving across the face of Gargantua, which, in this application, looks like the open mouth of the cosmos.
Its shape is owed to the fan designer going for a dual-semicircle design, with each semicircle at a 60-degree angle from the other, all fitted on a base plate. The ring of the black hole is replicated with a black, white, and orange ring made of hinge pieces. There is even a display plaque that shows a phrase spoken by Endurance’s CASE robot: “Main engine ignition in three…two…one. Mark.”
The set even replicates some of the stars and galaxies in the black hole’s background by using round black and white tiles. The Endurance itself, which in the movie measures 210 feet (64 meters) in diameter, is made here of a dozen curved tile pieces with dual-exhaust pipe prints to give it a spaceship look.
The ring is placed around a rod and comes with four engines and an upper hatch at the front. For display purposes, the Endurance is held in place by a transparent rod that is tied to the lower semicircle.
The designer does not say how many plastic pieces form the set. The idea was submitted back in August 2026, and so far it has earned 997 supporters. There are 344 days left until it needs to reach 1,000 and get another extension.
There is no doubt in my mind it will get there, but does it have enough stamina to hit 10,000 and be officially considered for production?
