At the start of 2022, news of new licensed Star Trek merchandise started emerging. But this wasn’t any merchandise or any brand. It was, in fact, Germany-based company Bluebrixx who had managed to secure one of Paramounts coveted Star Trek licenses. Today, we review one of their new products. This is the BlueBrixx Star Trek Voyager, and the Delta Flyer sets. The company produces sets related to many Star Trek series, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
BlueBrixx is a ‘building blocks’ company. I’m quite confident in asserting that one of the most desired Star Trek collaborations in the merchandise space. Within the fandom, of course. Has been one between Lego and Paramount. While this isn’t that, after all, Bluebrixx as a brand was only founded in 2017. It does give Star Trek fans something they have been desiring for a long time. Starships that they can build with blocks that not only are compatible with Lego branded sets but are of similar quality.
Building Process and Reviewer Credentials
In this review, I will focus on the large-scale sets BlueBrixx has released of Star Trek: Voyager‘s titular vessel and accompanying support craft. The Delta Flyer. I built these stage by stage over the course of a couple of weeks. However, a determined/passionate/bored enough fan could do this much faster!
I’ll mention that I’m also an avid Lego fan and have tackled many of their larger builds. The largest likely being the Assembly Square Modular (10255) or Daily Bugle (76178). This isn’t me patting myself on the back, but giving you, the reader, an idea of my experience with Lego sets. It should go without saying that if you don’t have any experience, you likely won’t have a great time with the larger (1500+ pieces) sets.
Building the Delta Flyer
The first set of stages is the most difficult part of any building block build. These are the ones where you spend an inordinate amount of time shuffling your bricks around, trying to find certain pieces. All while not having a strong visual idea of the scale or final appearance of the set. The BlueBrixx Star Trek Voyager is 2443 for comparison.
The Delta Flyer is a 1714-piece set. These pieces are split between 5 bags, with the final bag featuring the buildable display plaque. Unlike other ships in the BlueBrixx line, the flyer doesn’t have an additional buildable display stand. However, this is unnecessary due to the landing gear design (visible in the image above but never actually seen in the show).
The bags neatly divide up elements of the hull. Bag 1 has you building the ‘floor’ of the shuttle. 2 builds the cockpit. Then three gets you started on the engines, while bag 4 finishes them. Finally, the whole build is wrapped up in bag 5.
The Good
There is a lot to love in this set. For one, it’s the only building block set produced under any brand to date of the Delta Flyer. This makes it even more fortunate that Bluebrixx placed it straight in the most detailed end of their lineup. On that note – there is a lot of detail, including things that fit the design and build that weren’t necessarily featured in the series.
For example, as you can see in the Bag 3 and 4 pictures below, buildable nacelle components fit alongside the cockpit. The medical bed seen in several episodes is fully operational and slides in and out for fans of the Delta Flyer II – yes. It includes deployable impulse thrusters!
This set is extremely high quality. I didn’t have any issues with misprints (and yes, unlike many Lego sets, all of the unique Flyer pieces are printed)! The bricks all fit together without trouble, and the design is stable. I wouldn’t give this one to your kids for a display piece, at least, even though the main window is liftable for play!
The Not-so Good
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that anything about this set was outright bad. But there are certainly a few parts of it that raised my eyebrow. Or otherwise caused frustration. The top element on the ‘frustrations’ list. Which some may not agree with. It would be that all the bricks were thematically colored (mostly various shades of grey).
While this makes for a great final piece, it made finding the needed bricks during construction much more difficult (and tedious) than with the ‘other’ brand. Said brand has caught some of its critique for its brightly colored and contrasting unseen interior elements. But they make the initial building process easier when sifting through bricks.
Then we get to the overall shape of the Flyer. While the completed set is certainly recognizable to the eye, BlueBrixx didn’t quite manage to replicate all the angles of the Flyer. The side panels along the sides of the cockpit (with the Delta Flyer lettering) are the best example of this. They spread horizontally more than the original design. This gives it an overall ‘slightly squished’ appearance.
It’s the Voyager!
The moment Bluebrixx got the Trek license and announced their initial lineup (which included a small and medium-sized Voyager). I immediately emailed them to request a large one! Less than a year from their first wave, I was delighted to see it featured alongside the Delta Flyer that was just covered in the third wave.
At 2443 pieces, it’s no LEGO Star Wars UCS Millenium Falcon (7541 pieces). If I’m being honest, though, I’m not sure if I would have found a display place for it if it was. This Voyager is already significantly larger than the 90s Playmates toy and Revell model kit. These were the two largest versions of the ship that previously made it to shelves.
A somewhat bizarre omission from the box art is that this Voyager actually has two display options. The pictured stand (which comes with many of the Bluebrixx ships) and some brick-built landing gears so you can replicate your favorite landing sequence! These are built in the eighth and final (yes, there are eight bags of bricks for this one) stage.
The Good
The great thing about the BlueBrixx Star Trek Voyager is that it has a really solid construction. Much like Voyager herself! But this construction doesn’t get in the way of some solid play features. It has pivotable warp nacelles so that you can display/play with it in impulse or warp flight mode. A shuttle in the shuttle bay. The landing gears mentioned previously and the never seen on-screen Aero Shuttle!
Unlike the Delta Flyer, this set does have some stickers. However, unlike the ‘other’ brand, these aren’t your standard squares and circles that you must awkwardly line up. No, these are much more awkward but also much better. The stickers here are more like model water transfer decals. You stick them on, peel the top off, and you’re left with only the details rather than any huge surrounding transparent area that increases the risk of peeling, or that would yellow over time.
The ship also faithfully (for building bricks) replicates the curved shape of the Intrepid class. But the faithful recreation doesn’t stop there. This has some solid details. Right down to the navigation lights on the nacelles and at the aft of the ship outside the shuttle bay door. As you build, you even have fun with a few small pieces creating the ‘greebles’ of Voyager’s sensor cluster just behind the secondary deflector.
The Not-so Good
Voyager is a notoriously difficult ship to get right, to the extent that even the CG model that was built using photographs of the studio model had problems. Turns out translating that many curves always have a price, and in the case of the BlueBrixx Star Trek Voyager – that price seems to be the underside of the saucer.
It’s a really big shame because it’s clear that a lot of effort has gone into this set. But when the top side is almost entirely smooth pieces, it’s incredibly jarring to have such a ‘brick exposed’ underside. Giving the appearance that the ship is almost unfinished. The differences don’t stop there, either. While the top side phaser strips are dark grey smooth flat pieces built between the layers of grey bricks. The underside’s phaser strips are flexible plastic strips that clip into place.
In terms of building structure, it’s also a strange move to have the first step be building the stand that the ship will eventually sit on. I did find it somewhat useful for storing the ship between building sessions. As somebody that likes to get their builds to a recognizable state as quickly as possible, it was an interesting delay, so to speak.
Conclusion
While there are parts of these designs that I don’t think would have made it past the other brick brand’s standards and stability checks. I nonetheless think that they are extremely faithful, fun builds. Not to mention that there are parts of them (the transfer stickers and the sheer number of printed parts) that are far higher quality. Putting the stickers seen in many UCS sets to shame. BlueBrixx Star Trek Voyager is a must-buy in my opinion!
Of the two models, It’s this reviewer’s opinion that the Flyer. Despite the slightly squished look is a more faithful recreation. The lack of detail/amount of exposed bricks on Voyager’s underside really takes it down a peg for me. Especially considering that I (and I expect many others) are displaying it high up.
Overall I’d score them the following:
Delta Flyer
Build Quality/Stability: 6/10
Play features: 9/10
Faithfulness to the original: 8/10
Voyager
Build Quality/Stability: 9/10
Play features:8/10
Faithfulness to the original: 7/10
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