2026
WISE Score
A foot-tall Hail Mary whose crew module spins for artificial gravity, plus the first brick-built Rocky.
The rare movie tie-in set that earns shelf space on engineering alone. Turn the crank and the crew module lifts, rotates, and spins the way Grace's ship makes gravity in the story. That one mechanism turns a display model into the best physics demo in the house.
One thing before you wrap it: the box art shows Rocky. If your kid hasn't read the book or seen the movie, the set spoils the best reveal in modern sci-fi. Story first, bricks second.
The 18+ on the box is branding, and LEGO box ages run conservative across the whole line — no LEGO set is inappropriate for any age. This one is a weekend project: a 10-to-12-year-old who has finished a mid-size set can run it solo, and a younger builder who wants in tag-teams it with you, which is the better way to build it anyway. Under 3, small parts are the only real limit. Pair it with the story: the book is a great family read-aloud around 10 and up, and the movie is the same territory.
The story behind it runs on cooperation, sacrifice, and an unlikely friendship, and the set celebrates the science of the ship rather than any conflict. A build a family can feel good about from the first bag.
Microscale display models leave less room for open-ended play, but the working centrifuge invites the best kind of what-if: kids crank it, ask why the module spins, and start sketching their own ships.
It is LEGO: small-part choking hazards for the under-3 crowd and not much else. All-printed pieces mean no sticker frustration and nothing to peel off later.
Spin gravity, gearing, and structural engineering in one box. Few sets hand a parent a physics lesson this cleanly, and the tie to a beloved STEM novel multiplies the payoff.
LEGO timed set 11389 to the March 2026 release of the Project Hail Mary movie and skipped the usual tie-in trap of minifig-scale playsets. This is a microscale model of the whole ship, about a foot tall on its stand, with the one feature that matters: a working centrifuge.
The finished model: Grace in his red spacesuit at the base, Rocky on the right.
In the book, the Hail Mary splits its crew compartment and spins it to make gravity. The set does the same thing with a crank: the module pulls away from the hull, rotates 90 degrees, and settles into a steady spin until you reverse it. It gets built once and demonstrated to every houseguest for a month.
The red crank runs the whole show: crew module out, flip, spin.
Six numbered bags, 830 pieces, and more Technic than the box art suggests. The stand and the mechanism are pins, beams, and axles; the ship itself is the brick-built payoff. Every decorated element is printed. No stickers in a $100 set is worth saying twice: no stickers.
Reviewers land where parents will: the mechanism is the star, and the technical build is the filter. A kid who loves gears will be in heaven. A kid who builds for mini-world play may stall in bag three. Build it together and split the labor accordingly.
Twelve cents a piece is steep, but the money went to the mechanism, the printed parts, and the only official Rocky on the market. For a family that read the book aloud or is coming home from the movie, it is the obvious gift. For a kid with no connection to the story, an equally priced City or Technic space set delivers more play per dollar.
It runs $99.99 at LEGO.com and usually the same on Amazon. Before it lands under the tree, get the story timing right: our parent's guide to the movie covers age fit and intensity, and the Rocky guide explains why your kid keeps saying "fist my bump."
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