Story and characters shaped the LEGO Project Hail Mary set

The upcoming LEGO Project Hail Mary set was sufficiently shaped by the characters and the story of the book, especially for one specific piece.

LEGO Icons 11389 Project Hail Mary isn't far from its release on March 3 for £99.99 / $99.99 / €109.99, including two figures and a miniature version of the titular spaceship, complete with a challenging function to design. With just over 830 pieces, 11389 Project Hail Mary was shaped by the experiences of the book's characters and the overall story during the design process, as Nathan Heigert, the set's designer, was listening to the audiobook throughout development.

"When I was building it, and I was listening to the audiobook, I started to feel this connection to the characters of Ryland and Rocky, because they're both engineers who go out on this undefined mission to save the world, and they have to put together solutions on the fly to the problems that they encounter," shared Nathan.

"I felt like that was akin to what I was experiencing at the same time. So I would say, I hope that you get that taste of what it's like to be confronted with a challenge and then find a solution and execute on it, just like the work I did, and the work Ryland and Rocky did.

We don't have long left to wait to see how these experiences have influenced the overall build of 11389 Project Hail Mary, and the designer went on to explain another way in which the story affected part of the model, partially thanks to a decision from the partner.

You might have noticed the light green Technic ring piece used as part of the mechanism in 11389 Project Hail Mary. We previously speculated that this may have been a reference to a location from the book, and this has now been confirmed. The partner insisted on it, in fact.

"We presented the partner with different options for the colour, and it [the Technic hoop] does have a very functional use, because the whole thing rotates on the support," Nathan continued later in the roundtable.

"We needed something like that to make the movement smooth, but they brought up the planet in the film. Chartreuse green is what they called it, and so they wanted to see a version that used that, and it just so happened to be that we had the element available in that colour, so it didn't require a colour change. It aligns with the vision that they had for the model."

While the designer states that the girder hoop has appeared in this colour before, it has only been in prior sets in shades of grey, yellow, white and blue. Whether this means we can expect to see it in another set soon is currently not confirmed.

It's interesting to hear just how much the narrative impacted the design of 11389 Project Hail Mary, and you can appreciate these aspects for yourself when the set is launched on March 1 for £99.99 / $99.99 / €109.99.

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