Is the LEGO E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Worth Buying?
7.88/10. Worth buying. A buildable, fully posable E.T. at 1,226 pieces, complete with a glowing heart light brick and that unmistakable pointing finger. The gentlest sculpture LEGO Ideas has produced in a while.
Comparing your options? See where it lands in our best LEGO Ideas sets ever, ranked.
There are film characters that stay in the culture because they were loud, and there are film characters that stay because of one look, one gesture, one glowing fingertip. E.T. is firmly the second kind. He barely speaks, he waddles rather than walks, and yet the sight of that wrinkled little face has been making people misty since 1982. So when LEGO Ideas hands the alien a full 1,226-piece brick-built body of his own, my worry is always the same: can plastic capture something this soft, this sad-eyed, this deliberately un-heroic? Happily, this one gets a great deal closer than I expected.
What makes it work is that LEGO did not try to make E.T. a display statue frozen in one pose. This is a genuinely posable figure, articulated at the fingers, wrists, shoulders, feet and neck, with a head that rotates a full 360 degrees, nods, and even opens its mouth. Add the red light brick glowing away in his chest and the little pot of flowers in his hands, and you have a model that lets you stage the film's most tender moments rather than just gesture at them. For a character defined by feeling rather than action, that was exactly the right call.
At 1,226 pieces this is a proper sit-down Ideas build rather than an afternoon distraction, and the interesting part is that almost none of it looks like the LEGO you are used to. E.T. has no straight lines and no flat panels to hide behind, so the whole model is an exercise in coaxing organic, rounded, drooping shapes out of a system that was designed for right angles. Designer David Guedes leans hard on curved slopes, angled connections and a mountain of medium nougat elements to sculpt the alien's pot belly, hunched shoulders and that long extendable neck.
The internal skeleton is the clever bit. Because the finished figure needs to hold poses, the build spends real time establishing a sturdy core with the articulation points locked in before the outer shell of curves goes on. It gives the assembly a satisfying two-stage rhythm: first you build a frame that feels almost mechanical, then you dress it in soft brown bodywork until the alien emerges. Watching the face come together, with its printed eyes and the mouth mechanism, is the standout moment.
The heart is where the set earns its keep. A red light brick sits in the chest and glows on demand, recreating the film's most quoted piece of imagery, and LEGO has built the surrounding torso so the light reads clearly through the shell rather than getting lost inside it. Seating that section correctly is a small, careful step, and clicking it to life for the first time is genuinely charming.
The final flourish is the potted plant of yellow flowers that E.T. cradles in his hands, the nod to his power to bring wilted things back to life. It is a simple sub-build, but it gives those articulated fingers something to do and completes the character. Budget somewhere around two to three hours, and expect the sculpting stages to be more absorbing than the piece count alone suggests.
Finished, the model stands right around 24.5 cm tall, which is close enough to a real toddler-scale E.T. that it carries genuine presence on a shelf. The proportions are the whole ballgame with a character like this, and LEGO has nailed the important ones: the heavy low belly, the short bowed legs, the impossibly long neck that can crane upward, and the over-large head with those soulful, slightly mournful eyes. It reads as E.T. from across the room, which is the entire job.
The articulation transforms it from an ornament into something you will actually fiddle with. You can pose him mid-waddle, sit him down with the flower pot, crane the neck up in curiosity, or lift the arm so the famous forefinger points skyward to phone home. That range means the model never gets stale on display, because you can restage it to match whichever scene you loved most. Few sculptures give you that.
The glowing heart is the display centrepiece and the thing every visitor will want demonstrated. Switched on in a dimmed room it recreates the film's iconic red glow beautifully, and it is the detail that lifts this from a good likeness to a little piece of cinema on the shelf. It is the sort of feature that justifies giving the model pride of place rather than a back corner.
If there is a display caveat, it is simply that E.T.'s palette is, by design, muted. This is a study in soft browns and medium nougat with a grey face, so he will not pop with colour the way a licensed spaceship or a floral build does. He is a character piece that trades on personality and that glowing heart rather than on a vivid livery, and you display him for what he is rather than for the colours.
At 1,226 pieces the box is a strong haul, and it is an unusually specialised one. This is one of the largest concentrations of medium nougat and earthy brown curved elements you will find in a single set, which makes it a quiet goldmine for anyone building creatures, tree trunks, animals or organic MOCs of their own. Curved slopes and rounded sculpting parts in those warm tones are exactly what custom builders hoard.
The set also brings a new mould created for the figure and a couple of new prints, including the eyes that give the face its expression, alongside the red light brick that powers the glowing heart. The light brick in particular is a component with real reuse value for anyone who likes to add working illumination to their own builds. The printed and moulded face parts are more character-specific, but they are the pieces doing the emotional heavy lifting.
The bigger value question with a set like this is longevity, and here E.T. has a strong case. This is a genuinely beloved, culturally permanent character from one of the most successful films ever made, and LEGO Ideas sets tied to icons of that stature tend to hold interest far longer than sets riding a passing trend. Our LEGO Investing 101 guide walks through why nostalgia-anchored Ideas releases tend to age the way they do.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial arrived in 1982, directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Melissa Mathison, and it changed what a summer blockbuster could feel like. Rather than spectacle for its own sake, it told a small, intimate story: a lonely suburban boy named Elliott befriends a gentle alien accidentally stranded on Earth, and hides him from the adult world while the creature tries to find a way home. It was a film about childhood, loss and kindness disguised as a science-fiction adventure.
It became a phenomenon. E.T. was the highest-grossing film ever made for over a decade, until Spielberg himself dethroned it with Jurassic Park, and it earned four Academy Awards along the way. Its imagery is stitched permanently into popular culture: the silhouette of a boy and an alien cycling across a giant full moon became the logo of Spielberg's own Amblin Entertainment, and the phrases "E.T. phone home" and that glowing red fingertip are recognised by people who have never even seen the film.
More than four decades on, E.T. endures precisely because it never relied on being flashy. It relied on feeling, on the wordless bond between a child and a creature who just wanted to go home, and on a handful of images so perfectly composed they became universal shorthand for wonder. LEGO Ideas choosing to immortalise the alien himself, glowing heart and all, is a fitting tribute to a character who won the world over by being gentle rather than grand.
Children of the eighties are the obvious core audience, and for anyone who grew up with E.T. this is an easy, nostalgic yes. It is not a playset or a diorama; it is the character himself, rendered with real care and posability, which is exactly what a lifelong fan wants on the shelf rather than a scene they have to squint at.
It also suits the builder who enjoys organic, sculptural challenges over technical machinery. If your favourite LEGO sets are the ones that wrestle curves and creatures out of a rectangular system, the way E.T.'s drooping, soft-bodied shape is coaxed into being will be the most rewarding part of the box. This is sculpting, not engineering.
And it is a natural pick for the display-first collector who likes a set with a party trick. The glowing heart and the wide range of poses give this model something to do beyond simply existing on a shelf, which makes it a strong centrepiece for a pop-culture or cinema-themed collection.
E.T. sits beautifully alongside LEGO's other slice of eighties Amblin cinema, the The Goonies (21363), another Spielberg-produced adventure about kids on a mission. Together they anchor a proper eighties movie-magic corner of a shelf.
For a lineup of loveable, slightly odd film creatures, pair him with Gremlins Gizmo (21361). Gizmo and E.T. are the two gentlest fuzzy-hearted oddballs of eighties cinema, and side by side they make a charming double act of characters you are meant to protect rather than fear.
And if you want to lean into E.T.'s cosmic side, the Tintin Moon Rocket (21367) keeps the reaching-for-the-stars theme going, giving your Ideas shelf a run of characters all gazing, in one way or another, back up at the sky.
Pros
- Fully posable at fingers, wrists, shoulders, feet and neck for endless restaging
- Head rotates 360 degrees, nods, and opens its mouth for real expression
- Red light brick recreates the film's iconic glowing heart
- Proportions capture the soft, sad-eyed E.T. from across the room
- Organic sculpting build is an absorbing change from technical sets
- Huge, MOC-friendly haul of medium nougat and curved elements
Cons
- Muted brown palette will not pop with colour on a shelf
- No bicycle, moon scene or Elliott minifigure, just the figure and a flower pot
- Final model drops the extendable neck of the original fan submission
- Character-specific face prints have limited wider reuse
LEGO Ideas E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a genuinely affectionate tribute to one of cinema's most beloved characters, and it succeeds because it understood the assignment. Rather than a static bust or a scene you have to interpret, it gives you the alien himself, posable enough to recreate any moment you loved and topped with a glowing heart that turns a good likeness into a little piece of movie magic.
It takes EARL APPROVED status comfortably on the strength of its articulation, its sculpting, and that light brick, held just shy of the very top tier only by its deliberately muted palette and the fact that you are buying the character alone rather than the wider world around him. For the right fan, that is precisely the point.
Available now, and an easy recommendation for anyone who grew up phoning home, for the builder who loves an organic sculpting challenge, or for the collector who wants an eighties-cinema centrepiece with a glow all its own. More than forty years on, E.T. still knows exactly how to win the room.
- The Goonies Review - The other eighties Spielberg-produced adventure for your cinema shelf
- Gremlins Gizmo Review - The other gentle, fuzzy-hearted oddball of eighties film
- Tintin Moon Rocket Review - Keeping the reaching-for-the-stars theme going
- LEGO Investing 101 - Why nostalgia-anchored Ideas sets tend to age well
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