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“Look what I’ve been building!”
“What are you building?”
“We’re building a house on a cliff!”
Inception
Whenever I think about building things, I think of Leo’s son in Inception telling him that excitedly after they’ve been reunited at the end of the film. (I suppose it could have some link to Dom Cobb’s role as an architect of dreams, or that Saito’s mansion in limbo is on a cliff / rock plateau; but I’m not here to analyse Inception. I just want to point out how excited the little boy sounded at the thought of building things.)
That was how I felt when I bought the LEGO SHIELD Helicarrier two years ago. It was a very expensive item that I thought long and hard over, so when I received a large sum of mall vouchers as a freebie for something else I bought, it sped up my decision to get that.
(The LEGO Movie can be thanked for my sudden re-interest in LEGOs by the way. I was a fan of The Avengers and already got the MCU Phase One box set of films, but it didn’t even occur to me that I could collect LEGO sets until I watched The LEGO Movie and was inspired to build things again.)
I spent about two and a half days building it. I could have spent two days on it, and I’m sure that LEGO master builders could have done it in less than a day, but since I’m not one of them and I also like to do things like eat and sleep, I took my time. You can see my progress below.
I got my Helicarrier delivered, so it came in this box. 
Front of LEGO box set 
Back of LEGO box set 
All 2996 pieces (plus a few extras) in 12 packets for easy building. 
Booklet of instructions plus stickers 
A clearer view of the booklet 
First packet 
The first packet had pieces for the stand for the minifigures with the S.H.I.E.L.D. eagle logo, the display stand for the Helicarrier, and the control room. 
Second packet 
Hawkeye with his goggles 
On the opposite side, Hawkeye looking determined 
The second packet created the inner belly of the Helicarrier. 
Third packet 
The third packet added more support bricks to the inner belly. 
Fourth packet 
The fourth packet added even more support bricks to the top and covered the sides. 
Fifth packet 
Maria Hill came in this packet 
Turn her head around and she looks mad. 
The fifth packet added the first of the four engines. 
I decided to call it a night after the fifth packet. My progress so far. 
Seven more packets to go! 
Sixth packet 
The sixth packet added the second engine. 
Seventh packet 
Captain America came in this packet. 
He looks mad when you turn his head around. 
The seventh packet created the third engine. 
Eighth packet 
All the engines are done! Finally! It was getting a little boring building them. 
Ninth packet 
Nick Fury was in this packet. You can’t turn his head around to see another expression, cause he has no hair to cover the other expression. 
The control room of the Helicarrier 
The ninth packet added half of the top deck for the Helicarrier. 
This part is blank because it’ll be covered by the second runway. 
The thrusters 
Tenth packet 
The tenth packet added the rest of the runway and covered the control room. The middle portion with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo is removable so you can take it off to see the control room. 
Eleventh packet 
Black Widow came with it. Here she is smirking. 
Turn her around and she’s smiling. 
The eleventh packet created the second runway above. 
Here’s how it looks joined with the rest of the Helicarrier. 
I decided to call it a night, because I wanted to savour building the last part. 
The twelfth and final packet 
The twelfth packet added the small control tower beside the second runway, the Quinjets, planes, vehicles and 12 microfigures (Nick Fury, Hawkeye, Captain America, Iron Man and eight S.H.I.E.L.D. agents). 
It is finished! 
See how huge it is. Now it sits on the corner of my table collecting dust, because I have nowhere else to put it. 
A closer look
It was fun building it, though after a while, my fingers started to hurt from the knobbly bits sticking out of the LEGO bricks. And then it became a little monotonous, because you’re just following the instructions. (This is the perfect time to catch up on videos and whatever else that doesn’t need a whole lot of concentration.) But I felt such a sense of accomplishment when it was done!
Then came the part where I had to figure out where to put it, which was not a consideration that I made when buying the LEGO set. Luckily, my desk is pretty large, so I could devote about a third of the space to this behemoth.
Unfortunately, like everything else in my room, the LEGO set starts to collect dust if not dusted every so often — something I learnt from a smaller Avengers LEGO set that I owned (and decided to dismantle and keep in my cupboard for that reason). I’m not about to dismantle something that I took two days to build, so I dust it every two or three weeks. It’s kind of a pain in the ass though, but at least my table is fairly clean, since I make it a point to dust my table and all its contents when I’m dusting the LEGO set. (I’m starting to come round to the idea of dismantling it though, because I just realised that dust gets into the spaces *inside* the stacked bricks too. But I’ll see.)
Do I regret getting it even though it’s a pain in my ass? I can’t say I do. The Helicarrier is something that I absolutely *needed* to remind me that I literally do not have space to put them whenever I am tempted to buy things like the LEGO Death Star or the LEGO Disney Castle — and you won’t believe how constantly I have to remind myself of that. I don’t even have space to put the boxes they come in, even if I decide not to build them at the moment. I was intending to collect more Marvel LEGO sets (and other sets), but I had to rethink those plans because of the above problem.
But it is so tempting! So, so tempting. Perhaps next time, if I get a bigger house…
