E.T. the Extra Terrestrial has not been seen in LEGO Form since 2016’s LEGO Dinmensions’ minifigure/Funpack. This Ideas submission has been long awaited since it was revealed to be approved in October 2025. Just how well does this set bring us a wrinkly potato of an alien, with a caring expression, and glowing check? The LEGO Group sent a copy of 21370 over for review, ahead of its August 1 release. The set has 1226 pieces and will be priced at $AUD229.99/ $USD139.99 / 129.99€ / £119.99. While this set was sent over by the LEGO Group, all opinions are my own.

There are no minifigures included: any you see in this review are purely coincidental…

Inside the Box

Our review copy contained 9 paper bags of elements, as well as 142 page instruction manual.

The Manual

The manual starts with an introduction to the Fan Designer, Lafabrick. An architect and Town Planner based in France, Richard first saw the movie at the age of 10, and instantly related to the character of Elliott. It goes on to discuss the character of ET and provide some details of the final build, including Easter Eggs, articulation, and posability. The newly introduced element, a 2×2 curved brick/Maxaroni – 90º, is also briefly mentioned.

The Elements

The set comes with 1226 pieces, of which 738 are in medium nougat. Between the Creator Playful Puppy, Toy Story Slinky Dog Bookends, One Piece Tony Chopper, and Pokemon Eevee, many of these elements have made their debut earlier this year, but there are a few others that are still new, including the 2x2x90º tubular brick element, which fits inside the radius of the 2x2x45º tubular brick (also included in this set).

Of the 738 medium nougat elements, 244 have no studs on display once installed, and 293 have an aspect which is round – either a curved edge, a curved slope, or are just totally circular…

I had a chance to talk with David Guedes, one of the design team for this set: He said there were a couple of elements that were key for giving this model its distinctive shape: the 2x3x1 bow with quarter circle (left and right) allowed the right slouch at the shoulders, as well as the shape of ET’s belly and bottom. The 3×3 quarter circle tile was instrumental in achieving the wrinkled look on ET’s Belly.

The Build

If you wish to avoid spoilers and easter eggs, skip to ‘My thoughts‘ section below. Otherwise, wander on in and see how E.T. comes together.

The build starts simply with a dark orange plant pot, containing some yellow daisies (or are they sunflowers)? This is significantly smaller than the one seen in the original submission (which contained over 300 pieces).

From here, we start work on the E.T. sculpture.

We start at the feet, with rounded plates allowing us to create angled toes, covered with curved slopes. The top of his feet has the plates used to connect to turntables and the like. These are joined by a frame containing a couple of round plates, allowing the feet to easily spin.

We add on a two-stud deep core. Axles pass through balls in sockets, and into the feet. This adds quite a bit of resistance to their rotation, ensuring the stability of the model.

As we build it up, we have alternating bricks and 2 plates – this makes it the perfect scale for bricks to be placed on the brackets to the sides. Tucked away in here is a red telephone handle and a small silver and transparent red spaceship – Easter Eggs calling back to the film.

We start work on the rear aspect of the torso: Bricks lined up side by side, covered in curved slopes – particularly 2x2x2 and 1x3x1 2/3 arches,. This ‘back’ module alternates between 11 and 12 studs wide and on the back we have a number of 2×2 and 3×3 quarter circle tiles. At the lower end, plates step downwards, with a single ‘butt cheek’ – Apparently, most E.T. toys are inaccurate from this point of view. This panel attaches easily to the back of the torso.

A similar approach is taken with the front of the torso: several multi-brick panels are joined together using the plates and curved elements forming the shape of the abdomen. It snaps onto the front of the core, and for reasons to be made clear shortly, we add in a little see-saw

We moved onto the shoulders. The Set designer, David Guedes, said that he borrowed from the concepts used in the design of the buildable minifigures – particularly the idea of angling the shoulders inward on a series of clips, with the axles running through balls in socket joints to add resistance to movement. However, the scale is a little different here, and every slight change means another redesign…

We cover up the rear of the shoulders, tuck a light brick into the front and cover it over, and tidy up the structure around the neck. The new 90º curved brick forms the shape of his shoulders.

We build up the neck attachment. This is a major deviation from the original submission, where the neck was designed to extend. This was something pursued in the design process, but was ultimately difficult to make work in a way that was secure and functional at this scale. The double ball technique will ensure the head is firm and secure, but you will be able to pop one ball out of the connection, allowing E.T.’s head to be angled from side to side.

The arms themselves are made of 2×2 round bricks, plates and tiles, stabilised over axles. The elbows are normally the 45º curved bricks (you can spin them around if you want E.T. to reach out, for example, to play a game of pinball…)

The hands have three fingers and a thumb; the second finger has an interphalangeal joint and also includes a transparent red dome on the right hand. Interestingly, the only places where the set’s colour scheme is disregarded are both wrists, where the ball and socket elements are all medium stone grey.

The use of grey joints remains a persistent pain point for many fans. Unfortunately, the pigments go a long way to affecting the degree of friction, as well as the strength of the ball/socket combination. For the time being, grey (and occasionally black) it is.

We start work on the head. – starting with a frame built around the double ball joints.

We round off the top of the head, after installing some wheel arches as eyebrows and add in the printed eyes. Apparently, there were dozens of iterations of the eyes tested: some identical on each side, others varied like this, and soe with a hint of green as well as blue, to make it a little more screen accurate.

And with that, our model is complete.

My thoughts

The final model, in my opinion, looks great. E.T.’s belly is covered in wrinkles; his arms are long and spindly, and the face is remarkably expressive. There are a few studs exposed on the feet, face, and side of the torso: these remind us of the model’s LEGO DNA. The visible studs along the sides of the model’s core help create a wrinkled appearance.

The build is relatively simple: Feet, Core, textured back, textured belly, shoulders, arms, head. The presence of so many offset curves without visible studs really enhances the wrinkled appearance of his belly.

On first impressions, the shape of the arms is a little odd, however, you can raise and lower them, and swap the positions of the angled elements fairly easily. This gives the figure a remarkable amount of character. The arm’s natural angles give the character a feeling of curiosity.

There have been more and more buildable characters entering the LEGO catalog in recent years. Without considering the more basic of the Pokemon, or Brickheadz, more than 35 buildable characters from TV, movies, sports and videogames have been released across multiple themes this year. The majority of them are associated with some IP License. This probably doesn’t surprise you. I’ll have to admit, this one appeals to me more than many of the others that have hit the shelves recently, but this might just be the old nostalgia bug speaking.

If you are a fan of E.T. – which probably means you have a nostalgic itch to scratch, you will probably be quite interested in this set. If you are not currently a regular LEGO Builder, welcome. This is not an overly complicated model to build, and the end result is delightful! If LEGO Ideas is great at doing one thing, it’scoming up with material that might catch the eye of people who are not normally buying LEGO sets.

This model scores four out of five Arbitrary Praise Units: the build is interesting, but not too complex; the final model has character: it’s posable enough, stable, and has a footprint on the shelf comparable with a scaled-up minifigure

The set is also a nifty medium nougat parts pack, with lots of studless and rounded elements included.

What sort of memories does E.T. bring you? Is this a set for you? Let us know in the comments below.

LEGO Ideas set 21370 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial will be released on August 1, 2026. The set has 1226 pieces and will be priced at $AUD229.99/ $USD139.99 / 129.99€ / £119.99.

This review set was provided by the LEGO Group, but all opinions are my own.

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Until Next Time,

Play Well!

Appendix

I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of a long list of character and creature builds from 2026, designed primarily for display. But please consider this selection a good start: I probably left out a few Pokemon, Creator 3in1, Brickheadz and more!