#17 2001: A Space Odyssey Lego Set

Tired of assembling the Imperial Landing Craft from Return of the Jedi, Dumbledore’s office from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Robert Preston from The Last Starfighter or any of a myriad of pre-designed Lego movie tie-in models that ask nothing of your mental faculties and leave you only with something recognizable but ultimately unrewarding to put on your shelf?

Then prepare to have your mind–and a good seven months–blown with the 2001: A Space Odyssey Lego Set. Your very conception of what a “fun toy” should be is challenged the moment you open the box only to find three seemingly unrelated sections, each equipped with a black monolith, their own maddeningly abstruse pieces and the use of sound in lieu of easy-to-follow instructions or even just one green platform on which to ground your creation. Then it’s off to engage in several, several hours of amusement as you use little prehistoric ape-men to reenact the first discovery of tools and homicide, construct wondrous spaceplanes and space orbital stations from an apparently refinanced Pan-Am while disassembling a talking computer that serves as the set’s one pop culture touchstone or just throw the whole imprecise, infuriating set against the wall as you struggle with the parallels of a floating fetus “starchild” to the nurturing amenities of a Louis XVI-era bedroom, the progression and regression of man and the birth and death of suns and ourselves only ultimately to realize that you simply could not give less of a crap.

In the end you’ll have an astounding model that isn’t so much enjoyable as critically-lauded, providing years of reverence and reflection while never once engaging you or your guests except when someone asks, “So…is it all just one big joke?”