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Captain BeerBeard

REVIEW: 4184 Black Pearl

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Deffinetly agree about the crew/minfigs, why is Davey Jones and his crew in this set? Make some small battle pack style set if theyre that important.

I was planning to buy this set to set up the scene before the movies when Barbossa takes the ship and forces Jack Sparrow to walk the plank. Any ideas on what minifigs to use as his crew? I want the same skin color as the rest of the crew.

This is obviously the Black Pearl from Dead Man's Chest. The figures make sense if you saw that movie. It also could be from At World's End. Weren't all these guys in the end battle of that movie?

Edited by Captain BeerBeard

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Great review and a great set. I'd have to say after buying it and building it that the Pear ranks in the middle of the pack of all the ships Lego has produced. The black hull pieces and sails made this a must have for me. Well that and the fact I have all the ships so far and I'm not going to miss out on the Black Pearl, that would be stupid.

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This is obviously the Black Pearl from Dead Man's Chest. The figures make sense if you saw that movie. It also could be from At World's End. Weren't all these guys in the end battle of that movie?

Yhea I can see that logic, but IMO they shouldn't build an entire set around 1 scene. This is a problem that I have with all the licensed lego sets however. Even as a kid I thought that a set built around a single scene from some movie with less room for creativity/own play is far more boring.

They should've included all the characters that are more intimately related to the Black Pearl in this set, Barbossa being one of them, and some of the more iconic pirates of Barbossa's/Sparrow's crew. But that's just my opinion.

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Thanks for the headsup and review, Capt. Beerbeard! I'm definitely getting at least one of these, mainly for the black hull... Ive wanted t make a LEGO Ironclad for some time now, and this black hull fits the bill perfectly!

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Great review, been waiting for this set. Thanks. Anyone know when this will be available in the UK? and how much its goon retail at? My 4 year son wants this, and only this for Christmas. HELP! =)

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Yhea I can see that logic, but IMO they shouldn't build an entire set around 1 scene. This is a problem that I have with all the licensed lego sets however. Even as a kid I thought that a set built around a single scene from some movie with less room for creativity/own play is far more boring.

They should've included all the characters that are more intimately related to the Black Pearl in this set, Barbossa being one of them, and some of the more iconic pirates of Barbossa's/Sparrow's crew. But that's just my opinion.

The problem with that is that they already put Barbossa out in two of the cheapest sets, including the skeletonized version of him, and they do have to limit the repeats of recognizable characters (not counting Jack, who infests every single POTC set for obvious reasons). And when you buy a $100 set, you expect to get at least one really good unique minifig and enough badguys to set up a decent battle scene, so they had to put Sharkboy in there as well as Davy Jones. It's not so much about reproducing one scene, more about giving you decent play options and putting something special in the set.

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Saw this at TRU today and would have gotten it if I had the cash. I'm no longer waiting for the holidays! :pir_laugh2:

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Too bad Lego didn't put any effort into that stern wall. The whole cabin is cheap looking,really. They could've put SOME detail into it, anything would've been better than nothing. Oh well, I'm getting one anyway to add to my fleet, but that sorry barge is going to need some fixin'!!

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Nice review. This ship is so nice! I cannot wait to pick one up at Kmart! :pir_laugh2: Though I think it is sad that we can't get a hat on Jack Sparrow.

Edited by sologuy369

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Nice review. This ship is so nice! I cannot wait to pick one up at Kmart! :pir_laugh2: Though I think it is sad that we can't get a hat on Jack Sparrow.

It's because in Dead Man's Chest, which this set is from, Jack's hat gets taken by the kraken at the beginning.

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Picked this up yesterday. Nice build, finished product is actually a little bigger than I was expecting which is a bonus. And the instructions and poster came in their own bag - hooray!

Only disappointment was the set only having two cannons. However, a quick Bricklink search and $8 has that issue sorted!

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I was able to grab this set at my local Walmart marked down to 70 bucks. Great deal at that price. The ship actually looks a lot better in person than you might think. The sails look pretty good, though I feel like they could have done some printing on them to include stains and patches to better reflect the way the black pearl looked on film. Queen Anne's sails were so nice that this is kinda disappointing. Overall the ship is more impressive than I was expecting, but still the weakest of all the ship offerings in recent years.

Figure selection is totally awesome! Davy Jones looks great as well as the shark guy and Turners dad. These guys are a must for any LEGO POTC fan.

One last critique. I am not a giant fan of the grey/black combo, but That is something I can easily remedy myself!

Great review btw.

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I also got mine at Wally World on markdown. I'm an overnight cashier so I end up doing a lot of stocking since Walmarts are actually empty at 2:00 AM haha. I kept walking by the Black Pearl in toys and I finally gave in today and bought it. Some thoughts from a guy who is pretty much a newbie to the world of adults collecting legos:

The hull is nice and attractive though I wish it were deeper so I had room to build up. When I was a kid, I remember having the Caribbean Cutter (? I think? I was googling stuff earlier and I think that is the name of the one I had...) and the hull was really deep so you could build up in it, it was great. Anyway...the gun ports are cool but why do I only get two canons? I was also expecting an upper deck (I saw where some people here were talking about building their own, sounds like a good idea!)

I actually like the Captain's room. To be honest, I didn't expect anything was going in there, so to me it was cool to have the table, map, etc. inside. I also like how the part with the wheel is removable. That's probably standard in newer sets but there wasn't anything like that when I was a kid that I remember so it seemed neat to me.

Sails look good imo, don't mind the lack of detail...I like it simple. The torches on the back offset the black nicely. Mixed on the figs. I guess I understand why they put that assortment of characters in but when I buy more sets (oh yeah, I'm buying more. Thanks Walmart for sucking me down this rabbit hole >.<) I will probably redo my ship and set it up like in the first movie w/Barbossa and such.

One thing that I thought was a positive is that it is pretty easy to build, despite its size. There isn't really anything tricky so it seems like a good set for builders looking to move on to something more complicated. I actually found it pretty relaxing to throw together after getting off work. Should have popped in one of the movies while I was working on it though.

I wish the crow's nest was higher. Maybe my one serious complaint over the lack of an upper deck. I put Legolas up there because no one likes him and he's just hidden behind the sails with how I have the ship set up.

Also, I was putting studs on the bottom of the bottles (they're supposed to be rum bottles, right?) I thought it looked better that way than just the bottle by itself with no base. Unfortunately, I ran out of studs because I also bought Captain's Cabin and that comes with two nice bottles just begging for bases heh

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I don't know, I'm still on the fence about this...still, can one actually regret buying LEGO? I'll have to see if it's around next time I check the sales.

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I don't know, I'm still on the fence about this...still, can one actually regret buying LEGO? I'll have to see if it's around next time I check the sales.

You won't regret it. Despite the relatively small piece count for the price, the final build looks great. After I turn the lights off at night I can see the silhouette of the ship in the moonlight, and it's still recognisably the Black Pearl - a hallmark of good design IMO.

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It depends on the store, but for the most part the Pirates sets were put on clearance. This means that when they're gone, they're gone. High traffic stores like mine sold out of this stuff a week or so ago. If you know of a lower traffic or more rural store, you might still get lucky and find them. I bought Black Pearl and Captain's Cabin on a Thursday morning and they still had a few other sets. When I got back to work Thursday night, they had sold out of everything but the Pearl and the Captain's Cabin =( Toys, esp. legos, go fast when they are on clearance unfortunately.

You might also try Target or K-Mart if any are in your area. Since the Pirate stuff is old news now, a lot of the big stores are trying to get rid of them. I know that my local Lego store isn't even carrying them anymore.

edit: you can order online and Walmart does free site-to-store shipping (so you can pick it up at your local store) but then it's not on clearance...

Edited by Algus

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Is this still available for sale at Wal Mart?

Depends on the store, mine still has them, but they are also still full price.

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I think it's worth a little less than $100, but there are worse sets and ships. i really like the Queen Anne's Revenge, this is a relatively small ship. The anchor sucks though. I would like to see bigger and more well-designed PoTC ships in later sets. I think this set is OK.

Edited by Lightning Dragon

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