REVIEW: 7052 UFO Abduction

[Dunjohn]

For anyone who hasn't seen that sci-fi "classic," Plan 9 from Outer Space, the plan was as stupid as possible: Raise the dead of earth and let humanity destroy itself in terror. The aliens of Lego seem to think along similar lines. Kidnap the farmers, and Lego humanity will starve. It's flawless.

Since the Tripod review I made yesterday turned out to be a repeat, I may as well review this other set I got, even though I know Final Exit's already looked at it.

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Set Name: UFO Abduction

Set Number: 7052

Theme: Alien Conquest

Year Released: 2011

Number of Pieces: 211

Minifigures: 3

Price: €29.99 on release

Lego.com

Bricklink

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

The box keeps the text to the bare minimum and again colours everything in those eerie green hues. This is the only set that's not located inside the city so it does stand out a bit from the others. The cow-abductions road sign is slightly more logical out here, though it would have been even better in actual pasture farmland rather than these rolling wheatfields.

There's a crop circle behind the sign. It took me a few passes to realise it's the Alien symbol.

The back image is almost identical. The ship's tractor beam seems to be capable of pulling up people and text.

Inside, we find two numbered bags, a loose glass dome, the DSS and the manual, which has the same image as the box front. There are one or two sub-bags inside the big ones.

The manual has a nice, clear yellow-green background and includes a whole four pages telling you how not to kill yourself and your family with the light brick.

The sticker sheet isn't massive, and I won't be applying them to the model. The two lime ones go alongside the canopy. One of the curved stickers has a black-and-white badge that reads "AREA 51."

THE PARTS

I wonder what those numbers on the bags meant... ah, whatever. Here's what they contained. Like the other Alien ships it's mainly grays with a smattering of purple and lime green. Aside from the light brick, there's nothing particularly amazing but it's all good. I didn't realise that the glass dome is new until Aanchir pointed it out; it looks the same as some existing domes but is eight studs wide, rather than six.

I already have a few of those spike things already, thanks to Exo-Force. The lighter part is rubber, the dark is regular plastic. The joint is seamless and perfectly solid, but I haven't really found a neat use for them. This set beat me to it. The fifteen purple studs and four purple car... things... are also welcome.

Here are all the transparent elements, including that light brick that's responsible for so much deforestation in Denmark. The trans green that irritated me in the Tripod set is thankfully absent. The blue pads are used on the saucer's underside. There are actually three of the long antennae in the set, but one had rolled off the table and I didn't find it until later. It's actually spare, which is odd, and it puzzled me when I found it because I didn't know where it had come from. I've since got the Mothership set and it also has a spare one so it must be from this set....

The alien is different from the Tripod guy, too, with a smaller mouth and portruding eyes. I prefer the other guy. This guy looks a bit odd from the side, his face sticks out too far for my liking. His uniform is different, too, and I like it just as much as the other one. I really wish they'd extended the magenta colour scheme to the ships; it's a rare colour in Lego, and is only found in girly sets like Bellville and the pink bucket, but it would plainly have worked very well here.

Probably my second-favourite Series 1 minifigure, after the Zombie, was the Spaceman because of his excellent new helmet. I amassed a little army of them so I'm delighted to see it reused in this theme. I love the shade of blue used, I hope it makes it into regular parts soon. This man's head is double-sided, but it's rather a challenge to spot the differences. The hand gun is quite cool, but rather large, I think.

And finally, the farmer. He only has one expression, which is locked into permanent terror - he must have witnessed what happened to his cows. The front of his outfit has several random bits of wheat stuck into it, while the back has a black wheat badge on it. All in all, quite nice, though the wheat does restrict it to rural use. The pitchfork is neat but I don't own any farm sets so I don't have much use for it.

THE BUILD

Construction begins with the ADU road block, which is obviously very simplistic. The fence parts are supposed to have stickers on them. Anybody else think the missile launcher looks like a blue penguin?

Building moves quickly onto the UFO and starts with the biggest sections.

Bulk out the hull, add some tasteful, post-modern spikes....

I said add spikes! MORE SPIKES!!!

And blinking lights! If we're going to invade this planet we need to bling ourselves up a bit!

The tractor beam hole is covered up and the cockpit is assembled. It has a bit more detail than the Tripod's, but it's still rather sparse.

Here's the light brick kajigger. Once it's installed in the cockpit, pushing the green knob forward will switch the light on. You need to hold the knob forward. The clip on the lightbrick is just used to hold the pilot's laser gun.

Finish off the cockpit canopy and antennae and the ship is complete.

Looks pretty good. The light switch is a form of functional greebling that makes the whole thing look nicely technical and sci-fi.

Even with the light, the cockpit is spaceous enough. Those lime green jumpers are just there for detail, they're not used for anything.

This blurry shot is the result of me not owning a camera tripod, and is approximately the sixteenth take, but it should show how things look when the light is on. It looks rather nifty, both on the ground and inside the cockpit.

The spikes have very good grip, and pick up and hold the poor farmer easily. He'll block out most of the light, of course.

So that's the complete set!

It reminds me a lot of this older set I reviewed some time ago, with the dual-layer saucer and angled yellow antennae.

IN CONCLUSION:

The ADU stuff is a bit token and pointless, but the saucer itself is nifty, particularly the clever tractor beam stuff. Aside from that, there's not a huge amount of play features included, so it's really just a light brick and something to use it in. Still, you can hardly have a pulp sci-fi theme without a bunch of midsize flying saucers and this ship's compact, chunky look does nicely.

Design: 8/10: It's clearly been built around a vertical light brick, and incorporating the brick into the cockpit is an efficient use of space which keeps the saucer's height down. Aside from that there are no real play features on the saucer, but the tractor beam is very substantial and it's swooshable enough. The ADU stuff is obviously an afterthought.

Parts: 8/10: Nothing amazing beyond the light brick, and I suppose the saucer sections. Purple's a nice colour to get but the parts it's used in here aren't really that exploitable. The minifigures, on the other hand, are fantastic. That seems to be a definite "thing" about the Alien Conquest theme.

Build: 9/10: Nothing too complicated but at the same time nothing too repetitive.

Playability: 9/10: The set has huge swooshability and the light brick plus grippers easily make up for the fact that they're all there is here.

Price: 7/10: This was a €30 set but, physically, it seems about the same size as the €22 Tripod. Heavier, chunkier, with more bricks and the light-up one, that all adds up but it still seems like it doesn't make up the difference.

Total: 89%: It's a nice little set, it has no real flaws, and while the tractor beam is nicely implemented, there's nothing particularly revolutionary or memorable here.

Thanks for reading!

Roadblocks and UFOs

- Dunjohn

Edited May 29, 2011 by Dunjohn

[Lordofdragonss]

ANother great review from your hand! And thanks Studgod you are not like ADU soldier and you do not sucks! More reviews please!

Edited May 25, 2011 by Lordofdragonss

[Spacefan]

Certainly the first true LEGO flying saucer released in a while, and with more versatile parts than the UFO theme one. For those who don't have much display area (such as myself) or enough money left for the Mothership, this is a nice smaller option.

Edited May 25, 2011 by Spacefan

[prateek]

Another great review. I like this set, and the function is great. Only if this was $5 less, then it would be 5/5. The theme as a whole, I think, needs to focus more on the ADU. We only get 2 sets that focus on the ADU side of things (with the smaller jeep set not really "focusing").

[XimenaPaulina]

Thanks for another very well done review Dunjohn! I really like a lot of elements this set has to offer, from the interesting large quarter circle pieces to the nicely-detailed printing of the farmer victim, the parts are quite useful for MOCing. An above average rating for me!

[Churchill]

I wasn't quite sure about the way that light brick effect was going to work, but your photo makes it look actually pretty cool. Every time I see this farmer, it reminds me of the farmer from Men in Black.

Thanks for the review, Dunjohn!

[Algernon]

Top-quality review! I think this is one of my favorite sets from the AC line. That tractor beam effect is just awesome. I agree with you about the alien though - he's not quite right.

Another very entertaining review, thank you! Any chance you'll be doing the Jet-copter?

[Dunjohn]

The ADU side of things doesn't interest me as much as the aliens, but I'll probably end up getting the whole theme.

[Miss Kyle]

Thanks for the review! I took a look at it the other day and now I want it even more. I especially love how comical it is with the tracking beam and the farmer - with a pitchfork!!

[Such]

Great review

I'm not convinced if I'm going to buy any of this theme yet. I'd love to see some more actually "conquesting" like a city in ruins set or something

[pedro]

Nice review Dunjohn. I really like this new theme and this set looks like a great addition to the lineup. The saucer is really cool, very classic design (I also like that nod to the old UFO set) and the light effect looks awesome! Like you say, the ADU presence is token, but it's nice to have a minifg from each faction. The farmer is great too, superb printing on his torso and legs.

Now all the ADU need is the Jet-Copter to intercept and shoot this bird out of the skies! Reminds me so much of UFO: Enemy Unknown on my Amiga... happy days!

Thanks for sharing this with us.

[sharky]

Great review. I have this set as well and chose to get it first before the Tri-pod Invader mostly because of the light feature. I like the very front piece as it looks like the grill from a classic car which I assume it's originally from a set with an old car like that.

I was pleased with how well the rubber tips work to abduct the farmer. All you have to do is hover down on top of him and he sticks right in there.

My only very minor nit pick would be that I would have preferred the hinge for the canopy to be in the back and not the front, but I can see why they did it that way.

[Aanchir]

The blue color of the ADU uniforms will be making its first appearance in regular parts in the Spongebob Squarepants set 3815, unless another set with this color surprises us by appearing sooner.

Anyway, great (and humorous) review! Great detail as well! I agree that using 124 Bright Reddish Violet (Magenta) instead of 268 Medium Lilac (Dark Purple) for the ships could have been cool, although I'm happy with the color scheme as it is. On some of the sets, Bright Reddish Violet might have been somewhat garish anyway.

I'm kind of surprised that you didn't mention the new windscreen in this review, since it's notably different than either the 6x6 one in the tripod or the 8x8 one in LEGO Agents (which had a taller, egg-shaped curve rather than a spherical curve like this one). In fact, an image showing off new and interesting parts could have benefited this review greatly, since that seems to be the one thing it's missing. Still, always happy to get such a detailed look at the new sets!

[Dunjohn]

Fixed the windshield oversight!

[Vindicare]

I like this set a lot. I have quite a few light bricks, but this is my first red one. I really like the abduction feature of it. My purple stock has risen greatly thanks to this theme. I really like the ADU blue, too. I wonder why this is the only alien craft Lego decided to give a ray gun holder?

Edited May 30, 2011 by Legocrazy81

[Parrothead Rasmus]

This set looks like fun. Thanks for the review.

The abduction thing is really impressive, and will make this a total buy for me.

[Ogre]

I dislike the fact that there seems to be more to this ship than to the 'Mothership' but, that's a failing of the 'Mothership' set, not this one.

Nice review.

[Athos]

The pitchfork is neat but I don't own any farm sets so I don't have much use for it.

That's practically heresy to all the castle people who have been waiting 20 years for a second chance at a pitchfork...

Steve

[hanzocloud]

i bought this set today from impulse due to its ability to shine a light down to abduct people. would look great for a display along with a town or village set. showing a UFO abduction scene hehe