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With Lego Friends apparently the most controversial things Lego have produced in recent years, I thought I would have a look at one of the sets, and post a short review, along with my thoughts on the theme.
The set I chose was 3933, which is a small laboratory/workshop. I picked this set because it promotes women in science/engineering, which I feel is a positive thing, and because it was relatively inexpensive, being one of the smaller sets in the series (price in Ireland, €€11.99).
The most noticeable feature of this set and the theme in general is the figure, or "mini-doll". Each one has a name, and in this set we have "Olivia".
Having collected "minifigs" since they were first launched in 1978, she is a fairly radical departure (though by no means Lego's first deviation from standard minifigs). However, unlike most of the non-minifig lines, she is to roughly the same scale. She is very slightly taller than a minifig, but a lot skinnier. Her body is just a little wider than a 1x1 Lego brick, and a bit thinner than one from front to back (by comparison, a standard minifig being the width and depth of a 1x2 brick. The overall shape reminds me a little of the CB Doctor Who figures, though the similarity is fairly superficial. I snapped a photo of the three figures together for comparison. I do think that minifigs and mini-dolls fit reasonably well together (though she does make the Harry look a little obese), and with a bit of imagination playing with both types of figures together shouldn't be a problem.
Lego Friends by LostCarPark, on Flickr
The body and legs come as two pieces, packed in separate bags (probably meaning they come from different factories). The torso pushes onto the legs over a flattish tab that is completely new to Lego, and I haven't worked out any way of combining this with other elements. I was also surprised that the legs couldn't move independently, so the figure can stand or sit, but walking poses aren't possible. The head is similar in size to a minifig head, but more shaped, and the neck is much thinner (the same width as the handles of accessories, so you can stick a mini-doll head on the end of a light-sabre blade, if you feel so inclined). However, the top of the head has the same profile as a minifig head, so hair and hats are interchangeable, as can be seen in the photos below.
The arms are also noteworthy. They are super-skinny (too thin for other minifigs to hold on to), but have standard minifig hands on the end. This means that they can hold all the minifig accessories, and you can push a standard 1x1 Lego brick on top of the hand. This means that all the cool new Lego Friends accessories are also available for minifigs. One slight reservation is that the hands can't turn as standard minifig hands do, so the angle accessories can be held at is much more limited, so she can hold a guitar, but not play it.
I'll also say a few words about the printing. The upper body is actually made of flesh coloured plastic, with the orange top painted on and a printed heart pattern. This means that the head and neck colours match perfectly. Unfortunately the legs are green plastic, with the feet and sandals painted, and there is a distinct colour difference between the flesh tones on the feet and the rest of the figure. The face has quite detailed printing with the whites of the eyes included (something minifigs normally don't have), and brown pupils.
So enough about the mini-doll, lets have a look at the set. The lab is made up of a number of distinct elements, so I'll say a few words about each of them.
First is the blackboard. It's a pretty easy build of bricks, plates and slopes, with a brick with studs on the side to hold the large tile of the blackboard. Unusually this is a printed part - there are no stickers in this set. Most people would consider this a good thing, and hope we'll se more of it in the future. I found that when built as the instructions show, Olivia can only reach half-way up the board, and I think that it looks better with the board lowered by one stud, as I've shown in the next photo.
Next we have some shelves of chemicals. This is a straightforward build. One very small criticism is that the set contains 1x1 round plates in both light and dark grey, and it's a little hard to tell which should be used for the lids of the jars in the instructions (it's the light grey ones). This ambiguity is a little frustrating since Lego have at last sorted the problem of black parts and dark grey being ambiguous (the black ones are now printed with a white outline).
The third section of the lab is my personal favourite, a microscope. Although simple, I think it's an ingenious build using a set of binoculars. The flask of some green goo is a nice part I haven't seen before, and I'm curious about the manufacturing process since the green seems to be completely surrounded by clear plastic.
The last part of the lab is a workbench with a set of funky purple tools and some pink drawers. I really like the vice on the end of the desk.
The other highlight of the set is a little robot. It's not clear whether this is Olivia's assistant or a project she's working on. Again it's not a complicated build, but it's a clever use of a small set of parts. The white, grey and orange colours seem to be based on the NXT robotics series, so is this an example of product placement in a Lego set? It's the first time I've got my hands on the new 1x1 round tile, which is a nice new part.
Putting them all together, it's a nice little lab, though putting so many elements in a small set means none of the building is very challenging. That said, all of the elements have a reasonable amount of building, and there's certainly no less building than a similar sized set from any other theme.
The one thing that I felt was obviously missing from the lab was any sort of computer. It would have been a nice opportunity to resurrect the laptop from the Agents sets a couple of years ago.
So what do I think of the set, and the Lego Friends theme in general? Well, I think the set does what it sets out to do very well. There are interesting aspects to all of the mini-builds. I think it might have been better to pick one of those elements and do a larger build than to have so many tiny builds. The other possibility would have been to make this into a full laboratory set at a higher price point.
Should Lego produce a theme aimed at girls? Well, they already produce lots that are aimed at boys. While I would be happier if all Lego was just Lego, and not targeted at boys or girls, I have to accept that there are all kinds of social pressures telling young people what toys are gender appropriate. I think this theme will attract girls to the world of Lego and building, when they might otherwise choose a toy with very limited creativity and "traditional" gender roles.
Edited by Pandora, 20 December 2012 - 10:35 PM.
Indexed
Could you show us a picture of Hermione with Olivia's hair? It seems to me that it would look much better than the Castle Princess hair.
Ha! Good point!
After some initial uncertainty, i'm liking them more and more, and i'll def be getting this one. I am a bit sad about the limited posability of the dollfigs though. 
to me...
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