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Exetrius

REVIEW: 70736 Attack of the Morro Dragon

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Hi everyone,

I'm glad to post my first review here on Eurobricks: Attack of the Morro Dragon from the Ninjago ghost wave. I picked this set up at LEGO World Utrecht 2015 for a good price (52 euros), along with some other cool stuff, so I thought that I might as well review it. Christmas is approaching and therefore the best time of the year to get some fine Lego offers. So, for those of you who have waited patiently, this review may be helpful. :wink:

So, let's get started! :classic:

Name: 70736 Attack of the Morro Dragon

Theme: LEGO Ninjago

Piece count: 658

Minifigs: 6

Year released: 2015

Retail price: USA $69.99 UK £59.99 GER €69.99

Front of the box

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Back of the box

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Minifigs displayed on the side

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The box has fairly odd and impractical dimensions. It's thin and very broad. My experiments found that it is especially impractical when trying to transport it in narrow places such as the aisles of a train, the bus or your ordinary bicycle bag. :laugh:

Contents of the box

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In the box we find 5 numbered bags, one instruction booklet plus sticker sheet and fabric wings, nicely backed with cardboard. No real surprises there.

Instructions

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Random page

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Sticker sheet

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Nice stickers, beautiful, I love them... and I won't apply them! :tongue::laugh:

Content of the bags

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A striking amount of pieces in the colour Spring Yellowish Green. Before the release of this set (and the rest of the ghost wave), parts in this particular colour were quite rare, that changed a lot! There are also very little pieces in colours that are off the main colour scheme, which is nice.

Pieces of interest

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Again, lots of (existing) parts in Spring Yellowish Green, exclusive wing fabric, Trans Neon Yellow chain piece, Trans Black aeroblade piece, recoloured Elemental Blade, glow in the dark 1x1 stud and cone, and one of the most peculiar ones...... is not in this picture! :wall: The black Formula 1 nose. Anyway, some pretty cool stuff.

The ninja

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From the good guy side we get Kai and Jay. I like their so-called Deepstone armor variant, especially Jay's. Great designs that are also both useful outside the Ninjago universe. The new (upon release) hoods and black shoulder pads look slick. One complaint: still the same serious/angry expressions that have been used since 2011. C'mon....

The ghosts

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Even now the excitement of newness has worn of, the ghost figs remain spectacular. Upon release, these introduced a lot of new things: A dual-coloured ghost leg piece, transparent legs in Tr. Neon Yell., and two different hoods. One of which is partly transparent to back-light the transparent ghost head. Neat effect! The torso/leg prints don't interest me too much, but overall these minifigs are one of the better Ninjago baddies. A downside, however, of the bizarre colour scheme is that it is hard to use the parts in a different context.

Oh, right, they have names: in the middle is Yokai, right (with the straw hat) is Cowler, left (with the leg piece) is Chain Master Wryath. Oh, and two Skreemers are also included.

These were all fine, but now it's time for the real star of the show! :classic:

Evil Green Ninja

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Yup, that is really how they call him! The set is called the Attack of the Morro Dragon, and the person who is most clearly portrayed as it's rider and master is called.... Evil Green Ninja :def_shrug: Anyway, it is Lloyd who is possessed by Morro, so basically Morro. This is first-class nitpicking, because this was the only bad thing I had to say about him. :laugh: Oh my.... he looks just darn awesome! :wub: The two head and torso gear pieces show no less then four different 'cloth' layers, on top of the detailed printing! I really love the detailed printing on his torso and legs, and these will be useful in a different context! This is a top-notch fig!

Some info for purist minifig customizers: the Morro Evil green ninja hood fits over several torso gear pieces, including samurai armor, knights armor and a life guard suit. Not over ninja shoulder pads and stone army shoulder piece, sadly.

I don't have any pictures of the building process, unfortunately. Bag 1 builds the shrine and a hover board, bag 2 is partly for other hover board and all the rest is for the Morro Dragon, which was a great build. Let's check that out!

Morro Dragon in flight

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Just look at how majestic this beast of a dragon is! I didn't expect it to come out as good as the Master Wu Dragon, but I was wrong... it came out even better! The box art really doesn't show this monster from it's best angles, I hope I did better. How does it compare to it's counterpart in this wave, the Master Wu Dragon?

Size comparison

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As you can see, it's HUGE, has a superb colour scheme, a very menacing look. And it swooshes around nicely, thanks to a cleverly integrated hole for your finger. The simulated kind of waving motion that runs from head to tail is one of my favorite design elements of this build. It feels like a very authentic Japanese ghost dragon, but with wings added, which is fine. I think this a fantastic display piece, but what about articulation?

Flight attack pose

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Passes the test. That was just the warm-up, though...

Will it succeed...

in doing...

an upright standing pose???

Look Morro! No hands! :dhappy:

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It frickn' does it! :grin: Honestly, I didn't expect it to do so. It is in fact a little tough to pull off, given that the center of gravity lies nowhere near it's hips and the tail is not much of a counterweight. I really like this pose. Conclusion: it poses well.

There are a few articulation flaws, however. The wings for example can't reach a 100% horizontal pose (let alone angling them further down) due to the front legs under them getting in the way. Furthermore, the head can't be moved sideways and up-movement is very limited. Overall, I think the motion is decent.

The whole set

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My apologies for not having separate pictures for the sidekick builds. The two hover boards have a cool design and are fun to play around with.

I do have some complaints about the shrine. Though structures in Ninjago sets generally don't make sense compared to their appearance in the show, but this one is really odd. It's colour scheme is in accordance with neither the show, nor the other structures in the Ninjago ghost wave, at all. I don't like the bright red plus black against the white. However, I admit that it came out better than expected, as I thought it would look ugly from all angles. But, with the two walls set up in front of the shrine, like a gate, it makes sense to me and looks.. eh... decent. A good thing: the shrine has some good parts, like the many masonry bricks.

Spare parts

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Always nice to get spare blades!

Verdict

I think the Morro Dragon is fantastic, maybe even the biggest and best brick-built dragon to-date. Menacing, huge and great poses. Nice figs too, especially Morro Evil Green Ninja, who is superb and was a major draw to buy this set. Little hover boards are fun and the shrine turned out OK. I don't think that I would have bought it, even with my new view on the set, if I had to pay the original price, it's on the high end for me (I try to avoid buying expensive sets for display only).

Taken everything into account, I'd rate this set 8/10 :classic:

I hope it has been helpful. I already know that the quality of my photo's leaves a lot to improve. (I should have either a better camera or better lighting for this, preferably both :laugh:) Other than that: please share some tips or tops about this review, again, it's only my first!

Thanks for reading and have a good day! :classic:

Edited by Exetrius

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Nice to see you're using my trivia in there :sweet: .

The pictures were great. I don't know why you even need to get a different camera.

The box could be thin because the dragon itself is thin, even in the TV show. I believe it is supposed to be a Chinese dragon, which is why it's so curvy like Wu's

(of course Wu's is a Chinese dragon. His own name is WU!) So, expert trolling from Lego right there.

I like how you made one Skreemer hold another's sausage to give the effect of flight. Had me scratching my head for a second.

The only thing I actually don't like is how a lot of this stuff isn't incorporated into the show. The hoverpacks would unfold like Kai's mech, and Morro would have looked SICK if he pulled out THAT beast of a "weapon" instead of those two wimpy ghost blades.

Those ghost katanas on the other hand, are cool (not the blades, the katanas). As well as those transparent chains. I'd buy this.

So yeah, pretty nice review. Especially if it's your first. They can only go up from here.

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Thanks for your elaborate comment!

I actually don't know what trivia you're talking about, please forgive me!

I did some research on the web (i.e. here: http://www.ehow.com/facts_7176737_difference-between-japanese-chinese-dragons.html) and it seems that there is no significant difference in curviness of Japanese and Chinese dragons. Judging from the number of toes, the shape of the head and it's behaviour (makevolent), I'd say it's a Japanese dragon. I had some fun finding this out, so thanks! :classic:

Ah, the effect with the sausage, I thought it was kinda cool :grin:

I too wish that the dragons in the show were summoned in a cooler way.

Edited by Exetrius

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I thought that Chinese dragons were more often drawn with bumps, while Japanese dragons were more often drawn with swirls. They couldn't be all the same, right?

What would be the difference then? The Morro dragon has two toes, so..? The ninja's dragons have three toes.

Wu's dragon can also be made into a monkey, and probably more zodiac animals, I don't know if Lego did that on purpose.

In the Chinese class I took, we had an entire lesson on dragons. There was this one distinguishing detail. Japanese dragons are destructive monsters while Chinese ones are the opposite. Wu's looks quite friendly, and has that goofy look I see a lot of the time when I see those paintings. The ninja's dragons were very menacing and destructive before they were tamed. And the concept art for them was in swirls.

By "trivia" I was talking about how Morro wears multiple layers of clothing as seen on his hood. He first pulls up the green bandana, then the black hood. The green part could be attached to his clothing, I can't tell. And the dark hood he pulls over is attached to the black thing he has on his back and shoulders. I included this info in this one topic I made. Lego paid very good attention to detail.

So, what do you think about the box? I would actually be pretty funny if that's why Lego made it. Those guys have a pretty good troll record anyway

I too wish that the dragons in the show were summoned in a cooler way.

?

I didn't say that. I meant that Morro should have used the black skeleton branch weapon thing he has in the set more often in the show. It would make him look way cooler than he already was.

Edited by gamejutzu

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I'm not much of a fan of Ninjago and was never really impressed with the sets at all. That said, Attack of the Morro Dragon is absolutely fantastic and many of the sets in the "ghost wave" have really appealed to me.

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