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Sets that beat or didn’t live up to your expectations

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Not necessarily your favorites or least favorites, but what sets surprised you by how good or meh they ended up being?  Here’s my list:

Better than expected:

1. 20th anniversary Slave I - I expected this to be pretty straightforward, but it’s so much more than that and such a great build.  Interesting and accurate shaping.  Incorporating the technic handle for swooshability is brilliant for a ship with such a unique shape.

2. Steamboat Willie - I came in to this with low expectations because so many people reacted that this set wasn’t a good value.  But I love it.  The use of technic to make the wheels spin and smokestacks bounce makes for an intricate build.  The black and white color scheme has exactly the desired nostalgic effect.  Might get my award for most underrated set.

3. Saturn V - it’s hard to beat expectations when all I had heard about this one were great reviews, but it beat them.  Just a fantastic build and beautiful final model.  Deserving of every bit of the hype.

4. Charles Dickens tribute - for a small GWP set, this one is just great. The details are beautiful and the scene feels perfectly Christmasy.  

 

Not as good as expected:

1. Disney Castle - I really wanted to love this one, but it just didn’t do much for me.  I had built Hogwarts Castle before Disney Castle which didn’t help because Hogwarts is so much better imo.  And while the final display is impressive, I looked at it a few times and was ready to disassemble.

2. London Bus - I really like the look of this one but the build just isn’t that interesting compared to some of the other creator expert cars.

3. Millennium Falcon (2019) - this is the only Falcon I own, maybe other models are more satisfying but the final product is kinda flimsy and it’s awkward to play with compared to other Star Wars sets.

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It's going back a while, but the Mandalorian Battle Pack (the one with four blue Mandalorians, not the recent one). At that point Lego had a 100% hit rate with battle packs, but that was a huge disappointment. The build was so forgettable I genuinely don't remember what it was, but the figures? Ugly heads, ugly helmets and no real variety meant it fell way short of expectations. Lego never really recovered what a Battle Pack should be, imo. 

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Better than expected: Ultrakitty. So cute :3

Not as good as expected: Assembly square. Parts-wise it still is a great set, and it looks really good too. But the building-experience was tedious. Lots of repetition, and I like to finish a model in one go, not over multiple days.

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Better than expected: The LEGO Ninjago Movie Destiny's Bounty. This set was one I was really impressed with based on promotional images, and after four years, it has become probably my favorite set of all time.

Didn't live up to expectations: 75244 Tantive IV. The Tantive IV is one of my favorite Star Wars ships and I was eagerly following the news leading up to the sets release, and... it's alright. The Captain Antilles is easily one of my favorite Star Wars minifigures (that and the Rebel Fleet Troopers). The overall build looks pretty good, but there's something off about it, and after two years I still can't put my finger on it.

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Saturn V really exceeded my expectations. I had read various reviews and I was already pretty hyped about it, but what I expected was mostly a pretty rocket with not-that-interesting building experience. The final model of course looks great and is one of my favourite sets but the building experience blew me away, it was so great I was almost sad when it was finished. With all those neat techniques laid inside it's a shame that they are hidden from view. This one I also missed when it was initially released and some six months before the re-release was announced, I happened to find someone selling an unopened set nearby for 170€ and immediately scrambled to get it. Even upon the re-release I have absolutely no regrets on buying it at that price.

On the other end is the ISS set. I mean, it's faithful to the source material and all, but the building process felt mostly just connecting random bits together without much idea of what is happening and why - except the big solar panels which were just repetitive to put together. It's not a bad set, but it's a good demonstration on how some ideas just don't translate that well into a Lego set, no matter how inspiring the source material is. And I'm not faulting the set designers here, they had to work with significant constraints and I don't think there's any way it could have been made more interesting.

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I’m cheating here, because I’m talking about themes rather than individual sets but here are my picks.
 

The entire Lego Ninjago Movie line exceeded my expectations. Ninjago sets have always been really good in my opinion, but the Movie line took the theme to the next level. All of the mechs, vehicles, and playsets were stellar, and we got plenty of great minifigures from that line. None of the sets felt overpriced and I felt like I got a good value out of each of them. Some specific sets that stand out to me were the Fire Mech (I believe that was the first set we saw from the theme), the Temple of the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon, Ninjago City Chase, and my two favorite sets: the Destiny’s Bounty and Ninjago City. To this day, I still believe that TLNM theme is the greatest line of sets Lego has ever produced. 
 

Conversely, the following Lego Movie (The Second Part) somewhat disappointed me in retrospect. I enjoyed the movie itself, though that enjoyment has waned a little bit, but the sets have lost their luster for me. Outside of a few cool sets, Apocalypseburg, and the amazing Minifigures series, the rest of the line isn’t as appealing to me and doesn’t stand up to the previous Lego Movie lineups. Most of the sets don’t feel like they have as good of a value or offer as diverse of selections as the original Lego Movie or the Ninjago one.

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For me it probably was Batmobile: Pursuit of The Joker. Now, don't get me wrong, it's a nice set and a fine display piece, designer really put much work into it. But to me it's a display piece and nothing else. Its length doesn't fit in any play scene and while the features are cool, it still doesn't work for me. Minifigures were good at the time it was released, but now neither of them are exclusive and look a bit cheap. Maybe I was expecting something more from this set, although it did remind me a bit of those classic Lego Batmobiles, most essentially UCS Batmobile, ever since this one is a minifig scale Batmobile.

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Better than expected: Benny’s Space Squad. Initially, we only knew the number of parts and $ price, but not the contents. When the actual set was revealed, I did a happy dance around the room! For someone as phlegmatic as me, that’s really saying something.
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Worse than expected: the entire Elves line. There was a rumour that it might be the hinted-at continuance of Fantasy Era with an Elf sub-theme. I was gutted when it turned out not to be. That’s not a reflection on the Elves line per se. It just wasn’t what I and lots of AFOLs were hoping it would be.

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Exceeded: Going back a few years, but the U-Wing from Rogue One is absolutely fantastic, there's very little that I would change on that thing and it needs a remake for sure.  I know that it's technically a bit too tall for how narrow it is, but for an $80 set, I can't complain too much.  I basically just grabbed it near the end of it's shelf life because I wanted to get some RO figures (loved the movie but for some reason that's the only non-constraction set from the film that I own), but the set itself is so cool to me.  The crew compartment is perfect, there's a good amount of play features, and it's a really good size - you can pick it up and swoosh it around in one hand but it's large enough to be very detailed.

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Exceeded:

60026: town square. Everything is so extremely detailed, beyond the expectations of a city set, and it seems much more cohesive than its successor, 60097, which itself was a brilliant set too.

75269: duel on mustafar. I'll admit that I didn't have high expectations for this set, and the packaging seems to do all it can to get you not to but the set, but the figures are really good, the functions work well and the 'lava' parts look way better in real life. Its not teh best set ever by a longshot, but it was better than expected.

75156: Krennic's imperial shuttle. It completed by collection of the main Rogue One figures. I already had the U-Wing, which at the time I though was probably the best SW set to date I owned, but the shuttle was great. It didn't have a great interior, but it looked perfect on the outside and the figures were great too.

 

 

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Better Than Expected:

76125: Iron Man Hall of Armor.  I bought this set because I could get it on discount and it had a lot of pieces that would be useful for space station MOCs.  I ended up really liking the details on the minifigure prints, and a lot of the small stuff like Tony Stark's computer workstation, Dum-E droid, and jetpack.  

 

Not as good as expected:

6932: Stardefender 200.  This was one of the few larger sets I owned as a child.  I remember thinking that it looked super cool from the photo on the box.  However, after assembling the ship, a few things irritated me.  The central section didn't have a whole lot of usable volume despite the giant canopy, and I was annoyed that there were only two 1x1 tiles for the computer controls.  It seemed to be a low amount of computers for a larger space ship.  I disassembled the ship pretty quickly to use in MOCs.  Although I didn't end up liking the ship as much as I hoped, the collection of pieces was great for building other stuff. 

Edited by hagridshut

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As a theme, I will go for Elves as better than expected. There were some fantastic fantasy sets, a decent core of minifigures that were not ruined by specific "branding" so could also be used as army builders and some good adversaries. But the sets were great too, really beautiful. There were still a couple of things that let it down. I think it would have been better to have had two male and two female lead elves. It was often seen as a girls' theme but a small change might have helped there. The colours were quite different to most other fantasy themes (in that they were colourful!) but were still dark enough to be not necessarily overly girly / pink (however you want to put it). I'm glad I have a daughter, as otherwise they would probably have passed me by.

And as a set, Saturn V for me is also better than expected. It is one I knew was a great display model. But the build itself is also very enjoyable and lots of surprising techniques.

 

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2. London Bus - I really like the look of this one but the build just isn’t that interesting compared to some of the other creator expert cars.

3. Millennium Falcon (2019) - this is the only Falcon I own, maybe other models are more satisfying but the final product is kinda flimsy and it’s awkward to play with compared to other Star Wars sets.

 
The Falcon is indeed flimsy and impossible to really play with. It's large and heavy on top of not being sturdy. The London bus is a bit basic in its construction but pretty sturdy. The Land Rover Defender is for the most part an excellent set.

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Fun topic! The set that surprised me that first popped into my head was 76078 Hulk vs. Red Hulk.  I enjoyed the vehicles way more than I thought I would given the pictures of them. 

The Overwatch theme surprised me as well. I wasn’t familiar with the game but I love the sets. The minifgs are fantastic & the builds are enjoyable(the mechs are brilliant). 

Not sure on the negative side of this question...I’ll get back to you. 

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The skull sorcerers dragon was a set that was better than my expectations.  The dragon is just so impressive and I think is the best brick built dragon lego has made.  I also have firstborn and the skull sorcerers dragon just looks better and more menacing. 

I also just recently got flower fruit mountain and the blacksmith shop and both of those are great builds and display pieces with some great techniques.  

Sets that underwhelmed me were some of the Chima sets felt clunky along with a few of the Nexo knights sets. The builds were what I had problems with, the figs in both lines were great in my opinion.  

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On 3/8/2021 at 6:58 PM, Kit Figsto said:

Exceeded: Going back a few years, but the U-Wing from Rogue One is absolutely fantastic, there's very little that I would change on that thing and it needs a remake for sure.  I know that it's technically a bit too tall for how narrow it is, but for an $80 set, I can't complain too much.  I basically just grabbed it near the end of it's shelf life because I wanted to get some RO figures (loved the movie but for some reason that's the only non-constraction set from the film that I own), but the set itself is so cool to me.  The crew compartment is perfect, there's a good amount of play features, and it's a really good size - you can pick it up and swoosh it around in one hand but it's large enough to be very detailed.

The U-Wing is a great set. 

I am usually not a fan of LEGO Star Wars because I feel the franchise has taken a lot of shelf space from other SciFi themes, but the U-Wing's design is unique and majestic.  It looks like flying Superman with the wings forward (which was the intent of the movie designers), and like a soaring huge bird with the wings swept back.  The almost unbelievable difference in looks between the 2 wing configurations ensures that the U-Wing is always an interesting display piece.  

LEGO also did a great job with the minifigs.  

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Exceeded my expectations:

Ice planet Deep Freeze Defender

Space police 2 Galactic Mediator

Given I only got these for the first time a few months ago, I figured their builds and functions would be mediocre at best compared to the glowing vast amount of different build techniques and possibilities of modern sets. 

Well I couldn't have gotten that anymore wrong! 

The play functions were many, and intriguing, fun, simple, yet very effective. I'd easily say they match any play functions of modern sets, dare I say it, possibly exceed them too.

The build techniques? Sure, not as technical, but still very much on the fun side of building. No monotony even on duplication of sub assemblies. Sure the undersides leave a lot to be desired, but on the stud side of things, still very aesthetically pleasing to the eye, as much as any other modern set that draws my attention. 

 

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