JackJonespaw

Eurobricks Dukes
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About JackJonespaw

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    Doesn't like cherry talk
  • Birthday 07/29/1997

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    Harry Potter
  • Which LEGO set did you recently purchase or build?
    LEGO Seinfeld

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    Male
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    Sometimes Alabama, Sometimes Tennessee
  • Interests
    Historically interesting topics.

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  1. JackJonespaw

    25 Years of Adventure Cat. B Entries

    "Some adventures stick. Two decades after our first trip to the Himalayas, and I am still enamoured by these mountains. I believe there is more in these peaks than a Yeti. This house will serve as a base camp while I study the mysteries of this place." - journal of Pippin Reed Pippin Reed never left the East. An old pagoda stood abandoned. Now, it triples as a house, a base camp, and a museum of sorts. Overflowing with treasure, tools, and memories, it is the perfect spot for a journalist unable to leave the adventure behind.
  2. "Some adventures stick. Two decades after our first trip to the Himalayas, and I am still enamoured by these mountains. I believe there is more in these peaks than a Yeti. This house will serve as a base camp while I study the mysteries of this place." Pippin Reed never left the East. An old pagoda stood abandoned. Now, it triples as a house, a base camp, and a museum of sorts. Overflowing with treasure, tools, and memories, it is the perfect spot for a journalist unable to leave the adventure behind.
  3. JackJonespaw

    Eurobricks' Licensed Cozy Corners Contest - Entry Topic

    Parsleyway is a small path south of Hobbiton. Many young Hobbits spend time there in Autumn, enjoying the fine colors and excellent campsites.
  4. JackJonespaw

    [CSE] Arctic Ascender

    Arctic Ascender - Ice Planet Vx559 - Krysto is a hostile planet for humans. Temperatures range from cold to really, really cold. If you’re not inside an Ice Station, you’d better hope you’re inside a warm, toasty, flying ship. And no ship is better at getting around Krysto than the Vx559. But the crew calls it a more informal name - the Arctic Ascender. The Arctic Ascender is mainly used for surveying the landscape of Krysto. A buzzsaw runs through the center of the ship to chew through ice. A satellite dish can send a map of the nearby landscape to the Ice Station. While it’s not as agile as it’s companion, the Deep Freeze Defender, the Arctic Ascender is more comfortable, more secure, and more suited to tackle Krysto’s most extreme areas. I had a lot of fun building this one! It has some really strange angles, and it's not as stable as I would prefer, but I'm really happy with the result. This thing is a TANK, more like a military transport plane than a more nible jet like the Deep Freeze Defender. It pays to have a diverse fleet when on the freezing planet of Krpyto!
  5. JackJonespaw

    [CSE] Beryllium Buzzard

    Love the shaping of this! It's so dynamic and interesting to look at - so many nice little details.
  6. JackJonespaw

    [REVIEW] 75255 - YODA

    I never liked the look of the set, and I still don't like it. I just can't past the face. It's like it was over engineered to be poseable when it should have been kept simple. Good review though! Love those crystal clear pics!
  7. JackJonespaw

    [REVIEW] 40518 High-Speed Train

    Me too. I don't have either of them, though.
  8. - A Review - Is there anything better than a train? Before planes, before cars, when humans finally realized that horses were not the ultimate transportive machine, they put together a train. What I love about trains is the binary manner in which they operate. A train is either on the track, or useless. It’s either blasting across the country side, or as peaceful statue in a trainyard. There’s no off-roading with a train. There’s no big “train” culture, where people soup their trains up and show them off on Facebook. Trains, for the most part, are serviceable machines that only exist to move one thing to another. You can dress up a train as nicely as you want, but at the end of the day, even a subway uses people as cargo. So when LEGO gave me the opportunity to review their new High-Speed Train model, I couldn’t refuse. Because if I can’t sell you on a train, who can? @JopieK? Probably. There isn’t too much to this train, so this will be a shorter review. I know some of you readers only like my review for my glossy mid-build pictures, but I’m afraid those will have to be left off of this one. Let’s get some things straight first: SET NAME: HIGH-SPEED TRAIN SET NUMBER: 40518 PIECES: 284 PRICE: $19.99 THEME: CREATOR This is genuinely the first LEGO Creator set I’ve had since 2004’s Building Bonanza. So I don’t really know too much about the theme. Is there some kind of canon? Are these sets an anthology? You have to understand, I mainly review licensed sets. If I don’t see ™ after minifig names, I start to get nervous. The box is pretty slick. No crazy explosions on the box, just a train peacefully moving through the countryside. The back is the same image, but from a slightly different angle. I guess showing off the back of the train isn’t the sexiest framing. The whole box is wrapped in this cheerful yellow. Also, if you have two of these bad boys, you can combine them to make a sort of super train. In theory, if you have 100 of these bad boys, you can also combine them to make a sort of super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super train. These are the bags. There are four of them. No numbers on these, just rip ‘em all open and start building. A sticker sheet is also THROWN in, and, to work on my rhyming, I’ll tell you how it got BLOWN away by the wind. That’s not a joke. It’s really gone. I took this pictures, and now the sticker sheet is in God’s hands. As is common with a lot of these LEGO sets nowadays, an instruction manual is included. I noticed something new here, though. At the bottom of the manual is a little progress bar with a blue LEGO stud that moves forward as you get closer to completing the set. Now, the crazy thing is, there’s already a system in place for this kind of stuff and we’ve been using it for centuries. You might have heard of it, it’s called page numbers. After a pretty short build process, you get this. It’s a simple model, and doesn’t have a ton of difficult building mechanics. As, I imagine, with most Creator sets, what you see is what you get. There are no hidden mechanics, no play features, not even an interior on this train. It’s something to be built and displayed for adults, or played with (I guess?) with for kids. In my opinion, this train is great for adding pieces to your collection. There’s a lot of foundational pieces that you never really get enough of in more complicated sets, like 1x2 bricks or cheese slopes. There really isn’t too much I can say about this model. Like I said, if you can see it, you get the picture. The price point might be a bit much for what you get, especially with no license attached, but that’s something we LEGO fans have learned to expect. I do think this set is sort of purposeless. Like, without a town to put this train in, it's just by itself. And a lack of play features indicated kids won't love it. It's pretty cheap overall, so maybe it's a good Christmas present for a train enthusiast. Still, despite a lack of purpose, I can’t think of anything problematic about this set, so straight to a 10/10 for this one. Now get out there and go tell a train that you love it today!
  9. - A Review - Well, it’s been about a decade since I started writing reviews for Eurobricks. In that time I’ve tackled topics such as giant spiders, Owen Wilson, and the entire noir genre. But I’ve always felt like something was missing. Something intangible, something that would fill my soul and make me a more complete person. Then it came to me - like a bolt of lightning into a kite, or the ignition of tons of fuel underneath a rocket. It was time to get political. This review is part of Revember - a massive collaboration between EB Reviewers and LEGO. So massive thanks to LEGO for providing these sets for all of us. And sorry in advance. This is the second LEGO White House, the first coming out way back in 2010, and not really holding up today. I’m always a fan of LEGO remaking older sets, because it’s so interesting to see how far we’ve come in a fairly short period of time, considering LEGO’s long history. I’m an American, which means I hate political parties. Except mine. But even that one I kinda hate. Just less than the other side. And due to the turmoil that American politics seems to be in, it takes a special kind of set to center me and make me reflect on the political climate. Of course, I’m referring to a replica of the White House. WHAT IS IT: THE WHITE HOUSE WHAT’S THAT NUMBER: 21054 HOW’S THEM PIECES: 1,483 WHAT’S THAT PRICE: £89.99 / $99.99 / 99.99€ TELL ME ‘BOUT THAT THEME: ARCHITECTURE HOW ARE YOU, JACK?: I’M OKAY I GUESS The White House is a long-standing building that represents that best of America, and has since the very birth of the nation. Except - wait - for that one time it caught on fire. Or the other time it caught on fire. Let’s not count those times. Other than that, the insides tell a tale of American history reaching all the way back to George Washington. Except that everything but the outer walls were renovated in 1952. OH MY GOSH THEY DESTROYED EVERYTHING. Okay, but that’s okay. That’s okay. Because you know what White House won’t catch on fire? Or have interior renovations? Or otherwise be damaged in any way? The LEGO one. That’s right, because LEGO is forever. So the next time the White House burns down (which isn’t a threat, let me make that abundantly clear), the LEGO version will be standing tall in my second story apartment building. Enough goofing, let’s move on to the actual set. Because just like the actual White House apparently, these things aren’t special and are a dime a dozen. Nothing’s sacred, screw it! This is my first Architecture set in years, and the box is designed just like the adult LEGO sets. Kids, stay with your Monkie Kid or Creator sets. These sets are for Dad. Or Mom. Or whatever parental noun you’d like. That’s further exemplified by the 18+ emblazoned almost proudly on the box. I do want to point out how nice it must be for the designers of these boxes. While the Star Wars sets require artwork and assets and particles and all sorts of mess to really sell it, here you can just slap a black background and a reflection on there and call it a day. You could bust out fifteen of these bad boys a day with a method like that. We’re also treated to our first glimpse of the actual White House. Although it’s covered by trees, so it’s not maybe the best comparison of the model. Could we maybe have waited until Winter to take this picture? The side of the box shows a wireframe model of the set, which is a cool detail these Architecture sets have been doing for a while. Gives it that “blueprint-y” feel. Also - shoutout actual size American flag. I would have thought it was larger. Enough about the box! Let’s bust open this bad boy and breach in there! Side note: this picture was really hard to take with one hand, because I had to press the shutter on the camera with my other hand. I was really worried I was going to cut my thumb. Not worried enough to, like, remember that I can set a timer on my camera, but enough to point it out in this review. What, you thought we’d start talking about the set? No, no, no! There are more surprises within. Namely two quotes from America’s 35th President, John F. Kennedy. I do like the quote about the White House, although I’m sort of curious about the intent behind the other JFK quote: “the greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.” He was talking about the space race as the time, not the White House. So, like, what am I supposed to think here? Is the quote referring to America? To this LEGO set? To me? Seriously, I puzzled over this quote for, like, 5 seconds. Okay let’s actually get into the set. 5 bags in here. The first three build the main section of the White House, with Bag 4 reserved for the East Wing, and Bag 5 making up the West Wing. As you can see, there’s a lot of white bricks. I bet you’ll never guess as to why that is. My manual got a little beat up in the box, just a heads up. As I’ve noticed LEGO doing with these more adult-themed sets, we get some info and history before the actual instructions. For a big history nerd like me, this stuff is great. The instructions themselves are nice and clear, which is good because we’re about to enter into a whole new world of repetition. This seems like a good time to bring in my favorite White House anecdote. So Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of America, was given this giant wheel of cheese, and he didn’t know what to do. So he stuck it right in the main foyer of the White House for a calendar year before letting his guests at a party go to town on the cheese. And go to town they did. From a newspaper correspondent back in the day: "For hours did a crowd of men, women and boys hack at the cheese, many taking large hunks of it away with them. When they commenced, the cheese weighed one thousand four hundred pounds, and only a small piece was saved for the President’s use. The air was redolent with cheese, the carpet was slippery with cheese, and nothing else was talked about at Washington that day.” I don’t know what my legacy is going to be once I’m gone, but I want the phrase “slippery with cheese” to be involved. The build process of bags 1-3 is pretty simple. Lots of white, lots of straight lines. You’re not going to get any fun angles in this set. One fun little thing I noticed: the interior bricks are red and blue, which, combined with the white, are the three colors that make up the French flag! This must be LEGO’s way of referencing France’s contribution to America throughout the Revolutionary War of the 18th Century. What a cool detail! Another thing I noticed: this build is repetitive as heck. The instruction manual is full of “4x”, “6x”, and “8x”, especially when it comes to the walls of the White House and its wings. So just be aware, this is probably one of the worst build experiences I’ve had in quite a while. The walls are primarily made up of 1x1 plates, too, which are just so hard to align correctly. Ironically, I probably would have liked building this set more when I was younger, because my time was less valuable. To someone in his mid-20s, building this set almost felt like a job. But undeniably, the model looks really good once it’s done. The cool thing about this set - which I’ll show off later - is how you can split the model into three, essentially removing the East and West Wings. So if you’re good with this main block of the White House alone, there’s no need to continue. You can call it a day. But, of course, we don’t get to do that, do we? We have to build the East Wing. This wing is the “softer” side of the White House, where the First Lady’s office is, along with more social aspects of the White House staff, like the Graphics and Calligraphy Office. However this wing also goes hard as hell, sitting on top of the emergency operations center. You know, the place the President goes if a bomb is dropping. Looks can be deceiving, I suppose. The build itself isn’t much different than in the first three bags. More 1x1 plates, more white bits, and more greenery outside. Oh ho ho, this is the good one. The West Wing, This is where the nation is run, and, if the TV show is anything to go off of, it’s where people endlessly yell at each other with clever dialogue. Same as the East Wing in terms of the build, though - really not very fun. But I will admit, I quite enjoyed building the oval office itself. I imagined a little LEGO president in there, doing little LEGO things. But then I frowned. Did this little LEGO president have as much controversy as the last few real American presidents? Did this little LEGO president have scandals? Did this little LEGO president uphold the Constitution? I stopped, and then realized that the Oval Office isn’t even hollow in this set, so there isn’t a little LEGO president at all. Rest easy. So there it is, in all it’s currently-unburnt glory: The (LEGO) White House. It’s wider than I was expecting - wider than my posterboard background will allow. I have to admit: this is a good looking model. LEGO Architecture sets have always been pretty good, but we’ve come a long way from the Burj Khalifa made up of, no joke, over 100 1x1 round bricks. I think a top view gives a nice look at how long this thing is. It’s more than twice its depth. So like I mentioned earlier: you can split the three pieces up, and reattach them pretty easily. It’s not the most secure of connections, so I’d recommend breaking it up before moving it. You do get a real sense of scale looking at this thing - for instance this little covered entrance here. This thing has to hit 10 feet in real life, so you can sort of extrapolate that to see how large this building is. The only thing I really have to critique is the roof of the northern facade. It’s made up of a 2x4 and 1x4 tile, and these tiles are very insecure. I couldn’t really ever get them to lay flat nor align properly, as you can see in the picture. But this is really a stupendous model. If you can push through the extremely monotonous building process - as, to be fair, most LEGO Architecture sets have - you get a neat little set that’s instantly recognizable. I hope LEGO finds a resurgence in Architecture sets in the future. So far only one set has been released in 2021: the Taj Mahal - which looks great, by the way - but I’d love to see more. I think LEGO’s been doing a really great job of this, but as I get older, I appreciate a good model way more than a good playset. And I think LEGO Architecture is a great theme to use for models. I give this set, overall, a 8/10. You can pick it up right now on Shop at Home. Plus, this one’s not going to burn down, or break or anything. Nothing's going to happen to this White House - Crap.
  10. JackJonespaw

    [REVIEW] 10293 - Santa's Visit

    Great review! I always love poring over the little details of these sets, thanks for showcasing them off! Crazy to see how far LEGO sets have come since that 2012 Winter Village Cottage set.
  11. JackJonespaw

    21328 Seinfeld: The Review

    Did you know that in 180 episodes of Seinfeld, spanning from 1989 to 1998, not one single time, neither Jerry, George, Elaine, nor even Cosmo Kramer himself mentioned LEGO a single time? Did you also know that I have no idea if that’s true, but research shows a review should start with a good hook to draw people in. A trivia question is a perfect example of that. Anyway, let’s talk about LEGO Seinfeld. Seinfeld is...Seinfeld. To quote Jason Sudeikis from an SNL sketch: “You’ve seen Seinfeld.” It’s a show that rests beyond most TV shows. Everyone knows Seinfeld, at least passively. And the Venn Diagram between LEGO fans and Seinfeld is at least 10,000 people, because this set comes straight out of the LEGO Ideas site to become big number 36. This is the third sitcom LEGO’s made for Ideas, joining the Big Bang Theory and 21319 Central Perk from Friends. At this rate, by 2025 we’ll have a LEGO Cheers Bar and LEGO I Love Lucy. It’s what the fans demand. MOCers, get on it. Initially, there’s not much to separate LEGO Seinfeld from the other two sitcoms: it’s a centralized location with members of the main cast. The set’s filled with references to the show. But my thesis of this review (as all reviews should have) will prove that this is the best sitcom set. Until we get LEGO M*A*S*H*, at least. As I wrote, this is the 36th LEGO Ideas set, coming logically after a life-sized typewriter and a Winnie the Pooh set. I actually went back and looked back at the LEGO Ideas sets, and completely forgot about 60% of them. Remember LEGO The Flintstones? Or LEGO Adventure Time? What? When did those come out? What a wild time it is for LEGO Licenses. The astounding part of this set - something I didn’t know when I got the set - is the price. Only $79.99 for a licensed set with over 1,300 pieces. I feel like that’s absolutely unheard of these days. Price per piece (PPP) is around $.053. Meanwhile you’d be lucky to see a LEGO Star Wars set that dips below $.08 per piece. However, my amazement does have a fair bit of asterisks. For one, this set has a lot of repeated bricks, which I imagine cuts down on cost. And for another, many of those pieces are pretty run-of-the-mill 1x2 bricks or 1x4 tiles. So where a more expensive PPP set might have more specialized pieces, LEGO Seinfeld gets around it with a lot of standard LEGO pieces. You saw similarities with Central Perk ($.061 PPP) and The Friends Apartments ($.066 PPP). Of course, that’s purely conjecture. I don’t have the science to back me up. Again: I do not look any of my claims up. Let me just shut up with throwing numbers at you and let’s open this giant box up. This is one of those fancy, luxury LEGO boxes, that opens like I just bought a new Macbook. It makes me feel special to open the front flap up instead of dumping the bags out on this piece of white posterboard like a mad caveman spilling a bag of rocks he found. The standard LEGO Ideas mosaic wraps around the bottom here. It changes color from set to set, this time in a nice blue. These black boxes are very classy, keeping all the info regulated to the bottom of the box. It leaves more room for the image of the set in the middle. It’s useful for a set that’s one giant piece / vignette. But I imagine it could end up feeling vacant for sets with a CG background. On the back here we have a slightly different view from above (plenty of that to come later on), as well as a few scenes showcase the one thing you can do with this set: move the minifigs around. I will say, I’m a fan of the blueprint-esque layout of the set. It’s design decisions like this that really separate these sets from more traditional “playset.” And as an actual adult (despite what my parents might tell you), I love it. I feel like the eye is drawn more to the “Seinfeld” logo in the top left than the LEGO logo in the bottom right. I’m sure there was a deliberate marketing to decision to make that more prevalent, but I’m missing my marketing degree that would give me the authority to speculate. You get 9 bags in this set. It’s pretty much what you expect: build the floor, then walls, the flesh out each section of the apartment before filling out the middle. We’ll go bit by bit further down. I’m honestly frustrated with these bags for larger sets, where they can just become an absolute mess. They get sort of stuck in one position and folding them or crumpling them doesn’t do a thing. Seriously, look at the mess I had once I was finished building: Thankfully, it looks like LEGO is phasing out these plastic bags in their sets. So by the time the LEGO I Love Lucy set comes out, you won’t have to worry about it. Seriously, is anyone else just infuriated by these bags? You also get one of these slick and fancy instruction manuals. A bold choice to not show the set on the face of the booklet, instead reserving it for the main cast (and Newman). But hey, I guess that’s what we’re all really here for. Each character has a little bio as well, in case you picked up the Seinfeld set accidentally and don’t know who George Costanza is. Hey, I get it, sometimes Seinfeld and Speed Champions trip me up, too. It’s the “S”, I think. The manual can get a bit confusing, but a red outline over each step’s new pieces does help to clarify things. Man, that’s a lot of tiles. Not looking forward to building that. ANYWAY, time to swap the poster board, because a white set on a white background, turns out, looks awful. It’s like hiding an egg in rice. You can probably see the egg if you squint, but why work that hard? Just dye the egg black! Bag 1 nets us Jerry Seinfeld, main character and mullet-haver. Seriously, that’s an impressive mullet. I’m excited for it to come back into fashion, because it looks just so great. The two expressions are lovely: bewildered amusement and confused skepticism. If that doesn’t sum up Jerry, I don’t know what does. He’s wearing the typical blue button down, which in the show is sometimes exchange for a red button down, or, if Jerry’s feeling frisky, perhaps a green button down. What can I say, Jerry really epitomized the fashion of America’s 90s. Pretty much every Seinfeld episode opens with Jerry performing a standup bit in a mysterious, darkly lit room. I was overjoyed to see it included in here, because it’s honestly as iconic as Jerry’s apartment. It’s nothing special: just a 1 brick wide wall with a simple platform, but it’s a really nice touch. A note here: that microphone with the silver top seems to be a new print of the piece. So any LEGO microphone enthusiasts have another piece to add to their collection. Isn’t that wonderful! As with most buildings, you start with the foundation. Jerry’s weird pentagonal apartment is no different. In Bags 1 and 2, we get the flooring done, which is very fun and not repetitive and confusing at all. We also throw down a rug in the center of the floor. It’s a good start. By the end, most of those studs will be covered by appliances and furniture. Another thing to note is just how few studs are on the perimeter of the floor here. Considering walls encircle the whole build, you’ll see how they’re secured as we build them. It’s Kramer! Wacky Kramer. Kramer, who could probably do a better job of writing these reviews. He comes equipped with a pretzel that’s probably making him thirsty and his coffee table book about coffee tables. His expressions are similar in concept to Jerry’s - but I think the exaggerated and flexible facial features of Michael Richards translate a lot easier to a LEGO figure. He is, by far, my favorite figure out of the bunch. Plus, he’s wearing his crab shirt, and crabs are cool. Bags 3 and 4 start to build up some of the walls on the left side, as well as some cool details, like those radiators against the back wall. Something I really liked about this set: you’ll build something that seems completely nonsensical, like what I thought were white shelves. But when you incorporate it into the set, suddenly it all clicks: oh, those are radiators! Also, are these the first official LEGO radiators? I’m so glad to have been involved in building them. Finishing the wall with some basic details - two pictures and a couple of lights. Maybe my Seinfeld knowledge isn’t up to snuff, because I couldn’t place the old man. I thought maybe it was Jerry’s dad, but it doesn’t look like him. So I have no clue. Maybe Jerry just likes hanging up pictures of old men in his apartment. To each their own. Just wait til you see what he has on the other wall. There’s a little computer room - again, the 90s era of Seinfeld meaning it’s one of those great, clunky computer monitors. George’s fake company, Vandelay Industries, is displayed, showing of their #1 (and totally real) latex goods. Even the Commando 8 is here, sitting precariously out of the window. And, of course, no room is complete without the Kramer portrait. The entrance to Jerry’s bathroom is here, too, though it doesn’t lead anywhere but a blank void. Jerry’s rarely-used green mountain bike is here too. It sounds strange, but the set feels weirdly incomplete without that splash of color in the back. And I might as well bring it up now - I’m very bad at smoothing out bricks. Like, these walls are not smooth at all, not with my hands putting the bricks together. Just use it as a stepping stone - something that you can do better once you buy this set! Elaine! The woman with the most 90s hair of them all. I was a little worried about this figure, because LEGO has a history of female minifigs’ faces being...somewhat generic, but her annoyed / confused face is really something special. I love this, because most alt faces are angry, but the Seinfeld cast all have these wonderfully critical expressions, which fits the tone of the show perfectly. She also comes with her goldfish, which I guess was playing dead in the episodes “The Parking Garage”. I couldn’t find a picture of this specific outfit she’s wearing, but I know that woman really likes wearing blazers, so it fits well enough. And I’m loving the crazy curly hair. Bags 5 and 6 fill out the kitchen area on the right of the apartment. There are a ton of things to build here: refrigerator, microwaves, kitchenette, shelves, counters, barstools. And each one is a genuine joy. The shelves, especially, are probably my favorite part, because of the mix and matching of different colors, to create the chaos of a 90s bachelor’s kitchen. The fridge is filled with even more Seinfeld references, including a picture of Seinfeld show creator Larry David. Or, maybe it’s in canon and Jerry really likes that one random vendor guy. Of course, on the other wall, Jerry has a tasteful photo of a shirtless George. But, hey, after all, it’s the timeless art of seduction. Speaking off, here’s George. Complete with fishing rod and what I’m assuming is the marble rye. And I’ll be honest...I don’t love this figure. The face is great, as is the torso, but I really don’t think that hairpiece works. I mean, check out that marble rye clip again. His hair goes up the back of his head, at least. And at the same time, the hairpiece makes him too tall. At best, George Costanza can be described as “rotund”. I think using the shorter, teenager-sized legs would have been a much better move. This figure just feels out of place next to the perfect Jerry, Kramer, and Elaine figures. Bag 7 adds the last wall in here - the entrance to Jerry’s apartment, and a peak at Kramer’s front door. I also love that LEGO managed to add in the pipe that’s to the right of the door. It also helps to remove a gap in between the kitchen and the entrance. You also add a small lamp above Jerry’s bathroom. And we’re almost done here, but not without getting our Newman figure. Newman, the over the top, delightfully evil post office worker. I really love his laughing face, it’s like he really enjoys whatever hell he’s putting Jerry and George through. Weirdly enough, the other Wayne Knight figure, Dennis Nedry from Jurassic Park, has a completely different, but equally delightful evil laughing face. We just need a LEGO Space Jam set to complete the “Wayne Knight in 90s media series”. The last two bags set out the furniture and shelves in Jerry’s apartment. These are really a delight, but it makes the apartment really cramped. There’s no space between the back of the soft and the round table behind it. The shelves are just as good as the cabinets, filled with a bunch of different bricks and shapes. There’s a few more reference to Seinfeld moments in here. I guess now’s as good a time as any to throw this out here - every single one of these little decals is a sticker. Historically, I don’t like using stickers, not even in sets I review, but I figured it was going to give the apartment so much more life. And, honestly, it did. It was difficult to put some of these on, especially on the 1x2 tiles, so maybe use something like a brick separator to assist you in putting on stickers. And hey, the set includes one, so you might as well. You also get this many extra pieces - roughly a handful. A lot of 1x1 tiles and plates, so if that gets you excited, then, well, there you go. The final building portion of this set, just like Central Perk, is reserved for these stage lights. I don’t love them, but it does keep the top of the build from being a flat, blank surface. And I suppose they’re non-intrusive enough. So that’s the set! It’s pretty easy to pick up, though I would definitely recommend grabbing it with two hands. Luckily, everything’s secured, so you won’t have to worry about anything sliding off or breaking off as you move it around. If you want to, I guess, swoosh it around like a LEGO Star Wars set. I will say, it really only looks best from a front-angle (just like a TV show set would, so that makes sense), so if you’re going to display this, make sure it’s centered up. Another useful, but sort of pointless feature: you can remove all of the furniture really easily. It’s not like you can rearrange the room at all, so I hesitate to guess at the reason for this. Maybe everyone who buys this set can try for a personal best speedrun time for removing furniture. The current world record is 16 seconds. Best of luck, fellow runners. Early on in this review, I promised to tell you why this is the best sitcom set so far (until we get LEGO Family Matters). And it’s got to come down to the sheer quality of the set. Looking at the Big Bang Theory and Central Perk (and Friends Apartment) sets, these are fairly rectangular models that sort of seem like an excuse to sell the minifigs of the sitcom. And to that latter point, I don’t think this set is any different, but Jerry’s apartment has so much personality, not only shape-wise, but in the shelves, furniture, and references. The biggest quality change, I think, is the tiled floor. LEGO has been moving away from having large areas of studs in sets, and I genuinely believe it makes these sets look better. It may not be as “quintessentially LEGO”, but neither is Seinfeld, you know? Am I biased because I vastly prefer Seinfeld to Friends and the Big Bang Theory? No. Am I biased in general? Yeah, probably. Anyway, the point is, if you like Seinfeld and LEGO, you’ll like this set. The price is great for what you get, and it’s one of the few sets I probably won’t demolish after a review. I give this bad boy a rare 10/10. Couple of post-show notes: Thanks to LEGO for providing me this set. What a great time I had building it. Genuinely. You can find a link to all the pictures here on Flickr. Go watch Seinfeld. It's a wonderful show.
  12. My father used to tell me “boy, ain’t nothing like an X-Wing.” At the time, I’m pretty sure he was talking about his perscription Dexedrine. He used to name all his medicines after Star Wars ships. Simvastatin was a TIE Fighter. Omeprazole, that was a Y-Wing. And Hydrochlorothiazide he called the Star Destroyer. Miss you, Dad. Monday’s Pill: 75301 Luke Skywalker's X-Wing Fighter Tuesday’s Pill: 474 Pieces Wednesday’s Pill: 4 - Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, Princess Leia, General Dodonna Thursday’s Pill: $49.99 | £44.99 | 49.99€ Friday’s Pill: Star Wars So, the X-Wing. The most iconic ship in all of Star Wars. And one of my least favorite ships, design-wise. After a certain point you realize the rebellion skipped C through W when it came to naming their ships.Where’s my K-Wing, Rebels? Isn’t that just an X-Wing with two of its wings folded? I digress. This is Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing Fighter, which is awfully possessive, as I always felt the Rebellion just lent him a spare ship for the Death Star assault. Hence why there’s no Red 6. But hey, what Luke wants, Luke gets. His X-Wing is doing one of two things it always does in LEGO sets: flying down the trench or being lifted out of a swamp. Imagine that being your ship’s legacy instead of, like, one of its wings becoming a door. This ship can do all sorts of things. Lift R2-D2 out! Open the cockpit! Move them wings! Fire some missiles! And the back of the box sure depicts that with up to 90% accuracy. There’s 4 bags in this set. One for each wing, if we were being symmetrical with it. But we’re not, so the Wings are relegated to bags 3 and 4. Our first minifig is Luke, surprise surprise. Did we stop doing the molded visor and go back to printing them on the heads? Did I miss that? Luke has his typical confident smile on both faces and - wait, confidence? Did LEGO watch the same movies as I did? When was this guy ever confident? Annoyingly aloof in Episode VI, maybe, but hardly confident. We also get R2. I feel like sometimes LEGO just looks at an R2 figure and has to figure out how to change it in some way. Silver head? Darker blue colors? We gotta get these kids their money’s worth here with this here exclusive R2 fig! Step 1, or 17, or something like that. I will say, it’s pretty cool to see some unorthodox building in these sets. To LEGO’s credit, they’ve gotten a lot more liberal with funky piece connections than they were in the early 2000s. That’s Bag 1. The nose of this strange looking ship which...wait, couldn’t you call it a T-Wing? If you look at it from above? Naming it after an X really discounts a whole half of this ugly ship. In Bag 2, a Princess for you! Or me, or whoever. LEGO really seems to remember these characters being more confident and smirky than they actually were. Like, never once did Leia make this face in all of the trilogy. Is there some EU reason I’m unfamiliar with? Like, I don’t even know who this dude is, but, aside from looking like my dad, which is a plus, he’s also not smirking. That expression on the left mirrors me when water boil overs in a pot and it hisses on the burner and I’m worried it might set off the smoke alarm. Major worry. Hey, maybe that’s his name. Bag 2 mainly consists of building this Technic thing, which has maybe more pins and holes than I’ve ever used in my whole life thus far. Better leave this kind of stuff to VBBN or mostlytechnic. I mean, they’re mostly technic! You’d figure they know what’s going on better than I do. Anyway it opens like this. For the wings. I figured that one out, but I legitimately have no clue how it actually functions. I would’ve just used hinges and called it a day. That’s Bag 2. Building out the booty of the ship. Now might be a good time to let you know this ship will be looking very bare. I have a strict no stickers rule. I have horrible memories of digging through old LEGO pieces and seeing a half-peeled sticker covered in hair and grime. No thank you, I will not desecrate this white ship with such sordid ideas. Bags 3 and 4 are identical - just do the wings. It’s nothing special, and awfully boring, but I suppose we had to do it sometime. So you can push in the top like this, and the wings expand. It’s extremely difficult to actually photograph that, however, so you’re probably going to have to take my word for it. Luke goes here - R2 goes here - And the back looks like this! Huh, what a weird flow. I swear that was going to lead into a joke, but I didn’t actually have one. Because it has to, this X-Wing has missiles! If you haven’t clicked with my missile-based comedy by now, then I think you might have missed that train. I mean...it’s an X-Wing. I honestly try and critique every set I do, but I’m having trouble really buckling down a thesis on this. It’s just...fine. I don’t like the stickers, and I don’t really see the necessity of them when we’ve had so many great X-Wings before without stickers. The minifigs are definitely nice, and I remember the days where a Princess Leia figure was coveted. Still, it’s just...a fine set. Perfectly inoffensive. Same as the TIE Fighter, it’s only been two years since our last X-Wing, so I still fail to see the necessity of this when there are so many other ships to remake. Cheaper is always better, and I don’t think the set is bad because of the quality. I just don’t feel one way or the other about it. Perfectly average gets you a perfectly average score of 3/5. So what do you think? A good X-Wing, or a bad one? Or an average one? I’m trying to feel outrage or joy about this thing, but then I see it and I just...don’t really see anything at all. Thanks to LEGO for providing me a review copy of this set. And thanks to Eurobricks, and you, for sticking with my very strange reviews all these years. I couldn’t do Eurobricks reviews without Eurobricks, so...thanks! Hope you’re proud of me, Dad.
  13. If you get it, you get it. Admittedly, not my best play on words, I’ll try again later in the review. In the meantime, let’s talk about - - uh, yeah. No need to interrupt. Set Name: Imperial TYE Fighter Set Number: 75300 Wait I think I misspelled TAI: 432 pieces Minifigs: THAI Pilot, NI-L8, Stormtrooper Or is it TY?: $39.99 | £34.99 | 39.99€ Another year, another TIE Fighter. You know it’s bad when you type in “TIE Fighter” into Brickset and the site says “yeah, but which one, though?” What makes this TIE Fighter better than, say, the 2018 TIE? Well, it’s smaller. But not as small and bad as the 2019 TIE. So, you know, there’s a give and take. The TIE Fighter is as iconic as the X-Wing (which I'm also doing a review on. Huh. Weird how that works.) Personally, I always thought it should be called an H-Wing, if we’re naming ships after the alphabet. And why do we have to make ships after the Latin alphabet? I want some Chinese or Arabic representation in here. Where’s my ق-wing? Symmetry be damned. So this one comes in a box, believe it or not. I’m starting to think it’s a common trend. I figure this is as good a time as any to mention I really like the Lego backdrop on the white. Instead of dramatic Captain Rex or Yoda and his favorite color green. It’s, you know, Legos. And Lego Darth Vader. How’d they come up with this one? Now seems as good a time as any to bring up my Change.org petition. I’m sick of these gray TIE Fighters. They’re boring to look at, and not even movie accurate. We should go back to the good old days of the blue TIE Fighters. Give me some color in these sets! Please go to my Change.org petition and support me so we can tell LEGO we won’t stand for these gray TIE Fighters any longer! Play features are few and far between. In fact, all we have are these two missiles. You can tell how sparse a set is on play features by the number of images on the back. Here, we get a whopping 2. Although, apparently you can play as the TIE in The Skywalker Saga, so that might count. I’ll have to go look in the books for a precedent there and get back to you. Here’s some bags. Three of them. And an instruction manual. Again, most Lego sets tend to have these. Does anyone actually enjoy looking at this picture? Let’s instead talk about this TIE Pilot. This bad boy’s pretty much untouched since 2010. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Seriously, stop fixing it. His belt is fine. LEGO keeps changing it. It’s cool, trust me. No one cares. Also, the back of his neck is exposed. That certainly can’t be comfortable. Plus, someone could walk up behind you and flick your neck. And that’s no fun; that’s gonna ruin your whole day. How about this one? Eh, this one seems a little on the nose. I’ll keep trying, we’ll get there. Anyway, here’s Bag 1. A cockpit. It feels pretty good to hold. Good weight. Good for throwin’ at pigeons if you’ve run out of stones. Speaking from experience. Much like a pigeon’s head, the cockpit opens up. You can put a minifig in here. Probably the pilot, but don’t let me hold you back from your dreams. Perhaps one day you can sit in the cockpit! Now I see LEGO decided to not go with the hexagonal design on the back of the TIE Fighter. Instead, we have something with a few more sides than 6 (infinity more, in fact! Or 0. Depends who you ask. Either way, not 6). This is a robot. LEGO calls it NI-L8, which is not a thing that exists. Are they starting to put in OCs into their Star Wars sets? I bet he’s the key to an ARG. Keep an eye out on the LEGO Star Wars set canon for more clues. Here’s a wing. This is a thing that exists. This is a fine wing, though the middle portion takes up a bit too much space for the scale. It makes the spokes look pretty small. Compared to the larger TIE sets, this issues is easily resolved with a bigger wing. I am curious about the ball socket being in dark blay compared to the rest of the wing. I wonder how difficult it is to have a new color of a piece made. Apparently not worth as much as I’m presupposing. Anyway, the back showcases a problem no TIE Fighter except the UCS has solved - adding the spokes on the back. I guess it’s not a huge deal, and probably not a problem worth solving. I’d imagine it would make the wings even bulkier, which is not what you want. You attach the wing, and boom. One half done. Quick tangent, though, before moving on: why does it matter for the TIE to have two wings? Or even wings at all? Wings are made to counter air resistance, which is not something that spaceships have to worry about. And as the engine likes in the middle, cockpit piece, well, that could be the whole ship. You’re just making yourself a bigger target for no reason at this point. We also get an average run of the mill Stormtrooper. I do like his mildly concerned expression, as if wondering “are we the baddies?” Bag 3 holds the last wing, meaning we have ourselves one (1) complete TIE Fighter. It’s not an astounding build, but TIE Fighters, especially the more recent ones, have always been really solid builds - both literally and figuratively. Seriously, I threw this sucker at my wall and nothing fell off. That’s good craftsmanship. How do we feel about this one? I feel like I should’ve just stuck with the first one. Now I’m just putting up pictures of other things named “tie”. Here’s our one play feature - the missile. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before. 185 times, actually. Wow, that’s less than I would have bet. So let’s talk about this thing. The TIE Fighter is hard to mess up, and I don’t think LEGO’s done that. It’s at a cheaper price point than previous models, and size is the only thing that really suffers from it. It seems to be hovering in between a midi-scale and full sized set. But it’ll still look good on a shelf. The minifigs are nothing special, unless you are just dying to have LEGO’s OC character NI-L8. This really is a case of the set being far better than the minifigs. If LEGO’s going to continue to release TIE’s every year or so, then they’ve pretty much perfected the formula with the 2018 TIE and this year’s. I don’t think TIE fatigue has necessarily set in yet, but I could see another set or two exactly like this within the next 6 years really sealing that feeling in. However, for this model, I find it inoffensive enough and a pretty classy looking ship. A solid 3/5 if I ever saw one. A perfectly fine ship. Something tells me my opinion doesn’t align with some of you. So let me know your feelings here. Do you think this smaller scale set does it better than older models? Are you sick of these TIE Fighters? Which TIE variant are you a fan of? Remember, please support my Change.org petition. Blue TIE Fighters start with you. A thank you to LEGO for providing me with a copy of this set, and Eurobricks for being cooler than a cucumber. I’ll leave you with a joke: What does the Rebel X-Wing say to the Empire’s ship while they’re fighting? I’ve been JackJonespaw.
  14. JackJonespaw

    [REVIEW] 75299 Trouble on Tatooine

    Yeehaw, folks. We’re out here in the desert. It’s hot, and it’s sandy. You could probably guess those two, but did you know I’m also dehydrated? I’m running out of time here, but I decided to use these last minutes to type up this review. Don’t say I never do anything for you. I put LEGO before my own life. So the Mandalorian! I’ll be honest, my memory of the show’s a bit fuzzy, like most memories out in this desert heat. Even so, it’s not like I could pay $9.99 / month to Disney Plus, the exclusive home for your favorite movies and TV shows from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. Start streaming today at disneyplus.com. Help: Trouble on Tatooine I’m: 75299 Stuck: 276 pieces In: $29.99 | 29.99€ The: 3, The Mandalorian, The Child, and The Tusken Raider Desert: Star Wars This box stars my friends: Mr. Mandalorian, Mr. Child, and Mr. Raider. Mr. Raider also has his little hut, and what I thought was a desert dragonfly before seeing that it’s actually a ballista. Huh, who knew? Probably could’ve used one of those for Anakin 30 or so years earlier. Mr. Mandalorian has managed to sit Mr. Raider down, and is now about to execute him in front of a child. How cute, I love Star Wars! Here’s what’s inside. I was really hoping for water. These plastic bags could hold water, perhaps, but there’s not much I can do with that information other than type it out. Here he is, the guy. Mr. Dark Brown and Silver. He’s got enough printing to put a Kinkos out of business. He also has two guns, one for shooting, and the other one probably just to look cool with. Again, I do not remember what happens in the show. I don’t even remember the name of the desert I’m trapped in. “Awwwww!” Everyone said, until they learned his name was Gorgu. Then they all said “ehhhhhhhhh!” Still, he’s a cutie, but man, he is small. Like, I’m afraid my dog might eat him. That’s not a joke; that’s a serious concern. I don’t have a dog, though. And here’s the Raider. I really do not like these molded heads. I know this might be beating a dead horse (it probably died of dehydration, too), but I miss the old printed heads. These new ones are too...action figure-y. So, build completed, and tongue drier than the wine my wife made me drink on Thanksgiving, we have a speeder. It’s a pretty nice speeder, and definitely something I wish I had right now in the desert. The colors are not great, though. Like, not only is it not accurate to the speeder in the show, it just looks ugly. Occasionally Star Wars’ beaten-up, ugly ship aesthetic just doesn’t translate into LEGO well. But you can put Gorgu in the speeder, which is pretty cute. He fits really snugly, and can be a complete pain to get out. My strategy is kinda flicking the bottom of his legs out of the satchel, because pulling from the arms will do absolutely nothing. Does this count as a play feature? The speeder also fits the two guns of the Mandalorian. Sure, I guess that’s as good a place as any to put them. Usually your legs would go right in front of the barrel, which is maybe not the safest position for a gun, but minifigs don’t have to worry about that problem. See? He can comfortably sit without worrying about shooting his calf. Must be nice. Although if you flip it the other way, it’s pointing at a baby. So, kinda lose-lose for us folks with legs. Now this? This I’m jealous. I’ve not seen so much as a dent in a hill for me to shade. Well that’s not strictly true - I saw one, dived down in it to get out of this hot sun, and you know what happened? A rattlesnake was in there. So if I go into the shadows, I’ll get poisoned. Although, that might be better dehydration... Anyway, this little hut has all the fixings a Tusken Raider could need. A fire, a pot with one (1) bone, and some shaded seats. It’s not fancy, but out here in the desert, I’m realizing it doesn’t have to be. It can also do this if you’ve got company over. Set up a project screen where the campfire is, and you can watch some of the great Disney Plus films! It also folds up for...easy storage? I have no clue what or why this is. If anything, it just puts the the fire closer to flammable objects. I’m no firefighter (a firefighter wouldn’t get stuck out in a desert), but that seems like a bad move. To reiterate: I am very jealous. The dragonfly gun, however, isn’t all that bad. It’s a weird looking thing, but hey, who am I to judge? Maybe I look worse, no one really knows, thanks to the anonymity of the Internet and the sun scarring on my face. I guess it kinda looks like a big, buggy crossbow from this angle. I can definitely see how people could say it’s a ballista, and also how I could say it’s a dragonfly. And that’s it. A set like this, unlike a lot of these Star Wars ships, is very much a case of “you see what you get”. A hut, a speeder, and a ballista. Nothing here is mind-blowing, nor do I think it’s a particularly good build to be shown off. The best fate I can see for this set, for a lot of children, is being disassembled into their larger collection, while saving the minifigs. Generally I like to categorize LEGO Star Wars sets into one of two categories: either a vehicle or a playset. And while Trouble on Tatooine undoubtedly falls into that latter category, calling it a playset is like calling a great spotted kiwi a bird. It is that thing, but it falls quite short. This set has one play feature - a dart on top of the ballista, and three completely separate builds. I’m having trouble seeing the appeal of the set itself. Of course, we all know the real pull here are the minifigs. A $30 set with a really nice, new Mandalorian fig and Baby Grogu? It’s a pretty good deal. It’s one of those sets that fits the obligation of a $30 price tag while having to throw an appropriate amount of pieces in there to make it different from a battle pack. And the Tusken Raider, strange as it might seem, has an important purpose. If there were a more exclusive figure, or more prominent villain from the series, I doubt the price tag would have stayed at $30. Unless it was another generic figure. You could probably switch out the Tatooine aesthetic with some other random planet with a random enemy. An Oba Diah set with a Pyke, a Srilurr set with a Weequay, an Alzoc III set with a Talz - take your pick. Maybe Tatooine was chosen because of recognizability? Who can say. All in all, it’s a set that’s exactly what you’d expect. A simple build with the minifigs being the main draw. Pretty much the only reason for a $30 set to exist. So I’ll give this set a score of 3/5. Let me know what you think! Is this set more than the minifigs it includes? Why would you pick up this set? Do you think the ballista looks more like a dragonfly? Let me know below, and make sure you vote on the poll! Thanks to LEGO for giving me the set for review, and thanks to Eurobricks for being the fine community that it is. And thank you to this desert for killing me slowly and with a great deal of heat. I hate you.