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Trash truck, or trash CHOMPER? You'll have to answer that one if you get… Set Title: Trash Chomper Set #: 70805 Theme: The LEGO Movie Pieces: 389 Minifigures: 3 Year of Release: 2014 Price at Release: USD 30 Just browse the pictures? Flickr set INTRODUCTION This was probably the best-looking zany flying machine from the packaging. The mouth gave it a very fun, distinctive look that had more character than the flying machines in the other 2-in-1s. Plus, the "normal" model is something we already get in City, so not all that interesting to me. So is the flying machine actually the model to want in this set? Well, let's see… BOX The Trash Chomper actually looks great on the box. That's something funky I'd want to buy. The back shows more of the truck mode, this time from the back, and highlights the things that move. Yay for things that actually move on models! Like all the minifigures in this line, these need names! Gordon Zola is a nice funny play on gorgonzola, and somehow the names they gave to the garbage men seem very appropriate to me. They look like a Dan and a Grant. CONTENTS I'm vegetarian, so I guess I'm a sucker for vegetable color schemes. When I opened up the box I thought 'Mmmmm carrots!' Although the green to orange ratio isn't quite right to make carrots. Like all of these 2-in-1 sets, there are three booklets: micromanager, flying machine, and alternate model. Here's a step where you add gears just for decoration. There's something about adding gears that don't do anything that always disappoints me, and it happens in a few of these sets. Plenty of stickers, but I think you'd expect that for a garbage truck anyway. MINIFIGURES These aren't exactly the most exciting minifigures ever, but they are very well done. The garbage men have excellent get-ups that I can see being useful for a variety of things. Dan's head isn't new, but it's a newer one and I like it. He's got the new cap with a hole for attachments. Only Gordon's head is new, and not too exciting to me either. The garbage men have some nice dirty printing on their backs as well. Included are some accessories you'd expect for trash collectors, like a broom, shovel, trash cans, and of course trash! Gordon seems to have run out of his kitchen with a frying pan. SET - MICROMANAGER This time we've got another micromanager that's supposed to fly. Again not quite as cute as have stubbly legs, but trans-red dishes are always great, so I won't complain. Turn it around back and you'll see it's got some folding mechanism! And flick-fires… Ta-da! Wings pop out with the weapons arsenal. I like the use of that piece in the middle, but there's a little green visible that looks weird. It looks appropriately menacing from the front. SET - TRASH CHOMPER The flying mode uses all the pieces besides two plates. The trash chomper looks pretty silly and fun from the front, what with the big mouth. Vehicles with mouths are always whimsical. It looks scary too. I wouldn't want to mess with those teeth. But there's something about this model that feels a little off, and I think it's how tall and stubbly it is. It doesn't really seem like a flying machine at all - it's way too bulky for that. The mouth is nice, but the rest of it is really just a brick. The garbage cans are some sort of engines in the back, and Dan actually has a chair so he hopefully won't fly backwards when he takes off. So I'm not sure what to think. I love the mouth and trash-chomping idea, but the model as a whole feels to stubby. Speaking of the mouth, the chomping function works well and is great fun to play with. SET - GARBAGE TRUCK The truck uses everything up besides for a couple of technic parts. I may not care much for garbage trucks, but this is a very nice one. The color scheme is lovely, and the SNOT detailing on the side looks excellent. There's room for just one figure in the cab, and for some reason LEGO put the steering wheel high up in this one. That kind of makes sense for a big vehicle like this, which would have a big wheel. (My sticker-applying skills were clearly wearing out when I put on that license plate.) The side profile is nice indeed. The truck is pleasantly long, and feels well-proportioned all around. The back has its quite large cover, that can open up to reveal the place for the trash. Good stickers for detail back here. A little knob lets you control the back, which doesn't just go up and down but kind of slides up and then slides back down due to how the technic construction inside is made. But it actually doesn't go up all that high. I'm not sure how minifigures would really even be able to unload trash cans into there, but oh well. The gears are perhaps supposed to represent trash grinders. COMPLETE SET and CONCLUSION What I thought was going to be the best flying machine let me down some, though the mouth is still great. I guess as the flying machines go, the Ice Cream Machine wins out. However, this is a very nice trash truck. I'm not personally excited by trash trucks, since LEGO City has seen its fair share of those, but this one is still great. If you like good trash trucks, I'd think about picking this up. Parts-wise, green is a always a good color, and this set has plenty of it. Not too many new parts, but lots of nice green. The minifigures are basic, but useful nonetheless. The garbage-men torsos are pretty non-specific, making them useful for a lot of things. And their legs are great. That completes the 2-in-1s. Up next… everything else in some order!
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Ice cream "machine," or ice cream truck? That's your choice in… Set Title: Ice Cream Machine Set #: 70804 Theme: The LEGO Movie Pieces: 344 Minifigures: 3 Year of Release: 2014 Price at Release: USD 30 Just browse the pics? Flickr set INTRODUCTION Who doesn't like ice cream? And who doesn't like pink? Tell me, who doesn't like giant LEGO ice cream cones? The answer to all of those questions is, of course, only crazy people. I consider myself at least partially sane, so I indeed was thrilled with the prospect of a LEGO set involving ice cream, pink and a giant ice cream cone. Let's check it out! BOX As the 2-in-1 boxes go, this one if fairly fun. The colors really pop, and the model looks ok. The ice cream truck in the corner looks better, though. The back shows you a bigger picture of the very lovely ice cream truck, and also wants to make you think that flick-fires actually work and are fun. This box is actually a little fatter than the other 2-in-1s, for some reason. Our cast is Ice Cream Mike, Ice Cream Jo, and Cardio Carrie. I wonder if she's the same as blood-soked Carrie. All look fun. CONTENTS Mmmmm, plenty of pink. I like. Like all these 2-in-1s, three booklets: micromanager, flying machine, and truck. In all of these booklets, there are warnings about not shooting things in your eye. The ridiculous thing is that they usually show them twice for one missile, often in a row, like here! I think people actually deserve medals if you manage to shoot a flick fire all the way into your eye. There are a bunch of stickers, but they add character to the set. It seems like Octan runs absolutely everything in this film. MINIFIGURES These minifigures are all a lot of fun. We've gotten workout outfits in the collectible series, but this one is still nice. The ice cream outfits are great too, but sadly the white printing was too thin so the white on the torso doesn't match up with the legs. Sad. Carrie has a reverse face with a mouth shape pretty similar to Sharon Shoehorn. Nice though. Mike's face is great too. Everybody has simple back printing. Carrie has serious lats. Since it didn't show up well on the previous photos, I snapped a close-up of Carrie's face to show the little sweat drops. They're a lovely little detail. SET - MICROMANAGER No legs no love. This might be my least favorite of all of these, but it's still kind of cute. This one actually has more of a play feature, which makes it sacrifice more of the cute feature. So here it is: a mini version of a play feature that has shown up in a number of sets dating back to Vikings. Usually there's an actual launching mechanism, but this time you're just supposed to rapidly flick the missiles yourself. I tried it and… it actually works, using your thumb to pop them out. So I guess flick fires can work. SET - ICE CREAM MACHINE The flying machine leaves a number of useful pieces leftover. The big tubes are actually just general extras, and never used. It's actually a pretty fun plane. The pink pops, the ice cream details are nice, and the big cone is a great "weapon." It also looks enough like a truck that was randomly converted into a plane, which I like. It looks very cheerful. The color coordinated green and blue ice-cream shooters are cool. There's plenty to make me want to go pew-pew-pew as I swoosh it around. Got to have some tail lights on the back. I hope Mike is holding onto something tight, because otherwise he's going to zoom right out of the open back! He does have a nice big pole to hold onto. The minifigures even look like they're having a good time. SET - ICE CREAM TRUCK The truck model leaves even more leftovers. Basically, if you buy the set for the truck, you'll get some nice extra plates in great colors to add to your Friends collection. That's a fantastic looking truck right there. Nice and tall, and long, with a fantastic color scheme. We've never gotten a truck like this in City, and it's great! The giant ice cream cone on top using the drill piece is ingenious. Both sides are open for plenty of ice cream serving all around. The back has a window that just shows the ice cream vats inside, and has a bunch of lime studs for decoration. The tail lights are quite small and hidden down below. As you can see, the set comes with plenty of the new ice cream cone piece, though a lot of them are used for decoration. You could pull them down and serve them to people if you want, though. The inside has a little SNOTted freezer for popsicles, plus the soft serve vats and plenty of room for the figures. Great details. COMPLETE SET and CONCLUSION This is certainly my favorite of the 2-in-1s. The truck is superb, and nothing like what we get in City. The only issue is that the printing on the ice cream torsos is too thin, but it's not a deal-breaker. This is a fun one right here. Only the garbage truck to go to finish up the 2-in-1 sets!
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Airplane, or plumbing van? It's up to you in… Set Title: The Flying Flusher Set #: 70811 Theme: The LEGO Movie Pieces: 351 Minifigures: 3 Year of Release: 2014 Price at Release: USD 30 Browse the pictures? Flickr set INTRODUCTION This was another "neither here nor there" set for me. Besides for the Doctor figure, which looked cool, I didn't have many thoughts one way or another about it. Let's see what kind of thoughts building the thing will give me. BOX The art is pretty unremarkable. It's an airplane that I guess shoots plungers and vaguely looks like it was made out of a truck, but not even that much. The alternate model in the corner looks much more interesting. The back shows both models, including the hilarious exploding porta potty. The plane seems to pale in comparison. Some nice-looking minifigures in our lineup - nice overalls and a new doctor print. I look forward to these. CONTENTS Again, no numbered bags in these 2-in-1 sets. I spy some nice white and blue here. All of the 2-in-1s have three booklets: one for the micromanager, a "number 2" for the flying a machine, and a third for the alternate build. This set has got a small, inoffensive sticker sheet. Same dully-colored, easy-to-follow instructions as the rest. MINIFIGURES Nice guys here: Plumber Joe, his apprentice Alfie, and Dr. McScrubs. Great prints all around; I believe Joe's face is new, and McScrubs' definitely is. Great to get the hair on the Dr. now in dark brown. McScrubs has a hilarious alternate scared face, and Joe has some nice bushy eyebrows. Everybody has some good back printing too. SET - MICROMANAGER Like the micromanager in the Castle Cavalry, this guy can fold up. But it looks kind of helpless this way. Time to fold out his legs! Isn't it just adorable? These things are very endearing. This one seems to have a nerdy, braniac personality to me. Something about the little legs and big head - very thoughtful. This one doesn't need tail lights since it walks. SET - FLYING FLUSHER Building the plane leaves a fair number of parts leftover. Nothing all the exciting, besides the door perhaps, but here they are: I'll be up-front, I really don't care for this model. It's dull, it's too boxy for a plane, and it doesn't even look that much like a truck converted into a plane, which I think is the point of these. The targeting chair on the back is a nice assembly. It's about the only thing that really looks good on this model. The sides open, but there's nothing in there besides some poles. I guess in this picture it looks kind of chubby and cute, but it'd be a lot nicer if it was flatter and more sleek. The color scheme is fine, but doesn't particularly pop. The front has a Joe's Plumbing logo on the very thick wheel assembly. The other logo is behind the pilot. Not much in the cockpit - just enough room for the pilot. SET - TRUCK The truck also leaves a few leftovers, including one of the new inverted dome pieces! Yum. First to build is the porta potty. It looks great! It uses some nice new parts too, like the big wedge piece newly redesigned with complete stud compatability on the sides, and a bunch of the 1x2 slope piece. The back has a nice little detail of vents to get the smells out. The inside is great too. The toilet is a nice design, and the designer included a flushing button and toilet paper roll. A lot of detail packed into a small space. You can add the water flames to put it out of commission if you wish. The trucks is very chubby and cute. This color scheme looks nice on a truck (almost police-like, isn't it), and it does look like the type of van that would be used for a plumber. The big logo is lovely, as is the assymetry of the stuff on the roof. It's got two doors, which keep it from looking bland all around. It's a pleasant truck from all angles. The back door provides access to te ginormous plungers, needed for ginormous potty explosions! The side door provides access to… this thing. I have no idea what this is. It doesn't go anywhere - it's stuck down to the truck. Can anybody shed light on it? The entire interior is open, which actually fits for a van like this. There's plenty of room for both plumbers in there, as demonstrated. Alfie just has to be a bit uncomfortable, but he's an apprentice, so it comes with the territory. COMPLETE SET and CONCLUSION Overall, a very pleasant set when it comes to the truck and porta potty model. The plane is complete bleh, but as a truck this set is pretty nice. Especially for City builders, this is an unusual subject for a truck, and the minifigures are very nice and handy. Are a truck, porta potty, and robot really worth $30? I don't know, but it's a very nice truck and porta potty, and a cute robot, with plenty of parts. So I guess so. Two more 2-in-1s to go!
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Podracer-like flying machine, or wall? You get to decide in… Set Title: Castle Cavalry Set #: 70806 Theme: The LEGO Movie Pieces: 424 Minifgures: 3 Year of Release: 2014 Price at Release: USD 30 Browse the pictures? Flickr set INTRODUCTION First of all, holy whoa, 424 pieces for $30? Can that be right? That's crazy! Second of all, nobody thought much of this set when pictures surfaced. And for good reason. The minifigures and colors are the same as the current Castle line, so what's really to like here? There are better castle sets in the Castle line. Is there something special that everybody missed? Let's see… BOX All of the 2-in-1 boxes picture the more, erm, "creative" model as the main model. That's not to say that the other one is secondary exactly, but the whacky and kind of unappealing one is all front and center. The back shows both models more equally. It seems to highlight those awful mini-catapults and not the flick-fires. Which is better? Maybe the catapults. Names make figures seem special, right? Well, there's nothing exclusive about our knights, but Sharon Shoehorn is exclusive. CONTENTS There are no numbered bags in these sets because once you build one model, you couldn't have numbered bags when building the second one anyway. With a lot of parts, that actually makes the build kind of lengthy. Here are all the parts for the Castle wall/flying thing, for your interest. Not a bad castle parts pack really, but nothing revolutionary. There are three booklets: two numbered ones and one that builds the wall model. The first slim numbered one builds the robot, while the second builds the flying thing. I didn't take a picture of the inside; it's fairly standard. The sticker sheet is not too bad here. MINIFIGURES As I said, most of these will be nothing new to anybody into Castle. None of the latest castle line interested me, so these are my first of these guys, and they're pretty nice for what they are. Still, compared to the more interesting city figures in other sets, I understand why these aren't much to write home about. Sharon Shoehorn's torso actually looks like it comes from the '80s besides for the modern "shapely" printing. I do love Sharon's second exp<b></b>ression, and the knight's is a good one, if not new. Everybody has a bit of nice backprinting. SET - MICROMANAGER This particular Micromanager isn't my favorite; they're cuter with legs. This is the only one with wheels, but it doesn't roll all that well. The hand is super big, and can grab minifigures very well. You sometimes need to balance it on the big hand for it to not fall over. Since it rolls, it's got to have some tail lights in case it's caught in traffic. The wheels do fold up into it, but then I'm not sure what you're supposed to do with it. SET - FLYING THING The flying model actually uses all of the remaining parts, just leaving extra bits that you'd expect to see as extras anyway. Not all of the 2-in-1s use all the parts. Here are the leftovers from this model: And here is our flying machine. This one is pretty ok. It's reminiscent of a podracer, which makes it decently fun to swoosh. There are no controls, but it's already ridiculous so… oh well. The color scheme is pleasant and castle-y. This one does easily convey taking a castle and turning it into a flying machine. From the side, it still looks alright. Silly of course, but alright. The "engines" have some firey exhaust coming out, which is a fun touch. The set features the only way to make flick-fires tolerable - by having something else push them out. They still don't work well, but they're better. There's plenty of ammo for the little catapults, if you care to use those. The way the fence piece is attached using skeleton arms is cool, and is actually the same in the secon model, as we'll see. Overall, this model has enough guns and the fun engines, so it's not too bad. SET - CASTLE WALL The wall model doesn't use everything, but there aren't so many leftovers either. Here they are: First up is actually the sub-builds. Here are two little light things. They look nice, but are also the type of thing that aren't so necessary. They seem to just be there to eat parts. Next is a little double-catapult cart. LEGO loves double-catapult carts. There have been so many of these over the years. This one is fine and unremarkable. The front has some fire and places for a minifigure to drag it along. And now… the castle. For a castle wall, it's pretty nice. Plenty of detailing, more than in the current castle line I'd say. It's a lot of parts packed into a not-huge model. This really has to be part of a wall, or between two mountains, or something. Otherwise the door is a bit useless. Still, with the right imagination this makes a nice little outpost. There's just enough space for the knights to chill out, both in the towers and up top. The door has a locking mechanism, just a brick with technic pieces that slot through to lock it. Still, nice. COMPLETE SET and CONCLUSION So there you have it. Is this set better than what I initially expected? I don't know. The one model I'd want to display is the wall, but no surprise there. It's a nicely detailed wall. You'll have to be the judge if this set is worth getting for you. It does have a lot of parts, most of which are castle-y, so if you're into castle this isn't a terrible parts pack. The minifigures certainly don't sell this one, so you'd have to like the wall model, be a completist on micromanagers, or want to parts to get this. More 2-in-1 reviews to come!
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SWAT vests. A beastly cop car. Another Emmet. Next up… Set Title: Super Cycle Chase Set #: 70808 Theme: The LEGO Movie Pieces: 514 Minifigures: 5 Year of Release: 2014 Price at Release: USD 50 Browse the pictures? Flickr set INTRODUCTION Thanks to LEGO for sending me these sets to review. This was the first LEGO Movie set revealed way back when, and I think it left a lot of people scratching their heads. Of course the new minifigure accessories were awesome, but otherwise, this could've been a doosy. I didn't have much feeling for it going in. Could be great, could be dumb. Let's see… BOX The box gives you a nice view of the models, though the background is a bit drab. It's funny to see that stray flick-fire without showing you where it came from at all. On the back it seems all of the minifigures have ditched their rides and prefer a chase on foot? Since that makes sense. The back also shows you that there aren't very many true features, but honestly when things roll, that's feature enough for me most of the time. The top shows us our cast: Emmet, Wyldstyle, and three delicious Robo SWATs. CONTENTS Inside are a few numbered bags with a surprisingly low amount of orange. The cycle looks pretty orange from the picture, but there's not much of it. The designer made a little orange go a long way. Instead there's a lot of grey and black. There are two booklets and a pretty hefty sticker sheet. Sticker-haters will not at all be pleased, but I applied them all to stay true to the set. I don't seem to have taken pictures of inside the instructions, but they're the boring blue color scheme and whatever. You get it. MINIFIGURES If you had asked CloneyO which set in this wave had the best minifigures, he definitely would not have said this one. In fact, none of these minifigures are even exclusive, besides for one exclusive part: the special eye-piece attachment on one Robo SWAT. But in actuality, these are a lot cooler than they seem. There are certain minifigures that, when they appear in a lot of sets, you roll your eyes (like Battle Droids). But these Robo SWAT guys are awesome and I would totally want to army build them (I already have a mini-army since there are a bunch of them across the wave). These ones especially look totally cool in the new vest piece. Their torsos and legs are super-useful, and the heads are great too. Somehow I never realized before building the sets that Wyldstyle has a printed arm, which means her torso comes from… elsewhere and has the telltale markings on the hands and no printing on the neck. Oh, and Emmet is Emmet. The backs of the vests are printed with the hilarious "Super Secret Police," which perhaps make them slightly less useful, but oh well. Wyldstyle's hood piece is neat. The Robo SWAT get two of the neat new gun piece with different attachments, and a pair of handcuffs. Not bad. BUILD In the build I came across a couple of interesting pieces that I haven't seen much before. There are also some of the new 1x2 slope pieces, which you can note on the finished things. There are some nice leftovers. One can always use more cheese. SET - ROADBLOCK Let's start with perhaps the least interesting thing and go from there (this is also the build order). That would be this little roadblock device. LEGO has added chains to sets before to stop crooks (like in the Chase McCain set from CITY), but this time it's more of a play feature! Here it's all coiled up. But (theoretically) flip the thing on the back, it uncoils! I say theoretically because if you coil it in a sloppy manner, as I did, it doesn't really work. If you manage to get it coiled tightly, it does work well. This is a fun one, when it works. SET - SUPER CYCLE This thing actually looks awesome. Not a lot of orange pieces, but a lot of orange pop! There's something about it that makes it look really rough and fun. You don't want to mess with this bike. Wyldstyle looks menacing on it from the front. Somehow it looks cohesive against all odds. Each side has different stickers that look like cutoffs of something else. It adds to the feel that Wyldstyle assembled it out of other things, but unlike the saloon plane in Creative Ambush, this bike is subtle about it, so it doesn't turn out looking messy. The big back wheel is an awesome construction. I haven't seen track used for this before. Something about the big back wheel reminded me of the Shredder Dragon Bike, or made me think of what the Dragon Bike could've been if it was a better set. This bike right here is how to do a weird motorcycle - the Dragon Bike, not so much. SET - SUPER SWAT VEHICLE This thing is a BEAST - and I love it. This car seems to growl at you, it's so tough-looking. It looks like it could smash through a building. It's a terrific car. You don't want to see this car coming at you, because I think it'd run you down. Looks like I didn't press the top of the car down very well in this one, but apart from that, the side view looks nice. It's not too stubby of a vehicle, nor too long. It seems just right. No doors sadly, but I suppose Robo SWAT can just climb through the ceiling. I'm sure a big car like this is pretty terrible for the environment. Just look at all of those exhaust pipes! I love the ribbed pattern on the back. The back opens up to reveal a very small compartment where you can stash some dynamite, or whatever you like. The cab has plenty of room for more than one figure, and could easily be mod-ed to easily fit a few. The only "play feature" is that the side foot stands lift up to reveal everybody's favorite-flick fires. Everybody especially loves flick-fires that are nearly innaccessible for flicking. The car looks kind of interesting with the "wings" up, but really it's just better to forget about those flicky thingies. COMPLETE SET and CONCLUSION Well, I'm sold. These vehicles are awesome, the Robo SWAT are great figures that you really can't get enough of, and Wyldstyle and Emmet are cool enough too (even in multiple). Parts-wise, there's a bunch to like, some new parts and the orange bits, which are more rare. Lots of nice slopes in the SWAT car too. I still can't quite wrap my head around what costs $50 recently. The vehicles are kind of compact, even though they have a lot of parts, so it doesn't exactly feel like $50 when it's built. But it's a great set anyway, and I guess it adds up. If you like vehicles and/or police stuff, I'd definitely pick this up. I imagine more people might want the cool bike after seeing the movie as well. Next up: the 2-in-1's in some order!
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Flying shawarma. Saloon plane. Kabobs. It's time for… Set Name: Creative Ambush Set #: 70812 Theme: The LEGO Movie Pieces: 473 Minifigures: 4 Year of Release: 2014 Price at Release: USD 40 Browse the pictures? Flickr set INTRODUCTION Once again, thanks to LEGO for sending me these sets to review. What's with the name of this set? It really sounds rather plain and could mean absolutely anything. Who is even getting ambushed? The robot? I guess. However, I will not judge a set by its crappy ambiguous name. I was quite excited about this set: it looked funky and cool. Will it look funky and cool in real life? Let's find out! BOX It's still looking funky and cool on the box, which is very square and not all that big. It's the same dimensions as the MetalBeard Duel box, only deeper, which may or may not mean nothing to you right now. Overall: funky. And cool. The back gives you a better, or perhaps worse, view of the plane. Actually in the picture, the plane still looks pretty cohesive, even though you can see more of it. LEGO ran out of play features it seems, since one of the inserts is just Bob standing on his flying cart. CONTENTS Inside we find a few numbered bags, two instruction manuals, and a sticker sheet. Looks like some nice white parts, and plenty of brown. Definitely a lot better than grey! The instruction manuals of course have the same funky and cool picture as the front of the box. These are some neat stickers, especially the Kabob Cart menu ones. Even if you don't like to apply stickers to sets, you might want to keep these around for a MOC of your own. The instructions use the drab blue and orange color scheme I already whined about in my Lair review. MINIFIGURES Yay, the goodies! They're spread out over the build, as LEGO likes to do now, but here they all are for you: From left to right: Kabob Bob, Executive Ellen, Rootbeer Belle, and Sudds Backwash. Out of these, most parts are new and looking good. I thought Ellen's head was the one from Alien Conquest, but it's actually slightly different, so props to LEGO for that! Also great are the three re-colored hair/hat pieces, all new in these colors. Only Sudds' torso is overly simple, a syndrome that afflicts a bunch of figures across this line. It does look pretty retro. Everybody gets backprinting this time, even Sudds with very simply back printing. All are lovely. Ellen has a reverse scared face which looks identical to the Alien Conquest figure minus a beauty mark. I also give you a better view of Sudds' whole face, which has some light markings to show how serious he is. Somehow I didn't take a picture of all the accessories, but you get a bunch of stuff like dynamite, guns of the old type (hooray no more Lone Ranger guns!), and a knife to shave shawarma. All of that gets attached to the vehicles, which might be why I forgot about it. BUILD Like the Lair, there are plenty of different things to build here, so it doesn't get too boring. It goes robot, cart, plane, which in a way goes from best to worst in this set. But that's to be talked about in the next sections. There are some nice pieces here, like a bunch of the new round plate with hole, the ice cream cone, clippy bits, and plenty of SNOT bricks. All of these robots have plenty of SNOT, and in different colors for whatever reason. Not too many extras of note, but studs are always handy nonetheless. SET - MICRO MANAGER Full disclosure, I thought these black square robot things were extremely bad-looking from the pictures. They just looked dumb. To my surprise, in real life they're actually pretty adorable. This one's got cute little arms and legs that are more pose-able than most. You have to have it yourself for it to win you over. On the back it has a mysterious clip that nothing clips onto. What should clip onto the Micro Manager? YOU Decide! Isn't it so cute? I can imagine it running after me pinching its cute little claws. Of course flick-fires are worthless but let's not shed too many tears about those. SET - KABOB CART Next, the Kabob cart. The instructions have you leave the wheels/thrusters flat, which just looks weird. Overall, I loved the idea behind this, but the result is kind of underwhelming. It's pretty plain. The details are nice, like the little bottles, and the thing that emits heat on the shawarma. Speaking of which, I do love the shawarma - that's ingenious and hilarious. But do you see those gears under the shawarma? They do nothing. I was really hoping for a play feature, but no, they just turn. This angle shows another view of the gears that do nothing. You can also see where to flick the flick-fires! Hooray! This cart would really be so much better if it had a more interesting play function. You can actually position the thrusters more like the box and have it stand up. With them like this, it definitely looks better, but it still feels a bit ho-hum to me when I hold it in my hand. I can't exactly put my finger on why. It may be that there aren't enough guns, so that when I swoosh it around, I don't feel like I can go pew-pew-pew because there's nothing to go pew-pew-pew on the model. SET - SALOON PLANE Finally, we get to the biggest chunk of the set - the plan. This thing looked pretty cool in the boxart, but I've got to say that in real life, it's a bit of a hot mess. Like the cart, it's a terrific idea, but it turns out looks pretty ugly. Brown with dark grey, some gold, dark tan, and little green, light grey, and black gets to be too much. The barrel thursters on the back are cool (thrusters on a bi-plane?), but again the thing overall is a bit unsightly. Perhaps if some of the grey was replaced with one of the other colors, it would look better. It least it is swooshable and makes me want to go pew-pew-pew as I swoosh it around. It really looks best from the front, where you can't see too much of it. LEGO sure knows how to pick the best angle for the boxart! Even though the plane as a whole is kind of ugly, some of the detailing is fantastic. I love the use of the spigot piece in gold as controls. And this piano may be my favorite part of the set! So cute! The plane does have tolerable play features as well. Of course the firing canons are always good, but there are also treasure-chest bombs - just open the chest and dump out some dynamite. Kind of a clunky feature, but not bad. COMPLETE SET and CONCLUSION So there you have it. The poorly titled and disappointing Creative Ambush. This was actually the first set of the wave that I built, and it wasn't a great start, but there are a lot of better sets to be had, thankfully. Still, there are some good elements here. The minifigures are all useful and offer existing parts in new colors, plus good prints all around. The Micro Manager is fun, and some of the little detail builds are superb, like the shawarma and piano. Parts-wise, there's a lot to like I think. Some new pieces like the round tile with hole, and lots of good brown things in the plan, as well as some tan. With 473 it's a great value (at least in the US), and may be worth it if you're into parts. I hope you enjoyed my second LEGO Movie review. I'm curious to hear what other people think of this one, since (as I've explained) it doesn't do much for me when all is said and done. Better things to come!
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A super-tall suit. A high-ish price tag. Morgan Freeman! Yep, it's… Set Name: Lord Business' Evil Lair Set #: 70809 Theme: The LEGO Movie Pieces: 738 Minifgures: 6 + Kitty Year of Release: 2014 Price at Release: 70 USD, Just browse the pics? Flickr set INTRODUCTION Special thanks to LEGO for sending me all of the January LEGO Movie sets to review. That's right, there will be reviews of all 13! This is just the first. I just figured I'd start with the big precious. This set looked cool from the outset. Nice design, nice minifigs, and nice pricetag. And Morgan Freeman! I was excited to crack this one open. Let's see if it lives up to the expectations… BOX Both this and Rescue Reinforcements have nice big boxy boxes of this size. Not that huge since LEGO went all environmental and/or economical with their box sizes, but a hefty enough size. We instantly see all the fun in this set - pretend-gluing of figures, a huge evil suit, ever-laughing Biznis Kitty. Goodies. The back shows basically the same thing but with Vitruvius running away, plus some inserts of the play features. My favorite play feature is… replacing hats with hair. Hours of funnnnnnnnnn! Meet our cast of characters for this set: another boring (but pleasant) Emmet, Vitruvius , Pa and Ma Cop, El Macho Wrestler (who I'm fairly certain was the villain in Despicable Me 2), Biznis Kitty, and Will Ferrell aka President Business. I wouldn't say the minifigures alone make the set worth it, but… this is the way to do a big set. Five cool and exclusive figures are awesome. CONTENTS Spill out the box and you get two instruction booklets, a lovely wonderful sticker sheet, the capes packed in a bag with a cardboard card to keep them nice and straight, two metallic-colored tubes, and five numbered bags. Lots of grey and black in there, but enough other colors to break it up. CloneyO doesn't love grey, but I'll deal with it here. INSTRUCTIONS Two sizable booklets get us through. The art makes it look like the LEGO lair is inside a much bigger lair. All of the LEGO Movie sets use just a plain blue and orange color scheme for the instructions pages. It reminded me of Creator sets. I understand why instructions would look boring for boring Creator sets that are just pieces and no minifigures besides for boring minifigures that nobody wants (#rant), but for these sets it's a bummer. I like those spooky low-opacity pictures in my instructions like the ones in most Licensed instructions! There are a lot of ads for the other sets in here. Also, there's the 2014 DC Lineup picture, for some reason. I'll just show that and link the other ads. These appear across all the instructions in all the sets. MINIFIGURES!!!! This will be a very long section, because in all honesty my favorite thing to photograph is minifigures. They're so ridiculously photogenic. Sometimes I sit at my desk and hear minifigures calling out to me to be photographed. Then I grab my camera and forget I have work to do for days on end. #fakestorytime Getting this many cool exclusive figures is just great. I do think that it would've been nicer of LEGO to include Vitruvius in a cheaper set as well, so that kids who couldn't get this one could still get him. That aside, these are amazing and they deserve some pictures in which they can shine. I'll cut right to Vitruvius. His cape is very soft - much softer than regular LEGO capes these days (which are kind of stiff). Perhaps that's so that it doesn't get all bent out of shape by his hair and beard. Speaking of his hair and beard, they're totally fantastic! I love these pieces. Back to his cape, I didn't previously notice that it's got sparkles on one side. It's not a print either - they're like glitter glued onto the cape. There's all Biznis Kitty looking nicely Biznisy from the front. Vitruvius also has a funky, worn-out look. I'm sure Emmet will do that to a person. This side of Kitty has a dollar sign and @ sign. Why? Because who knows. That's why. Vitruvius hair is so fantastic. It's a pretty thick hair - either he uses a lot of product or his hair is naturally luscious. It reminds me of Jasmine's hair in Aladdin; perhaps an upcoming Disney Princess set eh eh? Kitty sports the Euro and % signs on her other side. Her neck is very flexible if you couldn't tell. The torso and legs skirt line up well (hooray!) and have a lovely tie-die shirt pattern. It looks like the skirt is printed to simulate LEGO legs under the robe. Vitruvius is clearly tired out by the abundance of Kitty. Biznis' is exactly the same as regular Kitty but with the scribbles. Without the beard, Vitruvius' other face looks like wide-eyed shock. Or drugged-out. I forsee drug-infused Brickfilms coming. Enough Vitruvius. Next up: the Pres and Emmet. Business has a very simple suit print, fun face, and cool hair. The hair is ridiculous of course, but neat nonetheless. Emmet is Emmet. Not bad. Not revolutionary. Good for parts. Both have reverse heads. President Business' reverse face really goes with the helmet, but it's cool here anyway. Emmet gets annoying just to look at after a while, and he doesn't even move! Emmet has his simple back-printing, while Lord Business has none. I should've mentioned that Vitruvius doesn't have backprinting either, sadly. Business' back hair looks cool though. Ma and Pa cop are both pretty cool, mostly for their faces and hair. Their torsos, like many in this line, are extremely simple. Like, throw-back '90s and earlier simple. While torsos can get overly detailed these days, the Cops' torsos are so simple as to shock the system a little. El Macho Wrestler looks a bit more detailed, and is a lot of fun. Also cool to see the lilipad *ahem* Army Man stand piece return, this time in clear! Ma and Pa have lovely scared/angry reverse heads. There haven't been too many angry old-people faces yet, not to mention angry old ladies, so these are very welcome. El Macho has some back printing, while the cops don't. Lord Business' Super Suit Lord Business can also be outfitted with his super-insane big suit. I assume this guy is manically nuts. His suit certaily is. I love the tie-shaped cape, though. The hat does less for me. It's just too much. I recall people wondering how this thing wouldn't be wildly unstable, and what would keep the minifigure from snapping off all the time. Well, the pants are actually glued to newly-shaped black parts that go in to them. Oh the irony, glued parts in a set where glue is evil. These are interesting, and LEGO nicely gives you the second regular pair so you can make the regular non-suited President as well. I love the neck piece. It looks good without the whole suit too. BUILD This build is nice and varied, since you get a bunch of different things and some play features as well as nice details worked in. Overall, it's pretty enjoyable, without too much repetition. Aka my favorite type of build. Here are the extra pieces, which include three white studs with hole in them! Those are always great. BALCONY/GLUE SECTION Bear with my creative naming. I don't really know what to call the different parts of the lair, which do detach and also snap together, by the by. This side is adorned with lovely columns and a regal balcony. On the bottom are a couple imposing all-black doors, and up top is the big infinity window and Kragle, ready to glue things together! I'm not sure what exacly the battery is for, but it's neat. I always like to get some trans-blue panels as well. Nothing much to see from the back, but there's plenty of play in the front (as we're about to see), so that's no big deal. Here, El Macho goes up to the doors. He doesn't think they look so bad. Just doors. Without warning, the human pushes the gluer from the back, and the doors burst open! El Macho is about to get glued! This play feature is awesome and works well. Just push the thing from the back, and it opens the doors and comes through them. I love it. Biznis Kitty thinks she can chill in front of the infinity window, no problem. Suddenly, the human pulls out the front of the balcony, and her platform tips backwards! She's gone! This play feature is a nice idea, but harder to work. The problem is that you might bump the whole thing and knock whatever you have on the plate into the window without actually pulling the front of the blacony. Still, it's a good thought. I love on the Kragle that the designer has used two stickered parts to simulate a squeezed tube. I had not noticed that in the pictures of the set before I built it, and was pleasantly surprised. Great detail. BOARD ROOM/TV STUDIO SECTION This side has less going on (and no play features), but is still quite nice. The detailing on the torture device things up top is great, as is the meeting table and couch. Let's look at some close-ups. All of my Emmets demonstrate sitting at the table. The problem with the design is that once figures are in the chairs, they can really only be towards the table, looking to one end, or looking away. It's a shame they can't rotate more, but it's still a lovely table. The camera, lights, and especially the couch are all superb little builds. That couch I'll be appropriating that design some time. Some great Studs In All Directions building went into the torture chambers. I love seeing more advanced techniques like this in sets. How far LEGO has come. Again, not much from the back. It's all party in the front, nothing in the back. COMPLETE SET and CONCLUSION This set is a real stand-out of the wave. I don't love all the LEGO Movie sets, as you'll see once I review them all, but this one is truly great. The build is satisfying, the finished model has nice playability and generally looks great, the minifigures are wonderful, and the value is good too. Of course it falls into LEGO's trend of packed-in models as opposed to bigger models with more big pieces, but this one still feels worth $70 overall. If you like minifigures, good builds, and nice models, get this. It's a lot of fun. Look out for 12 more reviews! Until Next time (which will be quite soon)!
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Another quick assembly for 70801 Melting Room 70801 Melting Room minifigs Quick assembly of 70800 Getaway Glider The three minifigs with front and back views I found these sets at Target yesterday and bought only these two sets as I thought the other sets were way overpriced. AC
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I have been working on this for quite some time now. I do not have much to show right now. ( edit, and especially after i accidentally deleted all the pictures of the first house i had just photoshopped :/ ). I got bored with building castle and had promised myself after having found all my childhood LEGO i wanted to build, first, Classic space ( my stepson voted for that. ) then castle, and then city. I had this idea for a city diorama when i saw the first trailer for the LEGO movie and that was what i wanted to build. However when i started on making the build i got in a LEGO state of mind i had never experienced before. City ( i thought ) have always bored me, and i got this idea that it was all about raising 4 walls adding a roof ... Job done. But i got pulled in and decided to make it modular because it really took me to a dimension of thinking in between putting bricks together of how i wanted it all to come together. Well, i bet all you city dudes know what im talking about. And now im so glad that i got this idea for the LEGO movie diorama. But that will not be finished quite yet. Now, first of all i want my city to take shape build by build as a lot of you guys do in this forum. ( Edit: Again, im so sorry for posting only one picture but i have to wait till tomorrow to make my whole light setup and once again edit the pictures). Some dudes came with this construction worker to a really abandoned part of Denmark shooting for a new movie. It was all about assembling the biggest event in history catching it on HB cameras to take it to the big screen. Offcourse exactly at that moment the dudes with the power and funds in the small community took advantage of this and almost immediately started to lay a ground plan for a new city. It was to be called Allbrickcity. And nothing should be spared ( except for what i can afford of new bricks each month :P ). Finally after several months of plannig and having the roadsystem functioning, building materials have started to arive at the center. And boy the workers look happy to finally being able to begin working on what will make the city attractive for newcomers. ( They got bored with making that first building. All it got for now is: First floor - BricksAreUs. Second floor - Two apartments. Top floor - Skyline buffet) ( Edit: These were all the pictures i was stupid enough to get deleted somehow ). 1. The exterior of this modular build is "finished" but ive been looking so much at all of the textures that im afraid ive gone blind with it and wanted some advice from you all of what to change and what looks good. That will have to wait for now till i get new shots. :/ Anyhow. I still wanted to start the topic. First of all my road system, im not quite happy with yet. Every module here ( Which offcourse is hard to differentiate from one picture only :P ) is diffrent. As i builded them i got new ideas and changed my design for the next and so on. Mostly the problems is with making the bricks add up in ratio to make them fit on a larger scale. I will add pictures again once i get them shot and put the rest of the text in here. I also want to keep a ratio for builds to a 8 - 16 - 32 studs. But since that wasnt my intention at first since i started all this to make the LEGO movie diorama, i will keep my "town square" a bit of ratio since i do love the building a lot. But who knows, i might rebuild it in the future. So the roadsystem as it is for now is an assurance for myself. Building bigger i would need more bricks. I just wanted to make sure that i didnt "overkill" myself thinking i got enough bricks to make it bigger. But i also wanted to have a layout since i mostly build on several ideas at once. Making it this way i both restrain myself and make sure i wont get to a hold not knowing what to do next. Ive noticed that building city really eats up bricks. I thought i had made some massive builds in the past, but i think that my first modular build is the heaviest ive ever made ( size compared) and i havent even added a lot of interior yet. But, next up for the first modular build for my Allbrickcity is interior and a whole lot of labels and decals. Ive just ordered the printing paper and i still need to photoshop a lot more of the decals before they are ready. Ive begun on the interior and also wanted some advice on design for the skyline buffet resturant. But no photos no advices i guess. :P Other builds ive planned for my city: The low left corner is the only base i havent build yet. Im in doubt of where to make an entrance to the beach im plannig. All the bases to the right will have houses and shops. Again. Since im not entirely sure where to place the beach i dont know where to place a hotel and swimmingpool design. But it could be placed on the right here, extending the baseplates already there. Otherwise the harbour will be located here along the whole lenght of the roadsytem. Im gonna incoporate my crypt from my castle build to fit in my city also ( Chronicle of dragon dent ). I offcourse have a lot of ideas to fill up remaining baseplates. But im trying to take it slow and only build when i get what i think is an awesome idea. Once again sorry for that lonely picture, but i had written so much text around all the pictures i was gonna upload and then screwed. So im posting this anyways. Good thing is that at least i get to start my city post. Ive been looking forward to this. So much more to come. Please do comment, ask questions, give advices and so on. Thanks in advance. :)
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Hi everybody. Everyone is getting excited for The Lego Movie coming out next year and the tie-in sets have been getting generally positive responses too. However, there is one thing that has been bugging me about this movie: How does it fit into the Lego universe? The story of the film is still mostly shrouded in mystery, but what we do know is that it depicts a world almost entirely made of Lego, with a few real-world items mixed in such as lollipops, batteries, and glue, where all Lego themes co-exist in the same world, even licensed themes, with each theme being represented as a town in this world. My question is: Is this part of the Lego canon, i.e. how Lego views their fictional universe? The nature of the Lego universe has never been quite clear. In the beginning, the themes were all separate until Time Cruisers introduced the idea that they all exist in the same world, just in different time zones / locations. However, this concept was later challenged by the Clutch Powers movie which suggests that almost every Lego theme exists on a different planet in the Lego universe. The MMO "Lego Universe" and the Ninjago TV series (which references Clutch Powers) support this idea. Considering the time cruisers were capable of interplanetary travel, this concept doesn't really contradict that of Time Cruisers, even though it was usually implied that all the time zones the cruisers traveled to were set on Earth (except for the space themes). For more on planets in the Lego universe, check out this handy index. Now the Lego Movie comes around and suggests that all themes take place on the same planet at the same time. Is Lego retconing their previously established canon? Or is the Lego Movie taking place in its own universe, separate from all other Lego themes? There are several differences between things in the Lego themes and their counterparts in the Lego Movie that suggest that the latter might be the case. For example, Batman is portrayed as a parody of himself rather than the awesome brooding Dark Knight that he usually is. He is an egotistical jerk who is very bad at throwing Batarangs, and he is said to protect Bricksburg, not Gotham City, so this can't be the Batman that we see in the sets and videogames. Also, I don't think Octan was meant to be an evil mega-corporation that owns everything in the Lego world (including meat products) until now. So perhaps The Lego Movie is more of a parallel universe to the main Lego universe? If that's the case, how do you incorporate the Lego Movie sets into your collection? Do you integrate them into your Lego City layout or keep them in their own separate corner on your display shelf? Perhaps the movie will shed some light on this matter, or maybe it wont. But whatever the official canon is, everybody has their own "head canon" or idea of how the Lego Movie fits into the Lego universe, so I would like to hear your thoughts on this. So what do you think? Does the Lego Movie affect the Lego canon? If so, how? Or am I just being a total geek and completely over-thinking this?
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Just stumbled upon this. From here. -Sci
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ReBrick are running a brickfilm contest! The winners will feature in the upcoming LEGO Movie! Take a look here for more info.
