This is our look at Lego WALL-E (21303), an awesome Disney/Pixar themed set from last year. This is £39.99 and has 677 pieces, which is an amazing 5.9p per piece – a bargain for a branded set.
The build itself is straightforward, although it did take me a little longer than expected simply because of all the workings that go into the tracks, arms and head and neck pieces. The finished model is just so full of character, WALL-E’s shape just naturally lends himself to the Lego treatment. Everything is posable, the arms, the hands, the neck, eyes – and of course the tracks turn too. You can also open up his front to get access to his storage area (which you can see in the video that Noah loves) and he even has the little cockroach on top and the plant in his hand.
I picked this one up back when it was originally released, so I had the well reported problems with the head and neck design. This caused WALL-E’s eyes to just flop completely forward, rather than stay upright. After speaking with Lego customer support, they furnished me with a set of instructions and some new pieces that could be used to fix the problem. The nice thing about the fix is that taking it apart and rebuilding it again with new parts lets you understand where things went wrong, and makes you also wonder how it ever passed design review in it’s original state. Not only is the new design stronger, but it uses less and far more common pieces – including a simple ball joint that should have been their solution from the start.
I cannot recommend this set enough. It is perfectly priced, builds well, and looks amazing on a display shelf when complete. Easily one of my favourite Lego sets over the past few years, and still available for purchase today.
This the Angry Birds Piggy Car Escape, a set based on the Angry Birds movie that was in cinemas a couple of months ago. This is an expensive set, at over 16p per piece, and only has 74 pieces, but they’re all used to great effect. It actually feels like a set with many more pieces than it does, and it’s a better mix of pieces than you get with the Mixels.
But there’s just no getting away from that price, which unless you can get it much cheaper, is probably one to avoid.
Our Youtube channel is a big part of what we’re about, and we’re constantly trying to make it better. But the way Youtube works, getting viewers is about ranking well in search results, and then getting recommended when people view other Lego videos. But I’ll be honest, so far it’s not been going great, and most of our videos still have low viewer numbers and ranking. But rather than give up, I’m going to double our efforts, and do a video every single day this month and see what effect that has. That’s a lot more work between the filming and the editing, especially with a 3 week old daughter, but we want to make sure we do the best we can.
The first two days are below, and we think they’re both pretty good. We think most of our videos are pretty good. Not always, sometimes it doesn’t work out – but that’s why we keep doing them, so we can learn, and make them better.
If you like what we’re doing, make sure and subscribe to our channel. There’s a button on the right of this page to let you do just that. And if you think a video is good, chuck a thumbs up our way by clicking the icon below the video on the Youtube video page or posting a comment. All those interactions help tell their system that we’re worth recommending to others. And of course, you can recommend us to your friends manually as well!
Also, if there’s anything you’d like us to do, or anything you think can be improved, then just let me know through our contact page. This is a big learning experience, so I’m all ears.
Whether you come here to read our reviews and news, or are one of the almost 5000 people who have liked our Facebook page, or have already been enjoying our videos, thanks for taking this journey with us. Onwards!
Another new release for August 1st, and this one is Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, another Marvel Super Heroes set from the upcoming movie starring Benedict Cumberwhatsit. This looks like a nice little set which retails for £29.99 and has 358 pieces, putting this at a very reasonable 8.4p per piece. The model is of his headquarters, where some tentacles appear to be bursting through a portal on the right (sorry, I don’t know much about Doctor Strange!).
The press release tells us…
The set includes three minifigures: Doctor Strange, Karl Mordo and The Ancient One.
Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum features a portal beast with rotating teeth, moving eyes and tentacles that can trap minifigures, shelves for mystical artifact accessories, levitation effect for 2 minifigures, and levitation function for Doctor Strange’s cloak.
Weapons include Karl Mordo’s quarterstaff and The Ancient One’s magical fans with eldritch calligraphy.
Accessory elements include Doctor Strange’s cloak of levitation and magical power elements with eldritch calligraphy markings.
Lego take a lot of heat for producing so many sets with instructions of what to build, and pieces that are designed for only one use, and for “not being what it used to be”. These claims are largely unfounded, Lego still sell big buckets of bricks and have also been producing sets with build instructions since 1964. But if there’s a set which could be used as ammunition in that fight, then this it.
The Hulk Buster Smash is one of many Lego produced Marvel Super Heroes sets, and this one is based on the Avengers: Age of Ultron. It has 248 pieces and retails for £29.99 (although we were lucky enough to pick it up for half that). I said on the video that 12.1p per piece was shocking, but for a branded set isn’t too bad. I just meant it was high compared to those 6p per piece Creator sets that will be on the shelf next to this.
There are various parts but let’s start with The Hulk Buster suit itself, which as you can see in the photo above, looks great. Not only is it an accurate representation of the suit from the film, but it was also an interesting build, and is a great toy when finished. As well as posable arms and legs, thanks to ball joints similar to the Star Wars figures we were reviewing last month, the front of it also opens to allow Iron Man to sit inside…
Kids who love Iron Man are just going to go crazy for that, especially if they’re like Noah and also love putting toys inside other toys. One of the arms also has two stud shooters, those things that are really difficult for small kids like Noah to load, and which fire studs so far they’re likely to lose them within 5 minutes even if they can.
But the Hulk Buster is also the reason why I say this set could be used as ammunition in the “Lego isn’t generic anymore” fight. That head is a single, printed piece specifically for this set. It can’t be anything else, it’s The Hulk Buster head. There’s no pretending otherwise, and no skill in building it, it just clicks right on. I think the fight is stupid, and it’s just one piece out of almost 250 others, but there you go.
As well as The Hulk Buster, you also get three minifigs and a Hulk bigfig, starting with Iron Man…
There’s been so many variations on the design of the Iron Man minifigs, every set they tweak him a little more. As you can see, the mask opens so you can see Tony Stark underneath, and while the print is filled with detail it’s perhaps a little difficult to understand what it all is. Next we have Scarlet Witch…
It does a reasonable job of capturing her outfit from the film, although the coat should be longer and could perhaps be printed on the legs too. The lightning bolts are meant to signify her powers, but I’m not 100% satisfied with how they look. Next is Ultron…
He’s a good looking robot enemy minifig, with very precise patterning all over, but not very interesting. Finally, the Hulk bigfig…
This is my favourite figure from the set. He looks brilliant, with two chunky hands for holding things, but only the arms and head move, which means he’s always fixed in essentially the position you see above. And this is the other place that you could criticise this set, because those are pieces that again could never be used for anything else. While the rest of the minifig pieces can be mixed and matched, there’s no getting away from the fact that the mould there is the Hulk.
The other part of this set is what Lego calls the Hulk Prison, which also has a piece that makes it look like Scarlet Witch is levitating above it…
Noah loves jails, and bad guy characters in them, but he finds this a pretty disappointing prison. Not only does it have no roof, but it doesn’t surround him either. I’ve tried to look online to find out if there was something similar in the movie and what it looked like, but have been unable to. This just looks like filler to me.
Finally, as you can see in the video, there’s a Super Jumper piece. This allows a minifig to sit on top, and then you can put it on a table and push it down to launch the thing across the room. This is no different from the other sets that include it, kids love it, you can jump them pretty far (grab one in another set for the challenge of who can get the furthest), but they’re quite difficult to unstick once they’re attached.
Despite all the negativity, the picture at the very top of this review shows why this set is still a winner. Forget the one-use pieces, the poor prison and the pretty uninspiring minifigs, this is a set that kids are just going to love playing with. The Hulk Buster model is so flexible and sturdy, they’re going to be setting up scenes like these and just having a ball. Even a grumpy AFOL would admit the Hulk Buster is a pretty good display model too. And if you can pick this up for around £15-£20 like we did, then that’s a bit of a bargain.
We’re just a few days away from August, which means there’s three big new Lego Technic releases about to hit stores. These are based on the themes of mining, construction and farming and each is a replica of a real working machine.
First we have the Volvo EW160E (42053) pictured above, a wheeled excavator that includes a pneumatic system for a working bucket and extendable boom, a height adjustable cab with seat, armrests, sun visor and adjustable mirrors, rotating superstructure, rear-controlled front steering, working front blade and extendable outriggers. It can also be upgraded with the 8293 Lego Power Functions set to create a fully motorised boom and working lights. It has 1166 pieces and retails for £69.99.
Next we have the CLAAS XERION 5000 (42054), an industrial farm machine with motorised functions including a rotating operator’cab, working crane arm and extendable outriggers. Manual functions include front-wheel, 4-wheel crab steering, and a working crane claw. It also features a detailed operator’s cab, four huge tractor tyres and a tree trunk element for extended play scenarios. This has 1977 pieces and retails for £119.99.
And finally we have this, the largest Lego Technic set ever, it’s the Bucket Wheel Excavator (42055). This is based on a real-life mining excavator, and features hand-railed walkways, huge tracks and detailed cab. It also comes with an array of motorised functions, including forward and reverse driving, moving conveyor belts, working boom with revolving bucket wheel, and a rotating superstructure. A mining truck is included within the set to accompany the excavator. At over 72cm long, this thing is absolutely huge! With 3927 pieces, this retails for £179.99.
All three sets are available on August 1st. We’ll have our review of the Bucket Wheel set soon, and you can follow along with our build on Facebook.
We all know you can build anything you want out of Lego, and we know that the sets you buy can be repurposed into other things. But let’s be honest, we could all do with a little inspiration. That’s why Lego has launched a new feature on their site called “Remake” which provides fan created instructions on how to turn your existing sets into something new.
There’s not many builds available at the moment, and all of them are based on smaller Lego City sets, but what is there is presented with high quality instructions and part information. If you have any of the sets involved, this could be a good resource, and I hope to see them grow it quickly.
Compared to Rebrickable, which has similar goals, this is a very basic set of pages and unlikely to challenge that resource for AFOLs. But for kids, or those who like the simplistic approach, it’s nice to see Lego themselves giving it a shot.
Final news coming out of San Diego Comic-Con regarding The Lego Batman Movie. First we got the poster…
Then we got the trailer. This looks great, Robin looks like a lot of fun, and there’s so many things happening in every shot of this you’re going to have to watch it 10 times just to pick up all the references.
The sheer number of Lego super hero sets released means they can’t all be winners, and this set is definitely on the losing side. Coming in at £19.99 with 174 pieces (11.5p per piece), Green Lantern vs. Sinestro is one of the cheaper items in the Lego DC Super Heroes range, but that doesn’t mean you should buy it.
Watch our video review, and then continue on for more details and photos…
Let’s be honest, Green Lantern is a bit of a second-rate superhero for those that aren’t deep into comics. There hasn’t been a good, successful Green Lantern movie yet, which means he’s playing second fiddle to the Captain America’s and Batman’s of the world. That probably limits the appeal of this set somewhat, and the quality of the build isn’t going to change that. The main bulk of the pieces are used for this black, dark green and transparent lime green spaceship…
I don’t really mind the colours, and the transparency adds some interest, but the finished ship just looks terrible. It’s so small, and so bare, with next to no detail, it’s almost unfinished. I am sure that there was a target piece count and budget to meet for the Lego designer who put it together, but from the build to the finished product, it just doesn’t work.
As well as a printed piece for the Green Lantern logo on the front, the spaceship also has stud shooters and missile launchers, the latter of which are fired one at a time by turning the engine piece on the back. The stud shooters are fairly common on a lot of the super hero sets, and are able to fire single 1×1 round studs a significant distance. The problem for kids is that not only are they quite fiddly to load, but that also 1×1 studs that fly that far are also easily lost – making them fairly impractical, especially for younger children.
There are also three minifigs included in this set, all of which are good representations of the comic characters and they may be worth the price of this set alone if you’re a fan. The first of course is Green Lantern himself…
We only had one problem with him, and that’s the clutch on his hair seemed really loose and kept falling off. Despite numerous tries, we could never get it to connect in a satisfying way. Next we have Sinestro, Green Lantern’s arch-enemy…
He has his traditional pink face, and one of the more modern designs for his outfit. Finally, we have Space Batman…
The design for this is just too cluttered. The wings are a nice, bendy plastic piece, held onto his back via a jetpack, but his face and cowl just end up clashing and looking like a bit of a mess. I’ve checked since the video, and it really is Bruce Wayne wearing a mask, and then wearing his cowl on top of that. It does feel a bit like Batman was included just to make the set more appealing.
Finally, there’s the containment unit, which can either hold the included green lantern, or a minifig…
The Sinestro Corps logo is printed on the dish at the top, which when bumped back causes the front of the containment unit to open. Since this set also comes with a “super jumper” piece which allows you to hop an attached minifig, you can try to knock it over with Green Lantern or Batman. You can see in the video just how much fun Noah has with those jumping pieces.
Speaking of Noah, he likes this set. He thinks the spaceship is nice, and there’s a lot of different elements to play with. I can’t disagree on the latter point, kids love flying spaceships and planes through the air, especially if there’s room for a minfig inside and a couple of things to fire along the way. It’s just that they could do so much better, with something larger, cheaper, and/or better looking. Just like Green Lantern at the movies, there are simply better options available.
The Lego Twitter account has tweeted photos of two upcoming sets based on The Lego Batman Movie. These give us our first chance to see the minifigure versions of the redesigned Robin, Joker, Harley Quinn and Batgirl having seen the movie versions in pictures we posted yesterday.
The Batmobile itself looks like a great model, with big chunky tires and really nice dragster styling. It looks like there’s a good number of other minifigures included too, although Batman doesn’t look very different from how we’ve seen him in previous sets.
The Robin figure has the large eyes seen in the film, but rather than be actual lenses, these are printed on the front of a pair of googles. I guess that was to be expected, but it would have been great to see if they could really have made that work.
The Joker vehicle is a lowrider, which looks like it has suspension that might actually allow it to hop on it’s front wheels. It has a gold chicken as a hood ornament and traditional Joker purple and green styling.
The Joker minifig has just one sharp tooth sticking out to show off that he now has pointed gnashers, so hopefully there’s an alternate face on the back which shows him with a more menacing expression. Batgirl looks good in her purple and yellow suit, and Harley Quinn looks very detailed, complete with tiny roller skates.
No word when the sets will be released or what price they’ll be, but The Lego Batman Movie is in cinema’s February 2017. I expect will see more from the movie over the coming days.
