Tag Archives: Lone Ranger

In 2013, LEGO released a line of sets to coincide with The Lone Ranger movie directed by Gore Verbinski, starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer. See the custom models built by fans and read our reviews of the official sets right here on The Brothers Brick.

LEGO BTTF & Lone Ranger train kitbash is inevitable but awesome

We generally don’t highlight LEGO models that primarily include only official sets, but this one is too cool — and frankly, rather creative — to pass up. Stuart Miles over at Pocket-lint has combined the new LEGO Back to the Future DeLorean set with the LEGO Lone Ranger Constitution Train Chase set to recreate an iconic scene from Back to the Future III.

LEGO BTTF and Lone Ranger kitbash

Head on over to Pocket-lint.com for more photos and Stuart’s write-up.

79110 Silver Mine Shootout [Review]

79110 Silver Mine Shootout is the second-largest set from the newly released LEGO Lone Ranger theme. It contains 644 pieces and costs $69.99.

Here is my summary of the highlights of the set, which are elaborated in the review video below.

Pros:

  • Includes lots of tan and dark tan bricks and slopes useful for landscape builders.
  • Notable unique and rare elements include dark tan BURPs, boulder, transparent clear 1×4 tiles, transparent green bottle, and a cattle skull.
  • A surprisingly large number of play features (see video below)
  • All 5 minifigs are unique to the set.
  • Model has a non-rectangular footprint and thus has a more natural look.


Cons:

  • Price is a bit steep, but it could be worse.
  • Hardly any new part molds besides the cattle skull.
  • Standard building techniques with exception of the mine cart.

Overall the Silver Mine Shootout is a decent set worthy of addition to your collection. There’s hardly any sets out there with so many desert landscape elements, but even if you’re not ready to cannibalize the set for parts yet, there’s still display value in its natural appearance and fun to be had in all the play features. Buying this set at retail price is an ok deal, but finding it at a discount would be really worth it.

79110 Silver Mine Shootout is out on Amazon.com and the LEGO Shop online.

Check out our reviews of other LEGO Lone Ranger sets including 79108 Stagecoach Escape and 79109 Colby City Showdown.

LEGO Lone Ranger sets out now from Amazon and LEGO Shop [News]

The movie won’t hit theaters for nearly three months, but the new line of six new LEGO sets from The Lone Ranger is out now from both Amazon.com and the LEGO Shop online.

First, be sure to check out our reviews so far of the new sets (more to come):

Links to Amazon.com, with free shipping on orders over $25 and no sales tax in most states:

And here are the links for the LEGO Shop, which currently has free shipping on orders over $75:

Finally, a brief reminder that when you click through from The Brothers Brick, a portion of every sale on Amazon.com (not just LEGO, by the way) and the LEGO Shop online goes to support the site, including our sponsorship of events like the SEALUG LEGO display at Emerald City Comicon last month and BrickCon each year. Whether you click through from us or from another favorite LEGO site, you’re helping the LEGO fan community (at no additional cost to you).

Lone Ranger 79109: Colby City Showdown [Review]

DSC_0489 copy

Review of 79109 Colby City Showdown.

Get to de choppaColby City Showdown is the medium sized-set from the new Lone Ranger line, which is releasing tomorrow in North America and spans seven sets–a very large release for a new IP. Colby City is a small western town play-set, and the location of a dramatic action montage, judging by the play features. $49.99 USD may seem like a lot for two buildings, but with 587 pieces, it comes in well below that vaunted 10 cents-per-piece ratio that fans like to talk about. In fact, even without considering this is a licensed set, (which traditionally cost more per-piece than non-licensed sets) this set is a remarkably good deal.

The box contains four numbered bags, two booklet instruction manuals, a sticker sheet, and a loose 8×16 tan plate. The bags were packed pretty tightly into the box, and I applaud LEGO for their attempts to save Get to de choppa cardboard with new, smaller box sizes. However, this only serves to highlight the necessity of packing the stickers with a stiff piece of cardboard, because again mine were a little worse for the wear. Ultimately, though, I decided not to even apply the stickers in this set, because I didn’t see myself re-using those pieces in my own creations with the stickers applied.

The first two bags build the sheriff’s office, and Tonto, the Lone Ranger, the outlaw Frank, and a shrubbery. I remember my brother having the old Sheriff’s Lock-Up set from the mid-90’s Western theme, and I was pleased to find many of the same fun features in the new Colby City version. The break-apart jail cell was a bit disappointing to me, though. The Sheriff’s Lock-Up cell had a cool little feature where you could insert Get to de choppa the dynamite (a printed 1×2 tile) into a crack, and it would pop the back of the cell wall off. The new jail cell has a similar feature, but it’s simply lever activated, and you just clip the dynamite (now a molded piece) to the side of the building. On the other hand, the pop-down facade on the roof with a hidden cannon was definitely something the old set didn’t have. I’m not too certain I’d trust a rickety old timber-and-adobe building as an artillery platform, but you have to admit it makes a cool ambush. Like most LEGO buildings, both the sheriff’s office and the bank are facades, open in the back to allow easy access to the interior for play. The sheriff’s office comes equipped with two small tables, a chair, and a rifle rack, that oddly also holds a pair of handcuffs. Oh well, it’s LEGO.

Get to de choppaThe last two bags build Colby City’s bank, Sheriff Dan Reid, and Ray. This is a really fantastic little building. It’s built on a three-part base connected with hinges, and the design used some clever LEGO math to get the hinges to lock in place. This gives the building a lot more depth than a mere flat facade. The construction of the building reminds me of a miniature, budget version of one of the big modular sets, using lots of small pieces to create detailed walls, instead of resorting to larger prefabricated wall pieces. The interior space is small, of course, but it still manages to fit a teller station, so you can reenact a thrilling hold-up. Sadly, the set doesn’t include a frightened bank teller. I suppose a teller is somewhat unnecessary, though, since the Bank of Colby City has good faith in the local citizens, and therefore places the bank safe out in the lobby so it’s easily accessible to all. It’s a huge safe, too, definitely large enough to fit a minifigure. If walking Get to de choppa inside the bank to access the safe proves too much effort, though, there’s a handy chunk of the outside wall that blows off directly behind the safe. There’s even a hand-cart included to truck away all your ill-gotten loot, which consists of two bars of silver and three $100 bills, as well as some green pieces to bulk out the stacks of cash.

I think a trade-off was made on this set, between having more buildings, or making the buildings more detailed. While I would have loved to have a longer boardwalk, maybe with a general store or a saloon, I think LEGO Get to de choppa made the right decision paring this set down to the essential two structures, then spending more pieces bulking them up. The set as a whole has a good selection of pieces, with lots of dark green and brown/tan pieces. The five minifigures are terrific. Tonto and the Lone Ranger aren’t unique to this set in anyway, but the other three characters are. These figures have been very well designed, and all of them having printing on the front, rear, and legs, while avoiding using any flesh colored patches around the collar, meaning the translate well to use in yellow-minifigure land. There are three of the new pistols in the set, with two in pearl grey for the Lone Ranger, and another in dark pearl grey for Ray, plus I got an extra of each. If you get the entire line of Lone Ranger sets, you’ll be awash in the new pistols in no time. The new design of the cowboy hat for the Lone Ranger comes in black and white here. Get to de choppa Really the only other piece here that’s new is Tonto’s hatchet. It’s a single mold piece with a two-tone injection, so it’s not painted. The head is slightly rubberized. It reminds me of the tools in the Collectible Minifigure line, and I’m not at all surprised to see that it’s in the series 10 collection.

All in all, it’s a very solid set. It doesn’t strike my fancy as much as the delightfully-oversized Stagecoach Escape did, but this is definitely not a filler set, and it looks ripe for customization by adding your own buildings to make a complete boardwalk. Be sure to read my review of the Stagecoach Escape from last week, if you missed it.

79109 Colby City Showdown is out now from Amazon.com and the LEGO Shop online.

Lone Ranger 79108: Stagecoach Escape [Review]

Lone Ranger 79018 Stagecoach Escape

Review of 79108 Stagecoach Escape

Lone Ranger 79108 Stagecoach Escape The Lone Ranger sets are finally about to ride out to stores in a few weeks, so we’re bringing you a few reviews of them so you’ll have a keen eye when they appear. The first set up is 79108: Stagecoach Escape. It’s a complete action set, comprised entirely of a large stagecoach and a separate horse and rider. Despite having a retail price of $30 USD for what amounts to fancy wagon, it actually feels like quite a good value.

Inside the box are three numbered bags, the instruction manual, and a sticker sheet. Sadly, the notion of putting the sticker sheets and instructions in a bag with a piece of stiff cardboard for protection seems to have been a short-lived improvement. No such accommodations were made here, and Get to de choppa the sticker sheet was distinctly worse for the wear, having been banged around between the bags a few too many times. All three bags build various sections of the coach, with the first giving the chassis, the other two making up the cabin. Obviously, almost all of the 279 pieces are in the coach itself, which is ludicrously out of scale with the minifigs. Of course, this is nothing new for LEGO vehicles, and it’s rarely a problem. This set takes advantage of the large scale to do some really good shaping on the coach, and still have a fully functioning interior. So despite being a solid 18 feet high (in minifig terms) it’s a really terrific looking stagecoach. The chassis is quite nifty, being a bit more advanced than the standard wagon wheel attachment. It cleverly uses struts to give some degree of suspension to the rear axle of the coach. The front axle also turns to provide a small Get to de choppa amount of steering. Oddly, when it came time to attach the reigns to the horses, I noticed that my string had a knot tied in it. It seems a very intentional knot, but I can’t figure out why it’s there, as it’s not called for in the manual. Another weird thing I found was the base of the cabin, which calls for a brown 1×2 plate on each side, placed onto the boat hull piece that makes up the floor. A tan 4×4 plate is placed over this, but they don’t actually connect, which makes the tan plate a bit wobbly. I can only assume this is a mistake, though fortunately it’s an easily remedied one.

The completed stagecoach cuts a fine figure, and is plenty fun to play with. Each side of the cabin features two opening doors, and the Get to de choppa roof pops off for easy access to the interior. The roof is also home to a mail bag, and a removable opening bank safe, with a solitary bar of silver. The silver, much to my chagrin, is painted silver and not chromed, since LEGO has almost entirely phased out chrome now. The rear luggage compartment has some sort of catapult to fling luggage at unsuspecting pursuers. This catapult doesn’t seem to work very well, but at least it’s not more flick-fire missiles.

Get to de choppaThe Stagecoach Escape comes with five minifigs and three horses, a very respectable number for a set of this size. All the horses are, of course, the new posable style, and it’s terrific to get two black and one brown horse with very generic tack in a single affordable set. The five minifigs are the Lone Ranger, Tonto, femme fatale Red Harrington, and then two characters named Jesus and Barret. It should be no surprise to anyone that all the figures are immaculately detailed, with front and rear prints all around. Only Tonto and Red have double sided heads, though, mostly likely because the revealing cowboy hats of the other three would make this unnerving. One cool feature is that Barret is given two cowboy hats, a black Lone Ranger-style Get to de choppa for his good-guy persona, and a brown Indiana Jones-style for his outlaw mug. And speaking of the hats, the Lone Ranger hat is a marvelous addition to Western headgear. It’s generic enough to look great in colors besides the Lone Ranger’s distinctive white, and it has that classic Stetson curve. This line has really stepped up to the plate with Tonto and Red’s hairpieces. Recall, if you will, the hair-and-hat combos from the Pirates of the Caribbean line, which were molded as a single unit, and consequently pretty useless outside their original context. Not so, here. Both Tonto’s bird and Red’s hat are separate pieces from the hair, attaching with a mini-pin, just like the Friends dolls accessories. Tonto’s bird is a pretty sweet new piece, and I can’t wait to incorporate it into a creation. I’ve already got some ideas. Next there is the new pistol design. They look great for the scale, though I can’t help but be a bit saddened that they’ve given up some usefulness as construction elements in the pursuit of accuracy. There are three of the new pistols in pearl silver, and two in dark pearl silver, counting the “extras.” The classic western rifle looks out of place with the new pistol now, though. The old pistol and the rifle were a matched set, sharing the same styling cues, but now the difference is jarring.

Get to de choppa The Stagecoach Escape is a great set, and it’s destined to be one of my favorites of any of the Western themes. Despite the oversized scale, the coach looks awesome, and it’s highly playable. The minifigs are great, and easily recycled into more generic Western characters, and there are some good parts to boot. You can’t go wrong with this set.

79108 Stagecoach Escape is out on Amazon.com and the LEGO Shop online now.

Toy Fair NY 2013 LEGO coverage by FBTB – LOTR, Lone Ranger, Star Wars, & more

We’ll get to the annual Toy Fair trade show in New York at some point, but in the meantime, FBTB continues to provide great coverage of all the upcoming LEGO sets we can expect in 2013.

Show highlights include new LEGO Lord of the Rings sets, the usual Star Wars assortment, and the first official unveiling of the Lone Ranger sets based on the upcoming movie.

LEGO Lord of the Rings set

LEGO Lone Ranger set LEGO Star Wars set

Before you dive into the pictures, one important note: LEGO sets and packaging displayed at toy industry trade shows are often (but not always) prototypes. This can be particularly noticeable on the minifigs, which may have stickers on their torsos instead of printing, and accessories may even be milled or 3D-printed rather than injection-molded. Enjoy the preview, but save your “quality” commentary until official photos or the sets themselves have been released later.

LEGO Lone Ranger

It looks like there will be six sets to accompany the new Disney version of The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp as Tonto. LEGO designer Marcos Bessa has shared one official photo of 79111 Constitution Train Chase, so I’ll include that here alongside FBTB’s pictures.

79111 LEGO The Lone Ranger - Constitution Train Chase

Here’s the full list of LEGO Lone Ranger sets (revealing movie spoilers, in case you care):

  • 79106 Cavalry Builder Set (photos)
  • 79107 Comanche Camp (photos)
  • 79108 Stagecoach Escape (photos)
  • 79109 Colby City Showdown (photos)
  • 79110 Silver Mine Shootout (photos)
  • 79111 Constitution Train Chase (photos)

LEGO Lord of the Rings

After a holiday season full of new LEGO Hobbit sets, Lord of the Rings returns with a fresh batch of four sets due out in June, including 79006 The Council Of Elrond:

LEGO LOTR set

The full list (spoilers only if you’ve been living in a cave for the past 50 years):

  • 79005 The Wizard Battle (photos)
  • 79006 The Council of Elrond (photos)
  • 79007 Battle at the Black Gate (photos)
  • 79008 Pirate Ship Ambush (photos)

Ace and his crew have also posted a few videos, starting with a preview of Battle at the Black Gate:

Here’s Pirate Ship Ambush:

LEGO Star Wars

Tatooine has always been my favorite planet in the Star Wars universe, so I’ve been enjoying the recent focus on that planet for sets from the Classic Trilogy, such as the updated 75020 Jabba’s Sail Barge, complete with Max Rebo:

LEGO Star Wars set

New 2013 LEGO Star Wars sets unveiled at Toy Fair this year include:

  • 75006 Jedi Starfighter & Kamino (photos)
  • 75007 Republic Assault Ship & Coruscant (photos)
  • 75008 TIE Bomber & Asteroid Field (photos)
  • 75015 Corporate Alliance Tank Droid (photos)
  • 75016 Homing Spider Droid (photos)
  • 75017 Duel On Geonisis (photos)
  • 75018 Jek-14’s Stealth Starfighter (photos)
  • 75019 AT-TE (photos)
  • 75020 Jabba’s Sail Barge (photos)
  • 75021 Republic Gunship (photos)
  • 75022 Mandalorian Speeder (photos

Other LEGO themes

Other lines with new sets unveiled at Toy Fair this past weekend include more Galaxy Squad, Technic, board games, and a new LEGO Castle theme due out in August:

70404 Kings Castle

LEGO Lone Ranger sets coming in April 2013 [News]

In case you missed it, Disney will be releasing a new movie starring Johnny Depp by Gore Verbinski (who directed the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies and the excellent Rango) next July based on the classic Western Lone Ranger. After LEGO Prince of Persia and Pirates of the Caribbean, it should come as no surprise that LEGO will be releasing a line of sets, due out in April.

Update: LEGO released their Lone Ranger site too early and got in trouble with Disney. Since this is just a silly mistake, we’re complying with their request to remove the image.

No official word on the sets, but rumors are rampant on the web, so I’m sure you’ll be able to find the list of sets (the titles of which are full of movie spoilers) if you really want to.