At the risk of becoming a one trick pony, I present to you my latest LEGO interpretation of a trending entertainment, er… thing. This time it’s Michael Jackson’s uncanny posthumous holographic performance at the 2014 Billboard music awards.
At this point I think its fair to assume that every MJ fan is now lying in the fetal position hugging their Thriller album…
The next set from LEGO Minecraft depicts the dimension known as The End. It will be released in June and retails for $34.99. Here’s the product description:
Once you’ve equipped yourself for the ultimate battle, you’re ready to enter The End. The Ender Dragon is a fearsome foe, and you’d better be prepared for anything when you enter his domain. Now you can relive the adventure of The End with this LEGO micro-world set. The set also includes the Buildable Ender Dragon and Enderman Micromob figures.
Via The Brick Fan
I enjoy looking at this series of works by Macsen Wledig that depicted the construction and destruction of Hadrian’s Wall. Check out the story behind this real historic landmark on Eurobricks.
It’s even more visually pleasing to watch a GBC with a theme. This creation by IamKritch is worth a look. The first second of the video is enough to get me hooked.
This sand strider by Djokson is one lean and mean fighting machine. The simulated rib cage and the dark-red accented head are very unique features, not to mention the green orb and that big pokey stick.
As most regular readers know, I am a big fan of LEGO space. Like most fans of 80s LEGO space, I loved the character Benny in the LEGO movie, and was excited to see that his ship would become a set. Even better, fellow Brother Brick Simon found this set for sale at his local LEGO store, ahead of the launch date for my part of the world. He kindly sent me a copy, so that I could bring you this review. First, let me get the obligatory “spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP!!! out of the way.”
I have to admit that it has been a long time since I built an official LEGO set. I tried to build and review the Palace Cinema, but only managed one floor. Sifting through bags of parts to find the right one is something of a chore, compared to my sorted collection. Coupled with that, I’m no great fan of following instructions. The instructions for this set did recall a bit of a peeve, which is that LEGO seems fond of putting multipliers for assembly instructions at the end. The first few pages of the instructions are for the detachable little ships on the wing, and at the end, an exciting “X2”. Fortunately, it wasn’t the nightmare that the same treatment in the original ISD caused. None of this was enough to keep me from building this entire spaceship, though, and I must say that it was worth it.
Parts
Space builders are going to want to pick up a few copies of this set, which is sure to kick of a new frenzy of Neo Classic Space creations. First off, we’ve got three new pieces in transparent yellow. All three are great windscreen parts (I never thought I’d see the UCS X-Wing canopy in another color!), or useful to build large enclosures. There are a lot of new elements used throughout the ship, though I don’t think most are exclusive to the set. We also get three slopes with the Classic Space logo printed on them, which look fantastic. Speaking of that logo, we also get it printed on four stickers with clear backing!! Here’s a shot of an original printed logo next to the new incarnations. The sticker sheet is just outstanding, as it also includes sticker versions of classic space computer screens and buttons. It does rain one complaint, and a bit of an idiosyncrasy for the set. That is the placement of stickers on slopes. I never feel like stickers adhere well or long to most LEGO slopes, due to their textured surface. I suspect that LEGO may feel the same way, as they printed the logo on three slopes for this set. Even so, I’m generally happier with clear-backed stickers than I am with printed parts these days, so I’ll take it. In fact, I didn’t apply most of the stickers, because I want to use them on my own creations.
Minifigs
This set doesn’t skimp on the figs. Most of the figs are unique to the set, and they’re all awesome. I’m going to consider astronaut Unkitty a minifig, but we should remember that she’s made of parts, which include a 1×3 arch printed with the CS logo, and gold 1×1 plates. That arch has tons of potential for use in space creations, and I hope they end up being affordable on Bricklink, though I rather doubt it. This set’s Emmet has wrapped his face and the Piece of Resistance in foil, which makes for a pretty bizare looking minifig head, and a pretty awesome silver brick. I don’t remember Wildstyle changing into a different outfit for the spaceship scene, but it’s pretty cool seeing the graffiti style applied to a classic space uniform, and it gets us her hood piece in blue. The bad-guy robot has a pretty cool space suit, with an Octan logo in the center.
Finally, we have Benny, now available outside of the Sea Cow. I don’t have the budget for the Sea Cow, and hadn’t actually seen a Benny fig in person yet. While I love the Character for nostalgia, the fig himself doesn’t wow me. The scratched up logo on his chest is in worse shape than anything from my childhood collection, and I’m not sure I can see myself using it in a creation. I’m also not sure I see much utility for the “broken” helmet, though the cover of Inherit the Stars springs to mind. LEGO went all out with Benny on the nostalgia factor, though, and printed a classic smiley face on one side of his head. Bravo!!
Playability
This is another spot where this set really shines. First, it’s very strong, built with technic frames locked in place by plates. This means I can swoosh it with one hand. I feel confidant that I could let my three year old play with it, and while I’m sure some fins and antennas would come off, the main body of the ship would probably be fine. I’ll have to remove all the shooters, so his baby sister keeps her eyes, though (they sure plaster the don’t shoot your eye out emblem everywhere, don’t they?). Second, the set has many of the play features we expect in Classic Space sets. There are little robots to deploy, single-fig fighter/scouts to detach and fly away, rotating radar dish, and an internal lab. Of course, the set also has four spring loaded projectile launchers (two are the new 1×4 brick launchers, which are surprisingly strong), as well as the ubiquitous flick-fire missiles. Finally, you can push one of the engines forward, to open the wings wider, revealing two of the guns. The motion of this feature is quite smooth, and the mechanism is simple and effective.
The set also comes with a little bad-guy fighter, so you can play out your own dramatic battles. It’s small, but has a nice shape to it, and a fairly clever SNOT technique in the nose. Compared to Benny’s ship, it’s rather tiny, but it got enough attention that it’s not merely a throw-away model. It’s swooshable, and has a few lasers, so you can fly both ships around and go “pew pew pew!” Honestly, what more do you need?
Overall:
My overall impression of this ship is that it was a fun and interesting build, with plenty to hearken back to the Classic Space sets of my youth. The ship has the gray engines, gray wings, blue body, and trans yellow windscreens we all love. It has a little lab inside, a radar dish, and some helper robots, just like old times. The set has tons of play features, some interesting construction techniques, and is SWOOSHABLE. It’s a bit pricey ($100) but the 980 part count helps with this, as do the bevy of unique figs and elements. I intend to buy a few copies, and if I ever catch it on sale, I might go nuts.
This modular building is my first town-themed creation. I made it after the release of the Friends Juice Bar set that included decals that would fit in a fro-yo store. You can see the video on YouTube for my commentary on the creation.
These six-wide buses by Jason Allemann (JK Brickworks) are clean, nicely constructed and elegant models.
But that’s only half the build. Jason has come up with a fiendishly clever solution to the problem of integrating self-driving vehicles into Lego displays. While others have used magnets for this type of implementation, his solution is the most subtle and straightforward I’ve seen. I’m very much looking forward to seeing this put into practice.
It takes a lot of work to make an empty building look good, and Stijn Oom (DutchLEGO) managed to capture it perfectly:
Janey Gunning asked if we could share the following press release in regards to this year’s Brickfête.
This is a call out to all AFOL, LEGO collectors, builders, hobbyists, and enthusiasts within walking, driving or flying distance of Toronto, Canada. The Brickfête Team is looking for exhibitors and would love to see you and what you have built. Join us for some good times completely focused on our beloved obsession with the brick.
TIME IS RUNNING OUT! To register for the four days visit our AFOL portion of our site… http://toronto.brickfete.com/toafol/Registration
Our new hotel venue is awesome! Incredible hotel rates have been secured and there is free parking for all Brickfete guests. Time is running out for this super room rate at a 38% savings.
Some families are planning a vacation by taking advantage of the great room rates and the awesome location near exciting venues such as the Science Center or the Toronto Zoo.
Our list of events are being posted and there is something for everyone to get involved with.
Build Challenges
Live Auction
Prize Raffles
Games
Contests and Activities
And more to come…Display with us and enjoy the company of other AFOLS. We can’t wait to see you on the attendees list and to see what you have built.
Last night I was able to attend a screening of Beyond the Brick at the Seattle International Film Festival. I have to say that I did not have high hopes or expectations. I have found that, at the best of times, they tend to have a skewed view of the fan community, so I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing how a documentary with LEGO’s official stamp of approval would deal with us adult fans. I am glad to say that my misgivings were unjustified. It was good, even (dare I say it?) better than The LEGO Movie itself. Go ahead, stone me in the comments, but everything WAS awesome.
So what exactly is Beyond the Brick?
In a Q&A session after the screening, one of the directors said that their goal was to create a film that not only told the story of LEGO but showed the vast community that has grown up around it. The idea was to delve into what it is about the LEGO brick that touches us and inspires us, how the system of play drives creativity and who are the people who have been changed and/or affected by LEGO. Did they succeed? I think think they did. I have been a fan of LEGO’s products for 35 years and I learned quite a few things about the global LEGO community that I never knew and was reminded of things that I had forgotten. The filmmakers were able to touch on many different aspects of LEGO and the effects it has had over the years and around the globe. Some of these included changes in the art world, new therapies with special needs children, the adult fan phenomenon, crowd-sourcing before it was a buzzword and sending minifigs into Space.
Was everything really awesome about the film?
No film is ever perfect. I felt there were some key members of the fan community who were overlooked and who could have offered insight into the concepts that the filmmakers were wanting to explore. But, in their defense, they couldn’t talk to everyone and they definitely couldn’t fit every detail into 90 minutes. There were only a few omissions that really bothered me, such as leaving out the collaborators of several projects and making it appear that the projects were built by a single person. One example of those was a minor collaboration I took part in at BrickCon. I was in the film, talking about the build but there were actually two of us there. My partner-in-crime was cut out. There were other, more important examples, involving large convention collaborations, that didn’t give full credit to those involved. But really that is my only serious critique of the film. Overall, it is a very well-crafted film that does an excellent job of showing off the LEGO community to the world. You should go see it or get a hold of the DVD when it comes out.
Check out this clip from the film, via The Wall Street Journal (Many thanks to my coworker, Brett, for sending me the link):
It’s been almost two years since we first covered the work of Polish artists Przemek and Marcin Surma, who publish drawings every week inspired by classic LEGO sets. Since then, they’ve created a whole new bunch, based on iconic sets from classic space themes of the 70s, 80s and 90s. Classic space fans should have no trouble recognizing some of their favorites from among this collection (but the original set numbers are included in each drawing, if you need help remembering).
What you see here is just a small sample – check their website for loads more.
Thanks to Nathan Dusciuc for the tip!