Every year, the LEGO Technic line-up brings two new vehicles with a pull-back play function. For 2021, LEGO collaborates with Monster Jam to reveal a couple of building models based on real trucks. 42118 Monster Jam Grave Digger and 42119 Monster Jan Max-D copy the real truck’s design including massive wheels and iconic liveries. Both sets will be available starting January 1, 2021, for US $19.99 each.
In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the first week of December 2020.
We take the new Technic 42122 Jeep Wrangler for a spin. Keep reading our Brick Report to get all the details.
TBB NEWS: This week we reviewed two new Star Wars sets, got a look at the new series of Collectable Minifigures, took a peek inside the Modular Police Station, started our annual review of LEGO Advent Calendars and more!
TBB ADVENT CALENDAR REVIEWS: Happy holidays to all of our fellow LEGO builders! As is tradition, we at The Brothers Brick will be opening our advent calendars as we count down to Christmas. We’ll also be sharing commentary on each one, which will be both insightful and hilarious!
OTHER NEWS: There were quite a few other interesting LEGO news articles from around the web this week. Here are the best of the rest:
The most iconic offroader of all time has now joined the LEGO pantheon. The LEGO Technic 42122 Jeep Wrangler is the first time in decades LEGO has licensed the classic brand whose name is nearly synonymous with 4×4. (A few old very old sets bear the Jeep name, but are so rudimentary the resemblance is weak at best.) When I first heard about the new Jeep set, I assumed it would be the American counterpart to last year’s excellent Technic 42110 Land Rover Defender, a massive 2,500-piece set. However, the Jeep has more modest aims, coming in at just 665 pieces. It features functional steering, suspension, and a winch. It will be available starting January 1, 2021, for US $49.99 | CAN $69.99 | UK £44.99.
The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
Click to read the full, hands-on review of the LEGO Technic Jeep Wrangler
The annual anticipation of LEGO Modulars was unveiled last week with the showcase of a Police Station. We get the rare insights from designer Chris McVeigh and Ashwin Visser on the play features and fun easter eggs in the set.
Click to see the Designer Video
With Ultimate Collector Series and recent 4+ sets for younger builders aside, LEGO Star Wars starfighters like X-wings and TIE fighters have maintained a consistent trajectory of higher and higher part counts (with correspondingly greater levels of detail) over the past 20 years. The latest LEGO Star Wars sets move the part count in the opposite direction, with 75301 Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing Fighter including 474 pieces with four minifigs (US $49.99 | CAN $69.99 | UK £44.99) and 75300 Imperial TIE Fighter including 432 plus three figures (US $39.99 | CAN $49.99 | UK £34.99). We’ll compare these January 2021 starfighters with the 2018 LEGO X-wing and 2018 TIE Fighter.
The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with early copies of these sets for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
LEGO today unveiled the latest lineup in the new wave of Technic sets to be released next year with the introduction to yet another brand collaboration with Jeep featuring the Wrangler Rubicon. The set is slated to be released on January 1st on LEGO.com globally and priced at USD 49.99 | CAN 69.99 | GBP 44.99.
Click to have a closer look at the Wrangler Rubicon
December 2020 marks the 25th anniversary since the LEGO company’s first video game released. To celebrate the milestone, the company has produced a 10-part podcast series called Bits N’ Bricks that walk through the history of the plastic brick company’s foray into digital games, from Minecraft to LEGO Island and the LEGO Star Wars games, and everything in between. LEGO says they’ve been working on the show for more than a year, and have interviewed at least 120 people and researched more than 50 games in the course of production. The podcasts will be released weekly, with the inaugural episode launching today. The first episode is actually a teaser that’s not part of the main 10-part series, and along with a Christmas special in a few weeks, means the whole series will run for 12 weeks.
The podcast will be hosted by journalist Brian Crecente and documentarian Ethan Vincent. Crecente has a long history with video game journalism, having founded Kotaku and co-founded Polygon, and Vincent likewise has an impressive resume as an Emmy Award-winning documentary director for PBS.
Check out the timeline below to double-check your own LEGO video games knowledge, and you can read the whole press release and check out a gallery of images from classic LEGO games. Most of us probably thought LEGO Island was the first video game with the LEGO logo, but actually the original LEGO video game, released in 1995, was an educational game produced by SEGA for the Japanese market called Fun to Build. It was followed two years later by the much better known LEGO Island. Continue reading
Earlier this year in March, the 40370 Push-Along Steam Engine was a gift-with-purchase (GWP) that required a spend of USD $99. LEGO has now listed it as a direct for sale item and priced at US $19.99 and CAN $26.99 (Not available in the UK Stores)
LEGO revealed today on their social media platforms the upcoming Collectible Minifigure Series 21. Consisting of 12 Minifigures instead of the usual 16 or more, the reasons for the reduced number of blind packs is not apparent at the moment. The minifigures will be priced at USD $4.99 | CAN $4.99 and available on 1st January 2021.
In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the third week of November 2020.
The Colosseum set gets a closer look as we review this massive building. Keep reading our Brick Report to get all the details.
TBB NEWS: This week we saw the reveal of the LEGO Modular building, reviewed the Colosseum and harry Potter mosaic sets, cashed in on some Black Friday deals, checked out a list of new sets coming in 2021 and more!
TBB REVIEWS:
OTHER NEWS: There were quite a few other interesting LEGO news articles from around the web this week. Here are the best of the rest:
LEGO has announced its 16th Modular building in the highly popular lineup first introduced in 2007. The upcoming set will be a Police Station with an intricate architectural flair, sandwiched between a donut shop and a newsstand. The box art transitions to the new adult-themed dark background shades with an 18+ age guidance indicator, also a bump up from the 16+ age recommendation since the inception of the series, along with new Modular Buildings Collection branding.
The set comes with 2,923 pieces and 5 minifigures and will retail for $199.99 US | $269.99 CAD | €199 EU | $299.99 AU and will be available on January 1, 2021. This makes it the second-largest Modular building, following the special 10th-anniversary Assembly Square with 4,002 pieces.
Click to see the full details of the Police Station modular
Recently, LEGO has been licensing numerous franchises and brands, from auto manufacturers to movies and cartoons. However, none of those collaborations is strong enough to result in the biggest LEGO product ever released. The truth is, LEGO is at its best when “licensing” Italian history and culture. And it’s not surprising: there are so many perfect things created by Italians, and they look even better when rendered with danish bricks. After numerous Ferrari cars, the recent 10271 Fiat 500, and even 21026 Venice from Architecture theme, here comes the largest LEGO set released so far, 10276 Colosseum. Consisting of 9,036 pieces, it is almost 1,500 pieces bigger than the previous record-holder, Star Wars 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon. The new set is available starting today, for US $549.99 | CAN $649.99 | UK £449.99, which is, in the US, $250 less than the original 75192 Millennium Falcon price tag. Let’s build and take a closer look at one of the most famous Italian landmarks.
Click for the full review of the magnificent architecture
