Category Archives: News

Stay current on the latest news and information about LEGO, from sales & deals to new set announcements. We also cover LEGO events and conventions all over the world.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for January 14, 2018 [News]

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 second week of January 2018.

TBB REVIEWS: The beginning of the year means new sets to review, and boy do we have some reviews! Which ones are you looking forward to?

Review of the second LEGO Batman Movie Collectible Minifigure Series – Super friends are family, and we have our thoughts on the whole series, good and bad.
Review of LEGO Star Wars 75200 Ahch-To Island Training from The Last Jedi – With Luke Skywalker and Rey, plus an adorable Porg all for $29.99, this set is a must-have.
Review of LEGO Star Wars 75201 First Order AT-ST from The Last Jedi – See why we thought this set just didn’t stack up, especially compared to the other Last Jedi sets.
Review of The LEGO NINJAGO Movie 70632 Quake Mech– This foot-tall mech is rocking with over 1,200 pieces and some nifty building techniques.

TBB NEWS & INSTRUCTIONS: LEGO Ideas made a splash this week and we have some instructions for a slightly sleeker type of ship.

LEGO Ideas 21313 Ship in a Bottle unveiled, available Feb 1 – Designed by LEGO fan Jacob Sadovich, the set will include 962 pieces and retail for $69.99 USD.
Final seven new projects from 2017 qualify for LEGO Ideas Review – From a seaside town to Ru Paul, or reading a Christmas story from a pop-up book, here are your Ideas finalists!
Interview with Matthew Hocker. a LEGO ephemera collector – Matthew hangs onto all the LEGO brochures, postcards and more, and we got a chance to look at it all.
Instructions to build a microscale Naboo Starfighter – Thanks to Justin Chua, you can build your own microscale Naboo Starfighter, resplendent in its classic yellow and grey colors.

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Ultimate LEGO Star Wars author event at Powell’s Books: Sat Jan 20 [News]

As part of an ongoing mini-tour to support our Ultimate LEGO Star Wars book from DK, Chris Malloy and I will be guests at the Powell’s Books location in Beaverton, Oregon next Saturday, Jan 20th at 2:00 PM. We’ll be doing a panel discussion moderated by one of our LEGO friends from PortLUG, a Q&A, and book signing.

Andrew at Powell’s City of Books in downtown Portland. Andrew and Chris really need to get a photo taken together…

Powell’s Books is the world’s largest independent bookstore, and I’ve been buying books from Powell’s in Portland my whole life. It’s a little surreal to be doing an author event with Chris there now! You can read all of the Beaverton event details on Powells.com, including a pre-order of a signed copy.

For LEGO Star Wars fans closer to our home base here in Seattle, Chris and I also be doing author events at two Third Place Books locations in Seattle (Ravenna and Seward Park) in February, so stay tuned for more details.

LEGO Star Wars 75201 First Order AT-ST reveals The Last Jedi spoilers for no good reason [Review]

It’s rare that a LEGO set on its own serves as a major spoiler for a movie. From the now-classic Indiana Jones sets to Jurassic World sets more recently, LEGO sets provide characters, vehicles, and locations without revealing much more than a character’s name. But 75201 First Order AT-ST reveals several fundamental plot points of a major scene late in the movie. The set includes 370 pieces with 4 minifigures. Beyond just our usual criteria of design and value, is the set worth the spoilers?

We’d normally add a SPOILERS! warning here before the jump to the full review, but hey, LEGO has already spoiled several key plot points by releasing the set, so let’s just dig in.

Read our full review of LEGO Star Wars 75201 First Order AT-ST

LEGO Star Wars 75200 Ahch-To Island Training from The Last Jedi [Review]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been out in theaters for nearly a month, so we’re circling back to some of the LEGO sets released to support the movie. 75200 Ahch-To Island Training retails for $29.99 (US) with 241 pieces and features Luke Skywalker, Rey, and a porg.

We hope you’ve had an opportunity to see the movie, but fair warning that we’ll be discussing the movie’s plot freely, so consider this your standard SPOILERS! warning.

Read our full review of LEGO Star Wars 75200 Ahch-To Island Training from The Last Jedi

The LEGO NINJAGO Movie 70632 Quake Mech [Review]

The second wave of The LEGO Ninjago Movie tie-in sets was released on 1st Dec and, following on from our review of 70656 garmadon, Garmadon, GARMADON!, we’re now taking a look at 70632 Quake Mech. Quake Mech is Cole’s method of transport in The LEGO Ninjago Movie and probably the coolest looking vehicle with it’s single wheel and hulk-like chest and arms. This set has 1202 pieces, five minifigures, is rated ages 9-14, and is priced at £79.99 / $79.99 / 79.99€ (which equates to 6.7p / 7.5c / 6.7c per piece). When fully built, the mech measures over 12” (33cm) high, 6” (16cm) long, and 11” (30cm) wide.In the Box

There are 8 numbered bags with the single large tractor tyre and its rim rolling free inside the box. A single 164-page instruction booklet and a small sticker sheet completes the contents list.

Click to read on

LEGO Ideas 21313 Ship in a Bottle unveiled, available Feb 1 [News]

LEGO has officially unveiled the final design for the next LEGO Ideas set, 21313 Ship in a Bottle. Designed by LEGO fan Jacob Sadovich, the set will include 962 pieces and retail for $69.99 (US) beginning on February 1, 2018.

See more photos and details of LEGO Ideas 21313 Ship in a Bottle

Collectible Minifigures: 71020 The LEGO Batman Movie Series 2 [Review]

It’s been nearly a year since The LEGO Batman Movie hit theaters, but LEGO is continuing to create tie-in items for the moderately popular film. In November, we got the excellent 70922 Joker Manor, which impressed us with its complex techniques and new roller coaster system. Now the latest series of Collectible Minifigures is revisiting the world of LEGO Batman with 20 all-new minifigures. 71020 The LEGO Batman Movie Series 2 minifigures retail for $3.99 and are available now from Amazon, the LEGO Shop Online, BrickLink, and eBay.

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A conversation with Matthew Hocker – a LEGO ephemera collector [Interview]

Matthew Hocker has been on the LEGO scene for quite a while now and has had his builds featured right here on TBB. What you may not know is that he has an extended love and appreciation of collecting LEGO ephemera. The term is derived from the Greek word ephemeros, which means “lasting only one day, short-lived.” An ephemera collection consists of the paper materials that frequently get thrown away or lost because of their short-term usefulness or popularity, such as letters of correspondence, sales literature (brochures, pamphlets, catalogues, etc), postcards, ticket stubs, etc. Matt’s love for his LEGO collection enhances his appreciation of the hobby and its vast history.

Matt in 2014 together with the wooden duck in Idea House

Matthew has contributed digitized literature and write-ups to Brick Model Railroader and digital contributions to the library section of Brickset. His research skills and appreciation for a collection of this nature stems from his day-to-day role as a librarian.

Our curiosity got the better of us, and we ended up having a long conversation with Matthew, learning a lot about what he does and why he does it. Here’s an insight into Matthew and his collection.

A portion of Matt’s collection of Brochures

Read our full interview with LEGO collector Matthew Hocker

Final seven new projects from 2017 qualify for LEGO Ideas Review [News]

LEGO Ideas have just announced that 7 projects have achieved the required 10K votes to qualify for the third 2017 LEGO Ideas Review. In no particular order, here are the 7 that go into the next phase to be considered for selection as an official LEGO Ideas set.

Click to see the qualifying submissions

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for January 7, 2018 [News]

TBB NEWS & REVIEWS: A new year brings a new wave of LEGO sets, as well as the first LEGO events of the year.

10260 Downtown Diner brings 1950’s flair to Creator Expert Modular Buildings – The latest Modular Building heads in a new design direction and resurrects the color teal. What do we think about this new LEGO set?
853663 LEGO Iconic Holiday Magnet – The 2017 holiday magnet set is on sale at the end of the season. Is it worth picking up?
Bricks LA, Southern California’s premier LEGO convention, happening this weekend – See LEGO creations from builders all over the world at the Pasadena Convention Center right now.
Happy 2018 + the best LEGO of 2017 – Check out our roundup of roundups to see what we thought of 2017 as we rang in 2018.
2018 LEGO sets available now, including Downtown Diner, Shanghai and more – The January assortment of LEGO sets has hit stores, including the new Modular Building 10260 Downtown Diner, LEGO Star Wars sets, City, and more.

TBB INSTRUCTIONS: Creative builders around the world share how they’ve designed their custom LEGO models, and LEGO provides a way to build sets even without buying them.

Build your own LEGO cuckoo bird – While you’ll have to engineer your own working LEGO cuckoo clock, Sven Franic has provided instructions for his lovely LEGO bird.
Instruction Guide for the Promotional 60th Anniversary Special (40290) now available from LEGO – LEGO has released instructions for the forthcoming 60th anniversary promotional set so you can build it ahead of its release.

OTHER NEWS: There’s always plenty of other news about LEGO from around the web, even if we’re not able to cover every story here on The Brothers Brick.

Note: Like many of you, we’ve also seen the leaked images of LEGO sets from the upcoming Han Solo movie and rumored set lists from a resurrected Harry Potter line. We’ll be sure to bring our readers all the details about those sets once we have better-quality information from more-reliable sources. As always, TBB is committed to bringing our readers trustworthy news rather than just rumors and speculation.

Bricks (and mortar) to help make everything awesome for Lego in Hong Kong, South China Morning Post – LEGO is opening a retail store in Hong Kong, which has the largest LEGO fan community per capita in the world.
Lego’s just the job for Dan, Keighley News – A home for special needs people in the UK is collaborating with a local LEGO shop to provide valuable experience for its residents.
Houston artist makes Jose Altuve portrait with LEGO, KHOU.com – Houston, Texas resident Joseph Kraham spent about 200 hours building a portrait of Houston Astros baseball player Jose Altuve from nearly 44,000 LEGO bricks.

KHOU.com

10260 Downtown Diner brings 1950’s flair to Creator Expert modular buildings [Review]

Each January, LEGO releases a new Creator Expert modular building. Last year’s 10255 Assembly Square looked to the past and celebrated the 10th anniversary of the line, beginning with 10182 Café Corner. With 10 years full of European-style architecture, replete with curlicues and fluted columns, the line heads in a new direction this year with 10260 Downtown Diner, taking obvious inspiration from the American West of the 1930’s through 1950’s rather than pre-crash Paris or London (or even New York or Boston). 10260 Downtown Diner includes 2,480 pieces with six minifigs and retails for $169.99 in the US (with the usual regional price differences elsewhere).

What does this change in direction bode for the theme, and what do we think of the new design aesthetic?

Read our hands-on review of 10260 Downtown Diner

853663 LEGO Iconic Holiday Magnet [Review]

Each year LEGO reveals new ideas for holiday ornaments, and this time it’s an adorable 853663 LEGO Iconic Holiday Magnet consisting just of 45 pieces. The set is offered for $9.99/€6,99, and the reason for it to be a little bit pricey is a pair of modified bricks with magnets — somewhat peculiar pieces in uncommon color. At the same time, colours are what make this build a very pretty thing to decorate one’s dwelling with.

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