This build by dicken liu is exactly what I love about the LEGO community. In theater, they call it the “yes, and” principle; you take what you were given and go further. Dicken took the Lego 76968 Tyrannosaurus Rex set and went further…all the way to Godzilla! To look at it, you’d think Dicken had made a career of studying fossilized kaiju. But, of course, Godzilla will never die, so we will never know if the skeleton is accurate.
Every new Jurassic movie adds at least one new dino species or hybrid, and this summer’s Jurassic World: Rebirth looks to be no exception. But the franchise also loves bringing back the original MVPs – T.Rex and Velociraptor – who, like Godzilla, have become the heroes as much as monsters. Each of these legends gets its own set in LEGO’s line of Rebirth sets in the form of 76972 Raptor Off-Road Escape and 76975 T. rex River Escape. The sets contain 286 and 199 pieces, respectively, and will be available on June 1. You can pre-order now for US $39.99 | CAN $44.99 | UK £29.99 (Raptor) and US $49.99 | CAN $64.99 | UK £44.99 (T.Rex). 32 years after Spielberg and co turned them into stars, does this dino duo still shine?
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 here to read our full review!
Last week Dicken Liu made waves with an unlikely alternative build and instructions to turn the Creator 3-in-1 Cute Bunny into an Alien face hugger. Not one to rest on his laurels, Dicken is back with the most impressive and insane alt-build we’ve ever seen – a large-scale Alien Xenomorph and another spin on the face hugger, this time drawing exclusively on the parts from Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus Rex (which reviews editor Bre called one of her favorite builds of all time). Was Dicken so preoccupied with whether or not he could create these alt builds that he didn’t think to stop if he should? Who am I kidding, of course he should have! It’s amazing. Force of nature Dicken Liu always finds a way.
Dicken is a prolific builder who over a few short years competed in LEGO Masters China, was invited to display his works at the LEGO House Masterpiece Gallery in Billund, and was crowned Builder of the Year in 2023 on this very site. His builds include everything from characters to architecture to silly gags. Lately, he’s been exploring alternate ways to display and remix sets, and with the Xenomorph rebuild, Dicken’s talents truly shine.
While Xenomorphs are most commonly seen in the films with a black carapace, tan works surprisingly well for the creature, matching the on-screen colors of the face hugger. Dicken manages to use the limited curved bricks from the T-Rex set to sculpt a dead-on Xenomorphy head, aand the the many bony elements give it the extra Giger touch. Conveniently, there are enough of the slender ribs left to make a face hugger with clasping legs and curving tail that make it much more menacing than the bunny version.
Dicken generously provided free instructions for his face hugger alt build, which lets anyone make their own LEGO face hugger for under $20. If Dicken shares instructions for this latest masterpiece, we will update so that you can re-engineer your own T-Rex into an even deadlier apex predator.
Last year, LEGO decided to take a little adventure out of standard playsets in the Jurassic World line, and into some interesting display pieces: fossils! The LEGO Dinosaur Fossils series kicked off with LEGO Jurassic World 76964 Dinosaur Fossils: T-Rex Skull and LEGO Jurassic World 76969 Dinosaur Fossils: Triceratops Skull which were a huge hit. It was only a matter of time before they decided to go bigger! LEGO Jurassic World 76968 Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus Rex just arrived on the scene as the first full skeleton in the series. This 41 inch-long (105 cm), 3,145-piece set will hit store shelves on March 15th (with early access for Insiders on the 12th) and retail for US $249.99 | CAN $329.99 | UK £219.99. Join us as we unearth and piece together this model to see if it’s museum-worthy.
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.
Check out the full review below!
The LEGO Dinosaur Fossils series grows by one more set today with the debut of LEGO Jurassic World 76968 Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus rex, a massive 3,145-piece addition to the line. Previously only containing LEGO Jurassic World 76964 Dinosaur Fossils: T-Rex Skull and LEGO Jurassic World 76969 Dinosaur Fossils: Triceratops Skull, 76968 marks the first time in the series where an entire dinosaur skeleton is on display. However, echoing the design of the other two entries, the bones come with a display stand that includes some added bonus beyond the fossil. And this time, that means we get minifigures of Dr. Ellie Sattler and Dr. Alan Grant from the original Jurassic Park movie. If you’re looking to start your own museum with this 41 inch-long set (105 cm in metric), LEGO Jurassic World 76968 Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus rex will hit store shelves on March 15th (with early access for Insiders on the 12th) and retail for US $249.99 | CAN $329.99 | UK £219.99
Uncover more on this new T. rex fossil set below!
Dinosaurs and LEGO just go together. It could be molded creatures from Dino Hunters, Adventurers, or Jurassic Park. Or detailed brick build sculptures from…Jurassic Park. Or maybe massive creations of stacked 2x4s. Or, indeed, multiple decades of Creator sets! These prehistoric giants are a compelling subject for display and play in the brick. The summer Creator wave returns to the Tyrannosaurus Rex, considered one of the fiercest predators of its time, and perhaps ever (yes, the Allosaurus and Giganotosaurus may want a word, and Jurassic Park invents its own wordless villains, but T. rex still holds up as a top predator). LEGO Creator 3-in-1 31151 T. rex. contains 626 pieces and is available August 1st for North America, June 1st for the UK for US $59.99 | CAN $79.99 | UK £54.99. Let’s see if it stacks (bricks) up!
Just in time for Jurassic World Dominion, LEGO has returned to the popular franchise with a new wave of sets for Spring 2022. We’ll be taking a close look at several of the sets based on the new film, starting off with Jurassic World Dominion 76948 T. Rex & Atrociraptor Dinosaur Breakout. This 466 piece set will be available April 17th from the LEGO Shop Online for US $79.99 | CAN $109.99 | UK £79.99. It features four minifigures, a big rig, transport container, and a marketplace playset. Oh, yeah…and a Tyrannosaurus Rex and an Atrociraptor. Sounds like a lot of stuff…but how cool is it really? Come along as we take an early look at this set and try to find out!
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
With the next Jurassic World movie just around the corner, it’s no surprise that LEGO has decided to return to the popular franchise with a new wave of sets for Spring 2022. While most are tie-ins for Jurassic World Dominion, Jurassic Park 76956 T. Rex Breakout harkens back to the movie that started it all. This 1212 piece set will be available April 17th from the LEGO Shop Online for US $99.99 | CAN $129.99 | UK £89.99. This diorama features a rampaging brick-built T-Rex, classic Jurassic Park tour vehicles, and four exclusive minifigures. But, like other “Adults Welcome” sets, is it all show and no play? Read on as we see just what this set has to offer!
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
From what I remember of evolutionary biology, the closest living relative to the unfortunately extinct Tyrannosaurus rex is the chicken. It’s admittedly disappointing. To go from a towering beast of muscle and razor-sharp 8-inch teeth to a small, rather stupid bird (with no teeth!) is a crushing downgrade. Surely the dinosaurs are rolling in their fossil graves somewhere in disgust. What would old grandpa Rex have to say about chicks these days? Timofey Tkachev brings us that moment of encounter in LEGO form, showing the T. rex confronting its pathetic descendant about its shortcomings.
Of course, as a build, the chicken has no shortcomings; it is the best LEGO chicken I’ve ever seen, from the head, with a Bionicle claw as a comb, minifig hands holding claws for a beak, and blankly staring eyes made with 1×1 round plates with a hole wrapped in a rubber band, all the way to the tail, and all the layered feathers in between. The dinosaur is equally impressive, with plates angled every which way and left studded to create a scaly, organic texture and lots and lots of teeth (though not quite 8-inch razor-sharp ones). The part I love best about the beast is the eye, with the 2×2 round boat slider in trans-yellow gleaming at me in a most lifelike way.
Like this build? Don’t miss other recent builds by Timofey, like Tom Waits and Iggy Pop talking or a sci-fi rover.
Today LEGO has unveiled the latest set from its crowdsourcing platform LEGO Ideas, 21320 Dinosaur Fossils. The set features two dinosaur skeletons of T. rex and Triceratops, as well as the flying Pteranodon. It also includes a minifigure skeleton as LEGO Sapiens, along with a living relative in the form of a paleontologist. With 910 pieces, the set will retail for US $59.99 | CAN $79.99 | UK £54.99, and will be available to purchase starting Nov. 1. We’ve already got our hands on a copy of this set, so be sure to check out our early review of 21320 Dinosaur Fossils.
Check out all the details below, including the full press release and images.
Even though my primary fascination with the past has always been through archaeology, the science of paleontology has also provided a wonderful source of inspiration about the amazing world we live in. Officially unveiled today, the latest LEGO Ideas set is 21320 Dinosaur Fossils, so I was especially excited to get building with an early copy of the set that LEGO sent The Brothers Brick. The new set includes 910 pieces with two minifigures and will go on sale November 1st (US $59.99 | CAN $79.99 | UK £54.99).
Editor’s note: This LEGO Ideas set identifies and labels the individual species of each extinct creature included in the set, so you’ll find that we refer to them using binomial nomenclature, with scientific names in italics and abbreviations like T. rex for Tyrannosaurus rex rather than “T-Rex”. If you think Andrew gets pedantic about Star Wars lore, just wait until he digs into a scientifically inspired LEGO set like this!
Read our hands-on review of LEGO Ideas 21320 Dinosaur Fossils
We’ve covered Jonas Kramm‘s series of vignettes based on Jurassic Park all the way up to the climax of the movie. Has it been a thrill-a-minute? You bet your 65-million year old amber cane it has! The last we saw, the power to the park had been turned off by Dennis Nedry as he attempted to steal and escape with frozen dino embryos. This of course caused havoc at the park, with all the dinosaurs escaping; this is not a big problem when we’re talking about a mild-mannered Brachiosaur, but it is when there are T. rex and Velociraptors amongst the beasts.
And that is exactly the issue Dr. Sattler has as she tries to restore power to the security system; she has climbed down into the maintenance area, only for a nimble and crafty raptor to attempt to eat her. They can open doors, you know. Jonas has packed the small footprint of the vignette with loads of details, especially the black fencing that forms the border. The grating everywhere gives it a technical look, perfect for a breaker room, and the panel with the lever looks great. The raptor bursting through to eat Ellie is terrifying, though, so let’s move on to a happier scene.
Click to see the final two vignettes in this epic series