Available on Amazon, eBay
Price: ~$100
Lego #: 70816
Pieces: 940
Rating:
(Too many stickers, minor design issues, expensive for what it is.)
This is a really fun, really big spaceship in the classic Lego Space theme design. This brings back all the memories of my childhood Legos in the 80's and early 90's. Blacktron, M-Tron, Space Police, all the great sets. It's a shame it took The Lego Movie to revive this classic line. I hope Lego will continue to expand in this direction even if it is under the Lego Movie banner.
I did a step-by-step video showing more or less each step as it was being built. Over 900 pieces but nicely separated into 7 bags makes it much easier to build for someone short on table space like myself. Had I thought to open the box and look and see if the pieces were in sequential bags I would have put this together much sooner.
There are actually 4 spaceships in total in this set. There is of course Benny's main ship, there is a small black Octan ship for the bad guy, and tiny ships that detach from each wing of Benny's main ship. The black ship and the wing ships can each hold a mini-figure.
Speaking of mini-figures you get four with this set, 5 if you count Unikitty, which I do not. There's an Octan robot, Wyldstyle, Emmet pretending to be a robot (taped up robot face) and of course Benny, the brains behind the Spaceship. The box art may leave you a bit confused. In one area he is shown with a standard classic helmet, and in another he is shown with the cracked helmet he had in the movie.
Inside the box is indeed a pre-cracked helmet, so you will have Benny's authentic look from the movie- including his faded space logo on his torso.
I wish I had taken a picture of the sheet before I started but this set makes use of a lot of stickers. Too many in my opinion. For a set that retails at $100 I expected the pieces to be printed when necessary. The picture below each red allow represents one visible sticker. There are still more stickers that weren't visible in the photo.
When complete the ship has 4 spring loaded weapons that really shoot, and 4 flick-fire weapons. I would actually have preferred an option to build it without spring shooting weapons- they are just begging to be lost or damaged and realistically this will see more time sitting on a shelf than being an active playtoy with its size. The two red-plastic "missiles" are very easy to set off. Luckily they gave one extra- at least in my set there were an ample number of extra (small) pieces to customize your build. I'm not sure if anyone else does it or if it's just me but when I finish I try to go back and use as many of the extra pieces as possible.
Besides the missiles that tend to fire off too easily there is another aspect to the final design that rubbed me the wrong way- and understand overall I really love the design- it is well thought out and generally a fun build. It is just that at this price I expect perfection.
The cockpit design- a difficult part of any spaceship, is not perfect. The "glass" of the cockpit ends just before a line of studs. Ideally these studs would be right behind the "glass," not in front. While having it outside gives them the extra room for a third seat it leaves a little gap that is noticeable when you are handling it. For me at least it ruins the illusion of an air-tight spaceship. I went ahead and remedied this a bit with some extra pieces but a blue 1x6 flat tile would have been perfect.
So minor issues aside this is a great design. Lots of moving or removable parts. The bottom middle engine slides in and out to expand or contract the wings. As mentioned earlier each wing has a ship that detaches. Unikitty has a place to fit right behind the cockpit. For lack of a better term there are two removable "droids" near the back of the ship, protected by a fold down satellite dish.
Under Unikitty the roof folds up revealing a work area with a coupe of computer stations. There is also a hidden 1x4 flat tile with a code- this code is unique to every set (so i obscured it here) but it begins with MA. This code can be used to unlock a special feature on the console versions of The Lego Movie video game. I'm not really sure what it unlocks as I don't have the game. Personally I would be pissed if I just spent money on a game only to find out I have to spend more money on an expensive Lego set to get all the features of the game. Do not like.
Although there are several aspects of this set that really annoy me- looking at the big picture there is no way I could justify giving this set anything less than 4 and a half stars- that is a testament to the general quality of the set, the instructions, the bricks, and design- not me feeling generous.
Price: ~$100
Lego #: 70816
Pieces: 940
Rating:
(Too many stickers, minor design issues, expensive for what it is.)
This is a really fun, really big spaceship in the classic Lego Space theme design. This brings back all the memories of my childhood Legos in the 80's and early 90's. Blacktron, M-Tron, Space Police, all the great sets. It's a shame it took The Lego Movie to revive this classic line. I hope Lego will continue to expand in this direction even if it is under the Lego Movie banner.
I did a step-by-step video showing more or less each step as it was being built. Over 900 pieces but nicely separated into 7 bags makes it much easier to build for someone short on table space like myself. Had I thought to open the box and look and see if the pieces were in sequential bags I would have put this together much sooner.
There are actually 4 spaceships in total in this set. There is of course Benny's main ship, there is a small black Octan ship for the bad guy, and tiny ships that detach from each wing of Benny's main ship. The black ship and the wing ships can each hold a mini-figure.
Speaking of mini-figures you get four with this set, 5 if you count Unikitty, which I do not. There's an Octan robot, Wyldstyle, Emmet pretending to be a robot (taped up robot face) and of course Benny, the brains behind the Spaceship. The box art may leave you a bit confused. In one area he is shown with a standard classic helmet, and in another he is shown with the cracked helmet he had in the movie.
Inside the box is indeed a pre-cracked helmet, so you will have Benny's authentic look from the movie- including his faded space logo on his torso.
I wish I had taken a picture of the sheet before I started but this set makes use of a lot of stickers. Too many in my opinion. For a set that retails at $100 I expected the pieces to be printed when necessary. The picture below each red allow represents one visible sticker. There are still more stickers that weren't visible in the photo.
When complete the ship has 4 spring loaded weapons that really shoot, and 4 flick-fire weapons. I would actually have preferred an option to build it without spring shooting weapons- they are just begging to be lost or damaged and realistically this will see more time sitting on a shelf than being an active playtoy with its size. The two red-plastic "missiles" are very easy to set off. Luckily they gave one extra- at least in my set there were an ample number of extra (small) pieces to customize your build. I'm not sure if anyone else does it or if it's just me but when I finish I try to go back and use as many of the extra pieces as possible.
Besides the missiles that tend to fire off too easily there is another aspect to the final design that rubbed me the wrong way- and understand overall I really love the design- it is well thought out and generally a fun build. It is just that at this price I expect perfection.
The cockpit design- a difficult part of any spaceship, is not perfect. The "glass" of the cockpit ends just before a line of studs. Ideally these studs would be right behind the "glass," not in front. While having it outside gives them the extra room for a third seat it leaves a little gap that is noticeable when you are handling it. For me at least it ruins the illusion of an air-tight spaceship. I went ahead and remedied this a bit with some extra pieces but a blue 1x6 flat tile would have been perfect.
So minor issues aside this is a great design. Lots of moving or removable parts. The bottom middle engine slides in and out to expand or contract the wings. As mentioned earlier each wing has a ship that detaches. Unikitty has a place to fit right behind the cockpit. For lack of a better term there are two removable "droids" near the back of the ship, protected by a fold down satellite dish.
Under Unikitty the roof folds up revealing a work area with a coupe of computer stations. There is also a hidden 1x4 flat tile with a code- this code is unique to every set (so i obscured it here) but it begins with MA. This code can be used to unlock a special feature on the console versions of The Lego Movie video game. I'm not really sure what it unlocks as I don't have the game. Personally I would be pissed if I just spent money on a game only to find out I have to spend more money on an expensive Lego set to get all the features of the game. Do not like.
Although there are several aspects of this set that really annoy me- looking at the big picture there is no way I could justify giving this set anything less than 4 and a half stars- that is a testament to the general quality of the set, the instructions, the bricks, and design- not me feeling generous.