No Consolation

Sometimes in life you just have to accept that you can't have what you want. Regardless of whether you want a Ferrari but have to make do with a Ford, or you want to visit Barbados but can only afford Benidorm, or you want a chrome C-3PO but can only stretch to a pearl gold one, compromise is where it's at for everyone except perhaps the super rich.

I wrote a while back (read it here) about my quest to track down Set 3450 Statue of Liberty (above) and my inability to get a boxed example at a price I was willing to pay. Nothing's changed on that front. I was therefore intrigued to read on the Brickset Forum that LEGO were releasing another version of this iconic monument, and wondered whether getting hold of this new version might help to ease the pain of missing out on the original. Unfortunately, the set was only going to be made available in the Rockefeller Center LEGO Store in New York City, at least initially, but thanks to the sterling efforts of Brickset Forum members DaddyWhale and Rocao the set was soon winging its way over to the UK.

You can see a picture of the sealed packaging above. OK, so at 39 pieces it was never really going to make up for the absence of Set 3450 Statue of Liberty with its 2882 pieces, but we can dream...

Some of the more interesting pieces in the latest version are shown above. The green 3 x 2 wedge plates have only previously appeared in 5 sets other than this one; their potential for use outside this set is however limited by the fact that they're all left-sided. The green modified 2 x 2 plate with 1 stud has previously only appeared in 8 sets, and as far as I can tell, the unprinted green minifigure head is unique to this set. The green 2 x 2 dish has previously appeared in 10 sets.

The building instructions (below - click to enlarge) are of the single sheet "folds down to a postage stamp" variety and consist of just 11 building steps with no advertisements or other distractions in sight.

The build is predictably short and sweet, and within a few short moments of pouring the pieces out of the bag you have the finished model below. And no, I didn't build it wrong - it really is supposed to look like that, honest....

I wouldn't say I'm one for undue criticism, but this really isn't one of the better likenesses of the Statue of Liberty that you'll ever encounter.... Firstly there's the colour - LEGO well and truly nailed this back in 2000 with Set 3450, using sand green bricks to perfectly capture the colour of the oxidised copper patina covering the actual statue's surface. It's a crying shame therefore that this most recent LEGO version is regular green rather than sand green; I suspect this is because some of the parts don't currently exist in sand green and it wasn't cost effective to make them just for this set. Whatever the reason, regular green just looks wrong. Then there's the design itself.... Where do I start ? To my eyes, the tan plinth is probably the best part of it, with the statue itself looking decidedly bizarre - it looks more like a woman in ceremonial Japanese dress than the intended subject matter.... Even the torch looks wrong, jutting unnecessarily outwards at 45 degrees rather than predominantly upwards. All in all, it's pretty close to what the young and trendy (which I'm not) might describe as an "epic fail".

So in case you hadn't already realised, I'm afraid this one doesn't exactly hit the mark. My wife thinks it's quite cute, which given her artistic tendencies and generally good taste I really can't understand, but for me it's a decidedly poor rendition. It certainly doesn't ease the pain of missing out on Set 3450, that's for sure. All is not lost, however - I do at least have the lovely Collectable Minifigure version (below) to keep me company !

My lack of enthusiasm for Set 40026 Statue of Liberty notwithstanding, thanks again to DaddyWhale and Rocao in the U.S. for getting hold of the set for me and sending it over to the UK - cheers, guys !