Red Five Standing By

Like many AFOLs I seem to spend an inordinate amount of my time sorting and resorting my LEGO collection, and it was during a recent sortfest that I stumbled across the little fellow below. It reminded me that I'd long intended to share the rambling tale of how he came into my possession, and in so doing say a public "thank you" to the US-based AFOL and all-round good guy who has tracked down all manner of US-exclusive LEGO-related items for me over the years including Yoda.

Back in May 2013 there was a disturbance in the force, with the unveiling in New York's Times Square of what was at the time claimed to be the world's largest ever LEGO model - a 1:1 replica of an X-wing Starfighter - to celebrate the impending premiere of The Yoda Chronicles animated series. Based on Set 9493 X-wing-Starfighter, this huge build was 42 times the size of the retail set and apparently took 32 builders at LEGO's Kladno Model Shop in the Czech Republic over 3 months to build from 5.3 million bricks. As you can see from the picture below (courtesy of starwars.com) it caused quite a stir....

To further promote the Yoda Chronicles series, the nearby Times Square branch of Toys R Us ran a promotion from May 23rd to 25th 2013 whereby purchasers of specially-marked copies of Set 9493 would receive a limited edition "NY I Love" Yoda minifigure. Apparently 1,000 of these minifigs were made and handed out during the 3-day promotion, and as a big Star Wars fan and LEGO collector I was obviously really keen to get hold of one. Thankfully, help was at hand in the form of US-based Brickset admin Roland a.k.a. Rocao, and to cut a very long story short he was able to secure a limited edition Yoda minifigure for me. The plan was initially for Roland to package Yoda up with a bunch of other items that he had collected together for me and for other folks and ship the whole lot over to the UK for me to distribute. For various reasons, however, Yoda didn't make it into the consignment and was left stranded in the US.

Jumping forward a couple of years to August 2015, a delegation of Brickset Forum members headed by Brickset head honcho Huw and myself journeyed to the LEGO mothership in Billund, Denmark. Thirty three of us in total travelled over at the invitation of LEGO's Community, Events and Engagement Team for a one-day visit which included a tour of the fabled vault housing copies of pretty much every LEGO retail set every released, the LEGO factory at Kornmarken, and the site of the work-in-progress LEGO House and visitor centre (above). There was also a visit to the LEGO employee store for a spot of shopping, and a presentation by LEGO designer Mike Psiaki who's the man behind 10248 Ferrari F40 amongst other sets. As good fortune would have it, one of the 33 Bricksetters to make the trip to Billund was Roland, who travelled over to Denmark from California. Aside from the fact that it was absolutely brilliant to finally get to meet him in person and hang out after literally years of chatting online, Roland had stashed the promised Yoda minifig in his luggage and so I was finally able to take delivery.

Neither Yoda's printed sand green head, which has a tuft of white hair at the rear, nor his short tan legs, are exclusive to this minifigure, although the head has only appeared in two other sets, 75002 AT-RT and a Yoda Clone Wars Watch Set. The torso, which doesn't have a back print, isn't exclusive to this minifigure either, having also appeared as a part of a 2013 New York Toy Fair giveaway. The minifig came sealed in a 7.5 cm x 13.5 cm soft plastic bag which also contained the printed white card that you can see in the picture above.

In addition to Yoda, Roland had also brought me the special cardboard sleeve which was placed around the otherwise standard copies of 9493 X-wing Starfighter to mark them out as being promotional items. The front of the sleeve (above) is focused on advertising the Yoda Chronicles premiere and also gives notice of the free Yoda minifig available with purchases of the set, while the back of the sleeve (below) provides photographs of the life-sized LEGO X-wing together with technical drawings and some facts and figures.

Talking of the X-wing, following its brief Times Square residency it was transported to LEGOLAND California in June 2013 where it went on show. Then, in March 2015, the X-wing crossed the Atlantic to LEGOLAND Billund where it formed the centerpiece of a Star Wars display. And so it was that by a quirk of fate the X-wing was on display at LEGOLAND Billund when I visited, and my Yoda minifigure was therefore, in a manner of speaking, reunited with the X-wing more than 2 years after the Times Square reveal. All of my pictures of the X-wing unfortunately came out appallingly badly, so I'm indebted to another US-based Bricksetter who came on the Billund trip, JusJeff from Iowa, for giving me permission (albeit about 18 months ago....) to use his picture below.

So thanks again Roland for all your efforts to track down juicy US LEGO exclusives for me and others on this side of the pond, and sorry it's taken so long to get this posted....

And the winners are....

Many thanks to all of you who entered the recent Gimme LEGO competition to win a copy of the limited edition Jurassic World Dr Wu polybag below. As shipping costs weren't going to be such an issue this time round I was able to open up the competition to Gimme LEGO readers regardless of their location, and it was great to receive entries from as far afield as Australia, Malaysia, the U.S. and Singapore as well as from closer to home.

In order to win you had to tell me upon which island the original Jurassic Park was located, and if you identified Isla Nublar as the correct answer then your name went into the hat for the prize draw. I then asked my wife and my visiting in-laws to close their eyes and pick out one name each, so if you didn't win then you can blame them....

The three lucky winners are:

• Andrea Reynolds from Leicestershire, UK

• Chester Ng from Singapore

• Oliver Donlon from Massachusetts, USA

Congratulations, you guys - a new, sealed copy of the Dr Wu poly will be winging its way to you shortly.

Thanks again to everybody who entered, and thanks also to LEGO's PR folks at Norton for donating the prizes.

Jurassic Perk

Last week's release of the Jurassic World movie and the launch of the LEGO Jurassic World videogame provided the backdrop for a family-oriented LEGO Jurassic World launch event which was held in London's Hyde Park on Saturday 6th June. Mark Guest, editor of Bricks Magazine, was good enough to sort me out a couple of invites so I attended with my son who didn't need any encouragement to come along when he heard about the heady mix of LEGO, dinosaurs and videogames that we'd be checking out.

The event took place at The Lookout (above), a sizeable, self-contained eco-sustainable building in the middle of London's Hyde Park. On what turned out to be a pleasant, sunny day we took a tube to one of the nearby stations and after a 5-10 minute walk through the park we were greeted by event security who ushered us through. The Lookout is located within a fenced compound and surrounded by a number of walkways; these pass alongside small rockeries and water features and in some areas cut through thick undergrowth. Traversing the walkways was therefore the perfect start to the event as it wasn't difficult for anyone familiar with the Jurassic Park movies to suspend belief and pretend that prehistoric predators might be lurking in the undergrowth.... At the top of the walkways was an area of wooden decking, alongside which was the imposing sight below.

Refreshments and snacks were available on the decked area, as were a couple of skilled face painters who busied themselves decorating attendees with a variety of dinosaur-related designs. It was heartening to see so many adults getting in line with their kids and partaking in the face painting experience, although some folks such as myself opted to get other body parts painted instead (my arm, in case you're wondering....) with designs such as the diplodocus below and patches of colourful dinosaur skin.

The main space inside the venue was loosely split into two halves. One half contained a number of gaming stations running the LEGO Jurassic World demo, of which more later, while the other half was laid out with rows of seating and a large screen at the front connected to a laptop; this was used by one of the team responsible for the design of the LEGO Jurassic World game who at set times throughout the day gave attendees a brief presentation on the making of the game and demonstrated various gameplay features. A number of perspex display stands such as the one below were dotted aound the room; these contained the completed builds from the various Jurassic World retail sets. Having already built and reviewed a number of the Jurassic World sets, for instance here, I was obviously familiar with them but this didn't appear to be the case for some of the attendees who seemed to be encountering them for the first time.

One of the highlights of the event from my son's perspective was a dinosaur egg hunt. Prior to the arrival of the attendees a number of LEGO dinosaur eggs (below) had been hidden around the venue. Children, aided and abetted by their parents, were tasked with exploring the compound and finding the eggs, with prizes of Jurassic World LEGO retail sets and polybags on offer for the successful sleuths. Cue a mad scramble through the undergrowth to try and locate the eggs. I'm pleased to report that my son found one of the eggs, no thanks to his hopeless dad who managed to find absolutely nothing.....

As previously mentioned, a number of stations kitted out with a screen, a Playstation 4 and a pair of PS4 controllers were available for attendees to play on. The stations were running the LEGO Jurassic World game demo. LEGO Jurassic World is the latest in a long line of LEGO-themed offerings from developer Traveller's Tales including a number of LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Batman games amongst others. Having completed some of these games cooperatively, my son and I are pretty familiar with them, and after spending some time playing through the LEGO Jurassic World demo stages at the event both cooperatively and individually, I think it's fair to say that that the latest game sticks to the tried and tested formula with few obvious detours. It predictably looks great running on the PS4, and the gameplay seems very similar to that of previous TT LEGO releases. The demo levels we saw thankfully included scenes from the original Jurassic Park movies as well as Jurassic World rather than just focusing on the new movie.

Apart from the designer presentations and egg hunt the day was relatively unstructured, with attendees free to wander around both inside and outside the venue, help themselves to refreshments, make use of the gaming stations and chat to other attendees; I didn't recognise many of the people there. although it was good to catch up with Richard Hayes from Brick Fanatics and chat to Christina from the LEGO Press Office while my son burned his way through the LEGO Jurassic World demo levels.

All told my son and I spent an enjoyable  2-3 hours at the event, and when it was time to leave we were handed a goodie bag. As a collector I always look forward to digging through the contents of these bags after events to see if there's anything unusual within and I wasn't disappointed. Pride of place goes to the Dr Wu polybag below which carries the set number 5000193818. In addition to the Dr Wu minifigure the poly also contains a trans-orange 1 x 2 crystal printed with a black mosquito pattern. As far as I can tell the Dr Wu minifigure is identical to that which appears in Set 75919 Indominus Rex Breakout (you can see the minifigure here), as is the trans-orange crystal, but I'd not previously been aware of this particular polybag. My understanding is that a free Dr Wu minifigure is available from some retailers with orders of the LEGO Jurassic World game, although I have no idea if it's packaged in the same way as the one below.

Other freebies included a LEGO Jurassic World sticker sheet (you can see a scan of this below), a couple of LEGO Jurassic World postcards, an A3-Sized poster, a press release providing information on the LEGO Jurassic World sets, and a copy of Set 75915 Pteranodon Capture, all contained within a Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Group cloth bag.

I'm well aware that I'm not the only collector who likes to get their hands on interesting LEGO-related items, and I'm therefore pleased to tell you that Christina gave me a few extra Dr Wu polybags for readers of Gimme LEGO. If you'd like one of them, please e-mail the answer to the question below plus your name and full address to me at gimmelego@virginmedia.com; I'll draw a few names out of a hat, and those people will get a poly each. The question is as follows:

On which island was the original Jurassic Park located?

You can enter the competition regardless of which country you live in and I'll cover the cost of posting out the prizes. Only one entry per household, please, and the decision of the judge (that's me) is final. Entrants must agree to their names being announced on Gimme LEGO if they win. Closing date is midnight GMT on Tuesday 30th June 2015. Good luck, folks!

Agents Rebooted

Some say you should never go back, and LEGO has some history in that regard, not least with their 'Legends' series of classic sets which failed to hit the commercial heights. The rights and wrongs of rebooting rather than innovating aside, LEGO's decision to revive the cult Agents theme under the "Ultra Agents" banner took me by surprise, not least because the original sets weren't retired that long ago. Consisting of 13 sets released in 2008 and 2009, I missed out on the original Agents line while it was still available at retail and have been playing catch-up ever since. As I've discovered to my cost, some of the sets have become quite sought-after in the aftermarket; not surprising, given the quality of sets such as Mobile Command Center, Volcano Base and Aerial Defence Unit which recreate larger-than-life scenes from your average Bond movie and are crammed with cool play-features and neat details.

I first spied the Ultra Agents sets at the London Toy Fair earlier this year and was, if I'm honest, a bit underwhelmed. One of the things I liked most about the original Agents sets was the consistency of the colour schemes and design DNA running through the different sets, and at the Toy Fair at least this wasn't so evident in the new sets, giving the range a less than cohesive feel. The best of the new sets was perhaps Set 70165 Ultra Agents Mission HQ which seemed to be a remake of the original Agents Mobile Command Center, but the other sets were a decidedly mixed bag. For me, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the reboot wasn't even the actual sets but what appeared to be a close tie-in to a complementary app which would, we were told, enhance the play experience. I left the Toy Fair very much on the fence about the reboot and needing to be convinced.

I got to dip my toe into the water a couple of weeks back - I needed to place an order at S@H in order to secure a promo Classic Spaceman and it was the perfect excuse to pick up one of the Ultra Agents sets so I could run the rule over it. I chose Set 70162 Infearno Interception and it duly arrived a few days later. The front of the box (above) features an action shot of Agent Solomon Blaze battling the dastardly Infearno, with the Ultra Agents logo prominent on the packaging and the availability of a free app highlighted in one corner. The back of the box (below - click to enlarge) highlights some of the numerous play features of the set as well as once again pushing the accompanying app.

I ignored the two thumb tabs on the back of the box, slipped a sharp knife under the left end flap, popped open the box, and surveyed the contents. Two large bags of parts numbered '1' and '2' and an instruction booklet were all I saw initially; when a quick flick through the instruction booklet revealed that that there were supposed to be some stickers in the box as well I examined the packaging again and discovered the errant stickers clinging to the inside of the box. Thankfully they were still intact (picture below - click to enlarge) and mercifully there aren't too many of them to apply.

The instruction booklet (cover shot below) has a footprint of around 12.5 cm x 20 cm and contains 56 pages from cover to cover. In addition to the building instructions there's a two page inventory of parts, further advertising for the Ultra Agents app in seven languages, and a request by a green Ninja for the reader to provide product feedback.

A selection of rare and/or interesting parts to be found in the set can be seen in the picture below (click to enlarge). Considering that this is a relatively small set there are quite a few elements of note including six which are currently unique to this set - the black printed 45 degree slope, the dark red surfboard, the flat silver 2 x 2 and 4 x 1 curved slopes, and the trans-light blue 6 x 6 webbed radar dish and 8 x 4 x 2 windscreen (not shown). The blue Technic axle and pin connector toggle joint, flat silver air scoop and trans-light blue cheese slope appear in this set and one other, while the trans-orange 8L arrow, the black 6 x 6 inverted dish and spoiler and the flat silver pin connector have all featured in less than 5 sets. All the other elements in the picture have appeared in ten sets or less, with the exception of the curious light and dark bley 1 x 4 brick-like element in the top right corner which I'd never seen before but which has nevertheless surprisingly graced 27 sets to date; it's actually a spring shooter, of which more later. Like the previous incarnation of the Agents theme there's a sprinkling of silver, albeit flat silver rather than the sexier metallic silver that featured in the original sets. There's also a goodly quantity of trans-light blue elements which in addition to those mentioned above also include no less than sixteen 1 x 2 plates, a couple of 4 x 4 inverted dishes, and eight round 1 x 1 tiles.

The set includes two minifigures. Agent Solomon Blaze (below - click to enlarge) appears in this set and one other - Set 70165 Ultra Agents Mission HQ. Striking a blow for age equality, it appears that Solomon isn't a youngster but a grizzled old pro complete with grey hair and a weather-beaten face. His hair is actually a new element for 2014 which is thus far restricted to just Solomon Blaze and General Airen Cracken from Star Wars Set 75050 B-Wing, and his head, torso and legs are unique to the Solomon Blaze minifigure. The Torso is printed with the pattern of a Suit jacket complete with the Ultra Agents logo and a gold tie Pattern, while his right leg is printed with what Bricklink describes as a "Silver Prosthetic Bionic Right Leg Pattern".

Solomon's torso is backprinted (picture below - click to enlarge) although it's easy to miss the subtle pattern unless you look closely. He has an alternative expression, again visible below, described by Bricklink as "Determined/Smirk"; it's the sort of expression that you might conceivably expect Indiana Jones or Han Solo to sport.

The other minifigure in the set is super villain Infearno (below) who's only available in this set. Every element making up this minifigure - the head, torso, armour, legs and flame head piece - is unique to this minifigure. While the armour undoubtedly makes Infearno more imposing, it's unfortunately at the cost of covering up the excellent torso print which features a furnace and a pressure gauge. The torso print extends downwards onto the front of the legs which feature extensive printing from waist to toe.

Infearno's armour also obscures the torso backprint, which resembles a furnace door. Neither his head nor his legs are backprinted, although given that the flame head piece is transparent a backprinted alternate expression wouldn't have worked well on this occasion anyway. Note the two 1L bars protruding downwards from the base of the armour and the hollow stud on his back - their relevance will be revealed momentarily....

Infearno comes with a host of accessories, and you can see him fully tooled up in the picture below (click to enlarge). A pair of fire-spitting flamethrowers attach to the 1L bars mentioned above and wrap around the sides of his body; the flamethrowers are supplied by a fuel tank which attaches to the hollow stud on the back of his armour. As if twin flamethrowers weren't enough, he also carries a bundle of dynamite in each hand. Infearno gets about on a flame-powered hover board; this is made up of 8 elements including the rare dark red surfboard mentioned earlier which is propelled by a large trans-red flame with marbled trans-yellow pattern.

With both minifigs assembled it's time to get cracking on Solomon Blaze's vehicle, perplexingly described as a "convertible car" on the relevant page of the Ultra Agents microsite. It's a fairly quick and simple build, and you can see the completed model below (click to enlarge). The vehicle is certainly not 'convertible' in the traditional automotive sense, and it looks more like a 4-wheeled version of the iconic Tron Light Cycle than a car thanks to the black and trans-light blue colour scheme and the distinctive, sleek side-on profile, but that's fine by me.

Each front wheel is made up of a pair of black 6 x 6 inverted radar dishes with black curved bricks sandwiched in-between and trans-blue webbed 6 x 6 radar dishes on the convex surface of the black dishes. Although the front wheels are designed to rotate, the absence of tyres and consequent lack of friction means that they don't turn well on a smooth surface. The sides of the vehicle are greebled with a number of flat silver elements which further reinforces the high-tech feel, and a pair of forward-facing dual cannons complements the vehicle's main weapon which we'll get to shortly.....

The rear of the vehicle (above - click to enlarge) is a bit untidy on account of the big red knob sticking out of the back. Pushing hard on the knob activates a simple Technic mechanism linked to a rudimentary ejector seat with the result that Solomon Blaze is launched out of the cockpit. The two trans-orange bars protruding from the rear of the vehicle are actually the back ends of a pair of 8L arrows; push down on the rear spoiler and the vehicle's main weapon - twin spring-loaded missile shooters - are revealed (picture below - click to enlarge). Some gentle downwards pressure on the back of an arrow activates the firing mechanism and launches it a good few metres across the room - quite impressive.

In Bond movies the ejector seat often seems to be designed to get rid of the bad guy, but in this case Solomon Blaze uses it himself to get up close and personal with Infearno on his hover board and take him out. Our intrepid hero is ejected from the cockpit seated on a section of the cockpit floor (below - click to enlarge); once in mid-air it's presumably just a simple case of whipping out his mini blaster and dispatching the villain..... It's the first time I've encountered one of these weapons, which were only introduced this year. A small dark bley trigger clicks into the body of the blaster; once the trigger is in place you attach a round 1 x 1 plate to the end of the weapon, whereupon pressing down on the trigger makes the plate ping off quite energetically with a range of perhaps 1-2 metres.

I've already described a number of play-features, notably the spring-loaded missile shooters, but I've left the best 'til last - the vehicle has a hover mode which you can see below (note : the transparent stand isn't included in the set). This transformation is achieved by folding the front wheels inwards and the rear wheels downwards; pleasingly, there's sufficient friction in the respective mechanisms to keep the wheels folded like this even when you swoosh the model around. I'd somehow missed the fact that the vehicle had a hover mode until I'd bought the set and got it home, so it was a nice surprise.

You can see all the components of the set below (click to enlarge). I started out somewhat sceptical about the Agents reboot, and while I probably still need some convincing about the theme as a whole, so far as this set's concerned at least I like it. Infearno's an interesting baddie, and Solomon Blaze's car looks good and has some interesting play features, particularly the hover mode. For more information on this set and indeed other sets in the theme I'd encourage you to have a poke around LEGO's Ultra Agents microsite. I was a big fan of Crackdown on the XBOX 360 and I get a definite Crackdown vibe from the graphics and videos on the site; this impression was reinforced when I downloaded and played the Ultra Agents companion app on my iPad. The app, which is free and available for iOS and Android, offers a mixture of interactive comic book and minigames, and features distinct chapters each of which reflects one of the six Ultra Agents sets.

Set 70162 Infearno Interception contains 313 pieces and retails for £24.99 / $29.99 US. At time of writing, discounts on the set are few and far between; UK readers can get it here for a pound off RRP, while US readers can order via LEGO shop@home.

Home Truths

OK, so we've had Micro and we've had Mini. If you're a LEGO Star Wars fan then you might also have had Midi. Come to think of it, if you're not too fussy about your brand of building bricks then you might have had Mega too. What newer entrants into the world of LEGO might not be aware of, however, is that in the dim and distant past we also had Maxi.

Younger readers might not believe it, but the ubiquitous LEGO Minifigure hasn't always ruled the world. Some of us can remember a time before Minifigures ever existed. And during those dark, distant days, there was another, shorter-lived dynasty, that of the Maxi figures.

Also known as Homemaker figures, these guys, gals and grannies held sway during the mid- to late 1970's and early 1980's before being superceded by the modern Minifigures we all know and love. Set 200 LEGO Family (above) was a popular introduction to the Homemaker figures for many people of my age.

Prior to this, LEGO produced a series of Homemaker sets from 1971 onwards featuring domestic scenes such as a children's room and a kitchen. Early Homemaker sets were, to all intents and purposes, LEGO-built sections of a modular doll's house, albeit with something important missing - the dolls. I don't know whether LEGO always intended to remedy that situation, or whether poor sales and/or feedback from customers indicated that a change in direction was needed - if there are any experts out there then I'd love to know more of the history - but in 1974 the Homemaker sets started to be populated by figures. While predominantly brick-built, these figures featured a selection of brand new parts (below) - torsos, hands, heads and hair - enabling a degree of realism not previously possible with LEGO.

Constituents of a Homemaker Figure (pics from Bricklink)

The realism extended beyond just the appearance - the design of the figures meant that it was possible to rotate the head and move the arms at the shoulders, elbows and wrists. There was also variety - as you can see from the box shot of Set 200 LEGO Family above and the pictures of my LEGO family below, LEGO produced interchangeable heads for the figures with a variety of expressions, facial features (e.g. freckles) and even spectacles. There were also different hair pieces, again interchangeable, and the torsos and arms were available in a variety of colours.

As far as I can make out, LEGO produced around 60 sets between 1974 and 1982 containing one or more of these Homemaker figures. The sets were predominantly domestic scenes, but also included a few vehicles and basic sets. One interesting twist to the formula can be seen in Set 565 Moon Landing (below) which replaced the Homemaker head with blocky brick-built space helmets.

I was surprised how many sets containing Homemaker figures I'd accumulated over the years, and spent a blissful hour or two digging out a few of the sets and building them earlier this week; in addition to the LEGO Family figures above, you can see a couple more examples of my Homemaker family below (click to enlarge).

Set 212 Scooter

Set 265 Bathroom

Truth be told, despite the early success of Homemaker figures, they were an endangered species almost as soon as they were born. Barely a year after they first started to appear in sets, a smaller, simpler type of figure was born. This ancestor of the modern minifigure (below) first started appearing in sets in 1975. Lacking any facial features or poseable arms or hands, these figures must have seemed incredibly rudimentary compared with the Homemaker figures, and it's incredible to believe that they nevertheless set the wheels in motion for the modern phenomenon that is the minifigure.

Early minifigure, from Set 664 TV Crew

Simple they may have been, but some of my favourite childhood sets, such as Set 370 Police Headquarters, featured these early prototypal minifigures. It may be that one of the reasons why these smaller figures ended up ousting the Homemakers is down to scale; a Homemaker-compatible police station, for instance, would have needed to be considerably larger and consequently more expensive than Set 370, and it's likely that the adoption of smaller figures opened up more possibilites in terms of what sets were feasible.

It took only 3 years for the early minifigures to evolve into their modern form, and in 1978, the minifigure credited with being the first of the modern breed appeared in Set 600 Police Car. The rest, as they say, is history, but let's never forget the little people who arguably kickstarted the whole minifigure revolution....