Brick Update #10
Underrated LEGO themes
Merry Christmas!!! Oh… Maybe it’s a bit too soon, but we’re totally getting there! With all the sales behind our backs and with the last official releases of the year in shelves we need to start getting those gifts under the tree and looking ahead to 2024.
LEGO News
December 1st releases are finally on shelves and those include the Natural History Museum, Orient Express and the Tiny Plants.
Natural History Museum ❯ LEGO.com
Orient Express ❯ LEGO.com
Tiny Plants ❯ LEGO.com
This Monday I’ll probably head to my local LEGO store to get the Tiny Plants to make a review, they look way too cute, can’t really say no for that price ($50) and are probably my favourite Botanical release of the year!
As for the $300 heavy hitters if I had to pick one, there’s no doubt in my mind which one would that be… And if you’ve watched both reviews you know EXACTLY which one I’m talking about…
As always, there’s a few Gift With Purchase sets to be had, and so, from December 1st to December 14th you’ll be able to get the Christmas Decor Set on purchases over $70/€70/£65/AU$110 and the Christmas Wintertime Carriage on purchases over $150/€150/£130/AU$240 which aren’t half bad if you get either the Museum or the new Ideas Train.
There’s also a few new January uploads on LEGO’s website like upcoming Speed Champions sets, a new Marvel “helmet” so to speak the Spider-Man Mask, as well as many others leading up to the next big release day on January 1st but other than that, there’s not much else to report! Short and sweet.
Tiago Uploads
Ok… Sometimes it really pains me to do some videos, and this was one of those. Having been on the inside, knowing the inner workings of the company or personally knowing many of the people involved in making a certain LEGO set, it’s really hard having to talk about it specially when there’s not a whole lot of nice things to say and I have to focus on the negatives.
The LEGO Ideas Orient Express has too many misses and poor execution on so many levels, specially production and quality control to the point of me really not recommending people getting it. Design wise I really like it, not a train guy myself so I’m not too bothered about the changes between final product, and original Ideas submission, but bent pieces, misspelled city names, wrong stickers and a claim of “this set can’t be motorised” though fans are making it work on their own is really disheartening.
Let’s not judge LEGO Ideas on this product alone, as there’s been a ton of good products this year like Tales of The Space Age, the Insect Collection or the Viking Village just to name my top 3 of 2023. The Orient Express though, doesn’t make the cut…
Tomorrow I should be uploading a FRIENDS REVIEW WHATTTT?!!!!
Yes, that’s right, I finally got my hands on two (👀👀) LEGO Friends Botanical Garden sets (Thank you LEGO!) and reviewed it/them and I can’t really wait to see how it does on the channel. Sometimes I’m really excited about a product but I have to think on the channel as a whole, and uploading a video that gets 10k views because there’s little interest from the community means the next uploads will suffer from it so I’m stuck to the 18+ stuff which I love, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a few gems hidden in the portfolio that I think also deserve some Tiago Catarino Youtube love am I right?
Make sure to watch the video and sharing it around so I can do more non 18+ videos on the channel!
Underrated LEGO Themes
Those last words kinda inspired the thoughts on this section today as I see myself completely disregarding some themes altogether just because they don’t have 18+ written on the box and because of it I might have been missing out on a lot of really good stuff! My bad…
LEGO Friends for instance, very early on was to me the “way too colourful” LEGO theme with the weird looking characters my daughters were playing with every now and then, but in the last few years I’ve been reading too many times online that the Friends theme has been giving LEGO City a run for their money on the city buildings department (pun not intended), and as I look closer to both product lines, hot damn, I have to agree.
The Botanical Garden is a perfect example of a beautifully executed concept that the whole LEGO community is completely in love with, no matter if you’re only into this theme, or the other, 18+ or whatever. I’ve read way too many times something along the lines of “I’m not into Friends at all, but I still got the set”, and the fact that every now and then it’s on backorder tells us something right?
I’m the biggest advocate of building experience with it being one of my favourite aspects of a LEGO set. Get me some cool building techniques and no matter how the set looks, or how much the price is, I’ll be all over it. It took me way too long and building the Nissan Skyline GT-R earlier this year to remember how crazy good and affordable building experiences the Speed Champion Sets are!
The LEGO Art theme early on was that “LEGO Dots for adults” kind of thing and after a while, whenever a new “mosaic” was done I was like… whatever… But now the theme is doing crazy stuff like The Great Wave or the Amazing Spider-Man which are both outstanding in their own ways which made me think that I should keep an open-minded approach when it comes to LEGO themes. Sometimes it takes them (LEGO) a few years to figure things out to then finally nailing it.
Monkey Kid, you know? Those asian themed products for kids? I dare you picking one of the “budget Ninjago City” sets to see how cool they are, even for adults! Great builds overall, with a couple interesting functions and usually much better deals when it comes to price per piece ratios than most LEGO products in the portfolio.
The people and designers behind every product or themes I mentioned before, are just as great and talented as the ones working with the 18+ stuff and sometimes I get so much into my own little world of being an Adult Fan of LEGO that only builds the “adult” stuff, that often times I forget one of the most important things about the danish company: they’re making toys for kids.
They’re making extremely good toys for kids.
Wake up Tiago! 👀
Giveaway results
The giveaway for the Himeji Castle LEGO set is over, just an hour ago I picked and contacted the winner via email! So if you’re using hotmail and there’s Mikel written in it (I obviously won’t disclose the whole thing) please check your inbox or spam folder so that we can arrange a way for me to send you your prize!
This will not be the end of giveaways around here so be sure to be subscribed so you don’t miss out on future opportunities :)
Until next time!
10 issues in a row without fail… Somebody pat me in the back…
While I agree the Friends line is overly colorful, I finally gave in to Botanical Gardens. I bought 2 sets during double points weekend. I got my delivery the day before you posted it to YouTube. Perfect timing.
A wel deserved pat on the back for you! And 10 long issues besides what you're doing on youtube and facebook.
But also on the fact how honest you are. I can see the trouble critizing work knowing the backgrounds. Knowing the practice makes you understand things better. At the other hand, you must stay critic. Even when you work for Lego or any other company. That's how Lego managed to survive.
You're wake-up call is not only for yourself, but for everyone. Lego is invented nót to look at just one possibility. That's the power(?) of the brand. But, as we get older we lose something of that. And that's why I loved looking at my nephew while building the Lego 30340. After almost every step he picked it up and saw it as an airplane or a car. It was creativity in the most purest way you can imagine. Almost magical.
Perhaps Lego designers are more child then other adults. I mean: The way they use parts can be absurd magical to. For exemple the painters pallete as leaves in the water. So simple but yet brilliant. I enjoy those things in Lego. The creativity.. wow.
And to end this comment: Congratulations to the winner of the Give away! Enjoy the castle!