This has been a year of many and varied Botanical sets – with different sets covering potted plants, bouquet and event a small chance of woodland. The theme has brought us hit after hit over the past few years, but this set takes a different approach: bringing us a collection of previously seen flowers (and a couple of new ones) , with a darker colour palette. The 11513 Dark Flower Arrangement has just been released. It has has 562 pieces and is priced at $AUD99.99/ USD$59.99 / 59.99€ / £54.99.
The LEGO Group sent a copy over for review: let’s take a closer look.
I adore the Dark Knight movies, but somehow the Batmobile Tumbler from those films never appealed to me much. I prefer the massive fins and entirely impractical wheel base on the 1980’s design, but the military looking Tumbler has its own fanbase, so let’s have a look at this set that was gifted by LEGO for us to review.
I have greatly enjoyed the movie Aladdin when it came out where, as usual, I was most delighted by the sidekicks in the form of Abu the monkey and the Genie. Aladdin was a little bit too much of a diamond (in the rough or not) and princess Jasmine too straight to provide much entertainment value for me.
But, Disney Princesses, and Jasmine certainly is a princess, have very high standards to uphold, and have strong fan-bases in the world. It behooves a princess to have some place to store her jewellery so it seems appropriate for LEGO to create a set that combines an iconic scene from the movie of her origin, with the ability to store jewellery. Or so it seems on paper.
The LEGO Group releases heaps of cars. Especially in recent years, there is a plethora of cars available in LEGO® form, and some Technic fans have been complaining about this. The LEGO Group gifted us a set of three new LEGO Technic cars that will be released on the 1st of August 2026 (and a Batmobile, which also counts as a car… of sorts – that review will be coming soon).
If we have a look at some history of Technic sets that can be qualified as ‘car’ or ‘construction vehicle’ we can kind of see why old-fashioned Technic fans may complain. Over the last 10 years, an ever-increasing portion of Technic sets are cars, although we see a little variation from year to year. On the other side, the percentage of ‘construction vehicles’ (excavators, wheel loaders, etc.) has been declining a bit. The trendlines show a clear trend, but if you just look at the bar charts, it’s not entirely convincing.
Join me to explore a bit further what is behind these trends, while I will also have a look at these three cars so you can make up your mind if any of them are your idea of fun. Let’s be clear, this is about *your* idea of fun, since these kind of vehicles lost their lustre for me a while ago. The build experience is almost identical for all of them, except for the outside shape, and that shape in Technic just doesn’t quite do it for me.
It was the late 1970’s, and Saturday afternoons on commercial TV in Melbourne brought us a selection of science fiction series from the 1960s: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants, The Time Tunnel and Star Trek. They all offered action, excitement and real wild things, but only one of them took us off Earth, and into the wider Galaxy: Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry’s original series has spawned many spin-offs, sequel series and movies – in multiple timelines.
Last year, the LEGO Group finally got access to licensed Star Trek material, and we saw the debut of the NCC-1701-D – the Federation Flagship from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
This year, as the franchise celebrates its 60th anniversary, we take a leap back to the Bridge of the Enterprise, with the crew from that original series.
LEGO® Icons 11385 Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701™ Bridge has eight minifigures, and four tribbles,. With 1701 Pieces (yes, you read that right), this set will be available from September 1, and is available to preorder from LEGO.com today. It’s recommended retail price is $AUD299.99 /£159.99 / €179.99 / $USD199.99. This release coincides nicely with the 60th Anniversary of the the release of the first episode in September, 1966.
Being in my 20s in the 1990s and focussing on the start my career, and a path to specialisation, explains why I perhaps missed all of those great 90s Space, Castle themes while I was living through my LEGO® Loving Dark Ages. However, every so often, I needed a break, and the X-Files came along at just the right time. Chris Carter’s series focussing on the believer in the supernatural, and his sceptical partner came along at just the right time.
The LEGO IDEAS X-Files set was developed by Brisbane based Fan designer Brent Waller as a response to the LEGO Ideas ’90s Nostalgia challenge in early 2025. Brett has had several LEGO IDEAS submissions become sets in the past, including 21108 Ghostbusters ECTO-1(2014) and 21328 Seinfeld (2021)
21369 LEGO IDEAS The X-Files has 1478 pieces, and eight minifigures. It has a recommended Retail Price of $AUD329.99 / £179.99 / €199.99 / $USD199.99 and goes on sale in August. For a limited time, there will be a Gift with Purchase (August 1-10 OR While Stocks Last) The X-Files: Scully’s Lab. Over the coarse of more than 20 years( with a few protracted breaks in transmission), tales of mystery and conspiracy filled our screens, complete with just enough mist to make torchmight feel incredibly dramatic. With a complex, ever-evolving lore that meant just missing one episode would doom you you lose track forever, until the episodes came out on VHS… Or DVD… or reruns…or Streaming services….
More information after the Break. The set looks like it is chock full of Easter Eggs, and there is no doubt that the “The Truth is our there” Poster in the basement office will be a sought after piece.
The LEGO Botanical Collection continues to grow. The Golden Pothos be released on august the first, and we were fortunate to have the LEGO Group send a copy over ahead of its release. The Golden Pothos, also known as Devils Ivy is a native of French Polynesia and is now found in south east Asia, South Africa and Australia. It is easy to grow in low light, and minimal care, making it a popular houseplant. So, how does a model of a low maintenance houseplant translate into LEGO form?
London’s Tower Bridge is an icon of one of the World’s great cities. While it was visited as a subject for the advanced models range back in 2010, there have been a few new LEGO Modelling techniques adopted in the meantime. Here’s your first look at the results of the bridge being visited by the LEGO Architecture team: with 3745 pieces, the model has a span of 89 cm, and the towers are 38cm high. This new LEGO Architecture set 21067 Tower Bridge goes on sale on August 1st, 2026, and has a recommended retail price of 499.99 AUD / 349.99 USD / 299.99 EUR / 269.99 GBP
My kids were born in the early days of the 21st century. As such, they were the perfect age for SpongeBob SquarePants LEGO® Sets, and a couple of these sets made their way into the house at the appropriate time, particularly from the 2009 wave:3834 Good Neighbours at Bikini Bottom and 3831 Rocket Ride spring to mind.
The theme wound up in 2012 with a limited couple of releases including 3818 Bikini Bottom Undersea Party.
And then the series was…cancelled? Put on hiatus? Not to return on a regular basis until 2017. But we have not seen any new LEGO Sets tying in with the series, until now.
LEGO® Technic has been dominated a bit by model cars of late (more on this in a review coming soon). In an apparent acknowledgment of the more construction-vehicle-heavy origins of Technic, the LEGO group gifted us an entire box of Mighty Machines: a new series of small Technic sets in the style of collectible minifigs.
What’s that I hear you say? Collectable? Small Technic? Yes, indeed, small, collectable and Technic. The series is labelled ‘Series 1’, hinting at another possible future range. Based on my experience with this set I would loudly applaud this! Bigger is not always better, and in this case it seems smaller is much much better.
Series one consists of 8 different tiny construction vehicles with play cards retailing for AU$6.99/£4.49/US$4.99/€4.99. Each vehicle comes in a blind box, so you can either try your luck or scan the QR code at the bottom of the box with an appropriate app (see reference values in the appendix) to find out what is inside. A full box contains 2 of each, for a total of 16.
The top-level summary is: YES! Oh YES! Each of these little builds is delightful and tickles an itch of a bit of building and a neat little mechanism in a bite-sized package. After spending long hours on the assembly of large complicated LEGO sets it is a delight to get so much play in such a simple way.
Join me as I go over each of the little units and take a guess at what the ‘gaming cards’ may signifiy.
