In which I perform another livestream build and review, build a buggy and am offered a challenge by the Bricktastic Blog. What could possibly go wrong?
While Waiting for the LEGO Movie 2 to open in Australia, I have been live building some of the sets from the movie on a variety of platforms. This one I built on Sunday 10th March, and streamed over Facebook Live. Compared to instagram, FB allows the video to be recorded to your videos album in perpetuity, for future viewing. I streamed it directly to my phone, held on a tripod, smack bang in the middle of my personal space. This time, I live built Rex’s Rex-treme Offroader 70826. You can find the video on my Facebook page here
Rex’s Rex-treme Offroader 70826
234 pieces
$AUD44.99 $USD29.99 £GBP24.99
Released January 2019
On opening this set, the first thing that strikes you is the amount of Dark Blue/Earth Blue elements present in the set. However, of the 234 elements present, only 43 are dark blue. To be honest, it felt like more!
This is one of the smallest sets that I have found so far to contain the Instructions plus accessible through LEGO Life this year.
The Figures
This set gives us Rex Dangervest, with hair ( rather than hat or helmet) and Emmet. I now have 3 each of Rex and Emmet – the others being the Dream House/ Rescue Rocket and the Collectable Minifigures. I now have 3 different double sided heads (= six different facial expressions) for both of them. I appreciate this level of variation, particularly what it means for photographers and animators, in giving these characters just the right expression.
Before we start work on the vehicle, we have two small constructions: one is a plantimal, one of the local creatures on the planet that Rex and Emmet have landed on…I am sure we will have more details soon, as to how this fits into the story – the film is yet to officially opening Australia . This involves a magenta plant frond, as well as some trans blueish-purple (speckled) elements, as well as a medium lavender crab, forming the creature’s arms!
Then we have the Raptor. As an amalgam of every character that Chris Pratt has ever played, Rex declared himself in the trailer to the movie to be a galaxy defending archeologist, cowboy and raptor trainer. The raptors present across his sets are all dark blue, and this one has some light blue skin markings. And this raptor appears to have been trained to wear a saddle incorporating an unsubtle level of firepower…
The Rex-treme Off Roader
Next, we go to work on the vehicle. After setting up a Technic frame we build up the seats and windscreen. The colour blocking is effective, with part of the build blocked off as bright yellowish green.The vehicle comes together simply enough. It measures eight studs wide, to allow for two passengers to sit side by side. There are a few stickers in the set, which add to the build nicely: a couple of scanner/radar type stickers, as well as some to assistance with the colour blocking. There is a printed roof tile 1×2, without knobs featuring Rex’s personal branding, use as part of the left rear mudguard.
There are a few parts of the build which I found quite nifty, including the shape of the front of the vehicle, and the rear mounted guns, with turn from side to side in unison. The wheels are offset in height, which in turn gives the Offroader a ’speedy’ appearance.
This is a relatively simple, but fun build which features a cute plantimal, Emmet and Rex mini figures, a cool vehicle, and a heavily armoured raptor. All of these work together to make a fun set. It’s not as crazy conceptually as the Emmet’s Thrycycle, Metal beard’s Tricycle or the Rescue Rocket, or completely unlike things we have seen before like Sweet Mayhem’s Systar Starship!, but its a solid build.
The use of colour is effective, and the play features are fun. There are a couple of things that confuse me however: Underneath the vehicle is a pair of claws on ball joints, whose functionality seems limiteds one. Perhaps these parts are reserved for one of the alternate builds. Compared with the Dream House/Rescue Rocket that we looked at last week, the alternative builds are significantly smaller, but a bit more crazy: a Dinobuggy, and Business Raptor: with a coffee cup, with lots of left over elements.
Is it value for money? I am finding it harder and harder to tell these days. But it was fun, relatively simple, and not too quick to build, but not so hard as to take up a night. And the vehicle is immensely Zoomable! I give the build three point five out of five Arbitrary Praise Units.
Next time…
I have been enjoying the streaming – I hope this who have been watching have too. I have found each of the platforms I have tried has their limitations. Coming up on Wednesday night this week – March 20th at 2130 AEDT (UTC+11) Join me on Facebook Live for another Stream – a couple of smaller sets in the run up to the actual release of the LEGO Movie Two in Australia on the 21st.
Blog Speed Build Battle.
Finally, fellow fan media John over at the BricktasticBlog has also been streaming recently. After a recent stream, one of his viewers suggested a streaming speed build battle. I failed to decline the invitation: Two Australian Fan Media. One Build! One Stream! It will run on Facebook live on Sunday, 31st March at 11pm AEDT/8pm AWST – check out the event on the Facebook page. But we need your help: what shall we race to build? John has set up a poll to select a ~$AUD25 set to build. Polls are now open, and run until Midnight AWST (UTC+9) 25th March. What would you like to see us build?
That’s all for today…I’ll see you soon. Check out the poll, and until next time…
Play Well.
This set was provided by the LEGO Group for review purposes, but all opinions are my own.
Oh I’m excited. 🙂