The first sets based on Avatar: The Way of Water were unveilled on LEGO.com today, ahead of the film’s release in December 2022. These sets will be released January 1 2023. Some of these sets feel a little more affordable than those released earier in the year from the first film, so it will be interesting to see how they compare for building experience: I note particularly that the two smaller sets in the first wave of Avatar sets had around 580 pieces, while 75575 has only 179 and 75576 has 259. The minifigures for the new characters, living a more water based lifestyle, are light azure – a little different to the medium blue used for the Na’vi.

While you might wonder the value of a prolonged period of time between the release of the original Avatar, and the first LEGO® sets related to the film, perhaps we should look towards Star Wars where we had a greater delay, as well as new films being released around the same time as the LEGO sets were introduced in 1999. Of course, despite being one of the largest grossing films of all time, Avatar did not have such a profound effect on the popcultural zeitgeist as Star Wars.

HOWEVER

The world of Pandora provides a magnificent opportunity to bring all sorts of exciting colours and organic shapes to life, to say nothing of the sand green hardware of the Resources Development Administration (RDA)- represented in this wave by a submarine along with a ‘Crab suit’ diving mech. These contrasts are part of the appeal of these sets, presenting something relatively unique in the LEGO ecosystem at present. I’ll be presenting my slightly delayed reviews of the first wave of sets over the next few weeks. Read on to see the sets coming in January, 2023: