Yesterday, I was a little bit excited to get my first glimpses of the Monkie Kid set 80054 Megapolis City. Celebrating the 5th year of Monkie Kid, the set is full of the eastereggs that we have come to expect from these large scale urban envoronments from MK. But the image quality was a bit poor: fast forward 24 hours and we have now got high resolution images, some are ‘lifestyle images,’others are renders of the box art. And while I was a bit excited yesterday, today I am turning it up to 11.

Monkie Kid, as a theme, aims to pay respect to the Classical Chinese novel, Journey to the West. While Monkie Kid, as a TV series, aims to continue this story, we often find key details relating to the original novel tucked away in the sets – particular examples would include sets such as the Heavenly Realms and the 80049 Dragon of the East Palace. While these sets draw heavily on the historical story, sets based in the modern world such as the 80036 The City of Lanterns delve in to the heritage of the LEGO toy – with callouts to themes of the past – to say nothing of LEGO retail stores and LEGO Island’s insomniac, the Airport Monorail and more!

And so I diligently imported the latest images from LEGO.com into Lightroom, switched on the super resolution preset and started snooping.

Space and the Ageing AFOL

I’ll be honest with you, there was probably only one area that I was seeking to get detail from: the ‘classic space elevator’ The Grey Blue and Transparent LEGO caught my eye yesterday. What would I see more today? so much more it would turn out! If you know the Ramblingbrick of old, you know this will probably be where I start, and indeed finish up, today. Classic space refers to Space sets released between 1978 (USA)/79(ROTW). You can read more about how I define Classic Space here.

Here are my reference images:

In this single shot, I can see references to many pieces of times gone by. Now, some might be stickers, some might be elements but they all call back to historical references to Classic Space and beyond.

Lets take a quick look:

As a fan of Classic space, there are so many references here: from the logo, the arrow tile (brick built) as well as the sideways arrow on a brick. The LL01-LL03 also calls back to the days pf printed bricks in these sets. It is hard to tell from the renders whether these are printed or stickers. Fingers crossed…

The 2×2 double offset plate, with the tile built arrow is also a callback to many similarly designed tiles used in the 1980s-90s.

We see the cinema spaceman image from 6000 Ideas book from 1978-79 referenced.

But if you want to travel back further, this image refers to set 200, the Homemaker family set from 1974.

And of course, there is the box of hats near the ferris wheel, featuring signage similar to the Time Cruisers logotype. If you knew Time Cruisers, you would remember how the theme was all about using hatts as part of the Time Travel Mechanic for Timmy and Dr Cyber.

Of course, one of these hats is the Green Classic Space Helmet.

Perfect for the astronauts from the LEGO Ideas 21109 Eco Suit, which originally came with visored motorcycle helmets. At last we can complete the set:

As this is a set celebrating the 5th year of Monkie Kid, it is only fitting that there is aleast one self referential easter egg: here we see the 80012 Monkey King Warrior Mech engaged in combat with the 80010 Demon Bull King: the first big fight from way back in season 1!

While this has been a quick tour of 10 eastereggs, there are so many others that I have just overlooked (such as the tribute to the Wooden Duck).

As I said, these are 10 easter eggs that made me smile. Some aspects of life have been a bit tough in recent months, and to see some nods to the era that I grew up with, and more material that I have come to appreciate more in recent times. I am really looking forward to taking a closer look at the set, and finding the other easter eggs that are lurking in the set.

The set comes out in January 2024, has 2330 pieces and costs $269.99 AUD/USD189.99/£159.99 and €189.99.

I’d love to know what you think of this set: do you think it is a fitting tribute to the history of MK, and LEGO in general? Or just a waste of time? Please leave your comments below.

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Play Well!