Seal Battle Pack or Family Pack?60376 Arctic Explorer Snowmobile [Hands On Review]

Earlier in the year, we all got terribly excited when we got our first look at the so called Otter Battle Pack: With 2 otters lurking in a stream, while a human maintains the national park on their quad bike, all at an exceptionally reasonable price.

In the second half of the year, the LEGO Group have brought another similarly priced set to the market in line with the Arctic research/Deep Sea subtheme, this time with seals.

And does this set have much to offer, and is it reasonable to call it a battle pack? Let’s take a look.

I am writing this review on a train, during the start of the European summer, so apologies if the photos are not all up to scratch. I know there will be more reviews to do when I get home, so I’d better get something done while I am travelling!

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May the Fourth Be With You: Tatooine Battle Pack Review

IMG_1519Today is May the Fourth, the day when a pun is allowed to take over marketing of Star Wars related LEGO® sets for a limited time only, with a variety of special offers in place, changing daily.  Check Shop.LEGO.com in your country for details.

Tatooine

“If there’s a bright centre of the galaxy, you are on the planet that it’s farthest from.” – Luke Skywalker

When Star Wars debuted in 1977, Tatooine was the first alien landscape we encountered. A harsh, unforgiving desert planet, bathed by the scorching heat of binary stars, we see people enter a daily struggle against the environment: farming moisture to survive; fending off hostile desert nomads and dealing with diminutive scavengers. We see a variety of exotic megafauna, some just skeletons, some utilized as low maintenance transport in an environment which treats life forms and machine with equal contempt. It is far from the attention of authority: smugglers, gangsters and fugitives make this planet their base of operations. We also see hope: cautious optimism in the face of a deadly environment, a place of refuge from the Empire, and spectacular twin sunsets! It was a long, long time ago, and the locale took us to a galaxy far, far away…

And yet with its exotic locations and importance to the overarching saga- events take place on Tatooine in five of the first six movies- the indigenous races: Jawas and Tusken Raiders remain shrouded in mystery. And indeed , in my opinion,  sadly underrepresented in LEGO Star Wars sets.

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1978 X-Wing Fighter. 3 1/4″Action Figure Scale Luke Skywalker in place, and a makeshift R2D2 in the Astromech slot.

Melbourne, 1977

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