LEGO Friends

42180 Mars Crew Exploration Rover:Does size matter?

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Today, Branko returns to look at the largest of the LEGO Technic 2024 Space sets. It keeps the white, light grey and reddish orange of City Space sets, but does it fit in? Read on to find out!

This year LEGO is really pushing the space concept across a lot of different themes which reminds us that LEGO plays across borders and you can mix an match to your heart’s content. For Technic it is quite new to offer such a clear connection for play to the minifig scaled worlds of LEGO City and Heartlake City. As we explored recently with 42178 Surface Space Loader, the space themed Technic sets promise to provide a playing platform for minifigs, although no minifigs are included in the sets.

How does this behemoth fit in this idea? Does it integrate nicely with other themes or is the scale not right? Join us on a journey to explore how minifigures and minidolls experience the largest of the Space Technic play-sets released so far, and how this set fares by itself, without minifigs.

The 42180 Mars Crew Exploration Rover contains 1599 pieces (a lot of pins) and retails for AU$ 199.99/£129.99/US$149.99/€149.99, which puts it among the range of largest Technic sets. It is not exactly cheap, even by Technic standards, but there is a lot happening in this set which we will explore further below.

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We’re committed to recycling: 42167 Mack LR Electric Garbage Truck

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Branko is back with another review. This time its the Technic 42167 MACK LR ELECTRIC GARBAGE TRUCK, part of the January 2024 Technic range. Interestingly, the scale appears just about right for some other play themes…

LEGO communities have been committed to cleanliness, garbage disposal and emission reduction, expressed historically with cleaning and garbage vehicles and, in recent times, with electric vehicles and even electric recycling trucks! Until now, most of these vehicles seem a bit undersized for serious garbage management until now; introducing 42167 Mack LR Electric Garbage Truck available for AUD 59.99/£29.99/US$32.99/€34.99 containing 503 pieces*. The arrival of this truck certainly caught the attention of Friends Emma and River, who felt that their own (albeit colourful) truck looked a bit underwhelming in comparison.

*Technic sets typically contain a lot of pins and connectors that I would not equate to a full ‘piece’. More on this below.

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EXTRA PIECES Podcast: 2024 Preview – Friends, DREAMZZz, City Space

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Jay’s Brick Blog and The Rambling Brick are back with another episode of our collaborative Podcast, EXTRA PIECES. As we close out the year, we’re turning our eyes towards 2024 and the new year and the past week has seen most of the January 2024 releases revealed, and it would appear that there is space for everyone!

You can find the podcast on your favorite Pod Player – or click here

In today’s episode, we cover some of the newly revealed sets coming in the new year: LEGO City, Friends, Creator and DreamZzz as well as explore what the new Space strip that has appeared in sets across themes mean.

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71461 Fantastical Tree House [ Hands On Review]

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As a kid, I loved the idea of a treehouse: a place to escape and refashion the world in my image, where my dreams could come true. As my kids grew up, they would have great fun hiding out with their cousins in the Treehouse my father built for them. I suspect this love of arboreal habitation is not restricted to my family, as we have seen multiple LEGO treehouses popping up every year for the last decade. They ensure Kids have a place to call their own and think big.

The 71461 Fantastical Tree House is another of the heroes’ location sets, released as part of the first wave of LEGO DREAMZzz in August 2023. These builds are set in a dream world, where objects are shaped by the imaginations of the dream-crafting heroes of our Story, Izzie and Mateo and their friends. With 1257 pieces, this is the second-largest set in the wave. It has 4 minifigures, 3 ‘li’l guys’ and two buildable characters. With multiple rooms, personal spaces and striking blue foliage, this set has a lot to offer.

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Friends + Elves = DREAMZzz? 71459 Stable of Dream Creatures Review

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LEGO® DREAMZzz is shaping up to be one of the most colourful and eclectic themes that we have seen for some time. So far, we have looked at sets focussing on Creatures and Vehicles imagined by some of our heroes: Bunchu, Z-Blob, Space Bus and the Croc Car, to say nothing of the evil Grimkeeper. Today, we look at one of the first sets based on LOCATIONS in the LEGO DREAMZzz range: the Stable of Dream Creatures brings us a farmhouse and stables, which at first inspection feels like it might have come from LEGO Friends. On closer inspection, however, we see imaginative creatures and a colourful building with a warm palette and magical touches.

With 681 pieces, 4 minifigures and 3 of the little guys, along with some brick-built magical creatures, this set brings us a place for our heroes to chill out without any of the Nightmare King’s forces anywhere in sight.

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LEGO Friends: New Beginnings Debuts January 29

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Last year, we got our first introduction to the new generation at LEGO Friends. After Stephanie, Andrea, Olivia, Emma and Mia headed off on their gap years, there is room for a whole new gang in Heartlake city, and we start to hear their stories tonight (Australian time) when the video goes live on the LEGO Youtube channel.

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We Are Getting Some New Friends In 2023

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We have now had LEGO®Friends Sets on the shelves for over a decade, and during this time we have seen the girls grow, get rebooted and learn, while seeing each other through good times and bad. The girls who played with those first sets have grown up, and during the second half of the 2022, we have seen our core cast grow up and head off to pursue their dreams: Olivia at Space Camp, Emma at Art School, Stephanie sailing around the world, Mia rescuing animals and Andrea heading out to perform. All of this while welcoming new characters to Heartlake City.

During this time, we have been able to see our own kids grow up, and perhaps there is just a little too much backstory to catch up with, for newcomers to the brand. And so in 2023, we are going to see a new core group of friends, a new logo, and new stories to take place in Heartlake City. This change in direction was teased at LEGO CON 2022, but no further details were forthcoming.

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Counting Down to 90 Years of Play, Part 9 2012-2021

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We have been counting down to the 90th anniversary of the LEGO Group, which is now ( at the time of writing) only one more sleep away! We have travelled from the time that the company made wooden yo-yos and pull-along animals, and seen it pivot towards plastics and develop the brick. We have seen the Minifigure arrive and storytelling enter the fore. We have seen the company come back from the brink of financial collapse, to stabilise and start to grow.

As we travel through the 2010s, we get some new friends; storytelling becomes more animated, sustainability enters the agenda; and adult fans are asked for their ideas and become part of the acknowledged target demographic.

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LEGO® CON REVEALS: LEGO Friends – New directions?

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At LEGO CON, we had a visit from Friends designers, Fenella Charity, James May and Ellen Bowley. They discussed the way that this year, our familiar characters have been moving on to new adventures.

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Whatever Happened To Classic Town IV: Welcome to LEGO City

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When Minifigures arrived on the scene in 1978, we were presented with three settings: Castle, Town and Space – The Past, The Present and The Future. Through the 1980s, these themes developed in their own ways, fairly independent of each other. During the 1990s, we saw the themes diversify in different ways: Space brought us a new hyperfluorescent faction each year; Castle changed a little less frequently, but introduced an increasing amount of magic. In the meantime, Town diversified: no longer the sole home of contemporary lifestyles, we saw different themes split off, containing subject material based on the contemporary real world: Divers, Paradisa, Outback, Race, Space Port, ResQ, Team Extreme, and Sports. The ‘core material’ – which we first saw back in 1978 – police, fire and construction – became increasingly juniorized. Having been further dumbed down for younger builders with the introduction of Jack Stone, and other 4Juniors sets, we saw a return to more mature material with LEGO World City.

However, both the 4Juniors and World City themes featured alleged models of modern vehicles that bore minimal resemblance to the real-world equivalent. After the LEGO Group’s financial crisis, a number of themes were discontinued, and the company set out to return to its core business. A revitalised town theme was introduced – but things were on their way to being a bit bigger; expectations were greater: Town just wasn’t going to cut it anymore: we were presented with LEGO City.

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