The LEGO Batman Movie may not be out on DVD till May 21st, but I got to see the West Coast preview at WonderCon! Not only did they show the movie, but there was a Q&A afterward with the director Jon Burton of TT Games and several of the voice actors.
If you haven’t seen the trailer, here it is:
I’ll get back to the Q&A part in a minute. Now for the review — if you haven’t played LEGO Batman 2 yet, or don’t want to know what happens, you might not want to read this review. Spoilers ahead –
If you have played LEGO Batman 2 like I have, read my review of the game here, and read the description of the movie you would think what I thought — that the LEGO Batman Movie is basically the cut scenes from the game.
That is both true and not true. The story line is the same, but an interesting fact that I discovered from the Q&A is that the game is based off the movie!
According to Jon Burton, the director, they were working on the movie and then realized it would be a great game. But the game took less time to make than the movie and that’s why it came out first.
So in watching the movie, the plot is not really a surprise for those of us that played the game. Even so, this is worth watching. I have to admit I enjoyed it a lot more than any of the latest LEGO Star Wars mini movies. It was cute, fun and funny.
And watching a Gotham that’s built of LEGO is just plain cool. One of the coolest scenes is something that isn’t in the game — Lex’s airship. Its massive, shiny and “built” of over 20,000 parts. Like Jon Burton said, all the models in the games and the movie can be built in real life. TT Games actually has LEGO Master Model Builders on staff to ensure this.
What I like about the movie is that you can just watch it, you don’t have to do anything like in the game, and when you get the DVD you can pause it to look at the models more closely.
If you want to watch the Q&A here it is: (more spoilers)
After the panel I was able to meet both Jon Burton and Christopher Smith (the voice of the Joker)
Here’s a picture of Christoper
It was awesome seeing it on the big screen and meeting some of the talent behind it. I highly recommend it!
And don’t forget that you get this awesome minifigure with the movie
Overall 5 out of 5 stars! Fun movie, and I’ll be wanting to watch this one more than once.
I’ve done it again and been gone from here for the past week or so. Lack of an internet connection and my third convention in March kind of took the writing wind out of my sails. This month I’ve got a little bit of a break from Cons, which frankly I needed it.
I will be going back in time and writing about both Emerald City Comic Con and BricksCascade, but as WonderCon, my latest convention, is still very fresh in my mind, I’ll focus on that one first.
This was supposed to be my “fun” Con. I wasn’t planing on working really, just going and hanging out with friends and my brother. But I seem to find LEGO and LEGO related items everywhere, and its really not a stretch that would find it at a comic convention.
The Nintendo booth had a giant picture of the new LEGO City Undercover game.
I would like to review it, but I can’t (at least currently) justify buying the WiiU just for one game. And I would have tried to play it at the show, but unfortunately there were way too many people trying to play it. That went for the 3DS game “LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins” too. But as I actually have that game system, I’ll be picking it up when it comes out. GameStop does have the Chase McCaine figure if you preorder it, but as he’s also in a set and let’s face it, he’s just a cop figure, I’m not as focused on getting one.
I went slightly to the dark side and picked up the Character Building brand Doctor Who Tardis set. I normally stay away from non LEGO brands but this was the Tardis after all.
There’s not all that much to the set at 53 parts considering the price (I paid $15)
The interesting thing is that the Amy figure is basically naked under her skirt which is a separate piece. Why they didn’t make the hip part white or some other color than skin tone is a curious decision to me. Both figures are kind of like hybrids between minifigs and Friends figs. They have the more human shape of the friends fig, but they have the rotating hands of minifigs. I still wish that friends figs had rotating hands.
The disappointing thing to me is that all but the doors are large panels (you can see it on the left of the picture). There is very little building, just the bottom, and top of the model for the frame.
One interesting thing is that they give extra stickers, like they expect you to make a mistake or that they will eventually come off. And there’s a cardboard insert for the “inside” of the Tardis.
I do have to admit that there was a pretty cool 4×4 grey tile for the floor of the model and the 1×6 tile with 2 studs for the doorway (there’s two in the set, one for the top and one for the bottom). The roof was disappointingly one part, but the tiny light at the top is a separate part.
For some reason I didn’t take a picture of it built while I was at lunch (yes I built this while waiting for my order) but here’s it almost completed
Was it worth it? Not really. The plastic is clearly inferior and the figures aren’t all that great, which is why I didn’t buy their version of collectible minifigs. They did have a set with all 11 Doctors, but as I only like 9-11 and the cheapest I saw it for was $45, I couldn’t justify buying it — I’d rather spend that on a LEGO set!
Most of the rest of my WonderCon experience had nothing to do with LEGO, that is until the last day. But that will be a post all its own.
This magical microscale Quidditch field on the “cover” of the definitive guide on all things Quidditch is simply awesome!!
Created by Legopard this is aparently his first Harry Potter model.
There are a couple additional images on MOCpages (which I must admit I don’t check nearly enough)
Considering the size of the model, it truly is brilliant. Using the “one ring” as the Quidditch Hoops is perfect and the tips of antennas as the figures is inspired.
Some of the parts are just held by gravity, but who cares, its still cool.
And then I was looking at his Flickr stream and I saw a technique I’d never seen before (which is saying something ) –
There’s a lot going on in this model, but what caught my eye was that this baseplate was used upside-down!
I have a few of these raised baseplates, which have literally sat under a desk for years and years gathering dust. I find them very limiting as the shaped hills and valleys of the baseplate keep it from being very useful. When I was younger I used them a lot as I didn’t have the means to build my own hills and valleys out of brick. I admit, I rarely build landscapes, but I could if I wanted to.
So finding a use for these kind of “useless” baseplates — note: of course no LEGO part is ever useless and can always be used in a clever manner — is awesome. Not only is it upside-down, but it is also filled with water. Very, very cool!
Carl Merriam has created this sweet little vignette. I love how tiny the little Bob-ombs are and how very detailed. Carl himself told me that there’s no cheating or cutting.
Hi all, as you can see I’m still not fully recovered and not posting at all regularly yet. I did get back home finally after an almost 3 week trip up and down the West Coast. And once I’ve managed to upload all my images to Flickr I’ll be posting about the trip in more detail.
But I wanted to post about the recently released Hobbit movie on Blu-Ray and the Target exclusive version with the Bilbo Baggins minifigure.
I won’t go into a full review of the movie, as others such as FBTB have done a very good review already.
No what I want to talk about is the small featurette on the making and designing of the LEGO Hobbit Models that is on the Target Blue Ray and the Bilbo figure — cause let’s face it, that’s really the main reason I got it at Target.
Its not that I “must have all minifigures!” But since I was going to get the movie anyways, I might as well get it with a Bilbo minifig.
Its a pretty cool fig, with a nice blue waistcoat and printing on the back. There’s even an alternate scared expression on the other side of his head.
What I found that interested me more than I thought was the featurette about how they designed the LEGO Hobbit models.
Now as I’m not as tech savvy as some, I took pictures from my TV while I watched the feature so that you could get an idea of what it shows.
The thing I thought that was coolest to me was the original prototype of Bag End, Bilbo’s house.
You can see how it differs from the actual set and what stayed the same.
They also talked about how they designed the Goblin king and his minions.
Its only about 15 minutes long, and there’s scenes from the LEGO Lord of the Rings Video Game at the start and end of it. What I’m hoping and predicting will happen is a LEGO Hobbit game about the time the 3rd Hobbit movie finally gets released.
The Blu-Ray / DVD combo pack is on sale at Target.com for $24.99 in the US. I found it at my local Target for $22.99 so if you want it, I’d recommend getting it there before the week is over and they jump the price up to $29.99.
Is it worth it? Well the feature was interesting, I don’t see myself watching it over and over again. I’m of the reluctant Blu-Ray crowd. I don’t care all that much that my image is that much crisper than the DVD version. However, it seems that is the way the world is going and that’s why I picked up a PS3, so at least I could play games and watch movies.
I do like the exclusive figure, and I imagine that it will cost as much as the movie once it starts making its way to Bricklink. But if you are going to buy the movie any ways, you might as well get this one.
Most of the vines consist of the “trash” sprue that comes on this part.
If you have the part you know what I mean. There is a sort of triangle ring that holds all 3 leaves together and protects them from bending or breaking quite as much until you build with it. I’ve kept mine for years but never really knew what to do with them until now.
This may not be the first person to do it, but I’ve never seen it before and I like finding new ways to use old parts.
The whole set of pictures has some really great building techniques in them and I recommend reading the story as well.
Wow, I’ve now gone longer than I’ve ever wanted to go without posting here and I really do apologize for the three week absence.
Going to Emerald City Comic Con and BricksCascade sounded like such a good idea when I left my house February 25th and drove the 1200+ miles to Seattle. And it was a fun trip with much hanging out with friends and meeting of new people. But the crazy thing is that I’m still not home!
I have one more day of driving and around 200+ miles left before I finally make it back to my house.
Over the course of my trip I’ve gone up to Seattle, Washington then to Portland, Oregon and I’m on the last leg of a journey that’s taken me almost 3 weeks to complete.
I shall be posting both images and posts of both Emerald City Comic Con and BricksCascade once I finally recuperate from this crazy trip.
But there are some great photos of both on Flickr.
You can find a whole set of ECCC photos on Sean Edmison’s photostream. (Okay I know I’m posting my own mosaic, but a lot of people took pictures of it and even ECCC posted it on their Facebook page )
LEGO’s own Kevin Hinkle has a nice set of photos of BricksCascade 2013 including some nice crowd shots that I was too busy to get while working my vendor booth.
So was the trip worth it? Well the jury’s still out on that one. I’ll have more to say about that later.
Right now all I can say is its been a long, long trip and driving what will end up being a total of 2,700 miles total by the time I get home by myself isn’t really all that great. I love road trips, but they are much better shared with at least one other person who can take the wheel now and then and talk to you as you try and stay away.
Thankfully (knock on the proverbial wood) I haven’t had any problems so far and I will get home safe and sound by the end of today.
So for now signing off and regular posting will resume shortly.
So you’ve probably noticed I have been absent for the past week. But as there is a little less than a week till the Emerald City Comicon (ECCC) and two weeks till BricksCascade, I’ve been very, very busy getting ready for both shows stocking up on hundreds of keychains, necklaces, etc.
I also wanted to create something specifically for ECCC. And what better than the ECCC logo?
As always with my mosaics I incorporated a lot of tricks to get just the look I wanted and even invented a few new ones.
If you look at the close ups, you can see parts that are upside-down and sideways
And though it looks like they are just stuck on, the letters do have at least one connection point. Now since this is not glued, the letters also have some double stick tape to make sure they keep in place. Especially as I travel — handy tip, double stick tape is your friend.
Of course I will be bubble wrapping this tightly as well.
For those that are wondering, the mosaic is 2 x 2 ft square. So not on the small side. And it took me about a week to design and build.
I also came up with another Doctor Who design — his ever present sonic screwdriver.
Since they revived the show there have been two variations — a blue one and a green one. Now they of course do look more different than just the tips, but when you are going for one that is only an inch long you can only do so much. For those who can’t make it to either show they are available online at my Folded Fancy Creations Etsy shop.
I find it somewhat ironic that a lightsaber handle is used for the design. Who knows, maybe the Doctor is also a Jedi.
BrickCon isn’t the only time you can see awesome LEGO displays in Seattle. Emerald City Comic Con is just two weeks away and for the second year in a row SEALUG will have all kinds of LEGO coolness for attendees to see.
And that’s not all — several LEGO vendors will be there too, including your’s truly!
I will be partnering with BrickShirts and AltBricks. So if you are attending, stop and say hi.
Not only that, but I will be giving a presentation at 3:20 pm in Hall C all about my career as a Freelance LEGO Artist.
But if you want to attend the Con, buy tickets soon. The full Con passes and Saturday passes are already sold out but Friday and Sunday are still available.
My interest in Star Wars isn’t what it was when LEGO came out with their first sets in 1999, so yet another X-Wing isn’t really my thing. Sure its big, its grand, and I’m positive many of you can’t wait to get your hands on it. I however, can’t get too excited, sorry.
Here’s the press release
10240 – Red Five X-wing Starfighter™
Ages 16+. 1,558 pieces.
Build the ultimate LEGO® Star Wars™ X-wing Starfighter!
US $199.99 CA $249.99 DE 199.99€ UK 169.99 £ DK 1699.00 DKK
Collect and create the most highly detailed LEGO® Star Wars™ X-wing Starfighter ever produced. This iconic starfighter is featured in many of the most exciting Star Wars battle scenes, including the decisive battle scene above planet Yavin™. Recreate the moment when Luke Skywalker’s X-wing delivered the proton torpedo that led to the destruction of the Imperial Death Star! With 1,558 pieces, this realistically detailed model features opening wings and cockpit, a special display stand, data sheet label and R2-D2.
Includes R2-D2 atromech droid
Features highly authentic detailing, and opening wings and cockpit
Includes 1558 pieces
Measures over 10″ (26cm) high, 20″ (52cm) long and 18″ (46cm) wide
Includes display stand and data sheet label!
Available for sale directly through LEGO® beginning
May 2013
And the video
One thing that did interest me about this set was the controversy of how this set was announced.
What I am much more interested in is the new Palace Cinema which I realize I haven’t posted anything about here on the blog yet. That will be in my next post.
I'm Mariann Asanuma, a former LEGO Master Model Designer and now a Freelance LEGO Artist and Author. Thanks for checking out my blog dedicated to all things LEGO. ;)
Feel free to contact me if you are interested in a custom LEGO model.
