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10211 Grand Emporium – Available from LEGO March 3rd

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Update: It’s available now (March 1, 2010) online at the official LEGO Shop. We thought that LEGO’s 10211 Grand Emporium would be showing up in March as did everybody else. Turns out that we may get it at the beginning of March. Huw over at Brickset mentions that it looks … Read more

Review of LEGO Atlantis: The Movie

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LEGO Atlantis - The Movie

A quick note: I was mistaken yesterday, LEGO did do some promotion of the movie on the Atlantis.LEGO.com site, but I still believe more should have been done on LEGO.com as well as the Cartoon Network website. That’s just me.

If you’ve been following the Atlantis Theme, nothing in the movie should be a surprise. I’m going to post a short review, then some notes from the movie, and then a full synopsis of the movie (all in this post). If you don’t want to be spoiled, stop reading after the short review in the paragraph after this.

My overall impression is that it was very well done. The animation was good, the voice talent was good. As an AFOL, I wasn’t cringing at anything (and they even referrenced AFOLs at the end of the movie), it was enjoyable, and I could see kids really liking it. It showcased every single one of the existing LEGO Atlantis sets except for the 8079 Shadow Snapper. It also showed or hinted at a few large sets that we know about, but that aren’t yet available for purchase (later this year). It also showed something that… I don’t want to spoil the movie, so I’ll post it at the bottom, but let’s just say that it could either turn into a huge theme on its own, or be a sub-theme of Atlantis. It used almost all of the content from the Atlantis.LEGO.com website with the exception of the backstory around Dr. Artimus Rhodes and his great-granddaughter Professor Samantha Artesia Rhodes. This was probably due to the time constraints of a half-hour movie. It will be interesting to see if the LEGO Brickmaster Atlantis book fills in any gaps. It used all of the minifigs we’ve seen in the Atlantis sets, and everything but the Neptune Carrier was scaled appropriately.

STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE THE MOVIE SPOILED!!

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MOC – Wreck Raider Quad from LEGO Atlantis

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In honor of the LEGO Atlantis: The Movie, coming on in a few minutes, it’s actually on now, I’m posting a MOC I made out of two 8057 Atlantis Wreck Raider sets. I’m calling it a Wreck Raider Quad, but really it was an Exercise in Frustration. The goal was to see what you could do with a couple of the cheaper sets in the LEGO Atlantis theme. The 8057 comes with just over 60 pieces.

LEGO Atlantis MOC - Wreck Raider Quad

I only used parts from two 8057 Wreck Raider sets ($10 a set), along with a 1×3 brick and some transparent pieces from other sets. It seemed like a good idea at the time. In retrospect, I wished I had used an 8057 and the $15 8059 Seabed Scavenger.

One thing I want in the Atlantis line is a cargo platform/submersible, which is kind of what I got out of this. Right now the vehicle sets are about moving from point A to point B. They aren’t going to be hauling anything on these vehicles. I’m hoping that with the possible Atlantis Exploration HQ 8077, we see such a vehicle. These are supposed to be researchers after all, and so far they are unable to really haul anything, outside of mini-vehicles (see the 8075 Atlantis Neptune Carrier).

If I delved into my other sets and pieces and used about 15-20 extra pieces from other sets or spare parts (perhaps the 5866 Creator Rotor Rescue or one of the Power Miners sets), I could easily make a much better cargo platform/carrier using what I made as the foundation, and I plan on doing that in the future. I could easily get what I need on BrickLink, but I’m thinking in terms of what you might have easy access to. As I said in my review of the 8057, it’s a good value given the two minifigs (the Shark Warrior especially). I’m far from being a LEGO expert, not even close, but I think with around 100 parts, LEGO could crank something out like what I was aiming for. As I mentioned, the 8057 has around 65 pieces, and between the two of them plus the extra parts I used, minus the parts I didn’t use, my count was around 120-130. You could easily knock this down by 15-20 pieces if you used more appropriate pieces from other sets, rather than limiting it to the 8057 sets. I think the Wreck Raider + Seabed Scavenger would make for a more interesting vehicle.

I plan on revisiting this MOC in a few weeks, and cleaning it up with better/more appropriate parts. My biggest limitation was mounting the motors such that they could fully rotate without hitting anything, be it diver or seabed, and the lack of larger plates.

The lack of larger plates is really what did me in, and my “upgrade” of this MOC will have larger plates making for a true cargo vehicle/research platform. With larger plates, I could have achieved a cargo/passenger area of around 6×10 studs rather than the mish-mash 5×5 that I came up with. With a 6×10 area (or perhaps 8×10 if I extended the length of the vehicle), I could probably mount some kind of small crane somewhere on the platform, plus have a dedicated crew area and a dedicated cargo area. I could even make a movable mount for the grappling hook(s).

LEGO Atlantis MOC - Wreck Raider Quad

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LEGO Atlantis: The Movie – Trailers, sort of, plus a 3D component?

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As you are well aware by now, we’ve been beating the drum this week about LEGO Atlantis: The Movie, airing tomorrow night on the Cartoon Network here in the US. Why? because it seems like nobody else is, least of all LEGO or the Cartoon Network. No, we are not being paid to or being given any incentives, this is all our own doing – we are fans of the Atlantis theme and it’s driving us bonkers that the cartoon/movie is being downplayed or not given much support.

As we mentioned last week, LEGO has updated their Atlantis Movie Site with what look to be teaser trailers, including mention of 3D, as well as wallpapers and the like from what looks to be the movie, and if you’ve been to LEGO.com this week, you may have even seen a brief animation, but there is no indication that it’s from a 30-minute movie/cartoon airing tomorrow night. Update: There is a release that popped up, but still not much on www.LEGO.com.

If you do a search on CartoonNetwork.com for “Atlantis”, nothing comes up. You can find the show times tomorrow by browsing to the listings, but even just a search of “Lego” only turns up Ben 10 related information.

The first time we mentioned this was at the end of December when we came across a LEGO Store calendar in-store for the month of January. We then posted some more information about the Atlantis movie including showtimes, the movie clips, wallpapers, and our speculation.

We mention all of this because it’s almost like it’s supposed to be top secret. We were given permission by LEGO to post some advertising material from LEGO discussing how big Atlantis is to LEGO:

Atlantis is a great new theme based in the story of underwater adventurers battling the deep sea creature guardians of the lost city of Atlantis through use of versatile and intricate underwater vehicles. Each set comes with a collectible key that within the story lines helps the underwater adventures unlock the gate to the lost city. LEGO has taken many cues from the extremely strong Power Miner’s marketing effort and applied them to this line. Most importantly, is the largest ever LEGO.com base of supporting interactive content with a large 3-D tie in.

I don’t know why it’s being treated as something that’s secret. The Atlantis campaign appears to tightly scripted and well run, and as the bit from above mentions, they modeled it on the successful Power Miners campaign. This information was widely available a few weeks ago to the public, and by last week, it was showing up on TVGuide.com as well as many other schedule providers. I was able to program it through my DVR over a week ago.

This isn’t some super secret set information that was leaked early, this movie/cartoon is a part of an expensive campaign done on the part of The LEGO Group to promote Atlantis!

It’s incredibly odd.

And now for some screenshots from the trailers – we held off until tonight to post these to maybe help generate interest and help people remember that the movie/cartoon is tomorrow night. I’m deliberately not posting anything related to the plot, just some screenshots of the some of the sets we’ve already seen:

Neptune Carrier – it’s huge.
(Neptune Carrier review)
LEGO Atlantis: The Movie

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Review: LEGO Atlantis 8057 Wreck Raider

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This review is for the 8057 Atlantis Wreck Raider which is, of course, set in the LEGO Atlantis theme. It’s kind of an in-between vehicle set in the Atlantis theme – it’s well above the impulse price and part count, but at $9.99 it’s two-thirds the cost of the 8059 Seabed Scavenger. It’s a very efficient use of parts, fits well in the theme, and thanks to the human diver and Shark Warrior, it’s a good value.

2010 LEGO Atlantis 8057 Wreck Raider

Given the low price, and that I liked the selection of parts, and kind of as a challenge to myself, I picked up another 8057 and decided to see what I could create with just two of them. I will be posting that tomorrow (Friday, January 15, 2009). It was an exercise in frustration, but still interesting.

Speaking of tomorrow, don’t forget – LEGO Atlantis: The Movie on Cartoon Network, 6pm Central, 7pm Eastern. Now onto the review.

Update: Wreck Raider Quad – a MOC made up of two 8057 sets plus a small number of other pieces.

By the Numbers:
Set: LEGO 8057 Atlantis Wreck Raider
Year of Release: 2010 (technically available at end of 2009)
Type: Mini Vehicle from the Atlantis theme
# of Pieces: 64
# of Extra pieces: 2
# of Minifigs and what kind: 2 – Human diver (Captain Ace Speedman), Shark Man
Stickers? 8
Ages: 6-12
Time to Complete: Less than half an hour (I spent more time taking and editing photos and writing this review than it took to put together!)
MSRP/Price: $9.99 US from LEGO Shop at Home , also available at Amazon.com, Target, Wal-Mart, TRU, etc. (price may vary from MSRP elsewhere)

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