Okay, the last of 2018’s Harry Potter sets. Sorry it took me so long to get through them. Thankfully I finished before the 2019 wave comes out (assuming that happens).
Hogwarts™ Great Hall (#75954-1) was released in the US on 24 Aug 2018. It retails at $99.99 in US and I have yet to see it on sale at Amazon.com or anywhere else for that matter. The set contains 878 pieces and 10 minifigures. This puts it at, $0.114 per piece which is a bit steep in my opinion. Is it worth it? Let’s dig in.
Here’s the box. The front shows the set while the back shows the play features (pretty standard). The back shows that you can connect this set with #75953-1 Hogwarts™ Whomping Willow to expand your play with the castle. The Great Hall set has portions of the first 2 books to include “The Sorcerer’s Stone” and “The Chamber of Secrets.” For example, the Mirror of Erised is from “The Sorcerer’s Stone” while the basilisk is from “The Chamber of Secrets.”
And hardcore Potter fans help me out here… At what point did the basilisk chase Professor Quirinus Quirrell like it shows on the bottom left corner of the front of the box?
This set contains 6 parts bags. Bag 1 has a piece separator included in it. The instructions are bagged and include the sticker sheets. The set also includes 3 dark gray plates to include 2 which are 16x16 studs and 1 which is 8x16 studs.
The first bag includes one of the boats used to transport the first year students across the lake to get to the school. It is the same boat used back in the old Pirates theme days. It also includes a basilisk from “The Chamber of Secrets,” Fawkes the phoenix from “The Chamber of Secrets,” The Mirror of Erised from “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” and Dumbledore, Hermione, Harry, and Draco minifigures. Everything is pretty simple in terms of the build. The basilisk seems pretty lame in my opinion, but I don’t have any recommendations to make it better other than to just not include it in the set as the basilisk never appears in the Great Hall. This bag also includes Hedwig (Harry’s owl) and the Sorting Hat.
The second bag starts to build the Great Hall itself. The build is fairly simple and not very complex. It’s mostly stacking parts on top of each other. Kind of boring…
Bag three continues to build up the Great Hall. I expected a bit more detail in this set as compared to #71043-1 Hogwart’s Castle as this one is larger. It was interesting how some parts had more detail while others didn’t have any additional detail. One area in particular that caught my eye were the windows. In #71043-1 the windows, while small, had colored translucent plates behind the grills used for the windows to give them the stained glass look. This set does not have color in the windows at all. The reasoning probably is that they could either have the design on the window or the color, but not both. I don’t know. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make the windows colored while retaining the same look that it has now?
Bag four continues the build to include the walls and the tower. There are a number of stickers that add detail to include the clock and some of the brick design stickers on a few of the larger wall pieces.
The fifth bag builds up the inside of the hall. There are candles on the ceiling and the house banners. If you’ve watched the movies, you can see the candles floating. I think LEGO did a decent job making them float. The parts look a bit ugly, but I get what they are trying to do. As for the banners, you can flip them around to see all four of the houses so everyone is represented. Finally, there is a stairwell that is added and the stairs can close up. I don’t recall where the stairs are used in the books/movies, but it is an interesting piece that I have not seen used before.
Before I wrap up the build, I wanted to hit on a few of the accessories. The first is the Mirror of Erised. You get a few choices of what to put in the mirror as you can see. I get why they did it, but I think they could have cut back on the set cost by just having one piece and a clear sticker. The 4 stickers and extra piece don’t do much for me. Is it for the play factor?
You also get a boat and a basilisk. I find both of these extraneous and not needed in the set. I guess when the students first arrive in their first year they take the boat and one of their first stops is the Great Hall, but I would rather they focus on making the Great Hall more detailed than having one of the boats. Same with the basilisk. I’m pretty sure it never was in the Great Hall. They could do a Chamber of Secrets set and put it in there, but it’s just additional bricks to help jack up the price.
As mentioned earlier, the set comes with Scabbers, Hedwig, and the Sorting Hat. I’m okay with these being in the set. They all were in the Great Hall with the main characters at one point or another.
And here we have the main reason for the set. This set is a (very expensive) minifigure pack. You get (top row, left to right) Ron Weasley, Susan Bones, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter all with the short minifigure legs. In the bottom row (left to right) you get Professor McGonagall, Professor Quirinus Quirrell, Rubeus Hagrid, Albus Dumbledore, and Nearly Headless Nick.
Students first… who the heck is Susan Bones? I initially thought it was Ginny Weasley, but then I looked at the box and saw that it was Susan Bones. I don’t recall her being named in the movies and my NLS who has read all the books didn’t recall her either. I had to do a Google Search to find out who she was. Definitely an odd minifigure choice.
Okay, onto the larger minifigures. I like how they made Hagrid a larger figure. The arms snap in with Technic like pins and the torso is a much larger piece too. I’m sure it’s out there, but I can’t recall this design being used. In the Ninjago movie Collectible Minifigure series, Garmadon has 2 standard minifigure torsos stacked on top of each other to create his height. I like what LEGO did for Hagrid better to make him larger.
A number of these minifigures only show up in this set so it could help the price of the minifigures go up on the secondary market. I wouldn’t buy this set hoping for that though.
The sixth bag completes the build. The tower is finalized to include a few rooms in it which I should know, but I don’t and then Fawkes who normally lives in Dumbledore’s office. Maybe it would be better if I knew what the rooms are, but the tower doesn’t do much for me. I’m sure it is there for play purposes. And I added another picture of the Great Hall just because. The last bag is just the tower build and it connects to the Great Hall.
Overall, I was disappointed in this set. The cost is too high compared to what you’re getting. The 10 minifigures are great, but there are some excesses that should have been done away with like the basilisk, the boat, and the extra Mirror of Erised designs. There are also a lot of larger brick wall pieces which I’m sure add to the cost of the set. I would have rather seen more focus on details and the build versus making it an easier build to put your minifigures in.
If you’re looking to get this set, wait for it to go on sale. It’s not worth it at the current high price point that it’s at.
What are your thoughts?
