Harry Potter themed LEGO sets first appeared in 2001 and new sets last appeared in 2011. In case you’ve been living under a rock or maybe you’re like me and you’ve been through a move, Harry Potter is back in brick form, but there are some new things that haven’t been seen before.
First off are Brick Headz. I haven’t talked about this theme at all on the blog yet and this is my first step into the theme. I personally have not been impressed with the theme thus far. It appears as though LEGO has just taken all of its licenses and used this building method to sell more items that collectors might be interested in. You can collect from sub-themes like Disney Brick Headz or Marvel Super Hero Brick Heads or even try and get them all. These 5 are the first ones that I’ve build. They are 41621 Ron Weasley and Albus Dumbledore (245 pieces, $19.99 in the US), 41616 Hermione Granger (127 pieces, $9.99 in the US), and 41615 Harry Potter and Hedwig (180 pieces, $14.99 in the US). I did not get any of these on sale although Amazon.com had 41615 for 20% off recently (after I purchased it from LEGO Shop at Home for full price). My guess is there will be a Black Friday 2018 sale and then they will go on sale at Amazon.com or elsewhere towards the end of their shelf life similar to many of the other Brick Headz sets.
I am not going to go through the builds of these like I often do as they are all pretty similar. They all use some SNOT techniques to come up with similar designs. Other than some of the original or creative ones like the Valentine Bee (40270) or Easter Bunny (40271), these are all fairly similar. To be honest I’m rather disappointed and I don’t think I’ll be purchasing any more Brick Headz sets.
Is anyone else into Brick Headz? What do you like about them?
Part 2 is the Harry Potter Collectible Minifigure series (#71022) that came out in the US on 1 August 2018. They retailed for $3.99 each and there are 22 minifigures total in the set. The Collectible Minifigure series used to always have 16 each so it is interesting to see LEGO adjust the number in a series. I haven’t found anything on the reasoning yet.
Another difference in this series is in the break up of the minifigures. The movie “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is supposed to come out in the US in November 2018 which is probably part of the reasoning for the return of Harry Potter in LEGO form. There are 6 minifigures from the Fantastic Beasts series of movies while the remaining 16 are from the original Harry Potter books/movies.
The first 16 I’ll discuss are from the Harry Potter books/movies.
I was trying to pick out which movie these are from, but it is a mix. For example, Luna Lovegood is introduced in “The Order of the Phoenix,” but Cedric Diggory is from “The Goblet of Fire.” Dobby the House Elf is introduced in “The Chamber of Secrets” and Professor Flitwick is first in “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” but his appearance like the minifigure isn’t until “The Chamber of Secrets” (thanks Google). So the minifigs are from a smattering of movies in the Harry Potter series.
The complete list of minifigures are (from front to back and left to right from my picture) Harry Potter with Hedwig, Professor Flitwick, Harry Potter with the invisibility cloak, Hermonie Granger with her cat named Crookshanks (another score for Google), Professor Albus Dumbledore, Cho Chang, Neville Longbottom, Cedric Diggory, Luna Lovegood, Professor Sybill Trelawney, Voldemort, Dean Thomas, Ron Weasley with Scabbers, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, Dobby, and Draco Malfoy. In my opinion, it’s a pretty decent set of minifigures across all of the movies. There are a few key ones missing, but I guess that opens it up for LEGO to do another set. Maybe include Professors Snape or McGonagall, Hagrid, some of the Weasley’s (Ginny), Beatrix Lestrange… the list could go on for a while. It will be interesting to see if LEGO does another series or not.
Next up, the Fantastic Beasts minifigs.
I have seen “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” only once and I have not read the book. There are 6 minifigs from this movie and besides Newt Scamander (center front in the picture, I am not familiar with them all. So from left to right, front to back, there are Percival Graves, Newt with his Knarl, Tina Goldstein, Jacob Kowalski, Queenie Goldstein, and Credence Barebone.
Overall, I think this is a good set of minifigs between the two movie themes. It gives a good variety of minifigures, the accessories that come with them are good, it adds some new characters/elements not seen before, and it does a decent job of capturing the likeness of the movie characters. If you are a Harry Potter/Wizarding World fan, I recommend getting these. If you’re a glutton for punishment and LEGO has sucked you into collecting all of the CMFs since series 10 (or earlier for some of you) like me then plop down your funds for 22 of these. Locally in Germany, I have not seen these out much. Either they sold fast or the retailers don’t have them. I had no issue getting them online and am looking forward to being able to sell my extras in the store once it re-opens in a few years.
I have a few reviews of the Harry Potter sets on the way so stay tuned.
Happy building!