Set Review - #75952-1 - Newt's Case of Magical Creatures - Fantastic Beasts - The Wizarding World

Full disclosure, I have not seen the Fantastic Beasts 2 movie that was released back in November 2018 at the time of drafting this post. With that being said, I have seen the first Fantastic Beasts movie and I thought it was good. I was wondering how they would work a spin-off in and they did it. Kind of like Star Wars in that as long as you have some of the same plot details, you can make a movie about anything and make money on it. Enough blabbing…

Set number 75952-1 - Newt’s Case of Magical Creatures was released on 24 August 2018 in the US. It retails for $49.99 and with 694 pieces, it works out to be $0.072 per piece. I waited and got it 20% off on Amazon.com so even better. As of today (30 December 2018), it’s still 20% off there so if you were looking to pick this one up at a discount, now is your chance. Onto the review…

Here is the box. The front shows the case opened up with all of the creatures and minifigures. The back shows the play features. You can also see the damage that the box took during shipping on the back. Thanks Amazon.com! I guess that’s what I get… 20% off, but a banged up box.

The contents of the set are four numbered bags, 2 instruction booklets that were jammed into the box, and a small sticker sheet. There is also a wing in a separate bag. I’m not a big enough fan of the movie to know all of the names of the different beasts. I looked it up and it is a Thunderbird wing. When I first opened the package, I was worried because only one wing was on its own. The other wing is in bag one. I’m not sure why one is in bag one and one is separate. So don’t panic if you can’t find the other wing loose in the box.

Bag one builds the Thunderbird (white and gold winged creature), the Occamy (bluish/purple creature that looks like a bird and a snake), and the Niffler (tiny duck billed platypus type creature). The 2 minifigures are Newt Scamander and Tina Goldstein. Newt has his wand and is holding a Bowtruckle (I’m not going to try and explain this one… just Google it). Tina has her wand and the tea pot used to hold the Occamy (again, Google it or just watch the movie if you haven’t seen it).

The second bag includes the Erumpent (the big rhino looking creature) along with the minifigures for Jacob Kowalski and Queenie Goldstein. Jacob comes with a hair piece and a helmet and is holding an umbrella. Queenie has her wand.

The third bag starts the case. I will have to go back and watch the movie as I will be honest and say that I’m not sure how accurately the case is being portrayed as compared to the movie version.

The fourth bag completes the case. Here are pictures of the case opened and then closed. If anything, it captures an item from the movie, but also gives you opportunities to do your own thing. Much like the LEGO Ideas Pop-Up Book, there are many different things you could do with this case besides representing the Fantastic Beasts movie.

Here’s a final picture of everything from a top down view. Not the greatest of pictures, but it shows all that you get. From a play standpoint, it captures a lot of the characters from the movie along with a key piece of the movie. From a parts standpoint, there are some good parts that could be used in other MOCs, but nothing too out of the ordinary. The build wasn’t too challenging and really didn’t have any different techniques that stood out to me. The sticker sheet was small so that made the build slightly better as I wasn’t putting stickers on after every other instruction page. Overall, unless you’re a big fan of the movie, I wouldn’t rush out to buy this one. I wouldn’t have purchased it without the 20% off sale at Amazon.com.

What are your thoughts on this one?

Set Review - #75951-1 - Grindelwald's Escape - Fantastic Beasts - Wizarding World

The second Fantastic Beasts move will be released in the US on 16 November 2018 (if you believe everything you read on the internet). Although here in Germany you can get movie tickets for 13 November. This one is called “The Crimes of Grindelwald.” Beyond seeing the trailer, I don’t know much about the movie so no spoilers to report here. I initially thought the first movie was just an attempt to keep the series going after a successful and profitable run of Harry Potter books and movies, but the first movie was actually pretty good. Hopefully this movie will be good as well.

Onto the set… #75951-1, Grindelwald’s Escape, was released in the US on 24 August 2018. It retails for $19.99, but I was able to pick it up for 16% off at Amazon.com. It has 132 pieces and 2 minifigures so that works out to $0.151 per piece which is rather steep in my opinion. I’m not sure if this is due to the Thestral figure which is unique to this set or not. Full disclosure, I had to look “Thestral” up. Otherwise, I would have just said winged-horse. Is “Thestral” even right? Anybody?

Here is the box. It’s the standard look with the set featured on the front and the play features on the back.

I had my 4-year old help me build this set (you can see her hands in the picture). As we opened the instructions, we had to follow them exactly as printed. One of the pictures shows a minifigure separating the pieces by color. This is the first time I’ve ever done that and it actually makes building very easy since you know which pile to look in. With smaller sets, I’ve never actually bothered, but it worked good for both of us.

This set has 2 bags of parts which are not numbered and an instruction booklet. There are no stickers to apply. YAY!

The set starts off with the minifigures. There are 2 which are Seraphina Picquery (in the lighter blue) and Gellert Grindelwald in the black with white hair. I have yet to see the movie so I’m not going to comment on whether they look like the movie characters or not. They both have dual faces and both come with wands and what Brickset calls a “mini shooter.”

The Thestral is next and you apply a brick harness and the wings. I’m curious to see if this figure will become popular on the secondary market or not due to its uniqueness.

Lastly is the coach. Nothing overly spectacular about this build. My kiddo had a tough time with a few of the attachments and I had to help a lot, but still it is a fairly easy build. The pieces aren’t overly exciting, but the wheels go back to the LEGO Castle days. I like the doors to the coach as well.

My overall opinion… this set isn’t too exciting. If you’re a big fan of the movie series, then it may be worth getting for the minifigures, but it didn’t do much for me. Check for sales on Walmart, Amazon.com, and/or Target. Hopefully it’ll go down in price more if you’re looking to pick it up.

Happy building!

Brick Harry Potter is Back

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!