LEGO Ideas WALL-E 21303 ©WagonPilot
LEGO Ideas WALL-E Review
The new LEGO Ideas series WALL-E has had many brick fans and Pixar diehards excited for the past year. This model was created and meticulously perfected by Angus MacLane, an animator and director at Pixar Animation Studios. LEGO WALL-E started out as an experimental design model Angus used while working on the 2008 animated film and later developed it for fans on the LEGO Ideas website where it was finally approved for production. I was very impressed with the quality of the design on this model. Despite being only 7 inches tall, there is an amazing level of detail all around, which I’ll get into in further detail later. WALL-E makes for a great collector piece but is also study enough to be handled as a toy and has has plenty of moving parts, including his trash compactor door. LEGO WALL-E retails for $59.99, but is somewhat difficult to find due to limited numbers and popularity. He can be purchased directly from LEGO and found at a few retailers like Toys R Us. Amazon prices are a bit higher, but worth it if you’re trying to find him for a Christmas gift.
LEGO WALL-E ©WagonPilot
The LEGO WALL-E comes in a study package, which will likely be repurposed as a storage container for my daughter’s LEGO pieces. The manual is a single book with a flat paperback-type binding, instead of the usual staple books, with a little history page. It’s a great start, but then we run into a major issue: none of the bags are numbered like a typical LEGO model. That means sorting the entire 676 pieces out at once. WALL-E is comprised mainly of yellow, and gray pieces, so this was a very tedious process. My daughter is highly ADHD and I’ve gravitated to LEGOs since it is one of the few things that will hold her focus for more than two seconds. Well, she quickly got bored with the sorting and moved on to the LEGO gingerbread house I scored as a VIP sale freebie.
The build wasn’t extremely difficult, but was very tedious. There is an amazing level of detail in this model and I noticed several clever brick combinations. The core box structure is nothing like you’ve seen before and is very solid. WALL-E’s eye modules are also very complex and you need to flip them around constantly during assembly. The thought that went into this design made it very enjoyable to put together because you couldn’t anticipate what the next page would have you doing.
LEGO WALL-E review ©WagonPilot
Other notable design features in this build include rubber pieces within the arm mechanism to provide sliding friction, fully poseable hands and arms, opening garbage compactor compartment, and the WALL-E name logo is printed on the pieces instead of stickers that are all too often found on larger LEGO sets lately and the yellow color is spot on. There were only two disappointing items. While WALl-E has fully movable tractor treads, they are hard plastic and will not move when he is pushed, so a downside for play but wouldn’t matter at all for display. The universal gripe though is the head mounting. The articulating neck is study, but the 360 pivot for the head has no resistance at all, so his head needs to be posed level since the eye-end is front heavy. I have seen suggestions to use pipe tape or a rubber band to fix this problem. Other that those minor quibbles, an excellent model overall.
LEGO WALL-E Review ©WagonPilot
