Review : LEGO Harry Potter 75978 Diagon Alley

As promised, today we are quickly interested in the LEGO Harry Potter set 75978 Diagon Alley (5544 pieces - 399.99 €), a large box that allows you to assemble a new interpretation in the LEGO style of Diagon Alley and which therefore takes over the set 10217 Diagon Alley marketed in 2011.

For those who do not know, Diagon Alley (Le Chemin de Traverse in French) is a shopping street very popular with wizards who find everything they need to practice their art. Access to this hidden street is through the back of the Leaky Cauldron pub. Twenty shops make up this street, seen several times in the various films of the Harry Potter saga.

The LEGO version will be satisfied for the moment with six of these shops: That of the manufacturer of magic wands Ollivander (Ollivander's Wall Shop), the Scribbulus writing instruments store (Scribbulus Writing Implements), the Quidditch props store (Quality Quidditch Supplies), the shop of the ice cream merchant Florian Fortarôme (Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor), the Fleury and Bott bookstore (Flourish & Blotts) and the Weasley twins' prank shop (Weasleys Wizard Wheezes or Weasley, Pranks for mischievous wizards). We also get the entrance to the offices of the Daily Prophet and we will also note the presence of the passage to L'Allée des Embrumes (Knockturn Alley), the local Dark Web.

It is therefore not a complete and exhaustive Diagon Alley, especially since at least one important element of the street is missing, the Gringotts bank. The alignment of the various shops and emblematic places of this half of the street is not really faithful to the layout seen on the screen even if the layout of the places seems to change according to the films. Those who already own the set 10217 Diagon Alley may possibly associate the version of the bank delivered in 2011 while waiting to know what LEGO has planned to possibly allow one day to complete this new XXL diorama.

Good news for all those who like to share their assembly experience with family or friends, each building has its own instruction booklet, its 16x32 base plate and its more or less large sheet of dedicated stickers.

The set also deserves to be the opportunity for some unconditional fans of the Harry Potter universe to go in groups to discover each of the shops on the street. The references are numerous, the minifigs too and there is something to discuss and / or remember some scenes of the saga that take place in these places.

This box is actually a set of four Modulars a little narrow and with an uneven finish according to the buildings with constructions whose different rooms are full of furniture, accessories and winks. LEGO could also have marketed these four elements separately, but fans would have bought all of the sets anyway to reproduce this portion of Diagon Alley. At best, separating the four builds into four separate sets would have allowed fans to organize themselves financially and to stagger their purchases.

 Each of the constructions is bordered by a sidewalk with rows of tenons for planting the minifigs, which opens onto a paved section that might have benefited from being a little wider. The final alignment of the various buildings offers a rather exceptional ensemble that will find its place among those who still have an available space of at least one meter long to install the diorama.

I'm not a great specialist in the Harry Potter saga and I don't watch the films available several times a year, but it seems to me that LEGO was frankly in the contrasts and the colors a little flashy with this adaptation of the places.

The street seems much duller to me on screen, but I can understand why the manufacturer wants to offer a product with shimmering colors more attractive than a set of buildings with faded facades. We can also wonder if the designers were not rather inspired by the reproduction of the street accessible to visitors in the decorations of the Warner Bros. Studio Tour in London, whose lighting effects create a visual atmosphere similar to that of the set.

at € 400 a box of more than 5500 pieces, we can ask ourselves the question of really getting your money's worth beyond the final result. The doubt is in my opinion quickly removed because the assembly is a real pleasure that all those who are already used to Modulars know well.

A few walls and other facades are well stacked, but these sequences are interspersed with more entertaining phases which consist in assembling the stairs, the furniture and the ornaments and other various and varied accessories that fill the rooms of these different shops. There are quite a few shortcuts such as for example the bay windows of the Quidditch accessories shop and the Fleury et Bott bookstore which are transparent elements that are simply pad-printed and a few large pieces on the side walls of the various buildings but lovers of Modulars should still find their account there.

The majority of interior spaces are not tiled (or tiles) and it is necessary to be satisfied with visible tenons which are also often used to maintain some furniture. Others are more or less furnished and may appear a bit empty to some fans. It's not a big deal, the main references specific to each of the shops are there and I think that the vast majority of those who will exhibit this diorama will highlight the facades rather than the interiors.

The only real "functionality" of the set, if we do not count the folding staircase of the store of Garrick Ollivander and the winding staircase of the Fleury and Bott bookstore, it is the automaton present on the front of the store. Weasleys Wizard Wheezes with a latch placed on the roof that allows you to operate a lever to slightly lift the character's hat. Fun but dispensable.

The two movable stairs are not just there to add a bit of playability to the set: the designers have thought of those who do not have a shelf of one meter long to install the diorama on it and the four buildings can be grouped together. to obtain a more compact and totally closed model. The two stairs must therefore be tidy before joining the four buildings. The junction of the roofs and the sidewalks has been specially designed for the result that is still rewarding even if we lose a little in size.

As usual, I let you deduce what is pad printed from what is not and I have given you scans of the four sheets of stickers provided in this box. Most of these stickers do not pose any particular problem except those in two parts which adorn the pediment of the shops and which must be carefully aligned in order to minimize the effect of the gap between certain letters.

There are still more than a hundred stickers to stick on the different elements of this diorama, and for some buildings it comes close to the model with the added bonus of the impossibility of making up for an installation error, LEGO does not provide boards. of substitution.

This Diagon Alley being mainly intended to end his career on a shelf, we can legitimately worry about the state of things after a few years of exposure to light and dust. LEGO could at least have been able to pad the exterior parts which receive stickers and be content to impose stickers on us for the interior accessories and decorations, which are logically less exposed.

The surprise of the set is the presence of a small box whose content has not been revealed on the official visuals. This is a small display with a pad printed plate that allows two minifigs to be installed on the sides. And so it is this box that allows you to get the Harry Potter minifigure, which had been around the web without us really knowing which set to associate it with, with the shirt he wears in Harry potter and the sorcerer's stone during his first visit to Diagon Alley.

The pad-printed plate uses the phrase Hagrid spoke (in English) when he entered the street with Harry Potter through the wall of the Leaky Cauldron. Too bad for the very large injection point which is not even covered by the manufacturer's logo ...

Contrary to what the official description says, the set therefore contains not 14 but 15 minifigs: two versions of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Ginny Weasley, Molly Weasley, Garrick Ollivander, the twins Fred and George Weasley, Gilderoy Lockhart, Lucius Malfoy, Rubeus Hagrid, Florean Fortescue (Florian Fortarôme) and Daily Prophet photographer briefly seen in Harry Potter and the Chambre des secrets.

We could discuss the selection made by LEGO to populate Diagon Alley but that would be an endless discussion. As it stands, the selection of characters navigates between umpteenth versions of characters already very present in the LEGO Harry Potter range and some new minifigs. All the pad prints are or almost flawless apart from a few white or slightly pale skin-colored areas.

I have put a few photos of characters below with furniture and accessories from the different shops, there is something to have fun in this box with many elements that come to populate the windows and the different rooms. We note in particular the new boxes for the magic wands of which ten copies are present at Garrick Olivander, the two mannequins of the Quidditch accessories shop in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw school clothes or the multiple packaging of products sold by the Weasley twins in their prank shop.

In conclusion, there is not much to reproach this set which keeps its promises at all levels and which will easily find its audience among unconditional fans of the Harry Potter universe, at least among those who have the means to spend 400 € on such a bulky exhibition product and which are not too allergic to stickers. After version playsets Modular of Hogwarts, LEGO therefore puts a layer back to empty the pockets of those who knew Harry Potter when they were younger and who today have the opportunity to afford this type of set.

Although this is an exhibition product, the designers did not ignore what makes the salt of these licensed products: the references and other details that will fuel the discussions during the assembly. the various shops on the Chemin de Traverse. Just for that, the product achieves in my opinion its objective.

Fans wanted a new version of Diagon Alley that was more ambitious than the promo set 40289 Diagon Alley offered in October 2018, they were heard and those who will acquire this box should in my opinion not be disappointed. Personally never having really hung on to the universe of Harry Potter, I am not of those who are ready to invest in this luxurious diorama which will perhaps be joined by other modules in the years to come, but I secretly hopes that if the rumor that announces a UCS version of Mos Eisley in the LEGO Star Wars range under the reference 75290 proves to be true, we will be entitled to something as complete and detailed as what the designers offer us here .

Note: The set presented here, supplied by LEGO, is as usual in play. Deadline fixed at September 15, 2020 next at 23pm.

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.