Continuation and end of the 2018 LEGO Star Wars Advent calendar content in terms of minifigs with in box No. 17: a member of the Guavian Death Gang already seen in duplicate in the set 75180 Rathtar Escape (89.99 €) marketed since 2017. Not enough to cry genius, but it's still taken.

In box N ° 23: This is the "exclusive" minifigure of this set: General Antoc Merrick (played by actor Ben Daniels), leader of the Blue Squadron who takes part in the attack on the planet Scarif in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and gets knocked out by a Tie Striker.

It is above all the combination of the parts used and the fact that the character is identified by name that makes this minifigure exclusive: The head and the hair in Dark Tan are currently exclusive to this set. The outfit is however identical to that of the generic pilot of the Blue Squadron delivered in the sets. 75155 Rebel U-Wing Fighter (2016) 75162 Y-Wing Microfighter (2017) et 75172 Y-Wing Starfighter (2017)

The Antoc Merrick helmet (without integrated visor) is also for the moment exclusive to this box and is in box N ° 24, it dresses the head of the "festive" snowman.

Too bad, this year LEGO is not providing a real festive minifig in Santa Claus outfit.

After Paris, it's now the turn of the other skyline of the LEGO Architecture range scheduled for 2019, the benchmark 21043 San Francisco (565 pieces - 49.99 €), to be the subject of a quick tour of the owner in order to give you some very personal impressions.

If I was logically able to have a critical look at the content of the set 21044 Paris (49.99 €), it is immediately less obvious with this representation of San Francisco. The designer has obviously condensed here everything that the city has of silhouettes that are a priori emblematic for most potential customers, starting with the most famous construction of all: the Golden Gate Bridge. Whether the result is too cartoonish or truly faithful, only those who live in San Francisco or really know the city well will be able to afford to have an opinion.

It is thanks to this red bridge that almost everyone can instantly recognize San Francisco and the designer has skillfully integrated the construction by creating a very successful forced perspective effect, especially when looking at the model from the front (see the last photo ).

We also find what makes the charm of San Francisco with the contrast between the alleys lined with Painted ladies, these Victorian-style houses with colorful facades that line the sloping streets, and the modern buildings in the center. It's picked up in a corner of the model, but it's successful. Everything is pad printed in this box, including the white 1x1 pieces with the small black square which are used for the Painted Ladies or the facade of the blue building visible from across the street.

The three buildings, 555 California Street, la Transamerica pyramid and Salesforce Tower, are wisely aligned behind the hill. I do not know if there is a point of view on the city which proposes this alignment, but the differences in colors of the facades and the characteristic architecture of each of these constructions are enough to make it pass.

With a little imagination, one can even spot two colorful trams running on the sloping street facing the Coit Tower, placed at the top of Telegraph Hill and whose summit offers a breathtaking view of Alcatraz.

It's hard to talk about San Francisco without talking about Alcatraz, which you probably already know from different sources depending on your generation (The Escape from Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood in 1979, Rock with Nicolas Cage in 1996 and for fans of Steven Seagal, the calamitous Mission Alcatraz of 2002).

In the linear spirit of skylines LEGO Architecture, the prison of Alcatraz is found here placed under the Golden Gate Bridge, which obviously does not correspond to reality. Nothing serious, I would rather have the island under the bridge than no island at all. The windows of the cells are represented by a few pad-printed parts, it is rudimentary but the effect is there.

This skyline is quite different from those produced so far by LEGO, the Golden Gate Bridge here occupying two thirds of the surface of the model. But if we consider that the set should reach a wider audience than the locals, it makes sense and few people would be able to list the names of the different buildings in this set anyway.

Note also the symbolic presence of the fortifications of Fort Point at the foot of Golden Gate, a place where many tourists take the photos that you find everywhere with this perspective effect from the lower part of the famous red bridge.

Thanks to the representation of Golden Gate, the set is immediately identifiable even by those who have never set foot in San Francisco and I note that the designer did not see fit to place an American flag somewhere ...

Lovers of skylines LEGO style, this set will not disappoint and it is probably one of the ones that best exploits this concept. That's a big yes on my part, especially for the very successful forced perspective effect applied to the Golden Gate.

AVAILABILITY announced for January 1, 2019 on the LEGO Shop at the public price of 49.99 €.

Note: The set shown here is put into play as usual. To participate in the raffle, simply post a comment on this article before December 30 at 23:59 p.m.. You have every right to disagree with me, this is not eliminatory.

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.

Today we are quickly interested in The LEGO Movie 2 set 70836 Battle-Ready Batman and MetalBeard (168 pieces - 19.99 €) which will be available from December 26th on the LEGO Shop and in the LEGO Stores and in your usual toy store.

Nothing to rave about the content to build in less than fifteen minutes delivered in this box. Batman's mini-throne and MetalBeard's robot-crab (Steelbeard) are there to furnish and undoubtedly to reproduce a scene from the film on a reduced scale.

The construction intended for Batman has one and only feature: the pad printed sign which reads "You're Welcome"can be raised or lowered using the thumbwheel on the back of the build. Batman doesn't really fit into the hiding place under the throne due to his mask and imposing accessory with integrated half-tires. Both wings are fixed and do not move when activating the mechanism that deploys the panel.

There is a small problem with MetalBear and its robot crab. The construction is quite successful with the chest that opens at the level of the character's torso to reveal some bones and other sausages (the internal organs of the character according to the product description ...), but the whole is really annoying To manipulate. The crab's legs, which must be put in the right position so that the figurine stands upright, do not remain in place and everything sags as soon as it is touched.

The youngest who already see themselves reproducing some scenes seen in the cinema with their MetalBeard may be disappointed when they realize that the figurine hardly holds in place. Worse, if you add Maddox's minifigure into the lookout, MetalBeard often crumbles under its own weight, unless you find the perfect balance point. Even the polybag version 30528 Mini Master-Building MetalBeard seems more stable.

On the minifig side, we quickly forget Maddox, the second service knife with a post-apocalyptic pirate look. The minifigure is pretty, but not enough to make tons of it without knowing exactly who this guy is and how many seconds he appears on the screen ....

The supplied yellow star consists of a Tile pad printed which is placed on a large support with central tenon. Simple and efficient. Do not buy this box just for the star, there is the same in many other sets in the range.

Important precision these days: no stickers in this box, everything is pad printed.

The real reason to spend € 19.99 on this set is obviously the Batman minifigure Wasteland. Purists might be a little annoyed with the way LEGO and Warner twist the character and adapt him to any sauce, but this minifigure is really very successful.

The pad printing is magnificent, it is also partially masked by the torn cape and especially by the American football shoulder pad topped with two half-tires and it's almost a shame.

On the shoulder, the two half-tires are made of flexible rubber as for the other LEGO tires.

Do not think you are out of the woods with this little box at 20 €, the version of Batman provided in this box is different from the one that will be delivered in the big D2C set 70840 Welcome to Apocalypseburg (3178 pieces), some visuals of which are already available through the usual channels, in the company of Green Lantern and Harley Queen.

The two minifigs use the same accessories (cape, shoulder pad, mask) but the pad printing varies from one version to another, especially on the legs.

In summary, I say yes but just for Batman and on sale for less than 15 €. MetalBeard is much too fragile, it is not worthy of a children's toy at 19.99 €.

Note: The set shown here is put into play as usual. To participate in the raffle, simply post a comment on this article before December 28 at 23:59 p.m.. You have every right to disagree with me, this is not eliminatory.

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.

It's a skyline eagerly awaited in the LEGO Architecture range, we are therefore quickly talking about the set 21044 (649 pieces) which features Paris (49.99 €).

It is difficult here not to enter into the inevitable debate which consists in calling into question the choices of designers in matters of monuments or emblematic constructions of such and such a city. If the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre obviously have their place in this skyline, for the rest, it is in my opinion less obvious.

The Champs-Élysées can be summed up here in a few colorful buildings (?) And two rows of trees whose mission is to represent the famous avenue. It's really, really minimalist, and I think it would have been better not to try anything. Paris has enough immediately recognizable places and monuments and the Center Pompidou, the Vendôme column or the Concorde obelisk could have done the job at this location.

The designer also chose to represent the only truly visible tower above the rooftops of Paris (outside the La Défense district in the Hauts-de-Seine) with the Montparnasse Tower. It was undoubtedly necessary to bring a touch of modernity to this skyline composed of historical monuments and balance the overall volume imposed by the Eiffel Tower, but this black and gray monolith does not bring much to this box. This construction will also be obsolete in a few years, the tower being the subject of a renovation which will bring it up to date by 2023 ...

The Grand Palais? Why not. Notre-Dame Cathedral could have taken the place of this building, it is a place visited by all passing tourists. The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre could also have done the trick. And do not come and talk to me about the restrictions linked to the reproduction of religious buildings that LEGO has imposed on itself, Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice presents in set 21026 is a Catholic cathedral before being a tourist magnet ...

Not much to complain about the section representing the Louvre with its micro-pyramid. It's minimalist but rather convincing and it will please foreign tourists who are fans of the Da Vinci Code.

The question that must also be asked here is the following: must we absolutely caricature something to represent it? And that's the Eiffel Tower I'm talking about. Was it really essential to stick a big French flag at the top of the building? We are no longer in 1944 when French firefighters courageously hoisted a flag to the top under German fire.

Wanting at all costs to place a French flag in this box, you might as well put it on the roof of the Grand Palais where a flag usually flies ... Moving this flag would also have helped to give a little volume to what is at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in this skyline.

In my opinion, LEGO has still not found a convincing technique to correctly reproduce the Eiffel Tower. The LEGO model is far from being as graceful as the real one and we can also discuss the choice of the color of the parts: The Eiffel Tower is not gray, it is brown-bronze.

We will still remember the use of four transparent pad-printed windshields to represent the arches of the foot of the tower. It is convincing.

Thanks to the use of grids on the different uprights, the version of the Eiffel Tower present in this box has at least the merit of offering a rendering closer to reality than what the model of the calamitous set 21019 The Eiffel Tower (2014) proposed in its time.

Finally, in my opinion, the Arc de Triomphe is quite simply a failure. It looks like a Japanese garden portico, probably the fault of the overall scale of the set determined by the size of the Eiffel Tower. Same observation as for the Eiffel Tower concerning the color of this element: The Arc de Triomphe is not immaculate white.

In short, it is not worth doing tons of it, this box is ultimately only a luxury product for a souvenir shop with a somewhat approximate content and I do not think it pays a satisfactory tribute to The city of Paris. You will have to do with it and spend around fifty euros to get it.

If you prefer to buy some of the monuments in this skyline in detail and on a slightly less restrictive scale, know that you also have the LEGO Architecture references 21019 The Eiffel Tower, 21024 The Louvre et 21036 Arc de Triomphe in the secondary market.

Note: The set shown here is put into play as usual. To participate in the raffle, simply post a comment on this article before December 25 at 23:59 p.m.. You have every right to disagree with me, this is not eliminatory.

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.

I had forgotten this box in a corner, but it still deserves a brief attention. So today we are talking about the LEGO DC Comics set 76111 Batman: Brother Eye Takedown (269 pieces - 34.99 €).
Let's face it, this set mainly allows us to obtain two unseen minifigs in the LEGO DC Comics range. The rest of the contents of the box are not without interest, but many fans will remain a little dubious in front of the half-ball with one eye delivered here alongside the Batjet.

And this ball is Brother Eye, the satellite that houses an artificial intelligence capable of taking control of OMAC (One Man Army Corps) and impart different super abilities to him. If you don't flip through a few DC comics on a regular basis, you're no further ahead.

In this box, Brother Eye serves above all as a service villain to knock out with the Stud Shooters of the Batjet. A welcome little refinement, the satellite is equipped with a light brick that reveals a pretty pattern of printed circuits. The effect is very successful but you have to keep your finger on the button as usual. It is not possible to leave the light brick on.

In order for Brother Eye to stand up, it is also necessary to focus on orienting the two "feet" of the thing correctly. It is laborious and quickly annoying. An orbiting satellite normally doesn't need feet, but a young fan playing on the carpet in their bedroom doesn't care about these kinds of considerations.

To defeat Brother Eye, LEGO delivers a rather successful Batjet. It's simple, the finish is not exceptional, but the tradition is respected: The machine looks almost like a bat when it is laid flat.

The cockpit is spacious and well equipped, it can accommodate Batman who will however have to remain in a reclining position to be able to close the canopy and you can even customize the look of the craft using the slew of copper-colored Bat-symbols provided in a small bag apart.

The machine can be handled without breaking everything and it will easily find its place in a Batcave. Important precision, there is no sticker in this box, everything is pad printed. The feat deserved to be highlighted.

It is obviously on the side of minifigs that collectors will look to judge the interest of the set.

LEGO does not disappoint here with two very successful new minifigs: Batwoman and OMAC The Batman minifig version DC Renaissance is for its part already appeared (without cape because of glider / jetpack) in a box marketed this year, the set 76097 Lex Luthor Mech Takedown (44.99 €).

Batwoman is almost perfect if we forget the lack of red boots. The pad printing on the torso alternates between simple prints that highlight the athletic side of the characters and fine details on the red belt.

White head for a convincing effect through the mask which incorporates the character's red hair, the effect is convincing. The visor which frames the character's gaze, on the other hand, is of little interest, it disappears under the mask.

OMAC is also very successful. The pad printing is superb, too bad LEGO did not take the attention to detail to the legs of the minifigure. The blue punk crest does the job.

There is only one copy of this character in this box and it's a shame. We will console ourselves by saying that it is therefore the Buddy Blank of 1974. Two or three copies would have allowed to give a little more consistency to the army of soldiers controlled by Brother Eye in the arc Infinite Crisis.

Finally, as I mentioned above, LEGO provides a small bag containing several Bat-symbols that can be used to customize the Batjet or possibly serve as a weapon for Batwoman.
It is always that taken.

I say yes because the set allows us to get two really new characters and just for that. The rest of the contents of the box leave me a little indifferent, so I will wait for a promotion that will allow me to offer myself this set at around 20 €.

Note: The set shown here is put into play as usual. To participate in the raffle, simply post a comment on this article before December 25 at 23:59 p.m.. You have every right to disagree with me, this is not eliminatory.

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.