Lego Harry Potter Advent Calendar 2022!

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WARNING! SPOILERS! Lego has released pictures of 76404, this year's Harry Potter Advent Calendar in the "coming soon" section. We've seen poor quality pictures of the front, we now have a much nicer version which really does the set justice:



Below the fold are pictures of the contents of the calendar. Don't peek, unless you're willing to be spoiled.



Once again, lego is doing a game format with their calendar this year. Roughly three consecutive doors per film, colour coded base plates, presumably for... reasons. It does help narrow down the possibilities for the nanobuilds, though. (Unfortunately occasionally that's necessary.)



I have to admit, I'm not the biggest fan of the game format, and even less of the over-reliance on nanoscale and microscale builds this year. I've always disliked that about the Star Wars calendars, and what I really appreciated about the earlier Harry Potter calendars was their usefulness (well, as lego goes, obvs 😉). They provided new things to put in our builds and MOCs. Frankly I can't figure out what to do with the nanoscale builds (hang them from my tree?), and I can't drum up anyone to play the game with me either, so this is the worst of both worlds for me.

The minifigures are also a little disappointing, including the ugly!Snape from the Moment set (literally the only character whose quality has decreased since the 2018 reboot), the choice of Sirius is beyond odd (apparently the kit he was wearing when arrested and ever so slightly visible in the Azkaban mugshot), and the Harry just boring at this point. Moaning Myrtle is a nice get, though, as plenty of folks will have missed her CMF (collectible minifigure) when it was issued, and this gives them a Myrtle for their 76386 Polyjuice Potion Mistake sets. Slughorn as an armchair is also welcome, but again I have to ask, since the reboot this is the third version of Slughorn and our fifth Sirius Black (the fourth this year alone, this time in an outfit only barely visible behind his prisoner number in a picture), and only two Snapes with his comically bad expressions (we can stretch to three if we count the Boggart, which I'm not inclined to do as not actually Snape). At this point they have me hoping they'll hold off on re-releasing the video game until they have a better concept of the character, as I don't believe I could invest the requisite number of hours staring at that dreadful fig.



Today's best guess as to its contents:
From Philosopher's Stone: first year Harry Potter, Ollivander's Wand Shop, Platform 9 3/4 with the Hogwarts Express, and the Quidditch Pitch
From Chamber of Secrets: Moaning Myrtle, the Whomping Willow and Ford Anglia, and the Basilisk emerging from the Salazar Slytherin statue
From Prisoner of Azkaban: Sirius Black (in a seventies nylon shirt erexen and I have struggled to identify), the Knight Bus, and Dementors at the lake
From the Goblet of Fire: Voldemort (with that nice head (with forked tongue) we'd seen leaked), the eponymous Goblet of Fire (complete with nice Harry Potter name tile), and what I must assume is yet another rendition of the TriWiz tournament cup (Aside from purely aesthetic considerations, in as much as the ability to grab it plays a pivotal role in the story, perhaps not the best rendition yet.)
From Order of the Phoenix: Nymphadora Tonks, the Room of Requirement, and what's probably the Veil from the Department of Mysteries (which will solve some of the infestation of Black problem we seem to be having) Or maybe it's their rendition of the Ministry of Magic, who knows, except then I'd expect the colours to be more greenish...
From Half Blood Prince: Crappy! Snape, Horace Slughorn as an armchair (not as good as Scarlet Patronus' version, though), and yet another Pensieve
From Deathly Hallows I: Hedwig (*sniffle*), Hagrid's (well, technically Sirius Black's) motorcycle with sidecar, the Burrow
From Deathly Hallows II: Neville Longbottom with Sword of Gryffindor, and Gringotts with Dragon (the dragon is nicely done)

That continues the trend of not favouring the later films, and the selections for DH I are definitely a little dark. I'd probably have gone with something from the wedding, maybe Hermione in that red dress we want. On the other hand, I don't really want to complain about the potentially dark nature of the selections as I'd like them to release more DH I & II sets. Go dark, lego, go dark!

Unfortunately this is my least favourite of the calendars so far, and I'm afraid that shows. Please forgive the salt. I'd been looking forward to it quite a bit, and the release of 12 Grimmauld Place this year let me dare hope we might see a Grimmauld Christmas AC this year. Arthur in his wheelchair! Mundungus and something nicked. Kreature's framed picture of Bellatrix, lovingly Spellotaped back together, Hermione's quilt for him... Ginny and the twins in their jumpers! (Four Siriuses, Sirii?, whatever and no Ginnys. Seriously??? No, Siriusly.) Dad jokes aside, it would have been a lovely way to celebrate with scenes from the book, movie and game.

But I suppose there's always next year...

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