Weasley's Wizard Wheezes! It's official!
May. 1st, 2023 05:50 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
gingerwitch.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
acciobrickProbably in response to the leaked WWW photos, we now have an official reveal of 76422 Diagon Alley: Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes $89.99 / £84.99 / 84.99 EUR | 834 pieces (8+) | 7 minifigs. (HBP). Pictures below the fold.
Not to sound blasé, but I may well be most enthusiastic about the box art, as it seems to offer hints of Knockturn Alley and (now that we can read the stickers) other stores that might someday follow, like Madam Malkin's, the Magical Menagerie and Sugarplum's. (Also, I really love their art, so that's always a win for me.) And of course the connector pins on the back on sides do more than hint at more... I remain unwavering in my lack of enthusiasm for the WWW colour scheme; the purple bricks or the orange windows would have been fine on their own, provided they were paired with a more muted colour, but lego get full marks for consistency, which is worth plenty too. (<- absolutely snark-free) If nothing else, should the set fail to tickle your fancy, this would still make a very good parts pack for modding the DA builds.
We now also have the answers to my guesses from the other day. The second building is indeed the Owl Post facility, the POC fig is indeed the postal worker, the two other female characters I wasn't sure about are indeed Romilda Vane and Lavender Brown (altogether good guesses then), bringing the count up to 4 female figs to 3 male figs included. (It's nice to see them making an effort to keep the girl-fig count up, which can be a problem when 2/3 of the Golden Trio are male.) And this means we have Ron and his brothers so they can join in the BoH, worth a mention as they aren't in the BoH or RoR / RoHT sets. (Apropos of nothing, as Lavender is never mentioned amongst the fallen, I'm assuming she survived, wounded, sure, but recovering most courageously. I'm just mentioning that in case anyone had need of the reassurance. 😉)
Here's a shot of the set without the artwork potentially obscuring the contents:
WWW is smaller than the DA version, but then we knew it would be, expecting anything else is silly. The Owl Post shop is very small... Except so is the store in the amusement park, and when you give it some thought, why should it be any larger? It's not like they store packages there. In the Wizarding World, they would simply Reducio the lot were they unable to deliver them, and stationary supplies can be had at Scribbulus, so really it makes a fair amount of sense. If we're being ungenerous, the Post is basically a glorified bird coop with an employee who rubber stamps your letters in exchange for galleons. You might need some mice and assorted owl treats, perhaps a broom to sweep droppings, but there again, surely there must be charms for that. But maybe it's for the lunch breaks when the intern who can't cast a Tergeo to save his life is left to manage the office by his lonesome... 😉
A nice large view of the shops' interiors:
Getting the problematic out of the way: it's a sticker-fest. I don't exactly mind, but I know many do. Here's the thing, for the set to work properly, you need a lot of new prints. If those are printed tiles as opposed to stickers, you can't do a set like this for this price. Frankly after they nearly had to shutter their doors years back in part for over-extending their inventory, to this day I get nervous when I see them making printed tiles that can't be repurposed, so I'm alright with the decision they've made here. They've done a great job of capturing all manner of Weasley products, complete with flashy designs. Colour me satisfied on that front.
I'm particularly fond of that Umbridge toy that traverses the shop, the Puking Pastilles display is a very close second.
Between the four Weasley siblings, the Weasley twin statue out front, and the Puking Pastille girl (lower right, above), if you squint just right that brings us up to six ginger representations, but then they sort of owed us that after ungingering (heavens forfend! 😐) Ariel over on the Disney princess line. lol (I'll also never understand the co-mingling of the cartoon films and live action films, don't get me started on what they did to Flounder and poor Sebastian. *wail* They should have done the minifig versions true to the new film and the minidoll sets true to the cartoons. (Seriously, if we never see classic!Sebastian again, I may have to go into mourning... He is not a boring old crab.))
Also while we're on the topic of hair colour... Isn't Lavender blonde?? Not Luna and Draco blonde, but still. They've literally used the colour and style for Hermione before. Ooo. Evil thought. Perhaps she's meant to be indeterminate so people can pretend it's Hermione if they don't have one. That would be so wrong. Amongst other things, poor Lav deserves a minifig clearly her own.
In a bizarre torso reversal from the Diagon Alley set, that looks to be George wielding the Punching Telescope, with which I thought Fred inadvertently gave Hermione a shiner. (On consideration it's entirely possible they mislabelled them on the box and are going to stick with that error now till kingdom come.) And yes, there is a Fanged Frisbee and there are Pygmy Puffs. I honestly don't recall the Sticky Trainers, but they're a fun addition. Ron seems to enjoy them anyway.
And that's it. I remain optimistic we'll see the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts honoured tomorrow with the reveal of at least the eponymous set. We shall see. I'll keep you owl posted.
Not to sound blasé, but I may well be most enthusiastic about the box art, as it seems to offer hints of Knockturn Alley and (now that we can read the stickers) other stores that might someday follow, like Madam Malkin's, the Magical Menagerie and Sugarplum's. (Also, I really love their art, so that's always a win for me.) And of course the connector pins on the back on sides do more than hint at more... I remain unwavering in my lack of enthusiasm for the WWW colour scheme; the purple bricks or the orange windows would have been fine on their own, provided they were paired with a more muted colour, but lego get full marks for consistency, which is worth plenty too. (<- absolutely snark-free) If nothing else, should the set fail to tickle your fancy, this would still make a very good parts pack for modding the DA builds.
We now also have the answers to my guesses from the other day. The second building is indeed the Owl Post facility, the POC fig is indeed the postal worker, the two other female characters I wasn't sure about are indeed Romilda Vane and Lavender Brown (altogether good guesses then), bringing the count up to 4 female figs to 3 male figs included. (It's nice to see them making an effort to keep the girl-fig count up, which can be a problem when 2/3 of the Golden Trio are male.) And this means we have Ron and his brothers so they can join in the BoH, worth a mention as they aren't in the BoH or RoR / RoHT sets. (Apropos of nothing, as Lavender is never mentioned amongst the fallen, I'm assuming she survived, wounded, sure, but recovering most courageously. I'm just mentioning that in case anyone had need of the reassurance. 😉)
Here's a shot of the set without the artwork potentially obscuring the contents:
WWW is smaller than the DA version, but then we knew it would be, expecting anything else is silly. The Owl Post shop is very small... Except so is the store in the amusement park, and when you give it some thought, why should it be any larger? It's not like they store packages there. In the Wizarding World, they would simply Reducio the lot were they unable to deliver them, and stationary supplies can be had at Scribbulus, so really it makes a fair amount of sense. If we're being ungenerous, the Post is basically a glorified bird coop with an employee who rubber stamps your letters in exchange for galleons. You might need some mice and assorted owl treats, perhaps a broom to sweep droppings, but there again, surely there must be charms for that. But maybe it's for the lunch breaks when the intern who can't cast a Tergeo to save his life is left to manage the office by his lonesome... 😉
A nice large view of the shops' interiors:
Getting the problematic out of the way: it's a sticker-fest. I don't exactly mind, but I know many do. Here's the thing, for the set to work properly, you need a lot of new prints. If those are printed tiles as opposed to stickers, you can't do a set like this for this price. Frankly after they nearly had to shutter their doors years back in part for over-extending their inventory, to this day I get nervous when I see them making printed tiles that can't be repurposed, so I'm alright with the decision they've made here. They've done a great job of capturing all manner of Weasley products, complete with flashy designs. Colour me satisfied on that front.
I'm particularly fond of that Umbridge toy that traverses the shop, the Puking Pastilles display is a very close second.
Between the four Weasley siblings, the Weasley twin statue out front, and the Puking Pastille girl (lower right, above), if you squint just right that brings us up to six ginger representations, but then they sort of owed us that after ungingering (heavens forfend! 😐) Ariel over on the Disney princess line. lol (I'll also never understand the co-mingling of the cartoon films and live action films, don't get me started on what they did to Flounder and poor Sebastian. *wail* They should have done the minifig versions true to the new film and the minidoll sets true to the cartoons. (Seriously, if we never see classic!Sebastian again, I may have to go into mourning... He is not a boring old crab.))
Also while we're on the topic of hair colour... Isn't Lavender blonde?? Not Luna and Draco blonde, but still. They've literally used the colour and style for Hermione before. Ooo. Evil thought. Perhaps she's meant to be indeterminate so people can pretend it's Hermione if they don't have one. That would be so wrong. Amongst other things, poor Lav deserves a minifig clearly her own.
In a bizarre torso reversal from the Diagon Alley set, that looks to be George wielding the Punching Telescope, with which I thought Fred inadvertently gave Hermione a shiner. (On consideration it's entirely possible they mislabelled them on the box and are going to stick with that error now till kingdom come.) And yes, there is a Fanged Frisbee and there are Pygmy Puffs. I honestly don't recall the Sticky Trainers, but they're a fun addition. Ron seems to enjoy them anyway.
And that's it. I remain optimistic we'll see the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts honoured tomorrow with the reveal of at least the eponymous set. We shall see. I'll keep you owl posted.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-05-03 07:26 pm (UTC)