Number: 70805
Theme: THE LEGO® MOVIE™
Release Date: December 29, 2013
Piece Count: 389
Minifig Count: 3
Age Rating: 8-14
Cost: US $29.99 - CA $39.99 - DE 29,99 € - UK 24.99 £ - DK 249,95 DKK
Cost per piece: US $0.077 - CA $0.103 - DE 0.077 € - UK 0.064 £ - DK 0.643 DKK
THE LEGO® MOVIE™ opens in just under two weeks! Thank you to The LEGO Group & the LEGO CEE team who have graciously provided those of us who help run TnB with copies of THE LEGO® MOVIE™ sets to review. Our third review is 70805 Trash Chomper.
The front of the box:
The glossy box shows Trash Chomper at work trying to save helpless citizen Gorden Zola from the Micro Manager. This set is one of four 2-in-1 builds.
The back of the box:
The back features artwork showing both models, the flying Trash Chomper with its menacing teeth and a more ordinary garbage truck.
Box Contents:
You have 4 bags of elements, a sticker sheet, and three instruction booklets. Booklet #1 is for the Micro Manager. Booklet #2 is for the Trash Chomper and the booklet without a number is for the alternate build of a normal garbage truck.
Minifigures:
You receive 3 minifigures in this set. ( left to right) Garbage Man Dan, Garbage Man Grant, and Gordon Zola (love this name). Dan has a nice baseball hat. Both Dan and Grant’s torso are the same and they have various stains on the front and back, showing that they work really hard (and coincidentally have the same dirt marks). Gordon Zola looks very worried.
The Build:
Instruction booklet #1 is for building the Micro Manager.
The sides open up to reveal some flick missiles, which do fly across the room when you push them.
The back:
Instruction booklet #2 is for building the Trash Chomper. Here you can see the inner workings of the chomper mouth.
This model does have a nice amount of SNOT technique.
Here you can see how the bottom of the “chomper” is attached.
Here is the model in action.
Watch out or the Trash Chomper might eat you if you get too close!
As you can see the inner workings do not really allow bricks to be consumed by the Trash Chomper. My 8-year-old daughter thought it would be even more fun if you could get the Trash Chomper to eat actual bricks and get them to move past the mouth into its “stomach”.
In the back they use two trash cans as the exhaust and you have four boosters at the bottom.
Here you can see the extra parts. The tooth and the two 2x3 black plates are the only additional items needed for the “regular” garbage truck model.
The Normal Garbage Truck Build
My first complaint is that this set should come with a brick separator. While I have several lying around, a person or family newer to LEGO might not have one handy. You really do need one to dismantle the model if you don’t want to hurt yourself or ruin the bricks.
One nice feature is that you do not have to disassemble the Micro Manager to build the alternate model.
The normal garbage truck build was fairly easy. It still uses SNOT techniques and has various technic parts. I do think that the designers did a great job of incorporating almost all of the Trash Chomper’s parts into the model. There were only 4 parts that were not used. They do use some parts in some creative ways, many are hidden.
Here is the finished truck
A view of the front.
A view of the top.
The back view. This is as wide as the opening gets, which makes it difficult for Dan and Grant to get the garbage in the truck.
Since the front of the vehicle only seats one person, Grant rides by holding onto the back of the truck. This also allows him to jump off quickly to gather the trash.
The bottom 4 parts are all that are left after building the model. The top “bits and pieces” are the extras in the set when you build either set.
Ratings
Design: 9/10 – They do a great job of making this set a 2-in-1 build and incorporating almost 100% of the pieces in both models. While the “normal garbage truck” is a bit awkward looking and the back does not open much, they do make it work.
Build: 9/10 – The build is somewhat challenging with SNOT technique and also various technic parts. Also being a 2-for-1 build, it earns high marks here.
Minifigures: 7/10 – The two garbage guys have the same legs/torsos. The chef is rather plain. You do not get any of the “main” characters with this set at $29.99 (i.e. Emmet, Wyldstyle, Lord Business)
Playability: 9/10 – There is a lot of playability with the two different models. The “chomper” really is great. The Trash Chomper is also very “swooshable” and sturdy. The “normal” garbage truck has a few issues, the area to put the trash in does not open very wide, making it difficult for the garbage men to get the trash in the truck. When opening the top of the cab to put in the minifigure, the pieces below the green top often come loose/apart.
Parts: 7/10 – I deducted a few points, because I feel that a brick separator should have been included. Many of the parts are fairly common and there is a lot of green.
Price: 10/10 – We are at about 8 cents apiece for the US price of $29.99, which is a decent ratio. I think it is a good price for the amount of entertainment that you receive, especially since you can make two different vehicles.
Overall rating: 8.5/10
So what do you think, is this set fabulous or complete garbage? Please vote in our poll!
