LEGO has just released a designer video that focuses on its next big set: the LEGO Movie 2 Welcome to Apocalypseburg! (70840). Designers James Ramsden (Senior LEGO Designer), Mike Patton (Graphic Designer), and Ruth Kelly (Element Designer) shared their thoughts as they collaborated in making this awesome set. Watch this.
One of the things that Ramsden highlighted are the multiple rooms in the Welcome to Apocalypseburg! set that showcases how life drastically changed for the citizens of Bricksburg after the invasion of the Duplons. It was a bit of a challenge for them on how to convey this tough, wasteland life while at the same time keeping things more or less familiar to LEGO fans. There’s still the same iconic Coffee Unchained coffee shop where overpriced coffee is still served, though by the less friendly and more tough-looking Larry the Barrista. You also have Surfer Dave and his camper van which is now used as a prop to help the statue stand up on its own. Batman and his daily workout routine at the gym which is actually an old, worn out train, and other locations that are all nicely included in this mammoth-sized set. Needless to say, it’s a carefully planned set where designers thoughtfully planted as many surprises as they can. They even managed to hide a reference that alludes to their favorite chicken parmesan dish.
The choice of minifigures that were included is as excellent as the build itself. The set boasts of 12 minifigures, all new for 2019: we have Emmet, Lucy, Batman, Scribble Cop, Suicide Squad-inspired Harley Quinn (which is unique only this set), Green Lantern, Where Are My Pants Guy, Larry the Barista, Chainsaw Dave, Mohawk, Roxxi and Fuse. One of the more interesting detail about this minifigures has something to do with Larry the Barista’s tattoos. According to Mike, Larry’s tattoos are the same as that of actor Chris McKay who voiced Larry in the first LEGO Movie. Now that’s one cool shout out for an actor.
James also described how the LEGO Movie 2 Welcome to Apocalypseburg! set offers plenty of LEGO pieces that LEGO fans would love to have. He underscored the set’s generous use of sand green and sun blue elements which are kind pretty cool actually to be used in LEGO MOCs. The set also features new pieces such Batman’s armor made of tire wheels, Lucy’s new goggles, a Mohawk hair accessory, and a barbed wire element just to name a few. The Welcome to Apocalypseburg! set also has plenty of easter eggs, or hidden references to watch out for. One of which is Scribble Cop’s chair-kicking play feature which is a cool reference to the first LEGO film. The set also features plenty of references to the LEGO Batman and LEGO Ninjago movies as well.
Lastly, I couldn’t help but notice this nagging feeling every time I see this particular set displayed in the background. I know that this might as well be one of the designer’s early concept models for the Welcome to Apocalypseburg! set (which is anywhere between 30 to 40 iterations as disclosed by James), but it is a good candidate to be a follow-up set, very much the same as how LEGO did it with the LEGO Ninjago City (70620) and the LEGO Ninjago City Docks (70657). I know that this might be a long shot, but it’s a cool thing to have this nice Mad Max-styled diner alongside the Welcome to Apocalypseburg! set. What do you think?
We’re just three days away before the LEGO Movie 2 hits theaters worldwide this Friday, and adding this set to your LEGO collection is a great way to add some LEGO Movie fun to them. The LEGO Movie 2 Welcome to Apocalypseburg! set is now available at shop.LEGO.com together with the rest of the TLM2 sets, with more sets to be revealed later in the second half of the year.
