Review: 75690 Glinda & Elphaba Visit Munchkinland
Posted by SetToBuild,
This fantastical munchkin cottage would not be out of place in many a rural- or medieval fantasy-themed LEGO display, so it will likely have already caught the eye of many AFOLs. It will surely also appeal to kids who can’t resist playhouse-style sets, and of course, fans of the famous colourful Munchkinland in the world of Oz.
I’ve enlisted the help of my wife and resident minidoll fan, Catherine (CrankyBricks), to explore the LEGO Wicked sets. Over to her after the break…
Summary
75690 Glinda & Elphaba Visit Munchkinland, 744 pieces.
£59.99 / $69.99 / €69.99 | 8.1p / 9.4c / 9.4c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
A versatile, colourful Munchkin cottage appeals beyond its theme
- Characterful and colourful
- Adaptable for reuse
- Reasonably-priced
- None!
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Minidolls
Elphaba’s minidoll here is extremely similar to her appearance in 75684 Welcome to Emerald City, with the same torso, legs, hat and broom, but a new mischievous smirking facial expression, and with shoulder pads rather than a cape.
Glinda now wears an elegant lavender dress. Its designer explains that this first ‘bubble dress’ emulates some tones of the stage versions, and serves as a stepping stone towards her most recognisable pink ‘final form’ represented in sets like 75684 Welcome to Emerald City. A minifigure version of this outfit is also available in 75685 Emerald City Wall Art. Here, her somewhat uncertain-looking facial expression is the same as that commonly used in the first wave. The printed detail of this dress is much more successful on the doll skirt piece than I had complained about for the previous dress, since the printed fabric folds are in the same orientation as the moulded ones.
Boq only appears once in LEGO form, so everything is unique here–even his plain legs are new and rare. His hat is not a new piece at all, though, as in fact it’s an unprinted dark bluish grey Star Wars Imperial Guard’s cap, previously only available with decorations. Boq is a similar size to the other minidolls, which is true to the story: in the original L. Frank Baum book, Munchkins are the same height as Dorothy (a tall child), and the Wicked stage show doesn’t depict them as little people either. The director said: “We wanted [Boq] to come from a culture, and so we were trying to reinvent what a Munchkin is. In our eyes, Munchkin was not a size.”
Stickers
The stickers for this set are great—they’re bold and vibrant, as well as adding charm and detail with some subtle (and some less subtle!) references. For example, a portrait of Doctor Dillamond, the goat-formed Shiz University professor, appears on the kitchen wall next to one of Boq with his axe. The fact that these aren’t printed parts means that fantasy fans can easily adapt the set to remove references to the IP, and/or make use of these patterns elsewhere.
Completed Model
The completed model has a smaller footprint than I expected from the box art, but gets dramatically larger as the build progresses to the upper level and roof. The roof is the most striking aspect of the exterior, with the colourful thatch represented excellently using the 2x2 plate with rock edges. It’s not the first time this has been used in this manner, but the designers took advantage of the recent introduction of the reddish orange colour to exaggerate the vibrantly colourful construction, complete with embedded flowers.
Next to the cottage is a small part of the Munchkinland flower fields and a piece of the yellow brick road, with a podium to receive Glinda’s bubble. Her mode of transport is even complete with the ‘tap to bubble’ pedal motif via a sticker on a 1x2 curved slope, ready for her to press for a grand entrance.
From the rear, you can see the simple, elegant connections forming the spray of foliage to the side using the curved bar; yet another example of the gifts the Botanicals theme keeps on giving us!
A contrast of the vibrant red and reddish-orange roof against the muted tones of the light nougat walls creates the striking and realistic warm-toned colour scheme. The walls of this building on the film set in actual fact look a lot paler, but I’m glad that neither white nor tan was used for this.
A lot more construction went into the doorway area than I expected, and certainly more than the very simple supports at the back of the ground floor. Several SNOT techniques and built-up areas give us more light nougat bricks, rather than resorting to curved panels. The opalescent mace piece as a lantern is distinctive, and I’m very happy to see the Animal Crossing arched window continue to be used.
A clever technique using mirrored hinge bricks creates the windows on the front turret, with the grille grooves emulating shutters. Atop this is a turret piece, which I’m actually quite fond of despite generally not being keen on large single moulds. Perhaps it just gives me Fabuland or Belville palace roof vibes.
Many opportunities for play are available in the rear of the model, although there aren’t many options to reconfigure the furniture. While it’s not amazingly capacious or detailed, given the amount of structure required to create the dramatic roof, I’m impressed by how much interior did end up back here. The bed includes the traditional minidoll foot-holder panel so someone can go to sleep without falling to their demise from the first floor.
My favourite detail in the upper level is the swinging bathroom door, which admittedly doesn’t offer a huge amount of privacy! I don’t know why I was so taken with the relatively unremarkable construction—perhaps just the surprise that a movable door was made to fit in the tiny space. The bookcase sticker is a particularly beautiful one, and without directly referencing it, reminds me tremendously of the books in 75691 Glinda & Elphaba Bookends.
Bars at each end of the building support droid arm clips for the angled roof, but on one end, this also allows a huge poster to be suspended on the end of the house. It’s a brilliant graphic of a minidoll-ified version of the anti-witch propaganda poster used in the film. It’s even bigger in the movie, nearly as tall as the house.
I appreciated that the rug is inlaid, and the two dark orange tiles visible on the floor are 2x4 jumper tiles, allowing the kitchen components to be swapped around.
There is a great desire for the new stud+clip element to appear in more colours, so it’s generous that this set contains spares of two of the six available colours.
Conclusion
The charming cottage alone is beautiful and could easily be plunked down in any fantasy scene for a quick expression of fantastic colours, and aspects are reusable in many other ways. Of all the Wicked sets, this one perhaps is the most appealing to unfamiliar AFOLs for its own construction rather than just for the parts and colours.
The earlier set 75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory was also £60, and while I really liked it, that one struggled to justify itself more than this does. Here, £60 feels surprisingly reasonable for this fairly substantial building set with an interior, side build and characters, especially when compared to the larger sets in the wave. It’s a less show-stopping movie moment, but more versatile for other play or display uses, and I think it will appeal to a wider audience.
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14 comments on this article
I really enjoyed putting this set together: my main complaint is we only get half the bubble, which I understand but feels a bit mean spirited.
This is -nice-, man. Colour of the roof, the overall shape of the entire set, it's all very well done.
I don't like the contrast or... the weird blend of tan and nougat. It does make the walls seem like they were made of calloused flesh - but who knows, maybe they were. I haven't seen the source-material, maybe making houses of flayed flesh is a thing these days.
Needs more Munchkins!!
I'm surprised Nessarose was omitted from this set, but perhaps Lego felt it was a little dark?
@Heriol said:
"I'm surprised Nessarose was omitted from this set, but perhaps Lego felt it was a little dark? "
To be fair, you only need some minidoll legs to add her in.
@Mister_Jonny said:
"I really enjoyed putting this set together: my main complaint is we only get half the bubble, which I understand but feels a bit mean spirited."
Somebody in Billund needed an 83rd Ferrari.
Ooh, tempting…
Tempting, it could make for a nice background set.
I was not at all interested in this set but i'm really tempted its got some great colours and it's not overly "Wicked" some little tweaks and it fits into other themes...
As a non-Wicked fan, this set is actually pretty nice! Probably the only Wicked set that has had any appeal to me
I like it.
Actually it does look pretty decent. I likely won't buy it, but I could see myself otherwise picking it up if money wasn't a concern.
I like the colors used, the shaping of the turret and roof work really well. The colors of course.
I have 0 interest in the Wicked movies but I must admit this is a good-looking set. It could easily be used as some generic house in a fantasy setting with little to no modification.
The big bad side is - for such big set there is barrely any place to put figs in it.
Its another good looking set on the front but has absolute shitty backside.