Review: 75824 Pig City Teardown
Posted by Huw,
The six Angry Birds Movie sets were released in Europe on 1st March; at least they were in brand stores and at shop.LEGO.com. I've not seen them anywhere else and the websites of the major UK retailers do not even have them listed yet.
I was attracted to 75824 Pig City Teardown by the prospect of a fun play experience in line with the Angry Birds games, i.e. fling birds at structures to knock things down, but ultimately it's a little disappointing in that regard.
Minifigures
There are four minifigures, if you can call them that: Red, Stella and two piggies.
All four are unique to this set. Red comes in five sets but each has a different facial expression. The piggies, simply called 'piggy 1' and 'piggy 2' in this set, differ from those in other sets only in facial expression, too. Stella appears in this set alone. I think I must have a bad example because her eyes are not printed centrally on the face as you can see below.
The piggies use standard minifig arms and hands and have a cute curly tail.
Parts
I've discussed the hot dogs and balloon bottoms already, so the only other new part of note is the egg, of which there are five in this set. It's part number is 6143595. It's 4 plates high and its maximum diameter is just very slightly less than that of a minifig head. There's a hole in the top into which you can insert a minifig cap feather or similar.
The completed model
There are just two structures which makes a nice change from the sprawling mess of some sets these days. The first to be built is the bird launching catapult. The tiles are printed with a nice nailed plank pattern, of which there are 5 in the set.
'Pig city' forms the bulk of the construction. It looks rather ramshackle which I guess a pig city would. It will be interesting to see how it compares to the source material.
Pigs consuming hot dogs is presumably a joke from the film given that a hot-dog stand features prominently.
Most of the decorated parts utilise stickers which, incidentally, are very high quality and I suspect will not be prone to peeling over time so I had no hesitation in applying them.
From the back you can see where the eggs are being hidden.
On the right there's a pig trough filled with ice creams, and a 'pig fone'.
Playability
The whole point of the set is to fling birds at Pig City and blow it up or upset the pigs. There are several 'hot spots' to aim for including the propeller/weather vane and the rock right at the top.
If you manage to hit the vane a rock on the end of a chain will fall and knock over the TNT crate.
If you hit the rock at the top, an inverted umbrella with piggy inside will slide down the flexi-tube.
And, if you hit these balloons...
...the bridge comes crashing down.
Here's the city fully trashed.
Overall opinion
I think the birds and pigs are great and I suspect I'll aim to get one of each. I also rather like the design and, in particular, the colour scheme, of this set.
However, as I said at the start, ultimately it's rather disappointing because its play features are virtually impossible to activate in the way they are supposed to be, i.e. by launching a bird at them. A gentle push down on the catapult lever is not enough to send them into flight: you really have to give it a good bashing to get the birds to reach the height needed to get near the hot spots, and the chance of actually hitting such small targets is negligible. If you miss, the bird ends up being launched half way across the room. If you're happy to use the 'hand of God' instead they can of course all be operated with ease, and I suspect kids will still have a lot of fun doing just that.
That said, it does have its virtues: lots of cool parts including around 40 in medium azure and, let's not forget, a hot dog bun!
Price wise, £40 does seem excessive although par for the course these days. $40 in USA (~£ 28) sounds more reasonable and I don't suppose it'll be long before Amazon and like are discounting it to around that level, particularly if the movie, which is out in May, flops.
The set is currently 'hard to find' in the UK and out in April in the USA. You can order it, and the other Angry Birds sets, here: UK | France | Germany.
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25 comments on this article
LOL, I'm not a fan of this theme myself, but the design is entertaining. The "Pig Fone" is great, nice review!
This was well written and your pictures are very good. Most every review on this site is. One thing I would like to see in Brickset reviews would be pictures of the unassembled parts. I'm aware I could just look at the parts list, but a pile of parts can be inspiring and often convinces me to buy or not buy a set.
Thanks for providing a great website!
As entertainment I suspect it will work even worse than the physical Jenga toy of angry birds - i.e. not at all.
I like the eggs, but what to use them as else where ...?
^^^ I like to see them too at places like Eurobricks and agree they really illustrate the content of the set well.
However, they are a right PITA to set up which is why I don't do them!
I don't quite understand how the birds hitting the boulder is a bad thing for the pigs- the entire purpose of the "piggyback station" is to give the pigs transport...
@SprinkleOtter Well I suppose the pig then flies off and smashes into something........ unless the slide is properly operated.
What's with the green stuff under the eyes of the pigs?
I can see the eggs being useful for architectural detailing, or for putting rounded "points" on things like spaceship nose cones or jet engine intakes. Why oh why won't LEGO just sell retail polybags of specialised parts? Pick-a-Brick is effectively useless outside the EU/US hub markets.
If discounted, I will buy it for the parts and sell the "minifigs". The parts collection is nice.
@Huw you just more practice! Its all about target practice not? ha ha
I wonder if this would work with Super Jumpers?
I'm not thrilled with this set TBH... it doesn't look very good, and if the play features don't actually work, there's no point.
If nothing else, these sets have a lot of stickers that could be useful in MOCs
Might have to pick this up just for the amazing parts range.
And that pig fone sticker is priceless. I need to get one of those.
This looks like fun with all the moving pieces, but I don't know if it's enough for me to get one.
Why not make design the Birds to be used in the pincer squeeze ball launchers!? That's more in line with the slingshot source material in terms of actual aiming trajectories.
Ive bought and built a couple of Angry birds sets. Im a sucker for ships and castles! Ive really enjoyed the builds. A couple of points worth highlighting. 1) the stickers have really improved in quality in the most recent wave of sets (including the superheroes airport set with giant man). The stickers are thicker and much easier to apply. They dont damage if you misalign and then have to realign. 2) The birds and pigs are smaller than I anticipated based on the images. It would be great to show them next to a regular minifigure. 3) the piece selection is great with some new and some recolours, as well as new prints.
Overall I think this range is alot of fun and thats what I like in Lego sets. It nice to have some silly themes to play, which dont take themselves seriously. Looking forward to more angry bird reviews.
How long are those black flexible hoses?, no parts lists are out by this moment.
^^ I agree, just finished the Giant-Man a couple of hours ago and it looks like stickers really improved. It's even visible on the sheet, which is generally thicker, it doesn't bent that easily. Let's hope it'll stay that way.
Anyway, those 1x4 tiles printed with wooden design are very useful! I had so many of those with awful stickers in LotR line, it's a real shame they weren't printed back then.
^ Had they? Then I don't get it why weren't they included in Mines Of Moria and Pirate Ship Ambush as well.
Thanks anyway, I thought it was a new piece.
Does anyone have an estimate of when these will show up in major UK retailers?
^^The colour and exact design in the angry birds sets are new (I think)
Are those warm gold hollow studs (http://brickset.com/parts/design-85861) I'm seeing on the umbrella and the lower support of the umbrella slide?
^not sure about this set but in the Ship and castle set that piece is used for the kings crown
An interesting Lego Theme to younger Lego builders.
I can see those eggs being useful in 'Alien' MOCs.