Review: 71427 Larry's and Morton's Airships
Posted by Huw,
Following our quest to expand our team of reviewers we invited a number of applicants to help clear our backlog of review sets. This one, by Jonny, aka SetToBuild, is the first of a few that we'll be publishing in the coming weeks:
If you had told young SetToBuild that someday LEGO and Nintendo (his two favourite things) would join forces, his head would have spun faster than a chain chomp on a merry-go-round! A LEGO Super Mario theme which was essentially an expandable board game wouldn’t have been what first came to mind, but I’ll take what I can get!
Airships are seen throughout Super Mario games in many different styles. In later games, their design often includes a sculpture of the boss character’s face at the prow of the ship. Although I was excited to see how the set design would tackle these vehicles on a smaller scale than 71391 Bowser's Airship, while building Larry’s airship I found myself wondering what could have been.
Summary
71427 Larry's and Morton's Airships, 1,062 pieces.
£74.99 / $79.99 / €84.99 | 7.1p / 7.5c / 8.0c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
This enjoyable playset fumbled the perfect opportunity to introduce the final missing Koopaling
- Authentic to source material
- Multiple ways to play
- Fun to swoosh
- Decent price
- Set includes Larry instead of Roy
- Not large for number of pieces
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Characters
The Koopalings, Bowser's band of minions, were first seen in Super Mario Bros. 3 on the Famicom in 1988. Throughout the games that have followed, these seven wacky siblings are often the final enemies that Mario fights at the end of each world. This set gives us two more ways to include these epic battles in our courses.
Larry debuted in 71380 Master Your Adventure and is the first Koopaling to appear twice in the theme. While his construction here is slightly different by the use of four 1x1 bricks in his body instead of two 1x2 bricks as seen in his last appearance, the colour and overall form are identical.
A bracket connects his hair with some satisfyingly seamless brick maths.
His brother, Morton, is realised here in LEGO for the first time. Morton’s most identifying feature is the grey star over his left eye. The printed pieces on his face do fairly well in displaying this star decoration over two parts. Initially, his wide stance bothered me, but seeing him seated on the airship warmed me up to the design.
A minor gripe: the designers opted to use a black 1x2 horizontal clip to attach Morton’s tail rather than a brown one.
In addition to his magic wand, we also receive Morton’s hammer, as seen in games such as New Super Mario Bros. U and Paper Mario: Color Splash. The hammer looks weak using only studs for its head. A couple of 2x2 round bricks might have better illustrated his mighty hammer.
The introduction of Morton leaves Roy as the only Koopaling we have not yet seen in the LEGO Super Mario theme.
The set also features a pirate goomba to stomp on and claim a coin, if you can tip off his fancy hat. The hat is a satisfyingly simple but effective build.
The completed model
For the collector that enjoys LEGO Super Mario sets purely as display pieces, you will appreciate that both airships are true to the designs found in New Super Mario Bros. U on the Wii U. The cannons, lanterns, crow’s nests, and propellers all illustrate these colourful airships well. When compared to the many LEGO ships we’ve seen throughout the years, these offer a fresh take while showing off an over-exaggerated style that has hints of 70810 MetalBeard's Sea Cow.
Larry’s airship is much smaller compared to his brother’s. The model includes a crow’s nest that can be rotated to raise and lower the anchor. The chain requires a little encouragement when lowering as it gets snagged on some of the internal structures.
In addition to interesting pieces such as grey lanterns and yellow bucket cannons, Larry’s airship offers up two unique 2x3 printed tiles with this figure eight pattern.
The clever construction of Larry and Morton’s scaled-up figureheads on the prows of their airships really showcases the pairing of LEGO and Super Mario. I would like to see more sculptured builds in the theme. It was fun to see the parts used to scale up their faces, such as the 1x2 half cylinder 68013.
Taking off the shell and crow’s nest from Morton’s airship reveals his moonlighting role as an interior designer! This lively room is complete with banners, candles, and places to hold his hammer and staff. Everyone knows the hallmark of a good LEGO set interior is a place to store every tool and weapon!
This set has 1062 pieces, but it didn’t feel like that many. The interior of Morton’s airship is most likely the culprit as the outer shell consists of many larger pieces like 76776 1/4 SPHERE 5X5X3 1/3, W/ CUTOUT. I particularly enjoyed the use of this large dome piece in conjunction with parts like 48092 BOW 1/4 4X4X1 to create the bow of the ship. This is also my first experience with the shell shield piece, 67929 DESIGN PLATE 8X8X2/3. I imagine this piece might be useful in architectural or sci-fi MOCs.
Play
Both Larry and Morton’s airships serve as a place to defeat a boss and give your hero a vehicle to commandeer for collecting coins. To collect coins, raise the ship in the air and move it up and down like a serpent swimming on swells of waves. You can quickly tip the ship back in a ‘wheelie’ motion to hear the hero figure play a cannon explosion sound. Never before has swooshing a set given me so much satisfaction!
In addition to coin collecting, Morton’s airship can also be opened up and connected to route plates as a destination in your course. Your hero can face Morton within his airship and with a pull of a sliding mechanism, you can effectively pull the baddie’s seat from under him.
If you have two hero figures, you can place one in each airship and battle each other by tipping the ship back to make the cannon sounds. One hero can ‘hit’ the other causing the opposing hero to become dizzy. This quickdraw-style duel minigame would be perfect if you ever found yourself in a face-off at high noon in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Scanning the barcode on either of the ships causes the ground theme music of Sky Land from Super Mario Bros. 3 to play as you collect coins. This is notably not the airship theme usually heard during the last level of each world. Even more suspiciously, the final boss of Sky Land in SMB3 is Roy. Yes, the Roy who should have been in this set over his now twice-seen brother, Larry!
Conclusion
Overall, the set delivers a fun play experience and looks great on a shelf. A 1,000+ piece set with a couple of iconic characters for under £80/$80/€85 is always appreciated, but the overall volume of the build falls short. The construction of both airships is solid, but this density drives up the piece count. Nevertheless, the playability makes this set a great way to add some variety to your LEGO Super Mario course.
I tried to use the instructions within the LEGO Super Mario app. While it is helpful to be able to spin the model and differentiate colours better, I found it slowed me down. However, I can see how showing each brick connection can be clearer than taking it all in via standard instructions, particularly for the target 8+ age range. The app is essential to show all the ways to play with the set.
One can only speculate why Roy wasn’t included in the set. My only guess is that having Larry paired with Morton provides a bigger contrast in size for both the figures and the airships. Including two similarly sized brothers would have just increased the piece count and the price. For now, we can only hope to see justice for Roy in a future set.
106 likes
22 comments on this article
The long awaited (since finding out last Saturday) debut! Shame all the Mario knowledge went straight over my head
Very nice review @SetToBuild . It was a very nice mix of commentary and humor.
Hashtag JusticeForRoy
Excellent review @SetToBuild! You did a great job giving background information and history while going through the review. I also really appreciated your humor! We will watch your career with great interest.
Good review! I just built this one the other day. I really, really liked it.
While the set is expensive, I do understand the price because it feels like a very dense build. A LOT of layering of bricks and plates form the hull of each ship, compared to sets that use pre-formed hulls.
I'm now tempted to try to MOC airships for the other Koopalings we've gotten so far. And I do hope that we get Roy in a set before long!
A great debut review!
It was a nice surprise to wake up this morning and find a review written by the one and only @SetToBuild ! I'd written off pretty much all of the Super Mario sets as being too focused on play to be decent display pieces, so it's interesting to find out that this is not the case with this set. Entertaining and informative review!
Im sure Roy will come to the next wave of sets next year.
Great review! I look forward to many more from @settobuild
Thank you @SetToBuild! But your Roy is in another Lego set!
Great review, although not my thing, you delivered perfectly
Those things hardly look like ships.
I fully appreciate any splendidly written review without a considerably crushing number of superfluously added adverbs which I find tediously difficult to read. Thank you very muchly.
Great review @SetToBuild! I look forward to more like this in the future!
@Harold_of_Vortech said:
"Im sure Roy will come to the next wave of sets next year."
Wasn’t there worry that the theme was ending THIS year? Thus condemning Roy, Wario, Daisy, Waluigi, Rosalina, and any other characters not yet in Lego form to oblivion, or else existing only as MOCs?
@SearchlightRG said:
" @Harold_of_Vortech said:
"Im sure Roy will come to the next wave of sets next year."
Wasn’t there worry that the theme was ending THIS year? Thus condemning Roy, Wario, Daisy, Waluigi, Rosalina, and any other characters not yet in Lego form to oblivion, or else existing only as MOCs?"
There were rumors of it ending cold turkey next summer. We won't really know if that is true until then. There were theories about it ending and minfig sets taking its place, but that seems more like wishful thinking. It's possible they stop the Mario course line, and replace it with 18+ sets. It's either that, Minifigures, or ending entirely, and I have trouble imagining that they would completely cancel the theme.
That Goomba has the best expression. The hat is great, too.
I wish there were multi-character "battle packs" in addition to the blind bags, but I understand TLG's strategy in using them to sell the larger sets.
"Morton Koopa Jr." is an incredibly specific 1980s American reference.
Agree on the quality of the review. Great first effort.
The set is a bit Meh for my taste, but at least it's better value at RRP than most Super Mario sets.
Great review @settobuild
@Corydoras said:
"Those things hardly look like ships."
That's kind of the deal with these ships. Very charicatured, and cartoony.
Thank you all for the comments/feedback! Looking forward to writing more for you! :D
thanks for all the pictures and the detailed review. looking forward to more from this new reviewer