Random set of the day: Jungle Surprise
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 1271 Jungle Surprise, released during 1999. It's one of 14 Adventurers sets produced that year. It contains 33 pieces and 1 minifig, and its retail price was US$2.
It's owned by 1,083 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you should find it for sale at BrickLink, where new ones sell for around $70.00, or eBay.
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27 comments on this article
Surprise! Death!
Singular? I count at least two surprises here, though you could argue up to four.
Also the sightline on the snake. Very enthused with the open collar.
Thankfully Indiana Jones isn't in Pippin Reid's situation!
Ah the good ol’ days, back in the last century when you could get a whole set for $2!
Ooo finally, an RSOTD that I can comment on.
When I was in my dark ages, I kept this set built as a little piece of decor for my desk, and kept it built through multiple moves to new apartments. I wanted to keep it around as an homage to what I thought were bygone days when I loved Lego and particularly the Adventurers theme (though I really only collected the desert subtheme).
Ironically, when I got back into Lego I deconstructed it to inventory its pieces. I'm missing the red snake!
And I suppose I'm not sure if I own this set, or 5905 Hidden Treasure, as I think the instructions are long gone.
Alright, let's do this one last time. My name is Gail Storm. I was bitten by a radioactive spider, And for ten years, I've been the one and only Spider-Woman. I’m pretty sure you know the rest.
That magnificent chrome gold piece is…well…gold.
@Shadowcloner said:"Singular? I count at least two surprises here, though you could argue up to four."
Further surprise: She forgot to load her gun.
"Also the sightline on the snake. Very enthused with the open collar. "
I really can't blame him, as I had a mild crush on Pippin Reed back in the day.
The real surprise was the spiders we made along the way
The real surprise comes from Gail Storm because she brought a gun to a snake and spider fight. They didn't anticipate that.
I love this kind of set. You get a great minifig, a mysterious location, two treasures (one of which is the sun disk), great accessories including backpack, leaf and map and two animals, one of which was brand new at the time. The snake was also relatively new.
Oh, and there's a hidden compartment.
Sets like these were perfect!
Are we sure this subtheme is set in the Amazon? Seems more like Australia to me.
There is literally nothing in this set that I don't already have from others, but I still think it would be nice to get it? My nostalgia for the Jungle subtheme is strong; and while this is essentially just an accessory pack with a minifigure, it's a very cool one.
On a different note, for being such a rare treasure in story, there sure were a lot of golden Sun Discs in the sets. Which is nice because it's a very cool (chrome!) piece and means you could get one almost no matter which set you got, but it does raise questions of how that ties in with the story. Story material implied that the Sun Disc was a unique only-one-of-its-kind treasure, which was why it was so highly valued, so... do all the sets with it in represent the same item, which the Adventurers kept finding, losing again, having it keep turn up somewhere different each time? Is only one the 'real' Sun Disc, and the others are decoys scattered around the jungle to confuse would-be thieves? Or are the characters simply *wrong* and there are indeed multiple Sun Discs?
Personally, I think I like the second of those theories the best.
I didn't own this set--or its doppelganger--but I had 5936, so "jungle Gail Storm in a snake-bearing setting" is familiar to me.
@TheOtherMike said:
"I really can't blame him, as I had a mild crush on Pippin Reed back in the day."
The Adventurers (and thus Miss Storm) came to prominence in my LEGO life right at the point in my boyhood when female minifigs went from ignored/teased to "well, maybe romance is part of this story too..." (i.e. around puberty). So while things never worked out between her and Harry Cane or her and Johnny Thunder or her and my Launch Command astronaut, I can appreciate the sentiment of "a mild crush" on a plastic toy. How exactly one discerns it in a minifig, I don't know, but she had the right mix of femininity and protagonist-adjacent agency to be quite charming and alluring.
@ThatBionicleGuy:
Cheap Chinese counterfeits to take advantage of the tourism economy.
A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
@PurpleDave said:
"Are we sure this subtheme is set in the Amazon? Seems more like Australia to me."
According to the Story book it would be more like Mexico, as they keep mentioning the Aztecs.
Oddly though, Lego's Name for Achu's headdress calls it 'Inca Helmet', which would set it in Peru?
The Amazon ist formed in Peru, so maybe 'Amazon' is correct? As far as I know, the official Name for the sub-theme was 'Jungle' anyways.
I have but one thing to say, and one thing alone:
ADVENTURERS FTW! (Take that Henry Jones Jr.!)
We now return you to your regular comments thread...
@ThatBionicleGuy said:
"There is literally nothing in this set that I don't already have from others, but I still think it would be nice to get it? My nostalgia for the Jungle subtheme is strong; and while this is essentially just an accessory pack with a minifigure, it's a very cool one.
On a different note, for being such a rare treasure in story, there sure were a lot of golden Sun Discs in the sets. Which is nice because it's a very cool (chrome!) piece and means you could get one almost no matter which set you got, but it does raise questions of how that ties in with the story. Story material implied that the Sun Disc was a unique only-one-of-its-kind treasure, which was why it was so highly valued, so... do all the sets with it in represent the same item, which the Adventurers kept finding, losing again, having it keep turn up somewhere different each time? Is only one the 'real' Sun Disc, and the others are decoys scattered around the jungle to confuse would-be thieves? Or are the characters simply *wrong* and there are indeed multiple Sun Discs?
Personally, I think I like the second of those theories the best."
There are 5 Sun Discs in the Jungle/Amazon subtheme, the lore goes that Achu the Keeper hid several fakes around the jungle to act as decoys for would-be thiefs. Only the Sun Disc held by Achu himself at the Amazon Ancient Ruins is the one true artifact.
Adventures: Jungle is my all time favorite Lego theme and was the first full wave I collected. The Amazon Ancient Ruins and River Expedition are just fantastic set pieces and the Expedition Balloon might just be my favorite set of all time.
The color scheme, the minifigs, the unique parts... I love everything about that subtheme.
The only negative about it is... WHY ARE THERE ONLY TWO TREES IN THIS "JUNGLE"??? The Desert/Egypt wave the year before had three times the number of trees! Surely they could have put in just a little bit more flora. That aside, it's still a subtheme for the ages. Shame it's all so ungodly expensive now.
@Atuin:
5896 being called “Amazon Ancient Ruins” pretty clearly indicates that at least one person thinks it’s set in the Amazon.
Why are they so chill about it?
I think it's misspelled...I think it's suppose to be "Jungle Supplies", which would make more sense...:)
@ThatBionicleGuy said:
"There is literally nothing in this set that I don't already have from others, but I still think it would be nice to get it? My nostalgia for the Jungle subtheme is strong; and while this is essentially just an accessory pack with a minifigure, it's a very cool one.
On a different note, for being such a rare treasure in story, there sure were a lot of golden Sun Discs in the sets. Which is nice because it's a very cool (chrome!) piece and means you could get one almost no matter which set you got, but it does raise questions of how that ties in with the story. Story material implied that the Sun Disc was a unique only-one-of-its-kind treasure, which was why it was so highly valued, so... do all the sets with it in represent the same item, which the Adventurers kept finding, losing again, having it keep turn up somewhere different each time? Is only one the 'real' Sun Disc, and the others are decoys scattered around the jungle to confuse would-be thieves? Or are the characters simply *wrong* and there are indeed multiple Sun Discs?
Personally, I think I like the second of those theories the best."
Another possibility: in the multi-verse of Adventurers continuity, each set is a different timeline/world. This also accounts for the plethora of identical characters.
@KingKahuka95 said:
"There are 5 Sun Discs in the Jungle/Amazon subtheme, the lore goes that Achu the Keeper hid several fakes around the jungle to act as decoys for would-be thiefs. Only the Sun Disc held by Achu himself at the Amazon Ancient Ruins is the one true artifact."
That's been my headcanon (or should I say, "MOCanon") for years, but is there any primary source (magazine, book, catalog, etc.) that actually states this is part of the official lore? Please let me know if you remember!
Right before my dark ages, this is how I got the Sun Disk. I remember wanting that part really badly and then it was *actually obtainable*--gasp! Compare that to, say, some of the chase items in Ninjago.
I love this set. I could build it from memory as a kid. (Pretty sure I still could.) A nice little introduction to the jungle subtheme, and a bit more than the small vehicle sets that desert had.