Review: 75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory
Posted by SetToBuild,
Glinda and Elphaba’s dorm room at Shiz University is the setting of some iconic scenes, most notably the well-known song ’Popular’. Since the scene features the two witches-in-training getting ready for a ball, this set fortunately includes both their nightwear and ballgown outfits. The tiny rendition of their room is packed with detail, all satisfyingly tucked away inside a beautiful enclosure.
I’ve enlisted the help of my wife and resident minidoll fan, Catherine (CrankyBricks) to explore the sets. Over to her after the break…
Summary
75683 Glinda & Elphaba's Dormitory, 740 pieces.
£59.99 / $69.99 / €69.99 | 8.1p / 9.5c / 9.5c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
An attractive and detail-filled set, sure to prove popular with movie fans
- Aesthetically pleasing
- Minidolls are excellent
- New elements and recolours
- None
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Minidolls
Both minidolls in this set come with two torso and skirt pieces, making a nightwear and ballgown outfit for each. There’s also an alternate hair piece for Elphaba. They’re pictured below complete with head and hair for the sake of the photos, but we only receive one head for each figure in the set.
Glinda’s short nightgown and sheer dressing gown are hinted at in the minidoll version, but I don’t think it’s a particularly good representation—the weakest among four otherwise very successful figures.
I’m sure it was quite a challenge, and I wonder if the design team considered a shorter skirt piece with bare legs, or a cape? Instead, the shorter skirt beneath is suggested with printing. However, this same treatment isn’t used to show the puffy flowers on her shoulders which are missing.
Her ball gown for the outing to the Ozdust ballroom is much more effective. The ombre starburst pattern is captured well with detailed printing, and the overlapping frills at the top are also printed on both the front and back to good effect.
Coral is a good match for the colour of the dress, and because the other elements are well represented the slightly flat frills of her skirt aren’t a problem. The printing also captures the angled straps of her shoes.
Elphaba’s nightwear is much better suited to this minidoll skirt mould. The subtle glimpse of her off-white pyjamas under the long dressing gown could be brighter, as is usually the case for light-on-dark printing, but the torso has much better opacity on the arm printing than we saw in 75681 Glinda, Elphaba & Nessarose at Shiz University. The printing of this unique clothing is highly accurate.
The head and hair are both the same as in 75681 Glinda, Elphaba & Nessarose at Shiz University, but they’re appropriate for this setting, as she doesn’t have her glasses on much in the dorm, nor does she wear them to the ball.
Her evening attire is also scene-appropriate and very well-detailed. I’m impressed with the illusion of sheer fabric on her bodice created by the darker green printing.
Elphaba’s hat-with-hair piece is shared with the other sets in this wave. The grey linework on her skirt successfully adds detail to what would otherwise be a black-on-black decoration. Overall, I think these are extremely strong figure designs.
Completed Model
The completed model is a neatly enclosed box, with three detachable decorative objects on top. Immediately visible on the box’s exterior is the large elaborately printed ‘G’ tile, and a generous range of light nougat parts.
It opens up in a neat diagonal pattern which allows the three models on top to remain in place. More of the assortment of light nougat parts is visible here too. Let’s take a look inside, then come back to the exterior details…
I’ll be honest from the start: this is my favourite set from the wave. I’m a sucker for tiny furniture all cleverly packed into a room, and in keeping with the movie, this little space is cluttered with Glinda’s luggage and storage. What’s more, the furniture can be removed and rearranged to your heart’s content.
On Glinda’s side of the room, aside from the obvious pink bed, our eyes are drawn to the fantastic use of the new rose piece in transparent yellow as intricate Tiffany-style glass lamps or sconces. It’s also used in dark pink as a frilly lampshade for her bedside lamp, angled nicely on the minifigure posing element—new this year in pearl gold.
The hardest part of the build is the three matching mirrored stickers on the back wall. I feel these are thicker and stickier, thus difficult to place. Nonetheless, they do look excellent. The detailing around the mirrors is also intricate, with more rose lamps and a very satisfying combination of baby corner arches (new in dark orange!) over bread tiles.
More stickers continue to adorn the walls, but these could easily be omitted if preferred and the set would still retain much of its charm. One of the downsides of elaborate decoration is that the tiled rugs on the floor mean hardly any studded spots to place figures. I’d have liked to store or pose them securely around the room.
The QR code hidden on a rotating table seems to not yet quite work as intended, promising “Fans can be inspired to play out their own stories within Oz by scanning the QR code hidden within the set to play the song “Popular” from the film and make the characters perform the dazzlifying scene, while exploring new adventures.” but in fact just directing to a LEGO Kids page. Maybe this will change when the film is released.
The exterior of the box is very pleasing from all angles, designed to look like a piece of Glinda’s luggage. Noticeable on the front is a new plate with a ‘cloud-shaped’ edge. This has already been well-used in 2024 sets in both pearl gold and white.
It’s a bit of a shame that some parts of the lid had to be tan to allow them to have studs, as it reduces its displayability as an independent item. I would have welcomed more consistency of light nougat throughout.
Don’t lose the key—the lock really works!
When the key is inserted and turned, the simple latch mechanism rotates a Technic connector piece (new in dark tan, previously only having been released in white) to lock over the protruding 1L beam.
Personally, I could take or leave the large-scale accessories, but they have their uses. Perhaps Wicked fans will appreciate the nods to the storyline, and the ‘clutter’ itself akin to the cluttered nature of Glinda and Elphaba’s room!
The round box opens up and allows the key and spare outfits to be stored safely inside. The rose, built from mudguards and large character shoulder pieces, has a very satisfying overall shape, clearly having learned a thing or two from the botanical range. The bottle gives us an intriguing array of parts in transparent bright green.
The spare parts aren’t groundbreaking, but there are a good range of detail pieces in pleasant colours which could come in handy.
Conclusion
Speaking from experience as an 8+ year old (emphasis on the +) fan of large-scale objects with miniature scenes within them, some kids are invariably drawn to dollhouse-adjacent toys and I feel that this will be a big hit among the target audience. Everything has its place and is neatly contained for storage or transport.
The minidolls in this set are excellent and are all unique to the specific scenes referenced at this location. This makes for good play appeal to fans of the new movie.
Although the price per piece isn’t bad, the set is packed tightly so its overall size might feel small for £60. I’m sure many fans will be waiting for a sale to pick this up.
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12 comments on this article
Cute!
Although it's an odd dormitory from the outside that's for sure.
I was in Costco the other day and had a look at one of the Wicked sets (I don’t remember which one). I wanted to check to make sure that LEGO didn’t make the same mistake that Mattel did with their packaging. Spoiler: they didn’t. The URL on the LEGO Wicked sets is lego.com/wicked. I just hope that it links to some good stud/antistud imagery and not to a site with the same name as the film.
@Librarian1976 said:
"I was in Costco the other day and had a look at one of the Wicked sets (I don’t remember which one). I wanted to check to make sure that LEGO didn’t make the same mistake that Mattel did with their packaging. Spoiler: they didn’t. The URL on the LEGO Wicked sets is lego.com/wicked. I just hope that it links to some good stud/antistud imagery and not to a site with the same name as the film."
Yes. That would have been a disaster for Lego if they'd put that link on there...
I am absolutely going to pick this up after a discount. I've been so tempted. I may be skeptical about the Wicked movie but I love the musical and am thrilled that we're getting sets to build (heh)
This is my favorite set from the wave too! It had such a fun building process and the color combo of light nougat and dark red is just so pleasing to look at. I love the concept of a display piece that opens up to be a pseudo-doll house. I kinda wanna see a Monkie Kid shipping container set of this size.
Wicked and Wednesday have both provided some really fun set ideas that I hope to see continue in the future. Whether it be through more sets based off of these IPs, more display centered builds popping up in Friends, or just some new minidoll themes in general. I can’t get enough!
@Maxbricks14 said:
" @Librarian1976 said:
"I was in Costco the other day and had a look at one of the Wicked sets (I don’t remember which one). I wanted to check to make sure that LEGO didn’t make the same mistake that Mattel did with their packaging. Spoiler: they didn’t. The URL on the LEGO Wicked sets is lego.com/wicked. I just hope that it links to some good stud/antistud imagery and not to a site with the same name as the film."
Yes. That would have been a disaster for Lego if they'd put that link on there..."
I was going to make a joke about https://brickset.com/parts/4182750/flex-joint-6m-%C3%B824-male and https://brickset.com/parts/6332151/flex-joint-6m-%C3%B824-female but that would probably be reported.
I'm on the fence for this one. I like the concept, but not the price. Definitely waiting for some Glinda Bubbles to change the numbers on the price tag...
I like the whole Polly pocket style to the set, and the rose and colours, but I'm not invested enough to buy it.
Thank you for the review! I've been enjoying your comments on the Wicked range. I'm quite eager to read what you think of the Emerald City model.
Honestly, most of the Wicked sets have exceeded my expectations, with this model being my favorite too. It makes for an exceptional fidgit model. I constantly find myself picking it up to open it and admire the interiors. Every little detail is lush and extravagant, doing justice to the film sets that inspired it.
My only real beef I have with it is that I wish they'd included heads for the alternate outfits. That's really a petty concern that the kids it's aimed at probably won't even mind. It's just the adult fan in me that has little interest in playing dress up and just wants all of the figures to set on the shelf. I'm of half a mind to pick up more copies of the Shiz gateway to try and make something more substantial of that locale anthow, so the frustration with undisplayed looks for Gals will be over.
I really hope there's at least a second wave of these. There is so much more to show and a few more characters that I hope join the collection.
1/10 SHould have been a room not a box. It uses so many pieces for unnecesary details...
Is the rose build the same as the one in the botanical sets?
@Studnotontop said:
"This is my favorite set from the wave too! It had such a fun building process and the color combo of light nougat and dark red is just so pleasing to look at. I love the concept of a display piece that opens up to be a pseudo-doll house. I kinda wanna see a Monkie Kid shipping container set of this size.
Wicked and Wednesday have both provided some really fun set ideas that I hope to see continue in the future. Whether it be through more sets based off of these IPs, more display centered builds popping up in Friends, or just some new minidoll themes in general. I can’t get enough!"
You're right -- Shipping containers have been a recurring motif for the good guys in Monkie Kid. A shipping container room like this would be an obvious next step for the theme.