Review: 75919 Indominus Rex Breakout
Posted by DrDaveWatford,
As a huge fan of dinosaurs and an enthusiastic collector of LEGO dinosaur sets, the launch of a new LEGO dinosaur theme is always a major cause for celebration from my perspective. The new Jurassic World theme has appeared a mere three years after 2012’s well-received Dino theme, and the fact that the new sets are a prelude to the release of the highly anticipated Jurassic World movie in June has only served to ratchet up the excitement still further.
Huw and CapnRex101 have already run the rule over some of the Jurassic World sets over the past few weeks, and I’m delighted to now bring you a review of the largest set in the Jurassic World theme, Set 75919 Indominus Rex Breakout.
Box & Contents
The box is approximately 58cm (23”) wide, 37.5cm (14.5”) high and 8.5 cm (3.5”) deep, so it’s basically identical to that of Set 5887 Dino Defense HQ which is its spiritual successor from the Dino theme. This is noteworthy as despite the similarity in box sizes, the newer Jurassic World set contains almost 400 more pieces than the Dino Defense HQ set. The front of the box (below) showcases the set contents, with the eponymous Indominus Rex dinosaur shown escaping from its compound and pursuing a gyrosphere while a small helicopter gives chase. I’m definitely a fan of the Jurassic World branding with its striking “scaly skin” background, Jurassic World logo and the snarling T-Rex head.
As we’ll see shortly, the set is blessed with a generous selection of play features and some of these are highlighted on the back of the box (below). There’s also a shot of the completed Indominus Rex compound from the side, a panel featuring five dinosaur silhouettes which exhorts us to collect ‘em all in true Pokemon fashion, and another panel below it which advertises LEGO video games with a nod to the upcoming LEGO Jurassic World game.
The box is secured by way of a pair of tape seals at either end. It contains twelve numbered bags of elements, plus an un-numbered bag split into four separate sealed compartments each of which contains one or more of the elements making up the Indominus Rex dinosaur. There’s also a single instruction booklet and sticker sheet, both of which are supplied in a heat-sealed clear bag. Finally, there’s a black 36L hose and a green 8 x 16 plate loose in the box. The sticker sheet (below) comes packed alongside the instruction booklet to keep it flat in transit, a far cry from the days when you’d find the sticker sheet floating loose inside the box with half the stickers peeled off and mangled. The sticker sheet is impressively compact, managing to squeeze in a total of 24 separate stickers.
Instructions
The instruction booklet has an A4-sized footprint and runs to a substantial 216-pages. The front cover (below) is decorated with the same artwork as the front of the box. In addition to the building guide, the booklet contains advertising for the Jurassic World video game, an obligatory request for product feedback, and a three-page inventory of parts. There are also one-page overviews of all of the dinosaurs and most of the minifigures to be found across the Jurassic World theme which are similar to those that you can see here and here respectively.
Minifigures
The set contains four minifigures. These are all to be found in different bags and assembled at different stages during the build. First to be built is Zach, who according to the LEGO Jurassic World microsite is 16-years old and more interested in playing with his phone than looking at a park full of real live dinosaurs. I’m guessing that Zach will occupy one of the obligatory “child chased by hungry dinosaur” roles in the movie. Zach is unique to this set. His plain black legs and hair are generic, but his torso, which features a hoodie back-print, is new. His head, which features a half-smile print on one side and a suitably fearful alternate expression on the reverse, is also new this year.
The next minifigure is a nameless veterinarian, referred to in LEGO promotional materials simply as Vet. His tan torso with white arms is unique to the Jurassic World theme and features a detailed print both front and back as you can see in the pictures below. His reddish-brown Fedora was first seen last year in the LEGO Movie sets, and this fedora design has also appeared in black and in white in selected Lone Ranger sets back in 2013. An alternative version of the Vet minifigure featuring the same torso, legs and hat but a different head print appears in Jurassic World Set 75918 T-Rex Tracker.
Next up we have an Asset Control Unit trooper, or ACU trooper for short (pictures below). According to LEGO, the ACU troopers are “highly-trained professionals whose single all-important duty is to keep the island’s dinosaurs under total control at all times” so it sounds like at least one of them messed up big-time…The ACU trooper sports back-printed sand blue body armour which covers a detailed, back-printed dark blue torso. Both the body armour and torso are unique to the Jurassic World theme, as are the ACU trooper’s dark bley printed legs. The reddish-brown minifigure head has only previously appeared once before, as part of the Winston Zeddemore minifigure in Set 21108 Ghostbusters Ecto-1. Five of the six Jurassic World retail sets contain an ACU trooper whose gender and race varies depending on the set. The trooper’s torso and legs are the same across all the sets, but in Set 75916 Dilophosaurus Ambush, the trooper lacks body armour.
The final minifigure is Dr Wu. Dr. Henry Wu, who you may remember from the first Jurassic Park movie, is the geneticist who first discovered the process for cloning dinosaurs from their DNA inside amber-trapped mosquitos. The Dr. Wu minifigure can only be found in this set, and his head, back-printed torso and printed legs are unique to this minifigure. His hair has however previously graced a number of different minifigures, including coincidentally one of the minifigures found in Set 5887 Dino Defense HQ.
The Build
The build begins with the star of the show, the ferocious hybrid Indominus Rex dinosaur which is unique to this set. It’s made up of ten separate elements, most of which click together by way of Technic pin-like connectors. The head is comprised of two elements, one of which is a hinged jaw, as is each upper limb. There’s a reasonable range of movement at the hips and shoulders, and the head can both rotate and flex/extend at the neck which allows the beast to be posed to some extent. I can’t say that I’m particularly enamoured of the primary colour scheme – white with a light bley print – and on the basis of the images I’ve seen, I’m not sure how faithful it will be to the movie version, but I will reserve final judgment on that until I’ve seen the movie. Aside from any possible misgivings I might have about the colour scheme, LEGO Indominus Rex is undoubtedly big and intimidating, and those bright red eyes certainly look the part...
Once the Indominus Rex has been constructed, it’s time to move on to the ingenious gyrosphere and its launcher (below). The gyrosphere, which is Jurassic World’s sight-seeing conveyance extraordinaire, is the same as that found in Set 75916 Dilophosaurus Ambush, reviewed by Huw here. The outer shell is made up of two identical trans-clear half-spheres which are held together by a combination of the internal gyrosphere mechanism and a couple of printed trans-clear 6 x 6 dishes. The half-spheres and dishes are new elements, appearing for the first time in the Jurassic World theme, and they’ve seemingly been designed expressly for this purpose. The gyrosphere seat, which can accommodate a single minifigure, is a good, old-fashioned space seat unchanged since the mid-1980’s; it remains upright as the gyrosphere rotates. The gyrosphere launcher consists of a rudimentary stand coupled with a simple mechanism akin to a syringe plunger to expel the gyrosphere.
Next we embark upon construction of the compound itself, starting with the front left corner. This predominantly consists of a couple of cross-braced 1 x 6 x 5 rectangular support girders and a pair of SNOT wall panels, topped off with a floodlight pylon supporting a pair of floodlights each of which bears a quartet of trans-yellow 1 x 1 round tiles. Both of the SNOT wall panels feature a warning light consisting of a trans-orange globe with 3.2 stick, better known as a Bionicle Barraki Eye. A blue 2 x 2 curved slope, which is at present unique to the Jurassic World theme, makes an appearance at this stage of the build.
Once the front left corner of the compound is completed, it attaches to the gyrosphere launcher by way of a pair of blue Technic pins at its base. You can see the gyrosphere ready for launch in the picture below; a plunger protrudes backwards through the wall section into the compound, and pushing the plunger fires the gyrosphere out of the launcher and away from the compound.
Work on the compound continues with the construction of a section of wall topped with a small crane; this section of wall will eventually form the left side of the compound. The lower level (picture below) contains a couple of cross-braced 1 x 6 x 5 rectangular support girders. These are adorned with 2 x 2 road signs which are clipped diagonally onto the cross-braces and stickered with ‘electricity hazard’ warnings. The support girders flank a small observation platform featuring a clear 1 x 6 x 5 panel. The whole of the panel is covered by a sticker which is supposed to simulate the appearance of cracked glass. Be careful when you apply this sticker however, as you’ve only got one chance to get it right. If you need to peel it off, for instance because you’ve trapped one or more air bubbles underneath it, or maybe because it’s not quite straight, you’ll end up with an ugly, smeared appearance when you reapply it, so beware...
It’s always nice to see a few dark green (or earth green as LEGO calls it) elements in a build, and there are a few in the crane. The crane can accommodate a single minifigure, and the canopy is hinged to enable the minifigure operator access to the cockpit and the controls. The crane sits on a 4 x 4 turntable which allows it to rotate through 360 degrees. Use of a pair of 1 x 6 hinge bricks in the boom limits the degree of flexion somewhat, but more of an issue is that the pallet suspended from the crane only contains a couple of chicken legs. I’m no expert in dinosaur nutrition, but common sense would surely suggest that a huge, hungry dinosaur is going to want to eat rather more than that, right? No wonder it wants to break out of the compound...
The tallest part of the compound is the control tower at the rear which is made up of three distinct levels. A green 6 x 16 plate is used as a baseplate for this structure. This is a fairly rare element, having previously appeared in fewer than 10 sets in total. The same goes for the pair of trans-clear 2 x 4 x 5 half cylinders which form part of the lower level (below).
There’s a small control room on the second level which contains a rudimentary desk complete with desktop computer (actually a 1 x 2 tile with a keyboard print and a stickered 2 x 2 clip sign). Also on the desk is a trans-orange crystal similar to the Moonstones found in the 2012 Monster Fighter sets, although in this case it bears a mosquito print and is presumably supposed to represent a chunk of amber. The control room window is a 1 x 6 x 3 windscreen which has only previously appeared in six sets, and the roof features a pair of flat silver round 1 x 1 plates with swirled top, an element which is more commonly found perched on top of ice cream cones in bright colours. The black railing on the second level is a 36L rigid hose which is unique to the set in this colour. The rifle mounted on the railing has previously graced a number of LEGO Movie sets, while the top-mounted lime syringe first appeared in the 2012 Dino sets and I’m assuming its presence is meant to indicate that the rifle is firing tranquilizer darts rather than live ammunition. The top level of the tower features a helicopter landing pad which utilises a black 8 x 8 round tile only previously seen in seven sets.
The set includes a helicopter which is a rather small, rudimentary affair. Even so, it features rotating main and tail rotors, a hinged windscreen to allow the pilot to get in and out, and a pair of trans-bright green-tipped flick fire missiles, the green colouration once again presumably indicating a tranquilizer payload as opposed to live ammunition.
Next up we have another wall section. This forms the right boundary of the compound, and is designed to be easily breached. The first step involves construction of a base and a frame which supports the breakable section. The frame is decorated with a couple of snot wall panels, each of which features a lever with yellow lever base and a trans-red warning light. As you can see from the picture below, the breakable wall section will sit on just 4 studs meaning that it’s easily displaced.
The breakable wall section consists of two halves. Although these fit snugly together and give the illusion of being joined together they aren’t actually connected to each other at all. The wall is topped with a trio of trans-light blue lightsaber blades which I’m assuming are supposed to represent an electric fence; a pair of ‘electricity hazard’ warning signs are mounted on the 1 x 6 x 5 rectangular support girders as a reminder for the unwary.
You can see how the wall breaks apart in the picture below; the wall is actually pretty low, so much so that the sizeable Indominus Rex dinosaur could probably just step over it rather than smashing its way through. Where’s the fun in that, though?
Next we move on to construction of the front right corner of the compound. The base of this section is a green cut corner 8 x 8 wedge plate which is new this year and has only appeared in this set and one other to date, Set 76025 Green Lantern vs. Sinestro. Bionicle Barraki Eye-topped SNOT wall panels make another appearance here, as do floodlights. Clips on the walls hold a tranquilizer gun and a stick topped with a trans-blue cone. I’m assuming that the stick, which is made up of a black lightsaber handle and blade in addition to the cone, represents some kind of electrified device used to fend off Indominus Rex at close quarters.
The final section to be built is the compound’s imposing front entrance. Similar to the breakable wall section, construction is broken into two stages. First to be completed are the door frame and surrounding walls, featuring more cross-braced 1 x 6 x 5 rectangular support girders. For reasons that will soon become clear, the build includes a number of light bley modified 1 x 4 bricks with groove.
A pair of heavy doors are then constructed. Each door has a pair of 1 x 8 modified plates with door rail at its base; the rails fit into the modified 1 x 4 bricks with groove described earlier which allows the doors to slide left and right. I love the appearance of interlocking ‘teeth’, which are made up of dark bley 45 degree 2 x 1 double slopes, where the doors meet. The doors are topped with an electric fence, and the front entrance is tidied up with some hinged SNOT panels.
The doors slide open as you can see in the picture below. It’s a little strange that despite this play feature, and the presence of a stickered ramp leading into the compound, the set doesn’t include a wheeled vehicle of some description.
Once all of the wall sections have been built, it’s time to bolt them together. If you look back at the pictures of the completed sections you’ll see that some incorporate modified 2 x 2 bricks with a ball and/ or modified 2 x 2 bricks with a socket. Joining these sections is therefore simply a case of clicking them together via ball and socket joints; the beauty of this method is that it means the sections can be angled relative to each other to produce the unusual triangular shape of the compound. The front entrance is the only part of the compound which is connected to the surrounding sections via Technic pins. You can see the finished set in all its glory in the picture below.
The Verdict
I found building this set to be enjoyable and relaxing – if you’re looking for a substantial challenge then this probably isn’t the set for you. There are a number of repeating design elements, for instance the SNOT wall panels, but the various sections making up the compound are sufficiently different to ensure that the build never became boring. I wasn’t sure whether I’d like the dark bley, blue and white colour scheme, but in the event I think it works okay. I also like the unusual triangular shape of the compound – it would have been easy to ape Set 5887 Dino Defense HQ and serve up another rectangular compound, so LEGO deserve credit for coming up with something a little different. On the flipside, the area inside the compound is pretty cramped, so much so that the Indominus Rex dinosaur can barely fit into it; some might therefore argue that the triangular compound is a triumph of form over function, and I suppose they’d have a point... The set includes a number of neat play features, notably the gyrosphere which is cool, the breakable wall section which falls apart well and is easy to repair, the crane and the sliding front doors.
While many of the early reactions to the Jurassic World sets seem to have been broadly positive, a recurring theme has been complaints about price, and specifically some negative comparisons to the 2012 Dino sets. I’ve seen a few comments about this set in particular, expressing dismay that it only contains one dinosaur but nevertheless costs £99.99 / $129.99 / €119.99, in contrast to the Dino Defense HQ set mentioned earlier which contains three dinosaurs but had an RRP of £79.99 / $99.99 / €99.99. I’d certainly concur with the complaint about the lack of dinosaurs – as the marquee set of the Jurassic World theme, the inclusion of only one dinosaur seems very miserly to me. From the price perspective however, I guess it’s not quite so straightforward – the Dino Defense HQ set contained 793-elements in comparison to 1,156-elements in the Indominus Rex Breakout set; I’d be the first to acknowledge that part count is a crude way of assessing relative value, but on the basis of part count alone, the newer set isn’t terribly overpriced, particularly as there’s also the cost of the Jurassic World license to consider. I do however think that the inclusion of only one dinosaur is disappointing, and it will understandably be a deal-breaker for some.
Many thanks as ever to the LEGO Community Engagement & Events Team for providing us with a copy of the set to review.
6 likes
23 comments on this article
The price of the sets are insane, and the lack of dinosaurs is disappointing. However this set is almost decently price considering the license, pieces and new dinosaur.
It's the same price as the City Space Shuttle and has over twice as many pieces for about the same price.
Looks like a classic space / dino crossover. Cool, but the lack of dinos and price means I will not be purchasing until its 3 for 2 at Argos, or discounted on Amazon
Price aside I think it has a nice look to it - but since it doesn't fit with the existing Dino 2012 yellow scheme I'll probably be passing on it as a whole. I may bricklink a few parts.
Neat set but will await for a discount on this and the Raptor Rampage sets.
I don't see what is wrong with the price, there are other sets around the same size and price without a dino at all.
I can't stand the body armor piece. Much like the new life jackets it puts the minifig's head way to high on the body and makes them look odd. Any set I get with them, I end up just removing them.
I love the Classic Space color scheme. It even includes a space chair!
This helicopter looks like a... SPACESHIP!
I'd bite at $99.99 USD; it's way too overpriced. Forgetting the complaint about only one dinosaur with the set, what about including only FOUR minifigs in a $130 set? Four?!??!? That's gotta be a new low, an insult to the wallet.
i think the chopper set and this set are the best-looking sets in the current jurassic series. I find this set the most aesthetically-pleasing of the whole lot, even though i would make some changes to it, like providing a ladder up to the heli-pad, and so on.
Some might argue that the enclosure is too small for the dino. Well, get another set and extend the walls. Expensive, but it can be done as u can fully utilise both sets and connect them up immediately to form a larger enclosure without leaving behind spare bricks.
Yeah only one dino. but this is a huge one. saw in the shops. it's the centrepiece of the whole set.
As for whether I'm getting it, No. lol. I'm not into dinos and classic blue pieces.
The dinosaur is a new mold isn't it?
Would have been nice to see a side by side comparison with 5887 Dino HQ. Surprised no ones mentioned (unless I missed it) the clear failing of the ball joints - there's massive holes in the walls. The whole range looks poor to me.
"According to LEGO, the ACU troopers are highly-trained professionals whose single all-important duty is to keep the island’s dinosaurs under total control at all times, so it sounds like at least one of them messed up big-time…"
Given this is a Jurassic Park movie, it sounds like those guys are lunch.
Sorry, but no. I am expecting an improvement with newer sets, not just sets with a couple more parts and an increased price tag. It IS worse than 5887 and since there is no improvement over it whatsoever I see no point in buying it. Even Dino 2010 had better sets.
As we can see this set has more pieces then the Dino HQ but there are smaller pieces. I bet ya they both weight the same.
I would have liked to have seen a side by side with a T-Rex and/or some figures for scale of the Indominus Rex. Isn't it supposed to be larger?
I'd guess it weighs over 2 kg. not sure if much more, but the walls looks decently big, more impressive than in dino defense hq.
^^ You can get a good idea of scale in the last 2 pictures - the Indominus Rex is pretty big....
The black guy's got a great Lando-head!
1156 pieces for $129.99 isn't bad, especially if a brick-built Indominus would be between 100-200 pieces. Sort of the same thing with the Lonely Mountain - not a whole lot of parts, but that set had Smaug which was by itself bigger than some $20 sets.
Looks like a nice set, good for cannibalizing for MOCing.
If I was to get any set it would the dilophosaurus ambush because it is the best looking out of the wave and cheapest to come with a gyro sphere
Hmm. Can somebody show this set side to side with the big base from Dino? AFAIK it had the same price as this one, but it seems to be quite superior, except for not being part of a licensed theme(And the horrible colors)?
^No... the Dino base was $99 as opposed to $129, and I agree on its superiority. A much more solid design, more figures, and every dinosaur except the Triceratops and Pteranodon in an exclusive recolor.
Love the figs and the dino. Might be the last set I get in this series though. Price tag I think is worthy but too big of a hit at the moment.