Marvel Advent Calendar - Day 11
Posted by CapnRex101,
Microscale vehicles are generally the exclusive territory of Star Wars Advent Calendars, so the Laser Drill appearing yesterday was definitely a welcome addition to the Marvel calendar.
Another such vehicle could be fun today...
In fact, we receive two vehicles! The larger of the two takes inspiration from the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, representing a mining pod launched from Knowhere. The blue and flame yellowish orange colours work nicely and the rounded shape is accurate, albeit very similar to yesterday's model in construction.
Despite its tiny size, a 1x1 clip recreates the vehicle's manipulator arms and a trans-light blue 1x1 tile forms the thruster. The second vehicle is even tinier, comprising just five pieces. Even so, the Benatar's auxiliary space pod is recognisable, especially by its sand blue details, which match the model from 76102 Thor's Weapon Quest. The stud on the back suggests this vehicle connects to another, also like the minifigure-scale set.
Overall - These models are absolutely tiny and quite similar to the Laser Drill, but look good.
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Ref pics if you got ‘em?
"Microscale vehicles are generally the exclusive territory of Star Wars Advent Calendars..." Not really. Last year's Marvel AC had two, three if you count the Hulkbuster. Heck, four if you also want to include the drone as well. And it was the first of its kind, I expect future Marvel ACs will have more. City's ACs have had several, as well. Can't call to mind any from Friends or HP, unless you count the Anglia in this year's HPAC.
I don't know, for the scale they are pretty good but they are just too tiny to be impressive.
A good advertisement for why I quit buying the advent calendars. These parts aren't worth a nickel.
Oh, it is two vehicles? I thought the smaller one was supposed to be attached on top of the larger one. As usual, I had no idea what these are. I think the casual fans of GoG are going to be quite confused by this calendar. For recognizable minibuilds, apart from the Milano and Benetar, I cannot really think of much you could do. Avengers had a lot more to go on such as Quinnjet, helicarrier, Hulkbuster, the tower, DUM-E, etc. In the designer's defense, I get a sneaking suspicion that some of the builds here did not get much screen time or were at least not that memorable. In the best timeline, the GoG AC has 22 minifigs, the Benetar, and the Milano.
@stevesheriw said:
"Oh, it is two vehicles? I thought the smaller one was supposed to be attached on top of the larger one. As usual, I had no idea what these are. I think the casual fans of GoG are going to be quite confused by this calendar. "
I too thought one was supposed to go on top of the other... So now I have this robot-looking thing. It's been a while since I saw the movie, but even disregarding that, these micro builds are very meh to me.
Who are the licensed calendars for? Like, what is the target age group? There are so many builds across the Harry Potter, Marvel and Star Wars calendars that seemingly require a deep knowledge of the subject material to even figure out what the build is supposed to represent. I bought a Star Wars calendar a few years ago for my daughter because she was 6 and liked baby Yoda, but the set was all stuff that I barely recognized as a life-long Star Wars far who hasn't kept up with the cartoons. My daughter had no clue what most of it was outside of the minifigs. I've seen all of the Marvel movies and without the commentary here, I'd never have known what today's and yesterday's builds should have been. Same with Harry Potter. Some of these builds are so obtuse that they may as well not be included.
"...a welcome addition," Does Brickset get the sets it reviews for free? Because I think that's tainting your review process. Don't want to come down too hard or you'll get the free stuff taken away?
@andygott said:
"Ref pics if you got ‘em?"
Finding reference images for Marvel is more difficult than for Star Wars because there is rarely artwork available and screenshots are generally very dark. Nevertheless, these are images on the MCU Wiki:
Mining Pod: https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Mining_Pods/Gallery
Benatar Pod: https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Benatar%27s_Space_Pod/Gallery
Mine contained a copy of Day 17's build instead.
@CapnRex101 said:
" @andygott said:
"Ref pics if you got ‘em?"
Finding reference images for Marvel is more difficult than for Star Wars because there is rarely artwork available and screenshots are generally very dark. Nevertheless, these are images on the MCU Wiki:
Mining Pod: https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Mining_Pods/Gallery
Benatar Pod: https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Benatar%27s_Space_Pod/Gallery "
Thank you! Appreciate the extra mile.
In a bizarre turn of events, whoever designed the calender must have realized that yesterday's sphere pod thing from Jurassic Park 4 was only based on concept art, as the ones in Jurassic World are actually transparant with hints of blue.
So they just up and put in a smaller blue one today? That's the fastest more screen-accurate reissue I've ever seen! Usually that takes at least 3 years, and here we are getting one after ONE DAY! In the same calender!
And they even put in a... t-posing robot bird? As an apology for putting in an outdated one in last day's window? I mean, yes birds are dinosaurs I suppose. But ehm... what?
But even so, why is the top part yellow? It looks like the lovechild of 70830 and 70831. My lingering doubt that this might be a TLM2 calender continues to persist unfortunately.
It is day 11 and this has still been the most baffling Jurassic World calender yet.
@TheOtherMike said:
""Microscale vehicles are generally the exclusive territory of Star Wars Advent Calendars..." Not really. Last year's Marvel AC had two, three if you count the Hulkbuster. Heck, four if you also want to include the drone as well. And it was the first of its kind, I expect future Marvel ACs will have more. City's ACs have had several, as well. Can't call to mind any from Friends or HP, unless you count the Anglia in this year's HPAC."
HPAC has had the Durmstrang ship and the Beauxbatons carriage
(can't remember if they were in the first or the second one)
Edit: just looked it up; they were in the second one (2020)
and the 2019 HPAC had a microscale Hogwarts Express
@ScholtzTKO said:
"A good advertisement for why I quit buying the advent calendars. These parts aren't worth a nickel. "
This AC has been the worst I've ever seen after 10 years of collecting and building all of them (except Friends, I only have a few of them).
@YanVanLan: This year's HPAC also had the Knight Bus, which I'd forgotten about when I first posted.
@TheOtherMike :
Good catch; then I guess it was just the 2021 one that had no microbuilds.
Which would make sense, given the subject matter.
@TheOtherMike:
Dwelling almost entirely on microscale vehicles could be legitimately considered to be SW territory, just because that's the format they've leaned on the most over the years. So far, I think only the Friends AC has avoided microscale vehicles completely, though. Well, and the Castle, Pirates, and Clikits calendars.
@stevesheriw:
Come, now, they're allowed to devote a single day to making a suitably gargantuan gun for Rocket. I'm just not sure the turkey-roaster qualifies.
@YanVanLan:
HPAC19: Hogwarts Express
HPAC20: Durmstrang ship & Beauxbatons carriage
HPAC21: Nothing
HPAC22: So far, the flying Ford Anglia & the Knight Bus, but we don't hit the halfway point until tomorrow. There's really only one significant vehicle I can think of that has not only not appeared in an HPAC so far, but has never been modeled in any official set.
BTW, that one vehicle _did_ appear in the beginning of the first movie, so could very well have been included in last year's calendar without breaking the format.