Set #70805 Trash Chomper: This 2-1 build is an interesting vehicle combination, a garbage truck, which is a rare site to see in LEGO form and a flying vehicle designed to destroy Micromanagers in the maw of the trash chomper. Basically an overgrown Pac-Man style vehicle… technically speaking. Should you buy this set? Is it worth tracking down? Read on and find out.

Box/Instructions

LEGO Movie boxes are awesome. Not much has come close to the sheer fun of LEGO Movie box designs. They catch the fun of the movie and the old-school fun of LEGO that makes them look great on the shelf and really catch your eye. As this is a 2-1 build the front showcases this fact quite nicely. The back of course shows off some decent scenes telling a small story about what the minifigures are doing before and after Lord Business’ attack.

There are three manuals in this set, two for the Trash Chomper build and the other one for the alternative ordinary City style garbage truck. All of the manuals have detailed step-by-step instructions for the build and nothing stands out as being too difficult for the posted age range. Some younger builders, 5 and 6 or so may require some help in certain areas of the build.

Parts

This set includes a load of green parts, if you’re looking for some green pieces you might want to pick up this set. Only a handful of orange pieces, which aren’t too rare and some nice bits you may or may not find useful for MOCs.

Minifigures

There are, as always, three minifigures and a micromanager in this set, the smaller type of build so we get to discuss it here.

First up is Gordon Zola, your standard Chef Minifigure there is very little here that hasn’t been seen before as far as prints go. He comes with a grey frying pan and has a plain set of light grey legs with the standard single-sided chef torso and hat. His facial print is permanently scared as if the Micromanager is about to get him. Makes for odd display choices when not being chased down by the micromanager.

Garbage Man Grant: This minifigure has much better and more printing, he has leg printing, a double-sided torso print which is splotched and filthy as you’d see in this profession. He has a single-sided head print and is wearing a grey beanie, he also has a red mug as an accessory. I like the scruffy beard print on this minifigure, it looks nice. I’m a bit concerned that he seems to be more content with drinking coffee than doing his job though.

Garbage Man Dan: Basically you have the same legs and torso as Grant, the only difference is the head and baseball cap. A nice dark blue colour. He doesn’t have any accessories though, there are two others that come with the set though, a shovel and a broom. These are not exclusively to Dan though as he can use either of them.

Micromanager: I find this character build from The LEGO Movie to be a bit of a weaker one compared to other Micromanagers from these sets. The design just doesn’t work for me, it has the nice grabbing arms, that can’t hold anyone. It has four flick-fire missiles and two panels that flip up turning him into an oddly designed wing thing. Honestly I find this design could use something to make it work better than it does, it just looks goofy when the panels are flipped open, perhaps if the micromanager was larger this design choice would work better. As it stands I find it to be a bit awkward looking and it is rather awkward to hold and play with.

The build

Manual Number 1 builds the Minifigures and the Micromanager, not a very thick book nor very tricky as far as builds go.

Manual Number 2 is used to build the main model, the flying Trash Chomper. This one is much thicker and since there are no numbered bags in this set you’re pretty much stuck dumping out all the pieces and separating them before getting onto the build. I like this build however I feel that model get’s a bit too busy as you start to build it up because there are a lot of steps and some of the parts like to fall off easily depending on how you grab it.

Still a satisfying build and captures the look of the set seen in the film quite nicely. I will mention though that there are stickers for the details instead of printed elements, which can be unfortunate if you aren’t a fan of them.

The third manual builds the alternative model; it is a very interesting build as this is my first time building a City Style Garbage Truck. You can pick up a few of these sets to help populate your LEGO City displays if you want. The build makes the cab a bit blockier than some might like and I think it’s a bit taller than normal City builds of similar size. When I put it next to my City Camper the thing was smaller than the truck. I’m not the most up there when it comes to scale, however I think it could disappoint you if you’re a fan of the LEGO City Trucks and keeping things scaled accurately.

The completed model

Flying Garbage Truck of DOOM!!! Yeah that’s pretty much what you’re building here folks. This build is pretty impressive for a final model. It’s huge, it’s got a lot of green and orange and it has a gimmicked trash chomping mouth to destroy Micromanagers with.

I find that the overall design for this model is pretty interesting and I enjoyed building it, I think the wings are too short though for keeping this thing stable while flying. It’s using some kind of vertical take-off propulsion units underneath the main build, it also includes the garbage cans on the back. Possibly a nod to Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future. (This baby runs on garbage power!)

I do enjoy the build, however I have to say there are some issues with it, mostly for smaller hands. It is awkward to pick up and hold, the garbage cans attached to the back can potentially fall off easily and the geared gimmick switch can be tough to use while in flight. Still it just looks great, so much fun, that alone makes up for any shortcomings it may have.

As for the alternative build; this is an interesting looking build with some nice design elements. However it is a bit on the tall side, some have complained that it is a bit taller than it should be perhaps compared to other trucks of a similar size and scale. It does use all of the pieces though and I do like the blocky nature of the front of the truck, it looks like it just rolled out of the screen from Bricksburgh. The use of stickers is slightly unfortunate, printed elements would have been better served. I like the Octan Rubbish logo though.

Overall I think the alternative model here is just slightly more fun to play with, the fact that it includes an opening rear section to store your trash, two garbage cans you can add as play value and the overall colour scheme of the vehicle makes it stand out nicely to me as an alternative build. Also I enjoy the fact that you can build an ordinary vehicle for City displays and then change it on a whim into a massive flying assault craft of doom. Solid 2-1 designs here compared with Castle Cavalry.

Overall opinion

Overall thoughts; I strongly recommend you pick this set up. The Minifigures have some nice unique printing, at least two of them are, and the two builds work equally well. I do wish they could have given Gordon Zola two facial expressions though, I understand why it wouldn’t work, but the fact that his only expression is one of frightened terror it does make for odd displays when he’s put behind the oven to cook things for other minifigs. If you could only buy one 2-1 LEGO Movie set from last year I’d probably stick with Ice Cream Machine as the best, however this one is a close second so do yourself a favor and try it out for yourself.