Toy OTD: Indiana Jones Lego Set 7620: Motorcycle Chase

To celebrate the opening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I thought I'd post about one of the many new Lego tie-in sets! #7620 is called "Motorcycle Chase", and it's clearly spun off from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

As usual, Lego does a great job! Indy and Dr. Jones are both really cute, and the sidecar-motorcycle is nicely designed - everything's well-stripped down and simplified. The set comes with plenty of pieces, and not too many customized ones, so it'll contribute really well to whatever Lego collection you already have.

There's much more to the set than I'm picturing here - a guard booth with a crossing gate, and a Nazi soldier on his own motorcycle. Since space is at a premium here at the house, I've given that stuff away and kept "the essentials." It's great that Lego included them, though, as you can make a nice movie scene with the set and embellish it with your own collection, too!

Lego and Lucasfilm also deserve big brownie points for making sets from all of the Indiana Jones movies right away, rather than starting with Crystal Skull sets and holding back on the other films until much later. It's interesting that there isn't at least one set for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but maybe it's been determined that there isn't enough demand for one. I'm sure that someone's working on their own Temple diorama even as we speak - maybe a set of mini-figs is all that's needed.

These sets are still quite easy to get - you can buy this set in the Amazon used and new section for $8.89 + shipping, or pick it up from Target (or a variety of online retail sites) for $9.99 + shipping.

New Toy Arrivals!

If you've got Target gift cards, I found a bunch of new toy releases that you might want to hunt down! I stopped by early this morning (I had to bring my car in for a scheduled maintenance, and the store was right next door), and stumbled across some cool stuff:

* Mattel's World of Cars large-scale plastic DJ - With movable eyes, sound clips, and flashing undercarriage lights! There's four different music cues to choose from, too! You can get it right now at entertainmentearth.com for $34.99 + shipping, but I bet it's cheaper at Target.

* Lego's Indiana Jones line is in full force, with at least four different sets to choose from - Indiana Jones and the Lost Tomb (or the Well of Souls for you moldy figs), Race for the Stolen Treasure (the desert truck chase from Raiders), Indiana Jones Motorcycle Chase (Indy and his dad from Last Crusade on a motorcycle/sidecar, with Indy's Crystal Skull son on another bike), and Temple Escape (the opening sequence in Raiders, complete with boulder and idol)! If it's rainy (like it is here today), you can buy all of them at Lego.com from the comfort of your computer desk.

* The first series of Hasbro's Star Wars Mighty Muggs are out! I picked up Darth Vader, and passed on the Stormtrooper. You can get some of series 1 - Vader, Boba Fett, Darth Maul and a Stormtrooper - at toysrus.com for $9.99 + shipping (each).

Happy hunting!

Alien-Inspired Lego Art

Check out these full-on Lego dioramas (built by mryoder) inspired by the Alien films! They really capture the feel of the original scenes. Here's some more sculptures adapted by Arvo from Giger's designs. Nice!

Thanks to Geekologie for the heads up!

Bowling for Sandercoe Lego Short

I think that this short was made for a contest - it's really well crafted! But where's the Dude??

Toys In The News

ABC NEWS: Giant Lego man washed up on Dutch beach
Posted Wed Aug 8, 2007 6:03am AEST - Photo by Paul Vreeker

A giant, smiling Lego man has been fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort.

Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-metre tall model, which had a yellow head and blue torso.

"We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water," said a stall worker. "It was a life-sized Lego toy."

A woman nearby added: "I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England."

The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall.

-Reuters