Topic: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

The LEGO Ambassador Network has asked me to take a look at the LEGO NINJAGO Spring 2020 sets, which release March 1. So, being a Bricks in Motion member, I thought, what better way to review a LEGO set than to make it into a brickfilm! After all, the best way to really test a LEGO set is to animate with it. What, don't you do the same with every new set you get?

LEGO 71740 Jay's Electro Mech

This week's set review is LEGO 71740 Jay's Electro Mech. Even though this set is part of the NINJAGO Legacy line, and is from the Ninjago season when the ninja are on Chen's island, I thought it was a perfect start to a series of Jungle themed animations. So, introducing, Part 1 of what I'm calling the LEGO NINJAGO Jungle Adventures Series.

Check it out here:

You might be confused, even perplexed about the style of this video. Well, if you have never played an old fashioned point and click game, this might be new to you. *puts on old man voice* Back in my day.... computer games didn't have fancy graphics, so they were limited to mostly still backgrounds, videos, and clicking. Obviously, I didn't have to replicate such a style, but I felt like its retro charm would be perfect for showcasing the new NINJAGO sets' functions.

If you're interested in a Behind the Scenes look at the production of part one and a more in-depth look at the set featured in this brickfilm, check out this quick video: https://youtu.be/RIWgJYDkAMw

What are your thoughts on this set? Personally, I found it a bit difficult to animate with, due to its 4+ nature, which means it didnt have many parts or tight joints on the mech. And what did you think about the video? I'll be making more, so your feedback is valuable.

Come back soon for more parts of this series!
-rioforce

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"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

The particular selection of sets they've sent you to review is slightly baffling, but you've done a great job with it as ever.

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

JOCo wrote:

The particular selection of sets they've sent you to review is slightly baffling, but you've done a great job with it as ever.

I was definitely a bit confused by the inclusion of a 4+ set, but hey, it's a Ninjago product. The next parts of this series will be the March jungle themed sets, which are quite a bit more complex and interesting to animate with.

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"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

Perhaps if you tell them your are 3 years old they won't send you the 4+ sets.

Yes, it's homemade, fresh from the toaster oven.

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

LEGO NINJAGO 71748 Catamaran Sea Battle

In this video, I used the set LEGO NINJAGO 71748 Catamaran Sea Battle. Unlike the last set, this one isn't a 4+ set, so it was a marked improvement from my experience with Jay's Electro Mech.

The set comes with six minifigures. Zane, Jay, Kai, and three islanders.

https://bricksafe.com/files/rioforce/bricksinmotion/reviews/jungle2-figs.jpg/640x480.jpg

I really like the new headband hair pieces for Jay and Kai. I've been putting the headband hair on other minifigures and it looks sweet as well. The islanders are also really nice minifigs. The bamboo hat and the masked minifigure are especially neat, in my opinion.

The set features two vehicles. The Kai speeder has a somewhat "transforming" feature where the "wings" of the boat extend for a sort of battle mode. It features missile launchers and and adjustable sail as well. The Islander's boat is actually three boats in one, because the sides of the boat come off for, again, a battle mode.

https://bricksafe.com/files/rioforce/bricksinmotion/reviews/jungle2-boats.jpg/640x640.jpg

These are great vehicles. From a brickfilmer's perspective, I like them as well. They're well detailed and easy to animate with/on. I enjoyed using them in the making of the above brickfilm, and, if I had animated inside on a real set, I would have enjoyed it as well. Of course, I didn't animate inside.... I chose to animate outside lol.

What do you think of this set? Is there anything I missed with this review? Would you animate with it, or maybe use some of the parts to create something else? Lemme know below. mini/smile

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"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

An interesting series I will continue to follow.

"Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b
"There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out." Russian Proverb

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

71745 Lloyd's Jungle Chopper Bike

Okay, so now that I've scarred you with that video.... let's get into the set review!

This set feels very classic. How can you go wrong with a LEGO motorcycle? I don't really think it's possible. The set is reasonably priced and comes with good minifigures too. The set comes with three minifigures. Two Ninja and one Rumble Keeper (whatever that is).

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/size/w1000/2021/03/image.png

Jungle Lloyd is not one to be trifled with in this set, and neither is Jungle Nya (which isn't much different than normal Nya, aside from the attire). Lloyd's headband hairpiece is a favorite of mine, just like I mentioned in my last review. The headband hairpieces are a really good addition to my collection.

Both ninja come with double sided heads, which I like. More options for posing and animating. The "Rumble Keeper" (again, what's that mean?!) doesn't have a second face on the back of the head.

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/2021/03/image-1.png

The bike itself "transforms" into two sections. First is a motorcycle with a sail. And second is a motorcycle... and a flying speeder (with a cool sail). The speeder has stud-launchers on it.

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/2021/03/image-2.png

Unfortunately, the cycle itself didn't really stand up. I was slightly disapointed in this fact because it had a killer suspension. I had to prop it for all these photos. But as you can see below, the rounded wheels caused it to fall to one side no matter what I did. You can see a clip of that happening here.

All in all, I enjoyed the set. It's useful for animation (just add a couple bricks to the bottom and right under the suspension and it stays still for animation), and it seems fun to play with if I were a kid (and I might be playing with it anyway hehe).

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"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

Nice job!

With God All Things Are Possible ~Matthew 19:26

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

NINJAGO 71746 Jungle Dragon


https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/size/w1000/2021/03/image-3.png

LEGO Ninjago 71746, Jungle Dragon, is a really neat set. The first thing you notice about this set is undoubtedly its "dragon" (which, honestly, it looks more like a lizard to me, but hey, they're all related, right?). Quite the stand-out build!

The dragon is mostly articulated, with ten articulation points, plus a tail, mouth, toe-nails, and wings. The legs are clicky-joints, the wrists and neck are mini-ball-socket joints, and the tail has a series of rotating "hinges". I think it's a pretty cool tail, definitely fun to play with.

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/2021/03/tail.gif

Speaking of the legs, I did mention they were "clicky joints." While this is undoubtedly better for longer lasting posing and stability, it's not so useful for animation. This makes it difficult to have a smooth walk cycle.

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/2021/03/leg.gif

The clicky joints also seemed to aggressive for this model in general. It's somewhat fragile where the parts of the body connect (the tail/back legs and the front half are connected by eight studs). This part (on both sides) fell off quite a few times while I was testing this product and even while I was just photographing it for this review.

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/size/w1000/2021/03/image-4.png

Many other decorative parts tended to fall off as well, but the structural part was my main issue. With this piece holding the dragon together, it was hard to play with it in one piece without constantly rebuilding.

That said, the details in this set are fantastic. It also comes with four minifigures and one mini-flying speeder (with stud launchers). The dragon is the main attraction, but without the minifigures, I would have been disapointed. As mentioned previously, the Jungle Ninja are quite detailed and a great look.

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/size/w1000/2021/03/minifigs.jpg

All in all, great set. Lots of fun to be had, even if it would need to be motified and reinforced slightly for any serious animation. I'd recommend replacing the clicky leg joints with large ball-socket joints and adding some more connections somehow to keep the back-end on the dragon.

What do you think? How's this set look to you? Let me know below! And stay tuned, because next week is the last NINJAGO Jungle review!

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"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

Here we go!
So the 4+ mech is abombnidable. The techniques are awful, the minifigure's just an average lame Jay figure, and there is nothing even slightly cool about it. Having said that, I think you managed to make an excellent video despite the set. That might be because the majority of the film mercifully did not contain the mech, but I also did like the brickfilm. I was a little confused at the start, but then I figured out that of course, it's an old point-and-click computer game. I knew the type, although I've never played one (I tend to stick to classics such as Donkey Kong, Duck Hunt, and the original Mario all on the Super Nintendo, those were the days!). It was actually a lot of fun to watch, so thanks for making it! Oh, and a sidenote, I do actually like the bad guy for this set. That's the one ok element to this horrible product. We should do a contest where good brickfilmers have to try to animate 4+ sets, I'm sure the results would be hilarious. And, contrary to other comments, I did really like your commentary. My condolences for being lonely in Episode 2.

On to Episode 2! How the stinking SHAC could you do something like that to your LEGO pieces! How?! Even though I admit that animating boats in the mud is a great funny idea, I am still shocked at the callous cruelty shown to your poor LEGO bricks. I hope you at least washed them off afterwards, and gave them some monetary recompense for the trials they had to endure at your hands. Mine gosh. Animating LEGO in the mud, ugh! Anyway though, the set is really cool. This new theme is really quirky, wacky, and interesting, and if you look at some of the YouTube and other site LEGO forums, it's a very controversial topic. For example, all of my die-hard super LEGO fan friends despise the new headband hairpieces, but I kind of like them. However, I do understand why someone would not like them, as that sort of headband does look somewhat odd on guys. But, since I don't have any, I'd love it if you could post some pictures of the hairpieces on other minifigures, like you were talking about in the review. About the actual minifigures themselves, I love the islanders, and the slightly video game-ish style of the decorations and tribal ornaments. However, didi you notice what look like bloodstains on one of the islander's masks? mini/eek. I don't know anything about the story, but it would be really cool if someone made up their own, and there's definitely enough material for someone to build a pretty expansive world. As for the ninja, their bodies are kind of generic and similar to many of their others in other previous themes, reinforcing the fact that I usually only ever buy Ninjago sets for the bad guys. The Ninja's heads are good, though, and Jay and Kai's heads could be used for a lot of different minifigures in a wide variety of brickfilms. The ninja's weapons are somewhat confusing, I wasn't expecting a robot to use a bow, and the abundance of machetes. It makes sense for people in the jungle to have machetes, but there's no need for them to be gold, and I'm not sure what they're doing on chains. Seems a bit violent. Even though some of them don't make much sense, the weapons are still cool. I really don't like Zane's hair, however, as it's not a very visually pleasing piece, and since it's metallic colored, I can't really use it for any other minifigures. However, maybe I can try to incorporate it creatively into a MOC or something. The boats are very cool. I'm not the biggest fan of Kai's catamaran, but it's well built, however, I love the Islander's boat. It's got so many great little details, and the new dark transparent blue bolts of the spring shooters are sweet. There are a couple big fat honking prefabs that are pretty terrible, but besides from that I really like all the colorful unique parts it comes with. The sails for both boats have interesting designs as well. Overall, it's a very nice set, and a great resource for the Islander minifigures and unique pieces, but overpriced.

Completely and utterly skipping episode 3, let's get on with discussing the set. The motorcycle is an interesting build. You were right when you said that LEGO motorcycles are very classic, however, I definitely think that TLG can and have gone wrong with different motorcycle models, but this set is pretty solid. I'm also a fan of the color scheme. The horns on the front wheel also has a great look, if a little bad guy-ish. The sail is a cool shape, but I'm not big into the designs on it. By themselves, the different symbols look nice, but when you put them together, there's way too much going on, and it's crowded and weird. Out of the hexagons, sci-fi script, and big Japanese-esque symbol, they probably should have just stuck with the big symbol and the contrasting sand green and white colors, I think it definitely would look better. For brickfilming, propping it up would be difficult, especially if you were making it drive, so I would probably say the second set was the best for animation, as long as you've got a big ocean (or a river of mud, if you're in the cruel mood). As for the minifigures, Nya is pretty good, however it's a little frustrating that out of all the ninja, the one minifigure they chose not to have the headband was the one it would probably have looked the best on. But she still looks decent. I'm not quite sure what I think of Lloyd's minifigure. His suit has some cool designs. His head, on the other hand, is fairly weird. He's got the face with the green eyes that he's had since the LEGO Ninjago Movie came out. I do think it's somewhat weird that LEGO abruptly changed his eyes, but hey, it's their products. The green streaks on either side of his face were a cool idea, but they made them a little too neat, straight, thick, and bright. They kind of crowd his face, and overall, it's not a great look, but the minifigure is OK I guess. Rumble Keeper is awesome. Hands down stinking awesome. I'm thinking of getting this set, but even if I don't, I'll probably BrickLink his figure (finances permitting). I really like everything about him, from his bamboo hat to his shield. This set is very reasonably priced as way. The storm amulet is actually a very neat piece, and similar to the Atlantis keys, and both could be used as cool decorations on a variety of things. The white spear is a little odd though, is it made of bone? I do really want to find out the story (it might be in the obscure corners of LEGO.com), because it seems to me that reading from the LEGO catalog set descriptions, that the Ninja have invaded the native's island, and are seeking to destroy them, sink  their ships, and steal their storm jewelry. Not sure who I should be cheering for here. Does LEGO have shady designs? Anyway, one more thing before I go, I believe the natives are generally as a whole collectively called the Keepers, and I bet it has something to do with the fact that they are trying to protect the storm amulet. The masked villager is called Thunder Keeper, so it makes sense that Rumble Keeper might follow. Well, thank you so much if you read all the way down this review, and even if you didn't, at least you read this. These are my opnions of the three sets you've reviewed, Rio, and the brickfilms you've made. Or at least the first 2. Actually though, the third was funny at parts, and if you try to ignore the wierdness, it's pretty good, despite the fact that there's not much animation. The new Ninjago theme is very solid, and one of the best in recent years, even if it does have a dubious story. Thanks, God Bless,
Sincerely,

Puskov

"Whatever that thing AquaMorph said about french kissing that's always in people's signature"
Married? Solder you balls now.

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

The dragon is very cool and looks super animatable. The video was weird but hilarious, but the baby bleeding was a bit too far. Still good though. Looking great!

"Whatever that thing AquaMorph said about french kissing that's always in people's signature"
Married? Solder you balls now.

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

I hope you at least washed them off afterwards, and gave them some monetary recompense for the trials they had to endure at your hands.

Don't worry! I took care not to get the sails dirty, and I cleaned all the plastic pieces well so they're just as good as new. I may be rough on my bricks, but they always receive the premium cleaning treatment afterwards mini/wink

it seems to me that reading from the LEGO catalog set descriptions, that the Ninja have invaded the native's island, and are seeking to destroy them, sink  their ships, and steal their storm jewelry. Not sure who I should be cheering for here.

I don't know if these are featured in the show or not, honestly. I haven't kept up with the show, so I can only review them based on the sets themselves. I really don't know why the Ninja are in the jungle or why they're trying to steal the dragon amulets. But hey, they're cool sets. I dig the minifigs. Even the hairbands. I think for the guys it gives them kind of an edgy macho look mini/lol

Here's a couple minifigs I used the headbands on. It's especially effective in shirtless mode mini/tongue But definitely it gives off a rough vibe, so it's not the most useful part for everyday brickfilming.

https://bricksafe.com/files/rioforce/Minifigures/Duke%20Exeter/duke%20headband.jpg/400x400.jpg

https://bricksafe.com/files/rioforce/Minifigures/rioforce/rioforce-headband.jpg/400x400.jpg

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"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

71747 The Keeper's Village

Wow! The last review of this series. It's been a good run, all. Don't worry, we'll have more reviews coming right up! But first.... let's get to this one. The Keeper's Village! Apparently, the ninja have made the trek through the jungle and finally have stumbled upon their final destination. They're going to grab the final dragon emblem and rescue Cole (how'd Cole get captured in the first place?).

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/2021/04/keeper1.jpg

This set is built upon two main "islands." They both include sand and light blue plates on the bottom to simulate the look of what I assume to be some type of structure on a beach, perhaps. Each island contains a lot of details. Floor details and play details. The smaller island includes this sort of see-saw-type contraption, which I assume is supposed to catapult a minifigure. It doesn't have as much leverage as it needs to adequately launch a minifigure into the air, though, so it more or less just causes the minifig to fall over.

It also has a stud-launcher which can hold three smooth-top 1x1 rounds at a time. I personally have an unreasonable hatred for stud launchers. I guess I lost too many parts when I was a kid even without stud launchers, so the thought of giving a stud launcher to a kid is basically like giving them vacuum fodder. They're way too easy to lose.

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/2021/04/giphy.gif

The other island's play features are great as well. The tower of faces is creepy and ominous, but fun. It comes apart and has mini ball joints for arms (I love mini ball joints, so this is great!).

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/2021/04/2.gif

It also has an area for play (or animation! We are on Bricks in Motion after all mini/tongue ). The details of the prison and the lava mouth structure are great as well. I only regret that I don't have time to properly light this bad boy up and animate and epic jungle battle on it. (But hey, if you get this set, you can do that and let me know! I'd love to watch it.)

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/size/w1000/2021/04/other-features.png

Finally, the minifigs. We've seen all these minifigures in the sets before this... except for Cole. I guess it's part of the story that Cole was captured. He was in prison on the back of the box after all. Cole also has a headband, this time in orange. Cool choice to give him some color by using orange. It fits.

https://blog.bricksinmotion.com/content/images/size/w1000/2021/04/figgies-1.jpg

Wow! That was a lot of reviewing! I had a lot of fun with these sets, and I hope that if you decide to buy any of them, let me know down below and we can discuss them together!

Keep on checking our blog and follow us on social media and Discord, we've got more reviews on the way. (They're not all NINJAGO, I promise mini/wink )

-rioforce

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"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

Is there a reason you don't let these sets inside your house?

Yes, it's homemade, fresh from the toaster oven.

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

lol

The official reason is that I have no more desk space to take pictures on..... (but idk man, those jungle dudes gave me nightmares:P )

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"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b

Re: LEGO NINJAGO: Jungle Adventures (Review)

They know all your secrets...

"Whatever that thing AquaMorph said about french kissing that's always in people's signature"
Married? Solder you balls now.