Blistering barnacles! LEGO sure seems to be on a retro kick lately. Between Snoopy, the Model T, and now the Tintin Moon Rocket (and if we’re being honest, Batman), LEGO is on a hot streak with IP that were big back when Ole Kirk Christiansen was still at the helm. Seeing Tintin and company make the transition to brick wasn’t on our bingo cards when the Ideas program kicked off, but when the Destination Moon rocket from fan designer Tkel86 made it to design review and was selected to become a set, we were pretty chuffed. We love a good rocketship, especially one as colourful and curvy as this one. But is building this retro rocket a voyage that will satisfy adult LEGO fans? We called in an expert to investigate. When it comes to constructing brightly colored retrol rockets, there’s no better builder than David Roberts. David digs into the build with the analytical prowess of Professor Calculus and the salty conviction of Captain Haddock.

LEGO Ideas 21367  Tintin Moon Rocket | 1283 Pieces | Available April 1|US $159.99 | CAN $209.99 | UK £139.99

Firstly, I have to start by thanking The Brothers Brick for inviting me to review this set. It’s a real privilege and exciting too. Secondly, I might be a bit biased when it comes to this particular model. I was an Asterix kid in the 1970s, rather than a Tintin fan but I really like building Lego spaceships and I LOVE colourful spaceships, so let’s go!

First Impressions

Prior to this, the largest Lego Space set that I ever had was LL918, in 1978, when I was just 6 years old. To me, this new Lego Ideas set is like space: it’s big*. The boxed set weighs about 1.5kg or 3 ¼ lbs and is 46cm or 18” tall. The nearly life-sized photo of the Moon Rocket could almost work as a poster. The age on the box is 18+. It will be interesting to see what the build is like, as a set like this would be attractive to somebody like my 10-year-old nephew.

Inside, there are 11 of Lego’s paper bags. I quite like these. They make each stage of the build a bit of an adventure, as you open each opaque bag and discover what parts are hidden inside. There are also two large, red, specially made, ½ nose cones. These could inspire all manner of sci-fi builds and were quite exciting in their own right! There are 1283 pieces in total, plus a small sticker sheet.

Unlike the original Lego Ideas submission, there’s no launch tower or base. I think that the decision not to go with these is a good one, as it will keep the price down, and the main fun is in the rocket and the minifigures.

The cover of the instruction book is plain but has a super photo of the Moon Rocket. It reminds me of the classic 1970’s sci-fi art that inspires a lot of my Lego building.

The opening pages contain a profile of the Ideas submission’s creator, Alexis Dos Santos, with a description of how his concept was transformed into the Lego set. There’s also a little bit of background on Tintin, though I’d imagine that many people buying this set will be experts and enthusiasts.

* With apologies to Douglas Adams, “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.”

Building

Straight out of Bag 1 are the famous Belgian reporter and his trusty dog, Snowy. I think that a lot of people will buy this set, or its figures second-hand because they are Tintin enthusiasts. There are worlds of building opportunities that cover Tintin’s 24 books. The joy of Lego is that the heads of Tintin, Prof. Calculus and Thomson & Thompson can be swapped onto bodies that suit the adventure. Snowy, however, is fixed in his orange spacesuit. The figures and cockpit microphone are the only printed parts in the set, with the rest being stickers.

Each astronaut has a nice set of brick-built air tanks. The only downside to these is that they tend to make the figures back-heavy and so their feet need anchoring. The rest of the figures are spread throughout the build. This is fun, as some of the building process can be repetitive and the new characters break things up and give you time to play (well I did!).

Bag 1 also contains a brick separator. Whilst I have dozens, there will be people buying this set because they are Tintin fans, rather than being keen Lego builders. The build process is long and complex (it took me about 4 hours) and mistakes will happen (I made a few!). The brick separator and page of instructions on how to use it, will be welcomed by many folk who buy this set.

There are also some pieces that were new me, which was exciting. Although they’ve been around for a while, the 1x1x2/3 bricks in orange will be very handy in future MOCs. Another piece that was new to me was the 73831 2×3 plate with cut out. These come in medium grey and nougat.

The build itself goes straight in with an advanced mixture of SNOT and Technic, laying foundations that will only be needed at the very end. Building up the layers of plates is made easier by Lego’s familiar pattern of using a variety of colours and 1×1 round plates, plus their clear diagrams. At the end of the bag, there’s a 1:1 diagram to put the sub-assembly onto, to check that everything is properly aligned. This model has threefold and sometimes six-fold symmetry, which can be hard to keep track of. The book has several of these 1:1 diagrams and they really, really help! From Bag 1, I’ve already answered my question about the 18+ age on the box: this isn’t a project for my 10 year old nephew.

Bag 2 carries on with the internal structure of the rocket. The pieces that were new to me in this bag were the 1×3, black Technic bricks and 1×1 blue, balls. A recurring theme throughout this build was the number of extremely useful pieces for creating MOCs. These were often in mainstream colours, such as red, white, black and medium grey.

Bag 3 brings the irascible Captain Haddock. In his Lego form, he also has a happy face on the other side of his head. New pieces for me were the 1×3 Technic liftarms, with an axle hole in the middle. What a brilliant piece to find in this set! I’ve had so many Technic mechanism puzzles that would have been so much easier to solve with these pieces, over the years. Let’s hope that they become a common sight!

This bag also has the build stages that were the trickiest for me. It uses seven layers of 57585 connector hub with 3 axles to make a sort of Christmas tree that will eventually have the six panels of the Moon Rocket’s body attached. I’ve used this technique in my own MOCs and so I was ready to keep track of the phases of each layer. These are colour coded, so that once the sub-assembly is finished, dark blue parts attach to dark blue and white to white. There’s also a 1:1 diagram for each layer: the build is complex, but the delivery has been well thought out.

Bag 4 brings the first of many, many 2×2 and 1×4 curved bricks, in red and white. The model will eventually stand at an impressive 49cm / 19.5” tall, so it’s only to be expected. There are 48 white 2x2s, 72 red 2x2s, plus 15 white 1x4s and 21 red 1x4s. One of the things that has always stopped my projects for building cylindrical spaceships was the vast amount of curved bricks needed but that has now changed! The pieces in this Ideas model, new and old, have given me some building ideas, and I hope it will inspire others too.

The brains of the operation, Professor Calculus, arrives in Bag 5. The stage itself can be quite rapid. There are two lots of 6, identical sub-assemblies to build. I set up a parallel production line and made six each at a time, page by page. Doing these one after the other would really slow down less experienced builders. To finish off, there are some 2×4 curved bricks 3 in white and 3 in red, to add to the hull. These were another new and useful-looking piece to me. There are 6 of each in the set, with the red ones being a new colour.

Bag 6 is just two pages of the instruction book but it is most of the red & white curved slopes for the hull. As with a lot of this build, it’s quite repetitive, due to the symmetry. Once this stage is finished, the shape of the rocket starts to emerge. I had been wondering why a simple cylinder needed so much complex structure underneath it. The reason is that the Moon Rocket model, just like the one in the comic books, is not a cylinder at all. Above the base, where its legs are anchored, the Moon Rocket subtly tapers outwards. The top panels will taper back in again before the ½ cones top-off the spaceship.

Bag 7 starts the taper of the top panels and also brings a yellow 67811, Technic steering wheel. It’s a useful greeble to any sci-fi Lego builder, though here it enables gap-filler panels to be clipped in between the main panels of the hull. New to me were the 5264 1×1 round plates with a clip on the bottom in blue, which look very useful indeed.

The famous detectives, Thomson & Thompson arrive in Bag 8. Being a child of the 1980s, I learned something here. There was a famous band called the “Thompson Twins”, who were apparently named after Herge’s characters. It turns out that the detectives were never twins, have different surnames and different moustaches, which are captured here in Lego form. With the last of the curved bricks, the fuselage is looking impressive and rocket-like.

The massive legs of the Moon Rocket are built from Bags 9 and 10. These legs are noticeably different from the Ideas submission, where the curves were made from different sloped bricks: a design after my own heart! However, for a Lego set, this construction would be too fragile and liable to break at multiple points. Instead, it uses some clever geometry and new curved bricks to get a stronger, smoother, more curved result. The set includes six 7217 slopes, curved 8 x 1 x 1 2/3, plus three 3572 arch 1 x 5 x 2 raised, new in red, and nine 3172 plates, modified 1 x 2 with pin hole on end, also in red. This enables the legs to be attached with Technic axles, through bricks that were added back at Bag 1.

The Moon Rocket’s feet are also larger than the Ideas submission, which helps to make the tall, heavy model stable and safe to display on a shelf. Each foot has four 5152 brick, round corner 3 x 3 macaroni pinned through the legs with two Technic axles for a strong connection. I sincerely hope that the six ½ nose cones in red will inspire all sorts of MOCs, especially colourful sci-fi ones!

We’re on the home stretch now, with the crew ready and waiting to launch. The first things to build from Bag 11 are the three hemispherical feet of the Moon Rocket. With that, the rocket can be uprighted, ready for its cockpit at the top.

This is a delicate part of the build. The instrument panel is made from two Sand Green 3535 panels and 3 x 3 x 2 corner convex, with stickers on their insides. Like many people, I’m not a fan of stickers in Lego sets. It would have been great to have had printed pieces for Tintin and Captain Haddock’s handsets and the 2×2 round display tile in the cockpit. However, I don’t think that it would have been possible for Lego to print on the concave side of the curved pieces. My recommendation is to use the thin steel tweezers from a Victorinox Swiss Army knife to lift and place the stickers. The stickers are tough plastic. They can be repositioned on the bricks and will last longer than the paper stickers on the body of my LL918 red spaceman from 1978!

The last job is to pop the cockpit on top of the Moon Rocket and add the second ½ cone and the probe on top, which holds it all neatly together. With the cockpit being a self-contained module, it would make a nice display with the minifigures, if somebody didn’t have shelf space for the tall Moon Rocket itself.

General Thoughts about the Build & Set

The Lego Ideas Tintin Moon Rocket is an impressive, colourful model. Its shape means that it’s quite a complex build. It’s a robust display piece, and many people will buy it for the unique, useful parts and especially for the minifigures. The set is definitely one for adults to enjoy the challenge of building it and taking pride in displaying it. It’s well-engineered and is fun to swoosh! The minifigures will attract people who might want to build other Tintin adventures, though Snowy is stuck in his spacesuit.

As a builder of colourful Lego spaceships, I did feel that the set missed some opportunities. The complex internal structure doesn’t give the full curves of the fuselage from the comic’s drawings. For the design & engineering effort, it would have been nice to have seen the shape more pronounced. The Ideas submission had the fuselage between the legs tapering down, whereas the set is a straight cylinder here.

I think that the complexity of the build will have put up the price of the set, making it less accessible to some Tintin fans. Then again, the retail price is 160 USD/Euros or £140, so the set isn’t super expensive in the scale of modern Lego sets. The complexity of the build also makes it less accessible to Tintin fans who are not Lego builders.

Secondly, there’s no volume free inside the hull and no play features. None of the figures fit inside the cockpit with its two halves closed. Yes, this is a set for adults but it feels like a missed opportunity. If the entire length of the hull was a simple cylinder, the internal structure could be lighter, cheaper and easier to build. This would make the model more accessible to more builders. It might also leave space to fit the crew inside. I’m not suggesting anything like Stefan or Tyler’s ginormous Moon Rockets, which would be too expensive for Lego to market, but a hollow rocket could be used to store the minifigures when they’re not on display.

It’s a very difficult thing to balance. I’ve been put off building cylindrical spaceships for exactly this reason. A lot of the techniques used by castle builders to make nice, round towers won’t work for spaceships because they either have no free internal volume or rely upon sitting on a flat base and can’t be swooshed. All design and engineering results in compromises and choices had to be made to get the proportions of the Lego Ideas Moon Rocket to work in a relatively small package, despite being 49cm/19.5” tall!

Conclusion

Despite what I see as shortcomings, this set will be attractive to many categories of people, some overlapping. This isn’t a set for somebody like me, who likes the play features and story potential of the latest Lego City space sets. It’s definitely a set for adults, and its 18+ box age is justified.

However, it isn’t difficult for me to imagine the many types of builders who would appreciate this set – Tintin fans, LEGO Space fans, connoisseurs of a sophisticated technical build, and MOC builders excited by new moulds and minifigs. I think that for all of these people, the Moon Rocket has an impressive scale and feels like a good value at 160 USD/Euros or £140.

 

LEGO Ideas 21367  Tintin Moon Rocket | 1283 Pieces | Available April 1|US $159.99 | CAN $209.99 | UK £139.99

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