Headed the wrong Way – LEGO Disney, Moana’s Wayfinding Boat (43210)

It’s now a little over one year after the unceremonious demise of the LEGO Disney Princess magazine and just like Blue Ocean have run the publication into the ground, the whole series has taken an odd trajectory. It feels like it’s stuck in a loop and resigned to repeating the same themes over and over and several of the recent Disney animated movies having bombed hasn’t helped matters. So far it also doesn’t look like the company’s 100th anniversary will give us something spectacular, either, at least in the LEGO world. As a result, sets that actually interest me are rare and far in-between such as Moana’s Wayfinding Boat (43210) in this article.

Contents and Pricing

By now it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that those Disney sets are quite expensive and mostly overpriced. This one is no exception with only 321 pieces and a suggest retail price of 35 Euro. At first glance it doesn’t even sound that bad, but you have to keep in mind that there’s only two figures, a single animal, no extra side builds and of course the usual “It’s tons of 1 x 1s…” skewing the metrics unfavorably. At the same time things could be worse and they could ask 50 Euro for this, but that is little consolation. They’re really going in hard on this. Starting out so high inevitably limits the potential for discounts on the part of the resellers, and so more or less you have to be glad if you’re getting that typical 30 %, if at all. I bought my package for 25 Euro, but I’ve never seen it drop below 22 Euro even at some notoriously aggressive outlets.

The Figures

The figures are not much to write home about except for the fact that they represent new designs and of course we’re getting not only Moana/ Vaiana herself, but also one of the other villagers called Sina. The more obvious thing is the glaring absence of any animals bar the baby dolphin depicted in the overview image. No Heihei or Pua in sight, much less any other creatures. Even the dolphin is super, super lame in that it doesn’t at least come in a new color or has a big parent dolphin, possibly also in a new color, coming along as well. And then of course there’s potential here to sneak in a seagull or other bird perched on the mast… There’s no way around it: In the figures and creature department this is a complete fail.

The Model

The model is of course based on the catamarans that you can see in a few scenes of the movie like the vision about her ancestors. as you would expect from a play set aimed at children a lot of things have been simplified and to a degree also solidified/ bulked up with stronger elements to make them more robust such as the outrigger inevitably not being just a bunch of bundled up sticks but rather some massive bricks.

The model is not completely symmetrical, but except for some minor details related to the length of the two flotation bodies the build is hugely similar all the way. that accelerates the already very simple assembly process even further and in a manner of speaking you can do it nearly blindly. It’s very straightforward, which is good for kids not getting too frustrated. The only potential show stoppers are the two axles that need to be inserted vertically as safety pins to connect the floats to the deck bridge. They require quite a bit of force.

There aren’t that many noteworthy details and even if I had used the stickers, which of course I never do, this wouldn’t have changed much. On the positive side the LEGO designers at least had the good sense to make an effort to build some decorations with various tiles, including a bunch of skin-toned quarter tiles in Light Nougat.

The cabin/ bed area is equally sparse, though I wouldn’t have expected much else since in reality those boats really were kept simple and more a means of island hopping than travelling large distances in open waters. The “wood” look is achieved with the two Tan colors and various shades of Nougat with Orange, Coral and Red providing the colored accents. The model also likely benefited from LEGO having some elements in plain Nougat (no Light or Medium) left over from their production run for the UCS Luke Skywalkers Landspeeder (75341) from the Star Wars line. They complemented them further by actually producing the new flat arch element in this color and for the time being it’s even exclusive to this set.

The same applies to the 1 x 8 tiles in Light Nougat. A few other elements are on the more elusive side like the Lime 1 x 4 plate modified with two studs or the various coral parts, but most of those are in several Friends sets as well, so it’s only a question of time until they proliferate and will be available more widespread. 

A big stinker is the really ugly construction of the mast for the sail with the colors being all over the place. Yes, LEGO has color coding for the various axle lengths, but it’s not that the Yellow and Light Bluish Grey ones with the odd-numbered lengths aren’t available in both colors and conversely the Red and Black ones for the even-numbered lengths couldn’t be unified. That also goes for the various connectors. They all could just be a single color. You could even take this to the extreme and argue that this whole structure could be a single color. Would you really notice the differences between a 6L Black axle and a 5L Yellow axle if the proportions of the sail were adjusted accordingly to disguise and compensate the odd proportions? You can’t even explain this away with kid-friendliness…

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Concluding Thoughts

If you can get it for a good price this is an acceptable set for your Moana-loving kid, but you must be aware that it is pretty barebones. Unless you have the other sets to go with it to enhance the play fantasy you may be in for a lot of complaints. The non-inclusion of some decent animals and an extra piece of land or mooring/ landing bridge are baffling omissions and diminish the value of the set unnecessarily. For adults it doesn’t really have much on offer if you don’t count scraping together the few special/ unique parts, so you can skip over it without missing out on something.

Bang the Drum! – LEGO Disney Princess Magazine, February 2021

I’m currently not hitting the road for my many doctor’s visits as often as I used to for reasons that should be obvious, so keeping up with the slightly elusive LEGO Disney Princess magazine has become even more difficult. I was almost ready to order the February issue from the Blue Ocean online store directly when by sheer luck I discovered one of the magazines buried under a stack of others at a newsstand at Leipzig Hauptbahnhof (main station). The mag has been out for a month already, so I’m a little late, but that shall not stop us from having a look at it evaluating its value.

As so often the comic is kind of weird with the different Disney princesses appearing out of the blue together and Moana (or Vaiana, as she is called here in Germany) definitely doesn’t even make a good fit for most of the others inspired by the European Renaissance and Romanticism eras. I think they need to broaden the scope here and come up with better stories. I’m also puzzled by the drawings referencing old LEGO parts like the four-petaled 1 x 1 flower stud that hasn’t been used in any official set for almost three years now. Maybe they need to bring their illustrator’s guidelines up to standard?

Regrettably there is no reading story on the last few pages, something which I always considered something to elevate the mag as a whole. It gave it a bit of classiness and didn’t put it in the kindergarten category. We’ll have to see if they bring it back. Outside that there’s the usual labyrinth puzzles, a few coloring/ drawing pages and some info pages on the characters. They are centered on Moana‘s musical inclinations and what instrument you/ your kid might want to play, given the chance. One thing that stood out to me is the little crafting section on building a small drum with sticks from a cardboard roll, rubber bands, lollipops and bottle corks and then painting and decorating it. This could make for an interesting afternoon project to distract your kids.

The Belle poster is okay in my opinion, the reverse with a group shot of the princesses perhaps not so much. Either way, I think it’s already getting repetitive and they need to change things up here as well.

The extra is Moana herself with her drum. I already have the figure from the Moana’s Boat (43170) set, so this doesn’t set my world on fire, but if you don’t have it yet, you’ll like it. It’s well-produced and definitely worth a look. At this point the set I mentioned, which is the only one containing this figure, is marked to end its run. Therefore this represents a good opportunity to actually get the minidoll with minimum effort. the rest is not really worth mentioning, but I’m just as glad they left the bowl piece of the drum in Dark Red, so it could at least be useful as a realistic flower pot one day.

Really not much more to say than what I already wrote, but once more it seems to me that they don’t quite know what to do with the mag. You couldn’t even blame them for using it as an ancillary marketing tool because the content is so misaligned with what’s actually on shelves. I’m still stumped over this…

Today I’m a Princess! – Moana’s Boat (43170) and Aurora’s Royal Carriage (43173)

We all have our favorite animated Disney movies and while my most beloved ones have little to do with today’s modern takes on the subject nor in some way the more kitschy older ones I still enjoy even those for what they are when they run on TV or I can snatch them up on a cheap DVD/ Blu-Ray. That being the case I was, odd as it may sound, pleasantly surprised to see that there would be new Moana sets as well as a few others lined up for this year. Let’s begin with Moana’s Boat (43170)

I have a funny relation to this movie. I loved the original trailer way back then (the one with the flashbacks also used in the film where she’s a toddler), but to this day never got around to actually sit through the movie from beginning to end. I know bits and bobs and some larger sections even, but not the whole story. That’s perhaps one of the reasons why I never had much interest in the original, way larger sets. It’s not that I feel I missed out on something special, but I always wanted the little pig named Pua in my collection. The new release makes this easy enough, with this being a 10 Euro set, often sold for 7 Euro.

Given the pricing of course one shouldn’t expect anything miraculous to be included. The buildable components are very simple and just enough to allow to re-play some scenes from the movie, but far from being super-realistic or proportionally accurate. naturally there’s Pua the pig which I was so keen on and then a Moana figure as well. Here in Germany she’s called Vaiana, by the way, due to some other pre-existing registered trademark having foiled Disney‘s marketing plans.

The small island has been reduced to the bare minimum, but to me is still enticing. Not only does it contain the triple leaves element in Lime Green as a new color for this year but also the “poop” swirl 1 x 1 round plate introduced with the Dog Sitter Collectible Minifigure last year, but this time in white. If you know my obsession with LEGO Friends and baking you know that this will make a perfect piece for Sundae swirls or any other similar cake decoration while here in this set of course it stands in as a shell housing.

 

The boat/ canoe is an equally simplistic build, but is sufficient for the smallness of the overall set. I could be critical of the construction, but for the most part it will be just fine for kids. My only serious concern is the lack of an extra axle/ beam to support the auxiliary float, as indeed it’s only connected via the arched slopes. Similar to the island however there is a lot of value here if you are hunting for specific parts. 

 

First, there’s the two inverted curved slopes in Reddish Brown for the first time ever. Yes, one would think that such a mundane part had been done in this color a long time ago, but while I don’t always trust Bricklink 100 percent (they do get information wrong at times despite peer reviews), it seems true. Similarly, the bar used for the mast, an almost 30 year old mold, is premiering in a brown color in this set as well. And finally, there’s the new 2 x 2 x 1 container only introduced in 2019 (under the lid with the flower).

I almost struggle for words to describe how awesome it actually is that they crammed in so many “new” pieces into such a small and affordable set. Buying a second or third of these sets doesn’t seem like the worst idea, especially if the price drops even lower during some special promotion.

Moving on to Aurora’s Royal Carriage (43173) I can barely contain my excitement, either. Initially the only reason I so wanted this set is the owl. Yes, it may seemed stupid, but when i first saw pictures of this little critter and its dumb-founded look I laughed my bum off in the real LMFAO sense. Even now when I look at it I can’t help but grin and giggle. It pushes all my buttons.

The little side build with the table feels a bit superfluous and doesn’t do much for me. it doesn’t even have a genuine candle and the least they could have done to make this more interesting is to include the new “dripping icing” 2 x 2 plate found in the just released baking-themed LEGO Friends sets. A real wedding cake would have been even better. Other than that the set is again overflowing with pieces in previously non-existent color variants. Those include the bracket used for the seat, the modified plate with a single clip, the slope and there’s also the three to two jumper plate and the stairstep bracket, both of which however were already introduced in these colors for The LEGO Movie 2 last year.

There could be some debate on the modified tiles with the wall panel, though. New Elementary has a whole article on the subject, but I honestly think they are over-interpreting this and make things way too complicated. Point in case: The only reason why they all get different numbers is because LEGO counts them as special/ custom-produced one-off parts tied to specific sets or series. Other than that it’s presumably always the same coating that just looks different depending onto which base color it is applied. That’s in fact perhaps the most sensible theory to begin with. While nothing speaks against it, I don’t consider it likely that LEGO would try out a ton of different coatings. That would make things way to convoluted for mass production.

All things considered, I really like these two little sets. They offer great value for little money and just feel useful to me. I even almost like the minidolls. The ones used in Friends have definitely improved in terms of showing different prints and colors, but these two models show how further modifying them with different types of skirts and perhaps a different hair piece can further enhance them.

The models themselves are also robust enough to actually be played with by children. I accidentally dropped the storage box where I keep those things in during the photo shoot and aside from a few pieces that you would expect to come off such as the palm leave on Moana‘s island or some of the golden swirlies on the carriage nothing broke. It should be safe even for three-year-olds. If your kids are into any of the movies, you should definitely consider buying those sets.