The Lego Movie Trash Chomper set review

Okay, so this is the second time I've reviewed a Lego set, and one from The Lego Movie no less. I'd give some back story and all that, but I already did that when I reviewed the Bad Cop's Pursuit set awhile back. I still say the movie is awesome, and that it should be seen at least once when possible. This time we're looking at the Trash Chomper set.

First though, this set is a bit different than the previous one. The previous set had several numbered bags that were opened one at a time. This set asks to open all of the bags at once and sort the pieces by color before one starts building. The reason for this will be made clear in a little bit, but for now let's meet our mini figures!



Here we have from left to right Garbage Man Grant, Gordon Zola, and Garbage Man Dan. And a mess. It would seem judging by the lines in the middle of his chest suggesting a belly that the good chef knows a thing or two about food. The garbage men have the exact same legs and bodies as one another, just their faces and hats are different. There's no real point in mentioning articulation here, you've seen one mini figure's you've seen them all.



Alright, time for the builds, starting with a robot known as a Micro Manager. These come in many different designs, but are generally blocks with grabby arms and in colors Batman would approve of. (black and dark grey) The arms on this one have about 4 points of articulation each.



For gimmicks, the sides swing open to reveal 4 'flick fire' missiles. Just push on them from the back to fire! They actually can travel a pretty good distance, so it's fortunate that there's a spare missile and translucent red tip included.

So now that we've gotten that little thing out of the way, how about we see where the remaining pieces go?



The remaining pieces go into building...an Octan Rubbish garbage truck. It's actually pretty dense, yet has enough room for the driver to have a cup of coffee. Please excuse the terrible sticker job, once they're on, they REALLY don't want to come back off. A cute thing is the license plate number is in fact the set build number. The bright orange looks nice where it pokes out, but I'm not exactly sure why it's used. Unlike Bad Cop's car, which had surprisingly few studs sticking out on top, this big green brick on rubber wheels leaves most of them exposed for all the world to see. The shovel and broom can be stored on clips on the sides, and if you want any mini figure can grab onto the bars towards the front.



Aside from rolling, which it does admirably, there's one gimmick this thing can do. Turning a knob on the side makes the back open or close. Sadly, I can't get a really good picture of back there as the back doesn't open very high.

Now, I mentioned that there was a reason why this set doesn't come in numbered bags to be assembled one at a time. And that reason is this is a two-in-one set! That's right, there's an alternate build with the provided pieces. Well, not the ones for the Micro Manager. So naturally we should take a peek at this alternate build, right?



Behold what I'm guessing is what the set is named after, a flying machine with a big set of jaws up front. It's almost completely different than the first build though there are a few sections that can remain as they are between them. I absolutely love this build and how it looks like a kid thought it up. However, I don't enjoy how it asks that one put the orange and silver plates together, as they are a pain in the butt to get apart again after. A possible solution is to just attach them together lightly instead of shoving them on all the way. I'm not quite sure what the shovel and broom are doing on the ends of the wings, but at least they've got some place to go. And since I know everyone is curious as to what it can do like this, I've enlisted a professional stunt robot to demonstrate...



This time twisting the knob makes the jaws open and close. They're geared together, but in such a way that the gears won't get ruined if one or both sides get stuck. Clever.

Now we come to the recommendation time. This set is in the same price range as the previous set I've reviewed. Again, if you've never been into Lego, trying one of the smaller and cheaper sets first would be a good idea. This does have the benefit of having two builds to play with and reason to disassemble and reassemble it over and over just by itself. However, I do recommend it if you do have interest in Lego. Now if only I could find Metalbeard's Duel...

For some reason, I was thinking, Knockout was thinking how chuffed that he is, with the building of his latest creation and the fact its got Waspinator! 

HA! Waspinator needs to keep his grubby nose out of the trash, then things like this wont happen to him.

Galvatron wrote:HA! Waspinator needs to keep his grubby nose out of the trash, then things like this wont happen to him.

Things like this ALWAYS happen to Wazzpinator...

Well something odd happen to mine when he crossed over into my Lego Castle comic, but I'm not saying what, you have to go and read it to find out!