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In a digital world dominated by the color black, only enlightened with touches of neon blue or neon orange, everyone is a program.
This could summarize the universe where TRON: Legacy, movie released in 2010 (sequel to TRON movie from 1982), takes place.
Later this month, LEGO will release a new set based on this license.
My initial feeling
To be honest, when I was informed that I would be reviewing this set, I was not really ecstatic. Not because it was a LEGO Ideas set (I love this series of sets, especially the NASA rocket or the Old Fishing Store which I consider as the best sets from last year) but because it was a TRON set.
Of course, I saw the films but they did not leave any significant impression on me.
I loved the universe, the color scheme, the ambiance, but I was not really found of the story.
However, I am not a film critic, I am a toy photographer. So, I was most interested by the challenge of making creative pictures.
The LEGO Ideas set
The set LEGO Ideas TRON: Legacy, composed of 230 pieces, represents one of the most iconic moment of the saga: the light-cycle bike game.
After the main character is absorbed inside the grid, he gets to play several games to survive and one of them is a race/fight on bikes. Those vehicles leave some kind of light wall/trail behind them (blue for the “good guys” and orange for the “bad guys”). To win you have to kill all the other players by driving them into those light walls.
This was one of the few memories I had from the two movies.
The initial project submitted on the Lego Ideas platform by BrickBrosUK only consisted of one bike displayed on a platform with the minifigure of the main character.
To my surprise, the LEGO designers decided to modify the project and included a second bike. This is great because it allows for even more picture possibilities.
Three minifigures are included to represent the three main characters from the movie: Sam Flynn, the main hero, Rinzler, the bad guy, and Quorra the beautiful heroine. They are all equipped with their identity disk(s) like all the characters in this universe and you can even recreate the disc battle scene of the movie.
The two light-cycle bikes are identical (except for the color-scheme) and they are a pretty good representation of the bikes from the movie, especially considering the size and limited posing of the minifigures.
Playing with lighting
It was such a pleasure to take this set in pictures. Of course, inspired by the movie ambiance, I had to play with lights. And, except for the light trail behind the bikes on the picture featured on this post, all the light effect you see on the picture were done practically. But a better description of the making-of these pictures will be shared in another blog post.
The 21314 LEGO Ideas TRON: Legacy will be available for sale directly through LEGO beginning 31st March, 2018 via shop.LEGO.com and LEGO® Stores.
And if you are in London on Thursday 29th March, 2018, you could participate to the UK Fan Designer signing event at LEGO Store, Leicester square where you will be able to get a set and meet the Fan designers of the initial LEGO Ideas project.
Thank you to the LEGO group and the LEGO Ideas team for providing this set for review.
Julien / Ballou34
Aeronautics engineer by day, toy photographer by night.
Exploring the world with his plastic figures.
Awesome little set.
Even more epic images.
Can’t wait to see the BTS of these, Julien.
And I really misunderstood you jumping up and down, saying me, me, me, … at our latest creative planning meeting when the question came up who wanted to review this beauty.
Can’t wait to see your expression on a set you *really* want to shoot and review :)
Awesome images.
Thank you very much Boris.
I will have to write a BTS blog post, for sure. But you’ll see that it was a pretty simple set-up :-)
I do share your view about the movies. I saw the first one as a kid, and even in the 90’s it still looks visually as a novelty to me. I saw the second one in the cinema, and like the original movie was in the 80s, it was visually beautiful but in the end quite forgettable.
That said I’m still really tempted to get the set, despite the high price for such a small one.
It’s a small set but a great one in the end. I really enjoyed it.
Beautiful lights. Really going beyond reality, just like the movies did.
Thank you. It was so much fun to make :-)
Wonderful photos. I never even considered that the internet might contain a toy photography blog until I saw the link on newelementary.com. I’ll have to check back and see what else is here. But FYI, Quorra is a heroine, not a heroin. Slight difference.
Thanks Mark. We corrected the typo, so Quorra is now a real heroine.
There is indeed an amazing wonderful world of toy photography out there and we are happy to be part of it. We hope you will be back to check out some more of our creative mischief here on SiP.
Ha, you did it again! Thanks, Julien, for surprising us once more! I’m really happy this set got to Paris so that these pics could become reality. And I’m very happy for all the positive feedback you’re getting for these. Looking forward to the BTS post…