Lego WALL*E

My Daughter loved the WALL*E movie when she was little.  I convinced her EVE was a princess robot and that was all it took.  Now I personally see parallels between the emotional arc of this story and the Heinlein book, the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, where the story makes you care about an artificial creations well being.  So when Lego announced it was producing a WALL*E set I knew I had to get it.  We even watched the movie while we put it together.  I think it is interesting that this item is sort of totally against the moral of the story though.  It is an unneeded object that will last forever to clutter up the future.

There is some controversy with this set.  When it transitioned from the original design to the production version Lego made some changes probably to save money on parts cost but those changes left the neck of the model not strong enough to hold the rather large head.  You can find videos on YouTube if you want to see the results.  Pretty much any touch caused the head to fall over.  Now this is a collector targeted set so that was not going to work so Lego redid the sets.  Mine came with a short additional instruction booklet which changed like a 20 step sequence in the build.  Most of the steps were not changed but to make it look like in the pictures this was the modification.  Seemed to work pretty well.  Head is not perfectly stable but does not fall over with a stiff breeze.  It is now a reasonable compromise between adjustable and stiff.

Here he is all assembled.   Looks pretty good.  Only issue is really that he is to new.  WALL*E was beat up and dirty looking.  That is not the case here.  Pretty shiny and uniform in colors.

His chest opens, arms and hands move, head can be adjusted.  The treads roll.  I wonder if you could modify it with a mindstorms motor and get it to be powered motion.

Detailing on the back also.

 

The arms move in little slots but he cannot fold back up into a cube.

 

You also get a little plant but no boot to put it in and his little roach friend in very abstract form.

 

Plus due to the change in design to fix the nexk you get a few extra bits.  Overall I really like it and have it out for display in my basement.  It is like 60 dollars so pretty expensive and lego store or online only type of item so not a ton of discounting chances but still worth it in the fixed form.