"Marty, You're not thinking fourth-dimensionally!"
"Pre-Spin City" Michael J Fox and "Post Taxi" Christopher Lloyd caught our attention in the 80s as High School student Marty Mcfly and Doc Emmett Brown in the Back To The Future movies series which will always be remembered for an excellent cast, thrilling adventure and great humour, not to mention hoverboards, intelligent Nike shoes, self cooling jackets and cars that run on Portable Nuclear reactors called "Mr Fusion" but i digress. Nostalgia is big business these days so there was already a ready made fanbase waiting to lap up this long overdue Lego interpretation of the time traveling Delorean DMC-12. This particular set, like 3 other sets that came before are the results of CUUSOO programme where individuals or groups can submit ideas for new Lego sets and those who gain enough support will then pass through Lego's evaluation committee to assess whether to produce it en-masse for public consumption. On to the review!
Box & Contents
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| Attractive box design |
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| 5 packets of parts & a think booklet with instructions & photos from the movie |
No sticker sheets to muck around with in this set.
Minifigs
It comes with 2 minifigs (of course): Doc Emmett Brown & Marty Mcfly:
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| Doc & Marty |
Assembling
I have decided to go with a different approach than the past where I used to take photos at significant stages of the build to show the progress till completion. This time i am going to show stop motion videos which detail the step by step process of how this vehicle is built. Enjoy!
Part 1
Part 2
The completed Delorean looks like the following:
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| Complete! |
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| Note the License Plate displays "OUTATIME" |
Back to the Future II
It does not take much to modify the Delorean to reflect the version seen in the 2nd movie in the franchise. See video below for proof:
The completed variation from the 2nd movie is shown below, essentially the wheels are now red, the portable fusion reactor is added and the license plate is now a bar-code.
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| "Where we're going, we don't need roads!" |
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| Note the Mr Fusion portable Nuclear reactor (in white) & orange barcoded license plate |
Back to the Future III
Again, the main modification to version 2 of the Delorean is to add the panel of pieces on the bonnet of the car as shown below:
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| BTTF III version Complete |
Final Thoughts
Essentially quite a nice looking design but it is not without issues. Firstly, the original concept vehicle in the original submission had a wider roof and the front bonnet of the vehicle was more movie accurate. The revised version released in this set seems to skimp on parts and it means a short roof and the pieces used to construct the doors and windscreen are not as "resilient" as I would have liked it to be. The reduction in parts also results in a few problems: You can't fit 2 minifigs in the car because the width of the seat is too short. Even if you can fit one of them in, the roof is also too low and too short, so the minifig has to lean back more and half of his head is sticking out to the right of the car roof. The 2 parts affixed to the bonnet to help form the front windscreen of the car are flimsy and are not actually joined to the roof. Another interesting issue is a spelling mistake on the flux capacitor (see below). "Shield" is spelt wrongly.
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| 'SHEILD' EYES FROM LIGHT |
These issues do take the shine away from what otherwise would've been a perfect product. The originators who created this concept are pushing for a UCS version of this car (as well as the train used in the 3rd movie) on CUUSOO. If and when it gets built, let's hope these issues will be addressed and BTTF fans will get the version they truly deserve.
Interested fans who intend to get this set, can get it from Amazon.com for US$34.99 (Full retail price) or cheaper. Currently it is able to be shipped directly to Singapore from the US. If you combine it with other global eligible items to make up the minimum of US$125, it ships for FREE. Till next time, happy building! I'm outahere!
