Moviegoers were first introduced to the Emerald City in 1939, as Dorothy and chums headed there to see the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The magnificent bejewelled city will be revised later this year in the Wizard of Oz prequel, Wicked. The Wizard’s Palace looks a little different to how it did in 1939 but it’s just a regal and will be an important part of the upcoming film. So much so it’s the subject of the largest of the new sets inspired by Wicked. Although only briefly seen in the film’s trailers, you can get a basic idea as to what the new Emerald City will look like and how it compares to its brick-built counterpart. There’s head off to see the Wizard.
Product Details
Set Name: Welcome to Emerald City | Set Number: 75684 | Pieces: 945 | Theme: Wicked
Number of Bags: Bags x 10 (paper) | Instructions: Paper booklet + Builder App | Stickers: Sheet x 1 | Characters: Glinda, Elphaba, Madame Morrible, The Wizard and Fiyero
RRP: £89.99/$99.99/99.99€/169.99AUD/129.99CAD
Availability: LEGO Stores, LEGO Online & LEGO Retailers
Back in 1939, Emerald City was shown as matte paintings and colourful sets, if a little basic. Back then this was considered groundbreaking. However technological advances have allowed Emerald City to be shown in all its glory. Part of it has also been recreated for the largest of the four sets inspired by Wicked.
The Emerald City building is made up of four different sections. They are built independently but are joined together to form the final structure. The bottom sections are fixed together with A brackets but the top section can be easily removed as it is just connected to the base section. Each of these sections represents a different service offered in Emerald City.
Although it is the biggest of the Wicked sets, it’s still quite compact so each of the rooms is quite small and features minimal detail. The rooms of the building include a tea room, a beauty shop and a Toffee Apple stand. Although these sections aren’t overly detailed inside the exterior of them all is outstanding. The use of parts and colours gives the building’s outside appearance a magical feel. There are a lot of curved pieces used to frame doors and windows. These are great fun to build as they are a little unusual.
It’s the central tower of the building which impresses the most, both inside and out. This is home to the Wizard’s room. Not to spoil a film which is 85 years old, but in The Wizard of Oz, the mysterious Wizard is nothing more than a con man with a talent for theatrics. This results in a huge head controlled secretly by the Wizard. This is something also seen in Wicked and is featured in the set has a brick-built head. It does use a couple of stickers but this is a fun little detail and a huge part of the Wizard of Oz lore. The Wizard’s love of fanciful things is perfectly shown on the exterior of the tower. The circular framing found elsewhere on the building continues in the tower but my favourite part of the build is the transparent green leaf elements which decorate the top of the tower and its large round window.
Along with the building, the set includes a fancy coffee cart. This combines the half bike frame element with a buildable platform which is used to display the products on sale. The bottles and containers on display look a little whimsical than the average coffee cart.
The set features five characters from the film, these are all mini-dolls and include unique versions of future Wicked Witch Elphaba, a good witch in training, Glinda along with The Wizard, Madame Morrible and Fiyero. All five mini-dolls are unique to this set. Even though the two witches appear in each of the Wicked sets, they once again offer two unique versions of the characters. Not only are they unique, but they are also the most detailed. Elphaba is featured in her fully transformed ‘wicked’ appearance. Her black robes are adorned with both silver and purple detail and she’s also sporting her iconic hat, which is a new element and has her hair as part of the piece. She also wears a material cape, which is made from a softer, more flexible material, although it does feel a little too long compared to the size of the character. Glinda has another pink costume, this time with the use of the fuller dress section. She also adds her tiara and wand, making her appearance seem closer to what we see in the Wizard of Oz. One thing I’ve noticed about all versions of Glinda, especially this one, her mini-doll has an oddly unsettling vacant stare. She’s the only character who looks this way. Maybe the designer wasn’t an Ariana Grande fan or it was meant to look this way to portray the character’s self-centred attitude.
The other characters include The Wizard, who Jeff Goldblum plays in the film. It’s one of few mini-dolls to be based on a male star. He can don hair or a top hat, this style looks a little odd. But mini-dolls wearing hats with no hair always look strange. The excellently named Madame Morrible acts as a mentor to the two witches and is played by Michelle Yeon. Her mini-doll looks exactly like the on-screen character, which is quite impressive. Her new hairpiece is perfect for the character. Finally, there’s Fiyero, which marks the current Hollywood hot ticket, Johnathan Bailey’s first LEGO appearance. As a Mini-doll, he looks just like a generic character.
Without seeing the film, which isn’t due to be released until next month, it is hard to tell how well the set represents what will be seen on the big screen. But from the snippets seen in trailers, it looks like a faithful representation of the fabled Emerald City. Beyond that, for the younger LEGO fans, it will be a fantastic tapestry to relive the film as well as offering extra content via the QR code. For older LEGO fans, it’s a set packed with interesting elements and build techniques. Most people prefer minifigures over mini-dolls but they do seem to work better for the characters from Wicked. The Welcome to Emerald City set is available now.
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LEGO Group provided this set to BricksFanz for review. The thoughts within this review are those of BricksFanz and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group or Universal Pictures. Providing a set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
