REVIEW: 6975 Alien Avenger

[Dunjohn]

I got this set in a dedicated Lego store while on holiday in Krakow last summer. I built it there but broke it up for the journey home, and didn't get around to rebuilding it... until now.

INFORMATION:

Set Name: Alien Avenger

Set Number: 6975

Theme: U.F.O.

Year Released: 1997

Number of Pieces: 369

Minifigs: 4

Price: Umm... loads of złotych, can't remember how much. I think I worked it out to around €80, which is about the Bricklink average.

Bricklink

The set came sealed in its box, but that's probably part of several rolls of toilet paper in Warsaw by now. The image above is from Bricklink. I'm no James May, I just couldn't fit the thing in my luggage. A pity, too; it was a nice big one with the flap on front so you could open it and drool on the special drool-resistant plastic membrane. Once again, apologies to the boxed-set collectors out there. This is one less for the brotherhood.

_____________________________________

THE CONTENTS:

The manual cover, with a nice little scene showing the terrified robot fleeing from the wildly out-of-control mothership.

A random page, showing the completion of the command module and the construction of the buggy. The graphics throughout are very clear and there are no problems with telling light grey from dark, but the lack of a piece callout makes certain stages a nightmare. Note how a sticker has suddenly appeared on top of the dome in the last stage. You need to watch out for that sort of thing throughout the building process. Using these old manuals was like reading a "Where's Wally" book at times. I had to backtrack some stages a couple of times, even on this second build.

The back features two alternative builds. I think they're actually rather good, but I haven't attempted them yet.

The set also contains a rather campy mini-catalogue for 1997, and an insert for ordering additional parts from various sets. Cute.

Pretty much everything is printed in the set, and there's a lot of it, but there're still these four special stickers which I didn't (and don't plan to) apply. The two black ones are heat-sensitive mood sensors. Touch them, and they light up with an alien face. Unless you're me. I must be a zombie or something.

Let me just pre-heat my hand....

Bingo!

Moving on....

PARTS:

The main colours are black and classic light grey, but pretty much all of it is hidden under the printed and transneon yellow saucer shell. I've made a couple of errors when sorting these out of my boxes: some bits are bley rather than the correst colour, and that bley flap in the middle of the black parts is the wrong flap type and wouldn't fit. I had to go back and find the right ones later on.

The cooler stuff. A bendy crane thing (which I hate), six magnets and their various sockets, small transneon yellow saucer segment (two in the set), small light grey segment (two), large light grey segment (four; two with printing on the left, two with it on the right), a transneon yellow octagon cockpit, a squared slanted one (two in the set), a safe with transneon hatch (two), two weird flappy things, the bizarre hollow octagonal 10x10 plate, and the printed tiles. I missed two of the 2x2 tiles, there are actually four in the set.

My set has a misprint, with one large segment having a thick yellow band across it. Meh. I'm not too bothered. I'll say I crashed into a mint-condition Yellow Castle.

The four minifigs: Three aliens with armour and helmets, and one robot with no accessories. These are the only minifig accessories in the set. I gotta say, though: These minifigs are easily my least favourite of all the ones I own. Their printing - and that of the entire U.F.O. line - strikes me as ridiculously over-detailed and complicated. Thankfully, Lego has toned it down since. I mean, the faces are just absurd. I've named them Smiley, Botox, Buckteeth and Robot.

Moving on....

THE BUILD:

Building begins with the figs, then the command module, then the buggy, then the large saucer section. This image is from very early on, I just wanted to show the first use of magnets. These attach the command module to the rest of the craft and do the job very well. This also shows just how spartan the command module's build is: Finish out the rim, attach a few antennea and the dome, and that's it.

This is the random page I pulled out earlier. As you can see, the excessive printing makes the command module look far more involved than it actually was. A victory for juniorization! The four stickers are also all applied on this page, three on the craft and one mood sensor on the buggy.

There are still a couple of stages to go before I attach the huge saucer segments, but as you can see, this is far more involved than the command module was, and the end result will be a surprisingly solid, sturdy construction.

The building process isn't symmetrical, you sort-of do it in layers from right to left. It lets you see everything, but exacerbates the "Where's Wally" phenomenon when they stick a few small bits in with the larger ones. This build is the stage before the one you can see in the book, but if you look at the book, you'll see that the black plate sticking out at the left should have two grey 1x4 plates on it. They were added in the previous step, and I don't discover the mistake for a couple of steps yet.

I've also just added the magnetic crane, which will be used to lift the buggy in and out of the centre of the craft. The reason I don't like it is because the segments are quite flimsy and separate easily, and also don't bend as smoothly as Lego illustrations and photographs suggest; instead, it tends to bend at only one or two points each time, giving a jagged look.

By contrast, this handle is a simple feature that I really like. If you hold the craft in one hand by the handle, you can spin it around, giving the ship oodles of swooshability and making the alien commander wonder what the Earth his engineer is drinking.

Gotowy! The ship has tonnes of moving parts and things to do once it's complete, and looks great too. I'm not fond of the two huge guns at the front. They're nice and menacing, but very plain. Given the OTT design ethic of the U.F.O. line, I think they could badly use some greebling.

The buggy sits in here. Robot doesn't get his own bed compartment, so I presume he's supposed to sit in the driver's seat between planets.

And the command module sits on top. Like I said, the magnets keep in in place very securely; if you try to lift it off by holding just the dome, the dome will come off before the magnets separate. You need to lift the rim with two hands.

I call this little thing the bug, because it really doesn't deserve all five letters. It sits in it's own compartment opposite the crane. However, you need to be careful when driving it off the ship...

...because it's quite a drop.

IN CONCLUSION

So, spending something like €80 on a set that probably retailed for a third that from a theme I hadn't even known existed because it reminded me of those awesome large Blacktron II sets I fantasized about owning as a kid: Worth it? Ehm... yeah, after seven months, I suppose I'm still happily feeling that odd misplaced nostalgia. The more striking elements aren't as MOCable as I'd convinced myself they were in the shop, unless I want to build something on-theme. The big, <insert that tiresome argument> elements make the end result look good but detracted a little from the building process. And of course, the minifigs are horrible. But overall, I'm very pleased with how it turned out. It is a deadly looking set.

Design: 8/10. A heavy reliance on large pieces to provide the shape, but they integrate well, and the thing is literally covered with doodads to lift and pull and turn and generally mess with.

Parts: 7/10. The larger bits are difficult to reuse and a lot of the smaller bits are old-fashioned compared to today's standard, but there are a god few pieces in here to fire the imagination by themselves, and it also has plenty of basic elements to support that. Transneon yellow is my favourite colour in Lego, and this set has it in spades.

Build: 6/10. Having to pore over every illustration to see if there are any 1x2 plates there that weren't there a second ago was a pain in the neck. We've come a long way, baby. Nothing too challenging otherwise.

Playability: 10/10. Lego managed to squeeze functionality into practically every seam between the large plates.

Price: 5/10. I suppose it hasn't inflated as much as more in-demand lines, and I knew I was paying collector prices which I managed to justify by being on holidays damnit, but still, it was a fair whack to the wallet. I don't think I was ripped off, by any means.

Overall: 80%. There are parts I don't like, the building could be a chore, but damn, the thing looks awesome when it's finished.

Thanks for reading!

Separated at Birth

- Dunjohn

Edited January 25, 2011 by Dunjohn

[vexorian]

Great review of a set that's good to remember.

This is probably the last space set I got the very year it was released. The year after it my store couldn't get insectoids in the country and then I tried getting old sets still available (Space police I / M-tron) anyway, this was a set I really liked. I actually like the figs. The faces are over detailed, but you don't get to see them most of the time, and I used them as a joke. "So that's the reason they hide their faces" But something good was putting the figs close to a light source and seeing the trans-plastic-caused glow in their eyes through the helmets... Which leads me to mention why I really love the figs - the parts are nice: The helmets, they have such a viper feeling, if you don't like the printing you can get it erased and the helmet will still be sort of unique. And then goes my favorite 1997 piece: The armor, that thing is so effective at making custom figs look evil...

Yeah functions were a nice surprise. I have fond memories of the "canons" but my favorite thing was how the magnets keep it together.

Edited February 19, 2010 by vexorian

[Lordofdragonss]

Maan I can't read this review after seeing those minimummies everywere. I spend almost 10 minutes laughing....

UFO theme was really nice and creative, but have some flaws too. Build is funky but's there is nothing special in...

The best are minifigs... I hope we will get trans faces and this helmets somewere again.

Gotowe

Heheheh...

Edited February 19, 2010 by Lordofdragonss

[Dunjohn]

Heheheh...

...three genders, mumble mumble....

[M'Kyuun]

Easily one of my favorite old school space sets, and one of my favorite themes. Unlike the reviewer, I loved the minifigs in this set...all the intricate detail, the cool helmets, the very alien faces, and the awesome robot. The ship itself was , as mentioned, chock full of moving parts and features. I'm a sucker for any large ship that carries smaller vehicles, and the stereotypical UFO aesthetic is great. Mine is still in mint condition, packed away (moved into a new house, and no room to put all my LEGO, so they remain cocooned in their cardboard boxes, for now)

Thanks for the review. It's good to see some of the classics trotted out and put on display.

[CP5670]

This is a nice model with a lot of features and details, and like the previous poster I love the minifigs in this theme. The middle section of the ship, where the big vehicle goes, was somewhat underdeveloped though.

80 euros would be pretty high if you bought it when it was out, even accounting for the usual regional price differences in Lego. I got mine back then and it was $60 in the US.

[ZO6]

I remember finding this set at a local Canadian Tire back in 1999. I was planning on picking up 5976 River Expedition from the Jungle Adventurers theme, but after running across Alien Avenger while doing some other errands on my way to TRU I decided to call it a day as far as LEGO purchasing goes. Now all these years later I'm looking to complete my Adventurers collection...

I liked the Alien Avenger a lot. The main model was fun, but more than anything I remember trying to build the Millennium Falcon using pieces from it. The minifigs were probably the highlight of the Alien theme for me - detailed torsos, groovy trans heads, and awesome helmets.