REVIEW: 70804 Ice Cream Machine

[Clone OPatra]

Ice cream "machine," or ice cream truck? That's your choice in…

Set Title: Ice Cream Machine

Set #: 70804

Theme: The LEGO Movie

Pieces: 344

Minifigures: 3

Year of Release: 2014

Price at Release: USD 30

Just browse the pics? Flickr set

INTRODUCTION

Who doesn't like ice cream? And who doesn't like pink? Tell me, who doesn't like giant LEGO ice cream cones? The answer to all of those questions is, of course, only crazy people. I consider myself at least partially sane, so I indeed was thrilled with the prospect of a LEGO set involving ice cream, pink and a giant ice cream cone. Let's check it out!

BOX

As the 2-in-1 boxes go, this one if fairly fun. The colors really pop, and the model looks ok. The ice cream truck in the corner looks better, though.

The back shows you a bigger picture of the very lovely ice cream truck, and also wants to make you think that flick-fires actually work and are fun.

This box is actually a little fatter than the other 2-in-1s, for some reason. Our cast is Ice Cream Mike, Ice Cream Jo, and Cardio Carrie. I wonder if she's the same as blood-soked Carrie. All look fun.

CONTENTS

Mmmmm, plenty of pink. I like.

Like all these 2-in-1s, three booklets: micromanager, flying machine, and truck.

In all of these booklets, there are warnings about not shooting things in your eye. The ridiculous thing is that they usually show them twice for one missile, often in a row, like here! I think people actually deserve medals if you manage to shoot a flick fire all the way into your eye.

There are a bunch of stickers, but they add character to the set. It seems like Octan runs absolutely everything in this film.

MINIFIGURES

These minifigures are all a lot of fun. We've gotten workout outfits in the collectible series, but this one is still nice. The ice cream outfits are great too, but sadly the white printing was too thin so the white on the torso doesn't match up with the legs. Sad.

Carrie has a reverse face with a mouth shape pretty similar to Sharon Shoehorn. Nice though. Mike's face is great too.

Everybody has simple back printing. Carrie has serious lats.

Since it didn't show up well on the previous photos, I snapped a close-up of Carrie's face to show the little sweat drops. They're a lovely little detail.

SET - MICROMANAGER

No legs no love. This might be my least favorite of all of these, but it's still kind of cute. This one actually has more of a play feature, which makes it sacrifice more of the cute feature.

So here it is: a mini version of a play feature that has shown up in a number of sets dating back to Vikings. Usually there's an actual launching mechanism, but this time you're just supposed to rapidly flick the missiles yourself. I tried it and… it actually works, using your thumb to pop them out. So I guess flick fires can work.

SET - ICE CREAM MACHINE

The flying machine leaves a number of useful pieces leftover. The big tubes are actually just general extras, and never used.

It's actually a pretty fun plane. The pink pops, the ice cream details are nice, and the big cone is a great "weapon." It also looks enough like a truck that was randomly converted into a plane, which I like.

It looks very cheerful. The color coordinated green and blue ice-cream shooters are cool. There's plenty to make me want to go pew-pew-pew as I swoosh it around.

Got to have some tail lights on the back. I hope Mike is holding onto something tight, because otherwise he's going to zoom right out of the open back!

He does have a nice big pole to hold onto.

The minifigures even look like they're having a good time.

SET - ICE CREAM TRUCK

The truck model leaves even more leftovers. Basically, if you buy the set for the truck, you'll get some nice extra plates in great colors to add to your Friends collection.

That's a fantastic looking truck right there. Nice and tall, and long, with a fantastic color scheme. We've never gotten a truck like this in City, and it's great!

The giant ice cream cone on top using the drill piece is ingenious. Both sides are open for plenty of ice cream serving all around.

The back has a window that just shows the ice cream vats inside, and has a bunch of lime studs for decoration. The tail lights are quite small and hidden down below.

As you can see, the set comes with plenty of the new ice cream cone piece, though a lot of them are used for decoration. You could pull them down and serve them to people if you want, though.

The inside has a little SNOTted freezer for popsicles, plus the soft serve vats and plenty of room for the figures. Great details.

COMPLETE SET and CONCLUSION

This is certainly my favorite of the 2-in-1s. The truck is superb, and nothing like what we get in City. The only issue is that the printing on the ice cream torsos is too thin, but it's not a deal-breaker. This is a fun one right here.

Only the garbage truck to go to finish up the 2-in-1 sets!

Edited January 1, 2014 by Rufus
Indexed

[gedren_y]

Wonderful set. A must have for certain parts. Is that blue ice-cream piece medium azure?

When it comes to the apron printing on the figs, it makes me think they are supposed to represent semi-transparent plastic aprons. I've seen those on local truck vendors.

[CM4Sci]

Thanks for the review! This is probably the only 2-in-1 set I'm gonna pick up besides the Garbage Truck one.

-Sci

[eurotrash]

Good review. I'm definitely going to grab this one.

Make mine a 99! (the English amongst us should get it)

[SnapLock]

Great review thanks.

This is the only set i would consider buying from the new 'Lego Movie theme', the ice cream truck is a must have

[LEGO Guy Bri]

Great set of reviews Clone O'Patra! At first glance I wasn't excited about these sets. Thinking they were only the crazy contraptions I was going to pass on them for regular City sets. After seeing the excellent variety of minifigs and the alternate models for some of these (Ice Cream Truck, Plumbers Van, possibly the Garbage Truck when I see it) I may have to get some of these

[Bricknblue]

Love this set. Way past time we got an ice cream truck and the solos are amazing.

[polarscribe]

I love the fact that it's Octan Ice Cream!

Is the secret ingredient petroleum products, or has Octan become LEGO's in-house all-conquering consolidated corporate conglomerate? :p

[Chocolatecake]

Thank you for the review.

The Ice cream Truck/Machine was on my spring 2014 list, but now it is in the top of the must have sets, this will be one of those set I regret it I'm not buying it.

And that's because of your brilliant review.

[Aanchir]

Wonderful set. A must have for certain parts. Is that blue ice-cream piece medium azure?

When it comes to the apron printing on the figs, it makes me think they are supposed to represent semi-transparent plastic aprons. I've seen those on local truck vendors.

I believe it's Dark Azur, same as in Heroic Heroes of the Deep and Jabba's Sail Barge.

Anyway, nice review! This is a quite nice set with a very non-traditional color palette. I love how the LEGO Movie sets have not been afraid to use color schemes that might be considered "cutesy" or "girly", and have used them to great effect. I hope these sets sell well so we might see more pastel colors in other themes. The color palette and sticker sheet remind me of this set from my childhood, though the more vibrant colors help it feel less washed-out than the sickly-looking pastels of Paradisa.

The Spring Yellowish Green (Yellowish Green on Bricklink) domes are something to behold, since up until now there have been scarcely any elements in this color, even though it debuted in 2012! It's also nice to see the color-coded tubes from BIONICLE and Hero Factory sets feeding the ice cream cannons.

The flying machine mode is appropriately zany, while the truck mode would not seem at all out-of-place in a LEGO City layout. Well, except for its size, which might seem a bit over-the-top compared to other LEGO City vehicles.

The Micro-Managers in general tend to be cool and diverse. I'm glad the flick missile launcher on this one works effectively. It'd be neat if those jets could fold up underneath like the legs and wheels of some of the others though.

Thanks for the detailed review!

[Freddy Bricker]

Thanks for the great review Clone O' Patra, those details on Carrie's face are just great!

[BlueberryWaffles]

I knew I was getting one but now I might get two...

Edited December 30, 2013 by Tolkien

[deviantsaint]

That Ice Cream truck is tasty. First LM set that is a must buy for me. I can see lots of wiggle room in there to make it my own. Can't wait to see how low I can get it.

[ikba]

Great looking set! For a moment I thought that the (spring yellowish green) 2X2 domes used as speakers were glow-in-the-dark, they're certainly a similar color!

[Hive]

Another fine review, thanks. While not into city, I must say that this set is pretty fine due to the alternative "regular ice cream truck" build. A refreshingly different build with lots of details.

Don't care for the flying machine version though.

[Vasko]

I love how they made the ice-cream cone. :P

Edited December 31, 2013 by Vasko

[TheOrcKing]

I am seriously loving these characters and builds. Can't wait to start collecting them all.

Edited December 31, 2013 by TheOrcKing

[Klaus-Dieter]

Thank you for this great review, Clone O'Patra!

I voted for above average since I don't like the flying ice-cream machine, but the ice cream van.

Con:

- no car doors

- overdimensional ice-cream wafer on top (looks probably bad next to City buildings an the van will only be able to drive through a tunnel or beneath a bridge)

- ice-cream bowls nstead of several "boxes" with many different sorts of ice-creams

Pro:

+ three new amazing minifigures

+ nice and very fitting design of the van

Although I would have prefered this set to be released in the City theme - where the van would supposably would have gotten car doors and not that an overdimensional ice-cream wafer on top - I really like this set and plan to get it.

Klaus-Dieter

[xray]

Great review, great set. Must add it to my City collection. Love the mini-figs.

[Fikko3107]

I appreciate the fact that I'm not the only person to get a thought that this Carrie might be related to Stephen King's Carrie...

[rodrigofernandes1307]

With some edits you can turn the ice cream truck into a Joker ice cream truck, that would be very nice to my batman collection

[ritzcrackerman]

I found the last copy of this set at my local LEGO store and picked it up for me and my 4-year old to put together New Years Eve. She loves it, and so does dad. It's super-fun. I just left it as the alt-model for her to play together with her cousins (that and the Cloud Cuckoo Palace) and they were occupied for hours. Good show, TLG.

[Clone OPatra]

I appreciate the fact that I'm not the only person to get a thought that this Carrie might be related to Stephen King's Carrie...

I appreciate that you read through the review and picked up the reference! I never know if the little references that pop out of my head do anything for anybody else, but it makes reviewing more enjoyable for me so I'd keep on doing it anyway.

[takuto20]

As much as I love this set, the white printing issue bugs me. A lot. So yeah, it is a deal-breaker for me. In my opinion, they ruined the figures by being cheap and applying too thin of a white paint coat. The aprons look terrible and don't match the printing on the legs. This happened with Santa too, what can we do to let TLC know that this is unacceptable?

Edited January 14, 2014 by takuto20

[Mr. Elijah Timms]

As a City builder, this was easily the biggest draw in the entire Movie line. And the build did not disappoint-- I took my time and really enjoyed building the van (forget the flying machine-- I'm not even sure if I saved its instruction book).

As said above, the biggest criticism is the white printing on the figs, and the scale issues in comparison with City great vehicles. I built this and the logging truck on consecutive nights, and in conclusion it just makes City trucks seem small in comparison-- I think the problem is that the Van is fairly accurate in minifig scale, whereas typical 6-wide vehicles are scaled back slightly.

Still, a great set and a MUST for City builders!

Edited January 14, 2014 by Mr. Elijah Timms