This evening I completed my review of this beautiful, well-constructed, practically 1:1 realistic scaled collectible display piece.
Video: LEGO Ideas Ship in a Bottle review ⚓ 21313
To my utter shock, I'm seeing a lot of fan negativity towards this wonderful fan-inspired product. While I agree that the ship in original Ideas submission looked much nicer, there were some pretty strong & inescapable factors that made duplicating it completely unreasonable to expect:
Total ~1,800 pieces, which would have made it a $140+ USD set, twice as expensive and accessible to a fraction as many potential buyers.Bottle diagonal dimension of 9" (double) vs. this 4.5", and a similar (if not greater) difference in ship sizeFully glued masts to cheat away the inherent instability of the designUse of numerous cut pieces (clearly illegal)Use of discontinued pieces (not available to use)Complex string rigging (completely out of the realm of allowed techniques for LEGO's techniques)
The original looked way better, unquestionably, but LEGO can't put just anything on shelves. They have rules, standards, and basic logic & reason to contend with.
Regarding price, as I briefly explain in my review, the inclusion of 284 loose studs to represent water (per the fan designer's original idea) skews the overall price/part ratio. However, if you pretend those 284 pieces don't exist at all, or have absolutely zero value, simple arithmetic generates a number of $0.10 USD/piece, the magic number that's been synonymous with good value for some years now (and probably overdue for an inflation adjustment). There are indeed more 1x1 and 1x2 pieces in the set, but that's the case in most sets. What's most uncommon, however, is the inclusion of four of the oversized and rare 6x6x9 double-curved panel pieces, which as of this writing have been averaging over $4.50 USD each.
I have to begin to wonder if I simply look at the world through rose-colored glasses in contrast to the deep negativity I see directed in so many directions from so many teen & adult LEGO fans, but even deep subjective bias can't change actual hard facts. What am I missing? Is the old addage, "You can't have your cake & eat it" a dying concept these days?
Original author: theJANG