Welcome to another edition of What is..? In this edition, I’m excited to feature and spotlight one of the most exciting new 2015 themes, Elves!
To refresh your memory, What is…? is a semi-regular series that aims to introduce new LEGO themes and sets as they’re about to be released in toy stores. My last What is…? post was about the fantastic LEGO City Arctic theme. By featuring some of the new and exciting new themes on the market, I hope to inspire you to explore and consider new LEGO sets that might traditionally be outside your comfort zone.
Elves is a brilliant new theme to come out of LEGO, blending magic and Friends-type minidolls against a colourful fantasy backdrop. Featuring a colourful cast of mystical characters, Elves is a huge play by LEGO to introduce it’s own original cast of characters and settings that boast rich storytelling potential.
Minidolls are definitely hear to stay and Elves is aimed primarily at young girls. Despite being another “girly” theme that follows in the footsteps of the wildly successful Friends and Disney Princess themes, there is a lot to love about this new theme and I won’t be surprised to hear about young boys and adults being enchanted by the magic of Elves.
The Minidolls were particularly divisive when they made their debut in Friends sets in 2012 – to set the record straight, I quite like Minidolls and think they are particularly well designed and add a lot of diversity to the LEGO universe.
One of my favourite things about the Friends theme was that it allowed LEGO to go wild with a very attractive palette of bright pastel colours – with Elves almost upon us, LEGO turned it up a notch with the introduction of plenty of new and unconventionally coloured elements and parts.
LEGO Elves 41075 The Elves’ Treetop Hideaway
Storytelling is an incredibly important component of The LEGO Group’s ethos and Elves is a huge step towards getting fans emotionally invested in the theme. The premise of Elves is a familiar but simple tale – a teenage girl named Emily Jones accidentally stumbles into a mysterious portal and finds herself spirited away to the magical world of Elvendale.
Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, she encounters a colourful cast of Elvish characters, each with their own distinct personalities and appearances. The four main Elves characters then embark upon a quest to get Emily home. The quest involves visiting unique and magical locales to find 4 missing keys, which presumably holds the secret to opening a portal back to the human world.
LEGO released a cool trailer last week to introduce builders to the magical world of Elves. It’s pretty good, although the animation is pretty choppy. I hope they improve the animation in the upcoming webisodes.
Here’s a quick rundown of the main characters of LEGO’s Elves.
Emily Jones (the girl in the striped top, duh)
Emily Jones is the girl who fell through the portal to Elvendale. She is a smart, quirky and creative girl that dreams about one day returning home to her family.
Azari Firedancer
Azari Firedancer is the fire elf. She is spontaneous, loud and has a fun loving personality that makes her the center of attention.
Naida Riverheart
Naida is the water elf. She is a sensitive daydreamer, but is not afraid to follow her dreams (especially if it involves adventures by sea).
Farran Leafshade
Farran is the earth elf. He is sensible, nurturing and caring, and dreams about the day the other elves will see him as the true leader he really is.
Aira Windwhistler
Aira is the wind elf. She is always happy, somewhat hyperactive and quite the problem solver.
Expect to be bombarded by a ton of Elves content in the coming months, as LEGO will release digital content and publications throughout the year. There will also be webisodes, apps and all that other stuff that kids love. I think that it’s going to be a lot of fun.
41074 Azari and the Magical Bakery 324 pcs
As an adult LEGO fan, the story and characters don’t do it for me, so the thing I am most excited about is the fantastic array of new brightly coloured LEGO elements and parts. In Azari and the Magical Bakery, there’s even an animal that’s pretty much a Fire Fox.
41072 Naida’s Secret Spa 249 pcs
The global release date for Elves should be 1 March 2015. According to the Australian LEGO catalogue, we should be getting Elves in March too but take that with a grain of salt as it also promised us that we would be getting the new LEGO Movie sets in February…
41073 Naida’s Epic Adventure Ship 312 pcs
There will 6 Elves sets in the initial wave, with a 2 more sets, 41077 Aira’s Pegasus Sleigh and 41078 Skyra’s Mysterious Sky Castle slated for a release in the second half of 2015.
There are no Australian prices for the Elves sets but because this is an original LEGO IP (intellectual property), I don’t expect them to be too expensive. Here are the US LEGO.com listings:
- LEGO 41071 Aira’s Creative Workshop – US$9.99
- LEGO 41072 Naida’s Spa Secret – US$19.99
- LEGO 41073 Naida’s Epic Adventure Ship – US$29.99
- LEGO 41074 Azari and the Magical Bakery – US$29.99
- LEGO 41075 The Elves’ Treetop Hideaway – US$49.99
- LEGO 41076 Farran and the Crystal Hollow – US$14.99
I’ll be updating these listings once local pricing details become available.
That concludes this edition of What is LEGO Elves. I’m in no hurry to collect them all, but like the Friends and Disney Princess theme, it’ll be hard to pass up on Elves especially with the irresistible array of colourful and interesting LEGO elements.
What do you think of the LEGO Elves theme? Let me know in the comments if you hate it or love it or if you don’t care at all!
Can’t wait to get my hands on some of these to review them. Hope it won’t be too long!
Oops I said that two times lol
I brought my daughter the elves treetop hideaway for her 8th birthday,, and we both enjoyed making it until we came to parts we couldnt do because they were missing,, among some of th bigger pieces were the rest of the bridge part ,, the bucket for th end of the chain was also missing. We were going to collect the whole of the elves lego but with all the pieces missing im not sure its worth it
Hi Mel
So sorry to hear about your experience. While it may be quite rare, missing parts sometimes happen with LEGO sets.
Have you gotten in touch with LEGO? http://service.lego.com/en-us/helptopics/replacement-parts/missing-pieces
I’ve had several experiences with missing parts and got in touch with LEGO. They were very quick to send over replacement parts.
Hope it all gets sorted out! Let me know if I can help with anything else!
Mel, I have a lot of lego sets and I have had lots, and lots of missing pieces. Maybe you just lost them? Try ordering those missing pieces on the lego store website. Good luck!!! ?
Mel, I have a lot of lego sets and I have had lots, and lots of missing pieces. Maybe you just lost them? Try ordering those missing pieces on the lego store website. Good luck!!! ?????
Hi,
I just built Naida’s spa secret with my 6Y old today. It was really good fun and lots of beautiful details. The secret hiding spaces with triggers for the books are perfect for kids- I’m hoping to get the tree house next, looks fantastic!
Hi Trude, so glad that to hear so much positive feedback from LEGO fans. The LEGO Elves theme has been superb, I cannot wait to get my hands on the tree house as well! The Bakery is next on my list!
I got Aira’s workshop which is my first ever lego set,I love elves and anything to do with fantasy and this was the collection that convinced me to actually buy lego,I got my eye on the boat set and Naida secret spa set and I think this is the beginning of a new hobby for me.
I really look forward to picking up the boat when I get back! Glad that you’re enjoying the Elves sets. The feedback that the theme has received is a great thing as I hope it’ll encourage LEGO to design more adventurous sets and themes
A lovely set!!! 🙂
Love these sets! Love the colours and shapes – and the clever marketing. There is also 41077 Pegasus Sleigh – see Toy fair pics: http://youtu.be/f61s2jcLSrw?t=7s
The dolls remind me of Vintage Polly Pocket, but more complex.
Oh yeah, I totally loved Polly Pocket when I was little! The attention to detail especially with the little accessories were so good
I love all the Elven buildings, for their colours, their mystical nature and for the new parts I plan to collect. I’m a reader of fantasy books so these sets are right up my alley and I’m hoping they’ll help lead my Lego-loving kids (all boys) into magical worlds too, which they so far seem to think belong to ‘girls’.
However, I’m not a fan of the Lego Friend’s people so I am a little disappointed the Elvem figures follow the Friends models.
As an adult fan of Lego I’m old enough to have received and played with the original Paradisa sets which were released I think in the early 90s and I do think Lego could have released all their Friends sets (and now the Elven ones) with somewhat more standard figures, as they did with Paradisa.
But I’ll most likely get the Elven sets anyway. I might just hide the figures and create my own minifigs 🙂
That’s a great point – just hiding the Elve minidolls and repurposing their hairpieces with normal minifigures. I guess it’s up to personal preference and I just think that it’s a good thing that we have options at our disposal.
one of the main Elves character is a guy, so that should hopefully be a character that boys can relate to!