LEGO has released a few LEGO Disney sets for the upcoming The Little Mermaid live-action movie and one of those sets is The Little Mermaid Royal Clamshell (43225). It has 1,808 pieces and retail for $159.99.
Minifigures
There are five minifigures in the set, Ariel, Karina, Indira, King Triton, and Ursula. Ariel has a darker blue and turquoise top that goes around the back. The tail piece is more of a turquoise color with some lavender towards the fins. Her double-sided head shows smiles on both sides. The hair uses a softer rubber rather than the harder plastic.
Karina also has a darker blue top but there are also some metallic silver highlights as well. Like with the top, the tail is also dark blue with some light blue details. Her double-sided head shows smiles on both sides and she has a lavender colored ponytail.
Indira has more of a yellow color scheme going on with some metallic gold on the torso as well as on the tail piece. Her double-sided head also shows smiles on both sides.
Although this is a live-action movie, King Triton looks a lot like the animated version in some aspects. The torso shows him wearing some metallic silver armor. There’s also some printing of the armor on the arms as well. The tail piece has a larger belt printing around the waist. His face is actually printed on the hair/beard piece and the “head” underneath is just a blank one.
Lastly we have Ursula who’s body and tentacles are just one large molded piece. Her double-sided head shows her with two evin smiles. She does have a clear 1×2 brick to simulate her floating in the water.
Build
The first two bags gives you the parts to build King Triton’s throne rock. There is a chair in the middle for Triton and another one on the side. For some decoration, there are various colored plants and vines throughout.
The next few sets of bags are for the frame of the clamshell. The shape doesn’t really start to be defined until the round bricks are put on in the front.
Bag six adds on a couple more of the round sections for the bottom of the clamshell.
Bag seven has a bunch of plates to cover up the innards of the clamshell frame. You can see it is separated with one side being regular water and the other is for Ursula’s area.
The next bag has some arches for the rounded areas in the front to hold down the plates. There’s also some more of the plant decorations. We also get to see Sebastian who’s just a regular crab.
Following that, we start building up on the clamshell. The left side is the start of a little cave area with some objects like a teapot, hourglass, and binoculars. The other side has a shelf filled with Ursula’s concoctions.
Bag 10 fills out more of the rocky area in the middle. Most of the left side of the area is complete with a little bit left on the right. Also on the left side is part of a sunken ship with some of the hull and the mast left over.
At the end of bag 11, the rest of Ursula’s cave area is completed with the far right section being filled in. There’s also some fish that are added to various spots including Flounder.
For bags 12 & 13, we build the top part of the clamshell which is mostly made up of plates. Like with the bottom part of the shell, there are some arches for the shell curves.
Bag 14, we have larger arches for the top of the shell to give it some definition. The whole section is connected to the rest of the set a couple of hinges and pins while being reinforced on the back with a round tile.
Finally there’s another platform to build for the top area. There are lots of colorful plants and coral here as well as another chair. It doesn’t clip on to anything but just sits on its designated area. For the chair that we built on the first set of bags, it slots in to the right of the platform.
Results
Overall, the LEGO Disney The Little Mermaid Royal Clamshell (43225) is a very impressive model and the pricing on it is fair. The minifigures look good although there’s some backlash on why it features the live-action characters and not the original cartoon ones.
The build had some variety and interesting techniques to get certain shapes but there are also times where it was repetitive, mostly on the shell itself. The front looks very nice with lots of vibrant colors that fit The Little Mermaid theme. The back of the model, however, looks horrible. It’s like someone started building it and got bored and left it as is. Obviously the main thing you want to see is all in the front and you rarely would display such models from the back. For the price of $160, I would say it’s a good buy considering the size and uniqueness.
Thank you to LEGO for sending in this set for me to review. The content above represents my own opinion and not the company. Review sets sent in does not guarantee a positive review.
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