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LEGO Ideas 21351 Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas – A Beloved Classic Comes to Life (Review) – The Brothers Brick

Posted on by angelo
LEGO Ideas 21351 Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas – A Beloved Classic Comes to Life (Review) – The Brothers Brick

Since its premiere in 1993, Disney’s animated film The Nightmare Before Christmasdirected by Tim Burton, is a beloved holiday tradition for families and children around the world. LEGO fans have been eager for an official set, and their appetites have been whetted somewhat by the release of Jack and Sally collectible minifigures as part of the second Disney CMF series. The LEGO Ideas platform has received several projects inspired by the film over the years, but they have never been approved to become official sets… until now. LEGO Ideas 21351 Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas comes with 2,193 pieces and will be available from September 3 for LEGO Insiders and September 6 for everyone else for US$199.99 | $189.99 CAN | £189.99 UK.

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an advance copy of this set for review purposes. Providing TBB with products for review purposes does not guarantee coverage or positive reviews.

Unpacking parts, instructions and stickers

The set comes in a large 18+ branded black box, with the three sections of the finished model presented in a light lavender glow. The movie branding and Disney logo are also prominently displayed. Along the bottom of the box is the usual strip of LEGO elements, coloured lavender to match the glow.

The back of the box shows the finished model from another angle, with all the characters arranged throughout the scene as well as many Christmas elements like presents, wreaths, bow-adorned skulls, and a stocking hidden in the basements and attics of the structures.

There is an inset image showing the removable roofs of the town hall and another showing the interior of Jack Skellington’s house. Finally, there is a small diagram showing the dimensions of the set.

Inside the box there are 16 bags of paper parts, 3 instruction booklets (1 for each section), a small sticker sheet, a fabric town hall banner, and a large yellow moon made of thin cardboard.

The first instruction booklet includes a few pages of special content about the LEGO fan designer, the overall project and the LEGO designers who brought it to life.

The construction

Construction begins with the brick-built Mayor, who has printed cones for his torso and two-sided head. Also included is the claw-foot bathtub, as well as Lock, the leader of Oogie-Boogie’s henchmen.

Moving on to the town hall, the section starts with a base of stacked black and dark gray plates. The overall shape is rounded with a straight section on the left that will later be attached to Jack Skellington’s house. We start with the foundation of the building, a crawl space with many details like a hidden crown, a skeleton, a cauldron and a spider.

Two sets of three inclined pillar anchors are built into the foundation and will extend to either side of the finished building. The base of the city hall ends with a scattering of stepping stones and red-orange flowers.

Now it’s time to build the town hall itself. The front wall has an angled opening for the door, giving the building a leaning appearance. On either side of the floor are long benches for citizens to sit on during the emergency town meeting Jack calls after he returns from Christmas Town. The front and back walls are angled outward, and clips built into the interior frame will be used to hold the exterior walls at an angle.

Speaking of angled exterior walls, the set uses the same clever technique to secure all the walls in both buildings. Two hinged bricks are attached to the bottom of the wall, and a click hinge plate connects loosely to a clip plate with just enough tension to keep it from falling off, but not so much that it’s difficult to separate if you want to peek inside later.

Some dark grey curtains are added as well as a podium for Jack to make his dubious declaration of taking over Christmas.

With the town hall securely installed on the base, we move on to the 6 twisted pillars that attach to the front, as well as the orange and black Halloween banner. The countdown to Christmas is also added before building the roof.

The roof is pretty simple and includes several Christmas decorations like a wreath, a stocking, and several presents. While removable roofs aren’t new to LEGO, I don’t think I’ve ever used this particular technique before. The roof panels are framed by downward-facing supports and cheese slopes that snap together perfectly without any doweling.

In the foreground of this section is the town square fountain, which Sally sabotages with a potion to create the thick fog that nearly ends Jack’s plans. The base of the fountain is made up of asymmetrically arranged sections of various curves and angled elements surrounding a swampy green mixture of nails and a crystal.

The star of the fountain is the long, twisted gargoyle statue that manages to capture Tim Burton’s iconic look quite impressively in many scenes and background settings. The final part of the City Hall section is a gnarled black tree attached to the right side of the base next to the building.

Moving on to the next section. Jack Skellington’s house starts out with a very similar basic style to the town hall, but a bit narrower and deeper. The foundations of Jack’s house are much smaller and higher off the ground to add to the precarious look of his crooked abode. A stepping stone path is flanked by two curved stone walls that include clips to loosely attach to the two adjacent sections. Two tall iron gates are added to complete the base.

The first floor is small, consisting of an entrance with a Christmas tree and a bag. There is an eye-shaped sticker on Jack’s front door and the two walls are attached using the same method as the walls in the town hall.

Two slender posts are added on either side of the front door.

The second floor is slightly larger and includes Jack’s workshop. The exterior facade includes two small roof sections, a pair of yellow-paned windows, and three small posts. The walls of the second floor are slanted and attached in the same manner as the other walls.

The interior of Jack’s workshop features many details from the film, such as the chalkboard filled with Jack’s sketches and formulas for creating Christmas magic, his costume designs, his books, and the basket of food Sally leaves for him when he becomes deeply obsessed with his projects.

The top floor façade also features several twisted panels and a small curved window, while hidden in the rafters are two more Christmas wreaths.

The final parts of the house are two detailed roof sections topped with curved slopes interlocking like teeth along the top. The left side is adorned with a tall, twisted chimney topped with a cone,

Before moving on to the third and final section, another tree is attached to the left of the house with fall foliage. The base attaches to the first section with a single clip just below the curved wall.

The final section begins similarly to the first two, with black and dark gray slabs. Sandy blue tiles and slabs form the ground of the cemetery, including some of the plants that Sally uses in her concoctions. The back of the base is the tall black hill with a spiral tip that appears in two important scenes in the film.

The cemetery is built around a central mausoleum for Zero, the ghost dog, with several other tombstones surrounding it as well as pumpkins and flowers.

Finally, we add the large yellow moon, which attaches to the back of the spiral hill through a hole in the center.

The minifigs

The set includes 8 figures in total, six minifigures, a molded Zero, and a brick-built Mayor. First up are Jack and Sally. While this isn’t the first time Jack Skellington has appeared in minifigure form, this is a new version, using the long arms and legs commonly found in Avatar sets. Jack has a printed torso and legs, and the head is a slightly different print than the collectible figure series, with her mouth being more open. Sally also has printed details on her torso and legs that differ slightly from her previous version.

Both figures also have back printed torsos and Sally has an alternate expression. Sally also features dual printed arms.

Next up is the Mayor and Santa (Sandy Claws). The Mayor has a printed torso and two iconic facial expressions printed on cones of different sizes. Santa has a print on the front of his torso and on the base of his long coat. He also has a printed torso on the back and an alternate angry facial expression.

Finally, we have the three young hooligans who work for Oogie-Boogie: Lock, Shock, and Barrel. Lock has a red outfit, Shock has her witch hat and a lavender skirt element, and Barrel has his printed skeleton shirt. They all have alternate expressions as well. I have two small complaints about these three figures. One is that they don’t include their iconic masks. I know that would have required custom molds and would have increased the already high price, but it would have been a nice touch. My other issue is that they have such simple clothing. It almost feels like they were test molds, with only Barrel having some of the skeleton bones printed on his torso.

The finished model

The finished model makes a fantastic display set, and while the sections aren’t interchangeable, they can be separated and arranged in any order as individual sections. The set is packed with plenty of details from the movie, and the updates from the original submission make a lot of sense (including the mayor, for example). The scene can be displayed as the original Halloween Town, or the many Christmas elements can be added throughout to evoke the hijacked holiday instead.

Conclusions and recommendations

My family loves to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas Every year, LEGO helps us get into the Christmas and fall spirit in general, and I think we’re not the only ones. This set captures so much of the magic of the movie and would make a great display set. If you’re a fan of the movie, I highly recommend picking this set up and building it, maybe with family or friends while watching the movie. I think it would be really fun if LEGO ever released a holiday set that was Christmas Town, which would go perfectly with this one. LEGO Ideas 21351 Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas comes with 2,193 pieces and will be available from September 3 for LEGO Insiders and September 6 for everyone else for US$199.99 | $189.99 CAN | £189.99 UK.

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an advance copy of this set for review purposes. Providing TBB with products for review purposes does not guarantee coverage or positive reviews.