Disney and The Lego Company have found a partnership that is mutually beneficial so it was not a surprise to see Lego get in on the Disney 100 celebration. We already looked at one set that falls under that umbrella, and now I’m back to take a look at Lego’s third wave of minifigures based on Disney, this one focusing on the history of the company itself.
The first two waves of minifigures from Lego and Disney seemed to perform rather well. They would thankfully show up in large quantities at retailers, but didn’t linger too long. Collecting an entire set meant one needed to hit the store at the right moment to find either a fresh box or pegs filled with the little foil bags. These are shipped in bags and are intended to be blind buys. For the first two waves, I somewhat degraded myself by painstakingly feeling my way through them in-store until I had a complete set. Lego’s tendency to do custom head portraits for the characters makes finding them surprisingly easy when just feeling-up a bag. It still takes awhile, but my method worked as I was able to get full sets without doubles.
For this third wave, I ran into some troubles. No, not in picking through them, just in finding them! I don’t know if some of the stores around me just didn’t get them when they were supposed to, or if someone cleaned them out before I got there, but these things seemed to sell faster than usual. My wife managed to find four close to their release date, and thankfully it was four unique figures, but we didn’t come across any at a big box retailer for weeks after. Instead, we seemed to only have consistent success by hitting The Lego Store. They got regular shipments often twice per week and our store even did the feeling out for you! I don’t know if that’s a common practice, but it was certainly convenient. Even hitting that store routinely, we still had trouble filling out the ranks. Eventually we got it to where we were missing just one, but The Lego Store was also receiving smaller and smaller shipments indicating the wave may be nearing the end of its lifecycle. Thankfully, not long ago I happened to be walking through my local Target and came upon a fresh box on an endcap. It was highly unusual for my store which normally hangs the bags by the registers. I could have easily missed this, but got lucky. I secured the missing piece, and now I can tell you all about them.
This wave celebrating the 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company is a celebration of the company’s animated films. There seems to be a concerted effort to hit on each decade of the company’s existence, though missing representation are the 1980s and present decade beginning in 2020. It’s not that much of a surprise to see the 80s excluded. That wasn’t a great decade for the company as it included the noted bomb The Black Cauldron. The Little Mermaid did make it out just before the 80s concluded, but we already received an Ariel and Ursula in a prior wave. Oliver & Company doesn’t work all that well for minifigures since it’s characters are mostly dogs and a cat, but why not hit on The Great Mouse Detective?
Excepting Lego’s mistreatment of the 1980s, the character selection this time around is pretty solid, so let’s take a look!
We’ll go in 3s, and for this first group we have the original Disney star, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, along with Mickey in perhaps his most iconic role and from the year 2002 another version of fan-favorite Stitch. Oswald is a standard Lego body with a unique portrait. It looks fine, but its very round and looks a bit off. For an accessory, he comes with a clapboard that is not articulated. All of the figures come with the standard Lego stand, but this time it has a “Disney 100” printed on it. For Mickey, he’s in his sorcerer’s apprentice costume and it’s printed with sparkles. The hat is non-removable and he has a bucket and broom to complete the look. They had to include a Mickey, and this version is a bit of a no-brainer. And then we have Stitch, the figure who I had to track down. His portrait is the same as the prior one, but his eyes are printed differently to make them more narrow. I would have liked a new mouth, but oh well. He’s in his Experiment 626 form so he has four arms which are done by adding them to the sculpt as opposed to inserting four standard arms into the torso. He also has a pair of laser guns. It’s a fun look, albeit a compromised one due to how they did the arms.
Clues for finding them in bags: Oswald’s ears, Mickey’s head, Stitch’s ears (these three are pretty easy)
Next up, we have a trio of villains. First is the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She has a soft goods cape and collar and her lower body is done with a brick like other dress-wearing characters before her. The crown is actually a full skull cap, which is nice, but it means she only has the one expression, not that she really needs another. She comes with her magic mirror and I like that the entity within it has been “Lego-fied” as well. She looks the part, and pairs nicely with the Old Hag version of the character released in the villains set. We also have the Queen of Hearts who has a soft goods collar and a bulbous lower half to simulate her large dress. She gets two heart-shaped wands and two expressions for her face: a grin and an angry scream. I like this one, and she slots into the villains set as well which featured her on a playing card, but it would have been fun to get the little king as a slug figure or something instead of two wands. Last, is Cruella who also features a soft collar. She comes with two purses, which is a little half-circle piece with printing, and one of the many dalmatians from the film: Patch. He’s just a little slug figure, but the printing is well done and he’s pretty adorable. Cruella also has two expressions: a smile and a yell. I wish the angry face had tried to better emulate the animation from just before she crashes her car. Excepting that, she looks fine, but is a bit on her own with no other figures from the movie.
Bag clues: The Queen’s mirror, the lower dress for the Queen of Hearts, and Patch
Our next trio includes the puppet who wanted to be a boy, his conscience, and Pocahontas. Pinocchio uses the articulated kid legs and comes with Cleo, who is a transparent head piece with the character printed on one side, and her castle on the reverse. Pinocchio has a unique portrait so his nose could be captured, but this also means he only gets the one expression. Despite that shortcoming, he looks fine, but I wish they had printed some of the screws in his body onto the arms and legs. Jiminy is on the kid body, but the non-articulated version, which is a bit disappointing. He obviously does not scale at all with Pinocchio, but at least he looks nice. He has a soft goods collar, removable hat, and comes with a pink umbrella. Pocahontas is a traditional minifigure with a stylized hair piece that also hides the back of her head so she gets two expressions, but they’re both smiles. Her accessories include two compasses and some autumn leaves. They’re fine, but I think fans would have preferred a Meeko instead. She’s also on her own from the movie so I guess she just goes with the other princess characters.
Bag clues: Pinocchio’s head, Jiminy’s hat+umbrella, and Pocahontas’s hair
Our next group includes another villain and a pair of princesses. Dr. Facilier is another traditional minifigure, but he has a lively design that works for the form. His lack of a hairpiece means he, like Jiminy, gets only one expression and for him it’s a sinister grin. He also has a wand, removable hat, and a Tarot card. He’s not bad, but it feels like he’s just here to pair with Tiana. She is done in the typical princess fashion with a large brick piece for her dress. She’s in her green dress from early in the film, though she comes with a menu from her restaurant from the end of the film. She also gets a frog, the same frog that came with Cinderella’s Castle, because why not? Aurora rounds out this trio, and even though she’s the lone representative from her film in this wave, we have two versions of Maleficient to pair her up with. She has the same form as Tiana and comes with a tiara and owl. I’d have gone with a spinning wheel, personally, but at least the owl is different. She also has a fun second portrait which features her doing what she does best: sleeping.
Bag clues: Dr. Facilier’s hat+stick for his wand (to differentiate him from Jiminy), Tiana’s menu plus her dress, Aurora’s owl and hair
The next group is perhaps the most surprising entrants. From the film Robin Hood, we have Robin himself! He gets a unique headsculpt and the feather in his hat is removable. He also comes with a tail piece and a bow and arrow. He’s not going to be able to hold that bow and arrow in a convincing manner, but it’s hard to think of a better accessory for the famed archer. Joining him is that phony King of England, Prince John. He too has a unique portrait which features a scowl. I love that Lego got his ears right and have his crown sitting on top of them. He also has a sack of money and a coin, both appropriate for the character. The third figure in this grouping is Baymax from Big Hero 6. He’s a standard minifigure, but with new arms that better resemble his from the film. As an inflated, bulbous, character, the minifigure form doesn’t really suit him all that well as it’s basically the opposite of that aesthetic. He has his charging station as an accessory which he can stand in, though it doesn’t look particularly special.
Bag clues: for both Robin and John it’s the head with the bow and money sack providing extra assurance, for Baymax it’s his arms plus all of the little bits that will makeup his charging station
Our last grouping features two characters from a Pixar film, Coco, and Mulan from the movie of the same name. Ernesto De la Cruz is our fifth villain, though he has two very happy expressions so you wouldn’t know he’s a bad guy without seeing the film. He has his sombrero and signature guitar which turned out really well. His body is printed with black and silver and he’s one of the stars of the wave. Not to be outdone, is the hero from the film Miguel. He has the most stuff of anyone as he gets two heads, a hairpiece, a hood, guitar, and a slug figure of Dante. If you were going to get multiples of any of the figures in this wave, it would likely be Miguel as he can be skeleton-faced Miguel or standard Miguel and both heads have two expressions! I am partial to the skeleton look with hood and he has the guitar he used when performing in the Land of the Dead. As for our last figure, Mulan, we get a pretty basic minifigure. Her hair means she gets two expressions and Lego actually allowed one of the “princess” characters to look angry. She also has her cricket friend and a pair of swords. She’s certainly a different flavor of princess from the rest.
Bag clues: Ernesto is quite possibly the easiest due to the sombrero and guitar. For Miguel, it’s the guitar plus Dante and with Mulan you want to feel for the swords.
And that does it! Disney Minifigure Wave 3 does a solid job of giving us some new characters and films while also filling out the prior waves and sets. Aurora, the Evil Queen, Queen of Hearts, and I suppose the new Stitch fit well with those. Acknowledging films like Fantasia and Pinocchio are also no-brainers, and if you’re celebrating 100 years of Disney then you basically have to include Oswald. Most of the rest are fun inclusions as well. I love seeing Robin Hood get some love as it was a favorite of mine as a child, and who could argue that Cruella is not worthy? The two figures from Coco might be my favorites from the entire wave and it feels right that Pixar should get some recognition as well. The only ones I’m kind of down on are Baymax and Pocahontas. Baymax just doesn’t make for a fun figure in this format and I don’t feel like Big Hero 6 needs representation in this wave, but I’m guessing they wanted one CG Disney film to showcase. I feel the same about Pocahontas as we already have Mulan to stand-in for the 90s and the figure is a bit uninspired. I’d easily drop one of the two for a Basil, and maybe both so we could double-up on The Great Mouse Detective, an underrated film in the Disney catalog.
If you’re a Disney fan and enjoy Lego, this wave is probably in your possession already or on your radar. It’s still being sold at retail and online, though ordering online means you’re making a truly blind purchase. If you have the time and patience, I suppose you could order an entire box and sell off the doubles. I’d guess you’d probably break even doing so as plenty of people are willing to pay a few bucks more on the secondary market to know what character they’re getting. Definitely hit a Lego Store if you have one nearby if you’re only missing a couple. My difficulty in finding Stitch suggest to me that he’s either quite popular, or some figures are short-packed. Feeling them out is relatively easy though. All of the unique portraits are distinguishable from each other, while many of the rest feature a signature item or accessory for you to home in on. Happy hunting!
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