Review of 71736 Boulder Blaster
“Juke Box in a plane.”
First of all, a big thank you to LEGO for sending us this awesome set for review. This set is a larger version of the previous 70747: Boulder Blaster which was released back in 2015 with a price tag of USD$29.99. This latest one, the 71736, is priced at USD$39.99. Let’s see what’s inside this set.
The front of the box shows us the battle of the black orangey plane firing the spring shooters atop a brown stone paved road with a cozy background of the sea and pagodas. As usual, for this series, you get a Golden Kai as the limited edition commemorative minifigure in this set.
The back of the box shows us the playability of the set and Lloyd escaping the cage to fight Eyezor. This Blaster was featured in season 4 of the Ninjago animation show.
Stickers sheet. It seems that they shrunk an actual element, The grey pipe piece 14301 Light Bluish Gray Hose, Flexible Ribbed with 8mm Ends, 11.5L (9.3cm) and made it to stickers numbered 5 and 6! I will never like stickers!
Bag 1 build. Here we have 3 minifigures with Lloyd’s cage. The round part on top is actually a target for the blaster to shoot at in order to release the ladder for Lloyd’s escape. Minifigures built thus far are Lloyd, Eyezor and Golden Legacy Kai.
Bag 2 build. The body of the plane. It does looks like a gun but the handle is actually meant to be a stand for the plane and maybe useful to swoosh the plane around during play!
Bag 3 build. In this bag, we have extended the front and the back of the plane with a gold rear propeller. You can search for images of the old set 70747 to see how the hose looks like in 3D. We only get it as a sticker here.
The front view does look like a Juke box with it’s distinct arched top, haha..
I love this cockpit lid with dual molded pearl gold rims.
This is how it looks like after you finish building the set. The front view looks like a fly but the combination of black, orange and sand green is quite aesthetically pleasing.
Side view. It has a slight upward slant like how normal plane looks. The technic pin holes at the back of the plane makes it looks unfinished, could there have been a planned attachment there?
Cole inside the cockpit. The cockpit is not tall enough to let a minifigure sit upright, but I agree that lying down might be a more comfortable way to fly a plane.
Top view of the plane. I like the symmetrical design and the contrast of the smaller wings with katana and the larger wings with larger blade at the back.
Final build with four Minifigures. I feel that this is an okay set with the main highlight falling on the limited edition Golden Kai. The cockpit lid is special part of the set but it is not quite versatile to be used on other planes. So to me, I think this is great for a Ninjago fan but as a minifigure collector, that golden Kai is not to be missed!
Minifigures
Kai is currently the Ninja of Fire, Nya’s brother, and Ray and Maya’s son. Red ninja with a scar on his right eye and a bandaid on his left forehead. This Golden Kai is one of the six Legacy Ninjago minifigure with a round 2×2 tile printed with the 10 years Ninjago anniversary logo.
This is the normal ninja version of Lloyd with his green ninja robe. He comes with two facial expressions and his iconic white hair. He is equipped with Flat Silver Minifigure, Weapon Sword, Saber/Dao Curved Blade and Hilt with Bar End instead of the commonly available katana.
Eyezor, also known as Silvereye and Eyezor’rai in his Anacondrai form, was an acting general in Chen’s army. He is the villain in the show and this minifigure is the exact same one in 71735 but different from the one in 70476 with different facial expression and different necklace in the torso. The pointy sharp shoe prints are very nicely done too!
Cole. He has thick eyebrows and comes with two facial expressions. Black Ninja robe with dark grey inner outfit representing his Earth element. Here he is not equipped with any weapon as he is supposed to pilot the plane in a limited cockpit space. It is sad that the voice actor of Cole Kirby Murrow passed away in November 2020.
Verdict
I give this set a 4.5/5.0 score as the design of the plane is iconic to Ninjago fans but quite a weird one to others. This set is priced at $39.99 USD with 449 pieces and 4 minifigures compared to 70747 which was priced at $29.99 with 236 pieces and 3 Minifigures. Comparatively I think it is quite fairly priced as you only add $10 to have the Golden Kai and 200 more parts. So to me the main highlight of this set is the Golden Legacy Kai minifigure.
Don’t go yet! Here is the compilation of the Ninjago Minifigures in this series of Ninjago Legacy sets.
Lloyd Garmaddon. In this series you will get 3 different variants of Lloyd. Only the commemorative 10 years Legacy version with the stand is exclusive. The other two has appeared in previous sets before. Bricklink reference names : Njo499 and njo574a.
Kai. I would say we only have 2 variants here as different weapons doesn’t count as different minifigure. However this too is a great minifigure as I like his Dragon Ball Z styled hair and I can use it in other minifigures, as I got a spare here. Haha
Cole. The commemorative 10 years Golden legacy variant has a similar weapon to Dwalin from Lord of the Rings. Here, we also get a normal black ninja version of him and I personally like this golden version of him as the helmet is different from others with metallic grey face mask.
Jay. Similar to Kai, we got repeated minifigures here with only a differently coloured nunchuck chain. His hair is also quite a versatile piece to be used on other minifigures with the tousled hair look.
Here are all the 4 commemorative Golden Legacy Minifigures in this wave, which are Cole, Jay, Lloyd and Kai on their stands. The middle Golden Lloyd doesn’t count! There are supposedly six commemorative 10 years Ninjago Legacy Golden Minifigures with that stand so there are two more to go in 2021! One has been revealed to be Golden Wu and will be released with the 71741 Ninjago City Gardens.
Can’t get enough of them commemorative minifigures??
Here’s a look again at all of them individually (Lloyd seems to be extra golden here but it’s just due to the lighting)
Happy family! I love it when they are complete.
The box arts are very nicely done even at the side of these five sets featuring the 10 years Ninjago Legacy Golden Minifigures (not including the Overlord Dragon Lloyd at the far right).
The full list of Minifigures are printed with names at the top of the boxes.
All 5 sets are already available in the stores starting 1st day of 2021!
Hope you enjoyed all my reviews in this wave of Ninjago Legacy. Thank you!
This is Mr. Beast signing off.
Stay safe!
Here’s a shortcut to all the reviews that I have done for this wave
71738: Zane’s Titan Mech Battle
71737: X-1 Ninja Charger
71736: Boulder Blaster (This article!)
71735: Tournament of Elements
71742: Overlord Dragon
The set used for the review was sent to us by The LEGO Group for the purpose of a review. Provision of sets do not in any way influence or guarantee a positive review.
