Review: LEGO Paris Creator Postcard 40568

LEGO takes a holiday to Europe and brings back some souvenirs!

LEGO 40568 – Paris Creator Postcard

RRP AUD $24.99 – CA $18.99 – EUR €14.99 – UK £13.49 – USA $.99
Available from LEGO.com and LEGO Stores from August.

About This Set

LEGO’s postcard series officially continues with the arrival of both the London and Paris postcards, adding to the lineup alongside Beijing and New York. Diving into the iconic wonders of the world, London and Paris bring us new microscale versions of Big Ben, the London Eye, the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

But we’ve gotten microscale of these things before – is this taking it to a micro scale? Is this pushing the idea too far? Read on!

Set Name

I feel shame in having to say this, but all of the locations of the Paris postcard I immediately recognised. Have I ever been to Paris? No. Have I got a passion for Paris culture? Absolutely not. No – I recognised them all because I watched Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, a kids TV show about superheroes with my kids. All seasons of it. And the show is based in Paris.

So do I like what I see? 110%. LEGO really made used of the small scale to recreate the Eiffel tower really well – utilising the backdrop and building half of the build allows them to use the wheel arch part without having to worry about how it looks from all sides.

The Arc de Triomphe is a really good addition for Parisian culture for LEGO to add – it stands as a memorial to fallen soldiers during the war – and the eternal flame represents the unknown soldier. The use of stickers to help with the more complex crenellations really gives the build some depth.

Lastly is the Pont Neuf, the oldest stone bridge in Paris, spanning right over the Seine river. LEGO cleverly use the tooth pieces to give just a fraction more character to the bridge, highlighting the rounded stonework the adorns the edge of the bridge.

They also nimbly fit in a barge and red car amongst the postcard build too. Neat.

Verdict

These cute little micro-builds are probably one of my favourite underrated endeavours from LEGO these past few months, but it does lead to me to question. Is does this spell the end for LEGO Architecture lines? I mean, they are made of popular locations for LEGO to make sets out of, if not already. And the postcards seem to be redefining the idea of the Architecture Skyline sets.

That being said – these are more affordable, more pint-sized for display, and allows for more of them to sit on a shelf together, but there is something sort of ‘lost’ with them compared to the Skyline sets. I guess we could simply put this down to the changing art form, and if we don’t look at them comparatively, these are actually super neat.

I like the postcards (LOVE the Paris one), and I openly welcome more of them – but I hope we don’t lose the LEGO Architecture line in the process.

These are small, quaint, little builds that bring a splash of colour to these iconic buildings. They’re inexpensive, what you see is what you get and just all round fun.