Review: 41450 Heartlake City Shopping Mall
Posted by MeganL,
The largest set of the first wave of the year was 41450 Heartlake City Shopping Mall. I've been pre-occupied the last few months with my move; hence I'd forgotten that I'd built and taken pictures of 41450 right before everything got packed up. So, while this is late, let's take a look at this set from earlier in the year. Besides, you'll never know who you might find hanging around….
Inside the box there are nine numbered bags, a bright yellow slide, an instruction book and a decent sized sticker sheet, though it's not as large as I expected. Understandably a lot of the details are in the stickers and this is a large set, so I did expect more stickers.
Minidolls
There are four minidolls, a microdoll, and a baby in this set. As with many Friends sets, I'd love to see one more minidoll, but I do like that we have all of Emma's family included. Emma is wearing a shirt with a cat design that was introduced this year, and tops that over a lavender miniskirt with tennies, which are new to this set. Olivia is wearing an outfit we've seen before with a metallic blue vest over patterned top, and a fuchsia miniskirt with the most awesome leggings I've seen on a Friend.
June and Robert, Emma's parents, have made it a family outing at the mall. Robert has a new torso featuring a short-sleeved v-neck shirt with a striking teal, yellow and white pattern with black accents. June's torso is also new and has a fabulous mandarin collared shirt with coral pattern and a high-waisted double belt. Printing is featured on the back of most of the minidolls. Henry, Emma's younger brother, is the same as the other sets in which he's made an appearance.
Emma's youngest sibling, Sophie, is also included in the outing, though she gets to enjoy the day in her pram.
The completed model
There are two small auxiliary builds in the set - the first is a fashion stage, where shoppers can show off their purchases - or perhaps stores can advertise their offerings.
The other small build is a photo station, with face cutouts for the whole family.
The mall itself is one impressive structure, and has three main segments. Each segment has three floors, which allows for the mall to have five stores, three food shops and (of course, it's a Friends set) a restroom. Like many malls, the top floor of the mall is dedicated to the food court. Let's take a look the first two floors of each segment.
Starting with the left, the ground floor shop is a music store. The large jazzy music note sign makes the store's purpose clear, and inside there are a number of musical instruments - drums, a piano, and a saxophone. A gold record is on the wall and a mannequin sports some headphones. A sticker on one of the walls provides many more musical details.
The second level of this segment is an electronics store. A robot (maybe a relative of Zobo?) is featured in the window. Inside shoppers can find a cellphone and other electronics.
Note: sloths are not included in this set
The centre segment features the main reason I was interested in the set, the escalator. I really like the trend of Friends sets this year incorporating more challenging building techniques in the builds, and the escalator is a great example of that. It's a working escalator that functions by turning the lever on one side of the stairs, and can carry a minidoll either up or down. I think this was the picture that convinced me to stop using a blue background!
Behind the escalator there's an ATM, but on the other side of the wall the mall restroom can be found. Alas, there's no door on the bathroom stall, but I do like that there's an expansive sink and a changing table included in this area. Not surprisingly, much of the detail is provided through a sticker.
Riding to the top of the escalator takes a shopper to a sweet shop. I like the decorations using the transparent bricks with 1x1 round tiles inside - they're quite fun. Inside the shop there's a large selection of lollipops, slushie drinks and other candy (provided by a sticker). An electronic cashier pad is included off to the side - one of these is found in several of the shops.
The right hand segment has an accessories store on the ground floor. It offers a pretty wide ranging array of goods, from a skirt, featured in the window, to some rather colourful wigs, and some rather pricey hair accessories. The accessories must be the highest priced goods in the mall, as they're under security surveillance.
Upstairs from the accessories store is a toy store. A doll house is featured in the window, and other toys are on the shelves, including a fire truck, a rubber ducky and a bunny.
It's very appropriate that next to the toy store is a ball pit, accessed by a slide from the above level. It's a perfect place to hang around.
Note: sloths are not included in this set
The top floor is the food court, and a Friend can get to that level by climbing the spiral staircase. There's no railings here - so OSHA is apparently hasn't come through lately.
In the food court, there's a boba shop (which also sells cookies),
Note: sloths not included in this set
A place to enjoy the tea,
Note: sloths not included in this set
And what looks to be a ramen shop based on the sign, but the food below looks much more like a salad with some fruit to me.
Here's each segment pictured on its own. All three pieces are connected by Technic pins.
Overall thoughts
The last shopping mall offered in the Friends line, 41058, offered a different variety of shops, but also included a rather cringey wedding shop, which is the reason why I don't have that set. I'll freely admit that the main reason I was attracted to this set was the escalator (and no wedding shop). I was curious to see how it was built. Credit to the designer for incorporating it in the build; extra credit goes to the instructional designer on making this part of the build easy to follow and introducing a more complex mechanism in the Friends world.
As for main part of the set, the shops, this set will undoubtedly hit the mark for the target demographic. Does this set do anything to counter any stereotypes? No, but it does reflect a common scenario in real life (or it did, prior to the pandemic) - every child has been to the mall with their family, and this set provides all the components necessary to play that out. It's a hefty set, coming in at 1032 pieces ($99.99, £89.99, 99.99€). I like that a complete family is included, but I am always on the quest for more minidolls in a set.
If you're looking for a set on the larger side for a Friends fan in your life who wants real life kind of role play, this is worth consideration.
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22 comments on this article
There are some really cute parts I have to say. :D
I am ready for the all sloths all the time set
This is a really lovely set. I love the color scheme, with primary-colored stripes along the walls and purple floors that vary in shade from the upper to lower floors. And the large stickered signage is also impressive, a good testament to what some of the newer, larger tile pieces can allow for. The big mall sign (made of handbags arranged in a heart shape) is also clever!
My only real minor complaint is that while this is the first set Lego's included a working escalator in, it still makes the mistake the Grand Emporium did of only having one escalator! Realistically there should be two between each set of floors (an up escalator and a down escalator), and with these new working escalators it'd be especially nice to show that off by having them geared together so that one goes up as the other goes down. I suppose that'll have to wait for MOCs and/or for a future set that utilizes these pieces!
Lego i sense a Starcourt mall
Woah, seems like Heartlake's actual Heart Lake is gigantic! At least according to the map featured on the electronics store sign!
Nothing about the escalator function, or is that just a generic handle lever?
Having built my share of Heartlake shops I just couldn't get behind this set enough to justify a purchase. It's pretty much run-off-the-mill in that every of the individual shops has been done a million times and better. Even the color scheme isn't that original and the price just feels completely overblown. If this was a 70 Euro set I might be convinced to still get it with a decent discount at around 50 Euro, but otherwise I think I'll just wait until those escalator pieces reappear in another set.
Reads teaser about who we will see “hanging around.”
Whispers to self “please be sloths, please be sloths.”
Sees Sloths
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
I want the escalator!
What made the the wedding shop in 41058 “cringey” and “horrible”? I don’t own the set and hadn’t ever paid attention to it prior to reading this review but now I’m curious
Why was the wedding shop in the previous set so cringey? It appeared just like a standard Friends build from that era.
@Sam_A_Rama said:
"What made the the wedding shop in 41058 “cringey” and “horrible”? I don’t own the set and hadn’t ever paid attention to it prior to reading this review but now I’m curious "
The wedding shop reinforces so many stereotypes.
Think about it from a design perspective:
The friends are all around 14 years old, so from a role play point of view, it makes no sense for them to go to a wedding shop.
Which means the wedding shop, an incredibly niche type of shop at that, was only included because the designer thought it would appeal to the target demographic - young girls.
Which… I mean, cmon.
(deep sigh)
@Levi_Wiggins said:
"Why was the wedding shop in the previous set so cringey? It appeared just like a standard Friends build from that era."
Exactly.
Honestly, calling the wedding shop in that set horrible or cringeworthy is hypocritical to the max. If that was the case then the reviewer should stop buying any Friends set, as most of them are blatantly stereotypical, and cringeworthy too. One could go so far as to call the whole theme am insult to female children if one is totally honest.
But to take this rather extreme view a little back and look at the situation more positively, Friends, with as many flaws as it has, and how cringeworthy it might be (especially the awful TV show that is so hideously stereotypical American), has provided us with more and better City type sets than the City theme itself, with schools, shops, cinema, fairground, hospitals etc. instead of one fire or police station after another yet little else.
If only they ditched those stupid minidolls with their inability to properly interact with their environment.
Riding on a horse standing up, or not even being able to sit without falling over. Nuff said, the designer of those should be fired!
I really do like this set, though I feel that the stores are quite lacking individually
As for the wedding shop in the previous mall, I don’t get all the hate - the shop is quite unique for lego and was well executed. It also made sense as in the storyline Sophie (included in the set) was gonna get married with another character (Henry) and the girls were meant to help Sophie pick a dress and get ready for the wedding, which made much sense to me
So a wedding shop is an issue because of the "character age" ? Then what about all the cars, boats, helicopters, airplanes that are piloted by those "kids".
I don't get it.
@DavidBrick said:
"I really need explain this to someone in 2021?
You can drive at 15.5 in the USA. You shouldn't get married at 16. Not that difficult."
The legal age to drive alone / marry is both 18 here.
Anyhow, I think we agree on things.
I looked up the 2014 story, and the Bridal shop was in the set because of the Story , not because the girls were getting married but the Sophie character was .
(it's just not communicated in the set description, also the beauty makeover Sophie minidoll face isn't really a wedding face either)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5643728/?ref_=tt_ep_pr
"The girls are super excited to be planning a wedding for Olivia's Aunt Sophie." (minidoll in the set)
https://legofriends.fandom.com/wiki/Friends_of_the_Jungle
"Olivia, Stephanie, Andrea, Emma and Mia are with Olivia's aunt to decide a wedding dress for her big moment of getting married to Henry. "
Huh, I thought MeganL just said that about the wedding shop because of the headless body in the wedding gown on display in the storefront.
I find the design and architecture of this set so much more cohesive than the original. Also I like the subtle nod to pan pride (and I'm not pan).
Must use the directions (and if necessary get the parts) to update my Grand Emporium's escalator to a working one. While I'm at it, I could try squeezing in a second escalator, and adding a lot of this and that to the sales floors of that hoary old modular. This more open-plan mall isn't the sort of thing I personally want, but it looks like a great playset!
@DavidBrick said:
" @TeriXeri said:
"So a wedding shop is an issue because of the "character age" ? Then what about all the cars, boats, helicopters, airplanes that are piloted by those "kids".
I don't get it.
"
I really need explain this to someone in 2021?
You can drive at 15.5 in the USA. You shouldn't get married at 16. Not that difficult."
Yes, it makes sense to explain this, even in 2021. My kids for example automatically thought the Friends girls had to be (very) young adults as they drive cars and that is (over here) only possible if they are 18. Or 17, but then they would have to be accompanied by an adult. Not every kid around the world automatically knows that a) Friends is based on American society and b) that in America it is legal for kids to drive cars.
Actually that is one of the most important things for kids over here why they look forward to their 18th birthday. Finally being an adult and being allowed all the privileges that this entails, like driving a car on your own.
The whole setup of the Friends theme is a bit weird for a non-American to be honest, because those sets are bought mainly for kids that are much younger than the protagonists of the theme, yet those kids should identify with someone who behaves more like an adult than someone around the age of the target audience.
Robert's facial design dressed in that teal shirt reminds me of the old Technic figures.
Am I the only one not understanding the store and shop math? 5 shops: music, tech, accessory, toy, and what else? 3 foods: candy, boba, ramen. Then the bathroom.
I have added the set to my wish list and may even actually get it when I can afford it but I absolutely had to get some sloths!!!