Review: 40651 Australia Postcard

"40651 Australia Postcard is available at LEGO.com for £13.49 / $14.99 / 14.99€."

And NINE HUNDRED DOLLARYDOOS!!! in AU.

A RATHER CLUNKY COCKATOO sounds like a children's book.

CAUTION! Kangaroos jumping on Lego bricks are VERY aggressive.

You have placed the Australia sticker upside down.

It feels to me that Lego reached into their back-catalog of sets for inspiration. I see 6444 Outback Airstrip represented here.

@WemWem said:
"A RATHER CLUNKY COCKATOO sounds like a children's book."

By Eric Carle, no doubt!

Looking at his bibliography, he did in fact write "The Very Clumsy Click Beetle"...

Why does Australia get some scrap of outback while the rest of the postcards get giant landmarks? seems weird...

Should have included the new koala from the latest CMF series: 71037-8.

I'm not from Australia, but I rather like the rural area (outback) being represented.

@LegoBoi69 said:
"Sydney opera house anyone?!"

I guess doing Sydney would be akin to assuming that the entirety of the United States is Manhattan, England is Big Ben, and Canada is the CN Tower. Heck, even in the U.S., a lot of us get annoyed when New York City is viewed as the center of the country. (See famous New Yorker cover, "A View From 9th Avenue," which illustrates the attitude.)

Not enough hazardous wildlife depicted. Should have at least included a giant spider in the outdoor toilet.

Hmmm wondering what the availability of this thing will be... Been trying to get the London, Paris and NYC cards for a while (both here in NL and in the US), but it seems to me their availability is abysmal... Not in-stock online or in-store, sad.

The mix of scales within the set just doesn't work. So the kangaroo sign is bigger than the outhouse? The cockatoo is the same size as a windmill? The tree is 350 feet tall? Poorly executed.

It's nice to see a dipiction of something that isn't Sydney for a change (no offense intended towards that lovely city).

The shack reminds me of the pub in Daly Waters, so I probably would have doubled down on that and made the tree smaller, get rid of the windmill and include another non-city landmark and replace the Qantas plane with a Contiki tour bus.

I don't know if I have the ability to buy it and do anything of those things.

Edit: just spotted the drop toilet which I approve of.

@R1_Drift said:
"Why does Australia get some scrap of outback while the rest of the postcards get giant landmarks? seems weird..."

Because Oz IS mostly outback? Personally, I can wait a little bit longer for the Netherlands to get their own postcard, which I imagine will mainly feature windmills, cheese and casual racism.

I gotta say, Australia was done a bit dirty here. It'd be like having a plain rice field for Japan. I mean, it's not wrong? But you can represent a country a bit better than.

I like this a lot. Considering that the theme is Postcards I think it's fine to include cities or countries (or saucy seaside for that matter!). Also the mixture of scales is fine, just as you might have on a postcard.

Bought on Jan 1, as London and New York sold out quickly and took ages to be restocked.

@Ridgeheart
"casual racism."
here in the states we only engage in the most professional and competitive forms of racism budster

Also, I feel like it needs some chazwazzer pieces on the unused studs.

(I'm sorry. All my Australia knowledge comes from that episode.)

Regarding why this doesn't depict a particular Australian city like the other postcards, Australian fansite Rambling Brick's review of this set explained that many manmade Australian landmarks in cities (such as the Sydney Opera House) are privately trademarked, as opposed to the public or historical landmarks in some of the other "postcard" sets. That means they would require licensing, which is something that can be done in a bigger, more expensive line like Architecture but would be outside the budget of a smaller "extended line" set like this.

You need to be alert at all times if coming here. Those giant Cockatoos can take down a Qantas plane in seconds.

This postcard just sucks... No Sydney opera, no Uluru, no great barrier reef... without the kangaroo, nobody would know the card came from Australia :-)

As an Australian I'm not very happy with this. The kangaroo sign is cool, but as @Altair rightly points out, were it not for that the kangaroo sign or AUSTRALIA on the front, people would be unsure where this actually is. Lego tried to make an outback shack, dunny, windmill and gum tree. They failed. After all this could be South Africa, or the American desert or just some random shack somewhere. The lack of respect for scale is particularly annoying.
Personally I wouldn't have cared if they'd done Sydney again. I'm very proud of our Sydney landmarks and if that's how people overseas think of us, so be it. Although Aussie humour is great, I don't want my country's landmark to be a toilet. (if they want to represent Australian shite they should build Parliament House in Canberra...)
Agreed that Ayers Rock would have been a better choice. Or Wave Rock in Western Australia. The Great Barrier Reef I can understand would be hard to specify as the GBR rather than just any old coral reef.
I do wonder why they couldn't have done Melbourne though, with Flinders St Railway Station and some trams. The MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) would have also been a great way to represent the importance of sport in Australia.
Also, one thing I definitely don't like about this set is making foreigners think Australia is all Outback (as some commenters have already incorrectly posted). The overwhelming majority of Aussies are no where near the Outback, nor have even seen red dirt. There's so much more to Australia than just red dirt, kangaroos and Crocodile Dundee.

Entirely not accurate with a lack of any snakes.

As an Australian, this is low-key offensive. If you're going to do the desert (which is not really that big a part of the Australian culture, but ok) then you at LEAST need to represent Uluru, and not some random tin shed.

@MayoLego said:
"The mix of scales within the set just doesn't work. So the kangaroo sign is bigger than the outhouse? The cockatoo is the same size as a windmill? The tree is 350 feet tall? Poorly executed."

Forced perspective. The gum tree with cockatoo and kangaroo sign are in the foreground, while the buildings and plane are yonder in the background.

At least they got the Mecha Cocky right. There’s only a few of these monstrous birds left, but they’ve been known to attack planes and steal dunny’s from time to time. Would’ve gone with something more recognisable like a Drop Bear, Hoop Snake or Otways Panther, but that works out alright.

Regardless, I think the moral of this story is that if you’re making an Australian product, and you’re not Australian yourself, don’t limit your research to Crocodile Dundee, Mad Max 2 and that Simpsons episode. Couldn’t they have at least included Uluru?

As an Aussie, thank bloody hell they didn't do another city.

Not interested in another landmark - they are done to death.

I like it, I think it's whimsical with a bit of fun. Although reading the comments here, I think we sadly may have lost a bit of that humour and are starting to take ourselves a little too seriously. I'm happy to leave that to other countries, to be honest, and enjoy the fun.

Anyone here notice that the build for the outhouse is the same as the build for Luke's blue milk carton from the Star Wars polybag of last year?

Perhaps blue milk and needing to go to the dunny in a hurry are somewhat linked...?

As an Aussie I love it. Don't really understand the other Aussies on here bagging it really. It's a bit of fun and goes well with the Aussie spirit IMHO. Talk to any Aussie outside of the major cities and I'm sure you will get a positive spin on this set.