Set #10756 Pteranodon Escape: LEGO introduced a Theme specifically for ages 4 and up meant as a transitional Theme between Duplo and regular LEGO System sets. It was called LEGO Juniors and the Theme has been phased out now, instead they include the Ages 4+ in the ordinary Themes of each venue. But from around 2016 or 2015 to just last year we had LEGO Juniors.

My interest in the Theme is mostly for Jurassic World as I fully intend to purchase the entire Jurassic World collection including Duplo and Juniors based sets, but I also got The Incredibles 2 as that was the only way to pick them up. I will be discussing these sets in these reviews from the perspective of potential parents, or at least attempting to do so.

Box/Instructions

Box: You can easily tell a LEGO Juniors box apart from the rest because of the bold red colour choice and the Easy to Build sub-title included on each box. They have some nice images on the front and back demonstrating the easy of building and playing with all of these sets.

Instructions: LEGO went all out with these things, not only do they demonstrate how easy it is to build they show step-by-step building instructions with only one or two pieces at a time to help with building techniques and models. They also show off what older brother or sister can build by cross promoting the regular Theme sets and feature a cute little comic adventure in the back.

Parts

There are very few parts in Juniors sets, however one key difference between them and regular System sets is the absence of stickers. All Juniors sets included printed elements only, so you find some nice printed bricks with the Jurassic World logo and a shot of the island with the volcano dangerously erupting in the background. MOC fans definitely have a ball parting out these sets for their own personal creations.

Minifigures

Guard Ball Cap: Generic guards that can fit in with existing Jurassic World Minifigures make for an interesting choice in Minifigures. There’s not much to say about this pair, the printing on them is pretty much identical aside from the heads and they don’t have much in the way of accessories. The male with the ball cap gets the gun element with the syringe for tranquillizing the dino.

Guard Female Aviator Cap: The female pilot has a walkie talkie to communicate with her buddy on the ground. She also has a two-sided face with a nervous expression on one side and a regular smiling face on the other.

A nice pair of generic guards to join the InGen Soldiers from the original Jurassic World theme.

The build

Bag1: Using the modular build design allows for younger builders to see just how different a lot of System sets are. Here you build one bag at a time, the first bag includes the parts for the Pteranodon, Helicopter and Pilot Minifigure. When they say Easy to Build they mean it, there are very few parts used in each step and the Helicopter is one solid piece.

Bag 2: Some added scenery is included for playing with, what’s meant to represent some of the jungle being burned by lava and a small control center for the Rescue Team to work with. You’ll also find the large rock elements in transparent red for Lava balls exploding out of the Volcano.

The completed model

To discuss this section as if it was similar to a regular set would do it a disservice the models in Juniors sets are meant to be easy to build and fun to play with and honestly, I definitely think this could make some kids day. Not all kids, but a few would get a lot of mileage out of the helicopter and the dinosaur alone, the rest of the models are a bit unfortunate especially compared to how the T-Rex set handled the overall thematic elements of their models.

There is just very little to do here. I honestly feel they should have included a catapult to launch the Lava rocks at the Dinosaur to sort of make a game out of it. See if you can get the dinosaur out of the range of the catapult. It would have been better than the disjointed elements in the terrain section for the models. Especially considering the price range of this set.

Overall opinion

I’m honestly a little torn. Juniors was an experiment that seemed to be well received. However it may have been poorly executed in certain aspects. This set is 25$ Canadian and only features 84 pieces. Now this may be fine for some, considering you get printed elements, a dinosaur and unique helicopter chassis element, but in my eyes considering some Polybags include only 84 pieces for 5$ this set may seem a tad overpriced comparing the value between it and regular System sets.

I would recommend this set mostly for some of the parts, so I’d strongly suggest trying to get it on sale. At least for AFOLs and older collectors. As far as parents are concerned, I think the T-Rex set is a much better value, the T-Rex is a larger dinosaur, there’s more actual play features in that set and you have a bit more to build and work with compared to this one. I would say this is the second best Juniors Jurassic World set overall, good to get on sale and stuff, but not worth the full asking price considering the 25$ set from the main Fallen Kingdom theme included a net launcher and a jeep vehicle.