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LEGO Ideas Ship In A Bottle press-release

A couple of days ago, LEGO released the following teaser image of the upcoming #21313 LEGO Ideas Ship in a Bottle set, so we knew that the full reveal was going to be soon. And here we go; today LEGO officially announced the #21313 LEGO Ideas Ship in a Bottle. Details below. 🙂

Create a timeless classic with LEGO bricks! Show you are a true craftsman when you create a Ship in a Bottle with LEGO bricks! Build this beautiful ship named ‘Leviathan’, including the captain’s quarters, masts, crow’s nest, sails, flag and 6 cannons. Place it inside the brick-built bottle, featuring a buildable cork and wax seal. Then showcase your nostalgic, nautical creation on the display stand, complete with the ship’s nameplate and a compass with a spinning needle.

  • Features a LEGO brick-built bottle, ship and a display stand.
  • Bottle features a detailed, buildable cork with new wax-seal-style element and over 280 translucent-blue, water-style elements inside.
  • Ship features a raised deck at the stern, captain’s quarters, 6 cannons, 3 masts, a crow’s nest and assorted elements including printed sails and the ship’s flag.
  • Display stand features the ship’s ‘Leviathan’ nameplate, a built-in ‘compass’ (non-functioning) with detailed compass rose and spinning gold-colored needle, 2 globe elements and gold-colored detailing.
  • Includes a booklet with building instructions, plus information about the set’s fan creator and LEGO designers.
  • Bottle on stand measures over 3″ (10cm) high, 12” (31cm) wide and 3” (10cm) deep.
  • Ship measures over 3″ (8cm) high, 5” (14cm) long and 1” (5cm) wide.
  • Recommended for ages 10+.
  • Contains 962 pieces.

The #21313 LEGO Ideas Ship in a Bottle will be available directly from LEGO on February 1st. There will be no LEGO VIP member early access. Prices are as follows: US $69.99 – CA $89.99 – DE 69.99€ – UK £69.99 – DK 599.00 DKK (Euro pricing varies by country.) Visit the LEGO Ideas section of the Online LEGO Shop.

My initial reaction to the set is that I really like the bottle, but not so much the ship. I’m not saying it doesn’t look nice, but it is very much juniorized compared to the original LEGO Ideas submission by LEGO fan Jacob Sadovich. Jacob’s ship was a truly beautiful miniature sailing ship, as you can see on the picture below. The final version of the ship is smaller and simpler, with very short masts. It just doesn’t have the elegance of the original. You can see more pictures of the project at the LEGO Ideas submission page, and read more about the project and its creator in this interview at the LEGO Ideas blog. But I do like what LEGO designers did with the bottle. The cap section and the seal are particularly nice, as is the beautifully designed stand with printed pieces. I can’t wait to build it!

What do you think? How do you like the #21313 LEGO Ideas Ship in a Bottle? Are you planning to add it to your collection? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below! 😉

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{ 37 comments… add one }
  • brickmaster January 10, 2018, 11:26 AM

    Looks nice! I agree that the ship lost a lot of its character, but I think it’s still a nice set. Love the compass! Is that a print?

  • DavidH January 10, 2018, 11:33 AM

    It looks like the bottle for the official set is much smaller, so they had to shrink the ship to make it fit. Too bad, but I still like it. The bottle and stand are very nice.

  • Rob January 10, 2018, 11:59 AM

    I gotta admit, this is the first time I’ve ever wanted a ship in a bottle! 😀

  • Laurie January 10, 2018, 12:30 PM

    Lego Idea Fishing Store Awesome. This one Pass. Meh, some people love it others not so much. To each its own 😉

  • Tony January 10, 2018, 1:00 PM

    I agree that lego did a better job on the bottle and the stand, and Jacob did a better job on the ship. I wonder if it would be possible to make the ship similar to the original.

    • Håkan January 10, 2018, 1:03 PM

      It seems to have been trimmed down considerably. You wouldn’t be able to fit the original ship into the current bottle…

      • admin January 10, 2018, 3:15 PM

        Yes, exactly. Although, I’m sure some creative LEGO fans will come up with something. Maybe shrink the ship and give it more substantial masts and sail?

    • admin January 10, 2018, 3:15 PM

      The bottle is smaller than the original, so sadly, the bigger ship won’t fit…

  • Hippie-Hudson January 10, 2018, 1:53 PM

    Ok I do like the official set but it is very different from the original one, which i do prefer and mostly because of the ship design. Lego’s version looks more like a toy that looks like a model where as Jacobs design looked less like a toy.
    Jacobs mini ship is just so good they should have kept it. I also liked the square shaped bottle much more also.

    • admin January 10, 2018, 3:16 PM

      Yeah, the original little ship was very beautiful…

  • Ray January 10, 2018, 1:54 PM

    They clearly decided the idea had merit but didn’t think they could sell it very well at the original size. Thus both the ship and the bottle are much smaller than in the original design.

    • admin January 10, 2018, 3:16 PM

      Yes, it’s sad, because the ship was so pretty!

  • Hippie-Hudson January 10, 2018, 1:57 PM

    The more I compare the two sets the less I’m liking the official release.. why Lego, why. Unsmiley

    • admin January 10, 2018, 3:16 PM

      I know what you mean… 🙁

      • Håkan January 10, 2018, 3:29 PM

        Because the original proposition would require a prize of 300$+?

        • admin January 10, 2018, 4:16 PM

          My guess is that LEGO looked at price, piece-count, features, stability, etc. Considering everything, they concluded that making the set bigger and more expensive wasn’t worth it. While it is a nice set, it doesn’t have the awesomeness of the Saturn V or the playability and intricacy of the Fishing Store. For those two sets making them large made sense. It seems that they concluded that for the Ship In A Bottle keeping it large didn’t make sense. I’m also guessing that the bottle was much more fragile when it was larger, and they couldn’t make it stable enough for an official LEGO set.

  • jjava January 10, 2018, 5:48 PM

    Rather disappointed with the released version because I really like the submitted one. But maybe that’s a good thing. With all the rumors HP sets, my wallet is going to take a deep nose dive. So this disappointment may be a blessing in disguise.

    • admin January 10, 2018, 7:14 PM

      Yeah, HP sets are definitely coming. Including some really big ones. I’m expecting them to be really good. 😀

      • LEGOJeff January 10, 2018, 7:20 PM

        There are HP sets coming???? I like the ship, but this is only a display piece. It doesn’t have any playability as far as I can see. Or, is there a way to really build it like a ship in a bottle?

        • admin January 10, 2018, 7:31 PM

          Yes. Sometime in the summer. The latest is that there are going to be five sets, three for the Harry Potter franchise and two for Fantastic Beasts. There is also going to be a Harry Potter Collectible Minifigures line. None of this is officially confirmed yet, but the info comes from reliable sources. The three sets from HP are Aragog with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, Flying Ford Anglia with The Whomping Willow, and the Hogwarts Great Hall. The two sets from Fantastic Beasts are the Newt Scamander’s Suitcase (this is supposedly a buildable suitcase with brick built beasts), and The Crimes of Grindelwald. 😉

          • Håkan January 10, 2018, 8:10 PM

            I had expected FB sets to arrive sooner, but perhaps they were already planned when Lego had placed their bets on Dimensions…

            • admin January 10, 2018, 9:07 PM

              That’s very likely. I’m really curious to see the new sets, because LEGO’s building techniques changed significantly since the previous releases.

              • Rob January 11, 2018, 11:17 AM

                Wow, how long has it been since the last Harry Potter Lego sets were retired? I have Hagrid’s Hut and that was released back in 2010 I think. I don’t wish to knock the fandom, but I’m getting the feeling that H.P is more trying to stay relevant, but hey, I won’t knock people supporting the franchise.

                • admin January 11, 2018, 11:40 AM

                  Oh, I’m sure they are trying to milk it as long as they can. What I’m really curious about though is how LEGO is going to handle the construction of the sets. There has been a significant shift away from large pieces to intricate detailing. Also, so many pieces now for curving and smoothing corners. And not to speak of the new colors! 😀

        • admin January 10, 2018, 7:44 PM

          I don’t think you could build it like a real ship in the bottle. If you look at the first picture (the teaser image), you can see that the passage between the body of the bottle and the top narrow section is closed. 😐

          • Håkan January 10, 2018, 8:04 PM

            Real ships in bottles are inserted with the masts folded down, and after that, they’re raised through a string you’re pulling out the neck.

            Seems a rather impractical way to construct a Lego model.

            • admin January 10, 2018, 9:05 PM

              That’s true, but LEGO fans like good challenges. 😉

  • Su January 10, 2018, 6:33 PM

    If you’ll notice, the original submission had the bottle on the diagonal, which allowed for a taller ship. I don’t think by rotating the released bottle you’ll gain all the height back, but it may help make a taller ship. I prefer the original submission better than the released version.

    • admin January 10, 2018, 7:16 PM

      Very good point. I do plan to get the set, and I’m going to try your idea of rotating the bottle. It may need more “water” to make it look like, but I have plenty of little studs. 😀

      • Håkan January 10, 2018, 8:08 PM

        I guess it’d require some reconstructing of those slopey grips, though.

        But since the shape of the bottle is pretty oblong to begin with, I’m not sure you’d really gain a lot of height, anyway…

        • admin January 10, 2018, 9:06 PM

          How about a half sunken ship turned on it’s side? 😈

          • Håkan January 11, 2018, 5:12 AM

            Well, if you remove half of the hull, you might gain some height…

            • admin January 11, 2018, 11:37 AM

              Oh, gosh, this bottle is looking tighter and tighter… 😐

              • BLProductions January 11, 2018, 1:33 PM

                Turning the bottle 45 degrees at this scale won’t give you a lot more space. At the middle of those curved wall elements, the bottle is 10X10 studs, so you would have about 14 studs of height to work with. The ship in the set is about 11 studs high, since the bottle (sitting flat) is 12 studs high. So you’d get an extra 3 studs, but that’s without any “water” elements. I guess you could heighten the masts a little with that space…. 😕

                • admin January 11, 2018, 1:50 PM

                  That may be enough to make the masts more reasonable. Another thing I was thinking of is to make the masts thinner, using rods. One of the reasons the ship now looks so toy-ish because it is so “fat”. Thinner masts could bring back some of the delicate beauty of the original model. At least that’s what I’m thinking…

  • BLProductions January 11, 2018, 1:13 PM

    I think the final set is excellent viewed on its own, but it is indeed quite simple compared to the original submission. I note that most of my predictions about what LEGO would do to the model (which I made in the article for the set’s announcement) occurred: the set has no rope, no outer cables, and no Chain 16M. They kept all the 1X1 round plates, though.
    I’m not surprised that they nearly halved the model’s size, since that deals with the original bottle’s stability issue while also cutting down the price. I do like that they’re still using those giant curved corner panels, though, since those are very rare. I think having less panels makes the model look cleaner (the panels are also now symmetrical around the bottle), but as many have noted it also required the ship to be shrunk down, and the smaller ship doesn’t look as nice. The scale forces the model to lose much of the original’s complexity. My least favorite part of it is the Dark Orange: while I certainly like pieces in that color, I think the ship would have looked better with a Reddish Brown hull, like the original had. 😕
    The stand is also cleaner (and less detailed) than the original, but it fits with the more simplistic theme the set seems to have. Overall, I’m a little disappointed with how the set turned out, but it’s still pretty good. 🙂
    Finally, one thing I’m curious about is what Jacob thinks of the final set. LEGO has pretty much completely redesigned his submission to fit their standards. Is he ok with the changes and thus helped to make them as good as possible, or are there areas that could’ve followed the original better?

    • admin January 11, 2018, 1:56 PM

      I would be curious to hear what Jacob thinks as well. But I doubt he will tell his real opinion, even if he is not happy with the changes. After all, LEGO just produced his set, and he is going to get a percentage of the sales. Based on interviews with other LEGO Ideas fan designers, it seems that sometimes they work closely with the original designer, and sometimes not. This might be just logistics though, as some fans live close to where LEGO can directly work with them, while others are at far away places. I’m sure that in either way, LEGO’s own design team gets feedback from the fan designer, at least remotely, before finalizing the set.

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