LEGO® Creator review + MOCs: 77940 and 77941 Mighty Dinos

Kev Levell (@kevlevell) plays with the brown and blue recolours of Mighty Dinos sets, LEGO® Creator 77940 and 77941, which were an experiment run in the UK market. He had two copies of each to work with. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.

There is something fascinating in seeing an official LEGO® set recoloured. Having built the original dinosaurs with my son numerous times, building the recoloured versions with him for this review was a real joy. Once again, I was struck by the versatility of the set, both as individual sets and as multiples.

The original green version, 31058 Mighty Dinosaurs, was designed by Mike Psiaki and the job of working out the recoloured versions was given to Morten Rauff. The concept of recolouring a set isn’t new, but it’s never been done by The LEGO Group as a product offering before.

Much of this is going to feel like digging over old ground - and in that respect, perhaps it will be a little like palaeontology and we’ll unearth something interesting. None of these fossils' parts are new, by definition; the sets contain parts that we are very familiar with. As these are smaller sets, there are not vast quantities of parts recoloured here either (as there is with the Bright Light Blue 77942 Fiat 500, which I will be looking at soon).

77940 Mighty Dinosaurs (brown variant)

Exclusives

• 6x Slope Curved 4 x 1 No Studs [Stud Holder with Symmetric Ridges] in Dark Orange (6373108 | 11153)
• 4x Plate Round Corner 3 x 3 in Dark Orange (6359697 | 30357)
• 1x Wedge Curved 6 x 4 Triple in Dark Orange (6191599 | 43712) Upon double checking, this wedge was actually available in two Legends of Chima sets in 2014 - 70146 & 70147.
• 1x Wheel Arch, Wedge 4 x 3 Open with Cutout and Four Studs in Reddish Brown (6251393 | 47755)
• 2x Slope Inverted 45° 2 x 2 [Ovoid Bottom Pin, Bar-sized Stud Holes] in Sand Yellow (6376403 | 3660)
• 1x Slope Inverted 33° 3 x 2 [Connections between Studs] in Sand Yellow (6373110 | 3747)
• 3x Wedge Plate 4 x 2 Right in Dark Orange (6373104 | 41769)
• 3x Wedge Plate 4 x 2 Left in Dark Orange (6373105 | 41770)

Strictly speaking these two wedges are available in a few ATOC era sets but haven’t been seen since 2004.

Rare

• 2x Slope Inverted 45° 2 x 2 [Ovoid Bottom Pin, Bar-sized Stud Holes] in Dark Orange (6187575 | 3660) three sets

77941 Mighty Dinosaurs (blue variant)

Exclusives

• 2x Plate 2X3 in Cool Yellow (6293288 | 3021)
• 2x Slope Inverted 45° 2 x 2 [Ovoid Bottom Pin, Bar-sized Stud Holes] in Cool Yellow (6373311 | 3660)
• 1x Slope Inverted 33° 3 x 2 [Connections between Studs] in Cool Yellow (6373306 | 3747)
• 1x Brick 2X4 in Cool Yellow (6373312 | 3001)
• 4x Technic Brick Special 2 x 2 with Ball Receptacle Wide and Axle Hole in Sand Blue (6373308 | 92013)
• 3x Plate Special 1 x 2 with Handle on End [Closed Ends] in Sand Blue (6373310 | 60478)
• 1x Wheel Arch, Wedge 4 x 3 Open with Cutout and Four Studs in Sand Blue (6373304 | 47755)
• 1x Wedge Plate 2X3 Left in Sand Blue (6373305 | 43723)
• 1x Wedge Plate 2X3 Right in Sand Blue (6373307 | 43722)

Rare

• 4x Tile Special 1 x 1 with Clip with Rounded Edges in Sand Blue (6364367 | 44842) two sets
• 3x Brick Special 1 x 2 with Studs on 2 Sides in Cool Yellow (6296512 | 52107) three sets
• 1x Plate Round 2 x 2 with Axle Hole Type 1 (+ Opening) in Sand Blue (6364365 | 4032) two sets
• 1x Wedge Curved 6 x 4 Triple in Earth Blue (6211394 | 43712) six sets

31058 Mighty Dinosaurs: the original

I thought it might also be fun to see what parts are still relatively rare in the original set, 31058. If there were once exclusive elements, unsurprisingly after five years they have now found uses elsewhere.

Rare

• 1x Wedge Curved 6 x 4 Triple in Dark Green (4655332 | 43712) six sets
• 3x Plate Special 1 x 2 with Handle on End [Closed Ends] in Earth Green (6130035 | 60478) five sets
• 4x Technic Brick Special 2 x 2 with Ball Receptacle Wide and Axle Hole in Earth Green (6172458 | 92013) five sets
• 1x Wheel Arch, Wedge 4 x 3 Open with Cutout and Four Studs in Earth Green (6172459 | 47755) two sets

There is not much to really examine closely here. I did consider a spotlight on Wheel Arch, Wedge 4 x 3 Open with Cutout and Four Studs (47755), but as part of his vehicle fronts article Eero did an indepth analysis and showcased some wonderful mocs. I do have one of each available colour though, and that’s always nice to see, especially when these sets have added two new colours to the range.

I don’t have all the colours of the 43712 6x4 wedge, and any analysis of that part seems slightly pedestrian given that it’s mostly POOP. Nothing new to see here, move along, move along!

The models compared

This was one of those father/son building exercises, owing to the fact that the sets turned up at half-term holiday. 

So, we built the T-rex… in all three colours, of course.

Then we built the Triceratops, again in all three colours.

And then we built the Pteranodon too… In. All. Three. Colours!

3-in-1, 3-of-3, that’s 9!

For those who are unaware, there is a fourth official model, a brachiosaurus. A pdf of the instructions can be found and downloaded here or by searching 31058 on the LEGO customer services portal. There are three further free instructions there now too, a plane, an ankylosaurus and a scorpion.

The Levell's MOCs using the brown and blue Mighty Dinos

After we’d built the official models as provided in the set, we tried to move away from dinosaurs. 

We built a Mech suit robot thing (and you guessed it, we built it in three colours!). This made me recall exactly how much I loved the Exo-Force sets.

Next I put the two green sets together and tried for a bigger mech. 

Eagle eyes might see that I’ve dropped a big old bit of POOP in there too. I’d been intending to do something with Vehicle Body, Motorcycle / Quadricycle Frame in Dark Bluish Gray (6356277 | 70682) and it was just sitting there… taunting me. You know how some elements get.

Then, a return to dinosaurs. 

I put the two blue sets together and produced a Brachiosaurus (or something akin to it).

With just the two browns left my son (a dinosaur expert) decided that a Parasaurolophus was what was needed and despite trying to help in this endeavour, all my attempts at legs and arms were discarded in favour of his “more accurate” interpretations.

This made me wonder if I could add a final “double-up dino” to our exhibit… what I actually produced is a double, double-up dino.

First I built a Plesiosaur (as we all of course already know, Mary Anning discovered the first full skeleton of this variety of prehistoric creature, of which Elasmosaurus is an example). 

There were enough parts to add replacements to the head and tail to make a Pliosaur ("it’s a Liopleurodon, Daddy").

With just two sets of each colour at your disposal, everything in the picture above can be built. Obviously, you only really require two 31058 to build anything that I’ve shown so far.

Finally I decided to bundle all six sets together, and as I was sorting the idea struck me that normally we are focussed on the new and unique parts in a set, but here was a unique situation where there are many, many parts common to all three sets… 

…especially if you have a total of six sets at your disposal. So, restricting myself to those parts, I started to tablescrap some ideas.

Some ideas were a little more formed:

A Bunny-Bot.

Tim Burton’s Christmas Tree.

Then, using some of these little parts explorations I tried to build something with all the parts in the six sets at my disposal. I found it really difficult to break free of the established colour palettes and initially just built another spaceship.

I think it’s somewhere between a snowspeeder and a landspeeder. My son wasn’t impressed and I got barged to one side...

...while he built this extra robot from the remaining parts.

My little girl wanted to join in by this point...

...to build a butterfly with some of the parts. So, we set to work, trying to make some convincing wings. What we ended up with looks more like some kind of alien lobster to me, but she was happy.

It did however inspire my final build!

The Langoustinelle; it's either a deep space creature or large cruise spaceship. It's using construction borrowed from both the speeder and the alien lobster. I think I even finally just about managed to mix the colour palettes.

Have we inspired you to buy these from the UK LEGO Shop? Well, we might have published this article too late as they are currently out of stock, but if you're trying, consider using our affiliate links as New Elementary may get a commission: 77940 (brown) 77941 (blue). 

Editor: Chris Baginski

READ MORE: LEGO® Ideas review: 21331 Sonic the Hedgehog™ Green Hill Zone

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