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Jake & Neytiri's First Banshee Flight

Two beautiful banshees, one honest catch nobody warns you about.

Brick Rated Score

3.7/5

Set 75572 · 2022

Pieces578

Minifigs2

Year2022

Set number75572

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The verdict

The banshees are the reason to own this, and honestly they earned it.

Both creatures are properly articulated with notched wings, an adjustable neck, and a head on a ball joint, so you can pose them mid-swoop and they hold it. The snag is that the two largest builds are identical apart from color, which makes the second one feel like homework. If you love Pandora or you want a pair of poseable ikran for a shelf, this is a lovely little set. If you build for engineering surprises, you will feel the repetition.

Best for: Avatar fans who want two poseable banshees for the shelf

The full review

What it is

The first banshee is what got me. You build this notched, winged ikran with a neck that adjusts up and down and a head parked on a ball joint, and the moment you finish it you start swooping it around the room like a nine year old. It has real presence, more than I expected from a set this size, and the turquoise and blue color work makes it feel like it stepped off the screen. Add the little floating chunk of the Hallelujah Mountains with its glowing flowers, plus Jake and Neytiri standing on top, and the finished thing has a lovely bit of Pandora atmosphere on a shelf.

The catch

Here is the part I have to be straight about. There are two banshees, and they are the exact same build apart from color. So you do the whole clever, satisfying process once, feel great about it, and then you turn the page and do it again with different bricks. The second time around the surprise is gone, and it starts to feel like assembly rather than building. Price is the other wrinkle. Around sixty dollars at retail for under six hundred pieces is not generous, and the small mountain display base does not really pull its weight next to the two big creatures. This is a set carried almost entirely by the animals.

Who it's for

So who walks away happy here? If you love Avatar, or you specifically want a matched pair of poseable ikran to display, this delivers exactly that and the figures are the exclusive taller Na'vi versions. Kids around nine and up will get real play value out of two swooping banshees. If what you chase in a build is clever engineering and constant novelty, though, know going in that you are essentially building the same model twice, and budget your patience accordingly. It is retired now, so it is a want-it decision rather than a grab-it-anytime one.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this is a quick, pleasant afternoon rather than a marathon. It splits into three booklets, one per banshee and one for the display structure, so two people can build alongside each other, which is a genuinely nice way to spend it with a kid. The banshee itself is the good part: the notched wing attachments and the ball-joint neck and head give you a creature that poses and stays posed. The catch, again, is that you do that exact sequence twice.

On parts, the headline is the taller Na'vi figures. To sell the height of the Na'vi, LEGO gave Jake and Neytiri longer limbs and a brand new head mould with pointy ears and a defined chin, and Neytiri's torso print is the detailed movie outfit. There is also a newer transparent light blue support half round (2 x 4 x 13) used to shape the waterfall, a useful element for anyone building water or ice. The glow-in-the-dark flowers scattered on the mountain are the other keepsake pieces. Value per part is not the draw, but a few of these molds are genuinely worth having.

Fun facts

01To make the Na'vi read as taller than humans, LEGO's design team created a new head mould with pointy ears and a chin and paired it with longer arms and legs on Jake and Neytiri.
02The set arrived on October 1, 2022 and retired at the end of 2023, and sealed copies have since climbed to roughly 136 dollars, up around 127 percent from the 59.99 retail price.
03The floating Hallelujah Mountains section includes glow-in-the-dark flowers that light up in the dark.
04It ships with three separate instruction booklets, one for each banshee and one for the display, so several people can build it at once.