Comments on: LEGO Boulder Chases Indiana Jones!

By: cadeaux

cadeaux — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:32:08 +0000

great article , thanks you very much

By: dermot

dermot — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:21:30 +0000

Guys, I'm an AFOL (adult fan of LEGO) - and have built some big models with the stuff...and there's no way that this is real. As noted, it's almost certainly a viral marketing campaign.

That much lego would cost thousands of dollars, even for raw brics. Rolling such a heavy object down a San Francisco hill would be an act of criminal negligence - such a heavy object moving at speed would be incredibly dangerous.

Now perhaps, if the sphere were hollow, it just MIGHT be plausible - but hollow spheres are pretty unstable, and I'd expect the thing to shatter or crack on impact with that car...even if glued.

So, either these guys are incredibly stupid and incredibly well off, or it's a viral campaign using a mixture of AE, styrofoam, etc.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:59:41 +0000

Ah! So that's what that strange thing was all about. A friend of mine who works in advertising sent a mysterious photo of the Lego ball (yes, made mostly of styrofoam) but no info as to what for ... Now I understand

By: Tracy Mangum

Tracy Mangum — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:54:08 +0000

The core was styrofoam. The legos were glued to the outside. Still pretty cool though.

By: ted

ted — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:57:58 +0000

I bet the inside is hollow.

So fake.

By: sparge

sparge — Tue, 20 May 2008 01:25:27 +0000

Believe it or not, I worked out the math too!

576 legos / 5 pounds = 115.2 legos/pound

5000000 legos / 115.2 legos/pound = 43402.777777778 pounds = about 21.7 tons

But I can see why you'd believe that other guy instead. All I did was give a source for the lego weight value.

(Actually, he probably got the weight of the small lego sets. But we can't know that for sure, now can we?)

By: Taylor

Taylor — Mon, 19 May 2008 23:43:17 +0000

Actually it'd be 13.7 tons. Read the comments under the video, someone worked out the math.

By: sparge

sparge — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:30:34 +0000

According to this amazon page, 576 legos weigh 5 pounds. Which means that if that thing were really 5 million legos, it would weigh nearly 22 tons. Plus all the glue that would certainly be necessary to hold it together. So yeah. Shenanigans.

By: Miss Cellania

Miss Cellania — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:17:48 +0000

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it were a viral ad. But if they were paid for it, they should have trucked it back up the hill and tried for a more exciting finish than rolling into a parked car.

By: andrewdoane

andrewdoane — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:53:42 +0000

Maybe I'm just saying it fresh off watching the Toyota commercial in the other post, but I think this one is fake too. Even if they got the bricks for half a penny each, which would be an incredible deal, these guys have 25 THOUSAND dollars worth of lego bricks? And they're willing to roll them down a hill? And the cops didn't throw them all in jail for potentially causing a LETHAL car accident? I hope, for their sake, that this was fake. And I'm including "really filmed a real brick but for an ad and on a closed-down street" in the term "fake."

By: Idil

Idil — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:31:21 +0000

That means they probably could have sold it to someone really rich for at least $500,000 .... hmmm

ahh the guy with the red hat is annoying.

By: mosumi

mosumi — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:36:32 +0000

i'm almost totally certain this is viral marketting for -

http://indianajones.lego.com/en-US/default.aspx

By: CheeseDuck

CheeseDuck — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:32:41 +0000

What can't lego do?

By: oshean

oshean — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:03:22 +0000

That LEGO ball is impressive!
The LEGO Pick-A-Brick retail cost of a 2x4 brick is 15-16 cents. That would put this ball at $750,000! Not including shipping and tax. They most likely bought these as bulk used bricks from Ebay and at garage sales.

By: kid_icarus

kid_icarus — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:16:03 +0000

i agree with not that alex....kind of anti-climactic.....at times it almost feels cgi-ish.....i wanted it to roll fast and crush things.

By: Christophe

Christophe — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:05:49 +0000

It must have cost a lot : they couldn't afford decent filming equipment...

Anyhoo, I'd like to see the face of the car insurance agent when reading the report

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:13:16 +0000

I wonder how much 5 million lego bricks cost?

By: No, not that Alex

No, not that Alex — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:06:39 +0000

That was anti-climactic...

Still, anyone with 5 million LEGOs on hand to build a boulder gets a nod of approval from me.