Set Review: LEGO's CITY: CARS' : 4434 "Dump Mater"

Presenting to you an informative review of #4434 Dump Mater. I went shopping recently and picked up 4434, one of several in the great lineup of Lego City vehicle kits in the $20 range. Perhaps a second trip to the toy aisles is in order.

I cringe at the "Modular Build, Easy Start" phrase Lego has been stamping on the back of its boxes. The bad taste in my mouth has been subdued upon realizing that this does not pertain to "juniorization", but rather the simple numbering of baggies to designate which pieces belong to which assemblies.

Hahah, forget that. I'm a romantic.

That means I like making things more difficult than they should be. Yeah, make a big mess. Also, bonus points for carpet building!

As it turns out, this MOC of Lego's is actually quite far from "juniorized". There is hardly a prefabricated piece in all of the 222 pieces, unless you want to count the 2 x 6 x 2 windshield or the 4 x 6 x 2/3 sloped panel thingy or the fenders.

In fact the entire truck bed is assembled using these panels, no prefab, this is not rock raiders!

I wish I had SNOT bricks marketed to me when I was younger. Lego's CITY: CARS has come a long way from all that terrrrible shit I had to grow up with.

Here is the assembled Dump Mater. It is a very nice vehicle kit. You can purchase it with the confidence knowing that the colors are indeed what you perceive them to be; that is orange there, not light orange, nor dark orange, nor burnt orange, nor earth orange, nor dark nougat. Just orange.


If there is something I miss from my juvenile days, it is the inspirational images on the back of the box. I understand those have been put down as a result of complaints from parents along the lines of, "my child is too unimaginative to backwards engineer this teasing imagery, even though that is kind of the point of purchasing this construction toy". The learning is in the elements, folks.

Regardless, even without taunting, inspirational box art, I am blessed with the ability to just imagine and see beyond the Dump Mater, beyond the MOC.

I see... a Mechwarrior!

I AM OPIUM'S PRIME