Creator is great
at slice-of-life stuff, frequently accompanied by a healthy dose of the
fantastic. Most of the sets would look great in a full-blown City set-up, but they also work as standalone
dioramas for your desk. The Lakeside
Lodge that I bought a couple of years ago is a great example, and this one
probably exemplifies it even more effectively.
Today though, we take a look at the Modular Winter Vacation.
The primary build of the set – seen in these photos – is essentially a chalet. Originally
developed in the Swiss Alps, you can now find them dotted all over snowfields
around the world. In real-life, its angled roof serves a practical function;
snow naturally slides off, preventing build-up and reducing maintenance in the
process. Sadly, in real life a couple who can afford to rent or own it would
likely be extremely high maintenance.
However, Lego is free of real-life WASP-ish social concerns
and so the minifigures included in this set look friendly enough. There’s a guy
and a girl – presumably a couple, though you can insert your own narrative here
– equipped with skis and a snowboard respectively. You can make either of them
bust out a sick 1080 if you want. Neither of them warrants a lot of comment; they’re
both dressed in appropriate snow gear but they’re not particularly exciting. Though
in a nice touch, the guy also has a frightened face printed on him too, which
is great if you want to send him down the sloping roof of the house.
The chalet itself is great fun to build; a deceptively
simple design that looks quite impressive, effectively creating the illusion of
fallen snow and a cosy cottage. There’s two exterior elements too; a
snow-capped tree and a bench for lunch.
The interior isn’t as great, but it looks generic enough
that it could be a place to stay, a café or perhaps even an equipment rental
store. For myself, I’m sticking with accommodation, particularly as that’s how
it looks from the front.
On the roof, there’s also an area for the holidaying couple
to sip on schnapps, beneath the light of a lantern. An owl also perches on the
balcony, presumably drawn by the heat – and here we move to an unusual point.
Towards the end of building this set – actually, pretty much
when I got to building the owl – I stumbled upon a subconscious reason as to
why I may have wanted this set in the first place. Sure, it’s pretty cool in
its own right, and the build featuring the Yeti looks really fun. But I think
an underlying reason I wanted it was because the main build looks a lot like
the way I used to picture Whitley Strieber’s cabin in Communion. Those of you who’ve read the book or seen the movie will
also know that owls play a significant role in the narrative, which makes its
inclusion particularly poignant. As you can see in this
link, it doesn’t look much like the real thing. But I first read the book
around ’98 or ’99, and I don’t think I ever saw a picture of his cabin until
’10 or ’11.
There are two other ways to build the set – a bobsled
launching point, and a public toilet being attacked by a Yeti. I like both of
them, but my main issue with them is that they’re sort of devoid of context on
their own. Ideally I’d buy three separate copies of this set and build them all
together, but in the meantime I think I’ll just maintain this build for
display.
Even without the (admittedly tenuous) Communion
connection, this is a really fun set. It doesn’t have a lot of other sets to go
with it at the moment, but hopefully there will be more snow-themed sets in the
near future. It’s an area that could have plenty of potential and hasn’t been
widely explored outside of the of the Arctic-themed City sets a few years ago. Highly recommended.
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