I Spent 3 Hours With The Friends Cast…
And it was unforgettable! A nostalgic review of the Central Perk Ideas LEGO #21319 set.
Anyone who dares to bash the TV series as sexist and homophobic can go right ahead and fuck off. In life and history, there is this thing called context. It’s important, though that fact doesn’t seem to register for many of today’s extremely woke generations. The funny thing is, 50 years from now, other generations will consider what we do now, extremely outdated, idiotic, senseless, etc and will commit the same mistake as everyone else did before us — missing the context. In hindsight, 50% of what humans do is wrong from one perspective or another. It’s inevitable. So, stop bashing.
So, let me say it again, if you don’t like Friends, you’re unable to appreciate it in the appropriate context, thank you for clicking the article, you can go, “pivot!” away from this one, and read something else. This article is for the Friends fans. For every single person whose life, Friends managed to bring a little sunshine into. Whew. I kept that little rant inside me for far too long, but now I feel like I can truly talk about this set undistracted by secondary emotions.
Just as it happened with the Typewriter set, I got a little bit lucky. The Central Perk set is now categorised as “hard to find”. This usually means that its complete disappearance from the LEGO site or retail shops is imminent.
Seeing how the price was also down by 20 euros in my local Smyths Toys shop, I hurried over and grabbed one of the last 6 sets in stock. To be perfectly honest, I would have done so even at its full price of 79.99, but thankfully, I didn’t have to. Within just a few years, this will be worth double its retail price, even if not brand new.
LEGO Ideas sets always have a quite limited run, and associated minifigs are often a once in a lifetime.
A truly unique building experience
There’s no debating this. If you’re a Friends fan, you will feel very emotionally connected to the set. From starting with the base, to building up the walls of the Central Perk café, the furniture, the decor, coffee-machine and every single other detail, takes you back in time like very few sets from LEGO ever would.
It’s a LEGO set that brings your favourite characters into your living-room and while they’re not living-breathing actors, they’re the next best thing.
The set was created by a LEGO and Friends fan for the TV show’s 25th anniversary, and it does absolute justice to both the show and the characters. Now, when it comes to the minifigs, I must say, the limitation of the LEGO minifigs in general makes them a little bit difficult to recognise. Ross is probably the easiest in terms of facial expressions. For all the other characters, you have to kind of rely on other identifiers like hair, the clothes they wear or the objects they hold. Nevertheless, they’re all great fun, and fit in very well with the set. And yes, even in LEGO form, I am a Monica fan!
The furniture and the general decor is probably the part that I found the most impressive. While my memory is somewhat vague of the actual set they filmed the show on, all throughout the build I felt like each element brought back memories of one scene or another, which only proves further the nostalgic value of the set.
In terms of building techniques, this is not a difficult set to build, but also not the simplest. There are plenty SNOT techniques involved, and I had more than a few moments of pleasant surprise seeing how the various bits connected to result in things like the couch, the curtain, the general floor area or the carpets, especially the main one. While technically a medium-sized set of just, 1070 pieces, it does feel like you get a lot more out of it.
To display or not to display?
This set is interesting. In many ways, it is a display set, but it’s also one of the few display sets that allows for countless role-plays should you have friends who are into that. Even LEGO states that you can play out classic scenes with the minifigs, and they’re right. You can, in fact, use this set to even do some cool stop-motion recordings and recreate the LEGO infused versions of famous Central Perk moments.
It’s also worth noting that each character has two facial expressions you can choose from, which is very handy if you’re going to use this set for more than just displaying. Be careful though, there are some loose parts like the umbrellas, Joey’s pizza box, Chandler’s laptop and Rachel’s tray with coffee mug that are easy to lose if you’re not paying attention. There’s also Ross’ keyboard that is meant to replace Phoebe’s microphone, so one or the other will always feel like an extra. You can, of course, find either of them a good place behind the armchair, like I did.
If you’re a hard-core Friends fan (which I am not, I only watched the series twice), you can also get the The Friends Apartments, another hard to find set, and this one, definitely on the expensive side at 149.99, but it does come with 2048 pieces.
Central Perk is, overall, an excellent set and 25 years from now, potentially just as legendary as the show itself. Time will tell, but for now, it’s the most interactive fun you can have with the Friends characters in their brick-built habitat.
The building stages
The set is built over six major stages, and each stage introduces one or two new characters and their accessories.
Set stats
- 1070 total pieces
- set size: medium
- age-rating: 16+
- average build-time: < 3h
- display set: yes
- new/interesting parts: yes
- playability: yes
- design: outstanding
- height: 11 cm
- width: 30 cm
- depth: 21 cm
- average price: 70 Euro/USD
Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, Lego fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer!
