LEGO Avatar 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls review

75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls is easily the most underrated set in the first LEGO Avatar wave – and potentially the sleeper hit of 2022.

While general excitement around the LEGO Avatar theme has been pretty muted, which isn’t exactly surprising for sets based on a film now 13 years old (and which doesn’t really have the same cultural footprint as Star Wars, Marvel or even The Lord of the Rings), there are plenty of reasons to give this first wave a second look – and topping that list is 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls, the largest LEGO Avatar set released so far.

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Theme: LEGO Avatar Set name: 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls Release date: October 1, 2022

Price: £129.99 / $149.99 / €149.99 Pieces: 1,212 Minifigures: 4

LEGO: Available now / Zavvi: Available now

--- Where to buy LEGO Avatar 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls ---

75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls is available to buy from LEGO.com and in LEGO Stores, along with the rest of the first wave of LEGO Avatar sets. You might be able to find it cheaper through third-party retailers, such as Zavvi, where it’s currently available with a tempting 23% discount.

Click here to save £30 on 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls at Zavvi.

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Like all LEGO Avatar sets, 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls’ various models are split between multiple instruction booklets, so you can share the build with friends, family or a stranger walking down the street (we don’t officially advise doing this). Where some of the smaller sets in the range suffer for disproportionately sharing out the builds, though – you can have a mech or a bit of plant – nobody here should feel too short-changed. (Okay, maybe whoever gets the first booklet, with two smaller slices of Pandora. Best give that one to the street stranger.)

Building a tree? Way more fun than it looks. Putting together the larger piece of Pandora, with an archway and support beam for the leonopteryx? Actually quite entertaining. And as for the beast itself, well, that’s a little more subjective, as we’ll come to later on. This is a set of four quarters in some regards, but none of them are truly lacklustre builds, so whether you’re sharing it out or doing it all yourself, it’s unlikely you’ll be disappointed.

The four components (or three, really – two connect together for one big bit of scenery) that comprise 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls all make narrative sense within the context of the original Avatar movie, which precious few of us will have seen since 2009, and of which even fewer will remember the major plot points. To briefly recap: Jake Sully becomes the sixth Toruk Makto by successfully riding a great leonopteryx, eventually unifying the Na’vi to defeat the RDA.

The Tree of Souls itself is the place where Sully (not that Sully) permanently transfers his mind into his Avatar, so beyond its spiritual significance to the characters, it’s also very significant to the plot of the film. (Remember the plot? It definitely had one.) Anyway, it makes for a smart choice for the largest set of this wave, and all the ingredients are there for a model that should satisfy diehard Avatar fans.

In truth, the similarity to the source material is a bit off in places – but that’s fine. Nobody really remembers the details of Avatar; it doesn’t have the same iconography as, say, Star Wars, so the level of scrutiny surrounding its LEGO sets isn’t the same. You can get away with much more, and the designers know it, openly taking creative liberties with elements like the Pandoran landscape. It’s more ‘inspired by’ than ‘an exact replica’ (so why the instructions are littered with reference images is anyone’s guess, given they just invite poor comparisons), but the important part is that the set looks good, while acting as a reasonable facsimile of the movie. On that front, it more than satisfies.

Because, when all’s said and done, this set really does look surprisingly good. From the tree’s wonderful mix of trans-neon pink aerials, cones and 4L bars and glow-in-the-dark vines around its roots, to the way the leonopteryx soars overhead (perched atop its translucent display stand), 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls has such shelf presence that you won’t find it difficult to display at all.

That’s perhaps no surprise given these sets are designed with older builders in mind, and are therefore geared towards display above play. But there’s still something to be said for the unique mix of builds within the one box in 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls, particularly for how many different colours are fighting to catch your eye. It could – and really should – be overwhelming, even nauseating, but somehow it all just clicks. Building within that varied palette is a joy, and then placing it all together is unlike anything else you’ll currently have on your shelves.

The result is a model that captures your attention in a way perhaps none of the other LEGO Avatar sets manage, at least at first glance. But given the sheer lack of attention seemingly paid to 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls by the community since release, it’s one that’s also at severe risk of flying under the radar.

Speaking of flying: if there’s one weak link in 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls, it’s the leonopteryx, and that’s really only for its wings. The large plastic sheet wings – held in place by the same clumsy method used to hold fabric wings in (for example) 71766 Lloyd's Legendary Dragon – capture the animal’s specific colours and patterns perhaps better than bricks could at this scale, but it does slightly diminish the building experience around this particular model. (The overt ‘The LEGO Group 2021’ printing doesn’t help.)

Those wings add so much heft to the leonopteryx that you probably won’t mind too much, though – there’s that shelf presence again – while the new moulded elements for its head are spot on.

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75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls includes a slightly stingy four minifigures, although they are all Na’vi, so you’re getting a good spread of these brand new characters – complete with specially-moulded heads and hairpieces, and the Avatar theme’s trademark longer limbs.

As we’ve already discussed in other LEGO Avatar reviews, the Na’vi designs themselves feel a bit hit and miss: points for the return of the longer legs for sure, but there’s a strange disconnect between their flat faces and printed noses. The effect created by printing that appendage is that your brain tells you it’ll still be there in profile view, but instead it just… disappears.

--- LEGO Avatar 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls price ---

For all that is good about 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls – and there’s a surprising amount – the experience is still somewhat soured by that price. £129.99 / $149.99 / €149.99 for 1,212 parts is already pushing it, and even looking past that somewhat arbitrary price-per-piece metric, there just doesn’t feel like that much LEGO here for your money, regardless of the shelf presence this set commands. (There’s a lot of negative space.)

Where it wins back some of that hard-earned appreciation is with a discount to bring it at least under three figures, at which point it starts to become a much easier purchase to justify. Fortunately, the Avatar range has already started to see significant discounts – it’s available at Zavvi right now for £99.99 in the UK, for example.

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--- LEGO Avatar 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls pros and cons ---

Between its captivating (if slightly cacophonous) colour scheme, sizeable shelf presence and engaging build, there’s a lot to be said for 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls. But even within the quickly-forgotten LEGO Avatar range, it risks being overlooked – mainly because of its stratospheric price point, but perhaps also because it’s just so different to anything else currently on shelves.

Find it at a discount, though, and that point of differentiation becomes 75574 Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls’ biggest selling point. Pass it up at your own risk: this is one genuinely worth reconsidering as we approach 2023.

This set was provided for review by Zavvi.

Support the work that Brick Fanatics does by purchasing your LEGO Avatar sets from Zavvi using our affiliate links.

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