LEGO Review: 70617 Temple of the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon

It’s always been a huge desire in the Roffel household to put together a large LEGO set, one that comes in at over 1000 pieces. Generally, these are often too expensive and out of our reach, but we found one on uber clearance at Walmart, and realized that 1400 pieces for 59.99 was a pretty good deal. So we purchased, and after putting it together, decided that event a 129.99, this is a magnificent set for any LEGO NINJAGO fan!

Set Number: 70617
Pieces: 1403
Ages: 9-14
VIP Pionts:

I let my 8 year old son put the Temple of the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon together himself, and it was done over three nights, and roughly 3 – 4 hours in total. The only help I had to give him was putting the stickers on the pieces, which you will do often when putting this together. Aside from that, nothing about this build is overly complicated. Although there are a number of traps within the temple – a few of which use the more advanced technic pieces – he was able to put them together with no help from myself, and as he doesn’t fall within the intended age range of the product, I’m going to safely assume this is a moderate build for 9-14 year olds.The Build

The biggest worry I had when watching him put this set together was the structural integrity of the temple itself. Generally, these narrow, tall builds aren’t the most sturdy structures – think back to our review of the LEGO NINJAGO Lighthouse Siege set – but thankfully, only the scorpion decorations from the roof pieces frequently fell off. The rest of the structure was incredibly sound, including all the traps and moving parts.

When completed, the temple really is an outstanding, aesthetically pleasing set. The height of the structure definitely alludes to a building with some depth, but the inside portion of the castle is very narrow. Thankfully, the structure is definitely bottom heavy, and won’t tip over easy during play or if it gets bumped.

Most the pieces used in the set are generic, but there still is plenty of rare or hard to find stuff to make the 129.99 price tag even more worth it for LEGO collectors. The deep blue bricks used on the roof are particularly hard to find in other sets, and would make great additions to any custom builds you might want to engage in down the road.

The real pull for me to purchase this set, however, are the abundance of minifigures included, which not only allows you to set this set up nicely for display purposes, but also provides kids the opportunity to really role play aspects of the LEGO NINJAGO Movie. So often, sets are limited to 1 or 2 characters, and even bigger sets like this usually only include a few main characters, wit the rest being fleshed out by generic enemies. Not here. The whole Ninjago gang is playable, including Lord Garmadon.

These character alone are almost worth the price of entry!

Play Ability

While the set itself is structurally sound and can withstand multiple hands touching and bumping it during play, the interior of the temple leaves a bit to be desired. Sure, there are a plethora of great traps and hidden doors that will excite young minds, but the lack of interior room to pose and play with minifiguers could limit the appeal of this set to young LEGO NINJAGO fans. While one of my kids can comfortably play alone with this set, when they both attempt to get their hands and figures in there, it winds up being a fight between the two of them, and a headache for me.

Still, there is a lot to like about this set overall. The exterior work is fantastic, and makes a great backdrop against multiple other LEGO NINJAGO sets you might own. The numerous minifigure, nameable characters that are included also improve the playability of this set, allowing everyone to have a chance of using a character of significance.

While it could be better, the Temple of the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon is a great set for display or playing.