LEGO Avatar’s long minifigure legs aren’t the same as Toy Story’s after all

The LEGO Avatar theme initially seemed to have resurrected Toy Story’s longer leg pieces – but the new elements are actually ever-so-slightly different from their predecessors.

In order to best communicate the height difference between James Cameron’s Na’vi and the human characters in Avatar, the LEGO Group has reintroduced the concept of longer minifigure arms and legs across its first batch of tie-in sets. The elongated limbs were originally designed for Woody and Jessie in the LEGO Toy Story range back in 2010, but have since been sidelined (even where they might have made sense in other themes).

The colourful world of Pandora has proven to be the catalyst to bring the arms and legs back to the parts catalogue, but it now transpires that those lower limbs aren’t actually identical to those used for Pixar’s iconic silver screen sheriff. Instead, they’ve required a brand new mould – and the LEGO Group has taken the opportunity to make the legs a slightly better match for their standard counterparts.

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That’s through making all four anti-studs (or holes) in the back of the legs completely hollow, in contrast to the upper holes in the back of Woody’s legs. The images above – courtesy of Jay’s Brick Blog – demonstrate the difference between the two pieces, which are otherwise identical in size and form.

The hollow anti-studs should make the newer legs more versatile, allowing for a greater range of connections to other LEGO elements, but we’ll find out for sure once the first wave of LEGO Avatar sets lands on shelves on October 1. The longer legs are used for Na’vi minifigures across all four minifigure-scale models, so picking up any one of them will give you the chance to check out the new piece.

Click here for a closer look at LEGO Avatar’s entry-level set, 75571 Neytiri & Thanator vs. AMP Suit Quaritch.

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