Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is in cinemas everywhere today – and one LEGO YouTuber is celebrating with a little help from 43230 Walt Disney Tribute Camera.
The latest Disney 100th anniversary set doesn’t arrive on shelves until September 1, but advance review copies have already gone out to select channels (including Brick Fanatics!). Rather than reviewing his sample, YouTuber Cheesey Studios (better known as LEGO MASTERS contestant Caleb Schilling) has instead used the pieces in 43230 Walt Disney Tribute Camera to build a nuke.
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past eight decades, J. Robert Oppenheimer was the ‘father of the atomic bomb’, responsible for spearheading the Manhattan Project that resulted in the first nuclear weapons – and brought an end to the Second World War. Christopher Nolan’s latest movie casts Cillian Murphy in the titular role, and charts the course of the project in the early 1940s.
While that’s pretty heavy subject matter for any official LEGO sets, there’s nothing stopping a person from taking LEGO elements and building their own tiny, plastic nuclear weaponry. As part of his latest Iron Builder challenge – which tasks builders with creating models using a specific seed element – Caleb lifted parts from 43230 Walt Disney Tribute Camera to do exactly that.
“LEGO sent me the new Walt Disney camera, but honestly it could not have come at a worse time,” he explains in his latest YouTube video. “I’m neck deep in one of the LEGO community’s most insane contests right now: Iron Builder.” He goes on to explain that the contest is ‘all about unexpected seed parts, amazingly talented builders and creative piece usage’.
“An Iron Builder challenge lasts for 16 days and requires builders to use a specific seed part in new and exciting ways, resulting in seven or more creations per builder,” he adds. Those seed elements are not 1x2 bricks or 2x4 plates, though: last year, Caleb received 100 dark azure Friends saddle pieces. This year, he’s got 100 Minecraft tridents to contend with.
When 43230 Walt Disney Tribute Camera turned up at his door, its monochromatic colour scheme planted an idea in the YouTuber’s head: “I wanted to continue to lean into this theme of cameras and movies, and with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer releasing this week, I decided to turn our magical and inspiring Disney camera into a nuke.”
As mentioned in our own review, there’s a surprising number of Technic pieces in 43230 Walt Disney Tribute Camera, which – along with the Minecraft tridents – allowed the builder to recreate the scaffolding around the Trinity test site tower. The camera’s rounded elements then proved perfect for the bomb’s conical shape.
Caleb does clarify two things, though: one, this isn’t a ‘Rebrickable-worthy alt-build’, given it uses so many additional pieces that aren’t included in 43230 Walt Disney Tribute Camera. Two, he explains in a brief caption on the video that he built the bomb ‘with the intention of recreating a pivotal moment in human history, not to make a statement about nuclear war or nuclear weapons’.
He parts with a few words of inspiration for anyone else boasting shelves lined with sets built as per the instructions. “Sets are awesome and there’s a lot to be learned from building them,” he says. “They’re designed by extremely talented and experienced builders – but it’s what comes after that’s really special.
“Whether you turn your Hogwarts into an ancient palace, your Rivendell into Erebor, your Minecraft sets into better Minecraft sets, or even if you turn your Disney camera into a nuke, destruction is often the first step in the creative journey.” Would Oppenheimer have agreed? You’ll probably need to check out Nolan’s new movie to decide for yourself. (Or read a history book.)
Oppenheimer is in cinemas now, while 43230 Walt Disney Tribute Camera is
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