Comparing LEGO Ideas 21350 Jaws to its original fan design

It’s been over two years since Jonny Campbell’s original design made it past 10K on LEGO Ideas, so what’s changed with the reveal of 21350 Jaws?

LEGO Ideas 21350 Jaws has two inspirations: Spielberg’s original movie and the fan-designed project by Jonny Campbell. The latter was revealed to be made into a LEGO Ideas set last year after gaining 10,000 supporters in February 2022 and has now been revealed in full. The LEGO Ideas team will often tweak and change elements of a fan-designed project to varying degrees, usually coming down to affordability, stability, or other factors that could affect the success of a set.

While on the face of it 21350 Jaws appears to remain pretty faithful to Jonny’s original design, we’ve dug into the details to see what’s the same – and what’s changed.

The bare bones remain the same

Looking at what’s included in the set, much of Jonny’s original submission has remained. We have the brick-built shark itself, of course, as well as a well-proportioned boat complete with rigging, drums, and a two-storey cabin, and three minifigures of Chief Brody, Hooper and Quint to man the ship. It’s when you start looking at more of the details that changes begin to appear…

A new base brings the separate builds together

The major difference is the fact that 21350 Jaws comes with a black diorama base, aligning it with previous movie-inspired sets like 77015 Temple of the Golden Idol and 75380 Mos Espa Podrace Diorama, to name just a couple. It includes the iconic quote, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” and ties the two main sections of the build together, with blue and white curved elements to simulate the waves.

It’s worth noting that you can also display both the boat and Bruce separately, with the shark coming with his own stand similar on a brown base with a plaque.

Bruce himself has had a facelift

Moving onto Bruce himself, there are some small but effective changes on his design. All of his fins are more curved than triangular in the final product, giving him a sleeker appearance and his nose looks like it’s more angular, closer to how the on-screen monster looked. Smooth elements on top of the fins on the sides of the brick-built Bruce also give a more polished final look and the cold eyes of a shark are perfectly captured by tiny balls, rather than flat studs, for a more dynamic stare. The tweaks are slight but offer a new and improved face list for Bruce.

The crew benefits from some improved accessories

The human characters in the set have similarly had some minor but effective improvements. Rather than the largely plain tors and leg elements they had in Jonny’s original design, each one has a more detailed torso in the final version, as well as some printing on the legs to mimic jeans. The crew are also sporting hats, a camera, and other gear to round out their designs still further.

Recoloured details brightens the whole ship

Last but certainly not least, the ship itself has also had some smaller tweaks that make an impressive impact. The flag, mast, life rings, and other accessories for the boat have been changed from the main colour of grey in the original design to white, yellow, and cream, adding a more diverse colour scheme to 21350 Jaws. While the structure of the boat has stayed close to the original inspiration, those small details help it to really pop, particularly when contrasted to the blue and white ‘waves’ below.

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