Set Review ➟ Comparing LEGO® Indiana Jones Lost Tomb Sets 7621 and 77013
Having recently acquired set 77013, Escape from the Lost Tomb, and happening to have the older version of the set, 7621 Indiana Jones and the Lost Tomb, I thought it might be fun to compare them to each other and to see how closely they resembled the source movie scene. Why LEGO calls this the Lost Tomb and the movie calls it The Well of Souls is above my pay grade.
The tomb chamber
For purposes of orientation, refer to the sketch above (which I'm hereby claiming isn’t to scale or otherwise proportionally accurate, but is generally representative of the floorplan). In the movie the main chamber is rectangular. All upper walls slope inwards as they rise. There is a raised main center platform with an sanctuary at one end. Surrounding the platform is a lower level which probably has more to do with movie making, hiding wires and allowing room for movie people, cameras, lights, and so on. I poked around the internet a little bit and couldn’t find any examples of Egyptian temples with raised centers and lowered outers. I did find a number that had raised outers with pits in the middle, for what it’s worth.
The layout from the movie.
The Sanctuary
The movie. One end of the platform jogs in and a slightly narrowed area extends towards a recessed sanctuary with three low steps leading up to a dais, on which is a shrine. Beneath the shrine is a vault which contains the Ark of the Covenant. The steps leading up to the dais have retangular side walls that are the same height as the dais.
The models. Both models ignore the sanctuary as a bump out and present the entire room as a simple rectangle with straight vertical walls. While it appears (to me at least) that the back side of the sanctuary does not contact the wall in the movie, both models have the sanctuary (or lack of) go flush to the wall. The older model has support beams located at the far corners of the dais sort of kind of representing the back posts of the shrine while the newer model misplaces sarcophagi there.
The models do present a raised dais with steps leading up to it. The older model brackets the steps with slopes instead of retangular side walls; the newer model dodges the steps’ side wall element by misplacing shrine posts where the side walls should be.
The Shrine
The movie. Atop the dais is a gilded free-standing four-post structure that surrounds the vault. The bottom of each post is shaped like an fluted pot. On top of that is a carved foot with a lower leg which terminates in a wrapped snake sculpt. Above the snake the post changes from leg shape to a four sided post. The sides of the post are ornamented with glyphs (the inside of the post closest to dog 1 and facing away from the mummies wall is the location for the R2D2 and C3PO glyph easter egg). There are two more wraps of the snake along the post with the top wrap terminating the post. A fairly bulky top “roof” structure sits atop the four posts. This element has a top and bottom rail between which are carved standing figures. The front side has a large bird with spread wings ornament, maybe half the width of the roof and at least as tall.
Indy and Salleh throw the vault lid from the shrine.
The models. The old model does not have the shrine element, but as alluded to earlier, the back wall seems to be a mashup of the shrine and the walls. The R2D2-C3PO easter egg glyph is rendered overly large and on prominent display at the center, over the dais, on a projecting container of sorts which holds a number of snakes. The container is a gimmick with a lever in the back that should release the snakes onto the floor but in practice there are too many snakes in the container for the gimmick to work well and the thing gets jammed up. The wall is then capped with a sort of southwestern US Mexican structural vibe which includes a blue crystal. This cap, I don’t know where the inspiration for that came from, it doesn’t vibe Egyptian, and in the movie all that area is in perpetual darkness.
The 7621 wall.
The 7621 box of snakes.
The new model kind of flips the script. Opposed to a delicate free-standing four-post shrine structure on the dais, this set gives us a hulking Arc de Triomphe surrounding the steps up to the dais, ignores what would be the back posts of the shrine, and misplaces sarcophagi there. The R2D2-C3PO glyph appears on the left column of the arch, which is the correct post, but in the movie it appears on the inside of the post facing the vault and not on the outside facing away. The model uses a heavy abstract sculptural element at the top center of the arch where the movie uses a more classic Egyptian spread-winged falcon sculpture in that position.
The 77013 arch.
The 77013 wall.
The 7621 R2-D2 C-3PO glyph.
The 77013 R2-D2 C-3PO glyph.
The Vault
The movie: The ark is housed in a stone vault. Indy and Salleh lift the lid off the vault…and given its shape it needs to be lifted straight up to full arm length…so the top of it needs to go about seven feet in the air, at which point the guys toss it towards the center of the room and it tumbles down the steps and breaks into pieces. Inside the vault is the ark. Indy and Salleh then use some convenient sticks, slide them through some loops located about a quarter way down the side of the body of the ark, maybe halfway down if you count the height of the lid. They lift the ark out of the vault which now has a glowing interior. The glowing does not persist in the next shot as Indy and Salleh move the ark to an awaiting box. The broken lid has apparently magically disappeared as we see Indy and Salleh’s shadow glide smoothly across a wall. There is no “oops, be careful, watch out for the broken lid pieces” which would be significant nor are descending any steps implied in the movement of the shadow.
Continuity problems aside, here are some estimated measurements of the vault.
The top of the vault is about sternum height on Indy, so 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) or so. We see Indy and Salleh standing side by side along the front of the vault, so we will estimate five feet (1.5 meters) wide. When we see Indy and Salleh lift the lid their hands are wider than their shoulders, so let’s estimate 3.5 feet (1.1 meters) wide. We see Indy’s hand move along one of the raised edges of the lid, and the width of the edge is slightly smaller than Indy’s outstretched hand, so let’s say about six inches (15 cm).
The lid and the base are interlocking shapes. The sides of the vault are attached to the top, nest into the front and back which are attached to the base, and the top overhangs all four sides. I am going to assume the thickness of the vault walls are 6 inches and the overhang of the lid is equal on all four sides of the vault.
Here’s a quick MOC to help better understand the vault construction.
After all the guessing, I took a screen grab from the movie and did some measurements off that. Extrapolating those numbers relative to the assumed six inches of the raised lid and the guess at width based on hand position when the guys lift the lid I end up with:
- lid: 57w x 14h x 42d inches / 145w x 35.5h x 107d cm
- raised edge of lid: 6w x 6h x 42d / 15w x 15h x 107d cm (x2)
- midsection: 53.25w x 20h x 6d inches / 135w x 51h x 15d cm
- end sides: 6w x 20h x 26d inches / 15w x 51h x 66d cm (x2)
This calculates out to (cubic inches / cubic ft)
- lid: 33516 / 32.2
- raised edges: 3024 / 14.4
- end sides: 6240 / 18.4
- total: 18084 / 26.25
Sandstone is the most common building stone in Egypt. The internet tells us the weight of sandstone is 150 pounds per cubic foot. Therefore that stone lid, if it is made of sandstone, weighs about 3937 lbs / 1786 kgs. Yeah. Two tons. Indy and Salleh have superhuman strength. This in light of having seen it take pry bars and nine men to move the panel off the roof of the tomb a few scenes earlier.
The models. The above ends up being the long way around the barn to note the vault is not found in either model. And, frankly, given minifigure proportions and the current parts available it is no wonder why. If there were a 6l x 1w x 4h panel it might be possible, but that 4h panel, add a lid on top of that, and the vault would be taller than the minifigures. Or the ark would need to have a dedicated mold. Or both. That said, the older model employs two clamp pieces to act as the vault and the ark rests loosely on those. The newer model has a 2x2 tile with a center stud in the floor and the ark sits on that.
7621 dais without ark.
7621 dais with ark.
77013 dais without ark.
77013 dais with ark.
The Ark
The movie. The lid has two facing figures with wings and the wings, flat and primarily horizontal, just about touch in the center. There are a pair of round holders on either side of the ark into which sticks are slid for purposes of carrying the ark.
The ark.
The models. The older ark has a fairly hideous lid being five plates tall compared to a base that is three plates tall so the proportions there are just wack. The lid uses a vertical clip to represent the horizontal wings. What the older ark does represent more accurately is the removable bars fitting into clips on the side of the ark. However, while this appears more accurate, it is less functional in minifigure-world, as the functional width side-to-side is wider than minifigure arms. While the minifigures can carry the ark, they are limited to holding one side with one hand.
The 7621 ark.
Handles too wide.
The newer ark is somewhat more representative of the movie version in proportion and the stickers along the sides are a fair representation of what is in the movie. The new lid uses bucket handles to represent the wings of the figures in a horizontal configuration. While that is an improvement over the vertical clip, part 3757 Moon Knight’s Crescent blade may be more representative of the flatness of the wings if you are looking to MOC upgrade your ark.
The 77013 ark.
The ark MOC’d.
Both sets’ arks get the carrying bar placement absolutely wrong as they are positioned one plate above bottom. This is likely a decision made so minifigures can carry the ark. Taking the new ark, removing the bottom plate and repositioning the bar under the lid top puts the bars in just about the perfect position, and figures can still carry the ark, although it is closer to the ground. Minifig Indy will have to remove his satchel to properly carry the ark as his arm cannot get into proper carrying position with the satchel being where his arm needs to be.
Both arks with the bars in their LEGO-designed position put the lid of the ark above eye level of the minifigures when carrying. It is understood some concession needs to be made for short minifigure legs, but geez.
The Center Platform
The movie. The center of the chamber has a raised platform with straight sides, is about 4.5 meters wide and slightly longer than wide. Standing at the four corners of the platform are big dog sculptures that hold up the ceiling. At one end of the platform is the sanctuary; the opposite end has steps that are nearly the full width of the platform leading to a lower surrounding level. The lower level is maybe a meter-and-a-half wide on the three sides away from the sanctuary and maybe about a half-meter or less surrounding the sanctuary. The floor, raised and lower, is pretty much covered in snakes. Some snake notes: the boss snake appears to be a king cobra, native to Asia, not Africa, and who mainly hunts and eats other snakes. There are also some boa constrictors, native to the Americas, snaking about in the Well of Souls.
The center floor layout from the movie. 1) Lower Area. 2) Lower steps. 3) Raised Area. 4) Note the dogs’s feet are all left foot forward. 5) Rectangular sides to steps. 6) Notably missing are the broken vault lid pieces. 7) Dais steps.
The models: Neither model accurately represents the floor of the tomb. Both models present floor in space that does not exist in the movie, and neither presents a raised center platform. The older model presents snakes, but in a box, and I guess you can scatter them where you wish. The newer model incorporates snakes into the floor in a way more reminiscent of the movie. Neither presents an Asian king cobra nor a boa constrictor, so score some points for LEGO in this regard.
The 7621 floor.
The 77013 floor.
The Ledge
The movie. Surrounding the outer perimeter is a raised ledge. The ledge tops a kneewall that is about twice the height of the center platform and is about the same height as the dais. The wall below the ledge slopes slightly away from the wall towards the center of the room. There is a sarcophagus located on the ledge at each of the four outer corners.
The movie ledge.
The models: The older model does have a ledge along the back wall, but it is lower than the dais while the newer model ignores the perimeter ledge element altogether.
The 7621 ledge.
77013 no ledge.
Big Dogs
The movie. There are four big not-quite-Anubis dog sculptures that hold up the roof of the tomb. They are about four or four-and-a-half Indiana Joneses tall to the top of their heads. The figures are essentially identical, each with its left foot positioned in front of its right foot in a kind of classic Egyptian flat wall art pose, and the feet directly touch the floor. The arms extend to the side horizontally the shoulder, the upper arm slightly bent with the elbows higher than the shoulders, and the forearms stright up with hands holding either side of one corner of a large rectangular structure on top of which sits a flat roof. The long narrow heads point upwards to the center of the ceiling with mouths open about 45 degrees and with ears that extend from the top of the head similar to that of a donkey. The dogs have gold skirts which extend to the knee. The dog at the left side of the dais and closest to it (Dog 1 in the sketch) is the one used to facilitate Indy and Marion’s escape by breaking through the left wall of the tomb.
The dogs holding up the ceiling.
The models. The older set has two dogs set against columns atop small individual platforms and facing each other. The movie shows no similar columns anywhere inside the tomb and the movie dogs stand on the main raised center floor, not on small individual platforms. The older model’s dog heads are simple 1x3x1 slopes bearing a sticker on either side with the eye of Horus. Horus is the Egyptian falcon-headed god, so your guess is as good as any why they are adorning the not-quite-Anubis dogs. The dogs do get a representation point in their favor for having some yellow at the shoulder as the movie dogs have gold braces at their biceps.
The 7621 dogs are just shy of two Indiana Jones minifigures tall, so they are substantially smaller in proportion in the set compared to the movie. Their arms are also positioned down, and the arm farthest from the back wall holds a five-pointed pike. Note there are no pikes in the movie.
The 7621 model uses a single 1x2 yellow plate at the dog waist to represent the gold skirt. In lieu of separate legs the model uses a single 2x2x3 black slope. This sits on a 2x2 yellow plate which sits on a 2x2 black plate. The intention here may have been to add a pop of color but the movie dogs have continuous all black legs and feet from the skirt on down. Brick count per dog is 22 including the pike.
The newer 77013 set also has two dogs, but these dogs are much more substantial than the dogs in the older set and have a brick count of 93. While the sculpt of the dogs is improved in that the dogs now have two legs, the leg position is movie-inaccurate as it is portrayed in the model as being straight and side-by-side where movie dogs have the left leg forward with a slight bend at the knee and the right leg behind with the foot angled slightly outwards. New dogs do get a gold skirt, but it is short and reads more like a diaper where the movie skirt goes to the knee.
The dog heads in the newer model are stupidly wide compared to the movie dogs’ very narrow heads. The model has ears side mounted and the movie has ears top-mounted. The newer model does get points for providing some of the torso definition seen in the movie. Really, except for the fat head and the too short skirt and ignoring the leg positioning, the 77013 dogs are not too bad. And they do provide some studs on the arms as points of attachment if you want to get Indy up there like in the movie.
Dog head from the movie.
Left-to-right: 7621 dog, 77013 dog, MOC dog with more accurate leg and arm positioning.
Dogs in both models are on small platforms. The older model has the dogs in fixed attachment while the newer model has the dogs on turntables, so the dogs can be positioned at an angle, which is more in line with their positioning in the movie.
The Walls
The movie. All upper walls slope slightly towards the center of the structure and wall sections below the ledge slope less slightly towards the center. All walls appear fairly uniform without voids, chinks, or cracks but with definite block edges. Decoration is continuous around the interior with similarly sized glyphs on every block. Snakes are noted coming through holes in the glyphs and are limited to one specific section of one specfic wall.
Sloped walls.
The models. Walls in both models are decorated with stickers. The older model uses more accurate iconography that is color inverted and scaled substantially larger when compared to the movie. The newer model uses randomly placed, less accurate, simplified and stylized iconography that is to a scale generally smaller when compared to the movie. The older model uses different shape and color bricks on the upper parts of the back wall to give an impression of pattern—details that do not appear in the movie. The newer model uses various different color and shape bricks to give the impression of wear and to create voids in the wall—details that do not appear in the movie.
The 7621 wall.
The 77013 wall.
Breakaway Wall Section
The movie: After the Nazis seal Indy and Marion in the Well of Souls, Indy desperately looks for a way out. He notices some snakes coming through holes in part of a wall located to the left of Dog 1 (see sketch above). How that many snakes have climbed six or nine feet up a smooth wall and have collectively decided to wriggle through small holes is not to be questioned. Nor is it to be questioned how there are suddenly no snakes around when the wall gets knocked down. Also, how did hundreds of snakes, several of which are not native to Egypt, get into, and what were they eating in, a presumably centuries-sealed tomb in the middle of a sandy desert? Never mind.
Movie snakes coming throgh wall.
Anyway.
Indy decides he will climb up Dog 1 and rock Dog 1 until it falls over, away from the sanctuary, and crashes through the side wall the snakes were squirming out of. This is another instance of Indy showing superhuman strength as one would o-b-v-i-o-u-s-l-y imagine that a structural sculpture weighing several tons and holding up the roof of a temple would be conveniently loose, brittle, and easily moved with no downward pressure being exerted on it by the structure above which it is supporting. Yes, that was sarcasm.
The models: Neither model has a wall on the left side (or on the right side, for that matter), so rocking a dog to knock down a left wall is out of the question.
The older model has two breakaway panels, one on either side of the dais. Pins in the bases under the dogs release the dogs and they topple into and knock out the wall panels. In practice there is some inconsistency in the dogs’ ability to cleanly and completely knock out the panels. On the right side it may have to do with the skeleton hanging behind that panel providing some resistance. Also some of it is probably due to the relative lack of mass of the small dogs.
7621 breakaway walls.
7621 breakaway walls may not break away.
7621 breakaway walls may break away.
The newer model has one breakaway wall section to the right of the dais. A lever attached to the base of the right dog will tip it over into the wall. The dog in this model has no trouble whatsoever tipping the wall over. Dogs in neither model had a tendency to break apart when falling into the wall in contrast to what happens in the movie.
77013 breakaway wall.
7621 breakaway wall falls easily.
Both models have the dogs on small pedestals and the dogs fall from a hinge point beneath the feet. In the movie the dog breaks at the left forearm, right upper arm, and calf before crashing into the wall.
While the older model does present snakes, they are not at all representative of how they appear in the movie. The new model, though, does pay closer homage to the snakes coming through the wall with a snake attached to a brick (which is more or less accurate) and a chute which will slide a snake through a large gap in the wall into the room (which is inaccurate). Missing the boat, however, the snakes appear on the non-breakaway section of the wall.
77013’s snakes in the wall (front side).
77013’s snake in the chute (back side).
77013’s snake in the chute (back side).
The Crypt
The movie: After Indy breaks through the wall, we see Marion enter the crypt. She puts her arms out in front of her and unwittingly tips a palette upon which rests a mummy. The mummy, facing up, flips down feet first ending face-to-face with Marion in a scare surprise. Hilarity ensues.
The models: The older model has a skeleton hanging from a chain on the backside of the right breakaway wall, and there is no crypt proper.
The new model has a small crypt room attached to the backside of the model and a pull stick releases the ceiling which swings down to reveal a mummy. The mummy is attached to the ceiling face down, which is opposite how it is portrayed in the movie but preserves the surprise factor.
Minifigures
Both sets provide a Marion and an Indy. The new set gives us Salleh and a mummy figure where the old set provides a skeleton. A side note: Salleh being missing from the older set, for continuity the ark should also be missing. In the movie, the ark is raised out of the tomb, followed by Salleh. The Nazis do their thing then toss Marion into the tomb. Salleh and Marion are not in the tomb at the same time, nor are Marion and the ark.
Marion. In the movie: Marion is tossed down into the tomb wearing a dress Belloq had given to her. While she and Indy are shooing snakes with the torches, the bottom of Marion’s dress catches on fire and Indy rips it off. Marion has a hair clip on the left side of her head.
The models: Both old and new Marion figures have 2-side printed heads. The old minifigure has the hair tied in the back, comes with all white legs, and the faces have blue eyes. The new figure does not have the hair tied, the legs are dual molded and emulate the ripped dress while the faces have black eyes.
7621 Marion, left, and 77013 Marion, right.
7621 Marion, left, and 77013 Marion, right.
None of the faces on either head is particularly Karen-Allen-like and LEGO really doesn’t seem to have a good representative Marion Ravenwood hair piece in its library. Both wigs used for the Marion figures are of longer length than what Marion has in the movie. And LEGO seems to be biased to a left-side or center part on most of their hair pieces where movie Marion has her part slightly right of center.
Indy. In the movie: Indy’s hat has a slightly darker brown band, wears his satchel and bullwhip on his left hip. His holster moves from the frontside to the backside of his right hip between cuts. He is wearing gloves.
The old minifigure’s hat has a more accurate sculpt with the crown at the pinch being thin. The face print has a darker stubble which reads closer to the movie. The figure’s hand color matches the face, so, not gloves, and the head is a single-sided print. The new figure has a dual-molded hat-hair piece which allows for Indy to have a two-sided print on his head. While the two color is nice, the hat sculpt is less accurate with the crown being wider at the pinch. The figure’s hand color is dark tan, so, gloves.
7621 Indy, left, and 77013 Indy, right.
7621 Indy, left, and 77013 Indy, right.
While both figures sport a satchel, the newer figure has a newer mold (but same mold number) where the strap is about a millimeter shorter, the bag is about a millimeter shorter, the piece is maybe a half millimeter narrower, and has the part number on the inside.
And to really pick nits, Indy’s belt buckle in the movie is an elongated D shape; both minifigures have solid rectangular buckles.
Salleh. In the movie: Salleh is wearing a turban with a long tail hanging down his right side, a white vest with fine dark stripes over a sheath dress, and a sash at the waist.
The model: Salleh is fairly well represented with color and detail. His turban is missing the long tail (LEGO uses the head bandage piece from CMF clumsy guy) and he has legs instead of a dress.
Skeleton and Mummy. In the movie: There are a whole lot of dusty mummies or desiccated corpses or whatever you want to call them, but I did not spot a bare-bones skeleton anywhere.
The models: The older model provides the nearly unique skeleton minifigure build with evil skull and straight arms; this skeleton’s only other appearance was in an advent calendar released the following year. The new model provides an elaborately decorated and fairly healthy looking mummy. To more accurately portray the movie mummies would require new specific molds that would fall somewhere between the skeleton and the mummy. Neither is really right or wrong or close to what the movie mummies look like. Definitely points to the mummy minifigure, though, for not being the run-of-the-mill white bandage mummy minifigure.
The Randolph T. Fielding Absolutely Administrivia Section
The whip. I am not sure what to think about the whip. It seemed obvious to me that the whip from the 7621 set was not the same mold as the whip from the 77013 set. The new whip is missing the mold number above the grip, appears to have a tighter coil, and the molding pip has moved from the tip on the older whip to above the grip on the newer whip. I wondered if maybe the older whip was maybe just stretched out from play. So I dug out a bunch of old whips. And I had a new whip from Pick-A-Brick and two from the 21351 Nightmare Before Christmas set.
Referring to the picture above, numbers 1 through 4 are from various older Indiana Jones sets. Given age and play wear these all seemed fairly consistent with one another. Number 5 is from the 77013 set and definitely exhibits a tighter coil than 1-4. Numbers 7 and 8 are from the 21351 set and appear to be the same as Number 5. Number 6 is from Pick-A-Brick and the innermost coil appears to me to definitely be shorter than that of 5, 7, and 8. And as far as I can tell, all the whips are part number 61975.
Indy’s satchel in the 77013 set is definitely a new mold with the overall size being slightly smaller in both width and height and notable differences on the back side of the pouch. Both versions are part number 61976.
2008 version pouch back, left, and 2024 version pouch back, right.
Summary
Both sets take wide liberty in presenting the scene. The movie was released in 1981, set 7621 was released in 2008 (27 years later), and set 77013 was released in 2024 (43 years later) so the design choices made in both sets had to be conscious decisions and not in any way due to lack of reference. Curious, though, that LEGO did not opt for a “side view” with the center platform being on the left and the sanctuary on the right thereby placing the breakaway wall where it would be positioned as it was in the movie. That said, both sets do capture much of the spirit of the scene even if the technical accuracy is somewhere around 15%. That 15% is probably commensurate with the level of reality (and adherence to continuity) portrayed in the movie, so there’s that. At the end of the day, though, both the movie and the sets are fun and entertaining and bear revisiting every so often.
Disclaimer
Thanks to LEGO for providing the 77013 set. Thanks to someone on ebay, years ago, for providing most of the pieces for 7621. No plastic snakes were harmed in the creation of this review.
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