LEGO Ninjago 2019

[JJ Tong (zfogshooterz)]

12 hours ago, Lego David said:

I am curious to see how the Chima crossover will play out (if the rumors turn out to be true). Chima has been retired since 2015, it's kinda strange that they decide to do a crossover now.

It's possible that It might play out the same way as Curseworld Part 2 where it could just be cameo-ing the Fire & Ice War in Chima.

Other than that or if not that, I'm pretty curious too.

16 hours ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

This wave is definitely sounding unique, instead of Ninja vs badguys, It's Ninjas between two warring groups. (Unless it turns out one side is actually good)

 

Indeed. That's what pique my interest highly. It's not just your typical fire and ice theme but this time there's more. To be honest, I wasn't too excited when the info was revealed that the villains were just ice samurai. But when the pyro snakes was thrown in, that got me! Definitely want to know more on the actual sets!

I do hope none of the sides do turn good. Unless the rumors being Zane becoming the forgotten emperor eventually is true, then the case of a faction becoming good is inevitable. Or the Ninja tries to know both sides of the story which results in a civil war even between themselves. Who knows? We'll see I guess.

Edited March 17, 2019 by JJ Tong (zfogshooterz)

[Exetrius]

On 3/16/2019 at 3:53 AM, Boogly22238 said:

Crazy. Thats a huge sword he's got

Yes, it's the same one as the golden snake mummy has, but in gunmetal grey! Very useful!

14 hours ago, Lego David said:

I am curious to see how the Chima crossover will play out (if the rumors turn out to be true). Chima has been retired since 2015, it's kinda strange that they decide to do a crossover now.

I think people have been reading into this more than they should. We have a fire tribe fighting an ice tribe, basically the Chima wave. Things got simplified to make the joke work and give the fans something to chew on. Just my 2 cents.

9 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Oh great, another variant armor part encrusted with ice on the opposite side... 

I acually think this is great, because you can more easily diversify your ice zombie army, or whatever custom faction (like the Algus in GoH) that will use this armour.

5 hours ago, Feng-huang0296 said:

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's the same part, just backwards. 

Oh wow, you're most likely right! That's certainly the most cost-effective use of budget, plus they did it with previous wave as well. Great!

[Lego David]

55 minutes ago, Exetrius said:

nk people have been reading into this more than they should. We have a fire tribe fighting an ice tribe, basically the Chima wave. Things got simplified to make the joke work and give the fans something to chew on. Just my 2 cents

There was also a wolf mold piece that was leaked a while back, which many people see as evidence for the crossover, since the wolf looked similar to the Legendary Beast Wolf from the 2nd wave of Chima.

[Fenghuang0296]

34 minutes ago, Lego David said:

There was also a wolf mold piece that was leaked a while back, which many people see as evidence for the crossover, since the wolf looked similar to the Legendary Beast Wolf from the 2nd wave of Chima.

Yeah, except it's white, not grey, moulded, not brick-built, and has three tails, not one. But hey, they both have four legs. Maybe that's enough of a similarity. 

[Digger of Bricks]

7 hours ago, Feng-huang0296 said:

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's the same part, just backwards. 

Huh, well shucks, that could very well be come to think of it... 

7 hours ago, Feng-huang0296 said:

And please no . . 

Nah? Not enthusiastic about a Ninjago/Nexo Knights crossover? 

[Thedarkmaster2]

5 hours ago, JJ Tong (zfogshooterz) said:

Unless the rumors being Zane becoming the forgotten emperor eventually is true,

I think that's just a rumor

5 hours ago, JJ Tong (zfogshooterz) said:

But when the pyro snakes was thrown in, that got me!

That's what got me interested. shame others hate it

12 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

I don't understand what this response means

I meant the snake head is already in multiple color

[Digger of Bricks]

36 minutes ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

I meant the snake head is already in multiple color

My original response was to @Boogly22238's question about those gunmetal grey Vermillion armor and helmet parts from 2017, pertaining to how I felt about their potential versatility.

[K_Tiger]

9 hours ago, Feng-huang0296 said:

I hope that if there is a Chima crossover we get actual minifigures from Chima. I was in a dark age for most of Chima, but I actually really liked the theme, looking back, and wish I got more stuff from it. This sounds like it might be a way to make up.

Lion, Eagle and Fire tribes aside, most of the Chima minifigures were pretty nice. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing at least a small minifigure offering in the Ninjago line.

Edited March 17, 2019 by K_Tiger

[Thedarkmaster2]

8 minutes ago, K_Tiger said:

most of the Chima minifigures were pretty nice

Yeah people give Chima alot of flack but introduced sabertooth tigers, vultures, and mammoths to Lego full stop. The dark tribes were pretty cool too.

32 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

My original response was to @Boogly22238's question about those gunmetal grey Vermillion armor and helmet parts from 2017, pertaining to how I felt about their potential versatility.

Well okay, they it's just weird how the snake head is already in two different colors

[Digger of Bricks]

1 minute ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

Yeah people give Chima alot of flack but introduced sabertooth tigers, vultures, and mammoths to Lego full stop.

For animal molds fans like @Roebuck, it's got to be particularly frustrating to see Lego introduce costumed/humanoid/anthropomorphic counterparts to creatures Lego hasn't yet made a proper animal mold for. Sabertooths and Mammoths at least got that proper treatment three years after their Chima counterparts premiered.

[Thedarkmaster2]

27 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

it's got to be particularly frustrating to see Lego introduce costumed/humanoid/anthropomorphic counterparts to creatures Lego hasn't yet made a proper animal mold for

I think the only one that hasn't gotten a mold yet is the Vulture Tribe.

 

27 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Sabertooths and Mammoths at least got that proper treatment three years after their Chima counterparts premiered.

The Mammoth could have used more articulation to be fair

[Ninjaguy99]

Well maybe just MAYBE Chima was where t.f.s.m was going to take Lloyd in episode 98.

[Lego David]

28 minutes ago, Ninjaguy99 said:

Well maybe just MAYBE Chima was where t.f.s.m was going to take Lloyd in episode 98.

That is fairly possible, the landscape looked pretty similar to the one you would see in Chima.

[Ninjaguy99]

6 minutes ago, Lego David said:

That is fairly possible, the landscape looked pretty similar to the one you would see in Chima.

It could have been a different area of Chima. One that wasn't seen in the TV series.

[Thedarkmaster2]

42 minutes ago, Ninjaguy99 said:

It could have been a different area of Chima. One that wasn't seen in the TV series.

If that's the case then we might not see the chima characters unfortunately

[Aanchir]

Something else to think about with regard to new molds is that all LEGO molds wear out after a certain amount of use. In a theme like Ninjago with lots of different sets produced in extremely high quantities, even some theme-specific molds might wear out from just a couple years of use in that theme alone. I suspect the same can probably be said for some of the older Castle molds I described in my previous post, or for any number of different Bionicle molds.

Given that, designers have a few options. They can create extremely non-specific molds that they will recreate at full cost after the original molds wear out. But alternatively, they can focus their budget on creating new molds after the old ones wear out, thereby creating both a stronger sense of novelty for the sets themselves and a wider range of part options for MOCists to choose from (MOCists, after all, are not limited to the use of current molds the way set designers are).

15 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

For animal molds fans like @Roebuck, it's got to be particularly frustrating to see Lego introduce costumed/humanoid/anthropomorphic counterparts to creatures Lego hasn't yet made a proper animal mold for. Sabertooths and Mammoths at least got that proper treatment three years after their Chima counterparts premiered.

In fairness, anthropomorphic LEGO animals have been a thing since Fabuland, so even before Legends of Chima, anthropomorphic LEGO elephants, lions, mice, bulldogs, pigs, bears, raccoons, walruses, rabbits, crows/ravens, foxes, goats, hippos, sheep, etc. all existed for more than a decade before any appeared as full non-Duplo animal molds.

Keep in mind that minifigure head or headgear molds tend to be way cheaper than actual animal molds, ESPECIALLY bigger animals like horses that often have to be pre-assembled from several different components. As such, while LEGO only tends to introduce either when they have a theme that needs them, they tend to have the option of introducing many MORE anthropomorphic animal head designs at one time and working them into a wider variety of sets than full animal designs.

For instance, in just three years of Legends of Chima characters showing up in sets (2013–2015):

• the lion headgear appears in 28 sets
• the crocodile headgear appears in 22 sets
• the eagle headgear appears in 21 sets
• the wolf headgear appears in 18 sets
• the sabretooth headgear appears in 17 sets
• the gorilla headgear appears in 14 sets
• the raven headgear appears in 13 sets
• the vulture headgear appears in 12 sets
• the bear headgear appears in 8 sets
• the phoenix, spider, and lioness/leopard/tiger headgear each appear in 6 sets
• the mammoth, bat, rhino, and scorpion headgear each appear in 3 sets
• the skunk/fox headgear appears in 2 sets

By comparison, the 3 or 4 pre-assembled molds that make up the molded LEGO cow each took five years to find use in even just four sets, while the 5 or 6 pre-assembled molds that make up the molded LEGO bear have each taken seven years to show up in seven sets. Besides the number of molds required, these sorts of big multi-piece animals are often hard to work into low-price, high production volume sets like Speedorz, magazine gift bags, Minifigures blind bags, smaller Friends sets, etc. that have helped cover the costs of a lot of the new molds across those themes.

On that note, though, with the existence of the current "big cat" design, a more traditional-looking maned lion could become a lot easier for LEGO to introduce when they have a theme suitable for them — it could conceivably use the same midsection and legs, with only a new head element (featuring a lion mane). The number of DIFFERENT big cats that could be created with the same molds honestly seems like a big part of the justification for those molds' introduction.

But again, when we see that will depend on when LEGO is developing a wave of sets they're suited to — same as how other animal molds have specifically appeared in themes where they help reinforce the premise, setting, or play scenario, like crocodiles, monkeys, and parrots in Pirates; undersea animals in Aquazone and Divers; dinosaurs in specific dino-related themes or subthemes, rats and owls in Harry Potter, camels and ostriches in Prince of Persia, etc. LEGO's approach to introducing new molds is rarely "let's make these sets as an excuse/opportunity to introduce these molds", but "let's make this product line kids seem excited about, and then decide what new molds will be the best use of that product line's budget".

 

As far as the prospect of Legends of Chima crossover stuff goes, I wouldn't be at all surprised if somehow a CHI and/or fire CHI crystal that somehow made it from that realm to Ninjago were the explanation for how these two new undead factions returned to life, just as CHI crystals were in Chima's own Fire vs. Ice wave. It wouldn't even need to be explained in great depth within the series — just that they are some mysterious powerful artifacts from another realm.

That way, it would be a plot device that makes sense to newcomers, but also doesn't come completely out of nowhere and serves as a sort of an easter egg for people aware of Legends of Chima lore. It's certainly much easier to deal with without as much exposition as an actual guest star character from the Chima storyline or a Ninjago storyline set in the realm of Chima would require.

(side note, I wouldn't say the Chima characters' eyes are much more anime or manga-ish than a lot of actual LEGO animals like recent crocodiles, big cats, and 

[badchriss]

Just wondering, what´s with the weird transparent colored hair on the winter style ninja outfits? They kinda remind me of those silly snowboarder hats with fake colorful hair on them :D

So we´re getting two sets of ninja suits, one for the Ice emperor landscape and one for the probably desert like lands of the fire serpents?

[Ninjaguy99]

1 hour ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

If that's the case then we might not see the chima characters unfortunately

They might travel there.

[benderisgreat]

7 minutes ago, badchriss said:

Just wondering, what´s with the weird transparent colored hair on the winter style ninja outfits? They kinda remind me of those silly snowboarder hats with fake colorful hair on them :D

So we´re getting two sets of ninja suits, one for the Ice emperor landscape and one for the probably desert like lands of the fire serpents?

I'm guessing it's going to be ninja's Spinjitsu slam versions, aka gimmicky sets . Their regular versions will probably be in normal sets.

[Ninjaguy99]

Unrelated: Did anyone else notice that Misako's arm was going through Lloyd's back when the Ninja we're going to see the Yin Blade in DoTD?

[Thedarkmaster2]

2 hours ago, Aanchir said:

On that note, though, with the existence of the current "big cat" design, a more traditional-looking maned lion could become a lot easier for LEGO to introduce when they have a theme suitable for them — it could conceivably use the same midsection and legs, with only a new head element (featuring a lion mane)

Yeah that's how they did the Sabertooth Tiger, which had a new head element.

Gotta wonder though how'd they do vultures though..

 

[benderisgreat]

New white Ice samurai minifig just leaked and it’s apparently the Emperor, given how he’s unique looking compared to the rest of minifigs.

[Fenghuang0296]

35 minutes ago, benderisgreat said:

New white Ice samurai minifig just leaked and it’s apparently the Emperor, given how he’s unique looking compared to the rest of minifigs.

Oh wow, yes! I like the white one WAY more than the gunmetal one we thought was the Emperor before. He looks badass! ^^ Here's hoping the distribution in sets will be convenient so I can get the white and red ones but not the gunmetal one. 

[Boogly22238]

I think the gunmetal one has the white ones face. Nice either way

[GarmaFan]

I don't think this one looks any more definitely the Emperor than the other two armored ones.