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So this might be of interest to some... the documentary about the making of the theme is apparently available to view on Chinese streaming sites: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV13z411B7Hj

Best I can tell there's no English subtitles or dubbing for some of the dialogue that is in Chinese (which will probably be added for the international release), but you can still see some neat concepts and aspects of the design process. In terms of sets, there's a scene with an in-progress prototype of the Cloud Roadster, which at one point was apparently going to have a flexible chassis that allowed the wheels to angle outward. There's also one scene where you can see a much larger prototype or sketch model of the building from the Monkey King Warrior Mech set, with five stories and a bigger billboard on top. Other neat things you can see at some points include style guide pages and early animatics for the animated series. And even if you're not that interested in this theme in particular, this documentary offers a better look than ever before at many aspects of Lego's development process, including Lego's element archive used by designers as well as footage of the kid focus testing of the sets.

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4 hours ago, Lyichir said:

So this might be of interest to some... the documentary about the making of the theme is apparently available to view on Chinese streaming sites: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV13z411B7Hj

Best I can tell there's no English subtitles or dubbing for some of the dialogue that is in Chinese (which will probably be added for the international release), but you can still see some neat concepts and aspects of the design process. In terms of sets, there's a scene with an in-progress prototype of the Cloud Roadster, which at one point was apparently going to have a flexible chassis that allowed the wheels to angle outward. There's also one scene where you can see a much larger prototype or sketch model of the building from the Monkey King Warrior Mech set, with five stories and a bigger billboard on top. Other neat things you can see at some points include style guide pages and early animatics for the animated series. And even if you're not that interested in this theme in particular, this documentary offers a better look than ever before at many aspects of Lego's development process, including Lego's element archive used by designers as well as footage of the kid focus testing of the sets.

Very interesting.  Thank you for the info and the web link.  Definitely fun to watch and see all that goes into the process of making the sets and the theme as a whole.  

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12 hours ago, Lyichir said:

 there's a scene with an in-progress prototype of the Cloud Roadster, which at one point was apparently going to have a flexible chassis that allowed the wheels to angle outward.

Why didn't they do this in the final set ?

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4 hours ago, Ragana9289 said:

Why didn't they do this in the final set ?

It seemed like even in the documentary Nick Vas (the designer of that set) was having trouble getting his concept for that function to work properly in the early stages. The final version of the set also has to seriously reinforce the axles across the bottom of the vehicle to keep it stable, so it's possible that in the end the vehicle's large size necessitated a sturdier build.

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I just finished building the Demon Bull King.I don't think you can appreciate his size until you see him up close in real life, he really is enormous.

I also love the color scheme,the blend of black and metallic grey with purple and dark pink is amazing.And on top of all of that you have neon orange which gives over all a retro vibe.Purple is one my favorite colors and you don't see it being used often when it comes to Lego sets.So I'm glad that it's prominent in this set. 

And the minifigures are of course amazing.With Princess Iron Fan stealing the show. 

Edited by LOTR34

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On 8/4/2020 at 12:33 AM, Lyichir said:

So this might be of interest to some... the documentary about the making of the theme is apparently available to view on Chinese streaming sites:

That's very interesting... I was always fascinated about behind the scenes stuff, and I was always curious about the development process of LEGO themes, which was never documented in any way up to this point. I am really glad we have this documentary, and I really hope we'll get more of them in the future. 

I'll definitely check out that Monkie Kid documentary whenever I have some time :sweet:.

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1 hour ago, Ragana9289 said:

Does anyone know if there will be a new wave of kits ?

Currently we don't know anything about future waves.But I don't think this is the end for MK just yet,well unless the current sets flopped extremely hard.

My prediction is we'll see more of MK this january.

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2 hours ago, Lego David said:

That's very interesting... I was always fascinated about behind the scenes stuff, and I was always curious about the development process of LEGO themes, which was never documented in any way up to this point. I am really glad we have this documentary, and I really hope we'll get more of them in the future. 

I'll definitely check out that Monkie Kid documentary whenever I have some time :sweet:.

The Brickumentary was a pretty fun movie from some years back that may be worth a look to you. It gave some inside into the design process of minifigs, notably the Hot Dog Guy from the CMF’s I believe it was. 

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On 8/2/2020 at 10:20 AM, LOTR34 said:

I wonder if Monkey Kid will get different outfits in future waves.Or will he suffer the same fate as Jack and Parker and get stuck with two outfits?

The documentary thing that was released did show the animated version of kid wearing a helmet and, presumably, a new outfit to go along with it. Hopefully those make it into sets. 

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I just purchased the cloud jet set! Nice display! 

Have my eyes own the ship HQ base. 

How long before we see other retail stores sell the sets? 

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6 hours ago, Lionbear8 said:

I just purchased the cloud jet set! Nice display! 

Have my eyes own the ship HQ base. 

How long before we see other retail stores sell the sets? 

Likely never. These appear to be LEGO store only. Cloud Jet was the first set I purchased, I love it. It’s a great design & cool build. 

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Finished building the HQ yesterday! It's really great, as I'd expected. I particularly love the various areas scaled to the Sandy bigfig, such as the control room, crow's nest, and living room.

I'm sort of tempted to even expand it... I've been messing around on Stud.io with a potential mod that adds a fourth, smaller container beside the yellow one that includes a turntable "transformation" feature to transform Mei from her civilian clothes to her White Dragon Horse jumpsuit. I do sort of wish the corrugated wall panel piece came in more colors like white or green, though...

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2 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

Finished building the HQ yesterday! It's really great, as I'd expected. I particularly love the various areas scaled to the Sandy bigfig, such as the control room, crow's nest, and living room.

I'm sort of tempted to even expand it... I've been messing around on Stud.io with a potential mod that adds a fourth, smaller container beside the yellow one that includes a turntable "transformation" feature to transform Mei from her civilian clothes to her White Dragon Horse jumpsuit. I do sort of wish the corrugated wall panel piece came in more colors like white or green, though...

Sounds awesome! Do it!

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Looks like a great theme. Hope more sets will continue!

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Well, Monkie Kid didn’t get much love in the catalog...it only showed the new Foundry set. :sadnew:

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51 minutes ago, Vindicare said:

Well, Monkie Kid didn’t get much love in the catalog...it only showed the new Foundry set. :sadnew:

Monkie Kid got nothing in the catalog I got. The line has basically zero advertising outside of Chima, which is a really bizzare decision on LEGO's part. That's one of the main reason why I think this line is gonna fail. Unless they decide to expand their audience for this theme by allowing it to be sold at normal retailers instead of just LEGO Stores and give it some proper advertising outside of Chima, I just can't see how in the world this line is gonna become successful. 

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47 minutes ago, Lego David said:

Monkie Kid got nothing in the catalog I got. The line has basically zero advertising outside of Chima, which is a really bizzare decision on LEGO's part. That's one of the main reason why I think this line is gonna fail. Unless they decide to expand their audience for this theme by allowing it to be sold at normal retailers instead of just LEGO Stores and give it some proper advertising outside of Chima, I just can't see how in the world this line is gonna become successful. 

It seems like a dumb move to limit this to just LEGO stores & S@H. I assume more people in general are visiting their site & that could help...but people are still going in normal retail stores where LEGO is sold as well... Considering the fanfare the CNY sets received, granted the sets are vastly different, you’d think they’d know China-centric sets will sell in other parts of the world. Even though I guess that’s not the best example, as those are only sold in LEGO stores & S@H. :facepalm: This theme would definitely sell way better if they released it in normal retail. Maybe the exclusivity is temporary, for whatever weird reason. 

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2 minutes ago, Vindicare said:

It seems like a dumb move to limit this to just LEGO stores & S@H. I assume more people in general are visiting their site & that could help...but people are still going in normal retail stores where LEGO is sold as well... Considering the fanfare the CNY sets received, granted the sets are vastly different, you’d think they’d know China-centric sets will sell in other parts of the world. Even though I guess that’s not the best example, as those are only sold in LEGO stores & S@H. :facepalm: This theme would definitely sell way better if they released it in normal retail. Maybe the exclusivity is temporary, for whatever weird reason. 

Limited exclusivity is a thing. I’ve seen it before, albeit not in LEGO. All I know is, I’m still very not excited about this line. The sets are gorgeous but the prices are awful, and the one good thing about Shop@Home compared to normal retailers is that they keep sets available for a lot longer. The only set I particularly want from this theme is the Food Truck, and that’s just as much for my OCD ‘have at least one thing from every theme ever in my city’ pipe dream as it is for actually wanting to collect this theme. 

That is to say, I’m absolutely in no rush to get the Food Truck. The way things are going budget wise, it might be sometime next year that I actually lay hands on it. 

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22 minutes ago, Fenghuang0296 said:

Limited exclusivity is a thing. I’ve seen it before, albeit not in LEGO. All I know is, I’m still very not excited about this line. The sets are gorgeous but the prices are awful, and the one good thing about Shop@Home compared to normal retailers is that they keep sets available for a lot longer. The only set I particularly want from this theme is the Food Truck, and that’s just as much for my OCD ‘have at least one thing from every theme ever in my city’ pipe dream as it is for actually wanting to collect this theme. 

That is to say, I’m absolutely in no rush to get the Food Truck. The way things are going budget wise, it might be sometime next year that I actually lay hands on it. 

That seems to be the general consensus...the prices. I’d definitely want more of these if the prices weren’t so bad(or if they weren’t releasing so many damn high ticket sets...). I didn’t grab the Cloud Jet, as that’s the one that really drew my attention. I get the wanting one of everything for your town. I have a bunch of not-so-City minifigs going about, it just adds a touch of fun. 

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17 minutes ago, Vindicare said:

That seems to be the general consensus...the prices. I’d definitely want more of these if the prices weren’t so bad(or if they weren’t releasing so many damn high ticket sets...). I didn’t grab the Cloud Jet, as that’s the one that really drew my attention. I get the wanting one of everything for your town. I have a bunch of not-so-City minifigs going about, it just adds a touch of fun. 

High ticket, that’s exactly what I was thinking just yesterday. My usual strategy for themes like this is to get a few of the low-to-mid range sets, focusing on diversity of characters included, then if budget allows one of the large sets that inevitably have exclusive characters. Nexo Knights 2017 for example, my top priorities were Lance’s Twin Jouster and Ruina’s Lock and Roller, because of the exclusive Ruina, Queen Halbert and (at the time) Rogul figures. Whereas the only exclusive characters in the big Jestro’s Headquarters set was Cloud Monstrux and Lightning Jestro, and since I already had the Year 1 versions of Monstrux and Jestro (and guessed correctly that they would appear again later) I wasn’t fussed. 

Now, in Monkie King. Nine named characters in the first wave. Under normal circumstances, I’d get the Food Truck for integration into my city, the Cloud Jet for Red Son, Demon Bull King for DBK and Princess Iron Fan and my big purchase for the theme would be the Secret HQ boat for Sandy, Mei and General Ironbark, betting that Monkey King would appear again in a later set. But at these prices I just can’t afford almost any of that. 

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13 hours ago, Lego David said:

Monkie Kid got nothing in the catalog I got. The line has basically zero advertising outside of Chima, which is a really bizzare decision on LEGO's part. That's one of the main reason why I think this line is gonna fail. Unless they decide to expand their audience for this theme by allowing it to be sold at normal retailers instead of just LEGO Stores and give it some proper advertising outside of Chima, I just can't see how in the world this line is gonna become successful. 

I think it's a mistake to assume Lego EXPECTS the theme to become as big of a hit outside of China. My assumption since the theme's exclusivity was announced was that the reasoning for it was hesitation on the part of Lego's normal retail partners to buy in big on a theme that lacks the same cultural context for a Western audience. So instead, by keeping the theme exclusive to Lego.com and Lego Brand Retail, Lego may be accepting a reduced audience reach and producing the sets with that in mind (in other words, not producing as many sets for western markets as they would if they had to provide product to as many retail partners as a more widely released theme like Ninjago).

Now, that may change. It's possible that, once the TV series receives a wider premiere and if sales of the current sets through Lego provide impressive enough returns, future waves of sets may end up given a wider release. I certainly wouldn't mind! But frankly I wouldn't be surprised if the initial plans for this theme didn't involve a Western release at all and were only adjusted after the backlash to the regional exclusivity of the Chinese New Year sets demonstrated a global demand for more regionally focused product lines, and even now the success of this theme may be measured more by its performance in China than by its popularity in other regions.

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12 hours ago, Fenghuang0296 said:

High ticket, that’s exactly what I was thinking just yesterday. My usual strategy for themes like this is to get a few of the low-to-mid range sets, focusing on diversity of characters included, then if budget allows one of the large sets that inevitably have exclusive characters. Nexo Knights 2017 for example, my top priorities were Lance’s Twin Jouster and Ruina’s Lock and Roller, because of the exclusive Ruina, Queen Halbert and (at the time) Rogul figures. Whereas the only exclusive characters in the big Jestro’s Headquarters set was Cloud Monstrux and Lightning Jestro, and since I already had the Year 1 versions of Monstrux and Jestro (and guessed correctly that they would appear again later) I wasn’t fussed. 

Now, in Monkie King. Nine named characters in the first wave. Under normal circumstances, I’d get the Food Truck for integration into my city, the Cloud Jet for Red Son, Demon Bull King for DBK and Princess Iron Fan and my big purchase for the theme would be the Secret HQ boat for Sandy, Mei and General Ironbark, betting that Monkey King would appear again in a later set. But at these prices I just can’t afford almost any of that. 

Yep. Trying to keep up & get the full line up is definitely hard with this theme. I was excited to hear Sandy & Mo were coming in a smaller sped boat set...but then I saw the price. It’s obviously a lot better than the HQ price, but still a lot for what you get there. With the addition of that Spider Queen though, does make up for the price a bit. While I prefer buying them in their sets, at least we have online to fill in the character gaps. 

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