LEGO Monkie Kid 2022

[RichardGoring]

It's easy to compare it to Ninjago City, but remember, it's half the price point. I think for the price, it's terrific. The design means it's an excellent playset as is, but also allows customization to for into an AFOL setup alongside NC. 

[froggy95]

Does anyone know if the green modified tiles (w/ gold scales design) on the dragon from the new City of Lanterns set are stickers or printed?

[Lyichir]

11 minutes ago, froggy95 said:

Does anyone know if the green modified tiles (w/ gold scales design) on the dragon from the new City of Lanterns set are stickers or printed?

Stickers. You can see the full sticker sheet for the set in Rambling Brick's review: https://ramblingbrick.com/2021/12/02/monkie-kid-80036-the-city-of-lanterns-full-of-easter-eggs-hands-on-review/

[froggy95]

@Lyichir, RATS! but thank you for the information. 

[Justin]

The signs mounted on the telephone pole next to the Panda convenience store in the LEGO Monkie Kid City of Lanterns set hint at a 90th anniversary milestone for the LEGO Group next year.

The LEGO Group was established in Billund, Denmark in 1932 by the Kirk-Christiansen family.

The forerunner of today's LEGO bricks were introduced in 1947 by the LEGO Group, while the LEGO Group's primary business was still making handcrafted wooden toys...

 

Another thing I've noticed in the City of Lanterns, is how the Citybot robot minifigure builds pay homage to a similar brick-built robot minifigure, Cranky the Robot, from the TimeCruisers Mystic Mountain Time Lab.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Justin

[a guy from somewhere]

So I was rewatching the revenge of the spider queen and noticed something interesting, the 3 part symbol Mei is associated with this wave (along with the 3 fire rings) seems to be heavily tied to the celestial realm. The symbol appears on her suit and on her new car. During the scene where Red son takes the dronecopter through the gateway we see this symbol for a second, and it later appears on the giant drum dogs that guard the furnace. Its also interestingly on the back of Red son's jacket. Space is also interestingly mentioned so the crew is aware of the prospect of launching into orbit. The pills that are obtained by Pigsy and Tang also appear to have the same 3 part symbol. Maybe red son and Mei will have a bit more involvement tis wave. 

[TeriXeri]

Just noticed that the monkie kid fig in 80035: Monkie Kid's Galactic Explorer has a "benny" alternate big mouth smiling face expression when piloting the ship in one of the images, that's awesome.

Edited December 12, 2021 by TeriXeri

[steveholt]

i'd love to see someone convert this into a modular and attach it to the Ninjago Modulars

[Maple]

16 hours ago, steveholt said:

i'd love to see someone convert this into a modular and attach it to the Ninjago Modulars

I will.

But you need to buy me the first two NinjaGo Modulars first. :) 

[Lyichir]

Since I've made a lot of progress on it, I figured I might share the spreadsheet I've made of the stickers from this theme with translations and notes about Easter eggs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qseJOBXDEBFmfWR_I3h7DlP8bbGX-jt9Ij1JvrGaT-M/edit?usp=sharing

Rebrickable's reviews of 80032 and 80036 helped a lot for identifying the text from the new sets, since they included high quality scans of the sticker sheets. I am anxiously awaiting review copies of 80035 to be sent out so that I can identify details and easter eggs from that set (notably, there are at least two transparent viewscreens that don't appear in any of the official pictures, which may contain other text or Easter eggs).

If you have any contributions you could help with, please let me know! I think I've identified most of the text from earlier sets but there are several snippets of text (often in the form of dates or initialisms) that are probably Easter eggs which I haven't yet deduced the specific significance of.

[Killian]

Just rewatching season 1 and in the episode where The Spider Queen is acting all seductive at first, blowing a kiss at Tang, 

Tang isn't interested at all, but Pigsy finds her attractive.

Makes me wonder if they're subtly coding Tang as potentially gay or asexual to make the show more inclusive for viewers that might enjoy that kind of representation, even if it's kind of not obvious? 

It'd be cool if they were, though I may be reading too much into it lol        

[Lyichir]

4 hours ago, Killian said:

Just rewatching season 1 and in the episode where The Spider Queen is acting all seductive at first, blowing a kiss at Tang, 

Tang isn't interested at all, but Pigsy finds her attractive.

Makes me wonder if they're subtly coding Tang as potentially gay or asexual to make the show more inclusive for viewers that might enjoy that kind of representation, even if it's kind of not obvious? 

It'd be cool if they were, though I may be reading too much into it lol        

Ha, it could sort of be interpreted multiple ways I think. In the original Journey to the West, Tang Sanzang/Tripitaka was a celibate Buddhist monk. Mr. Tang's lack of romantic interest is most likely meant to allude to that, even though Lego mostly elides religious elements of Journey to the West in their reinterpretation of it. Either way I know that among many fans of the show Pigsy/Tang is quite a popular "ship", with the quarreling yet begrudgingly accepting dynamic between the two reminding a lot of folks of an old married couple.

This probably belongs in the topic on show discussion, by the way, especially since it's not really specifically related to next year's sets.

[Natant16]

All of the 2020 and 2021 sets are listed as out of stock on Lego.com. Will they be coming back in stock?

[Lyichir]

1 hour ago, Natant16 said:

All of the 2020 and 2021 sets are listed as out of stock on Lego.com. Will they be coming back in stock?

There was a list of sets supposedly retiring after this year a while back. It supposedly included all of the 2020 sets except the Warrior Mech, Cloud Jet, and Secret HQ, as well as the RC Race and Cloud Bike from 2021. So if that was accurate, then those three 2020 sets and all of the 2021 sets apart from the two I listed should be coming back in stock on Lego.com at some point after the holiday rush dies down.

If you're interested in Pigsy's Food Truck (which is on the list of sets retiring this year), Amazon US still has it in stock, along with most of the other sets that aren't retiring this year. So if that one in particular is on your wish list it might be worth picking it up while you have the chance. I'm considering it myself since it was one of the 2020 sets I skipped.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Lyichir

[TeriXeri]

7 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

There was a list of sets supposedly retiring after this year a while back. It supposedly included all of the 2020 sets except the Warrior Mech, Cloud Jet, and Secret HQ, as well as the RC Race and Cloud Bike from 2021. So if that was accurate, then those three 2020 sets and all of the 2021 sets apart from the two I listed should be coming back in stock on Lego.com at some point after the holiday rush dies down.

This, European LEGO.com does have the sets in stock except the ones that were supposed to retire, and those retired sets are listed as Sold out, not temporary out of stock.

Edited December 23, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Maple]

1 hour ago, Natant16 said:

All of the 2020 and 2021 sets are listed as out of stock on Lego.com. Will they be coming back in stock?

Yes. Just click on the sets, they all say "Temporarily out of stock".

[a guy from somewhere]

Does anyone know when the January store calendar come out? I'm thinking of picking up some sets on Jan first (as we probably all are) but that underwater journey polybag may become a gift with purchase and I'm thinking of holding fire till that becomes available. Also what is the threshold for sets? As I'm sure the polybag will be for qualifying monkie kid purchases, so can I only get monkie kid to get the poly bag or can I throw some other themes in too? Say the threshold is £100. I spend £90 on MK and 10 on ninjago. Do I still get the polybag or does it have to be £100 of monkie kid sets? I'm not entirely sure why I Don't know this but I Don't. 

[TeriXeri]

I wonder if the 2020 Chang'e 5 moon mission returning samples was inspiration for the Moon Cake set, it was the first sample return mission (1731 grams of lunar soil)  since 1976.

And City / Monkie Kid having both a rocket launch set doesn't seem cooincidence with Nasa / China having moon landings planned for 2024-2025.

Chang'e (Goddess of the Moon) will also be another deity to have a minifigure, 2022 will also have Caishen , God of Prosperity in 80108 Lunar New Year Traditions

 

I don't want to make LEGO political/religious here, but it's interesting how things come back in those sets.

Edited December 30, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Doom2099]

Those 2022 sets look great. I'm really glad this line isn't ending early!

[a guy from somewhere]

Monkie kid season 3 poster has come out, nezah is at the top with macaque and the gangs all there. MK has a new jacket as well. 

Edited December 30, 2021 by a guy from somewhere

[Natant16]

Speaking of which, what religious/mythological characters have we gotten as official minifigures? From what I can remember, there was (Arguably) Poseidon, Athena, the Minotaur, Cyclops, and Medusa in CMFs, along with a banshee, centaur, and faun. The Winged Warrior minifigure could represent someone, but I'm not sure who it would be. There's also the cast of Monkie Kid, with Sun Wukong appearing in both MK and CMF, and the Anubis Guard from Pharaoh's quest could be used as, well, Anubis. There's also Caishen, as mentioned above. 

 

[Takanuinuva]

8 hours ago, a guy from somewhere said:

Monkie kid season 3 poster has come out, nezah is at the top with macaque and the gangs all there. MK has a new jacket as well. 

Is Sandy small? 

[a guy from somewhere]

14 minutes ago, Takanuinuva said:

Is Sandy small? 

Nope, still regular old Sandy. Either he gets kinda shrunk towards the end of the season or it’s just a cost cutting measure by Lego. Nezah seems to play a pretty prominent role, so I’m gonna take a guess and say that they need the 3 fire rings to find nezah, and get him and his golden flaming unicycle to come and defeat lady bone demon. 

[Lyichir]

25 minutes ago, a guy from somewhere said:

Nope, still regular old Sandy. Either he gets kinda shrunk towards the end of the season or it’s just a cost cutting measure by Lego. Nezah seems to play a pretty prominent role, so I’m gonna take a guess and say that they need the 3 fire rings to find nezah, and get him and his golden flaming unicycle to come and defeat lady bone demon. 

Honestly I think it's less cost cutting and more just plain convenience. Sandy being a bigfig made him distinctive but also made it so that he couldn't really fit in any space that wasn't designed specifically for him (as contrasted with the TV series, where he can squeeze through door frames or into vehicles just fine despite his large size). Making him a minifig also allows for easy costume swaps, like the spacesuit in the Galactic Explorer set.

Honestly I don't mind the change considering all that. It's a bit of an abstraction of his "true size", sure, but minifig scale is very often about that kind of abstraction and he still looks tough and cool enough for my taste. I even sort of prefer the simpler minifig-scale version of his weapon in the Macaque mech set to the bigger bigfig-scale version from earlier sets—the fact that it can use blade pieces on both ends makes it look sharper and more dangerous than the somewhat blocky version from before.

Come to think of it, maybe a minifig-sized version of "Strong Spider" from last season would be easier to customize than making him as a bigfig... I'll have to toy around a bit with that concept.

[Maple]

I think LEGO is just retiring the bigfig to save money. A bigfig is like $10+ and a minifigure is $2-3.

I like him small, but would like them to address it in the show.