LEGO Monkie Kid 2022

[Lyichir]

1 hour ago, Maple said:

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.

Obviously a minifig is cheaper, but it's not really money saved per set for Lego to use a minifigure (since the budget that doesn't go toward including a bigfig ends up available to put back into the brick-built contents of the set). That's why I consider the versatility of a minifig to be as much or arguably even more of a factor than the cost savings alone, especially from a design perspective. Minifig Sandy is not just cheaper, but can be put into sets without having to make fitting a bigfig one of the primary design considerations. I do appreciate the way sets with him have worked around that challenge, but there's no denying that most of the sets with him have had to be designed with his larger scale as a starting point, which ultimately limits the kinds of sets he could be included in.

And of course, where you do start to get more substantial cost savings is in relation to a change we just plain never got in earlier years—new outfits or with different equipment like in the Galactic Explorer set! The Sandy bigfig wasn't necessarily designed with outfit changes or removable equipment in mind, so having him as a minifigure allows for those sorts of changes without having to basically redesign the figure from scratch each time. And I'm certainly happy to be getting that since before now Sandy has been the only member of MK's team not to get a single redesign! Now changes to Sandy will be no more expensive than they would be for any other member of the team. Hopefully we even get some new facial expressions for him over time!

[Maple]

When was the last set with a bigfig was released? I think LEGO is just retiring the whole bigfig line (is it a line?) and sticking more to figures. That Sandy was the only character still using the bigfig and LEGO just ended them all and it has nothing to do with Sandy. It's just he was the last one and has nothing to do with redesigns or equipment. Kind of like how Woody from the first Toy Story sets had long legs and then LEGO stopped using them in the future even though they were awesome. Just it's the end of bigfigs and we will never see them again.

[Lyichir]

17 minutes ago, Maple said:

When was the last set with a bigfig was released? I think LEGO is just retiring the whole bigfig line (is it a line?) and sticking more to figures. That Sandy was the only character still using the bigfig and LEGO just ended them all and it has nothing to do with Sandy. It's just he was the last one and has nothing to do with redesigns or equipment. Kind of like how Woody from the first Toy Story sets had long legs and then LEGO stopped using them in the future even though they were awesome. Just it's the end of bigfigs and we will never see them again.

It's possible, I suppose? Apart from Sandy there was also Thanos this year, who introduced a new bigfig-sized head so that his head could move separately from his body. It would seem a little strange to me if they did that (something people have been hoping for them to do since the first introduction of modern bigfigs in 2012) only to decide to stop using bigfigs altogether shortly afterward. So far none of the announced sets for next year include bigfigs (though Robotnik in the new Sonic the Hedgehog Ideas set does still use bigfig hands). But we've seen very little outside of the January and March waves, especially for themes like Super Heroes that use bigfigs more than almost any other themes and are often kept under wraps for longer than non-licensed themes.

It's really hard to say. Like you say, Lego has abandoned concepts with little fanfare in the past. But bigfigs have a much longer legacy than one-off parts like the longer Toy Story legs and arms (which were only ever used for a single year of sets and look disproportionate on most non-cartoon characters). And last year's three sets with bigfigs really wasn't at all atypical for Lego—again, since the introduction of the modern bigfig design there's only ever been three to five sets with them each year. I think I'll have to see them gone for much longer than this (and see more movie themes with characters who would have previously been bigfigs use normal minifigures instead) before I'd be able to safely assume Lego was stopping using bigfigs altogether.

[Maple]

I did a quick count.
2016 - 5
2017 - 6 (Two in one set)
2018 - 3
2019 - 5 (Two in one set)
2020 - 4 (Three were Sandy)
2021 - 3 (Two were Sandy)

I hope I'm wrong because I like bigfig Hulk. Minifigure Hulk is good too though. Just LEGO does odd things. Just seems odd to randomly change Sandy into a minifigure. (Even though he looks good!)

[Vindicare]

On 12/30/2021 at 6:22 PM, Maple said:

I did a quick count.
2016 - 5
2017 - 6 (Two in one set)
2018 - 3
2019 - 5 (Two in one set)
2020 - 4 (Three were Sandy)
2021 - 3 (Two were Sandy)

I hope I'm wrong because I like bigfig Hulk. Minifigure Hulk is good too though. Just LEGO does odd things. Just seems odd to randomly change Sandy into a minifigure. (Even though he looks good!)

Yeah man, I love the occasional bigfig. Some characters have to be bigfigs, like Hulk. Finally got my hands on Sandy & he’s great. And speaking of the Hulk, shave off that mohawk & we have a pretty good Maestro. 

[a guy from somewhere]

Just a heads up, the monkie kids underwater journey polybag set (otherwise known as the skeleton battle pack) is gonna be a GWP with all monkie kid or ninjago purchases over 40 USD, im gonna guess its the same price for the UK as well. You may want to hold fire on MK purchases until the 10th, which is when the GWP goes live. It will be going until the 27th of January. 

[Justin]

I just ordered my copy of the Monkie Kid City of Lanterns LEGO set after I was done watching the New Years Eve special on TV. I'm expecting it to come in either a few days or a few weeks, depending on how much online traffic the LEGO Online Shop has to deal with...

Edited January 2, 2022 by Justin

[Killian]

On 12/30/2021 at 7:37 PM, Maple said:

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.

 

I'm not a fan of Bigfigs usually, they don't fit into most minifig builds and you can't mix and match their parts too much to customise your own characters like you can with Minifigures. I have the Sandy Bigfig from his speedboat set, but he's just in a box with my larger Lego animals and other Bigfigs, he never gets any use. Because of that, I'm really glad we now have the option of him as a Minifig. I'm looking forward to seeing what different torsos etc we get for him in future waves.

 

I'd love it if they made a Monkie Kid CMF series with alternative outfits and facial expressions for Sandy and the rest of the core characters.

They could include Mei's parents, the little girl disguise of The Lady Bone Demon, the "Mayor" that works for LBD, some of the more unique clones of himself that MK can create in the show, they could do a version of MK with his season 2 puppy or mop hands that would fit over regular minifig hands like the medical cast piece does. There could be recoloured versions of the Spider Bot from set 10783 in the Spider Queen's colors, new animal moulds to represent The Monkey King's animal transformations, maybe have new versions of Mo in a sitting position or with different face prints, and maybe those green creatures from season 2's Pig Pong Panic episode, what are they meant to be anyway? Are they from the Journey to the West legends?

[Lyichir]

44 minutes ago, Killian said:

 

I'm not a fan of Bigfigs usually, they don't fit into most minifig builds and you can't mix and match their parts too much to customise your own characters like you can with Minifigures. I have the Sandy Bigfig from his speedboat set, but he's just in a box with my larger Lego animals and other Bigfigs, he never gets any use. Because of that, I'm really glad we now have the option of him as a Minifig. I'm looking forward to seeing what different torsos etc we get for him in future waves.

 

I'd love it if they made a Monkie Kid CMF series with alternative outfits and facial expressions for Sandy and the rest of the core characters.

They could include Mei's parents, the little girl disguise of The Lady Bone Demon, the "Mayor" that works for LBD, some of the more unique clones of himself that MK can create in the show, they could do a version of MK with his season 2 puppy or mop hands that would fit over regular minifig hands like the medical cast piece does. There could be recoloured versions of the Spider Bot from set 10783 in the Spider Queen's colors, new animal moulds to represent The Monkey King's animal transformations, maybe have new versions of Mo in a sitting position or with different face prints, and maybe those green creatures from season 2's Pig Pong Panic episode, what are they meant to be anyway? Are they from the Journey to the West legends?

I believe those are the magical ginseng fruit from chapters 24 to 26!

A Monkie Kid CMF could be quite cool. It would be nice to get characters like Mei's parents, the "Mayor", the Lady Bone Demon, and an MK clone or two, though I'd be less interested in one-off gags like the mop and puppy hands. And I'm sure that if they were to do something like that they'd make a fair share of the characters new as well—either newly created characters or other returning demons or other characters from Journey to the West. I think including Monkey King's original traveling companions (the predecessors to MK's team) would make for a nice core to a line like that!

That said, I don't know how likely something like that would be. As it stands right now the theme is quite niche outside the Asia Pacific region, so if they did release something like that, many fans might have to settle for truly random pulls from online Lego or Amazon orders instead of being able to buy them in store.

In other news, Justin Ramsden made a short Twitter thread about his new City of Lanterns set, including pictures of how you can use two sets to make it bigger:

 

[Killian]

Speaking of MODing MK sets. There are a couple of sets I want for the side builds and minifigures, but I'm not into some of the big good guy vehicles that are the main part of the set.

There's very little I can find online where people have changed things like the Lion Guardian or Dronecopter etc into an alternative build. Has anybody seen any?

[Lyichir]

1 hour ago, Killian said:

Speaking of MODing MK sets. There are a couple of sets I want for the side builds and minifigures, but I'm not into some of the big good guy vehicles that are the main part of the set.

There's very little I can find online where people have changed things like the Lion Guardian or Dronecopter etc into an alternative build. Has anybody seen any?

Here's an article about some "set mashups" Lego Japan did where they combined the Lion Guardian with a Technic set. And here's an article sharing some alt builds Lego China did rebuilding various sets (including the Lion Guardian) into Christmas trees.

Other than those, I haven't seen a ton of alt builds of those particular sets. I have little doubt that you could use the parts for something else (it's Lego after all), but if you were limiting yourself to the parts of the set, a mech or vehicle like that would tend to have a lot of parts that'd be be best suited for another mech or vehicle (like joints, windscreens, propellers, etc.).

Unrelated to that, the details of how the new Monkie Kid polybag 30562 Monkie Kid's Underwater Journey will be released have been revealed. It's set to be a gift with purchase with $40/£40/40€ Ninjago and Monkie Kid purchases from the 10th to the 27th of this month. This suits me just fine since I still have plenty of Ninjago and Monkie Kid sets on my wishlist that I can order at that time.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Lyichir

[TeriXeri]

4 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Here's an article about some "set mashups" Lego Japan did where they combined the Lion Guardian with a Technic set. And here's an article sharing some alt builds Lego China did rebuilding various sets (including the Lion Guardian) into Christmas trees.

I love those mashups, looks like a great way to start building something custom without a sorting nightmare keeping 2 sets you might want to rebuild again.

Also a way to create even more builds out of the 3-in-1 theme while using existing sub-builds (like that skull-castle)

Edited January 6, 2022 by TeriXeri

[a guy from somewhere]

16 hours ago, Killian said:

Speaking of MODing MK sets. There are a couple of sets I want for the side builds and minifigures, but I'm not into some of the big good guy vehicles that are the main part of the set.

There's very little I can find online where people have changed things like the Lion Guardian or Dronecopter etc into an alternative build. Has anybody seen any?

I agree with this. I love most MK sidebuilds but the main model usually doesn't do it for me. Red sons inferno truck, the dronecopter, Mei's dragon car. New elementary have done some interesting things with MK sets, mainly using the parts. I know they made parts from the dronecopter turn into a crab that could fold itself into a container.

check out this link to see the new elementary articles of the sets: 

https://www.newelementary.com/search?q=monkie

[Lyichir]

Yesterday some of the sets I ordered finally arrived, and I was able to build the Galactic Explorer set! Overall it may just be one of my favorite spaceship sets ever. A couple assorted thoughts about it:
 

• It's great looking, either displayed vertically (as if on the launchpad) and horizontally. It looks great from pretty much every angle, even areas like the rear and underside that are sometimes an afterthought. When displayed vertically the launch tower lines up nicely with the crew compartment.
• I was really impressed how well the rover fits into the cargo compartment. The bar piece locks it in place really well so that it doesn't jostle when you swoosh it.
• Speaking of swooshing... it's eminently swooshable. There's a great spot in the middle between the side windows and blasters that is perfect for holding it.
• I love that it has room for MK's whole crew in the interior (even Pigsy, who comes in a separate set). If I had one critique, it's that I wish there was a spot for Robot Mo in the cabin. There's a plate with bar attachments in the forward part of the crew cabin that I'm not completely sure what it's for (I think maybe for attaching all three colored flames when you collect them?), but if it weren't there Robot Mo could probably fit in that area between the cockpit and crew cabin.
• The minifigures are great. I love the spacesuit design and the dual-molded helmets. Sandy in particular looks wonderful and I appreciate how they included a printed beard in addition to the beard piece on top so that he can wear a helmet and still look right. The shadow monkeys are also delightfully spooky.
• The set does have quite a few stickers and there are some parts of the build where you have to apply a lot of them at once. That said, for folks who dislike stickers or just want to keep the parts unstickered for future MOCs, I think the set would look just fine without them.
• I did get one part in my set that had a sort of defect I hadn't seen before—one of the lacquered gold ingot pieces must not have been treated right because it was very pale and had a patchy, powdery texture. I might contact Lego customer service just to let them know but I probably won't need a replacement since the upcoming polybag includes several loose gold ingots that I could replace it with.

[Meaf]

6 hours ago, Lyichir said:

• I did get one part in my set that had a sort of defect I hadn't seen before—one of the lacquered gold ingot pieces must not have been treated right because it was very pale and had a patchy, powdery texture. I might contact Lego customer service just to let them know but I probably won't need a replacement since the upcoming polybag includes several loose gold ingots that I could replace it with.

I actually had a similar issue with the Monkey King's Mech, though it wasn't super noticeable so I never bothered replacing it.

[Justin]

I enjoyed putting together my City of Lanterns set. I like all the tiny little details, including the minifigure-sized vintage LEGO building sets in the LEGO Store (Black Seas Barracuda, Pharaoh's Forbidden Ruins, Poolside Paradise, Galaxy Explorer, Yellow Castle, etc.), the the Lotus Hotel, The Panda's convenience store, the Bubble Tea stand, the Karaoke bar, the elevated Pigsy train and the Chinese restaurant. I also like that the city robots included with the set are a callback to a similarly-designed robot in the Mystic Mountain Time Lab from the Timecruisers theme. The set also has no shortage of lanterns, which are either made from trans-red minifigure heads or red pumpkin elements...

[Vindicare]

On 1/8/2022 at 8:35 PM, Justin said:

I enjoyed putting together my City of Lanterns set. I like all the tiny little details, including the minifigure-sized vintage LEGO building sets in the LEGO Store (Black Seas Barracuda, Pharaoh's Forbidden Ruins, Poolside Paradise, Galaxy Explorer, Yellow Castle, etc.), the the Lotus Hotel, The Panda's convenience store, the Bubble Tea stand, the Karaoke bar, the elevated Pigsy train and the Chinese restaurant. I also like that the city robots included with the set are a callback to a similarly-designed robot in the Mystic Mountain Time Lab from the Timecruisers theme. The set also has no shortage of lanterns, which are either made from trans-red minifigure heads or red pumpkin elements...

I just finished with mine. It really was a very enjoyable build. Both big & small details are great & I love the dark red/sand blue color combo on the Lotus Hotel. I can definitely see some Ninjago City influences as well. 

If you recall, did you have three extra pearl gold 1x1 round plates left over? I haven’t gone back over the set to see if I missed two, but thought I’d ask here first. 

[Justin]

16 minutes ago, Vindicare said:

If you recall, did you have three extra pearl gold 1x1 round plates left over? I haven’t gone back over the set to see if I missed two, but thought I’d ask here first. 

Have you tried BrickLink or Bricks & Pieces? I bet they have some at either of those two websites...

I haven't missed a step when I built my set, although the people at LEGO forgot to add a dark gray 1x12 plate, which I substituted with a dark gray 1x8 and 1x4 plate in the building of the Pigsy train platform.

Edited January 10, 2022 by Justin

[Killian]

The season 3 trailer has dropped, and....

 

Spoiler

 

Nezha looks cool, MK and Macaque have the new outfits we've seen in recent releases, Red Son teams up with the good guys again. It all looks pretty cool.

I think Wukong's original teammates may appear because there's a pig in robes featured who could be Zhu Bajie, although it may just be Pigsy dressed up for some reason? Hopefully we'll get the original Journey to the West crew in minifigure form if they are in the show. Maybe that's why they downsized Sandy so they could reuse some of his parts for Sha Wujing?

Anyway, I'm excited for season 3  :)

 

 

[TeriXeri]

Monkie Kid polybag is so good, currently a good time to order if interested in it + Year of Tiger.

[Lyichir]

10 hours ago, Vindicare said:

I just finished with mine. It really was a very enjoyable build. Both big & small details are great & I love the dark red/sand blue color combo on the Lotus Hotel. I can definitely see some Ninjago City influences as well. 

If you recall, did you have three extra pearl gold 1x1 round plates left over? I haven’t gone back over the set to see if I missed two, but thought I’d ask here first. 

I don't recall how many extras I had. But if you're going over the set to see if you missed any, the first thing I'd check would be the bottoms of the lanterns—all of the ones that don't have a tassel piece on the bottom have a 1x1 gold plate instead.

5 hours ago, Killian said:

The season 3 trailer has dropped, and....

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Nezha looks cool, MK and Macaque have the new outfits we've seen in recent releases, Red Son teams up with the good guys again. It all looks pretty cool.

I think Wukong's original teammates may appear because there's a pig in robes featured who could be Zhu Bajie, although it may just be Pigsy dressed up for some reason? Hopefully we'll get the original Journey to the West crew in minifigure form if they are in the show. Maybe that's why they downsized Sandy so they could reuse some of his parts for Sha Wujing?

Anyway, I'm excited for season 3  :)

 

 

I'm very impressed with the trailer too! It confirms the main "quest" of this arc is to obtain the True Samadhi Fire (a powerful, near unquenchable fire which in JTTW was wielded by Red Son).

One of the scenes also seems to possibly include the scorpion demon from Journey to the West (or a similar scorpion baddie), which might end up appearing in a set at some point.

One thing that's conspicuously absent from the trailer is Chang'e or any of the scenes with the Galactic Explorer or Moon Cake Factory. That might merely be an omission (and they appear in the season along with the rest of the current sets), but I wonder if their debut might be being saved for the second half of the year (to tie in with the Mid-Autumn Festival). If we were getting a TV special or something to tie in with that, it might explain why we don't seem to be getting one for the Lunar New Year like we did last year.

[Justin]

The City of Lanterns set is my first ever exposure to the LEGO rollercoaster pieces, in which the track and car pieces are being used in this set as a small elevated train themed to Pigsy's Noodles (one side of some of the cars is covered in graffiti), which transports passengers to the upper level of the city, where The Lotus Hotel, the Speedy Panda Convenience Store and a LEGO Store are located.

[Killian]

It's just occurred to me that if we ever see Wukong's original crew in the show and the new heroes realise who their counterparts are, I hope Mei's reaction to being the replacement for a horse is hilarious, at least before she realises it was a dragon in disguise

[Lyichir]

59 minutes ago, Killian said:

It's just occurred to me that if we ever see Wukong's original crew in the show and the new heroes realise who their counterparts are, I hope Mei's reaction to being the replacement for a horse is hilarious, at least before she realises it was a dragon in disguise

I mean, Mei already is (and is aware that she is) the literal descendant of the White Dragon Horse—her parents' company (Dragon Horse Shipping) is even named after them. It's not a coincidence that her various vehicles are all dragon and/or horse themed! So I doubt realizing that she fills more or less the same role on MK's team would be that much of a shock to her. I'm not really sure we'll see the rest of Monkey King's companions outside of flashbacks or visions, though. I think that costumed Pigsy from the trailer is just the modern Pigsy (perhaps in some sort of talent competition) rather than the original Zhu Bajie.

Recently (after having put together the City of Lanterns set IRL) I've been doing more messing around on Stud.io to figure out what I'd like to do with the extra space (and the extra parts) if I did decide to buy another set and double up the center section. One thing that occurred to me today is that buying a second set would make it quite easy to double the width of the Lego store—using the parts of the duplicate (and a few from my own collection) to make the interior more spacious and add features like a checkout counter that the original didn't have. After I'd come up with a basic start to expanding that, I realized that the extra copy of the Lotus Hotel could also be used to add a third story to that—both making it a more prominent landmark in an expanded city and eliminating the issue of a "hotel" having only a single guest room! Having ideas like these about specific ways to use some of the additional parts that another copy of the set would get me makes me that much more eager to potentially go ahead with doubling up on that. Probably will be a while anyway, though—the City of Lanterns is currently sold out in my region, and even if it weren't there's still plenty of Ninjago and Monkie Kid sets on my wishlist that I haven't been able to pick up yet. Still, after a long MOCing drought, having ideas for actual creative builds is a refreshing change of pace that helps to keep the pandemic blues at bay a little.

Edited January 10, 2022 by Lyichir

[Lady Bone Demon]

Really disappointed to learn that the smaller Lego stores aren't getting Monkie Kid sets. Like I dunno what's going on with LEGO's strategy with this theme- it's such a weird half-measure. Like yes, these sets aren't designed for a western market, but there's gotta be a better way to do things than how they've been recently. The fact they can't reserve even a little space is bizarre and really speaks to a lack of greater confidence with the theme. Like I'm glad we're getting them at ALL, to be clear, but the fact it's such a hassle is annoying.

At least I got that sweet polybag. It's an incredible polybag- the pieces you get with is insane for a little bag. Two skeletons with swords! Golden ingot pieces in that really good lacquered gold color! Three teal coral pieces! A whole chest and two crabs! Like they didn't need to go this hard but I appreciate it. I ordered some of this current wave off LEGO.com but I was really hoping to get City of Lanterns today. Ah well. I knew I shouldn't have waited until the tenth.