Wizarding World 2022 - Rumors & Discussion

[Accio Lego]

1 minute ago, karrit said:

The Baby Fawkes that many seem so impressed by is just a recolor of the existing small white or blue bird that already exists in many sets.  I know we already saw pictures of it in an upcoming set from another theme that I can't remember at the moment. 

It was the Mario theme, and those seem to be unprinted, so ‘Baby Fawkes’ is still a little unique.

Personally I’m more excited about Mrs. Norris, Padfoot, and Crookshanks, since they’re all new and unique prints and at least the first two are new colors as well (not certain about Crookshanks though, anyone able to say?). 

[Ferder]

Hogwarts Additions:

Pros: Love that both sets include towers that can be used at 90 degree angles. The castle has always been lacking in sets to create either of the four major Hogwarts Courtyards. Hopefully the title with the colons (Hogwarts Courtyard: Sirius Rescue) indicates that more courtyard sets are coming. For now, one could purchase several Sirius Rescue sets as a castle-building parts pack. The 8x8 corner piece on that set is especially welcome. 
The new Dumbledore Office is a welcome upgrade to both the original 2002 set and the too-small Clocktower module. The addition of the library is great too. Nice to see a more rounded Great Tower to accompany the 2020 Castle

cons: still not sure how any of them could work as a base for the Hospital Wing. We need another three-wide base for that.

Non Hogwarts sets:

Nothing exceptional about the Shrieking Shack but nice to see it back again after all this time. Fun that the transformation feature was included again. 
 

Ministry of a magic is well done. Impressed that it has so many fun details in the interiors (the offices, the department of mystery shelves). Lots of cute play-features In there as well. 
 

Grimaldo Place is perfectly  executed. Impressed that the mechanism was included without sacrificing interior details. 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Ferder

[karrit]

Crookshanks looks a lot like the one that was in the CMF but without seeing both side by side I can't be sure.

While I would classify the Sirius's Rescue as this year's version of Fluffy Encounter it has some great parts in it.  I love being able to get the spiral staircase pieces so it should be a decent parts pack if purchased on sale. 

The only one that's a pass for me is the Horntail.  I didn't buy Hedwig or Fawkes either.  I'm not buying any of those sets just to get the exclusive figures.

My first look at Dumbledores office I thought the Madam Pince figure was another McGonagall because of the colors.  Love the set but I wish it had a spiral staircase.

I like that they didn't gratuitously stick in duplicate common figures in some of the sets.  Since Snape is already in the Dumbledore set I can excuse them not repeating him in the Shrieking Shack

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by karrit

[BrickBob Studpants]

“We might sneak in [stuff from the later movies] here and there”, Marcos said, staring at the MoM model on his desk, with a demonic grin on his face 

The only nitpicky thing I dislike about these sets is Yaxley’s faceprint. It’s a very good choice in a vacuum, but why did it have to be the same one they used for Fudge? Reusing faces between themes is ok, but within themes they shouldn’t do that 

[Accio Lego]

16 minutes ago, karrit said:

Crookshanks looks a lot like the one that was in the CMF but without seeing both side by side I can't be sure.

The face print expression is definitely different, and I’m pretty sure the original Crookshanks didn’t have any printing on the chest. I also think that the Crookshanks in Grimmauld Place is some shade of orange, while the version in the cmf was medium nougat. 

[williejm]

7 minutes ago, Accio Lego said:

The face print expression is definitely different, and I’m pretty sure the original Crookshanks didn’t have any printing on the chest. I also think that the Crookshanks in Grimmauld Place is some shade of orange, while the version in the cmf was medium nougat. 

Agreed, it’s new in both colour and print 

[Yope]

This is a dream wave!  Thank you LEGO!!!

Some potential all-time greats here, the Ministry and Grimmauld Place stand out the most but I'm amazed how good the Dumbledore's office is.

Madam Pince is a work of art - I adore this inclusion. Baby Fawkes, new Filch, Mrs Norris, new invisibility cloak... all amazing and the set itself is beautiful.

Sooooo delighted to get a Kreacher and OotP Sirius and Tonks. Always nice to get a new Fred and George too.  Grimmauld Place is so clever with lovely details: Crookshanks, extendable ears, the Troll foot umbrella stand!

Ministry is perfect, love the colours, the offices and both display options.  Minifigure selection is unbelievably generous - 10 figs including statue plus 3 polyjuice alternatives. Yaxley, Thicknesse, Mary Cattermole, patronus cat, Slytherin's locket are sublime.

Thestral set is a great choice for the small set of the wave, Sirius escape is nice but feels slightly empty - I like the foliage and courtyard build.  Horntail is an improvement but a skip for me.

Shrieking shack feels a bit pricy but it's great.  Interior a bit lacking but that's to be expected with an abandoned building!

All in all a fantastic line up, absolutely delighted with it!

[karrit]

Guess I need to dig out the CMF one to compare to the pictures of the new one.  I often have a hard time differentiating subtle changes.  I first thought the dark bricks for Grimmauld Place were Black until I saw in another picture they were actually just dark gray.

[PumpkinPasties]

Personally, I think the "sets" this year are the best we've ever had for Harry Potter, though that cannot be said for the minifigures (and prices)!

1) Luna Thestral Carriage is a good $20 set - good minifigs and solid build (well, apart from the tree haha) and a really cool thestral and baby.

2) Sirius Black Courtyard is one of the worst sets we've ever got from Harry Potter in the reboot (imo), 345 pieces for $50! The minifigs are also completely undesirable for most (considering that exact Harry and Hermione come in 3 sets this year and the Sirius has just been downgraded) and there's only 3 - compared with the similarly priced Hospital Wing from March Wave which contained the highly desirable Pomfrey. The build is OK but nothing too special imo, and the buckbeak (which is obviously hiking up the price) was in the 2019 Hagrid's Hut. I feel like with this huge price and limited desirability, this one wont sell well and will go on sale quite quickly.

3) Horntail is really good imo, huge upgrade to the 2019 one and hopefully can be detached from stand to use in MOCs. Love the new triwizard Harry too.

4) Dumbledore's office, I have mixed feelings about. Looks magnificent from the outside, and quite good from the inside - I like the library though I feel like the 'office' part is too small and the top layers seem like wasted space. Minifigs are alright - wish Norris was a new piece, and why is there another random witch in this one?!

5) Ministry of Magic is great, though I wish it was bigger! The facade is very clever and I love the Dolores office. Minifigs are a tiny bit lacking - hardly any leg printing and the alternate Harry and Hermione faces are so strange. Also, hooray for a DH set.

6) 12 Grimmauld Place - Best set of the wave IMO - it literally opens - enough said.

[Modal]

It looks like the HP tax is coming in in full force. These sets seem kinda...small and simple for the prices, yea? Maybe I'm just too old and particular for play sets, but I need some high quality D2C builds to satisfy me at this point. 

I think the MoM looks great, just wish it was like double the size! Horntail looks good too. I'm just not a fan of the new Hogwarts sets. The exteriors are so disjointed, and even though they focus on interiors, even they are pretty barren. 

This wave gets me excited for what the D2C could be though! Really hoping it's a building.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Modal

[(Insert Name Here)]

As nicely designed as Madam Pince is. I still think it's weird Lego made her, Florean Fortescue and Professor Sinistra.

Like none of them are named in the films, or have any dialogue. Here are some characters we still haven't gotten:

Bill Weasley, Rita Skeeter, Igor Karkaroff, Lee Jordan, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson, Cormac McClaggen, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, Barty Crouch Senior, Narcissa Malfoy, Aberforth Dumbledore, Elphias Doge, Xenophilius Lovegood, Aunt Marge, Arabella Figg & Mundungus Fletcher.

Yeah, I know some are only in later books/films and some might be hard to put in sets, but I think Lego could do something a bit different now and then.

[Accio Lego]

11 minutes ago, PumpkinPasties said:

why is there another random witch in this one?!

That’s Madame Pince, the Hogwarts librarian - an obvious choice of character for a set that includes the library. She doesn’t have any speaking roles in the movies, but she gets a decent number of lines and name drops in the books and has appeared in some of the video games. And even without lines, her appearance is distinctive enough that several of us were able to recognize her immediately. 

[Maple]

5 minutes ago, Accio Lego said:

That’s Madame Pince, the Hogwarts librarian - an obvious choice of character for a set that includes the library. She doesn’t have any speaking roles in the movies, but she gets a decent number of lines and name drops in the books and has appeared in some of the video games. And even without lines, her appearance is distinctive enough that several of us were able to recognize her immediately. 

You know why she doesn't speak in the movies? No talking in libraries. 

[karrit]

I like the Ministry set but I don't know if the earth green was really the best color choice.  I get that they're trying to give us something other than shades of gray .  Guess I need to rewatch the movies to see what color it appears in different scenes.

Okay, after looking at a bunch of still shots it definitely should be green.  Hope it looks less jarring in reality and they used dark red for the accents.  Hope we can get those earth green 1×2 grooved profile bricks from BnP/PAB eventually.

Edited April 8, 2022 by karrit

[Maple]

I'm not a Harry Potter fan. I might have seen the first movie years ago. I doubt I even finished it. So I have a question. Is the Whomping Willow a really important feature in the films that we need to get one every 3rd year?

[Textorix]

3 hours ago, Maple said:

Non Hogwarts sets = good.
Hogwarts sets = Meh.

After building both of new Hogwarts sets for my Hogwarts MOC in stud.io I can confirm that build-wise nothing really changed (expect some renders soon). But the non Hogwarts sets, damn they are some of the best Lego HP sets I have seen.

[karrit]

5 minutes ago, Maple said:

I'm not a Harry Potter fan. I might have seen the first movie years ago. I doubt I even finished it. So I have a question. Is the Whomping Willow a really important feature in the films that we need to get one every 3rd year?

I think it is important to the two scenes they've chosen to replicate it in.  Even more that the Ford Anglia but I'm a bit biased against out of scale vehicles that up the part count in any sets.

That being said I still don't think they've gotten the look of the Willow quite right yet.

[Prometheus87]

11 minutes ago, Maple said:

I'm not a Harry Potter fan. I might have seen the first movie years ago. I doubt I even finished it. So I have a question. Is the Whomping Willow a really important feature in the films that we need to get one every 3rd year?

Made it's first and significant appearance in the second film, It is a major plot point in the third movie, and seen in at least one more later. It's very iconic in HP lore. It'll be the new Luke's Landspeeder before you know it...lol

Edited April 8, 2022 by Prometheus87

[Accio Lego]

22 minutes ago, Maple said:

You know why she doesn't speak in the movies? No talking in libraries. 

Lol - she does spend a significant amount of time shushing you if you play the Hogwarts Mystery game. 
 

30 minutes ago, (Insert Name Here) said:

As nicely designed as Madam Pince is. I still think it's weird Lego made her, Florean Fortescue and Professor Sinistra.

Like none of them are named in the films, or have any dialogue. Here are some characters we still haven't gotten:

Bill Weasley, Rita Skeeter, Igor Karkaroff, Lee Jordan, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson, Cormac McClaggen, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, Barty Crouch Senior, Narcissa Malfoy, Aberforth Dumbledore, Elphias Doge, Xenophilius Lovegood, Aunt Marge, Arabella Figg & Mundungus Fletcher.

Yeah, I know some are only in later books/films and some might be hard to put in sets, but I think Lego could do something a bit different now and then.

It bears pointing out that Sinistra, Fortescue, and Pince have all been put in places they belong - and in sets based off movies they actually appeared in. Fortescue is in his shop, Pince is in the Library, and Sinistra appeared in the telescope room that’s basically a classic for Harry Potter sets. 
 

Compare that to Bill, Narcissa, Aberforth, Doge, Xeno, or even Mrs. Figg who couldn’t appear because the locations they would appear in simply haven’t been made yet. Or Marge and Mundungus who do appear mostly in Privet Drive/Grimmauld Place, but in entirely different movies than the sets are based off of. And while Skeeter and Crouch Sr. are characters I want, I can understand that they were divorced enough from the main action in GoF that finding a set with a spare minifig slot to put them in might be tricky. 
 

The only characters on your list that lego would have been able to easily slip in to preexisting sets are Karkaroff and the students. I’m willing to give them a pass on Karkaroff, because the Clocktower was completely packed and the Drumstrang ship is a solid contender for a future set - but I’ll admit constantly getting the same repeated students is getting a bit old - Hermione’s my favorite character, but someone else could have taken her place in the Dumbledore’s Office set. 

[THELEGOBATMAN]

Oh wow, Wow, WOW!

Not only is this my favourite year for the Harry Potter theme already (and there's still a D2C, an Advent Calendar and a promo), but it might very well be one of my favourite waves of all time. So diverse, and yet so perfect in every way.

[evanevanevan]

Deleting my comment about the Extendable Ear print cause I'm not sure if it's appropriate for the forum 

Edited April 8, 2022 by evanevanevan

[THELEGOBATMAN]

What a day it was - Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and then they revealed the Harry Potter 2022 wave.

Truly a magical day 

[THELEGOBATMAN]

@BrickBob Studpants

It's official - my hand will stay intact, just as I knew it would 

Edited April 8, 2022 by THELEGOBATMAN

[(Insert Name Here)]

21 minutes ago, Accio Lego said:

Lol - she does spend a significant amount of time shushing you if you play the Hogwarts Mystery game. 
 

It bears pointing out that Sinistra, Fortescue, and Pince have all been put in places they belong - and in sets based off movies they actually appeared in. Fortescue is in his shop, Pince is in the Library, and Sinistra appeared in the telescope room that’s basically a classic for Harry Potter sets. 

Yeah I guess so, I think I might just have a thing about the HP sets and where they put there focus.

Since I didn't play the early video games my memory of characters like Pince, Fortescue etc draws more from the books/Stephen Fry's audio books.

Like I don't think the books even tell you the gender of Professor Vector & Sinistra, so I don't always correlate a background character to a name.

 

It's like how Prisoner of Azkaban the choir master wasn't meant to be Flitwick, but since the original bearded Flitwick didn't appear in the film, and Warwick Davis played both characters, it just ended up that Flitwick now looked very different and was the choir master.

[Retro Brick Reviews]

New heads just leaked on Instagram

A Tonks head with a duck bill, meaning that either we get two full headpieces for Tonks in Grimmauld Place or there's another set with OotP Tonks

And a laughing Voldemort with his tongue sticking out

Imo this basically confirms that the Advent will be a Grimmauld Place expansion, and that this Tonks will feature there

Not sure about Voldy tho - unless there's some retail exclusive we have no knowledge of, maybe the accessory pack will be a Death Eaters pack? Or maybe he'll be in the D2C? Thoughts?