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Disney Princess 2014 Rumors & Discussion

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It's a nice looking set, and yeah, that hair isn't probably the best option but I'm sure little girls won't mind. I really only care about the rapunzel set so I hope she and Flynn have cool hairpieces, and of course I also hope the tower is well designed. I'll be glad to get it since it reminds me of the dumbledore's office set from the chamber of secrets I had during childhood, I had lots of fun with that set.

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Well, these sets aren't as good as I hoped - I was expecting a bit more compatibility with Castle. But as parts packs, they seem ok. By all the comments I expect the target audience at least will like them.

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Her red hair looks nothing like what it's supposed to look like. In fact she probably least resembles her character out of all of them.

I agree completely. The minidoll is the worst part of the set. I guess you can always swap her out for the Series 9 forest maiden.

Agreed, and yeah the Forrest Maiden would work well. Although to give credit, she has the worst hair, but possibly the best dress compared to her actual character.

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Agreed, and yeah the Forrest Maiden would work well. Although to give credit, she has the worst hair, but possibly the best dress compared to her actual character.

Can't disagree with that. I think, in addition to the hair, is that all the minidoll faces look the same, there's no variation in features or expression really, which is a pitty given the amount of faces and expression LEGO minifigures have had over the last few years. I will accept the "girls like the minidolls" better, but they can't want everyone to have the same face, can they?

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Can't disagree with that. I think, in addition to the hair, is that all the minidoll faces look the same, there's no variation in features or expression really, which is a pitty given the amount of faces and expression LEGO minifigures have had over the last few years. I will accept the "girls like the minidolls" better, but they can't want everyone to have the same face, can they?

I don't like how similar all the faces look, but I can't blame Lego completely. Disney Princesses all manage to look pretty similar in the face. They often share similar eyes and mouths, which being the only features of a minidoll face means there's going to be a lot of similarities. I honestly feel like Lego should have created a couple of new head shapes just to have more diversity. Really I feel like so far there's been a real lack of diversity in how they look, they sort of fall into the Barbie mold where everyone looks the same in the minidoll world. With minifigures Lego actually had it pretty easy because they could just print cheek bones or such to change the shape of the face, on the torso they could print lines to imply different bodies and such. The minidolls on the other hand can't do that. All of these characters are literally stuck in the same mold, they all have the same head and torso shapes and that really limits what they can really look like. And if Lego is going to continue to utilize minidolls then they're going to have to create a better variety of parts. Which hopefully Lego will realize this before too much longer.

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I agree completely. The minidoll is the worst part of the set.

I guess you can always swap her out for the Series 9 forest maiden. Can't disagree with that. I think, in addition to the hair, is that all the minidoll faces look the same, there's no variation in features or expression really, which is a pitty given the amount of faces and expression LEGO minifigures have had over the last few years. I will accept the "girls like the minidolls" better, but they can't want everyone to have the same face, can they?

Unless you're creating a new one, I totally disagree with the opinion that a curled hair doesn't look good on a curled Merida while you want to use Forest Maiden's hairpiece which is not similar at all. To me Ariel is the one who really needs another hairpiece. However, Andrea's hair is shorter than Merida's so it's still not perfect.

Minidoll face arts do have a problem that they don't show too much individual difference, but it can be regarded as a "style" just like all minifigures using dot-like eyes. The opinion I can give is, minidolls don't have different emotions or expressions shown on their face, while minifigures can at least have double face prints. The only solution is TLC making more variations of the characters, or they just have to give us Disney minifigures.

Edited by Dorayaki

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Minidoll face arts do have a problem that they don't show too much individual difference, but it can be regarded as a "style" just like all minifigures using dot-like eyes. The opinion I can give is, minidolls don't have different emotions or exp<b></b>ressions shown on their face, while minifigures can at least have double face prints.

I think that pins down part of why I don't care for the mini dolls. They have this "Fembot / Stepford Minifigs" thing going on with their facial expressions. They all look lobotomized. While modern Minifigs feel so alive from some of the amazing minimalist subtly that they have been given in their faces.

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Hm...

Brickset has the final boxart of Merida's Highland Games.

41051-1.jpg

Looking at this, it appears I was wrong about the printed wall elements, at least in part; the decoration on that 2x1x5 brick just beside the door appears to be a sticker. Oh, well.

I agree about the hairpiece. Merida certainly could have used a new one, more than pretty much any other character except Rapunzel. I think this one will still be ok, and certainly better than the Minifigures Forest Maiden (which probably was actually designed principally for Leia Organa in the then-upcoming Ewok Village, even if the Minifigures line got to actually use it before Star Wars), but I would think (and hope) that this is one of those cases of the earliest sets of a licensed theme (in which fidelity to a established look is important) using a standard part on hand for some notable visual aspect, but eventually replaced by a specially-created part later on (such as Squidward's head in Spongebob Squarepants). Hopefully, we'll get a more "proper" Merida hair element in a Disney Princess set in 2015, '16 or, '17, say (which of course assumes the overall line endures a while, as one might also hope).

I think that pins down part of why I don't care for the mini dolls. They have this "Fembot / Stepford Minifigs" thing going on with their facial expressions. They all look lobotomized. While modern Minifigs feel so alive from some of the amazing minimalist subtly that they have been given in their faces.

Perhaps, but then they're hardly different from traditional (non-LEGO) dolls (I don't remember seeing many scowling Barbies, for example), and I'm guessing TLG is just trying to appeal to girls the same way Mattel might, as far as this goes. Alternately, we might keep in mind all LEGO minifigures had exactly the same face print for over a decade, and even after 1989 we continued to see many of the same faces with the same expressions used and reused for long, long times, sometimes even among different themes and between sexes. Friends is still quite young, and not yet venturing far outside that heavily-researched and focus-grouped comfort zone; perhaps over time we'll come to see a greater variety in minidoll facial expressions. Or so one might hope, anyway.

Edited by Blondie-Wan

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I don't think the minidoll looks that bad either. The face and hair certainly could have been more accurate, but they are close enough for me and the dress makes up for them. The rest of the set keep looking better and better. I'm so glad they included all of the triplets! This is a definite must-buy for me! Let's see if the final versions of the other sets will turn out as good as this.

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Although I'm not too big a fan of the Mini-dolls in general, it looks like they pulled them off pretty well. If everything works out maybe I'll pick a few of these sets up.

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It does look shorter from a top/down perspective since you can't see the part behind the head.

In the movie, her hair is all over the place with lots of wispy curls. That's gotta be hard to sculpt at that scale and not be too pokey for little kids to play with. If they were to make a new piece altogether, I'd think it would only be the length that might change.

I do agree with the generic face comment. They could have at least given her reddish eyebrows or a mischievous grin. TLG's designers have done some great things with subtle changes on minifigure heads, I wouldn't think making these minidoll faces look more unique shouldn't be too hard.

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It's weird how they reused Stephanie's head for Merida, then again looking through the prelims they all sort of look like they use Stephanie's head... Hopefully that isn't the case in the final sets (Though I do get the impression they'll reuse heads from the Friends theme for all the characters). It makes me wonder if there was some weird licensing stuff going on behind the scenes causing this. It just seems odd that both Lego and Disney would let such sloppy likeness slide, especially on a new product where the first year is generally make or break. That alone sort of makes me think this may not be completely final.

I suppose it's possible that we really haven't seen the final version yet. I mean the box art from brickset looks pretty official, but I think there is some possibility it's still one step away from being final. And even though the figure is being sold on Ebay that doesn't exactly prove the head is final, as with the other leaked minifigures it could simply have a wrong head (I mean it is stolen from the factory, so it's not as if they can stop to ask if it has the correct pieces). Granted that's all speculation. But until I see an official Lego announcement I will hold out some hope that the final figures will look much closer to the source material.

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Are you saying it is not Stephanie's head? :look: I'm pretty sure it is. Perhaps it is you who needs to check the website. :tongue:

I mistook that, but maybe I should check your brain. Edited by Dorayaki

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They could have at least given her reddish eyebrows or a mischievous grin.

Yes, that would indeed have made her look more accurate, but if I'm not mistaken, none of the Friends minidolls have had any eyebrow color other than black, so maybe they did this to make the Disney princesses fit in with the Friends style. Makes sense, but the result is nevertheless disappointing. :sceptic:

It's weird how they reused Stephanie's head for Merida, then again looking through the prelims they all sort of look like they use Stephanie's head... Hopefully that isn't the case in the final sets (Though I do get the impression they'll reuse heads from the Friends theme for all the characters). It makes me wonder if there was some weird licensing stuff going on behind the scenes causing this. It just seems odd that both Lego and Disney would let such sloppy likeness slide, especially on a new product where the first year is generally make or break. That alone sort of makes me think this may not be completely final.

I suppose it's possible that we really haven't seen the final version yet. I mean the box art from brickset looks pretty official, but I think there is some possibility it's still one step away from being final. And even though the figure is being sold on Ebay that doesn't exactly prove the head is final, as with the other leaked minifigures it could simply have a wrong head (I mean it is stolen from the factory, so it's not as if they can stop to ask if it has the correct pieces). Granted that's all speculation. But until I see an official Lego announcement I will hold out some hope that the final figures will look much closer to the source material.

Why would there be licensing issues regarding the characters' faces? :wacko: I admire your optimism, but I'm pretty sure this design is final. The person who provided the picture of the box claims to have bought it, and the fig on eBay just seems to confirm the design. Of course none of this is official confirmation, but right now everything points to it being the final design in my opinion. Like I said above, the design of the face is probably a stylistic choice (much like how other princess dolls have basically the same type of face as Barbie), and the hair would be difficult to portrait accurately as Cornelius pointed out. There have been far worse representations of these characters in other Disney Princess toys and Disney let those slide too. Compared to those, these actually look quite decent. I do agree, however, that it is weird how all these princesses look like cosplaying Stephanie clones.

Would you mind checking the website to know who Stephanie really is? :sceptic:

Are you saying it is not Stephanie's head? :look: I'm pretty sure it is. Perhaps it is you who needs to check the website. :tongue:

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Not to be cynical or anything, but like switching to flesh tones half way through Harry Potter, if they improve the minidolls in a year or two... More sales as people buy stuff they already have for the tweaks. I'm buying them anyway though. Maybe I'm being paranoid!

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I think a lot of people are failing to understand what "Disney Princesses" means. When the people at Disney say to you, "hey, you wanna sell some Disney Princesses merchandise?" they don't just mean merchandise featuring the heroines of various Disney movies. This is a brand of its own that exists purely for the purpose of making young girls buy into the fantasy of being a Princess and making their parents buy official Disney stuff. If you Google "Disney Princesses origin" you can read it in black and white. The Disney honcho in charge of merchandising noticed one day that girls at a Disney event were wearing their own costumes that they had altered to look like Snow White and other Disney characters, and he realised that the company was missing out on a ton of potential sales opportunities. The next day he had the lines all drawn out for an official Princesses brand, and there was nothing in his plan about capturing the spirit or personality of the original princesses.

To make a long story slightly less long, the DP brand is all about altering the characters to make them fit together with the DP asthetic, which if you boil it down to basics means, "make these girls all look like eachother and make them sparkly". Every individual characteristic the girls show in the movies themselves is thrown out so they can fit better with the line as a whole and sell more costumes and accessories. Mulan, in her Princess incarnation (and remember, Mulan isn't even remotely a princess in the movie), is either wearing the hideous "Matchmaker dress" and heavy white makeup that she despised in the movie or wearing some completely new dress that is equally glittery. "Princess" Belle is not reading a book or wearing her signature costume, she is wearing the fancy dress from the ball scene and dreaming of a handsome guy. Tiana and Rapunzel both had plastic surgery to make them blend in with the rest of the Princesses. And Merida went on an extreme diet, brushed her hair, had plastic surgery and put on the stupid green dress that she couldn't do archery in.

So, the fact that Lego Merida has the exact same face as Stephanie and much less wild curls than she ought to, and seems to have lost ten or fifteen pounds, is not a mistake or an compromise on TLG's part. It's completely intentional. And any dreams that the next wave of Princesses might include Merida fighting a bear, or Mulan wearing armor, just aren't going to happen. You'll notice there isn't a single bad guy in this wave. There won't be any in future waves either. Disney control their brands with an iron grip, and conflict is not what this brand is about.

The sets are still decent for what they are. Nothing to get too excited about, but I do like that there are now more dress options for the Friends girls. So they can dress up as Disney Princesses, of course.

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I mistook that, but maybe I should check your brain.

Nah, that's not always a reliable source. :tongue:

Not to be cynical or anything, but like switching to flesh tones half way through Harry Potter, if they improve the minidolls in a year or two... More sales as people buy stuff they already have for the tweaks. I'm buying them anyway though. Maybe I'm being paranoid!

I guess there is always the possibility that TLG improves on their first designs if a theme runs long enough, but unless they retool the look of the entire minidoll range, I don't think it's gonna happen. Also, I don't think we will get another Brave set anytime soon, especially since this one is a compilation of like 5 different scenes from the movie.

[Disney rant]

Well, you're quite the optimist, aren't you? :sarcasm: I don't think anyone needs a reminder of how insultingly superficial the Disney Princess toys usually are. Does it mean we have to like it? No. While you may be right that TLG might not have had much choice in the matter, it's still disappointing to see them take such a step backwards after the Friends line which this theme is based on seemed to make such progress in the right direction. So why don't you let us dream and hope that TLG might correct this mistake somehow. After all, this is the brand that keeps telling us that "dreams can come true". :grin:

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I'm not a fan of these sets, but I like the mini dolls of the Princesses. I really want Disney Villain sets though :grin: .

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Well, you're quite the optimist, aren't you? :sarcasm:

Well, there's just so much to be optimistic about! :sarcasm:

So why don't you let us dream and hope that TLG might correct this mistake somehow. After all, this is the brand that keeps telling us that "dreams can come true". :grin:

Sure thing, dude. Enjoy the sunshine-flavored Kool-Aid!

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I think a lot of people are failing to understand what "Disney Princesses" means. When the people at Disney say to you, "hey, you wanna sell some Disney Princesses merchandise?" they don't just mean merchandise featuring the heroines of various Disney movies.

It should be one of the major problems. As fans of both Lego or Disney, some of us want to see TLC make the best use of a certain license: more characters, more stories, more playable scenes. Yes, we want to see playsets based on various Disney movies and it shouldn't be that difficult since TLC had already obtained other non-princess themes. We just hope that the series don't be too superficial so that TLC lose the customers who were willing to buy their Lego Diseny products.

So it comes to what a traditional Disney Princess sets should be: no sets based on the poor unofficial princesses (Nala, Kairi), no characters that baby girls don't want to see (Lady Tremaine, Mor'du), romantic and girly scenes only (uh, Brave doesn't count unless a sequel comes). Another problem in minidolls is, so far we haven't seen a licensed character that has a different bodysize that can't fit in Olivia's model. I can hardly see that Merida's father and brothers (in human form) obtain their minidolls, while it could be easier in minifigures. But TLC might just try to skip them as many as possible.

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I am hoping we get a few sets based on the more obscure princesses. Kairi and Alice comes to mind, who are both princesses in the Kingdom Hearts game (Also Alice sometimes appears in the Disney Princess marketing anyway). It would be nice even if at some point the line extends to a fuller range of Disney characters other than princesses, which I feel if this line is popular than that's always a possibility.

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