Jedd the Jedi

Hey, thanks everyone! I've gotta say, I've been made to feel very welcome here in the past day since I've joined. Thank you all! Miss Kyle, I'm sorry about that - I've felt the same way about many other MOCs I've seen where the missing factor for me would be the minifig. As a Batman fan I tried to get as many Batman sets as I could, and it was prudent since the line is dead for the moment. You'll get her someday! Princess Muttonchops, I was indeed toying with the idea of a man-eating Venus flytrap! I've seen at least one MOC on Brickshelf with a great looking brick-built version. But I thought I wanted to do a small vig, and don't have the pieces to pull it off - especially the "teeth".

Hey Praiter Yed, thank you! And everyone else who's been posting here, keep the funnies rollin' in. Also Praiter, I have exactly the same problem about shooting with natural light! Once it hits night, all the incandescent bulbs in the house go on and everything looks yellow/orange, so I can only shoot in the morning-mid afternoon. It's like a reverse vampire thing! Also, I did a joke about the duel in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but then I went back and discovered Praiter had beaten me to the punch. D'oh! Here it is anyway. And a horrific pun that I love more than I should

Smokebelch, lightningtiger and Praiter Yed, I really appreciate your comments! I've always been afraid to have a crack at a Jabba's Palace MOC, because all the ones in existence are so huge. But once I came across a smaller vig-type one on Brickshelf, I thought "something like that could be just as cool!" and had a go. Thanks also for your compliments on my choice of using Indy's whip as Jabba's pipe! Yay.

Hey everyone, I'm Jedd from Singapore (male, 18). I've been collecting and building LEGO since I was 9. I still love it, but I'm very upset that the prices have now become unmanageable here in Singapore. It's daylight robbery, bloody murder, and very sad. I'm very grateful that I own many of the Batman sets that I wanted, and the Indiana Jones ones too. After-market, it's impossible. Still, I'll build with what I have! I've been a member of FBTB forums since 2006-7, but as of late the board has become a little more quiet, so I thought I would join Eurobricks as well, to discuss LEGO and other topics and to showcase and receive feedback on my MOCs. I'm a little daunted by how large the community is here, but I'm happy to join in.

^^ I thought exactly the same thing! I saw some footage of that episode, and went "that looks a lot like Bossk!" Well done there. Also, I really appreciate your compliments, Mr Man! I'm glad you found it funny! Here are two more.

I was pretty quick to dismiss the Pharaoh's Quest sets, after my good friend who had grown up on Adventurers LEGO sets alongside me showed me these new sets in disgust. I really didn't like the gimmick of the biomechanical creatures that felt more like robots than anything else to me. However, after reading your review, I have to say I've somewhat changed my mind - I'll probably forgo the bigger sets like this one to get Star Wars and POTC sets instead, but it does boast a good number of very interesting pieces. All the action features built into the pyramid look great, and I've gotta say they do remind me of the earliest days of Adventurers, which was also set in Egypt. At the end of the day however, I'm sad to say that the Pharaoh's Quest line looks like a mere shadow of its predecessor, and that I would have much preferred more Indiana Jones sets. Still, I will be getting the "Golden Staff Guardians" and "Flying Mummy Attack", as they are smaller sets and I really like the biplane and dirt bike.

Amazing work everyone! I wish we had snow here in Singapore so I could do some outdoor shots as well. All we have is concrete. Wayno, that's a magnificent shot of the AT-ST. Marvellous work with the lighting and shadows, it sure cuts a tremendous figure here.

I really enjoyed reading through this thread, and the itch to make and post some of my own funnies was a big reason why I joined Eurobricks. Here are the first!

Thanks for that review, Penguin! I have very fond memories of this set, as it was the first LEGO Batman set my parents bought me from the States back in the day, and I went home and built it after finishing a round of an inter-school speech competition. It was really rewarding. I do like Two-Face's van a lot, and all the stickers used in this set are really well-designed - but being stickers, they've mostly flaked off and peeled, especially more than four years after I first built the set. I really like the Batmobile here, it's a classic look that's designed pretty well, although the fins look a tad oversized. Two-Face only appeared in this set, right? Magnificent figure, especially love the hair piece. The "scarred" side of his face looks a little faded on mine now, though, as well as the white of his suit. At the moment, I've misplaced my lamppost piece, and am weeping in agony - gosh darn that's a good piece.

Shaak Ti, my love! Being a straight male, Aayla Secura and Shaak Ti are my favourite Jedis, if only because they are so hawt. Sure Ahsoka was cute, but she was annoying, and that cancelled out any attraction I had towards the character. Like many, I'm not a big fan of the Clone Wars-stylisation for LEGO minifigures. However, I think Shaak Ti and Aayla suffer less from it than a lot of the male characters, especially Anakin and the clone troops - bug eyes, cheekbones, jawline... The larger eyes look more feminine and fit the alien species (Togruta and Twi'lek). In addition, the headtails on both figures are done very very well.

Hey, I really appreciate your comments! The "trans lime-green accessory" is actually Jabba's hookah pipe and gorg snack bowl. I'm actually pretty proud of using the Indiana Jones whip as his pipe.

Woops, sorry to awake the sleeping thread. I wrote a review about a month or so ago, after purchasing the Blu-Ray release of the film. When I walked out of the movie theatre after seeing this film with my family, my brother turned to me excitedly, and said "we HAVE to buy the Blu-Ray when it comes out." I must say I agreed, and now he's been proven correct. The format was the winner in the "optical disc format war", pitting it against the now-defunct "HD DVD" format - never since the days of Betmax vs VHS have home video format wars been this brutal. My Dad says he feels for those who stocked up on a HD DVD collection and are now left with a large pile of very useless discs. Anyway, the format has been around for three-ish years now, but Blu Ray discs are still significantly more expensive than a normal DVD release. In the case of the Blu-Ray release for Inception, is it worth it? Simply put, yes. Watching the film in the comfort of your own home, you can rewind, pause or play the film in slow-motion, and Inception is one of those films where many cinemagoers did want to go back to have a closer look at an earlier scene. But why watch it in Blu-Ray? As you've gathered from the section above, Inception is a very visual film. Oodles and oodles of artfully-shot, awe-inspiring images come one after another. I'm sure it looks great on a regular DVD as well, but the Blu-Ray format does indeed do the film incredible justice. Every tiny detail in unparalleled quality. There's also the sound. Hans Zimmer's throbbing, ominous score and the sound effects - especially the bit where Ariadne steps on a broken glass, and there's that eerie ringing tone - come to vivid life. Not every film needs to be seen in Blu-Ray. When my Dad bought the Blu-Ray player, one of the free discs they packaged with it was a Blu-Ray release of the comedy "First Sunday". That film doesn't need to be seen in Blu-Ray - Tracy Jordan is scary enough as he is on TV. But Inception is one film that needs to be seen in Blu-Ray. I'll go as far as to say if someone puts a gun to your head and says you can only choose one film to own on Blu-Ray, choose this one. And no, neither Warner Bros. Pictures, Syncopy, Legendary Pictures, Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio nor Tai Li-Lee (the Japanese kid on the train who helps Cobb with the "kicks") are paying me any money to say all this. I'm just really excited that it looks, sounds and feels brilliant at home - as much as it did in the movie theatre. And of course, the biggest reason that I get video releases of films to watch at home - aside from being able to watch the film at home and as many times as I want to - are special features. Unfortunately, Inception is slightly thin on the special features, at least when compared to some other Blu-Ray releases which contain tens of hours of bonus material. However, quality does trump quantity this time around. The second disc contains most of the supplementals. There's a 45-minute-long documentary featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and real-life PhD and MD-holding dream experts, who discuss the psychology and the inexact science behind dreaming. I always like it when the audience gets a peek into some real-life context behind a movie, and the documentary is informative, deep, yet fun to watch. Apart from the interviews, "Dreams: Cinema of the Subconscious" features fascinating animated and re-enacted sequences that attempt to portray what it looks like when we dream. Very artistic. This here is hard to top. You also get a "motion comic" of "The Cobol Job", which is a comic book that acts as a prequel to the film and sets it up very nicely. "The Cobol Job" tells of the circumstances leading up to Cobb, Arthur and Nash performing the extraction on Saito at the beginning of the film, and provides great context - provided you watch the film first, as the film in turn provides context to its prequel. A motion comic is a stylised animated representation of the comic book: you get the speech bubbles, narration and onomatopoeic "sound effects", but also a degree of animation accompanied by Hans Zimmer's music and some sound effects. It's a surreal and novel way to tell a story as the characters don't "speak" audibly. It's supposed to be a comic book come to life, and that's exactly what it is. The art is gorgeous, and there are some pretty good likenesses of Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt drawn into it. You get the standard collection of trailers, TV spots and promotional art, with intriguing and very exquisite concept art thrown in for good measure. Disc 2 is rounded off with ten tracks taken off the film's soundtrack, composed by Hans Zimmer. I'm not a big fan of the composer, as his scores are often derivative and repetitive - there indeed are moments of the soundtrack that are recognisable as riffs from other Hans Zimmer soundtracks for other films. However, he does use some very clever tricks in his composition, including adapting parts of "Non, je ne regrette rien" (the Edith Piaf song used for the kicks) into his score. It's fun to listen to the music in such quality, and it does suit the film very well. The main special feature is back on Disc 1: "Extraction Mode", which is a version of Warner Bros' "Maximum Movie Mode" feature only available on its Blu-Ray discs. It's like an audio commentary, but much cooler: at certain points in the film, a behind-the-scenes clip detailing the making of that particular scene is inserted into the film. This includes astounding and revealing footage of how some of the mind-blowing special/visual effects were done, and interviews with the main creative team (and Leonardo DiCaprio). This is sure to excite any movie buff: an opportunity to enter the mind of the mastermind, so to speak, and hear it straight from Nolan himself. For those who want to go deeper into the story and want some questions answered, watching the movie this way is sure to be a treat. But, just as a magician never gives out his secrets, Nolan attempts to remain deliberately vague on those plot details. At any rate, the "extraction mode", which is exclusive to the Blu-Ray edition, is a really big reason to get this on that format. You can also watch the clips by themselves, without having them pop up during the film. I don't own it, but there is also a limited edition release packaged slickly in an aluminium briefcase-type case. You get the Blu-Ray, DVD and digital copy versions of the film, as well as four postcards, an in-universe "instruction manual" on how to operate the PASIV device that enables the shared dreaming in the film, and coolest of all, a prop replica of the spinning top totem. The Blu-Ray release of Inception lets you dream big, dream clear, dream in vivid detail and dream as often as you want to. Now, the dream truly is real.

Hey, thank you so much for my first formal welcome to Eurobricks! Glad to find someone from the same region who shares my pain. The MOCs are incoming - I hope it isn't too annoying if I post multiple MOC threads at once. Thank you once again KielDaMan!

I couldn't afford the official LEGO set of the dogfight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and thus tried to build my own version, here is the biplane that Indy and his Dad escape in, I'm not sure if I want to make the pursuing fighter plane. I went looking for reference pictures of the plane in the film and of models of it, and tried to find an in-between with LEGO's version and how it looks in the movie. This is not really accurate but I guess it will do; however I'm really proud of the supports for the upper wing, took me a while to figure that out. Also, the plane in the film has a two-bladed propellor, not three. But I think LEGO has stopped making those, and even the official set has a three-bladed propellor. Brickshelf folder

I also loved the design of the slums and narrows in Batman Begins. The Gotham of The Dark Knight was possibly a little too clean and bright for me - you're correct in saying it was too "Chicago-y". I was completely not expecting the casting that has been announced at all. I really have wanted to see how Chris Nolan would interpret Bane, and I'm glad that we're getting a Catwoman - it isn't really Batman unless his relationship with Catwoman is explored. Tom Hardy is a good actor, but I've always thought of Bane as South American, and I'm not so sure how they are going to achieved the "pumped-full-of-steroids" look for Bane - a CGI effect ala the Incredible Hulk is probably how they'll go, if not Hardy will be a more realistically-proportioned Bane, like how he appeared in "Bronson". Anne Hathaway certainly isn't the name that immediately comes to mind when someone says "Catwoman" - I've always been rooting for Stana Katic, Moon Bloodgood, Rhona Mitra - maybe even Marion Cotillard, after her performance in Inception as Mal. Hathaway really looks a good deal too sweet to play the dangerously seductive femme fatale, but she's proven she has a much wider range beyond a modern-day Disney princess. I've gotta say, I'm really excited to see how both characters will look in-costume. The expectations are piling higher than ever now, but I'm confident Chris Nolan will pull through! I have speak for many when I say that for all the strengths of the Chris Nolan Batman films, Rachel Dawes was an awful, flat character - especially when there are so many interesting women in the Batman comics to choose from to adapt to the screen. I'm very interested to see how Nolan, the other writers and conceptual artists change the backstory for Selina Kyle. They merged Ra's Al Ghul and Henri Ducard into one composite character, gave the Joker a deliberately ambiguous past, and set up Harvey Dent for his fall to becoming Two-Face - all done very well. Nolan has been able to pretty much walk a delicate balance between adding fresh and original twists to well-known characters, and also pleasing the fanbase. Heath Ledger's Joker is very different from what we have in the comics, and even from earlier portrayals by Ceaser Romero, Jack Nicholson and Mark Hamill. Is it better? Don't know. Did it work in the context of the film universe? Yes, it sure did. So, I'm hoping something like that materialises for Hathaway's Catwoman, and just as much for Hardy's Bane. It's quite interesting how all the controversy and speculation is mainly tied to Anne Hathaway's casting. Tom Hardy as Bane is actually just as intriguing if not even more so, and it does raise a few more questions than Hathaway as Catwoman. Will they change Bane's backstory from a genius Hispanic young man jailed in a prison island? How will they handle the issue of the "venom", and of Bane's superhuman strength and appearance? Once again, really itching to see concept art and photos of the actors in costume.

Hey AC Pin! Great to see a familiar face since I'm really new here. I really like this one and prefer it to your earlier droid factory diorama, mainly because this depicts Anakin and Padme on the conveyor belt - the scene that immediately comes to mind when one thinks "Geonosian droid factory". The thing about a lot of your work that makes it so good is that they're not so much dioramas or vignettes as environments and atmospheres, but each with tremendous attention to detail. I like the droid fabrication "moulds", and each of the stamp gantries complete with spring mechanism. However, with a creation like this one, a lot seems to be happening at once, and it's hard to draw the focus to just Anakin and Padme - but this is a good problem to have.