hagridshut

I've been to rural mountain communities in the United States. There's no shortage of crime. Everything from drunken fights over petty matters, to break-ins, to much more serious matters like drug running and domestic abuse. 10-15 years ago, cooking meth was commonplace in many areas. In the past 5-7 years, the trade in illegal opiods grew off the charts: oxycontin pills, heroin, fentanyl, and other nasty stuff. People may associate crime with high-density urban areas, but the truth is that there is crime everywhere. Deindustrialization over the past 30 years has also hurt rural community economies pretty hard. When people don't have jobs, some turn to crime in order to get money to survive. Lego Mountain Police is a completely plausible theme.

I feel differently about the Lego City police. Although some of the police sets haven't fundamentally changed in the past 30 years (there are still police cars, police headquarters, and police helicopters), Lego has created some unique twists to the police sub-theme. The "mountain" police sets, like Mountain Police Headquarters, Mountain Arrest, and Dirt Road Pursuit, are interesting creations that reflect non-urban police activity. The Sky Police Drone Chase is also different, and reflects a modern problem with drones flying illegally or being used for crimes. Lego City also doesn't have a predefined story. Kids who buy or receive these sets as gifts are pretty free to create their own adventures and name their own characters. Star Wars is predefined, with decades of stories behind the sets. We know who the minifigures represent and what adventures happened to them. To be fair, this is somewhat true of The Lego Movie 2 as well, but TLM2 featured the kids who owned the Legos breaking their sets down and later rebuilding them into new MOCs. I felt that TLM and TLM2 encouraged creativity over established story lines.

My thoughts on the current space sets: City Space: these don't feel futuristic to me. The shuttles look like rehashes of the STS, which went out of service in 2011. The rockets, with no landing legs, look outdated compared to a SpaceX Falcon 9, and downright antique compared to the Super Heavy + Starship from SpaceX, and New Glenn from Blue Origin. I liked Space because it was about the future. Today's City Space feels like technology from 10-20 years ago. Creator: Again, mostly sets that resemble the past. The Ideas Exosuit was pretty cool though. Lego Movie 2: I agree that this was a pretty good original space theme. Emmet's House/Rescue Rocket, Rexplorer, Rexcellsior, Benny's Space Crew, Benny & Emmet's Repair Shop, Sweet Mayhem's Systar Starship, and the WYLD-Mayhem Starfighter provided a wide variety of spaceships for Lego enthusiasts. I bought the Rescue Rocket, as it was the only ship I really liked. Star Wars: I'm tired of Star Wars sets. How many iterations of X-Wings, TIE Fighters, and Millennium Falcons do we really need? The last Star Wars set that I bought was the U-Wing from late 2016, because it was it was different and interesting. Unique and inspiring ideas about what the future might look like, are what I liked best about Space. Most of the recent space-related stuff hasn't been unique or inspiring to me.

I am far from the target audience of this set, but I know some people who love Winter Village and I am sure they will be thrilled to see this creation. Really nice details and colors in each of the rooms of the house, and it probably wouldn't take much work to re-color the exterior to convert it to a "normal" house. That might actually be a fun family activity: build the set as a Gingerbread house during the Christmas season, re-color it to normal mode after the New Year, and then re-decorate it with different Lego "candy" colors/features in successive Christmas seasons. It would certainly be a bit less messy than an edible Gingerbread house. No sticky icing or sugary candy elements to have to wipe off the floor or scrub out of a kids' hair! I think this set will do well. It is eye catching and different from past Winter Village buildings.

Do some of the sets from The Lego Movie 2 count as an in-house space theme? The Rescue Rocket (Set 70831: Emmet's Dream House/Rescue Rocket) was a great space set for me personally, because of its original design, use of lots of rocket engines/pods, and general bent towards exploration. I wasn't enamored with the Sweet Mayhem Starship or the WLD-Mayhem Starfighter for subjective reasons, but they do also represent unique designs that are far different than Star Wars or Avengers fare. The Space themes from the 80's and 90's were what drew me into Lego as a hobby. To me, an in-house Space theme has generally meant: (1) Beyond Earth (2) Futuristic (3) Exploration & Colonization focused (4) No specific pre-established storyline. Yes, Blacktron were supposedly the space pirates that Space Police were supposed to apprehend, and the same dynamic played out between many of the Aliens and Space Police III, but for the most part, kids seemed to be encouraged to create their own stories and adventures with the sets. I've been designing and building small MOCs in the style of old space themes. I don't know that I actually need The Lego Group to revisit the specific style of Space that was prevalent up until around the year 2000, because I can create my own out of both old and new pieces. If Lego decides to revisit Space with compelling new themes and designs, I'm very likely to buy. I'm not going to wait around though. I'll keep building my own.

I went to Lego.com and clicked on the "new sets" link in the menu. One of the new sets listed on that page is the Ninjago set "Destiny's Bounty", which is now "discontinued" according to the website Yeah, I'd say that Lego.com may not have any shortage of visitors, but the attention paid to site maintenance needs to be increased.

This sums it up nicely. Designing a MOC is fundamentally similar to designing computer software that models something. A software architect has to make judgment calls on which details are important, and which details are superfluous. Modelling too much could mean confusion for the end user, excessive use of computing resources (too much processor load or memory footprint), or insufficient detail in some critical area because resources were spent on unimportant items. It can be difficult to give feedback based on images of a Lego model. When I build things, I consider equally: aesthetics, functionality, and durability. Aesthetics can be somewhat judged on photos of builds or 3D models, but it is not always possible to capture in pictures how a Lego model looks in real life. Functionality can also be difficult to judge. Do moving parts get in the way of each other? How much space is available within the model, and is it accessible to the person using it? Durability can also be hard to gauge without holding an actual build. Do pieces easily fall off? How well would the model hold up to play? When discussing Aesthetics, I try to think about colors, textures, angles, scale, and balance. Is the color palate appropriate to what the Lego model is trying to represent? Are the sub-sections of the model to scale with each other? Is the model too uniform in textures, or are there too many competing surface types (like smooth plates, studs, matte roof bricks, barrels, etc.). Is something too blocky? Is the model unbalanced in some way by having too much detail in one area but not enough detail somewhere else? Evaluating these things is hard, and putting that evaluation into words even more difficult.

This is great! I am fortunate to have a well-worn Stardefender 200 in my collection. It's very damaged (bricks/plates were used in childhood MOCs that had varying degrees of sun exposure, so random areas of the ship are badly discolored and look like they've been exposed to atmospheric reentry heat a few too many times), but the design is so memorable that I keep it on one of my display shelves. Your build is very sleek and modern. I like the subtle differences between the colors used in the side pods, and your interpretation of design cues like the front guns and engine exhaust nozzles. A very creative take on a classic set.

I admit to having a fascination with all the drama that accompanies a controversial Lego set release. I don't have a problem with the price. While I consider $700 very expensive, I also realize that these UCS sets are aimed at a very narrow audience: people who are all three of these: (1) highly enthusiastic Star Wars fans/collectors, (2) highly enthusiastic Lego fans/collectors, and (3) have plenty of discretionary spending power. This new Star Destroyer isn't generally meant for kids or casual hobbyists like myself. I am definitely not about high levels of detail, and I generally don't buy sets with retail higher than $60. What actually interests me most about Lego, is how set designers (both Lego employees and MOC builders) can convey ideas and functionality with bricks in clever ways. Smaller models that capture the essence of something with a relatively low number of bricks are more valuable to me than huge models with thousands of bricks and tons of detail.

Growth of 4% in absolute terms, and 2% when accounting for inflation, is still moving in the right direction. The company's long-term investments in China and India should pay off in a few years. The company's numbers and strategic actions do not reflect an organization that is stagnating. The reason I brought up the fact that LEGO Group is privately held by family owners is important. Public corporations tend to chase short-term quarterly profits and near term growth in order to appease large institutional stock market investors, often at the expense of long-term company health and growth. Private companies generally have more latitude to make decisions that are good for the long run, not just what Wall Street demands to pump up the next quarterly earnings report. Many family owned businesses make the decision not to expand beyond a certain point or beyond a certain rate of growth. That is a legitimate business decision. Should a family owned bakery shop keep expanding and expanding even if its owners have no interest in operations outside of their metropolitan area? Should a veterinarian keep opening more and more animal clinics just for the sake of growing? Expansion for the sake of expansion is not always a good thing if it comes at a cost to the people in the business, the environment, or other interests in society.

Fortunately for the company, it is still privately held and does not have to answer to public shareholders: https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/lego-group "The LEGO Group is a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company is still owned by the Kirk Kristiansen family who founded it in 1932." As far as I know, economies in Europe are stagnating, and the U.S. is still in a period of modest growth. However, average Americans are financially not much better off than they were decades ago, and some segments of the population are doing much worse economically. In this context, LEGO's relatively stable business with modest growth is ok IMO, considering that they make high-end toys.

Apocalypseberg is great in its variety and details, much like Ninjago City. Unfortunately for me, they are both out of my budget!

I searched Amazon.com (USA) for Lego Movie 2 sets, and many are being sold at deeper than the normal discount of 20% for sets that have been out for a few months. Sweet Mayhem's Systar Starship 70830: MSRP $70, now $43, 39% discount Emmet's Dream House/Rescue Rocket 70831: MSRP $70, now $46, 34% discount Introducing Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi 70824: MSRP $20, now $12, 40% discount Pop Up Party Bus 70828: MRSP $80, now $54, 33% discount Queen Whatevra's 'Not-So-Evil' Space Palace 70838, MSRP $100, now $63, 37% discount I also checked Amazon pricing on Harry Potter, City, and Ninjago. The discounts generally don't appear as steep as TLM2 sets, which suggests to me that demand for TLM2 sets is not matching supply. The sets that are within the normal 20% or so discount range appear to be the smaller builds, and 'Mad Max' style action vehicles. This does not surprise me. I don't feel like most of the vehicles and locations in TLM2 were as interesting or impressive as the vehicles and locations in TLM. Emmet's Dream House/Rescue Rocket was the only set I bought, mostly because I liked the Steampunk/Jules Verne vibe of the Rescue Rocket. If there's one set to get in this series, I think it is the Dream House/Rescue Rocket.

I am glad that the City and Creator themes are doing well. Although I am mostly a Space fan, I think many of the City and Creator sets are well thought out and fun for kids. Specifically, I like the Artic explorers, Mountain adventurers, and multi-configuration buildings in the 3-in-1 series (like the Skate Park and Sweet Surprises). Really great models, and nice pieces for kids to create their own builds. Although I am not a huge Marvel fan, and I know that many of the Marvel sets have been heavily criticized here, I also think that these rate high on the kid "fun" scale. I bought the Iron Man Hall of Armor, which has a very nice collection of pieces that I used to help construct a machine shop MOC. I don't know any of the plot behind the Thanos Ultimate Battle and Molten Man sets, but I they look very interesting to me.

Yes, I have encountered this before. M:Tron Particle Ionizer, Item No: 6923-1 At some point during the sale of this M:Tron spaceship (a 1990 release), Lego changed the construction of the rotating sensor assembly at the top of the spaceship, and I believe that the build for the ship's cargo crane also changed as well. I only realized this when I was rebuilding my copy of the set using instructions archived on a website, and some of the steps seemed different than what I'd remembered. After some additional searching, I discovered that there were 2 editions of the set with slightly different instructions! It is rare, but it has happened.

31050 Creator Corner Deli. Wanted a modest pub/bar type establishment for a scene I am creating, and this was perfect: a small, friendly, and older looking building that would be a nice casual place for Legoland citizens to buy lunch.

Wow, I had no idea eBay and PayPal fees were that high now. It has been more than 10 years since I've sold anything on eBay and used PayPal to collect payment. Must be tough to own an eBay-based business in modern times.

I can actually agree with this point of view as well. There have been periods of my life where I have stopped buying Lego sets and building MOCs, but picked up again after a few years when I had enough time or spare money again. Sometimes, when looking for particular pieces or buildings for my creations, I find that I could use a set that was made 3-5 years previously, but I cannot buy it at a regular store anymore because it has been discontinued. I am often able to find unopened boxes of those sets from resellers on eBay or Bricklink. I don't have a problem with resellers in general. Some of them make YouTube videos, and I see that they often buy box store inventory that is on clearance or steep discount (40-50% or more off retail price) for their store inventory. They can sell these gradually at original retail price, or somewhat higher, depending on demand, and make a profit. I'm ok with this, because they are taking on the risk of storing and marketing all this extra Lego. What raises costs for me as an occasional buyer of new but discontinued sets is actually shipping/delivery prices, not higher costs due to market demand. It can cost small stores $10-15 in postage to mail out a medium sized Lego set, because they don't have economies of scale. So a set that I acquire from a reseller might be bought for the original $50 retail price, but the $15 in postage raises the total to $65. Stores like Target and Amazon have economies of scale that allow them to both sell at below recommended retail price, and with "free" shipping (not really free, as I believe the cost is factored into the price, but as big customers of delivery services, they get major discounts on shipping fees that small stores can't get). What concerns me is when people buy a bunch of a rare or expensive set, with the expectation that they will be able to sell it for 10x the original price, and then these people become upset when Lego Group decides to re-release the set. Lego Group doesn't promise anyone that it won't reproduce a set in the future. There shouldn't be an expectation that a discontinued set will stay discontinued, even if this is usually the case.

I don't believe that Lego sets are generally an "investment". Legos in of themselves do not produce anything. They are more like precious metals or commodities. Maybe there should be an options contract market for Lego sets "Pay X dollars for the option to buy Lego set # YZABCD for E dollars on or before date D".

Anytime @Toastie! Always good to talk to another Space enthusiast

Nice! "Battlecruiser operational"

Emmet's Dream House/Rescue Rocket is a great space set. I bought the set awhile ago and built the House model, which I liked so much that I kept it built as the House for a few weeks. I felt a bit sorry disassembling the House to build the Rescue Rocket, but after finishing the build, I am very impressed with this space ship. It has a very "Jules Verne" and "Steampunk" feel, with all the pipes (both interior and exterior) and engine pods attached to the house structure. The rear maneuvering fins also reminded me of the Protoss Carrier from the 90's video game StarCraft. I've kept my build in mostly stock form, although I added some food "provisions" to the attic, and I'm also thinking about adding some EVA gear: space helmet and tank (blue for Emmet and black for Lucy). The "torpedo" launcher fired what appear to be Belgian waffles in the movie. The waffles were not very effective against the asteroids in the Stair Gate.

The Detective's Office and Old Town Pub MOC are exactly the direction I want to go (very cool builds, nice details), but they are way out of my budget I think I will likely end up buying a Corner Deli and modifying it with pieces I already own. Thanks again for the suggestions everyone.

Was building a MOC and connecting a 2-Finger Hinge Plate to its counterpart Hinge Plate 1 x 2 with 3 Fingers, when one of the outboard fingers on the 3-Finger part snapped off. The piece was probably 25-30 years old, so I wasn't surprised that it had become brittle. No big deal, I thought. This is a common part. Digging through my Lego bins, I was sadly unable to find a 3-Finger Hinge Plate with a color matching the broken piece. No big deal, I thought. I'll just buy a new piece. The Lego website "pick-a-brick" said it wasn't available. What? Such a common part not available? It wasn't until I checked Bricklink that I learned this piece wasn't made after 2006. So I decided to attempt to Kragle the broken piece back together. I used tweezers to pick up the broken finger and practiced how I would reconnect the finger with the rest of the plate. Being satisfied that it was possible to do this, I put one drop of Kragle onto a piece of wax paper, and holding the broken finger with tweezers, dipped the broken end into the drop, picking up only a miniscule bit of adhesive on the rough edge. Reconnecting the finger to the hinge plate didn't go perfectly. Although I made the connection mostly accurately, the tiny bit of Kragle had more volume than I expected, causing the piece to ultimately land slightly off angle when I pushed the broken parts of the piece together. A tiny bit of Kragle also beaded out of the reconnected area. The adhesive set so quickly that I was unable to make any adjustments. Kragle cures in about 2 minutes, according to the manufacturer. I waited an hour and then connected the "Kragled" 3-Finger Hinge Plate to the 2-Finger Hinge Plate. Amazingly, it works and the repair is impossible to see unless one looks closely (the off-angle connection and slight excess adhesive are visible at close range). I concluded that Kragle repairs can work, but learned the following things: I needed less adhesive than even the tiny bit I thought I needed. Kragle sets so quickly that it is not a great tool for repair if one can't be reasonably sure of making the right connection between broken parts of a piece on the first try. Kragle in The Lego Movie would have been impractical for a large-scale collector (like the Will Ferrell "Dad" character) to use. The additional mass of the adhesive changes how things fit together. Dealing with extra residue would be a problem. The fumes are awful.

I find it curious that the later years of Classic Space are not as popular as the kits from the 1970's. I did not own anything from that era, but I did have a friend in my neighborhood who owned the Type 918, 924, and 928 style ships, and I remember buildings MOCs with the trans-yellow bricks and slopes commonly used in those sets. The first Lego sets I owned were from the mid to late 1980's, starting with the Intergalactic Command Base (1984), Xenon X-Craft (1985), and finally the Twin Starfire (1987). I never felt that any of these later sets were worse than the 70's stuff. There were many sets from the end of Classic Space that I wanted, though never owned, like the Cosmic Fleet Voyager (1986), Sonar Transmitting Cruiser (1986) and Polaris I Space Lab (1987). I thought these were actually much better than most of the sets from the 1978/9 space catalog. Most of the Legos I bought or received as gifts were from the years 1988-1994, or basically Futuron/Blacktron through Spyrius. I definitely feel the most attachment to these themes. Oddly, I think that attachment to childhood interests has sustained my interest in modern Lego. Harry Potter became enormously popular when I was in high school, and almost 2 decades later, it still gives me joy to see new incarnations of Harry Potter scenes in new Lego sets on store shelves.