Micmac

Happy new year to all. Not really a lego comment but just watched the new HBO return to Hogwarts, It was so nice to see a lot of the old cast come back together and see them interact again. Its very well made and a little bit sad. I shed a tear or two at the end. I would recommend to all.

I think we discussed this before but another large set of Diagon Alley shops costing more than the first set will mean that lego will have two large expensive sets of Diagon alley available at the same time. Thats a put off to get the original set or the new one knowing that you really need to get the other set too. Whereas the bank by itself is appealing as a standalone set or an add on to the street. I just don't see this being Gringotts. I'm just hoping its a minifigure scale set and not another item build or miniature scale build. I'll be happy with whatever they make as long as its minifigure scale.

With the current wave being split between: 1. the old style builds for non Hogwarts buildings 2. the anniversary style stackable boxes 3. the buildable items holding scenes like the books and chest 4. the large one off set 5. And the usual vehicle build I'd love to hear what sets people people think we might get in those styles in 2022. Do we think the anniversary box design will continue this summer. Here's a few of my thoughts. 1. Wedding tent, shell cottage, Shrieking shack. The tent would be great for outfits and some guests that were at the wedding and you wouldn't get them otherwise. Shell cottage could be a cute build that might sell it and the shack would be good to get Padfoot in. I wonder would they ever make the leaky cauldron as a seperate building with the magic wall. 2. I can see them doing Umbridges office in the box style maybe as it would fit the style. Dumbledore office could be done in the box style as well. The common rooms have been stolen by the trunk so I doubt we will see them in the boxes. Maybe a troll set but thats another bathroom set again. 3. We will have gotten most of the iconic classes in the book style and I'm not sure they will do all the different dark arts teachers class as they are all the same room. 4. Gringotts hopefully but maybe ministry. Or another train but I'm not keen on that. Would love a large great hall with courtyard. 5. Drumstrang ship maybe. And I'd love to see series 3 of the Harry potter figures. Still plenty of characters we have not gotten yet.

I think Bessa is no longer running this theme and yes dropping the style killed my passion for what lego was doing with the theme. Now I feel like I'm a bah humbug every time I make a comment on here. if lego is confident enough to make these Hogwarts buildings that look nothing like Hogwarts I don't see why they wouldn't have risked making less well know parts of the castle in the original style and added better interiors and cool characters to them to make sure they sold.

yeah I think this summers sets will clear up what's going on with the theme as I can't see any longevity in this style. I really can't see a return to the old style as the anniversary sets have continued into this 2022 but hopefully the non Hogwarts based sets continue to be of a better quality.

I'm in the same boat, i think sets based on a current movie might give us the missing spark the sets are missing at the moment. I thought he said the green roofs were sticking around but he never said the anniversary sets were. And the childish first movie stuff is such a lame answer from him, lego are making sets for the very dark looking new batman movie. Lego can always find sets no matter how dark a movie gets. They made a set with a baby Voldemort that you put in a pot with blood a hand and a bone of his father, and he is reborn in flames into a pasty half snake version of himself. How did that get made but we can't have a tent with the trio in the woods or the wedding tent or shell cottage. These are very tame sets that I think people would like for the new prints of the trio. I still can't believe that a company like lego had no long term plan for the new harry potter line that didn't stretch past three years. The sets were selling really well so they reboot the line to give us sets we already have and they don't finish the last few movies. I think they saw $$$ and ruined the first wave trajectory with the anniversary sets and now I'm not sure there is a path back to that style. Yeah i don't see where this style can go after this year. I doubt we will see a plan of how to integrate them all together ever again, Its just going to become a mess of a build that will look nothing like Hogwarts. If this was a rebooted castle theme would anyone be interested in it. I doubt it.

Each to their own but I'm sorry have you looked at the actual clock tower. You are off your tree if you think the new one is better which according to you only needs a whole extra floor to make it look right. If you want a perfectly accurate model you moc it yourself and this design by lego is as as accurate as you will ever get from them and it doesn't need a lot of altering to make it perfect in this scale. I used a lot of the design from this when I built my large version.

Hopefully this Clock Tower is the end of this anniversary version of Hogwarts. Buying sets just for the figures is depressing. When you look back at the old clock tower you see how wonderfully designed it was to make it look like the movie version. This new one could be anything, they just stuck a clock on wall with windows. It's just such a bland version of Hogwarts. I think we are in a messy transition period for the Harry Potter line. Getting the two book sets and the trunk at the same time seems odd as they are all the same idea really. I'm all for new types of sets to give the theme a longer life but it seems like we got all the filler sets at the same time and not peppered through a solid wave. I'm really not sure what the thought process was at lego not to continue the old style and make Deathly Hallows sets, We know there is a demand for them here as its all we talked about for months. I think the summer wave this year will let us know where the theme is going, if we get more green roof Hogwarts we might be stuck with that ugly duck for 2023 as well. Hopefully we get something that puts a nail in that styles coffin and we move onto better designed sets again. I do think we could get a UCS great Hall and courtyard eventually and that might have some battle of Hogwarts elements. It's the most iconic building and I think people would love the more detailed version. And Gringotts has to be made eventually, I still feel that lego may break the mould and not make it on a base plate like the rest of Diagon Alley so they can add extra play features. Let's see what the summer brings.

Anyone in Australia, I see that lego Doncaster and all the other physical official Lego stores are doing the free with purchase Harry potter set in store and online today but you don't have to buy Harry Potter sets to get it. Spend $200 on anything and you'll get it free.

It's a shame that there isn't anything Harry Potter I need at the moment to get the gift with purchase. And the threshold is $200 in Australia. They never match up with the release of the major harry potter sets. This would have been a lovely bonus with the chamber set this year and a reason to buy it from lego themselves. They messed up the book of monsters last year as I'm sure it was supposed to be a gift with Diagon alley and they dropped the Hagrid set in instead. Then they sold the book of monsters for a bit in store and then it was a gift with purchase after that. What a mess. I always feel that parts lego corporate just don't work well.

cheers, its the lego ice queens head from one of the cmf series

I suppose it gives the illusion of being able to moc it when you rearrange it. I still don't get the appeal. So much material goes into making it customisable that it really limits the design of the builds. All these boxes just don't excite me in any way. They were so repetitive and had all the same elements in them. It's a hard pass for me on this design. "And they are not consistent at al". The only thing thats consistent in the new style is that they are boxes that can stack. They all look different from the outside and can look ugly when arranged in certain configurations. The old style looked like the actual building. How is that inconsistent? Realistic but not inconsistent. So the final product from this new line will be one long building with random towers and you will be hard pushed to distinguish what part of the castle it's supposed to be. The interiors might be more fun for kids as its little vignettes all bunched together. And cost is always an issue with lego but the chamber this year was the most expensive main set ever for Hogwarts castle builds. It's the most successful in the new style but you pay for it. The girls bathroom is probably the only other successful interior design. The rest are boring and the quidditch lessons breaks the new system with its middle section. So when people say that the new clock tower section will be boring and ugly I can see how they got there. You can picture it being three identical boxes with beds in them and thats not exciting. Maybe it will live up to the rest of this years theme and people will say that it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Not what I thought I'd be saying about Harry Potter sets but this year has brought me there.

“Our overall values are more in line with the first movies where there’s more magic, and the universal theme of a wizarding school is more in line with our values.” I love that their values are based around Harrys parents murder, abusive foster parents, bullying of kids, child murder of Myrtle in the second movie, Demonic possession of Quirell, Animal cruelty of the unicorn, Lucious trying to murder harry with the killing curse. Harrys story is dark throughout all the movies so this comment is bull really. They like doing sets with the kids doing magic school stuff maybe but you can only do so much sets with that. They must have feedback that kids really only watch the first few movies so they are basing the sets around scenes from them. Nothing to do with values and more to do with sales. And thats fine. If this wave doesn't sell as well we may get more sets that we prefer next year. I can't imagine Gringotts bank not being Deathly Hallows based or be like Diagon alley and have multiple scenes included. Same with Ministry of magic and Malfoy manor only appears in the last movies. So we have gone from micro scale, mini figure scale to odd icons scale in the large sets. Hopefully we go from icons set back to mini figure scale set next year and that is one of the above sets. I think the ministry would make a great long set like Diagon alley but just be interiors and not focus on the outside. I fell we are going to get remakes from now on as well. Everyone seems to think Hagrids hut will be done again but I'm happy with the last one. A whole new hut but with the dog and the dragon baby could be an easy skip for me and a bricklink parts purchase instead. Thats my rant anyway.

Very nice alterations. I think the designers got trapped in movie accuracy and fitting that on the baseplate. What they came up with is kind of what is in the movie but the newspaper door area isn't as wide so the overhang should not be as big as it is. The should have made the first floor of QQS be the newspaper office instead. All finished designing this side of the street. I've now added the old joke shop as we catch a glimpse of it in the Chamber of Secrets movie and the Leaky cauldron. Instructions available on rebrickable.com account micmacpadwac.