Ardelon

So the skeleton has legs printed on the side rather than on the front. Shame, I was hoping the previously leaked fig was incompletely printed. Oh, well. At least the head looks good.

I wouldnt really want any change that would be outwardly visible. One that would fit this criterion and that I would like to see is poseable short legs, that would attach to hips like regular legs. Another of the discussed changes i would like are shorter dresses with pigs like legs, so they would attach more securely to the torso. Another idea I kind of like is to make differently-posed arms, like the vampire/bat creature, but without the wings hanging from the arms. Though that would probably require that the arms seprate from the torso more easily and without the risk of cracking the torso or loosening the connection. I understand that switching arms is an "illegal" technique. But i would probably be fine with such a change. What i expresly would NOT want to see is a switch so some type of Woody-style long legs. Those things look like stilts. Some ideas floated here are interesting, like slightly shaving off the shoulders and lower neck so figs can slightly move their arms to the sides and nod/tilt their head. But I would have to see it to know whether it works of if its gone too far. Another interesting idea is to attach the legs to the waist by just one peg, though the connection would have to be strenghtened.

I assume TLG already considered all these ideas and rejected them as being less worthwhile than the current arrangement. Besides, I cant see people buying the separators ontheir own - kids will spend their money on an actual set, or will request an actual set if offered a small treat by parents/guardians/whatever, and adults mostly wouldnt even know what a separator even is or why spend money on it. And I figure that kids being kids, they wouldnt have the forethought and appreciation for things like brick separators, unless explicitly having one around at just the moment they need one. Meaning, the way it is now is probably the best alternative.

Why do people think the CMF goblin is cartoonish? I dont see him being much different from the Moria goblin - they both have sharp teeth and pale, as if pupil-les eyes, so are both scary enough. Do a few extra teeth and wrinkles make the Moria goblin that much scarier?

The designers probably didnt get to see the movie, so you cant really hold inaccuracy against them. As for making up some vehicles and what not, well, TLG knows what the audience wants - dinos and cars.

Well, I must say, the line-up doesnt blow me away, now that we know all the slots. A normal series cant come soon enough. Thanks to all those that brought us information these past few days.

Yeah, i just came on to say that a synonym for "to cradle" is "to rock" (rocking cradle anyone?), so Horror/Terror/Monster Rocker it is. Problem solved, for better or worse.

I too am worried that ninjago is running out of villains. I could see aliens (dont understand the opposotion toward them here) as something that hasnt been done before, as well as an undersea threat. And an Agents /UA style supervillain and his/her henchmen. Or even animal-demons (excluding snakes...) - basically Ninjago vs Chima! Dont really see Dragon-men happening, though - seems too close to the Serpentine. Im a bit worried about the movie - Im not a fan of reboots (looking at you, Star Trek ) - I much prefer long-term epic-style stories with a long continuity, where each new addition adds to what came before, rather than changes it. I guess this is a bg part of why I never was much of a superhero fan - every piece of media is a reimagining instead of an addition or a "deepening" of a story/universe. I wouldnt appreciate this happening to Ninjago.

Slovak AFOL to the rescue! (Next best thing to a Czech) Muchopříšera is indeed a fly monster, and příšerostlina is the plant guy (literally "monsterplant" - thus maybe not meant to be a guy in costume, but really a carnivorous plant eating a guy?). Velkonoh literally means bigfoot. But thats not the czech term for Bigfoot/Yeti/Sasquatch, just a literal translation. Im not aware that it actually refers to anything. The thing is the untranslated terms are untranslated because they arent actual words in Czech, just components struck together into one Word (like "flymonster" or "plantmonster"). Hrůzokolébač: no idea what this could be. "kolébat" means "to cradle" (kolébač would then mean someone or something that cradles), and hrůza indeed means terror or horror. How does this fit together?

Do we have a pic of the interior of the Mystery Machine? It seems like there is somthing orange taking up space there. If the interior contents were removed, the van could fit all five members (it should be empty according to most incarnations of the show anyway).

What worries me the most is the suggestion that the new castle theme will be the new Action theme

Clouse is the top villain for me, though I think at least Skales should be included in the list, which would make it harder for me to choose. Garmadon was cool in the Skulkin season, but they made him much less menacing in later seasons. Pythor is the only other villain id consider. The rest are comic relief, ineffectual or un(der)developed. Not sure about the army - Id have to decide between the Serpentine, the Stone Army and the Cultists. Its a bit too early to have the ghosts in the poll, and I think Ronin and Skales should be included.

Have you heard about the Lord of the Rings LEGO line? I would be all for a 3rd series, if it didnt take the place of a regular CMF series. Being as it is, I would rather see the Simpsons minifg series retired, and see the return of the usual CMF Series. The focus of the Simpsons theme can be on the large sets (or a regular wave of sets).

Do we know Fantasy Era was axed because of LotR though? For all we know FE ran as long as it was meant to (with no plans to make the elves on the map). In any case I really hope the new theme wont be Chima-fied or too fantastical.

These criticisms only apply if you absolutely necessarily have to copy the movies. In the books, nothing stated that the helmet was shaped like it was in the movies (nor were the shields), so the classic helm is as good as any. The lack of charge in the form of the tree is the biggest problem IMO.

Most of what has been said are pretty conservative and sober suggestions, backed up by past experience and the like. So no grand theory-building. Furthermore, one of the things that makes humans the dominant species on the planet is not only recognizing facts, but extrapolating from them and identifying trends. And while you may prefer a (possibly unrealistically) positive and optimistic discussion, other fans like to keep their feet firmly on the ground, to exchange info that would lead to the most accurate possible future scenario. Unwarranted optimism and high expectations will also „lead to nothing“, as you say (well, except future disappointment).

Not for the 5-12 year-olds it isnt. And since thats who TLG is catering to, we probably wont see any change. Not counting that the long gap between pirate themes also means that the formula doesnt seem so repetitive (and Pirate-starved fans are glad to get any theme at all). Oh, and PotC...

The torso seems to be from this figure, that was part of a keychain made as part of the KK1 theme: http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/lego/images/f/f7/850076.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110126144542 link to page: http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/850076_Robber_Key_Chain And since Im not allowed to post the above pic direcly, heres another one: another,larger image, with the keychain: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=613166 Though im not sure if its the lighting, but the torsos in this MOC seem to lack th silver dots on the scales. Or maybe the torso has been modded? Thing is, Im not sure how separable torsos are from the rest of the keychain. Here si some discussion on it: http://www.classic-castle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=475 And Im sure theres something on the topic here on Eurobricks as well. Nice MOC, by the way!

Wow, the MOC is Great, but the story really sells it, and breathes a lot of life to the build!

Thanks for all the reviews just2good! Are the dark-skinned minifigs nougat or a "dark flesh" color?

^ Pretty much my opnion as well. Id rather see TLG concentrating on Ninjago and Scooby Doo rather than adding another theme (unless it would be an adventurers style theme), or putting any extra resources to the Castle and Pirate themes.

Well, I dont think Legolas hijinks were any worse here than in the LotR trilogy. And the LotR trilogy had its share of deviations from the book, not least with the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, just like with this last film. I can swallow the addition of Tauriel for a female character (though the love triangle was pushing it too far), and Legolas because he is from Mirkwood after all. Its Alfrid who bugs me the most of all the added characters (and maybe Bain as well). Azog and Bolg I would have condensed into, well, Bolg. Azog would have been killed by Dain as in the books, to estabish Dains badassery. The plot of the film reflects the title, so I cant complain there. Though I really would have liked to see an epilogue with Dain as King.

While all good points, we have to remember about the discrepancies between movies and sets that we dont know how much material the designers had available to work off of, nor how much of what they had was changed at the last minute by the moviemakers. And of course there is the thing with the movies splitting from two to three. So its not like it was a choice between what we got and a perfect wave. Smaug seems to be a dilemma. Im sure if he was in the LT set, there would be an equally great outcry among AFOLs about him not being in the Lonely Mountain. Both locations/scenes are iconic, the designers just went with one of them. Putting Smaug into a beefed-up LT set and making a TBOTFA-based LM set would give us ´two large sets, which might not work with TLGs price-point wave structure. As for Gwaihir, another reason he might have been included was to give every army a representation in the set (though I would have preferred a warg to an eagle, even though there were no wargs in the battle). But I wont complain about us getting a crowned Thorin, even if he is inaccurate. Battle packs would have been great, and the designers obviously recognize this as seen in the Star Wars theme, so I guess there was a licensing restriction on them. Of course I have my gripes as well. I too would have liked to see the entrance to the moutain, in the style of the Fantasy Dwarf mine or the Lone Ranger silver mine. Less ballista and more Dale in the Bo5A set, Or, like bungeshea suggested, dropping/combining the DGA set, which has no counterpart in the movies,though I dont know what they would do for Beorn in this case.

It might be a Heroica theme? Still a fantasy Castle fantasy theme, with characters based on the character classes, etc...

Well, I think the results showed that it was just subtle enough. But at least for me, the difference was that Disney wouldnt allow such a blatantly "subversive" presentation as was done. Whereas with Ameribricks,the site was still run by the same staff, being responsible to no one, and thus could afford to be irreverent. (I say this as someone who probably would have been fooled by Ameribricks, if I hadnt scrolled down to read the comments before the actual announcement)